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Speaker 1: Welcome to two percent. I'm your host, Michael Easter. I'm

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Speaker 1: currently on vacation celebrating the retirement of a couple close

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Speaker 1: family friends, and so this has me thinking about work,

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Speaker 1: and that is what today's episode is about. First, we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk to doctor mim Ari, who is going

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Speaker 1: to tell us how to find joy in any job,

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Speaker 1: no matter what job you have. Now, we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk to Robin Greenfield. And when he was in his twenties,

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Speaker 1: he wanted to make as much money as possible join

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Speaker 1: the rat race, and then he dropped out and he

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Speaker 1: did something totally opposite. So we'll see what we can

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Speaker 1: learn from him from his experience. And then we will

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Speaker 1: end with our very first ama where I will answer

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Speaker 1: your question. So, with all that said, get ready for

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Speaker 1: another good episode, and I'm going to continue getting back

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Speaker 1: to not working. You may have heard that work is

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Speaker 1: making us all miserable. We work too much and it

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Speaker 1: is driving us up a wall. It is hurting our

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Speaker 1: mental health, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I

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Speaker 1: recently read an essay by doctor mim Ari, who is

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Speaker 1: an associate professor at the University of Chicago and a

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Speaker 1: general internist working in the hospital, and I talked about

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Speaker 1: this concept of being a deeply fulfilled workist, and it

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Speaker 1: provides a path for you to frame whatever job you

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Speaker 1: have through a different lens that will help you get

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Speaker 1: more satisfaction from it, that'll improve your life and make

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Speaker 1: you more fulfilled. So here's doctor Ari. Well, doctor Ari,

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Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: I got to admit, every time that I talk to

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Speaker 1: a doctor in a podcast setting, I always feel terrible

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Speaker 1: because I'm going, what are they not doing? There's someone

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Speaker 1: in a in a hospital room somewhere who's suffering because

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Speaker 1: I have to harass you with questions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I would say that as a generalist, what

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Speaker 2: I like is the variety of patients I get to

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Speaker 2: see in medicine, and that probably extends to the activities

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Speaker 2: I get to do outside of medicine. So this is

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Speaker 2: fun for me to try something new and different and

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Speaker 2: be a podcast guest.

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Speaker 3: Awesome. What does it mean to be a generalist? Like?

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Speaker 3: What is your day to day like in the hospital?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mostly practice outpatient internal medicine, so I

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Speaker 2: see adults in a primary care setting. I talk to

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Speaker 2: them about new issues chronic diseases, preventive care, healthcare screenings, immunizations,

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Speaker 2: and that is most of my clinical time. I see

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Speaker 2: my own patients, I supervise our trainees, our students and

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Speaker 2: residents as they see primary care patients. And then I'm

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Speaker 2: also board certified in addiction medicine, so I spend some

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Speaker 2: time taking care of patients who are hospitalized who may

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Speaker 2: also have addiction or substance use disorder.

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Speaker 1: It's probably interesting to have such a wide variety of

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Speaker 1: things that you're in are seeing and trading and people

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Speaker 1: you're working with every day.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think when I was going through

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Speaker 2: medical school, I thought, you know, maybe there would be

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Speaker 2: one organ or one disease that would really capture my

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Speaker 2: imagination and that's what I would hyper specialize in. But

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Speaker 2: I think over time, what I realized is how much

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Speaker 2: I enjoyed the relationships with patients and being able to

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Speaker 2: sort of help people move through understanding the various diseases

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Speaker 2: they were encountering in the various ways they could optimize

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Speaker 2: their health. And so general internal medicine is a great

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Speaker 2: fit for me because I get to sort of still

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Speaker 2: keep my mind in lots of different places and interact

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Speaker 2: with lots of different types of other healthcare professionals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well that feels like a perfect jumping

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Speaker 1: off point to your piece. So the Atlantic writer Derek Thompson,

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Speaker 1: he writes this article called workism is making Americans miserable,

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Speaker 1: and he basically argued that we're all too tied to work.

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Speaker 3: This makes us miserable.

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Speaker 1: But he also had this, I think it was a

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Speaker 1: single paragraph, maybe two paragraphs or also said that there

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Speaker 1: are some workers who are really deeply fulfilled and sort

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Speaker 1: of against this trend, which prompted you to do this

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Speaker 1: piece for sensible medicine. And it started as a talk, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I was actually really honored to receive an award from

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Speaker 2: our graduating medical students who are being inducted into an

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Speaker 2: honor society that is all about humanism. And the students

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Speaker 2: who are inducted are actually voted on by their peers

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Speaker 2: as sort of like a doctor you would want to

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Speaker 2: have take care of a family member. And as part

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Speaker 2: of that, they give a faculty member an award each

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Speaker 2: year that kind of focuses on those principles of humanism

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Speaker 2: and medicine. So initially I wrote this as a speech

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Speaker 2: that I delivered to those students as they were being

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Speaker 2: inducted into the Honor Society, and I passed it on

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Speaker 2: to a colleague, Adam Seafu, who curates the Sensible Medicine substack,

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Speaker 2: and he asked if I would turn it into a

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Speaker 2: substack piece.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was wonderful. I'm a huge fan of

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Speaker 1: Sensible Medicine, by the way, a huge fan of Adam.

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Speaker 1: So when that popped up, I was like, this piece

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Speaker 1: is awesome. I need to talk to this person. And

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Speaker 1: you talked about this idea of being a deeply fulfilled workist,

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Speaker 1: So what did you mean by that to sort of

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Speaker 1: tea us up?

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Speaker 2: So, as you mentioned, Derek Thompson writes about sort of

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Speaker 2: the dangers of being too invested in your work, of

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Speaker 2: that being sort of a false idol. But as you mentioned,

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Speaker 2: he has one paragraph that there are some people that

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Speaker 2: seem to be deeply fulfilled by their work. They're deeply

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Speaker 2: dedicated to their work, but they're also they're able to

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Speaker 2: kind of tune out the noise and really connect to

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Speaker 2: what they're doing.

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Speaker 1: How do you see that expressing itself in your day

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Speaker 1: to day life at work, but also with some of

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Speaker 1: the colleagues you mentioned who you feel like fall into

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Speaker 1: this category.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think it comes in many flavors. And

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Speaker 2: that's like I think being attuned to that is important

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Speaker 2: because it can come from just like a really lovely

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Speaker 2: interaction with a patient where you say something that you

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Speaker 2: know resonates with them, or they say something back to

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Speaker 2: you that shows, you know, maybe the impact that you've

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Speaker 2: had that you didn't realize you were having. But sometimes

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Speaker 2: it's you know, meeting with a student or I just

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Speaker 2: had lunch, you know, at the table behind me with

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Speaker 2: one of my colleagues and connecting about something.

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Speaker 4: Outside of that.

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Speaker 2: So I think it's like having that high, Like it's

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Speaker 2: so easy to be distracted by the things that can

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Speaker 2: be hard in medicine, and it's being able to look

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Speaker 2: for the things that will bring you joy or that

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Speaker 2: will get you excited.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it's easy to get caught up

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Speaker 1: in the external motive like validation. I mean in my

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Speaker 1: own work life as an author. You know, everyone in

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Speaker 1: my publishers just asked how many books are you going

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Speaker 1: to sell? It's all about like this number of copies

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Speaker 1: that I sold, and I would get caught up in

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Speaker 1: that and then when I was able to pull back,

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Speaker 1: I was like, what do I actually.

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Speaker 3: Like about this job?

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Speaker 1: And it's sitting in the office very early and if

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Speaker 1: I can get one perfect sentence a day like that

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Speaker 1: was awesome and that is why I do this job,

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Speaker 1: and it helps me sort of I think reframe, Like, look,

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Speaker 1: whether you sell one book, whether you sell a bajillion books,

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Speaker 1: you had this awesome moment where you had that one

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Speaker 1: sentence that morning, and that sort of made it all

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Speaker 1: worth it.

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Speaker 2: And I won't quote the you know, the literature, but

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Speaker 2: right like, you need to hear ten positive things for

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Speaker 2: one negative thing. You know, we like as humans, I

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Speaker 2: think we anchor on those negative emotions or the negative

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Speaker 2: feedback that we're getting, and so I think if you

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Speaker 2: can turn the volume up on the positives, that really

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Speaker 2: probably puts us where we should be, Like, you know,

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Speaker 2: because we were overinflating the negative things and minimizing the positive.

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Speaker 2: If we can find the things where we can we

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Speaker 2: can really amplify the positive, then I think it probably

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Speaker 2: gives a more realistic view of what we do in

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Speaker 2: the impact that we get to make each day.

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Speaker 1: That makes me wonder what would the world be like

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Speaker 1: if that ratio were flipped where like we could just

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Speaker 1: hear one positive thing and it would outweigh ten negatives,

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Speaker 1: Like the world would probably be a much better place.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, I know as a parent, like we try to,

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Speaker 2: you know, give ten ten nice things for every negative

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Speaker 2: thing we say, but it is so hard to get

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Speaker 2: that balance right. So the person that you're caring for

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Speaker 2: or supervising or whatever, you know, the situation might be

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Speaker 2: that you really can make people feel good about the

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Speaker 2: work they do. And maybe that comes back to like

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Speaker 2: the internal part, Like I do think it has to

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Speaker 2: be internally and intrinsically motivated, your ability to kind of

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Speaker 2: see the positives in.

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Speaker 4: The work that you do.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that. I can't remember the I think

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Speaker 1: his name is. David Graber wrote a book called Bullshit Jobs,

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Speaker 1: and he basically argued that, like, you know, seventy percent

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Speaker 1: of jobs now are complete bullshit and we're all miserable.

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Speaker 1: And then there was this group of researchers who surveyed

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Speaker 1: actual workers, particularly in the jobs that this book deemed

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Speaker 1: were quote unquote bullshit, and it found that wasn't the case.

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Speaker 1: It found that and it found that what determined whether

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Speaker 1: a worker got fulfillment from their job was whether they

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Speaker 1: could find a way that they were helping people. So

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Speaker 1: this could be I think an example in that paper

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Speaker 1: was a janitor at a hospital. This seems like this

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Speaker 1: sort of menial job with the drudgery. They're like, no,

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Speaker 1: I love this job because I see I see myself

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Speaker 1: as helping these patients by making sure things are clean,

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Speaker 1: which improves health outcomes and all these things. And so

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Speaker 1: it's really like, can you find the thread where you're

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Speaker 1: helping others?

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Speaker 2: You know, hopefully that like without being an armchairful loss

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Speaker 2: soph for her like really speaks to how important it

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Speaker 2: is for us to feel like we are doing good

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Speaker 2: in the world, and that sort of all of us

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Speaker 2: probably have that urge and that tendency to be kind

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Speaker 2: to others, to help other people, to nurture, to caregive.

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Speaker 2: You know, this concept of being a deeply fulfilled work

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Speaker 2: is can doesn't mean that you have to be sort

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Speaker 2: of at the at the top of the flagpole, like

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Speaker 2: I think you can find that sort of in jobs

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Speaker 2: across the spectrum.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And then the essay you talked about humanism, What

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Speaker 1: do you mean by that?

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Speaker 2: I think about myself like being a human in the

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Speaker 2: room with a patient and bringing kind of who I

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Speaker 2: am outside of that clinic room to that clinic interaction.

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Speaker 2: And I think it means seeing people also, not as

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Speaker 2: someone sitting like on the exam table or in the chair,

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Speaker 2: but who they might be outside of that exam room

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Speaker 2: as well. And if you're able to sort of bring

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Speaker 2: your human self and you're able to see patients as people,

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Speaker 2: I think that is where like that humanistic connection in medicine.

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Speaker 4: Happens for us all.

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Speaker 2: It's sort of interesting. I now use an AI scribe

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Speaker 2: in my clinic exam room, so essentially I turn the

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Speaker 2: recording on when I start the visit with the patient,

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Speaker 2: and I turn it off when I leave the room,

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Speaker 2: and the AI scribe creates a transcript and summarizes it

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Speaker 2: into a clinical note. And at first I thought the

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Speaker 2: benefit would really be my speed and how quickly I

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Speaker 2: could write a note. But it is so nice to

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Speaker 2: just sit and talk to somebody. And I still have

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Speaker 2: all that knowledge that I had before, and I still

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Speaker 2: have all the things the data that's in the computer,

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Speaker 2: but it's a totally different experience.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not having to jot down notes because when

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Speaker 1: you're jotting down notes, you're kind of half paying attention,

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Speaker 1: You're trying to finish that sentence, and you can just

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Speaker 1: have a direct one to one conversation and kind of

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Speaker 1: get real with people. What other ways do you think

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Speaker 1: that AI is going to improve medicine? Because you hear

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Speaker 1: all these things like, oh, it's going to cure cancer

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Speaker 1: in two ears or whatever it is.

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Speaker 2: Right now, I can see it as like a tool

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Speaker 2: that enables me to do more in the room with

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Speaker 2: a patient, But I don't have a sense of exactly

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Speaker 2: where it will go, like will it be able to

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Speaker 2: eventually tell me what I should be doing to optimize care?

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Speaker 4: Like?

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Speaker 2: I still think that the relationships that I've built with

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Speaker 2: patients and how that information is delivered, and the shared

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Speaker 2: decision making that ultimately occurs between myself and the patient

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Speaker 2: will still be there, and I think still make the

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Speaker 2: work exciting and fulfilling.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And isn't there data that people who have better relationships

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Speaker 1: with their doctors generally have better health outcomes?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: I think there is. Actually In the piece, I talked

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Speaker 2: about an article that I often show when I'm giving

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Speaker 2: lectures about chronic pain, and essentially, in the article, they

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Speaker 2: asked patients who had chronic pain if their physicians were

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Speaker 2: how empathetic they were. And for the patients who rated

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Speaker 2: their physician is very empathetic, they had better health outcomes

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Speaker 2: and you know, they were able to better manage their

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Speaker 2: chronic pain. And so I think it is absolutely you know,

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Speaker 2: I think it's been shown in the literature, but I

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Speaker 2: think it is also true. I hope that having a

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Speaker 2: strong relationship with my patients will ultimately benefit their health

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Speaker 2: in some way. And I'm sure that's it's hard to

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Speaker 2: pinpoint exactly why, Like I'm sure it's multi factory, but

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Speaker 2: I you know, is it because then when I do

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Speaker 2: make a suggestion, they're more likely to do it?

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Speaker 4: Maybe?

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Speaker 2: Is it because they know that if they have something

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Speaker 2: they're worried about, they can come to me and I

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Speaker 2: will help them figure it out. There's a lot in

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Speaker 2: primary care where we can't measure the value exactly, and

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Speaker 2: like life years gained, but hopefully those relationships ultimately benefit

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Speaker 2: the patient.

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Speaker 1: With your patients, and I mean maybe especially the people

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Speaker 1: who you're working with who have an addiction of some sort.

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Speaker 1: Do you feel like work stress is a thing that

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Speaker 1: comes up often when you talk to your patients absolutely,

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Speaker 1: how does that?

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Speaker 3: What do they say? What was that? Like? How does

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Speaker 3: that manifest?

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Speaker 2: You know, sometimes it is like retrospective, so you know,

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Speaker 2: someone will say, I was having all these symptoms and

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Speaker 2: we did a evaluation and we didn't really find anything,

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Speaker 2: and they'll say, you know, I think it was my anxiety.

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Speaker 2: I think some people it's like very obvious it's the

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Speaker 2: work that's causing them to have stress or anxiety or

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Speaker 2: physical manifestations or physical symptoms, because you know, they'll they'll

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Speaker 2: tell you like and they'll they'll narrate their day and

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Speaker 2: you can hear you know where those where those sticking

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Speaker 2: points are. You know, they're having pain, but yet they're

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Speaker 2: required to stand for many many hours or not have breaks,

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Speaker 2: or you know, they're in physically demanding jobs that are

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Speaker 2: are very challenging. And sometimes if people tell me they're

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Speaker 2: like stressed or tired or they're just like not feeling

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Speaker 2: so good, and like I'll say, like, just like walk

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Speaker 2: me through a normal day, and when they get to

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Speaker 2: the end, I think sometimes it's really affirming to say, like,

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Speaker 2: you know, I would probably feel really tired too if

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Speaker 2: that was like what I was, you know, trying to

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Speaker 2: manage on a daily basis, and that was how little

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Speaker 2: sleep I was getting, and that was how many people

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Speaker 2: I was responsible for taking care of, and those or

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Speaker 2: the requirements of me at work, like those are kind

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Speaker 2: of I think external circumstances that are making you feel

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Speaker 2: the way that you feel right now.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I kind of sum everything up. The takeaway,

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Speaker 1: no matter the job is look for the positives, try

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Speaker 1: and focus on those. Realize that every job is going

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Speaker 1: to have some negatives, some jobs have more than others.

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Speaker 1: And also look for the human element. How can you

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Speaker 1: connect with people every day because I do feel like

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day at all, I mean,

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Speaker 1: especially in healthcare, but in a lot of jobs it

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Speaker 1: all comes down to people. Every career exists because it's

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Speaker 1: helping someone somewhere do something and that's a good thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's a great summary. And the

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Speaker 2: thing I would add is just the intrinsic motivation part,

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Speaker 2: Like if you're able to pull that from within, it's

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Speaker 2: a lot easier than if you're waiting around for it

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Speaker 2: to come from outside.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely well, doctor Auri, thanks so much for coming on

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Speaker 3: the show.

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Speaker 2: Thinks this was wonderful.

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Speaker 4: It was a wonderful experience.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: So we just heard from doctor Ari about how to

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Speaker 1: be a more deeply fulfilled workest and find more meaning

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Speaker 1: in your work.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: The thing about jobs, though, is that we often take

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Speaker 1: them so we can buy stuff, so you can buy

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Speaker 1: a car, so you can buy a house, and then

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Speaker 1: we get this idea, you know what would make me

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Speaker 1: even happier if I had a bigger house and a

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Speaker 1: bigger car, and then we fill it with all sorts

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Speaker 1: of stuff. So the average home today contains more than

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Speaker 1: ten thousand to fifty thousand items, and with that comes

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Speaker 1: a lot of bills and oftentimes debt. And when you

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Speaker 1: get in debt, you often get trapped in a job

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Speaker 1: that you may or may not enjoy. So my next

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Speaker 1: guest is a little against the grain with that trajectory.

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Speaker 1: When he was twenty, he wanted to be a bajillionaire.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to accumulate as much stuff as possible, and

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Speaker 1: then at twenty five he realized, you know what, maybe

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Speaker 1: there's another way to live. His name is Robin Greenfield,

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Speaker 1: and he is on a quest to find as sustainable

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Speaker 1: a life as possible. He is currently undergoing an experiment

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Speaker 1: where he is foraging all of his food. He also

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Speaker 1: did another experiment where he literally gave away everything he owned.

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Speaker 1: And although he's a little extreme, yes he is extreme,

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Speaker 1: he does have lessons about how we can reframe our

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Speaker 1: relationship with stuff and maybe find a little bit of

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Speaker 1: freedom and some sustainability. So let's bring on Robin. Robin,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the show Man.

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Speaker 4: Thank you for having me on.

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Speaker 1: Michael, and you're recording from Wisconsin, Is that correct.

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Speaker 5: Yes, I've just returned from a three month speaking tour

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Speaker 5: in Florida and the southern United States, and I've just

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Speaker 5: returned to my home of Wisconsin.

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Speaker 3: I love it awesome.

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Speaker 1: So for people who aren't familiar with you, fill us

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Speaker 1: in sort of cliff notes about what you do.

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Speaker 5: Well, that's one of the hardest things for me is

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Speaker 5: to try to succinctly describe what I do, because what

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Speaker 5: I am trying to do is question everything about our

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Speaker 5: societal norms and structures, everything that is considered the status quo.

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Speaker 5: But in truth is you know, the reality is that

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Speaker 5: we live in a very extreme society. We have five

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Speaker 5: percent of the world's population in the United States, but

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Speaker 5: we consume twenty five percent of the world's resources. So this,

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Speaker 5: by definition is extreme, and basically what I do is

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Speaker 5: I go to the other end of this extreme to

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Speaker 5: point this out, to bring attention to it, but also

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Speaker 5: just because in order to live a life of harmony,

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Speaker 5: it actually requires to go to a deep extreme. So

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Speaker 5: I've basically dedicated my life to living simply sustainably, trying

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Speaker 5: to do no unnecessary harm to people, to the planet,

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Speaker 5: to the plants and animals, and to use my life

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Speaker 5: as a message to help others.

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Speaker 4: On this journey as well.

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Speaker 5: I'm not here to convince anyone or there's no haf

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Speaker 5: to's or shoulds, goods or bads. There's no guilt or

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Speaker 5: anything like that. It's just, hey, here's another way from

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Speaker 5: what you see in the mainstream, and if you're into

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Speaker 5: this other way, then I'm here to support you on

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Speaker 5: that journey.

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Speaker 1: Since you mentioned extremes, I'm going to make an admission here,

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Speaker 1: which you may I'm going to guess you disapprove of it,

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Speaker 1: but we'll find out. I recently went on a cruise. Now,

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Speaker 1: a cruise is a floating buffet slash shopping mall where

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Speaker 1: everything is excessive. Now, the reason for this is I

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Speaker 1: had some family friends that retired, and so it was like,

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Speaker 1: rally all the troops, We're gonna have a ton of fun.

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Speaker 1: But it did get me thinking, just noticing like all

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Speaker 1: the food that probably gets thrown away, the fact that

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Speaker 1: there's just so much stuff to buy, and then they

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Speaker 1: dump you off of these ports that are basically like

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Speaker 1: outwet malls, and so it made me think of you,

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Speaker 1: what is your reaction to that?

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Speaker 5: Well, Okay, first thing is I can't say that I

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Speaker 5: necessarily disapprove of anything, because who am I to get

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Speaker 5: to approve or disappe of things?

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Speaker 3: Thank you? Okay, yes, but it's not.

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Speaker 5: In alignment with my values in the way that I

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Speaker 5: want to live my life.

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Speaker 4: So I used to live.

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Speaker 5: A very sort of consumeristic life, and I was very

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Speaker 5: focused on material possessions and financial wealth, and I made

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Speaker 5: a goal of being a millionaire by the time I

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Speaker 5: was thirty, and I was very much on this pursuit.

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Speaker 5: I had a you know, a new car that I

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Speaker 5: spent every Sunday shining. The three bedroom apartment three blocks

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Speaker 5: from the beach was you know, it was a big

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Speaker 5: deal to me. As a Wisconsin boy, I was I

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Speaker 5: was living sort of the dream surfing at the beach.

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Speaker 5: And what happened is I simply started to watch documentaries

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Speaker 5: and read books, you know, the Omnivores Dilemma by Michael

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Speaker 5: Pollan and Food Ink and the Story of Stuff by

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Speaker 5: Annie Leonard, and documentaries like The Zeitgeist, and I just

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Speaker 5: started to realize that my whole life was, to a

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Speaker 5: large degree a lie. I was living this grand hypocrisy,

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Speaker 5: what we call the American dream is actually the world's

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Speaker 5: nightmare for billions of people and millions of species of

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Speaker 5: plants and animals. So now it was time to unlearn

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Speaker 5: so much, to relearn and take control of my life

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Speaker 5: so that I could be living in a much more

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Speaker 5: harmonious way with all the life we share this home with.

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Speaker 1: So what were the first things you did? And then

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Speaker 1: the underlying question being why did you feel like you

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Speaker 1: had to tip into like we're going to go at

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Speaker 1: this hard. It wasn't just like, Okay, I'm gonna do

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Speaker 1: a little less. You're like, I'm going to do a

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Speaker 1: lot less.

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Speaker 5: It was starting with small things. I looked in my

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Speaker 5: garbage can and I saw all the ways that I

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Speaker 5: was creating trash, the disposable paper towels, for example, no

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Speaker 5: need to buy those just reusable washcloths, you know, cotton rags.

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Speaker 5: I looked at all of the food that was wrapped

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Speaker 5: in plastic packaging and stopped going to Walmart and started

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Speaker 5: to go to the local farmers market. There was a

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Speaker 5: food co op called People's Food co Op, and I

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Speaker 5: started to bring my own reusable containers to the bulk

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Speaker 5: section and fill up my grains, nuts, seeds, oils, spices,

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Speaker 5: all of that. Started to ride my bike more drive

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Speaker 5: the car less, started to compost all the food scraps

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Speaker 5: and everything that I could, started to grow a little

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Speaker 5: bit of food forage, a little bit of food, got

443
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:14,679
Speaker 5: rid of all the toxic chemicals I was putting on

444
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:17,679
Speaker 5: my body and the fabreeze I was spraying on everything.

445
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:22,479
Speaker 5: And so yeah, just step by step, what I had

446
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 5: done is I made a list of over one hundred

447
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:26,439
Speaker 5: changes that I wanted to make, and I hung that

448
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 5: up in my kitchen, which was right by the front door,

449
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:31,720
Speaker 5: so I'd see it all the time, my friends would

450
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 5: see it, and I just set out on this journey

451
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 5: of one step at a time unraveling the web of

452
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:41,879
Speaker 5: consumerism and monetization that I was so deeply wrapped into.

453
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 5: And as I broke each strand of that web, making

454
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:47,959
Speaker 5: new strands to build a new web, a web of

455
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:53,760
Speaker 5: living in harmony, simply sustainably, in community, in connection, and

456
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:55,920
Speaker 5: in a demonetized way.

457
00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:00,680
Speaker 1: That's the idea of the checklist is really and there's

458
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: some good psychology behind that. The fact that it's right

459
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 1: there for you to view in your kitchen. You're having

460
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 1: this constant reminder of what you need to do. It

461
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: reminds me of this study in surgical wards in hospitals,

462
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 1: and you know, errors in that setting can be really,

463
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: really bad. Now, the issue is that every surgeon thinks

464
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: that they have it locked down, like they're a surgeon,

465
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 1: I'm the smartest person in the room.

466
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:25,959
Speaker 3: You don't need to tell me what to do.

467
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: When they started doing checklists about what exactly we need

468
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:32,119
Speaker 1: to do before, during, and after surgery, the rate of

469
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: airs went down significantly because there's this list looking at

470
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,360
Speaker 1: giving them the constant reminder this is what we need

471
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:42,160
Speaker 1: to do. But I want to ask you what were

472
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 1: the most freeing elements of doing that, but also what

473
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 1: were the most pain in the ass elements, Like the

474
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 1: point where you're like, oh, why am I doing this?

475
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 5: What I realized as I continued this is that most

476
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 5: things I was doing, I was going against the grain

477
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 5: of society, which meant each day was it was work

478
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 5: pomplish these basic things. And once you make that change,

479
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 5: it's not like the change is set in stone. You

480
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 5: have to actually actively continue that change because society is

481
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 5: trying to suck you back.

482
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 4: And the tool that I came up.

483
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 5: With, and I don't remember where this came from, if

484
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 5: someone shared it with me or I just popped into

485
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 5: my head, was that every action that I would take,

486
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 5: instead of asking consciously or subconsciously, what are people going

487
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:29,919
Speaker 5: to think about me? I asked, is this beneficial to

488
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 5: the earth, my community, and myself? And that was my

489
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 5: new lens of looking at the world. And that was

490
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 5: a really helpful way for me, for me to let

491
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 5: go and really People ask me what my biggest advice

492
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 5: the children would be, but I guess this probably would

493
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 5: be my biggest advice to everyone, which is let go

494
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 5: of what other people are thinking. That's one of the

495
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 5: most freeing things you can possibly do to allow you

496
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 5: to really live the life that you truly want to.

497
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:00,400
Speaker 1: I think everyone sort of intellectually understands that to care

498
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 1: less what others think about me. But in sort of

499
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,199
Speaker 1: the day to day it's not always easy, but it

500
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 1: takes action. You have to start doing things that prove

501
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: to you that like, oh maybe this doesn't matter what

502
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: these people think. So what did you learn along that path?

503
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 5: Everything that you want to be successful at requires work.

504
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 5: So some people might pursue a musical instrument, or you know,

505
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 5: a sport or an intellectual subject. To live sustainably requires

506
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,639
Speaker 5: practice and diligence in the same way as any of those.

507
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 4: And so what I would do is.

508
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 5: I would create these practices that were specifically designed to

509
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 5: help me to break free from what people would think.

510
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 5: For example, way back at the beginning, I set myself

511
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 5: a challenge of one week where I could only eat

512
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 5: with my hands, no matter where I was, restaurant, party,

513
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:53,440
Speaker 5: and you know, in most of white Western society, to

514
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 5: eat with your hands, they're going to think of you

515
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 5: as low. So I would do these things where people

516
00:26:57,840 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 5: would think of me as low and just get you

517
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 5: to people thinking of me as low. I started the

518
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 5: dumpster dive, eating from the garbage, and so just you know,

519
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 5: the more and more people that thought less of me, actually,

520
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 5: the more helpful that was because it just became something

521
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 5: that I became used to in twenty sixteen when I

522
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 5: did the month of living like the average person, but

523
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,880
Speaker 5: having to wear every single piece of trash while living

524
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 5: in New York City.

525
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, so just for context for people, any trash that

526
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: you produced, you had this full body suit that had

527
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: like these big clear sleeves more or less, and you

528
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:38,679
Speaker 1: would put that piece of trash in the sleeves and

529
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 1: just walk around in this trash suit.

530
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 3: And of course, slowly the more the longer you live,

531
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:45,880
Speaker 3: the more the trash is accumulating.

532
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:48,400
Speaker 4: But yeah, go on, Yes, perfect explanation.

533
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 5: And so the average US American creates four and a

534
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 5: half pounds of trash per day. If I consume like

535
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 5: the average person, that's one hundred and thirty five pounds

536
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 5: a month. Anybody know listening to this knows it's hard

537
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 5: to walk around with one hundred and thirty five pounds

538
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 5: on your body. So I had to wear it everywhere

539
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 5: that I went, and so talk about you know, I'm

540
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 5: literally walking around the streets covered in garbage. So you

541
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 5: got to have some you know, strength to do that,

542
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 5: mental strength to do this strength.

543
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 4: By the way, Yes, so what I did.

544
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 5: I was really concerned at the beginning of going outside,

545
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 5: especially when the suit was kind of empty, because it's

546
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 5: not even a good visual at the beginning. So I

547
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 5: ended up getting so fortunate to watch the doc the

548
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:37,919
Speaker 5: film The Big Short, which is the one about the

549
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 5: two thousand and eight two thousand and nine housing market

550
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 5: crash where millions of US Americans saw their financial wealth

551
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 5: just dissolve and real I was reminded that we're living

552
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 5: in this grand delusion, that the majority of us are

553
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 5: existing in a grand delusion with almost everything we're doing.

554
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 5: And I thought to myself, all right, if I'm walking

555
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 5: around on the streets just surrounded by people living in

556
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 5: a delusion, then why does it matter what they think

557
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 5: about me?

558
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 4: We're all delusional anyway.

559
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: Can you unpack the delusion part more that the average

560
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: person lives in? Because I think, if I'm a listener

561
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: hearing this, I'm like, who's this guy to tell me

562
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: that I'm living a deluded life. At the same time,

563
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: I will say, you kind of mentioned that was in

564
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 1: my own delusion too, so we'll give you points there.

565
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 5: The way our societal norms are set up is under

566
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 5: the belief that we can create things that are permanent.

567
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 5: All of our buildings, all of our structures, are all

568
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 5: designed in a way where, yeah, this is just going

569
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 5: to last. But the reality is is that we live

570
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 5: in a very impermanent society. San Francisco right now, after

571
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 5: existing for a very short period of time in seemingly

572
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 5: permanent way, is literally sinking and within a couple generations

573
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 5: they might crumble to the ground. But we don't acknowledge that.

574
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 5: We design our entire structures around that not being true,

575
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:06,479
Speaker 5: And the same goes with all of our consumerism. We

576
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 5: live on what Carl Sagan calls a pale blue dot,

577
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 5: but we act like we live in this infinite place

578
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 5: where we can consume, exploit, and extract endlessly, and we

579
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 5: pretty much seem to think that this will continue. But

580
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 5: the reality is, if you look at it pretty objectively,

581
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 5: the most likely scenario is we're going to destroy ourselves

582
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 5: through our own delusion of the infiniteness of our resources.

583
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 1: So tell us about your experiment of non ownership. What

584
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: prompted that and what did you start to do and

585
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: what was that like?

586
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 5: Okay, so if anybody was not yet convinced that I

587
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 5: have gone insane, this may be your opportunity to think.

588
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 3: That, let's go, this is what we need.

589
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 5: So I well talk about delusion. I think ownership is

590
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 5: an illusion. I don't believe we can own the land,

591
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 5: and the earth doesn't sign that contract, the plants and

592
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 5: animals don't sign that contract, and most of the humans

593
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 5: don't sign those contracts.

594
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 4: When we decide that we own the land, just.

595
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 5: A couple of people with the most privileged and an

596
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 5: access say.

597
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, we now are the owners of this.

598
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 5: So I've been on a long journey of simplifying and

599
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 5: downsizing physically, mentally, you know in every way that I

600
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 5: can be doing that. And years back I got my

601
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 5: life down to one hundred eleven possessions, and then later

602
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 5: I got it to forty four possessions. I've always dreamed

603
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 5: of this idea of getting to the place of owning

604
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 5: absolutely nothing, not a single material possession, not even clothes

605
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 5: or a computer or.

606
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 4: Money or any of that.

607
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 5: It was last year I walked from Canada to Los Angeles.

608
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 5: I simplified my life to everything I owned, fitting in

609
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 5: a backpack, I walked six months from Canada La letting go,

610
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 5: shedding what no longer served.

611
00:31:58,600 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 4: There was still a lot to let go.

612
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 5: After thirteen years of letting go, I was really doing

613
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 5: a lot of letting go of what's in my mind.

614
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 5: And what I did is I shared everything I had

615
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 5: in my mind that was a secret that I was

616
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 5: embarrassed about, anything I was hiding or guarding. And I

617
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 5: did that in numerous ways, but ultimately through a nine

618
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 5: part video series that is a total of I think

619
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 5: six and a half hours, and at the end of

620
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 5: that there was literally nothing in my mind that anybody

621
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 5: else didn't have access to. So this was a practice

622
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 5: of making my own mind creative comments, of trying to

623
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 5: the best of my ability to not own my own mind,

624
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 5: which is a pretty unique, interesting concept. And I'm just

625
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 5: experimenting with this, like it's not like I have a

626
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 5: whole lot of, you know, references to go upon with

627
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 5: this experiment.

628
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 4: But then so then, as when I arrived in La.

629
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 5: January twenty six, twenty twenty five, I arrived in Griffith

630
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 5: Park and I had put the word out that I'd

631
00:32:58,840 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 5: be arriving.

632
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 4: At that time, there was maybe.

633
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 5: Thirty or forty people waiting there, and part of why

634
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 5: they were waiting there is they were going to help

635
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 5: me become the human who owns nothing. I gave away

636
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 5: all my items to people there. I held up each

637
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 5: item and shared, you know, would this be meaningful to

638
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 5: you my sleeping bag or the backpack, or my personal

639
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 5: hygiene items, whatever, they would be, just one by one

640
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 5: by one over a period about a half hour, I

641
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 5: got to the point where the last thing to take

642
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,719
Speaker 5: off was the long underwear that I was wearing on

643
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 5: this cold, rainy day in Los Angeles, and I sat

644
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 5: naked in Griffith Park, covered with a palm frond, owning

645
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 5: absolutely no physical possessions, having downsized almost everything online and

646
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 5: even not having the password to any of my digital anything.

647
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 4: So there was still some.

648
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 5: You know, digital ownership, which is a whole nother realm

649
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 5: that we existed that we have today. But I gave

650
00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 5: myself this practice where I had no access to any

651
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 5: of those either, and then I lived for the next

652
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 5: three months in Griffith Park practicing complete non ownership.

653
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,520
Speaker 1: What I think is interesting here too, is that in

654
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: my own experiences doing things outdoors, I'll give you an example.

655
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 1: I was up in the Arctic, in the back country

656
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: for like more than a month, and we had to

657
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 1: pack everything in and so obviously you can only carry

658
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 1: so much, right, you have to cull everything any of

659
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: these like extra do Hickey's, Like, oh, that might be nice,

660
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,359
Speaker 1: It's like, no, everything has to serve multiple purposes. I

661
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: personally found that when we would have a problem or

662
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: a challenge we face, you would go, oh, we need

663
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: this piece of gear, but we don't have that gear,

664
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: and so what would happen is that we'd have to

665
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: get creative with what we had. You have to be like,

666
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: what if we used this thing that is for this

667
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: purpose normally, but we could sort of retrofit it to

668
00:34:57,719 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: solve this problem. And we were able to. And so

669
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: for me, it was one of those AHAs, like you know,

670
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: I probably have a lot of stuff in my house

671
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: that could be serving multiple purposes. And that sort of

672
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: influenced me. I would say to buy a little less

673
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 1: because it gave me this moment where I was like, Okay,

674
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: if I have this problem, my mind automatically goes buy

675
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 1: this thing to solve it. My mind started to go, well,

676
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: what do I already have that could probably do the

677
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:26,399
Speaker 1: same thing without me purchasing something else.

678
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm very glad you brought that up. I think

679
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 5: this is a perfect moment. To remind people that my

680
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,879
Speaker 5: message is not for anybody to do just as I do.

681
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 5: My message is not for people to live this extreme

682
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 5: life just as I do. Hey, if that's what you

683
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,359
Speaker 5: want to do, I completely support you if you want

684
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 5: to radically transform your life and rethink everything. But that's

685
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 5: not the point. The point is just what you talked about.

686
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 5: It's about critical thinking, it's about problem solving. It's about

687
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 5: asking ourselves the question, like am I living the life

688
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 5: that I truly want to? Are my actions in alignment

689
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 5: with my beliefs. My job is to stimulate those thoughts

690
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 5: and stimulate those questions and then start wherever you are.

691
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 5: You know, for some people there might be excited about

692
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 5: growing food or foraging, or being more involved in the

693
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 5: community or living you know, creating less waste, or starting

694
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 5: an organization that's going to serve you know, people in

695
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 5: living a more sustainable life.

696
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 4: I would love to mention that on my website.

697
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 5: I have a list of those hundred changes that I make,

698
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,720
Speaker 5: and that's at Robin Greenfield dot org slash one hundred.

699
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 5: So if people are like I'm looking for some changes,

700
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:36,239
Speaker 5: You've got a really helpful resource right there.

701
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll link to that in the comments, and you've

702
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: talked about how happy this whole process makes you, which

703
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: I think is sort of culturally counterintuitive, because I think

704
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: there's a sense people feel that once I have that

705
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 1: house or that car or that title, I will be happy.

706
00:36:56,560 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: I have a theory about one reason that this makes

707
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: you happy, but I want to hear in your own words,

708
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: why you think this process makes you happy, and then

709
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: I'll tell you my theory.

710
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 5: I think the reason that I am as happy as

711
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:13,759
Speaker 5: I am is because I'm living in alignment. So I

712
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 5: can wake up and I can look at what I'm

713
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 5: doing and I can feel content with it. And for me,

714
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 5: the way in which I would be unhappy is knowing

715
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 5: that my existence is this grand burden on other people.

716
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 5: So the alignment for me is that I'm on this

717
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 5: path of living in a way that decreases the harm,

718
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 5: the unnecessary harm that's being caused, and my actions are

719
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 5: quite in alignment.

720
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts, I think one of the reasons and

721
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: you can pressure test this, and like you said, I

722
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: think it's complex, but I think a lot of the

723
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:59,359
Speaker 1: things you do, the goals are relatively simple and clear.

724
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: For example, in your foraging experience, experiment and growing your

725
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: own food. And for listeners who don't know, Robin is

726
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: are you finished with that in the process where you did,

727
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:11,280
Speaker 1: where you foraged and grew your own food.

728
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:11,479
Speaker 3: For a while.

729
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 4: Right now I'm in a year of just foraging. No gardens.

730
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 3: Oh, no gardens.

731
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 5: This year was growing and foraging and that was finished

732
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 5: in twenty nineteen.

733
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: Okay, perfect. So with forging food, you have this goal.

734
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 1: It's very simple, it's very crisp. You know whether you

735
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,279
Speaker 1: found food or not, right like, you either got it

736
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: or you didn't. The goal is extremely clear and not

737
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: to mention. The second part of this is that the

738
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: timescale is relatively tight. So you have twelve hours and

739
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: across the day to try and forage your food. So

740
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 1: you have a mission every day where you go, okay,

741
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: you need to find food and I got twelve hours

742
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 1: to do it. At the end of the day, you

743
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: end the day and you go, I was successful or not,

744
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 1: and you just ah, what off? Whereas I think for

745
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: a lot of people with modern jobs, the goal is

746
00:38:59,239 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: not as clear.

747
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 3: Right.

748
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 1: It's like you're work in an office. There's this like

749
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: kind of big, vague goal the company has and you're

750
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 1: kind of like in this satellite spot where you can't

751
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: necessarily see am I moving the dial to this goal?

752
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: And it's just like vague. Did you ever do the

753
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:15,399
Speaker 1: right or wrong thing? I don't know, not to mention,

754
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: it's like the work never ends. The time scales are

755
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,799
Speaker 1: you know, your thirty year career, and you never have

756
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: a clear sense of like did I accomplish the mission?

757
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: And I think that that sort of uncertainty and that

758
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:31,399
Speaker 1: lack of clarity behind what am I doing every day?

759
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: Are do my actions have an outcome? Am I going

760
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:36,880
Speaker 1: to find out soon? I think that results in a

761
00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: sort of malaise and disconnection and a lot of people.

762
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 1: The reason that I had been thinking about this is

763
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: I did a long through hike in southern Utah last spring.

764
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 3: So it was about forty.

765
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: Five days, and over that hike, it was okay, we're

766
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: going to try and reach this point today. Along the way,

767
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: we got to find water. We either found water or

768
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,359
Speaker 1: we didn't find water. We either made it to our

769
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:05,439
Speaker 1: point or we didn't. And the timescale was within a day,

770
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 1: and so you end the day and you just go

771
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 1: today was a good day. We found water, we made

772
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 1: it to our point, or you know what, we didn't

773
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 1: hit our goal. We didn't find as much water as

774
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 1: we want to. But guess well, we get to go

775
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:19,839
Speaker 1: at batt tomorrow again and find out if we can

776
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: do it tomorrow.

777
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on that?

778
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's spot on.

779
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 5: The way that I would put that is like, right

780
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 5: now we have these terms like eco anxiety, that so

781
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 5: many people are living under these new terms, and so

782
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 5: a lot of people have basically placed the weight of

783
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 5: the world upon their shoulders. They're trying to save the planet,

784
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 5: save humanity, solve climate change, and that's that never ending.

785
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 5: There's no accomplishment of a goal. But what I do

786
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 5: instead is I work on things that I can have

787
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:57,359
Speaker 5: a clear goal for, Like maybe it's to plant two

788
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 5: hundred community fruit trees this year, and we know that

789
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 5: by planting those two hundred community fruit trees that we

790
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 5: are contributing towards the reduction of climate change and that

791
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 5: we're improving people's quality of life.

792
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 4: And we have tangible goals.

793
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 5: So one of the biggest mistakes that I see in

794
00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 5: especially young change makers who are very enthusiastic, is they

795
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:27,720
Speaker 5: want to they set these huge goals and they base

796
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 5: their organizations, their companies, their work around having to accomplish

797
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 5: these huge goals before they've even gotten started.

798
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that even if you do have

799
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: a job that has these sort of never ending goals,

800
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:45,280
Speaker 1: everything's unclear it happens across thirty years. I think that

801
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,319
Speaker 1: that at least provides a framework of what can you

802
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: do in your time when you aren't working to find

803
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: things that will give you satisfaction. That could be like

804
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:55,720
Speaker 1: you're doing You're like, I'm going to reduce my impact.

805
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:57,800
Speaker 1: Here's the thing I'm going to do today. Let's figure

806
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:01,399
Speaker 1: it out. It could be in why or fitness, where

807
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: you go, if you want to lose weight, don't go,

808
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,280
Speaker 1: I want to lose fifty pounds. You go, I'm gonna

809
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,359
Speaker 1: eat an apple instead of a TwixT bar today, right.

810
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 1: And so by like creating these little micro missions, it's like, yeah,

811
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: it gives you this clear sense of progress and like, aha,

812
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 1: I did it. Let's see if I can do it

813
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: again tomorrow. All right, we're we'll start to close out.

814
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 1: I got a couple more questions from your experience of

815
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 1: getting rid of all of your things. What were three

816
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: items that you're like, these are the if I had

817
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 1: to pick three things, those are the only three things

818
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 1: I could own. What would those three things be?

819
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 4: A pot?

820
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 5: Definitely? I use my pot a lot. That's a very

821
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 5: beneficial thing. It's very multi purpose drinking, cooking to go,

822
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 5: container for food.

823
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 4: And so on.

824
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 5: So also vessel for harvesting rain water, trapping fish. Potentially,

825
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:56,959
Speaker 5: there's so many things that can be done in the pot.

826
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:00,400
Speaker 5: I would say some clothes, you know, and if I

827
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 5: could only have one item of clothing, it would probably

828
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 5: be like a big, warm wool shawl or something that

829
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 5: would cover my whole body. And then, honestly, I'm going

830
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 5: to go with my computer right now because my objective

831
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 5: is to reach millions and millions of people and create

832
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 5: the ripple that I can in the world, and I

833
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 5: can do.

834
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 4: That without the computer. I've experimented.

835
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 5: I've not owned a computer, i haven't owned a phone

836
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 5: for a long time, and I've tried to own no computer,

837
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 5: but I found that it really impacted my ability to

838
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 5: reach people. So basically I'd rock around with a computer

839
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 5: covered in a shawl, carrying a pot.

840
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:44,840
Speaker 3: Awesome.

841
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:49,359
Speaker 1: All right, final question for the average person listening to this,

842
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: where would you tell people to start?

843
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,320
Speaker 4: Okay, so I have about five key pillars.

844
00:43:55,600 --> 00:44:00,080
Speaker 5: First, or this is not first necessarily, but composting everything

845
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 5: that can be composted, and then instead of putting it

846
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 5: in the garbage, can compost it. You can compost at

847
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 5: home or now there's a lot of places that will

848
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 5: actually pick up your compost. Use your body to get around,

849
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 5: so biking, walking, skateboarding.

850
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,800
Speaker 3: I love this one. I love this one.

851
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 5: Grow a little bit of food, even if it's just

852
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 5: on your balcony and it's you know, some basil and

853
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:25,760
Speaker 5: some tomatoes, grow a little bit of food.

854
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,359
Speaker 1: So I think that beyond just the fact that you're

855
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: getting food and growing at yourself, I think there's a

856
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 1: reminder in there that food has to come from somewhere

857
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:40,839
Speaker 1: and it's a long process. And I also think it

858
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,360
Speaker 1: gets you outside doing something physical, which is awesome.

859
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, And so with that, I'm going to add

860
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 5: forage a little bit of food. Just learn one plant

861
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 5: that's growing in your area. It could be dandelions, or

862
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 5: it could be mulberries or blackberries, and you know, just

863
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 5: do a little bit of foraging to the earth. Through

864
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 5: foraging and that one note, well, I guess the next

865
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:09,360
Speaker 5: thing I'll say is I mentioned growing food. Maybe you

866
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 5: don't have any space to grow food, and you can

867
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:14,800
Speaker 5: join a community garden. So that ties into my next suggestion,

868
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:19,399
Speaker 5: which is break free from the very radically independent way

869
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,759
Speaker 5: of being and do much more in community. Embrace a

870
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 5: much more community way of living. And then the last

871
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 5: one I'm going to share is look at all the

872
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 5: ways you're spending money, ask if it's really serving you

873
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 5: or it's just trapping you in the system, and let

874
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 5: go of more and more of demonetized ways of being,

875
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 5: which again ties you back to community, because as you

876
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:45,760
Speaker 5: start having a money that's less a life less based

877
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 5: on money, you have a life that's much more based

878
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 5: on relationships and skills. So building your skills, building relationships,

879
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 5: this is a true life savings. This is a true

880
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 5: retirement fund is relationships and skills.

881
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 3: I feel like.

882
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: As people start to do the things you just laid

883
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: out one, they're doing a lot of sort of universal good.

884
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: But I think what happens too is you're doing a

885
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 1: lot of these things are really good for our health.

886
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: You mentioned moving, you mentioned spending more time with people.

887
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: There's the implicit fact that you're going to be outside.

888
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:23,879
Speaker 1: So these are things that like give people a lot

889
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 1: of meaning really associated with long term health and wellbeing.

890
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 3: And you're also doing this great a good which is awesome.

891
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:32,919
Speaker 4: I love it, and I'll add to that. Come hang

892
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 4: out with me.

893
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 3: I love that. I'll take you up on that.

894
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 4: Nice.

895
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 5: I'm teaching seven foraging schools this year from West Coast

896
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 5: to East Coast and Midwest. So I do these weekend

897
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 5: long or day long foraging schools where you.

898
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 4: Can come and learn and be in community.

899
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 5: And then I'm giving doing plant walks and talks in

900
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:55,399
Speaker 5: like thirty states this year, So come out and meet

901
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 5: more like minded people. Realize, oh, there are a bunch

902
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 5: of people that are into this sort of stuff, and

903
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 5: you know, breaks free from that isolation and spend more

904
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 5: time in community and coming to my gatherings are a

905
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 5: great way to do that.

906
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 3: I love it. Well, Robin, thanks a lot for coming

907
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 3: on the show man. This was fantastic.

908
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 4: You're very welcome. I enjoyed it. Thanks for asking all

909
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:14,239
Speaker 4: these questions.

910
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:16,399
Speaker 3: All right, welcome back.

911
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 1: We're going to close out this episode with an Ama

912
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: Ask Michael Anything, where you can submit any question that

913
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: you want. First question, and this is a work related

914
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,799
Speaker 1: question lines up perfectly with today's episode. It came from

915
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 1: my friend Wendy Bounds, who is at the Wall Street Journal,

916
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,359
Speaker 1: what is one thing that has most helped your work

917
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 1: life balance. We were on a zoom call when we

918
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:40,359
Speaker 1: were doing this, because I recently did an event for

919
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journals Executive Leadership Conference, so she wanted

920
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: to sort of pick my brain about what are you

921
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: going to talk about on stage?

922
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 3: And I thought about it.

923
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: For about two seconds and I knew the answer immediately,

924
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:53,280
Speaker 1: and that was taking email off of my phone.

925
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:54,919
Speaker 3: So here's the thing.

926
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 1: I think with social media, with news apps, when you

927
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: go into those a lot, you go, I shouldn't be

928
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:03,360
Speaker 1: doing this, this is not good for me. But with email,

929
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: I would argue that we all check that way more frequently,

930
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 1: and it can be just as compulsive and just as neurotic,

931
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: and for reasons other than really needing to know what's

932
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 1: in your inbox. But we often rationalize it. We go, oh, no,

933
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: it's for work. I can check my email fifty thousand

934
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 1: times a day. I noticed that that was happening to me.

935
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 1: I was checking email when I would get bored, when

936
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: I would get anxious, for all these different reasons. So

937
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,319
Speaker 1: I took it off my phone first day. I will

938
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: tell you my finger was hovering over to where that

939
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:37,760
Speaker 1: email used to be all the time, which again tells

940
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 1: me I was checking it for reasons other than really

941
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: needing to know what was in my inbox. And when

942
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 1: I took it off of my phone, what happened was this,

943
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 1: I got a lot of my attention back. I was

944
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 1: more in the present moment. I could focus more on

945
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:52,680
Speaker 1: what was happening around me, whether that was hanging out

946
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: with my wife Leah, whether that was hanging out with

947
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: my dogs. And I wasn't as just tied to work

948
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: all the time. I think that's one of the downside

949
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:02,280
Speaker 1: of having work on your phone, is that you always

950
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 1: feel like you're at work. Took it off. It benefited me.

951
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: I will tell you when I gave Wendy that answer,

952
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: she rolled her eyes. She's like, oh, good for you.

953
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: After she dropped her resentments against me. She tried it

954
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 1: and it also helped her.

955
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:15,000
Speaker 3: So try it.

956
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:18,920
Speaker 1: Let us know how I'll helped you. Question two, and

957
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: this is from Dale in Portland. We don't know which

958
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: Portland he's in. He asked this, what do you do

959
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: for recovery from exercise? We live in a world where

960
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:31,320
Speaker 1: recovery is really really hyped up. We get recovery scores

961
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: on our fitness watches, there are a million different things

962
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:35,760
Speaker 1: we can buy for recovery. But one of the big

963
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: problems with all this hubbub over recovery is that there's

964
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: actually no good definition for what recovery is. So if

965
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 1: you look in a lot of exercise textbooks, it's not defined.

966
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: If you go to the website of the American College

967
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:51,480
Speaker 1: of Sports Medicine, which is this big governing body of

968
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: sports medicine, also not defined. Now, if you really pull back,

969
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 1: I think what we're talking about when we talk about recovery,

970
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 1: I'm recreating my own definition. Here is basically the ability

971
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:06,479
Speaker 1: to do a fitness related activity at the same rate

972
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:11,359
Speaker 1: or better after doing another fitness activity. So let's say

973
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: you lift a weight on Tuesday, and then you go

974
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:17,200
Speaker 1: back in the gym and you don't lift as much

975
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: of the same weight on Wednesday. Suggest you're probably not recovered.

976
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:22,879
Speaker 1: If you do the same weight or you do even more,

977
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 1: suggest you are recovered. Now that time in between workouts

978
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:30,239
Speaker 1: is actually where we improve. This is an important part.

979
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:32,920
Speaker 1: So it's not during the workout that we improve. It's

980
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 1: in that time after the workout stresses your body and

981
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 1: then your body goes, oh, I might need to do

982
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 1: this again, so I'm going to build back better. And

983
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: the building back better happens when you're not working out.

984
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 1: So what actually does help you build back better? There

985
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: was a group at Columbia that looked at this and

986
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: they found that it is much simpler than all the

987
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: marketing would like you to believe. Two things were most

988
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: associated with building back better after a fitness event or

989
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:02,439
Speaker 1: a sporting event. One sleeping enough. People who got enough

990
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:05,360
Speaker 1: sleep at least seven hours a night, they were better

991
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:06,960
Speaker 1: able to perform later on.

992
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:09,720
Speaker 3: And then two eating enough.

993
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 1: And that makes sense because if you have stressed your

994
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 1: body and it needs to build muscle or whatever it is,

995
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: it obviously needs some calories to do that. So one

996
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:20,839
Speaker 1: sleep enough, two eat enough. And then I will also

997
00:51:20,920 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: add a third, which I have found has really helped me,

998
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 1: and that is walking. So after you've done especially a

999
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 1: strength workout or even a run, if I go out

1000
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:32,280
Speaker 1: on a walk the next day, it gets my body

1001
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:35,400
Speaker 1: moving again, kind of builds back my endurance, gets some

1002
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 1: blood flowing, probably shuttles out some of these sort of

1003
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: damaged things that have happened to my body that makes

1004
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: me feel better. And I've also found after speaking to

1005
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,879
Speaker 1: a lot of experts, a lot of them are recommending walks. Now,

1006
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:48,760
Speaker 1: all right, next question, and this one came from Julie

1007
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. She asked, what is something that you

1008
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 1: would change in your book The Comfort Crisis. So let

1009
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: me note that book came out about five years ago.

1010
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: That book also cites a ton of research. There's hundreds

1011
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 1: of studies that I cited in that book, and a

1012
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 1: lot of research has changed in the last five years.

1013
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,320
Speaker 1: So when Julie asked this question, I automatically knew something

1014
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 1: that I would change, and that was that I had a.

1015
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:14,640
Speaker 3: Section in the book.

1016
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:17,279
Speaker 1: I think it was just a few paragraphs in a

1017
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 1: larger chapter about fasting and how fasting might be uniquely

1018
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:25,239
Speaker 1: good for a process called autophagy. Now, atophagy is when

1019
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:28,319
Speaker 1: your body gets rid of dead and damaged cells. And

1020
00:52:28,360 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: these dead and damaged cells they are associated with aging,

1021
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:34,279
Speaker 1: with diseases. So the idea is that if you can

1022
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:38,680
Speaker 1: stimulate atophagy via fasting, you will be less likely to

1023
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 1: get diseases. Now here's what's come out in the research

1024
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 1: over the last five years and how the thinking has

1025
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:48,440
Speaker 1: shifted them. So we now know that autopogy happens from exercise.

1026
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:51,479
Speaker 1: We also know that it happens when you lose weight.

1027
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,600
Speaker 1: So yes, fasting does help, but you do not have

1028
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: to go through stints of not eating for sixteen, twenty four,

1029
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:00,319
Speaker 1: forty eight, whatever amount of hours it is. You can

1030
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 1: just exercise more, you can lose a little weight and

1031
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:05,240
Speaker 1: you will get those same benefits. All right, next question,

1032
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: and let me tee this one up. We are going

1033
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,440
Speaker 1: to start what we are lovingly calling the Department of

1034
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:15,720
Speaker 1: Dipshit Questions. This is the final question of every AMA.

1035
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:17,680
Speaker 1: We will run one of these, and it is a

1036
00:53:17,760 --> 00:53:21,839
Speaker 1: question that means nothing doesn't improve your life, just makes

1037
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:25,319
Speaker 1: you think it's just a ridiculous thought experiment. Our first

1038
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: question for this segment is if you could be any

1039
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 1: celebrities kid, who would you be? Now this question came

1040
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 1: up between Lee and I we were eating dinner. It

1041
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 1: popped in my brain and I said, hey, Leah to

1042
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:40,879
Speaker 1: my wife Leah, So if you could be any celebrities kid,

1043
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:42,720
Speaker 1: who would you be? And this went with this big

1044
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 1: back and forth between us. Now, one of our first

1045
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 1: thoughts was maybe like Mick Jagger's kid, Like that'd be

1046
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:51,600
Speaker 1: pretty cool. But then we realize there's a problem with that,

1047
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:55,319
Speaker 1: and that's that Nick Jagger is way too famous. His

1048
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:58,920
Speaker 1: kids even have paparazzi all over them all the time. You,

1049
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 1: as his kid, you do something stupid, like you get

1050
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:03,719
Speaker 1: a dui, you are definitely going to end up on

1051
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:06,359
Speaker 1: the cover of a newspaper of a tabloid in the UK.

1052
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:08,320
Speaker 3: So we're like, no, don't want all that attention.

1053
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:11,000
Speaker 1: So then we thought, all right, well, maybe you'd want

1054
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,759
Speaker 1: to be like a really good pro athletes kid, like

1055
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:15,839
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's kid. That would be cool. You get free

1056
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 1: shoes for life, you're rich. Great, But then the problem

1057
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: with that is there's too many expectations. Every single person

1058
00:54:22,600 --> 00:54:24,239
Speaker 1: in your life is going to be like, oh, do

1059
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:27,000
Speaker 1: you play basketball? Oh you should have played basketball, fathered

1060
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 1: you followed your father's footsteps. It's like, nah, I don't

1061
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 1: want all that pressure. And then people are going to

1062
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 1: be disappointed because you're not as good as your father,

1063
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 1: not to mention he is hyper competitive.

1064
00:54:34,920 --> 00:54:37,800
Speaker 3: He would never let you win anything. Too much pressure.

1065
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: Then I ended up throwing out what I think is

1066
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 1: the absolute perfect answer to this. You would want to

1067
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: be Jimmy Buffett's kid. Reason one, you have plenty of money.

1068
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: So when Jimmy Buffett died in twenty twenty three, he

1069
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 1: was worth a billion dollars because he started the Marguerite

1070
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: Deville Empire. It has concert tours, it has hotels, it

1071
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 1: has blenders, it has restaurants. This guy raked in tons

1072
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 1: of money, So you, as his kid, you would never

1073
00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:10,839
Speaker 1: have to worry about money running out.

1074
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 3: That is a good thing.

1075
00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: Number two, Jimmy Buffett is famous, but he's not like

1076
00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:20,800
Speaker 1: ultra famous. You know, there's not paparazzi who are chasing

1077
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,160
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett around town all the time. And therefore, you,

1078
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:26,279
Speaker 1: of his kid, you wouldn't have to worry about being

1079
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 1: in the newspapers having all this attention on you.

1080
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:29,680
Speaker 3: You just kind of get left alone.

1081
00:55:29,719 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 1: And then three, and this is where it becomes absolutely

1082
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:37,920
Speaker 1: most important. I want you to think about what Jimmy

1083
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:41,719
Speaker 1: Buffett stands for. This guy stands for being a beach bum,

1084
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 1: hanging out on the boat or on the beach, having

1085
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 1: a good time, just living that laid back island lifestyle.

1086
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 1: So you, as his kid, you have zero expectations for

1087
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:54,279
Speaker 1: what you need to be in life. You can be

1088
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:57,760
Speaker 1: the biggest waste of space who just sits on the beach,

1089
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:02,239
Speaker 1: SIPs some cocktails, does abbs nothing. No one judges you

1090
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:04,320
Speaker 1: for that. They're not like, look at this Neppo baby

1091
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 1: just doing nothing. No, what they say is, yeah, that's

1092
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:11,200
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett's kid. He's living the island lifestyle. He is

1093
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: just like Jimmy and we love him for that. You

1094
00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:16,719
Speaker 1: get a duy, they just go, oh, yeah, that's Jimmy's kid,

1095
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,840
Speaker 1: No big deal. In closing, let me say this about

1096
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: our Department of Dipshit Questions. I would love it if

1097
00:56:22,719 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: you could submit your own dipshit question that you want

1098
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:28,160
Speaker 1: me to answer. And then number two, if you ever

1099
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:30,720
Speaker 1: think that you have an answer that can beat mine

1100
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:33,880
Speaker 1: for a Department of Dipshit questions, please submit it and

1101
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 1: if you got a winner, I will absolutely read it.

1102
00:56:36,120 --> 00:56:38,239
Speaker 1: I would love to be proven wrong, especially on my

1103
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:41,239
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett answer. Thanks for listening to the episode. We

1104
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:43,880
Speaker 1: are going to be in your feeds as always twice

1105
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: a week. Do not forget to hit subscribe. The overlords

1106
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:51,120
Speaker 1: tell me that is very important. And if you have

1107
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:53,520
Speaker 1: a question for an AMA. Could be a dipshit question,

1108
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 1: could be any question. Please submit it in the comments

1109
00:56:56,520 --> 00:57:00,840
Speaker 1: or send us an email. As always, have fun, don't die.