Science-Backed Tactics to Level Up Your Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success with Liz Moody

00:00:00.000 | Liz, thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me again. Again. I know this is two times

00:00:05.760 | except now you have a book that is new. You've had books before. I'm a little jealous. I'm

00:00:10.240 | working on one book. You've already got how many? Three. Three. Okay. But two are cookbooks and one

00:00:15.520 | of the cookbooks is about popsicles. So maybe that's a half a book. It's a little baby book.

00:00:19.200 | So two and a half books. Two and a half books. All right. Well, this is a great one. I didn't

00:00:23.440 | have the previous books. I have this one. I got to read this one. And I'm really excited you're here

00:00:28.480 | because I think a lot of what your book's about is a lot of what my audience loves,

00:00:33.440 | which is finding tactical ways to improve your life across a bunch of verticals that you can

00:00:38.880 | do without spending a fortune. A hundred percent. I feel like I read so many personal growth books

00:00:43.680 | and I'll read it and I'll kind of just get like a good warm feeling while I'm reading it. And then

00:00:47.520 | I close the book and immediately I'm like, well, what do I actually do? I feel just like,

00:00:52.720 | what next? What now? And I really wanted to create a book that answered that question

00:00:57.360 | and that gave people the science behind the tools that they need and then the real tactical tips

00:01:02.560 | that they can apply today to change their lives. Yeah. So there's a hundred. We don't have time to

00:01:06.800 | get through all of them. I tried, by the way. Liz said, no, we have to limit it. We can't go

00:01:10.160 | through all hundred. I was just trying to make it a good use of your time and your audience's time.

00:01:15.120 | Yeah. Well, if you want all the hundred, you can get the book. But what I thought is in the book,

00:01:19.360 | you break it into health, happiness, success and relationships. I almost got that wrong,

00:01:24.560 | but I'm glad I didn't. And I wanted to run through each and just kind of talk about a few of the

00:01:29.360 | things I pulled out and get you to dive a little deeper, share some of that science behind it.

00:01:34.960 | And if people want the rest, obviously there's a book we're not going to get through all hundred.

00:01:38.000 | And I was trying to think of where to start and I don't really have a formula for where to start.

00:01:42.880 | So I just pick success. I don't know why. I think I was moving things around in notion and I was

00:01:46.560 | like, and then I ended up with success at the beginning. So wait, I'm curious before we start,

00:01:51.520 | is there one of the four areas that you feel like you'd so the book was really designed to be a

00:01:56.000 | resource that you would pick up at different points in your life. At one point, if your

00:01:59.440 | friendships need work, you'd pick it up and work on those tips. If one point your gut health needs

00:02:02.720 | work, you'd pick it up and read through those tips. I'm curious if any of those four areas

00:02:06.800 | immediately strikes you as one that resonates right now.

00:02:09.520 | So it's funny because when I got to gut health, I was like, I don't really know enough about here

00:02:12.720 | about this whole topic. So I was like, OK, we're going to put that in the middle of this conversation

00:02:16.080 | because it doesn't strike me because I feel like it's an area I haven't gone deep on.

00:02:20.640 | Relationships is interesting because once you have kids, your relationships that you

00:02:24.560 | like used to see people all the time, they're kind of gone. So I and then you're like,

00:02:28.800 | my best friend is my neighbor because we don't have to go that far. And so I do have some thoughts

00:02:33.840 | and I want to have a conversation about relationships because I think that evolves as you

00:02:37.040 | get a little older. I think I've spent a lot of time when I went through the success section,

00:02:42.960 | I was like, gosh, I've done a few interviews in this space. So that was one that wasn't like

00:02:46.480 | the biggest, biggest priority. And maybe happiness is somewhat in there, but there was still some

00:02:50.880 | great things. So I don't want to skip over it, like just because I just because it wasn't the

00:02:54.640 | one that resonated the most. But I would say strangely, relationships might resonate the

00:02:59.280 | most, which is maybe why I was like, let's end on that. Yeah, I like that. And it makes sense

00:03:03.360 | to is like a parent of two in the place you are in your life. I think that makes all the

00:03:07.120 | sense in the world. OK, so success. Let's start with success. Yeah. So when it comes to goals

00:03:12.640 | and building habits, there is one part of the conversation that when it comes to goals and

00:03:18.160 | building habits, I want to talk about the fresh start effect because it maybe feels like a good

00:03:22.000 | fresh start for the conversation. Yeah. So this is from research from Dr. Katie Milkman. Katie

00:03:26.160 | Milkman is a podcast guest that I've had on. She's a behavioral scientist from Wharton at

00:03:30.960 | University of Pennsylvania, and she is probably the most cited guest by other guests. So other

00:03:35.840 | guests come on and they're like, oh, according to Dr. Katie Milkman's research, I love Katie

00:03:39.680 | Milkman. Katie Milkman's the best. And so when I finally got to interview Katie Milkman, I was like,

00:03:43.680 | you have a fan club, like you have such a fan club. And she was incredible. And she's shared

00:03:49.280 | so much research that I put into this book because she works on habits and goals and behavior change.

00:03:54.880 | And her stuff is so actionable in the moment. So the fresh start effect is really simple. And

00:03:59.920 | it's the idea that research shows that we view our life in this really narrative way. So we view

00:04:05.520 | ourselves as like books and then different moments in our lives, different periods of our lives are

00:04:10.640 | like chapters in a book. And when we turn the page and we can turn the page, start a new chapter by

00:04:17.600 | starting a new job, moving to a new house, New Year's Eve would be turning a huge page.

00:04:24.000 | We feel like we're not the same person that we were the chapter before. And thus we're not stuck

00:04:30.320 | with the same habits and behaviors that we had the chapter before. So it's really, really helpful

00:04:36.640 | if you're trying to make behavior change to identify a fresh start in your life so that

00:04:41.280 | you can be like, OK, in the last house, I didn't work out. I didn't meditate. I didn't, you know,

00:04:48.400 | get I was on my phone way too much. But now that I've moved in this new house, I'm not that same

00:04:53.520 | person anymore. I'm not going to have those same behaviors. So you can identify the fresh starts

00:04:58.720 | in your life if it's like moving a new house or starting a new job or moving to a new city. And

00:05:04.240 | you can harness those fresh starts to create new behaviors. Or you can identify these like baby

00:05:09.760 | fresh starts that occur in our lives. So a Monday is a fresh start. New Year's Eve is a really

00:05:14.480 | famous fresh start. Going a different route to work can be its own type of fresh start. Literally

00:05:19.280 | picking up my book is a fresh start because you are not the same person that you were before you

00:05:24.080 | had this book. And knowing that science is on your side, that you-- if you just have that awareness,

00:05:30.400 | like I'm not the person I was before. So the person I was before maybe couldn't stick to this

00:05:34.480 | habit, couldn't achieve this goal. But I'm not them anymore. So I can. So birthdays. Birthdays

00:05:39.760 | is a great fresh start. Yeah. Kid sleeps through the night. That's honestly a great fresh start.

00:05:44.880 | Like any time in your life that you can just sort of identify like I want to be a different person

00:05:50.960 | than I was before. What's a fresh start that I can identify here to begin that. It's also why

00:05:55.120 | it's great to start new habits and routines on a Monday, on a first of the month, on a New Year's

00:06:00.320 | Eve, things like that. You can give yourself a little bit of a push. I love this. And another

00:06:05.120 | Milkman one, if we're going to go inside her. So we have this fresh start. We're ready to go.

00:06:11.040 | I have a problem procrastinating all the time. Yes. So let's talk a little bit about that because

00:06:15.520 | I think that's another one that she brought to you. Yeah. So one of my favorite tips for

00:06:20.080 | procrastination, I have a bunch of tips for procrastination because it is something that

00:06:23.680 | I struggle with really, really deeply. But one of my favorite ones from Dr. Milkman is called

00:06:28.640 | temptation bundling. And basically it's the idea that you take tasks that you don't want to do and

00:06:33.280 | you bundle them with the thing that you absolutely love the most. So for me, I cannot make myself

00:06:38.960 | work out for the life of me. I hate it so much. I work out in the morning and I'll literally sit

00:06:42.880 | there and be like, I'll stall on the entire rest of my day because I cannot convince myself to do

00:06:47.840 | a workout. But I save my very favorite podcasts for the time that I work out and I only get to

00:06:53.600 | listen to those podcasts when I am working out. So I have bundled those things. I've made the

00:06:58.400 | workout more appealing and I'm thus more likely to do it, to not procrastinate on it and to actually

00:07:02.960 | get it done. So you can do that with anything you want to do in your life that you have a hard time

00:07:06.400 | doing. It can be like a little treat that you only give yourself when you're doing paperwork or taxes

00:07:12.560 | or something like that. It can be I like to watch my favorite Real Housewives. I've gotten really

00:07:16.880 | into Real Housewives recently for the first time in my life. It's like an exciting adventure for me.

00:07:20.480 | I only get to watch it when I'm folding laundry because I hate folding laundry. So it's taking

00:07:24.480 | the thing you love the most and you are only allowed to do it. You can watch other shows,

00:07:28.320 | you can listen to other podcasts other times in your life, but you can only do the one you love

00:07:31.200 | the most when you're doing the thing that you want to do that you don't like. Okay. And how

00:07:35.600 | do you think that compares to creating self-imposed penalties or other ways to motivate yourself? Yeah.

00:07:41.360 | So there's a lot of, again, procrastination tips in this book because it's something that I really,

00:07:46.000 | really struggle with. So I think self-imposed penalties, that's another bit of Dr. Melkman's

00:07:50.560 | research. We have an entire podcast with Dr. Melkman about habits and routines. I think it's

00:07:55.200 | called something like how to get more in shape, save more money. It's like all these promises,

00:08:00.320 | but the thing is that Dr. Melkman's research comes back to achieving anything you want to achieve in

00:08:05.520 | any part of your life. So the self-imposed penalties is really fun. That would be something

00:08:10.240 | as easy as like you signing up for a workout class that you have to pay for in advance that if you

00:08:14.720 | cancel, you don't get your money back, you're significantly more likely, research shows,

00:08:18.800 | to actually attend that workout class. If you want to take a vacation and you're one of those people

00:08:22.960 | who really has a hard time carving out the time in your life, even though so much research shows

00:08:28.160 | we perform better at work, we're happier in our relationships, we're healthier when we take our

00:08:32.400 | vacation days. But if that is you, if you pay for your vacation ahead of time and you make it

00:08:36.960 | non-refundable, you're so much more likely to take it, obviously. So knowing the way that our brain

00:08:41.360 | works can help us actually keep to stick to the things that we want to stick to in that way.

00:08:46.960 | There's an awesome book called Happy Money. It's basically like five or six tips to use

00:08:52.240 | your money to be happier. And one of them is prepaying for vacations or things in general.

00:08:56.880 | And the argument there is a little bit different. So there's a double bonus if you prepay for

00:09:01.120 | vacations. Both you commit to going, but at the end, you don't have to pay the bill. So you've

00:09:06.160 | paid the bill in advance. When you're done, you're not like, "Oh, that was so... And I have to spend

00:09:10.720 | this thing." So it's not a letdown at the end of your trip. And even hotels that aren't pay at the

00:09:15.760 | end, you can call them and say, "Hey, can I just give you the credit card now? Can you run it now?"

00:09:18.800 | Even if it's refundable, they'll refund you. But you get rid of that moment at the end of

00:09:23.040 | your trip where you see the bill and you realize how much room service, cocktails on the beach,

00:09:27.120 | whatever it was you ordered, you can just kind of prepay for at least the room part usually in

00:09:30.800 | advance. Tell them to send your bill, don't need to sign at the end and kind of shelve the spending.

00:09:35.840 | Even better if you prepay and you don't even have it show up on your expenses, your tracking,

00:09:39.760 | anything. And there is... Do you know what girl math is? I don't. I didn't know math had a gender.

00:09:46.000 | So it's like a TikTok trend right now. But it's like if you return packages, you're making money.

00:09:50.560 | That's girl math. It's the idea that all of these ways that we can begin to justify purchases in

00:09:57.040 | our minds. And any gender can enjoy girl math. But it's called girl math. And I do think there's

00:10:02.720 | also something about paying for something in advance that when you go do it, it's free.

00:10:06.800 | And that's girl math. And I feel like if I paid for a trip six months ago and I go on it, I'm like,

00:10:11.520 | "Oh my gosh, it's a free trip." Yeah. Although I will say once you've paid for the trip,

00:10:16.880 | the counter to this is I've met so many people that have paid for something and then they do

00:10:21.200 | it even though they don't want to do it because they paid for it. And I feel like this sunk cost

00:10:25.440 | fallacy thing is really messing with people. I have a friend who once was like, "I don't really

00:10:29.440 | want to go to this concert. It's raining. It's going to be awful." And they're like, "But I

00:10:32.480 | paid for it." And I was like, "Just don't go." And they're like, "Well, I already paid for it."

00:10:34.880 | I was like, "You paid for it. Whether you go or don't go." So shelve that decision aside and now

00:10:39.920 | say, "I've already spent this money. What do I want to do tonight? What's going to be the

00:10:44.320 | most enjoyable thing tonight?" I would also say though, I would encourage if people are feeling

00:10:48.960 | like that, go do the thing. If you want to go home early, go home early. But I think often

00:10:53.760 | we really underestimate how much we're going to enjoy having an experience and we overestimate

00:10:59.440 | how much we will feel safe and comfortable and happy being at home and essentially consuming

00:11:04.640 | other people's lives on television and social media. So I would say air towards going to the

00:11:10.080 | concert. And if you absolutely hate it, then go home. I feel like you're trending us towards a

00:11:15.360 | conversation about not saying no to yourself, which is great because it was the last one I

00:11:20.000 | wanted to hit on in success. This is my life motto. This is the thing that I account. I give

00:11:26.240 | never be the one to say no to yourself credit for so much of my success, which is fine because it's

00:11:30.240 | my motto and I came up with it. So I can give it the credit. But this, I don't even know where this

00:11:36.640 | came from in my life. I feel like I have been never being the one to say no to yourself since

00:11:40.320 | I was five years old. The first time I can think of that I never be the one to say no to yourself

00:11:46.720 | was when I was a teenager and I was like, "I want to write a newspaper column." And I walked into

00:11:51.680 | my local newspaper. I was like, "You should have a column for teenagers and it should be written by

00:11:55.200 | a teenager." And I was like, "Okay." And so then I wrote a newspaper column and that column gave me

00:12:00.160 | writing experience so that when I graduated from college, it ended up being nationally syndicated,

00:12:03.680 | which was really fun. And then when I graduated from college, I was able to run an editorial team

00:12:08.560 | despite having just graduated from college because I had six years by then of newspaper

00:12:12.800 | experience under my belt. And I got my first cookbook deal by never being the one to say

00:12:18.480 | no to myself. I got my second cookbook deal. I got my dream job in editorial in New York City.

00:12:23.520 | And the principle behind never being the one to say no to yourself is not that everybody in the

00:12:28.080 | world will always say yes to you. I have gotten so many no's in my life, but the principle is that

00:12:35.840 | you are never the one telling yourself no. You are saying unequivocally, "Liz, I believe in you.

00:12:42.880 | Liz, you've got this." If the world doesn't agree, cool, whatever. That's good information. You can

00:12:47.920 | go out and find somebody else to say no. You can go out and find somebody else to say yes, or you

00:12:52.960 | can accept the no. You can learn from the no and you can move on. But I think always being in your

00:12:57.840 | own corner and your own cheerleader is such a powerful message to give your brain. And by and

00:13:04.960 | large, when you are telling yourself no, there is likely a yes out there. I have so many people who

00:13:10.960 | – I have people who have gotten married because they have asked out somebody that they did not

00:13:15.440 | think would say yes to them, and then it ended up being a beautiful relationship and is now

00:13:19.120 | a partnership with children. I have so many people who write to me and they have gotten

00:13:24.400 | raises they didn't think were possible. They've gotten houses that they didn't think that they

00:13:28.400 | could qualify or they wrote letters to the house owners and they were like, "I really want your

00:13:33.200 | house," and they gave it to them. There are so many areas in our lives that we are limiting ourselves

00:13:38.480 | that if we just went out and we looked for a no, we would likely get a yes.

00:13:44.320 | How do you think you combat that with just being irrationally optimistic and convincing

00:13:49.920 | yourself that you can do anything when in reality some things maybe you can't?

00:13:53.040 | I think that most of the most successful people that I know are irrationally optimistic. I think

00:13:58.800 | that there was some quote I read ages ago that was like, "To be a successful business person,

00:14:04.240 | you literally need to be delusional because you have to have such a belief in things working that

00:14:09.440 | odds show shouldn't work." So I think you can use no's as information. If you're trying to

00:14:16.880 | write a book and you go out and you get 25 no's from agents, that's probably good information.

00:14:21.840 | You can ask them why the no. You can use that to rework your proposal and go out again,

00:14:26.880 | but I do think that that is so much better than saying no to yourself, never writing the proposal,

00:14:33.680 | never getting out there, and I think that you can learn from that and then you can take that

00:14:38.400 | information and go forward the next time. So what about areas of life where there isn't a

00:14:43.280 | no to go get? For example, if you want to go start a podcast or start a blog, there's no no. You can

00:14:47.520 | just do it and you can keep doing it for years. How do you find out when to stop on something like

00:14:52.080 | that and say no to yourself? So the thing that I run into the most with my audience and with people

00:14:56.800 | I talk to is not, "I've started a podcast. I've put in the work for years. I'm not qualified to

00:15:02.640 | do this. I'm not learning. I'm not growing." It's, "I want to start a podcast, but I don't think I'm

00:15:07.280 | good enough. I want to start a podcast, but what's all the equipment that I need to buy? I want to

00:15:11.040 | start a podcast, but I spent 17 hours browsing Amazon trying to figure out what camera and what

00:15:16.080 | microphone I should get." And I think those are different ways that we are saying no to ourselves

00:15:21.360 | in the creation process. I think that one way, one really powerful way to say yes to yourself is to

00:15:26.800 | say, "I have the tools that I need to create. What I create is going to be probably really shitty,

00:15:32.640 | and the thing that's going to make it less shitty is to continue to create it over time."

00:15:37.200 | Most podcasters I know suck at the beginning. They put out really bad podcasts, myself included,

00:15:44.160 | for one podcast, two podcasts, three podcasts, four podcasts, five podcasts. You and I have

00:15:49.840 | been doing, how many podcasts have you done now? This will probably be 136.

00:15:54.080 | Hundreds of podcasts, and that's how you get good at a craft is by starting with the shitty

00:16:01.120 | microphone, the shitty camera, no camera at all, no microphone, doing it on your computer,

00:16:06.400 | and then learning and growing from the process. So I would say I meet far less people who have

00:16:12.080 | honed their craft over years and years and years and not gotten to a place where the quality is

00:16:18.320 | good enough or better. And I meet so many people who quit before they even begin.

00:16:22.800 | Yeah. And if someone listening is thinking in their head, "What equipment?" I would just say,

00:16:28.080 | "Buy an ATR 2100X mic. It's a hundred bucks. It's what I used for the first 50 episodes."

00:16:32.880 | And plug it into your computer and record it and put your podcast into script. And that's it.

00:16:37.520 | I feel like I read ages ago that that's what Tim Ferriss still uses for his podcasts. And I was

00:16:42.960 | like, "Okay, that's good enough." I can't remember. I remember on the

00:16:45.440 | video, I was like, "Oh, what was he using?" But yeah, there's basically three tiers of

00:16:49.920 | podcast microphones. That one, the one I'm on, and the one you're on. And those are the three tiers,

00:16:54.880 | and there are plenty of others, but you don't really need... You can grow as much as you need

00:16:59.680 | on a basic microphone if your content is good. A hundred percent.

00:17:02.560 | Okay. So hopefully people are feeling like they are set up for success. But obviously,

00:17:07.360 | there's a lot more ways to do that. Go read the rest. Let's talk about health.

00:17:11.200 | I mentioned earlier that there is a whole section here on gut health. I don't even know where to

00:17:17.600 | begin there. It's something I've never spent much time on. So you had a section that was how to make

00:17:22.800 | your gut feel great. Why do I even care? And I don't mean that like it sounds... I just don't

00:17:30.240 | know enough to know why would I want, if I'm thinking of all the things I can do to improve

00:17:34.480 | my life, why is making my gut better important? Okay. So two things. One thing is that this book

00:17:41.440 | wants to solve all of the problems that you are having that are keeping you from living the life

00:17:46.720 | that you want to live on a day-to-day basis. So if you're feeling bloated, if you're feeling

00:17:50.240 | constipated, if you're feeling like you don't have the energy that you want, that's all going

00:17:55.760 | to be covered in the gut health section. But moreover, and I think far more importantly,

00:18:00.480 | is that our microbiome impacts so much of our full body health. So our microbiome is having a huge

00:18:07.120 | impact on our ability to sleep well, on our energy levels, on our hormones, on our mental health. The

00:18:12.960 | gut-brain connection is very well studied, and it has a very profound effect. So by taking care of

00:18:18.560 | your gut health, you're kind of taking care of the seed of a plant. You're watering it. You're

00:18:23.280 | giving it the soil that it needs to grow, and then you're going to turn into this big, beautiful

00:18:28.400 | flower. You're like, "I don't want to be a flower." No, I'm okay being a big, beautiful flower. But

00:18:34.560 | what are the kinds of things I could do? Are there ways that I can upgrade what I'm already eating

00:18:38.560 | that's not too hard to improve my gut health? Yeah. So this is a big thing that I've found.

00:18:43.600 | I've interviewed hundreds of different doctors, gut health experts, microbiome experts, hormone

00:18:50.400 | experts, all these different people. And one of the questions I always get is like, "What are the

00:18:55.200 | best foods that you should eat?" And there's a lot of dissonance about what our diet should actually

00:19:02.240 | look like on social media. And people are confused, and I get that. But I think if you actually dive

00:19:06.720 | into what people are saying, the things people are disagreeing about are like the top 10%,

00:19:11.760 | maybe at best, and they're agreeing about the other 90%. And so what this book really focuses

00:19:17.440 | on is what are the experts agreeing on? What does the research show? And what are the ways that we

00:19:22.160 | can take the foods that we are already eating and make them even better for us without spending more

00:19:28.400 | money on fancy powders and supplements and just all of this stuff that, again, when we're taking

00:19:34.320 | care of our base structure, you do not need. So some of my favorite tips are things like if you

00:19:40.320 | chop your cruciferous vegetables and you let them sit for 40 minutes, they develop a compound that's

00:19:46.080 | incredibly good for our bodies. It's anti-cancerous. It's good for our brains. And then if you add

00:19:51.360 | mustard to that, you actually increase that compound even further. And so you're just

00:19:55.360 | taking something that you would normally eat. You're taking your cruciferous vegetables.

00:19:58.720 | Which, by the way, are what?

00:20:00.240 | That's broccoli. That's Brussels sprouts. That's watercress. That's kale, anything like that. And

00:20:06.160 | you're taking these foods you'd already eat, and you're just chopping them at the beginning of your

00:20:09.760 | meal prep. So you're making your salad. Chop your cruciferous vegetables first. By the time you're

00:20:14.640 | ready to eat, they will have developed this compound. And then if you want to take it to

00:20:18.240 | the next level, do a little mustard vinaigrette on top of your salad. Do some mustard seeds on

00:20:22.800 | top of your roasted broccoli, which is so good. And you're taking it even further. And you're

00:20:27.680 | taking this food that you're already eating, this food group that you're already eating,

00:20:30.240 | and you're making it even better for yourself.

00:20:31.920 | OK. And some of the things you mentioned, I'm like, OK, I'm not feeling bloated right now.

00:20:38.320 | But who doesn't want more energy? So I want to make sure we hit on that section of health because

00:20:43.120 | I don't know that many people that aren't struggling with energy. Maybe it's because

00:20:47.760 | I'm now hanging out with lots of people with children, and we're not sleeping as much as we

00:20:51.040 | used to, and we don't have the free time we used to. But what tips do you have there?

00:20:54.800 | So one of the things that I think is really underlooked for energy is our metabolic health.

00:20:59.280 | Our metabolism is essentially the energy of our body. But we talk about it in this shitty,

00:21:06.000 | diet-centric, '90s magazine-type way, like, "Oh, my God, you've got to hack your metabolism. You've

00:21:11.520 | got to, like, lose weight." And it's like, no, taking care of our metabolic health is going to

00:21:15.520 | give us the energy that we need to take on our day every single day. There's a few ways that we can

00:21:20.000 | begin to have better metabolic health. So one of my favorite ways is just to look for the things

00:21:25.520 | that you can add to your meals. You want to add fat. You want to add a healthy source of fat.

00:21:29.600 | You want to add a healthy source of fiber to your meals. You want to add as much vegetables

00:21:33.840 | to your meals as you possibly can. So looking at your plate and instead of thinking,

00:21:37.280 | "What am I taking out?" You're thinking, "I got exactly what I want. I got my frozen pizza. What

00:21:41.920 | does that have on it? Could I add some fiber in the form of vegetables? Could I add a healthy

00:21:46.400 | fat? Could I add a healthy protein to this thing that you're already eating to elongate the blood

00:21:51.440 | sugar spike and dip, to elongate your blood sugar curve so that you're having a healthier metabolic

00:21:58.640 | response to that, which is in turn going to give you more energy." Another little metabolic

00:22:03.440 | health hack that I love is that your muscles essentially act as glucose sponges. So after you

00:22:10.160 | eat a meal, your muscles are soaking up that glucose so that you're not having, again,

00:22:14.560 | that spike and that dip that's going to cost you your precious energy. So after you eat a meal,

00:22:19.760 | you can go on a little walk. There's a reason that this is so popular in so many cultures around the

00:22:24.720 | world. You can do five squats. You just want to activate your muscles to create that glucose

00:22:30.720 | absorption to elongate that curve so that you're going to have more energy as a result and you're

00:22:35.760 | taking better care of your metabolic health as a result. Also, you can get a little bit of a

00:22:40.880 | head start on that by creating bigger, stronger muscles in the first place. So weight training,

00:22:46.080 | anything that you're doing that's optimizing your muscles and your health of your muscles.

00:22:50.400 | So anything that you do that's going to make bigger, stronger muscles is going to help,

00:22:54.880 | again, with that glucose response. Does it have to be, like, is it better to focus on all your

00:23:00.000 | muscles? Should you do, like, one of those quick three-minute, hit-every-muscle group-in-your-body

00:23:04.480 | exercises? Or is there, like, a perfect thing that doesn't look too awkward a few minutes after

00:23:08.720 | dinner that you can do? I think that this is an example of where people try to over-optimize and

00:23:14.240 | they, like, lose sight of the forest for the trees. Any movement after you eat is going to

00:23:20.640 | activate your muscles. If you think you're activating your muscles, you are activating

00:23:24.160 | your muscles. So again, literally don't overthink it. Go on a walk. If you can't go on a walk,

00:23:28.240 | do some squats. You can have sex with your partner. You can do all sorts of things.

00:23:32.720 | If you think you're activating your muscles, you're activating your muscles.

00:23:35.680 | All right. I like it. Okay. So we can get healthier and we can get happier. So I want

00:23:40.320 | to talk about happiness. I think we can all agree that it's a noble goal for all of us to achieve

00:23:45.840 | more of it. So what's one way you can start to rewire yourself to be happier?

00:23:52.320 | This is probably my all-time favorite tip in the book. It's from Dr. Rick Hansen. He's at

00:23:58.240 | UC Berkeley. He's at Greater Goods. I don't know what the center is called. This is from Dr. Rick

00:24:02.640 | Hansen. He's at UC Berkeley. He has the kindest energy of any human being that I have ever met

00:24:09.200 | in my life. And he's brilliant. He combines neuroscience with Zen Buddhism. He's just a

00:24:15.680 | brilliant, brilliant man. And he talks about how we can literally rewire our neural pathways so

00:24:21.520 | that we can feel the way that we want to feel on a day-to-day basis. And the way that you do it is

00:24:25.680 | this. If you picture your brain like a meadow and you're trying to get through the meadow and

00:24:31.120 | there's like tall grass everywhere and you're looking for the path and you're going to take

00:24:34.400 | the path that is the easiest path to get through the meadow. Every time you're thinking a thought

00:24:38.720 | that's, "I'm so stressed. I hate myself so much. Why is this so hard? Why does everybody hate me?"

00:24:44.640 | You're essentially taking those thoughts and you're rewiring your neural pathways in that

00:24:50.000 | direction. You're carving a path through that meadow. So the next time that your brain is

00:24:54.880 | looking to take a path through the meadow, it's going to take the one that you already created

00:24:58.640 | with those negative thoughts. It's going to go to those negative thoughts and you're going to feel

00:25:01.920 | really shitty. But if you intentionally create a pathway for good thoughts, your brain the next

00:25:09.600 | time it's given the opportunity is going to take that pathway because that's the more well-trod

00:25:13.440 | path. That's the neurons that you've connected together to feel as good as possible. And the

00:25:18.160 | way that you do that is this. It's really simple. The next time that you feel a little bit of

00:25:22.880 | something good, it could be, "Wow, this book's really interesting. Wow, I'm really enjoying

00:25:26.480 | this conversation. Wow, this Coca-Cola's bubbles are just hitting really well right now." It can

00:25:32.160 | be teeny tiny. "I love this sunset. This flower smells great. My dog is so cute today." You sit

00:25:37.840 | in it for a little bit longer than you normally would and you amplify that feeling. You notice it,

00:25:43.040 | you amplify it, you sit in it. That's all you're doing. "Oh my God, the bubbles in this Coke. Yum.

00:25:49.280 | Love it. So good." Move on with your life. Does it have to be external or can you just

00:25:52.720 | say this in your head? No, internally. I'm voicing my internal monologue here. No, I love it because

00:25:57.600 | you can be doing it in a meeting at work. You could be doing it while you're talking to your

00:26:00.720 | spouse. I sometimes have moments where I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for

00:26:04.720 | my husband. I probably shouldn't say it out loud, honestly, because he'd probably appreciate it,

00:26:08.720 | but I'll just sit in there and be like, "Oh my God, I can't believe that if all the people in

00:26:12.320 | the world, I found you and I get to live my life with you." And I'll sit in that feeling and I'll

00:26:17.200 | amplify it and I'll turn it up. And that's building. That is literally on a biological level,

00:26:22.880 | on a neurological level, you are rewiring your neural pathways. You are building them together

00:26:28.800 | to create the routes that you want to take through that meadow. So the next time that your brain is

00:26:34.560 | like, "Hmm, what route should I take? What thought should I think?" It's going to take those good

00:26:38.080 | pathways and you're going to feel so much better in your day-to-day life. So look for the little

00:26:43.440 | opportunities. The next time you feel anything good, "Hmm, this ice cream is so delicious." Sit

00:26:48.720 | in it, amplify it, and really, really savor that feeling so that you can rewire your neural

00:26:54.560 | pathways. I don't have a corporate job anymore, but this feels like the perfect opportunity for

00:26:58.880 | one of those really big meetings where it's a total waste of time, but you have to be there.

00:27:03.680 | And you're like, "Well, I kind of can't..." Especially if you're in person, you're like,

00:27:06.720 | "I can't not be here." It's like, just stare at something in the room. Think about something

00:27:11.120 | great. You don't have to distract yourself with your phone and look like you're not paying

00:27:14.720 | attention. Appreciate someone's shirt. Appreciate something tiny.

00:27:17.840 | But what I love about it is like... So you took an example of something that's kind of boring

00:27:23.120 | that we all hate. And the thing is that if you go in there with the neural pathways that you've

00:27:27.520 | wired towards stress, towards anger, towards bitterness, you will likely think your brain

00:27:31.440 | will again take those pathways and you'll think, "Ugh, why are we having these meetings again?

00:27:35.440 | This is stupid. I hate this. I hate my job. Why aren't I Kim Kardashian at this point in my life?"

00:27:40.480 | But if you've wired your neural pathways to good by smelling your dog's fur and really

00:27:46.160 | sitting in that and savoring it... My cat smells so good, let me tell you. It's the

00:27:49.840 | best smell in the whole world. I'm like, "I've never bathed you once. How do you smell so good?"

00:27:54.000 | And I know what you eat. I'm laughing over here because my dog,

00:27:57.360 | I don't think smells good almost ever, except for some reason, his ears smell like tortilla chips.

00:28:01.680 | I don't know why. All right. All right. Well, that's something.

00:28:04.480 | But if you've done that by smelling your pet, by hugging your partner, by eating the Mexican food,

00:28:10.240 | the next time you go into that super boring meeting, you wouldn't have to try. You'll

00:28:14.080 | naturally think, "Oh, that's an interesting idea. Or maybe this is an opportunity to share something

00:28:18.880 | or learn something that I haven't shared before. Aren't I lucky to have this job?"

00:28:22.720 | Your brain will do that effortlessly in these moments that you would have otherwise tended

00:28:27.840 | towards negativity. One of the other elements of happiness, I think, especially as you touch

00:28:33.120 | on it, but for me, is just feeling good about decisions we make. How can we just offload the

00:28:38.880 | entire cognitive load when it comes to this process? One of my favorite tricks in life,

00:28:44.720 | this is from Annie Murphy Paul. She's a behavioral science writer and she studies essentially how we

00:28:50.080 | can use things outside of our brain, we can access outside of the brain thinking, is what she calls

00:28:55.680 | it, to become smarter. Then we can save our brain for the really special things that only our brain

00:29:00.800 | can do. But if you sit back and you think about it for a second, you're like, "How much am I

00:29:04.560 | making my brain do that could easily be done by a computer program, that could easily be done by a

00:29:11.440 | pad of paper and a pen?" You know what I mean? The idea behind cognitive offloading is taking

00:29:17.280 | all of those thoughts, every single little possible thing in your brain that you don't

00:29:21.840 | need to be wasting your precious neural capacity on and offloading it so that you can save your

00:29:27.840 | beautiful, brilliant brain for the things that really matter. I cognitively offload everything.

00:29:33.200 | I have Notion. Do you use Notion? I feel like you. All the time. Yeah. I use it for literally

00:29:37.120 | everything. I have notes of things to talk about in therapy. I have an ongoing grocery list that

00:29:42.080 | I share with my partner. I have every single podcast episode that I ever want to do in the

00:29:47.200 | future. I have things that I want to buy, which is one of my favorite parts of my Notion because

00:29:52.160 | you get that satisfaction. You'll see something online and be like, "Oh, my gosh. I really like

00:29:55.920 | that shirt." Then you put it on your things you want to buy list. You get that little dopamine

00:30:00.400 | hit of like, "Oh, I got the shirt," kind of, because I put it on this list. Then I find in

00:30:04.160 | like a week I don't care about the shirt. Then I don't buy it. Then I save money. It's really,

00:30:08.400 | really nice because you get that satisfaction of almost like adding it to your cart.

00:30:12.800 | I have everything on my Notion. I find that by not having to be like, "Wait, what did we need

00:30:21.440 | to add to the grocery list?" or, "What was that podcast episode that I think I wanted to produce,

00:30:25.920 | but I don't know. I was going to noodle on it for a while." By taking all those thoughts out of my

00:30:29.760 | brain, my brain is freer to have the deep and exciting and interesting thoughts that I want

00:30:35.120 | it to have. So I'm going to take a tiny segue and get your take on something I got in my inbox

00:30:39.360 | yesterday. So there's a company called Rewind. And what they basically do is it runs on a Mac,

00:30:45.760 | and it just records everything that's happening on your computer. All the websites you visit,

00:30:49.680 | the Zoom meetings you're in, and there are some requirements in every state to disclose anything.

00:30:56.320 | They pop up and say, "Do you want to record this meeting?" So to record everything you're

00:30:59.760 | doing. And you can query it and you can be like, "What website did I look at on last Friday? I

00:31:04.960 | was trying to find this thing." You can search the text on everything on your screen. So we can all

00:31:09.040 | agree that maybe that has a use case. But here's the crazy thing. They sent me an email and they

00:31:12.800 | were like, "Do you want..." I hope I'm not in any beta program, but they're like, "Do you want to

00:31:16.720 | pre-order this product?" It's called the Rewind Pendant. And it is a necklace with a microphone

00:31:21.120 | that does the same thing in person. So you can completely cognitively offload everything and say,

00:31:26.160 | "Go to a conference, wear this thing all the time in a thing," and say, "What did I talk to that

00:31:31.040 | person about at this conference?" Wow. I'm very curious to get your take. This is the first time

00:31:35.360 | I've actually gotten anyone else's opinion on it. That is so interesting. Okay, so my first thought

00:31:39.600 | is like... Cognitively offload everything. Everything, yeah. And on the other hand,

00:31:43.040 | kind of creepy. I feel like my literal first thought was like, "This would change the way

00:31:48.000 | that I fight with my partner," because I feel like so much of fighting with your partner is like,

00:31:51.760 | "You said this on this day." And then they're like, "No, I didn't. I said this." And you're

00:31:55.920 | like, "No, I'm 95% sure." Or like, "I asked you to do this." And they're like, "No, you didn't."

00:31:59.760 | And you're like, "No, I definitely did." And to be able to search that. But also, I don't know,

00:32:04.640 | for me, I want to cognitively offload the parts that aren't human interaction so I can enjoy the

00:32:09.920 | human interactions more. So I think that's where my ick would come in with it. I want to have my

00:32:15.360 | brain... For me, the point of cognitive offloading is to focus my brain in the directions that I want

00:32:20.560 | to focus it, to not have it be occupied by the things that I don't want it to be occupied by.

00:32:24.880 | And the thing I want it to be occupied by is human interaction. And I think that the

00:32:29.680 | fear would be that this device would make me want to not spend as much of my energy or attention on

00:32:37.840 | that. Yeah, I mean, I was very torn. The thing that I like, which I'm not sure I like enough

00:32:42.720 | to actually outweigh all the problems, is just sometimes I get really into a conversation. I

00:32:48.720 | have a wonderful conversation with someone. And then later, I want to come back to it and be like,

00:32:53.600 | "Oh, I really enjoyed talking to you about this." But it was at a conference, and it's two days

00:32:56.960 | later. And I'm like, "I don't remember. Who did I have?" I couldn't remember a thing. And there

00:33:01.600 | are some people who naturally remember. Some people who leave each meeting, and they write

00:33:04.560 | down six notes about the conversation they have, which for me is the exact opposite. It's like,

00:33:08.880 | "I just took myself away from the moment I love to take notes, and this would do it for you."

00:33:12.960 | I don't know. It also doesn't even matter because the privacy issues around it are so huge that I'm

00:33:18.000 | like, "Could this even catch on in a greater way?" Yeah, it did say on the thing, it said,

00:33:24.400 | "We have a way." And this is how I think it will work from a technology standpoint.

00:33:28.560 | It says, "We have a way to prevent recording people who don't want to be recorded." And I

00:33:33.040 | believe the way it works, and this is me believing by... They don't say anything. It's like,

00:33:38.560 | "If we hear a voice that isn't yours, we prompt you a push notification to get consent before

00:33:43.200 | we'll continue recording." So obviously, anyone can just put a microphone on them and record

00:33:47.120 | everyone. That technology has been around for decades. But this would be, "Hey, we're going

00:33:53.440 | to pause anytime we hear someone else's voice close enough that it seems like they're actively

00:33:57.760 | around you, and you have to opt in." I think that's what they would do. I say this having

00:34:02.400 | no context in what they actually would do. Yeah, I'm so interested. It feels dystopian,

00:34:06.240 | I will say. I have had... Using the one on my computer, the software this company, Rewind,

00:34:10.960 | makes, has saved me in 10 different ways that are all relatively minor. But it's like,

00:34:18.160 | I think we've all written something, whether we filled out a form, whether it was writing

00:34:22.960 | something that didn't save, and then you close the window or close the tab, and you go back,

00:34:26.720 | and it's gone. What are they doing for storage? It's just all locally stored on your computer,

00:34:30.880 | not on the cloud. But does it self-erase every week? Yeah. You can choose, but I think I had

00:34:36.880 | mine set for seven days. And 90% of the use cases I've had for it were not, "Let me query something

00:34:42.880 | from 10 weeks ago." It was purely like, "I did this thing." Five seconds ago. Yeah. This is a

00:34:49.120 | strange example, but I was setting up auto insurance with USAA. And they were like, "You're

00:34:54.640 | going to get this special price if you bundle home and auto and add on this policy." And then once I

00:34:59.760 | did it all, I was like, "Hey, I didn't see the discounts." And they're like, "Yeah, they're just

00:35:02.800 | going to come in three weeks." And I was like, "Well, what are they going to be?" And she's

00:35:05.920 | like, "Well, you just have to wait and see." I was like, "No, no, no. You told me, but I can't

00:35:08.800 | go back." And then I was like, "Oh, well, I looked at it yesterday. Rewind, take a screenshot. Now,

00:35:12.880 | I have it saved." So it has saved me a few times. But I'm not sure I'm harnessing like, "Ooh, what

00:35:21.360 | is this thing that I did three weeks ago?" I think we're all going to have to rewire...

00:35:24.720 | If this technology pervades our lives, we're going to have to rewire how we think to search.

00:35:29.680 | You know how nowadays we're like, "Oh, I don't have to think about something. I'll just Google

00:35:33.200 | it." I don't think we've rewired our brain to Google our own personal histories as much as we

00:35:39.440 | do information. But I wonder if in the future, we're going to be wired just like now, if someone

00:35:44.960 | was like, "Who is the 15th president?" In our brain, I don't even think most people in our

00:35:50.480 | generation or below think, "Who could that have been?" We just instantly think, "Let's search it."

00:35:55.040 | I wonder if now we're going to think, "What was I doing on my birthday last year?"

00:36:00.480 | To me, naturally, I'm not quite there. Sometimes I'm like, "Oh, I bet I could find a photo." But

00:36:05.280 | by default, I try to think. It's going to be weird if in the future, it's like we've

00:36:09.120 | cognitively offloaded everything. Then the interesting question there,

00:36:12.320 | I think, is what is that freed up neural capacity going to be used for?

00:36:16.800 | I have no idea.

00:36:17.440 | Because I do think there are things that we are using our brains for now that weren't possible

00:36:21.760 | when our brains were more focused on survival and the mechanisms of day-to-day life in a different

00:36:27.280 | way. I think we're thinking about things in a different way, whether it's for better or for

00:36:31.120 | worse, I can't say. But I'd be curious what that would do to our neural processes outside of it.

00:36:38.320 | Yes. To be determined, I will find you in person wearing this pendant if it ever gets created and

00:36:44.480 | supported. You will keep your mouth quiet and you probably won't say all the...

00:36:49.120 | It's going to be weird in an interaction in a social environment. I don't know if I want to

00:36:54.000 | say all the things.

00:36:55.600 | Well, that's the other thing is how would it impact human relationships and a feeling of

00:36:59.280 | safety and security that you have around your friends and your family and your partner and

00:37:03.200 | all of those things.

00:37:04.000 | It's going to be weird. But let's get into relationships.

00:37:07.360 | Let's go into relationships because we started getting there and I got excited because this

00:37:12.720 | was the one that I said I wanted to come back to because it's top of mind for me.

00:37:17.120 | I think building deeper relationships, especially with the people that matter,

00:37:21.600 | becomes such a different challenge and priority in life after, in my case,

00:37:27.360 | having children because you just don't have time. You don't have time for all the relationships

00:37:31.760 | and it almost feels like work to keep up with some people that you want to keep up with.

00:37:36.160 | I have one thing I'll share at some point, but I'm curious how you think about this broadly in

00:37:42.320 | terms of picking who to spend time with and deepening those relationships.

00:37:46.560 | The first thing that I would say is even by identifying that you're excited to talk about

00:37:51.280 | relationships, you're winning. I think a lot of us in the world today have failed to identify

00:37:56.880 | community and relationships as a critical part of happiness, of our health, of the way that

00:38:03.040 | we live our lives that will lead to satisfaction and success. I think that relationships are at

00:38:08.400 | the core of almost every single thing that we do and we act like they're an afterthought.

00:38:13.440 | We act like, "Oh, if I get through my busy day, if I accomplish all my tasks for work,

00:38:17.120 | if I do all my health hacks, whatever, if I finish everything that I need to do on my

00:38:21.760 | to-do list, then I can have time to socialize and to spend with the people that I love."

00:38:26.400 | I almost think that we need to be flipping that equation. If you need to take away some of your

00:38:31.920 | other health habits to preserve your relationships, to create that time, I would say that's probably

00:38:37.280 | worth it at least some of the time because research shows, this is research from Dr.

00:38:42.560 | Robert Waldinger. He ran one of the longest studies of longevity and happiness and essentially

00:38:48.000 | living a thriving life. It is an 80-year-plus study about what makes a good life. At the end

00:38:53.040 | of it, at the end of the day, the one-liner is that the relationships that we form are the bedrock,

00:39:00.240 | the foundation of what a good life looks like. Good relationships are going to make us live

00:39:05.680 | longer. They're going to lower our stress levels. They're going to make us excited to wake up every

00:39:09.840 | single day. They are the single most important thing. Again, we treat it like an afterthought.

00:39:14.400 | One of the first things that I would recommend to anybody is to just switch that priority level. I

00:39:20.320 | think we are really focused on what supplements should I be taking? How can I optimize my workout

00:39:25.360 | routine? Do I need to go do a sauna or a cold plunge, things that are trendy? We should be

00:39:30.240 | thinking, "When was the last time that I saw somebody that I loved in person? When was the

00:39:34.880 | last time that I called this friend? When was the last time that instead of scrolling social media,

00:39:38.720 | I had a real human interaction that was really satisfying?" and moving that, again, to the top

00:39:43.360 | of the priority list. In terms of figuring out which people are worth your time and are worth

00:39:49.680 | you focusing your very limited space that you have each day on, I think I'd ask myself, "What

00:39:56.640 | are the things that you're looking for in your relationships right now?" I think I hear from a

00:40:00.560 | lot of new parents, "I'm having a hard time connecting with my friends," but the friends

00:40:04.160 | that you're trying to connect with are people who want to go out. They want to maybe meet a

00:40:08.400 | partner. They're just in a different space in their life, and you're creating this cognitive

00:40:12.240 | dissonance between what your goals are and the things that you're trying to do at that moment

00:40:16.000 | are and what their goals are, and that can lead to some friction in a relationship. I think the

00:40:20.240 | first thing is, what are you looking to get out of your relationships right now, and who are the

00:40:25.040 | people that can naturally tend towards giving you those things? I think one of the challenges I find,

00:40:31.920 | and I don't know if it's maybe I need the energy hacks first to get here, is the conversation

00:40:37.280 | often just divulges very quickly into the same thing you end up talking about with everyone,

00:40:42.240 | and you don't really get to go deep with anyone. I feel like I meet a lot of people at the park,

00:40:47.760 | and it's just like, "Oh, how old are your kids? What are they doing?" It's that conversation.

00:40:52.400 | What tips do you have for people that want to go deeper earlier and understand, "Is this a person

00:41:00.400 | that I could have a long-term connection with?" And I'm not talking romantic. I'm talking about

00:41:04.240 | random friends in the neighborhood, people you might hang out with on the weekend. But I find

00:41:08.880 | that if meaningful relationships are really valuable to happiness, I imagine – superficial

00:41:15.280 | is the wrong word – but just not very meaningful relationships aren't as valuable as meaningful

00:41:20.160 | ones. How do you take someone who you think you could have a meaningful relationship with

00:41:23.920 | in a completely platonic friendship way and go deep?

00:41:29.360 | Absolutely. There's amazing research from a woman named Dr. Marissa G. Franco,

00:41:33.920 | and she is a friendship psychologist. Her research shows that the more vulnerable we are,

00:41:41.680 | we think people are going to like us less. We're going to think people are going to get the ick.

00:41:44.960 | They're going to be like, "I don't want to engage with this." But in fact, the more vulnerable we

00:41:49.200 | are, the more people are going to like us, period. If you're at the playground and somebody's like,

00:41:54.080 | "Oh, how old is your kid?" Whatever. You could say, "Wow. This was a really exciting week. My

00:41:59.680 | kid hit this milestone. I did this work thing that I never thought was possible." You can be

00:42:03.920 | vulnerable in a good direction. You can also say, "It's been a really tough week. I've been feeling

00:42:07.760 | a lot of anxiety. I'm still struggling to learn how to deal with this." You can open up in a way

00:42:12.720 | that's going to push the conversation in the direction of vulnerability, giving them something

00:42:18.320 | to connect to. We think, again, that it's going to turn people away from us, but it's actually

00:42:22.640 | going to pull them into us. Yeah. It's funny. When we ran a company, we did an offsite, and

00:42:28.400 | the first thing we made everyone do at the offsite was just share vulnerable things,

00:42:33.280 | and then me and my co-founder went first. I think we probably read some similar study,

00:42:37.520 | and we were like, "If you want a team to really gel and go deeper, don't have the superficial

00:42:41.920 | conversations." I think sometimes it's hard with casual people at a conference to be like,

00:42:47.440 | "How do we jump into not what do you do?" I'm also a huge fan for this reason of

00:42:52.640 | putting a little bit of intentionality into our gathering. I did a podcast episode with Priya

00:42:58.160 | Parker who wrote a beautiful book about the art of gathering. It was about how when we come together

00:43:03.600 | as a community, by putting a little bit of intentionality behind that, we can get so much

00:43:08.160 | more out of that. Again, it's like leaning into the things that people find cringey, whether it's

00:43:13.360 | a conversation starter, a prompt, a saying. I don't want to have the same conversation over

00:43:19.280 | and over. Just putting a little bit of intentionality behind the gathering in the

00:43:23.040 | first place I think can be really helpful. I love organized fun. I love any type of getting together

00:43:29.840 | where there's a little bit of structure to it because I do think we're all kind of sick of just

00:43:34.160 | having the same conversation over and over. I think everybody is. I genuinely think everybody

00:43:40.160 | is and often just acknowledging that and saying, "Look, I have this conversation starter deck," or

00:43:45.280 | "I'm really sick of talking about the weather." Honestly, maybe you even say, "I'm sick of

00:43:50.640 | talking about my kids right now. I love my kids so much, but I'd rather talk about anything else."

00:43:54.560 | What was a vacation you went on that you last really enjoyed? What's your dream vacation?

00:43:59.840 | You can pull stuff out of the blue if you have the vulnerability to admit you're not

00:44:04.000 | happy with the status quo in the first place. I really like that. I think we both interviewed

00:44:08.320 | Vanessa Van Edwards who has some good tips here of jumping into a conversation and not saying,

00:44:14.000 | "What do you do for work?" but, "What's something awesome that happened at work this week?" or

00:44:17.440 | whatever. Come up with some ideas and just be intentional about it. I almost feel like I need

00:44:22.480 | a little script. I'm walking into the playground. I'm like, "Okay, what are the three questions I'm

00:44:25.840 | going to ask people today?" That's why I think just saying we all want to talk about something

00:44:30.640 | new because it's just we all want to. Do you know what I mean? I think acknowledging that,

00:44:34.800 | acknowledging the elephant in the room gives you so much permission to be like, "Oh, I heard this

00:44:38.640 | great question on a podcast," or, "I read this conversation starter in an email newsletter

00:44:42.720 | that I got the other day." What do you think of this? You have this tip in the book. I think

00:44:47.200 | Vanessa shared it on our episode. I've heard it from a lot of people at Negotiating. It's like

00:44:51.360 | building a deeper rapport, whether it's a friendship or even in work. Listening is also

00:44:55.920 | the key. There are so many ways that we can be generous with our attention. We focus so often

00:45:02.800 | on being the entertainer, but what people actually want is for us to be present with them. We're

00:45:10.000 | like, "Oh, what funny joke am I going to tell?" How many times have you been in a conversation

00:45:15.280 | where you think you're having a conversation, but they're just waiting for you to stop talking so

00:45:20.160 | they can say the thing that they were going to say? Everybody knows that feeling and it sucks.

00:45:24.480 | They're not thinking like, "Wow, they gave a really sparkling response to what I said."

00:45:29.040 | You're thinking like, "Oh, you weren't listening to me. That feels really bad. I don't like that."

00:45:33.760 | So I think that being an incredibly attentive listener is genuinely one of the best gifts you

00:45:39.600 | can give somebody. It makes them like you more. Even if you need to take a second when they

00:45:44.000 | finish talking and say, "Huh, that was really interesting. I'm going to think about my response

00:45:48.320 | for a second." That's not the end of the world. It's actually often really appreciated. I also

00:45:52.800 | think in terms of reactions, thinking about how you're reacting to people too. I have a tip in

00:45:58.080 | the book about how we can have more fun in our lives. This is from Katherine Price. We did an

00:46:03.360 | entire episode about how to create more fun, how to be a fun magnet, the type of person that

00:46:08.400 | everybody always thinks is really fun and wants to be around. One of the best hacks for that

00:46:13.920 | is to be quick to laugh. I love it because it is so simple, and it's not fake laughing. It's just

00:46:19.840 | leaning into the moments where you're entertained and being generous with your laughter. We can all

00:46:26.080 | remember those times when we go out and we feel like we're the funniest person in the world. How

00:46:30.000 | good does it feel to be around those people who make us feel like that? Those are the people that

00:46:34.240 | you want to invite out over and over. They haven't entertained you. They haven't danced on a table.

00:46:39.360 | They haven't told a really witty joke. They've laughed when you've said funny things. But those

00:46:44.960 | are the people that we want to be around. I love this. I feel like I need to be more

00:46:47.840 | intentional about laughing without being fake. I got to figure that one out.

00:46:50.320 | Without being fake, but I think there's so many opportunities. One, you won't catch them if you're

00:46:54.880 | not listening, if you're not paying attention. But two, we almost hold ourselves back from

00:46:58.960 | feeling and expressing those emotions, and they're one of the most beautiful gifts that we can give

00:47:03.440 | other people. There was something I referenced earlier, and I was listening, don't worry.

00:47:07.280 | But there was something where I was like, "Oh, I asked you a question," then I was like, "Oh,

00:47:12.880 | I'll get back to it and share my hack." Wait, can I ask you? I want to ask you,

00:47:17.040 | what are your relationship challenges? Either in your romantic relationship,

00:47:21.040 | in your friendships? Can we dive into some of your particular problems? I can see if

00:47:25.440 | I have a tip for that. It's funny. I don't know if I

00:47:27.760 | identify a specific thing as much as I feel like we moved into this new neighborhood.

00:47:35.200 | I have some friends in the neighborhood, and we have very limited time because we have kids.

00:47:38.960 | All of the friends that I was the closest with have dispersed around the country.

00:47:44.080 | I remember when we moved in, I asked my wife, I was like, "Do you think it would be weird if

00:47:50.320 | we wrote a postcard that was like, 'Hey, we're Chris and Amy. We have these kids,

00:47:54.800 | and we live on this block in town, and we like doing these random things. And yeah,

00:47:58.960 | it's really weird if we wrote this postcard and dropped it in your mailbox, so you can just rip

00:48:02.000 | it up. But if you read this and you're like, 'These people seem like they'd be cool to hang

00:48:05.200 | out. Why don't you shoot me an email?'" And I was like, "No, no, we didn't do it."

00:48:08.960 | I feel like the answer, especially in the context of forming relationships and friendships to,

00:48:13.840 | "Do you think it'd be weird if..." is always like, "No, it's not weird. Just do it."

00:48:18.240 | I have this theory. It's about friendship and dating, but it's called Match Theory.

00:48:22.400 | The idea is that if you go on a date, if you're meeting a new person in your life,

00:48:25.920 | the sooner that you're wholly yourself, the better off you'll be. Because even if you

00:48:29.840 | don't connect with them, that's valuable information to have, and you have it sooner

00:48:33.280 | rather than later. If you're dressing a way you wouldn't dress on a date, if you're kind of play

00:48:37.600 | acting in a different way, you're kind of like, "Oh, I'm trying to impress them." You're not

00:48:41.200 | helping the ultimate goal, which is to find a match for yourself. By you and Amy going out there

00:48:46.800 | and being unabashedly weird, you're going to meet the people who are going to connect with people

00:48:53.040 | who want to make friends, who are putting themselves out there, which are going to be

00:48:56.320 | more likely to be your type of people. I think Amy and I had a little disconnect on whether

00:49:01.840 | that was her personality or mine shining through in these random postcards, but I think that was

00:49:06.720 | the thing. This applies to relationships, both your partner and not. I think so often people

00:49:12.720 | think, "Oh, wow. They hang on to people that they think are the right person, not thinking there's

00:49:17.840 | another person or their best friend set." It's like, "This is my best friend since so long ago.

00:49:22.240 | They have to still be my best friend." I am convinced that within half a mile, not even,

00:49:27.200 | maybe a quarter mile, there are five couples that could be our best friends. And I'm like,

00:49:32.320 | "I just am trying to figure out how do I find them." I remember telling my wife when Bumble,

00:49:38.560 | the dating app, launched this service called BFF. Bumble BFF. Yeah. And it's like a dating

00:49:42.480 | app for finding your friends. Oh, you want a dating app for couples to... Oh, yeah. It doesn't

00:49:46.640 | even have to be for me to find people. It could be for us. It's not about... But I just remember

00:49:51.440 | thinking that felt like such a strange thing, but it also felt like such a thing that I feel

00:49:57.680 | like makes total sense. I feel like so many people are lonely and we all assume everybody else has

00:50:03.440 | their friend group sorted. We're the only person feeling the way that we're feeling. And so we

00:50:07.760 | deny ourselves the opportunity to put ourselves out there to form these relationships. But over

00:50:13.120 | and over again, I have a community of over a million people that I hear from constantly.

00:50:17.040 | And the refrain is, "Why does everybody else have this sorted when I don't have this sorted?" But if

00:50:22.000 | everybody is saying that, then everybody else doesn't have it sorted. So I think, first of all,

00:50:26.720 | acknowledging that this is a real societal issue that's happening and it's happening all over to

00:50:33.520 | everybody and using that as deep permission giving is so, so, so helpful. Second, it was

00:50:39.600 | interesting what you said that you think that we hold on to these old relationships. And I do think

00:50:45.360 | that there's a truth to the fact that we often gravitate towards people that we meet later in

00:50:51.840 | our life or more recently in our life because... And I think the reason for this is that they

00:50:55.600 | reflect the person that we feel we are at the moment back to us. And we want to be reflected

00:51:00.800 | as the person that we are at that moment. We don't want our childhood self, our teenage self,

00:51:05.680 | our college self reflected back on us because we feel like we've grown and evolved and changed so

00:51:11.680 | much since being that person. So this is one of my favorite tips in the book. And I feel like it's

00:51:17.040 | a little bit underappreciated as a tip. So I want to spotlight it for a second. But it's to let the

00:51:22.480 | people that you love change in front of you all of the time. To go into them, to go to the people

00:51:29.440 | that you love with a fresh perspective as often as possible. So this could look like, "Oh, I know

00:51:36.560 | you didn't like reading this type of book when we were first dating. Is that still true? Do you

00:51:41.680 | still not like reading this type of book?" I think we don't allow the people in our lives to change

00:51:48.800 | while we're on this path towards change. And it doesn't make any sense. And so I think that

00:51:55.040 | sometimes we can turn those old relationships into really satisfying relationships in the present by

00:52:01.840 | allowing for that evolution in each other. Can the opposite happen? Can you realize that

00:52:05.920 | this person that in high school I was best friends with and we said we were going to be friends

00:52:11.280 | forever, it's not the right thing. Are you saying let it evolve and bring it back to that awesome?

00:52:18.800 | Or is there also a place for... Or maybe it's just not... I think there's both. I think there's

00:52:23.600 | both. So first of all, I'm a huge fan of at the point that you think a relationship might be over,

00:52:29.280 | have a conversation about what you would need from that relationship to have it not be over

00:52:33.920 | because at that point you have nothing to lose. Like if you're about to cut somebody out of your

00:52:36.880 | life or just stop hanging out with them or ghost them or whatever, like scale back entirely,

00:52:41.360 | you have nothing to lose by saying, "Hey, Paul. I don't really want to talk about high school

00:52:45.600 | whenever we hang out." Or, "Hey, Paul. I'm not really in a hanging out at the bar and drinking

00:52:50.720 | beer phase of my life. I would really love if you would come over and play with my kids and we could

00:52:55.600 | sing Disney songs." And then even if Paul is like, "That sounds awful. Like I'm not interested in

00:53:00.640 | that." You've lost nothing and there's a chance that Paul would be like, "Oh my gosh. I know

00:53:05.360 | every single word to the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack and nobody has asked me to sing it."

00:53:09.680 | So I do think that having that conversation can have some really powerful results that we would

00:53:16.240 | not expect. And if you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain by having that conversation.

00:53:20.960 | And then two, I'm not a fan of cutting people out, but I am a fan of changing their position

00:53:25.280 | in my life. And I think that this can be really important especially when you're somebody with

00:53:29.360 | limited time. Instead of Paul being somebody you're really prioritizing, maybe Paul becomes,

00:53:34.640 | "I see them at the Christmas gathering," friend. Maybe somebody goes from being middle of the

00:53:39.120 | night secret friend to, "I go to yoga with them," friend. And I think being clear with ourselves

00:53:45.120 | about our expectations and what we're getting out of each friendship can be really helpful.

00:53:49.520 | And so sometimes moving people along in those places can be a way to not cut them out entirely,

00:53:54.800 | but to have them have a more right-sized presence in our life.

00:53:58.800 | Okay. I feel like this has been awesome. We've knocked through enough things that I'm feeling

00:54:03.440 | really excited. One of the things I loved is the way you described the book wasn't,

00:54:06.640 | "You need to read all 100. You need to do all these right away." So I already feel like I have

00:54:11.120 | a slate of things to work on and I feel like I've got some next steps and it's not the book that

00:54:16.080 | you've read millions of times that leaves you unaware of what's next and feeling stuck. So

00:54:21.520 | thank you. Thanks for the conversation. Where can people go?

00:54:24.880 | The book is called 100 Ways to Change Your Life. You can find it wherever books are sold

00:54:28.560 | or on 100waystochangerlife.com. Like you said, it is not a book that you need to consume in

00:54:33.600 | its entirety. It's a great book for while your pasta water is boiling and you don't want to

00:54:37.760 | just pick up your phone and scroll on social media again. You can pick it up and read a tip

00:54:41.680 | and you get a really satisfying experience in that five-minute interstitial period, which I love.

00:54:46.720 | And it's a book that you can reference again and again as your needs and your goals change

00:54:50.320 | throughout your life. One of the first tips in the book is about figuring out your needs,

00:54:54.000 | your goals, and how you're going to measure success in terms of those needs and goals.

00:54:58.000 | I think that's hugely important so that we don't end up with a ton of habits filling our day that

00:55:03.280 | we don't even know why they're there. So hugely, hugely important. And then I have a podcast called

00:55:07.920 | the Liz Moody Podcast, which you have been a guest on, a great, great episode. So if you want to hear

00:55:12.480 | a little bit more from Chris Hutchins, definitely go look for the Chris Hutchins episode of the Liz

00:55:16.560 | Moody Podcast. But essentially, we take science, we make it really fun and interesting to listen to,

00:55:22.000 | and then we're really focused on those action tips. How are we applying the science to our

00:55:26.480 | everyday lives to feel the way that we want to feel every single day? So that's the Liz Moody

00:55:30.480 | Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. And then if you're a social media person,

00:55:33.760 | I'm Liz Moody on TikTok and Instagram. It's easy. Liz Moody everywhere. Definitely check

00:55:38.960 | all that out. Thank you so much for being here in person. Thank you so much for having me.

Science-Backed Tactics to Level Up Your Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success with Liz Moody

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