ATHLLC3028363271

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.320 | - Hello, and welcome to another episode of "All The Hacks,"

00:00:04.720 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:00:07.660 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I am so excited you're here today.

00:00:10.040 | Our guest, Light Watkins, has over 15 years of experience

00:00:13.000 | as a meditation coach,

00:00:14.360 | and is known for his unique approach to mindfulness,

00:00:17.000 | making meditation accessible and relevant to people

00:00:19.280 | from all walks of life.

00:00:20.960 | He's written several books on the topic,

00:00:22.880 | and for the past few years,

00:00:23.940 | he's been living out of a single backpack

00:00:25.800 | after giving away almost all his possessions,

00:00:28.240 | including a laptop, which led him to develop a concept

00:00:31.920 | called spiritual minimalism,

00:00:33.560 | which he discusses in his new book, "Travel Light,"

00:00:35.720 | and is something I found far more fascinating

00:00:38.520 | the more I dug into it.

00:00:40.000 | So today, we're gonna talk a lot about meditation.

00:00:42.320 | We're gonna break down some of the common misconceptions,

00:00:44.800 | different methods to get started,

00:00:46.280 | hacks to incorporate into your daily routine,

00:00:48.720 | benefits and science behind it all, and a lot more,

00:00:51.620 | but we'll also dive into travel, spiritual minimalism,

00:00:54.440 | and plenty of other things.

00:00:55.720 | I am really excited to get this conversation going

00:00:57.940 | and share all of these topics with you,

00:00:59.800 | so let's jump in right after this.

00:01:02.080 | Light, thank you for being here.

00:01:05.960 | - Thanks, Chris.

00:01:06.800 | I'm excited to be here on all the hacks.

00:01:09.240 | - Yeah, so I wanna start the conversation

00:01:12.000 | in the meditation arena,

00:01:13.440 | because it's where I first came across you,

00:01:16.200 | and it seems like everyone I know, myself included,

00:01:19.640 | have taken our own invitation to try meditation.

00:01:22.960 | We've started it, and so few people I know

00:01:25.640 | have done it consistently,

00:01:27.220 | and I think you have a little bit of a contrarian view here.

00:01:30.280 | Let's just start, what are people getting wrong

00:01:31.840 | when they think about starting meditating?

00:01:34.120 | - Oh, man, so many things.

00:01:36.160 | Just a little context.

00:01:37.720 | I consider myself to be a meditation dabbler

00:01:39.920 | for several years, so I was one of those people.

00:01:43.200 | You know, I would start, and then I would stop

00:01:44.840 | for a long stretch of time, and come back to it,

00:01:46.560 | and to pick it up again, and then just do it

00:01:48.760 | for a week or two, and then stop,

00:01:50.360 | and then I met a teacher in Los Angeles in 2003,

00:01:57.120 | who gave me what I now recognize

00:01:59.960 | as a more minimalist approach to meditation,

00:02:04.120 | and what I realized was that I was just doing way too much.

00:02:08.680 | I was doing too much, and that was one of the reasons

00:02:11.200 | why I was having so many clunky experiences,

00:02:15.040 | and I was labeling my mind as a monkey mind,

00:02:18.580 | and so I would say one of the biggest misconceptions

00:02:21.260 | is that you need to do all these things.

00:02:22.960 | You need to let go of this, and notice that,

00:02:25.200 | and witness your thoughts like clouds in the sky,

00:02:26.960 | and focus on your breath, and vision the white light,

00:02:29.000 | and you don't need to do any of that stuff.

00:02:31.260 | In fact, it works a lot better, and when I say better,

00:02:34.160 | I mean you have more delightful experiences

00:02:37.320 | if you do less, and then if you do least,

00:02:40.460 | and ultimately, if you can do nothing,

00:02:42.800 | and just practice pure being, that's when it works the best,

00:02:47.680 | so I learned how to do that.

00:02:49.640 | I learned how to operate in concert with my thinking mind,

00:02:53.000 | and that was a big game changer for me.

00:02:54.720 | It literally made me an enthusiastic daily meditator

00:02:58.520 | within a couple of days, and before that,

00:03:00.260 | I was probably one of the most reluctant meditators,

00:03:03.360 | 'cause I just felt like my mind was all over the place.

00:03:05.960 | I was sitting there with my eyes closed,

00:03:07.920 | waiting for the time to pass.

00:03:09.260 | My body was writhing in pain.

00:03:11.380 | It just felt like torture,

00:03:12.720 | and then it would feel like dessert, and it was amazing,

00:03:17.140 | and I recognized that I wanted to be on this mission

00:03:22.240 | to help introduce as many people as possible to this feeling.

00:03:26.120 | You don't have to be somewhere laid out

00:03:28.120 | with an eye mask on in the middle of nowhere.

00:03:30.800 | It's like you bring that serenity

00:03:32.600 | from that experience wherever you are,

00:03:34.920 | so you can have that experience in the back of an Uber.

00:03:37.200 | You can have it on an airplane.

00:03:38.800 | You can have it in your aunt's living room.

00:03:40.640 | You can have it in your office chair,

00:03:42.920 | wherever you happen to be sitting,

00:03:44.560 | and you have the ability to close your eyes

00:03:46.000 | for 10 or 15 minutes,

00:03:47.240 | you can drop right into that experience,

00:03:49.480 | and that's the power of that shift

00:03:52.600 | I experienced in meditation,

00:03:54.120 | and I'm excited to introduce

00:03:56.000 | as many people as possible to that,

00:03:58.680 | and all the books I've written

00:03:59.880 | have been about exposing those misconceptions,

00:04:03.280 | and my most recent book, "Travel Light," same thing.

00:04:05.400 | It's just like this bare-bones, minimalist approach,

00:04:08.480 | stripping away things that I consider to be unnecessary

00:04:11.880 | for having that particular experience.

00:04:15.400 | - And what does the science say?

00:04:16.520 | When you strip all that stuff away,

00:04:18.240 | do you have the same impact on your life

00:04:20.200 | and the same outcomes?

00:04:21.800 | - You know, it's interesting.

00:04:22.640 | The science, actually,

00:04:24.600 | there's been a lot of people studying meditation recently,

00:04:27.320 | okay?

00:04:28.160 | The godfather of meditation research

00:04:30.720 | is this guy named Dr. Herbert Benson.

00:04:32.960 | He's a Harvard cardiologist.

00:04:35.360 | He studied the stress response for many, many years.

00:04:38.680 | He was one of Walter Cannon's protégés.

00:04:40.840 | Walter Cannon was the professor

00:04:44.240 | who coined the term fight-flight reaction at Harvard.

00:04:47.920 | And Benson was tracked down by these meditators

00:04:53.520 | from the local Cambridge Transcendental Meditation Center,

00:04:58.000 | 'cause no one had ever really studied it properly,

00:05:00.520 | and this is like in the late 1960s, early 1970s,

00:05:05.520 | and he dismissed them.

00:05:06.640 | He said, "No, I'm not studying you guys,"

00:05:08.400 | because back then, studying something like meditation

00:05:11.800 | would be akin to studying spirit animals now.

00:05:15.680 | Like, no serious professor is gonna bring in people

00:05:19.600 | who claim to have a spirit animal

00:05:21.400 | into the laboratory and study them.

00:05:24.120 | But they kept coming back, they were persistent,

00:05:26.320 | and eventually, he figured he had nothing to lose.

00:05:29.720 | And when he connected them

00:05:30.920 | to all the different measuring devices,

00:05:32.840 | he was shocked by what he saw.

00:05:35.880 | He basically, again, this is somebody

00:05:37.760 | who was probably one of the world's experts

00:05:40.240 | in the fight-or-flight reaction.

00:05:42.360 | He saw that everything that happens

00:05:44.280 | in the fight-or-flight reaction

00:05:45.560 | goes in the opposite direction

00:05:47.920 | during what he later coined as the relaxation response.

00:05:52.920 | He's the one that came up

00:05:53.960 | with the term relaxation response.

00:05:55.880 | He wrote a New York Times bestselling book

00:05:57.600 | about the effects of meditation

00:06:00.000 | called "The Relaxation Response."

00:06:02.600 | And the reason why his research is relevant to this day

00:06:05.280 | is because back then,

00:06:07.280 | they could test anything they wanted to.

00:06:10.160 | Nowadays, you can only test one or two things,

00:06:13.000 | and there's gotta be time apart,

00:06:14.920 | and you can't stick rectal thermometers up in the people

00:06:18.280 | and do all these kind of invasive measurements.

00:06:21.920 | Well, he was able to do everything.

00:06:23.160 | It was completely unrestricted.

00:06:24.680 | It was free-range.

00:06:25.680 | And so, he's got the most thorough results

00:06:30.480 | of anyone who's ever tested meditation.

00:06:33.680 | And so, the relaxation response,

00:06:35.760 | according to his research,

00:06:38.560 | gets triggered by three essential things.

00:06:41.680 | Number one, you have to be sitting comfortably, right?

00:06:45.320 | So, we think about meditation,

00:06:47.240 | and we think about it as someone sitting with their, what,

00:06:49.400 | back straight, shoulders back, chin up,

00:06:51.960 | ideally with your legs crossed,

00:06:54.520 | maybe even with your fingers together.

00:06:56.560 | That's the sort of classical posture for meditation.

00:07:00.440 | But to trigger this response that he saw

00:07:03.800 | where you go in the opposite direction of the fight-or-flight,

00:07:06.440 | you have to actually sit with back support.

00:07:08.760 | You don't need to cross your legs.

00:07:10.320 | You don't need to hold your shoulders back.

00:07:12.400 | Even your chin can be dropping forward

00:07:15.240 | as though it looks like you're falling asleep,

00:07:17.320 | but that's not actually what's happening.

00:07:19.520 | Then, he said, you need a passive attitude,

00:07:22.200 | passive attitude, which means the opposite of focus.

00:07:26.640 | Focus is an active attitude.

00:07:30.000 | You're trying to exclude experiences.

00:07:32.440 | You're trying to exclude the noise, the distracting thoughts,

00:07:36.400 | the distracting sensations, right?

00:07:38.760 | And you're supposed to be thinking

00:07:39.760 | about the fact that you're meditating.

00:07:41.280 | Well, he said, don't do that.

00:07:42.280 | Just let whatever your mind is thinking about

00:07:45.240 | come into the experience.

00:07:47.600 | And then third, you want some sort of anchor point

00:07:52.200 | to come back to, whether it's your breath,

00:07:54.040 | whether it's a mantra, whether it's a word, a sound,

00:07:57.200 | something that's actually soothing to you,

00:07:59.520 | something that is sort of like your happy word or anchor.

00:08:04.360 | And if you have the combination of those three things,

00:08:07.160 | you can have the most profound experiences

00:08:10.000 | in the meditation.

00:08:11.400 | And then if you continue exposing yourself to this state,

00:08:15.320 | this relaxation response over and over and over,

00:08:18.200 | eventually you can stabilize it.

00:08:20.320 | Your body can stabilize it.

00:08:21.960 | So this is another thing, another misconception

00:08:24.640 | that people have about meditation

00:08:26.160 | is that I can just meditate every now and again

00:08:28.760 | and I'll still get the benefits from it.

00:08:30.640 | But it doesn't work like that.

00:08:31.920 | It's kind of like working out, right?

00:08:33.600 | Let's say you just worked out on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

00:08:37.240 | Are you going to get as strong working out twice a week

00:08:40.840 | as you would get working out five times a week?

00:08:44.560 | It's still beneficial to work out twice a week

00:08:46.560 | versus not at all.

00:08:47.880 | But if you want to stabilize the strength,

00:08:50.680 | if you want to cultivate it so that it's there all the time,

00:08:54.040 | you need to do it more often.

00:08:55.560 | And the same applies to meditation.

00:08:57.600 | It needs to be a daily practice.

00:08:59.800 | And that's because the main thing that's keeping you

00:09:03.120 | from feeling fulfilled, happy, content, peaceful,

00:09:08.120 | that thing isn't taking any days off.

00:09:10.720 | And that is the stress.

00:09:12.160 | The stress is coming in every day.

00:09:14.560 | The stress is like P90X or something.

00:09:17.360 | It's like working on you every day.

00:09:19.840 | So in order to counterbalance that,

00:09:21.560 | you need to do the thing that is like kryptonite distress,

00:09:24.600 | which is the meditation,

00:09:25.760 | because the meditation supplies the body with biochemicals

00:09:28.480 | that can dissolve the stress.

00:09:30.480 | You need to do that every day.

00:09:31.800 | - So I think for some people listening,

00:09:33.240 | the idea of, "Oh man, so if I want to get started with this,

00:09:35.640 | I need to commit to a daily practice forever,"

00:09:38.240 | can be daunting.

00:09:39.560 | But I know when you wrote "Blissmore,"

00:09:42.800 | you talked about how you could succeed in meditation

00:09:45.280 | without really trying.

00:09:46.120 | So how can we break this down for someone

00:09:47.720 | that maybe feels like what you just said is overwhelming

00:09:50.760 | and will take a lot of work

00:09:52.640 | and maybe realize that it doesn't have to be that hard?

00:09:55.560 | - And I would go further and say it shouldn't be that.

00:09:57.520 | You're not going to do it if it feels hard to do.

00:09:59.880 | We don't do things as humans,

00:10:01.200 | we don't do anything that's hard to do on a consistent basis.

00:10:04.600 | So we have to get meditation out of the chore category.

00:10:08.720 | It's out of the "I have to" category

00:10:11.520 | into the "I get to" category.

00:10:14.200 | 'Cause last time I checked, people who are chain smokers,

00:10:17.240 | they don't need any willpower to smoke a cigarette.

00:10:19.680 | Coffee drinkers don't need any willpower

00:10:21.320 | to drink a cup of coffee in the morning.

00:10:23.160 | Sugar addicts don't need a willpower

00:10:24.800 | to eat that muffin in the morning, right?

00:10:27.320 | They get up and they are craving those experiences

00:10:31.960 | because they have conditioned their body

00:10:34.480 | to become effectively addicted to those experiences.

00:10:37.920 | And guess what?

00:10:39.040 | Meditation can get there as well.

00:10:41.920 | So in order to get there,

00:10:43.840 | you have to learn how to do it in a way

00:10:48.580 | that feels legitimately enjoyable.

00:10:53.340 | Not that you're faking like it feels enjoyable,

00:10:55.740 | it has to literally feel like it's enjoyable.

00:10:58.820 | And there's like a couple of things

00:11:00.660 | that people do to spoil the experience.

00:11:05.660 | And one of those things is they treat their mind

00:11:10.400 | like a monkey mind.

00:11:11.760 | You know that term monkey mind?

00:11:13.500 | Which implies that your mind is exceptionally busy, right?

00:11:18.660 | Now, I don't wanna negate the idea

00:11:21.560 | that you have lots of thoughts.

00:11:23.220 | I believe you when you say that your mind is very busy.

00:11:26.300 | 'Cause guess what?

00:11:27.860 | Everybody's mind is busy.

00:11:29.900 | My mind is busy, my mind has all kinds of thoughts.

00:11:33.540 | The problem is we think it's not supposed to happen.

00:11:37.540 | We think that our mind is just supposed

00:11:39.260 | to just automatically stop having all these thoughts

00:11:41.940 | the moment we close our eyes.

00:11:43.620 | And that's not the case.

00:11:45.420 | The mind is gonna have thoughts

00:11:47.340 | in the same way that the ocean is gonna be wavy.

00:11:51.140 | We know water is wavy and the mind thinks.

00:11:54.660 | And so what we need to do is understand

00:11:57.140 | how to move around in concert

00:11:59.700 | with the thinking mind during meditation

00:12:03.800 | in the same way that you learn how to swim.

00:12:06.440 | When you learn how to swim,

00:12:07.940 | the wavy water is no longer an issue.

00:12:10.300 | In fact, it's quite enjoyable.

00:12:11.980 | If you don't know how to swim, then it's a nightmare.

00:12:14.740 | The water is a nightmare.

00:12:16.020 | The same water that someone else is enjoying for you

00:12:19.300 | is a nightmare 'cause it's gonna potentially drown you.

00:12:22.740 | And guess what?

00:12:24.340 | You increase the chances of the water drowning you

00:12:26.660 | by doing too much.

00:12:29.220 | The person who knows how to swim does less

00:12:32.060 | and they can just like actually float there

00:12:34.020 | by doing nothing.

00:12:35.180 | By doing nothing, the water will actually support you.

00:12:38.300 | You'll float.

00:12:39.380 | By trying to move and fight the water, you drown yourself.

00:12:42.580 | Same is true with the mind.

00:12:44.140 | By doing too much, the thoughts start to drown you.

00:12:48.140 | By doing less, you can actually move through your mind

00:12:52.500 | in a very gradual way.

00:12:54.740 | And the more you can embrace the thinking mind,

00:12:57.900 | and in fact, you can get to the point,

00:12:59.680 | you're celebrating it.

00:13:01.300 | And what I mean by that is not that you're sitting there

00:13:03.700 | imagining yourself at a mind party or anything like that,

00:13:07.700 | but you're just understanding that this is a legitimate

00:13:10.380 | a part of the experience and it's a necessary part

00:13:12.900 | in order for you to reach that state of depth

00:13:15.340 | that you ultimately want to get to.

00:13:17.460 | And what you'll find is that by adopting this added,

00:13:21.580 | this genuine attitude of nonchalance,

00:13:24.300 | the thoughts start to become fewer and fewer,

00:13:26.740 | the mind settles more and more,

00:13:28.340 | and eventually you can drop into a state

00:13:30.900 | where you're no longer aware that you're even thinking.

00:13:35.900 | Now, when you're in that state,

00:13:38.940 | literally there's no awareness.

00:13:40.220 | You never know you're there while you're there

00:13:42.380 | 'cause thinking that, oh, I'm here,

00:13:44.940 | that means you're not there anymore.

00:13:46.780 | So it's through this mechanism

00:13:49.380 | of using your nonchalant attitude

00:13:52.060 | to kind of steer your way back into that state,

00:13:54.580 | you keep losing awareness.

00:13:56.300 | For people who think, oh, no, that's not possible,

00:13:58.220 | I'm giving you an experience that you've already had

00:14:00.820 | to show you that it is indeed possible

00:14:02.820 | because you've already experienced it, okay?

00:14:05.260 | Everybody has had the experience of sitting on their couch

00:14:09.420 | or sitting on their bed, and it's late at night,

00:14:12.820 | and you're trying to read a book

00:14:13.860 | or you're trying to watch a television show,

00:14:15.660 | and then time goes by,

00:14:17.820 | and you're stuck on this one line in the book,

00:14:20.620 | or large portions of the show have passed,

00:14:24.100 | and you don't remember what happened, right?

00:14:26.500 | There was a gap in your awareness,

00:14:29.500 | but you don't remember sleeping,

00:14:31.180 | you also don't remember reading or watching the show.

00:14:35.620 | So where were you?

00:14:37.540 | You're in this other state, this other state,

00:14:41.620 | and that loss of awareness

00:14:43.620 | is symptomatic of a transition of consciousness.

00:14:47.380 | You're actually about to move away

00:14:49.020 | from your waking consciousness,

00:14:50.780 | which is where you were aware of what you're reading,

00:14:53.460 | into your sleeping consciousness.

00:14:55.620 | And anytime there's a shift in your consciousness state,

00:14:58.540 | there's a loss of awareness.

00:15:00.860 | And that relaxation response that I referred to earlier,

00:15:03.580 | Herbert Benson's work,

00:15:04.860 | he identified that as a fourth state of consciousness.

00:15:08.340 | There's the sleeping state, which we all have,

00:15:11.140 | the dreaming state, the waking state,

00:15:13.860 | and now we have the meditation state, the fourth state.

00:15:17.460 | And so when you're going into the fourth state,

00:15:19.620 | there's a loss of awareness,

00:15:21.740 | and it's consistent with the same thing you experience

00:15:25.140 | going from waking to dreaming to sleeping

00:15:28.460 | and back to waking.

00:15:29.780 | - Okay, so with that example,

00:15:32.500 | I can recall a situation like that

00:15:34.540 | as recently as I think last night.

00:15:36.580 | For me, it's if I'm really tired

00:15:38.020 | and I'm reading my daughter a book,

00:15:39.260 | every now and then,

00:15:40.620 | I'll notice that I just read a line of the book

00:15:43.260 | that wasn't in the book.

00:15:44.780 | I just made something random up non-intentionally,

00:15:48.300 | and I'm like, I don't know where that came from.

00:15:50.220 | Obviously, I wasn't sleeping 'cause I was reading,

00:15:52.660 | but I didn't read what was on the page.

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00:17:42.420 | Seriously, I'm pretty sure it's more comfortable

00:17:44.260 | than whatever you're wearing right now,

00:17:45.960 | unless it's Viore, in which case you know what I mean.

00:17:48.500 | And it's not just for men.

00:17:50.020 | My wife, Amy, is as obsessed with Viore as I am.

00:17:53.420 | My personal favorite is the Sunday Performance Joggers.

00:17:56.060 | I think I have three pairs of them,

00:17:57.500 | and they're probably the most comfortable pants

00:17:59.000 | I've ever owned.

00:18:00.060 | Their products are incredibly versatile

00:18:01.860 | and can be used for just about any activity,

00:18:03.940 | whether it's running, training, yoga,

00:18:05.860 | but they're also great for lounging,

00:18:08.020 | or I even wear their MetaPants out to a nice dinner.

00:18:11.260 | Honestly, I think Viore is an investment in your happiness.

00:18:14.220 | And for All The Hacks listeners,

00:18:15.540 | they're offering 20% off your first purchase,

00:18:18.020 | as well as free shipping and returns on any US order

00:18:21.020 | over $75.

00:18:22.580 | So definitely check them out at allthehacks.com/viore.

00:18:27.100 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/v-u-o-r-i,

00:18:32.100 | and get yourself some of the most comfortable

00:18:34.860 | and versatile clothing on the planet.

00:18:37.260 | - Okay, so you've sold me.

00:18:38.380 | What process would you walk someone through

00:18:40.180 | or method to try this out?

00:18:41.740 | If someone listening is like, "Okay, can I start this?"

00:18:44.340 | How would you get them going?

00:18:45.420 | - It's not too dissimilar from what Herbert Benson described.

00:18:48.260 | You sit comfortably, you close your eyes.

00:18:51.980 | And when I say sit comfortably, I mean sitting upright.

00:18:54.940 | You can lean back on something,

00:18:56.180 | but you need to sit.

00:18:57.020 | This is not a practice you do lying down.

00:18:58.980 | You sit upright, you're comfortable.

00:19:01.300 | You lean back on something for back support.

00:19:03.940 | You close your eyes.

00:19:05.860 | And immediately, you're gonna get hit

00:19:08.340 | with a wave of thoughts.

00:19:10.660 | Now you're in the water, okay?

00:19:12.740 | If you just treat your thoughts like you're in water,

00:19:16.060 | and the idea is not to fight the thoughts at all,

00:19:20.340 | not even a little bit.

00:19:21.860 | Don't judge them.

00:19:23.260 | Don't shame yourself for having them.

00:19:26.940 | Don't think that you have too many or too little

00:19:30.340 | or anything like that.

00:19:31.660 | It's just like just going into water.

00:19:33.820 | Sometimes it's a little bit cold or it's warm

00:19:36.540 | or it's a little choppy or there's an undercurrent.

00:19:39.340 | You may notice the quality of the thoughts,

00:19:42.980 | but you're not even trying to do that.

00:19:44.980 | It's just a natural inclination

00:19:47.300 | when we are moving into a body of water, right?

00:19:50.420 | So same thing with meditation.

00:19:51.660 | You may notice the texture of your thoughts

00:19:54.580 | or the color or the quality of the thoughts,

00:19:56.980 | but there's no judgment around the idea

00:19:59.820 | that you're in this body of thinking.

00:20:03.020 | And you give yourself some time

00:20:05.020 | to just kind of acclimate, right?

00:20:07.620 | Eyes closed.

00:20:09.340 | And then you just start to literally do less.

00:20:13.220 | You start to literally do less.

00:20:14.780 | You start to just shift away from the tendency

00:20:19.540 | to control the experience,

00:20:21.020 | which is what we all have in the beginning,

00:20:23.460 | to this idea that, okay, well, I'm just gonna enjoy it

00:20:26.180 | for whatever it is.

00:20:27.820 | I don't have any expectation.

00:20:29.060 | I don't have any anticipation of any kind of result.

00:20:32.060 | And you have some sort of timing device

00:20:34.540 | that you're using to track how much time has gone by.

00:20:38.940 | And whatever you said you were gonna sit for 10 minutes

00:20:41.740 | or 15 minutes, you just have that experience

00:20:44.700 | and then keep peeking at the clock

00:20:46.980 | whenever you are curious about the clock.

00:20:49.580 | No judgment around how much time is passing.

00:20:52.340 | And then eventually you'll see that 10 or 15 minutes

00:20:54.740 | have passed and then you slowly come out.

00:20:57.300 | And I mean, I break all this down in my book, "Travel Light."

00:21:00.020 | There's a whole 10-step process,

00:21:02.340 | but that's essentially what it is.

00:21:03.620 | If you wanna use your breathing as a sort of anchor point

00:21:07.020 | to come back to, if you are aware that you're meditating,

00:21:10.700 | but you're just thinking about taxes

00:21:12.460 | or you're just thinking about dinner or something like that,

00:21:14.900 | you come back to your breathing.

00:21:15.780 | But guess what?

00:21:16.620 | You go right back to your dinner thoughts

00:21:18.500 | or your to-do lists, and that's fine too.

00:21:20.260 | It's not about trying to keep that stuff away.

00:21:22.820 | It's about seeing that all as a part of the experience.

00:21:25.820 | So most of it is just your attitude,

00:21:27.300 | really, at the end of the day.

00:21:29.180 | - Let's say you're sitting down and you're thinking,

00:21:30.220 | "Dinner, ah, what am I gonna make for dinner?"

00:21:32.340 | Would you try to encourage someone to maybe say,

00:21:35.300 | "I can think about that later,"

00:21:36.620 | or just, "Think about it.

00:21:37.780 | "Think what you're gonna make for dinner.

00:21:39.260 | "Make the mental grocery list of what you need to buy."

00:21:41.380 | Or, "Acknowledge that you're having that thought

00:21:44.020 | "and that you can come back to it."

00:21:45.980 | They seem like two paths you could take.

00:21:47.700 | - Okay, this is an interesting point.

00:21:49.300 | When you say, "Come back to it," right?

00:21:51.420 | Where are you going to go when you say, "Come back to it?"

00:21:55.460 | Okay, I'm gonna come back to this thought.

00:21:56.700 | Where are you gonna go?

00:21:57.700 | Some other thought about something else.

00:21:59.540 | So you may as well just indulge yourself.

00:22:02.380 | This is a practice of indulgence.

00:22:04.700 | Indulge yourself in whatever's happening

00:22:06.820 | and just know that you can't screw it up, really.

00:22:09.820 | So the more you practice this lack of resistance,

00:22:14.060 | the deeper you will set yourself up

00:22:15.700 | to go in the meditation.

00:22:17.380 | And eventually, again, as you go deeper,

00:22:20.820 | just like when you were reading the book to your child,

00:22:23.820 | you're never gonna know the part

00:22:25.100 | where you drop off the abyss and you lose that awareness.

00:22:28.860 | And if you look for it, it's not gonna happen.

00:22:31.380 | You're sitting there going,

00:22:32.220 | "Okay, I wanna lose awareness now.

00:22:34.140 | "When am I gonna lose awareness?

00:22:35.220 | "I can't wait to lose awareness."

00:22:36.820 | You're gonna be aware the whole time.

00:22:38.700 | So you legitimately want to be just indulgent

00:22:42.220 | in whatever you're thinking about.

00:22:43.540 | And then without even realizing it,

00:22:46.180 | you'll drop off, the time will start going by faster,

00:22:49.020 | and the experience will feel really good.

00:22:51.180 | And you'll be one of those meditators

00:22:53.540 | that you don't want the time to end.

00:22:55.540 | Now, the beauty of that is when you come out, guess what?

00:22:59.380 | You'll have a more orderly thinking

00:23:01.980 | because the mind has this beautiful way

00:23:04.820 | of organizing the things that are most important,

00:23:07.740 | second most important, third most important.

00:23:09.860 | You'll start to make connections

00:23:11.140 | between things that seem to be unrelated.

00:23:13.780 | You'll start to spot themes in your life,

00:23:16.660 | which will allow you to then prioritize

00:23:19.820 | what you should be doing now

00:23:20.860 | versus what you thought you should have been doing.

00:23:22.580 | For instance,

00:23:23.780 | "Oh, is it more important to send this email right now?

00:23:26.460 | "Or is it more important to spend time with my kid

00:23:28.220 | "reading my story?"

00:23:29.980 | A lot of people are confused about that.

00:23:31.780 | And a lot of people may say,

00:23:32.900 | "Oh, the email is more important."

00:23:35.300 | Or, "Spending time with my kid is more important."

00:23:38.420 | And it's not to say that spending time with your kid

00:23:40.420 | is always the most important thing.

00:23:42.060 | Sometimes I can imagine scenarios

00:23:44.140 | where sending that email is more important

00:23:46.100 | or you won't have a house to read a story to your kid,

00:23:48.660 | but you have to be able to discern that

00:23:50.780 | without putting too much thought into it.

00:23:53.540 | Because as I talk about in "Travel Light,"

00:23:56.380 | the heart voice is your internal GPS

00:24:01.060 | that a lot of times we'll hear, but we'll ignore

00:24:04.380 | in ways that we would never ignore

00:24:06.340 | our actual GPS in our phones

00:24:08.460 | when we're trying to get somewhere.

00:24:09.980 | It'd be ridiculous to ignore it.

00:24:11.620 | Every now and again, we do it 'cause it just,

00:24:13.380 | no, this can't be the right turn.

00:24:15.420 | We ignore it.

00:24:16.420 | And then what does it do?

00:24:17.340 | It reroutes so that we still end up at the destination.

00:24:20.780 | We just take a little bit of a scenic route.

00:24:23.580 | And so the heart voice does the same thing.

00:24:25.180 | You can't really screw up.

00:24:26.900 | You just end up taking the scenic route sometimes,

00:24:29.220 | but it'll always guide you on what to do next

00:24:31.460 | if you're listening to it.

00:24:33.540 | - Any tips for paying attention to it or prioritizing it?

00:24:36.100 | I think sometimes we all know what we wanna be doing

00:24:39.100 | and we're not doing it.

00:24:40.380 | - In the book, I liken this to sports,

00:24:42.820 | like a basketball arena, right?

00:24:44.660 | So you have the players on the floor, that's you.

00:24:47.660 | And then you have all of the fans

00:24:49.380 | and those are the voices in your head.

00:24:51.620 | And so the heart voice,

00:24:53.260 | which is also known as the still small voice,

00:24:56.620 | the heart voice is usually up in the nosebleeds.

00:24:59.460 | And down on the floor seats, you have the fear voice,

00:25:02.380 | the voice of social conditioning,

00:25:04.260 | the voice of your parents and teachers and coaches,

00:25:07.500 | the news, right?

00:25:09.260 | All the voices that you've listened to the most

00:25:12.020 | in your life.

00:25:13.500 | And so those are the voices that the player,

00:25:15.900 | you would hear the loudest in your awareness,

00:25:19.820 | not even just in meditation, but in life in general.

00:25:22.180 | And the still small voice,

00:25:23.660 | they're shouting as loud as they can,

00:25:26.020 | but you can barely hear them just because of proximity.

00:25:28.860 | It's so far away because we haven't been listening

00:25:31.620 | to that still small voice.

00:25:33.500 | The still small voice is the one that's telling us

00:25:35.060 | to do the right thing, to stop looking for shortcuts,

00:25:38.380 | (laughs)

00:25:39.700 | to go the extra mile, right?

00:25:42.540 | Somebody said there's never a traffic jam on the extra mile

00:25:45.540 | 'cause so few people take it.

00:25:47.740 | And this is basically reminding us

00:25:49.660 | that there is no way to happiness, happiness is a way.

00:25:52.340 | All the cliches, give what you wanna receive,

00:25:55.100 | there's no throwaway moments in life.

00:25:57.180 | All these cliches,

00:25:58.140 | that's what the still small voice is reminding us of always.

00:26:02.060 | And when we start listening to it more and more

00:26:04.500 | and acting upon it,

00:26:05.420 | then effectively we move them out of the nosebleeds

00:26:09.220 | and down to the floor seats.

00:26:11.100 | And that's where we want them to be.

00:26:12.660 | We don't want them to be a still small voice.

00:26:15.740 | We want them to be a loud, annoying voice,

00:26:18.940 | like the floor seat people,

00:26:20.940 | because that way it's harder to ignore it.

00:26:22.980 | And what you'll find is the more you listen to it,

00:26:26.220 | A, it's gonna take you out of your comfort zone

00:26:28.260 | more often than not,

00:26:29.580 | but you're always gonna be at the right place

00:26:31.660 | and at the right time for you.

00:26:33.660 | Everything that's wonderful in your life,

00:26:35.980 | the best stories you have usually are describing moments

00:26:40.940 | where you listen to that voice,

00:26:42.940 | where something told you to dot, dot, dot,

00:26:46.580 | and you did it and this amazing thing happened.

00:26:49.220 | And that's the thing you now talk about on podcasts

00:26:51.700 | and you write about in your books

00:26:53.460 | and you make movies and songs and choreographed dances about

00:26:57.140 | because that's what the heart does.

00:26:59.100 | It always takes us on this little adventure.

00:27:01.940 | Whereas not listening to the heart is what creates drama.

00:27:05.340 | So you're either creating adventure in your life

00:27:08.340 | by listening to it,

00:27:09.260 | or you're creating drama in your life by ignoring it.

00:27:12.020 | There is no neutral path.

00:27:13.660 | It's either adventure or drama.

00:27:16.140 | And if you look at drama,

00:27:17.820 | you could always reverse engineer it back to a moment

00:27:21.060 | where you ignored your heart.

00:27:22.940 | - Interesting.

00:27:23.780 | I know one other thing you've talked about,

00:27:25.780 | just finding ways to create more of those moments

00:27:28.220 | where they become stories you tell,

00:27:30.180 | is just being more present.

00:27:31.740 | Any tricks for either being more present

00:27:33.900 | or getting other people you're around to also do that?

00:27:36.740 | - Good luck with that.

00:27:38.780 | Let's start with you.

00:27:39.780 | It's hard enough to get you present.

00:27:41.580 | But the one hack I would use for getting present

00:27:46.780 | is you have to become radically grateful,

00:27:50.460 | become radically grateful.

00:27:52.780 | And what I mean by that is,

00:27:54.740 | is you have to be really intentional

00:27:56.820 | about finding as many things as possible

00:27:59.740 | that you can be grateful for in this moment.

00:28:02.460 | There's this guy named Brad Lee.

00:28:04.100 | He's big on social media.

00:28:05.980 | He uses this one example that I just love.

00:28:08.740 | He says, "If I were to give you $10 million

00:28:12.500 | "just as a gift, how would you feel about that?

00:28:18.100 | "If I just gave you $10 million."

00:28:19.420 | And then of course the person he's talking to says,

00:28:20.940 | "I feel amazing, that'd be great if I had $10 million."

00:28:23.340 | Okay, what if there was a catch?

00:28:25.420 | And the one catch is you can't wake up tomorrow.

00:28:29.020 | Would you still be excited about that $10 million?

00:28:31.140 | Would you still take it?

00:28:32.060 | And everyone would say, "No, I wouldn't take it.

00:28:34.100 | "If I couldn't wake up tomorrow, no."

00:28:36.340 | He says, "So what you're saying is just by waking up,

00:28:40.380 | "it's the equivalent of someone giving you $10 million.

00:28:44.700 | "When you wake up in the morning, are you grateful

00:28:46.780 | "like somebody just gave you $10 million?"

00:28:49.060 | Obviously the answer is no,

00:28:50.620 | because we take that for granted.

00:28:52.460 | But if we ran that thought experiment,

00:28:54.420 | we'd all say the same thing.

00:28:55.500 | We'd love to have $10 million,

00:28:57.220 | but not if it means we can't wake up in the morning.

00:29:00.180 | So right off the bat,

00:29:01.220 | that's something you can be grateful for.

00:29:02.620 | I woke up today.

00:29:03.740 | I woke up today, I have all these opportunities,

00:29:07.140 | all these possibilities.

00:29:09.100 | I can breathe, I can taste, I can smell,

00:29:12.580 | I can see, I can feel, I can walk, I can run.

00:29:16.620 | You can just go down the list

00:29:18.380 | and just start thinking of all the things

00:29:20.860 | that you're grateful for.

00:29:21.860 | I saw a guy here in Mexico City the other day.

00:29:23.740 | I was just walking down the street with a buddy of mine.

00:29:25.580 | This guy was on crutches and he was tethered to this dolly

00:29:29.940 | where he was carrying all this crap.

00:29:32.060 | And he was like in the middle of the street,

00:29:34.220 | stumbling his way down the street.

00:29:36.060 | One of his legs was like disfigured.

00:29:37.900 | I was like, man, that guy would give anything

00:29:41.740 | to just be able to walk normally

00:29:43.700 | and not have to rely on these crutches.

00:29:45.580 | And here we are walking,

00:29:46.540 | just completely taking it for granted.

00:29:48.220 | And I just dropped into gratitude in that moment.

00:29:50.620 | You can't see it for yourself

00:29:51.900 | when you see other people

00:29:52.860 | who don't have the same blessings that you have.

00:29:56.220 | Hopefully, you know, use that as an opportunity

00:29:58.140 | to remind yourself how blessed you are.

00:30:00.340 | If you're huffing and puffing 'cause the elevator's out

00:30:02.420 | and you just walked up three flights of stairs,

00:30:04.300 | there's somebody out there

00:30:05.140 | that's not that far away from you right now

00:30:06.940 | that would give anything to be able to walk up

00:30:08.660 | those three flights of stairs, right?

00:30:10.580 | If your television is not working 'cause the cable's out,

00:30:13.900 | but you can see there's somebody out there

00:30:16.260 | that's not far from you that would give anything

00:30:18.340 | to be able to see that the television doesn't work.

00:30:21.580 | So, you know, just radically dropping into gratitude

00:30:24.860 | will get you right into that present moment.

00:30:26.740 | And then from the present moment,

00:30:28.140 | you'll be able to see other things,

00:30:29.660 | other opportunities that are hiding all around you.

00:30:32.740 | And it's kind of like those magic eye puzzles,

00:30:34.780 | you know, those magic eye puzzles,

00:30:36.100 | that those patterns that if you--

00:30:37.740 | - I was never good at those.

00:30:39.100 | - Yeah, some people aren't

00:30:40.220 | because you're always trying to find the thing.

00:30:42.620 | But if you just surrender to it

00:30:44.900 | and you just allow it to be as chaotic as it wants to be

00:30:48.340 | without trying to control it,

00:30:50.540 | that's the condition that needs to happen.

00:30:52.700 | It's not that it's a suggestion.

00:30:54.300 | It needs to happen in order for the image to be revealed.

00:30:57.420 | And so life can be like that too.

00:30:59.340 | The more you surrender to what is happening

00:31:01.460 | instead of playing the woulda, coulda, shoulda game.

00:31:04.500 | And that, again, that's presence.

00:31:06.060 | That's a foundation of presence.

00:31:08.100 | You'll start to see things and feel things

00:31:11.340 | that other people would not have an easy time

00:31:13.740 | seeing or experiencing

00:31:14.780 | because you really have to be connected to that moment

00:31:17.260 | in order to have that download, to have that epiphany.

00:31:20.020 | And then every moment becomes special and sentimental.

00:31:24.460 | And it's not just the old China set

00:31:26.540 | that your auntie's grandmother passed down

00:31:30.140 | sitting in the drawer somewhere collecting dust.

00:31:31.900 | Everything is sentimental,

00:31:32.940 | just like that China set is sentimental

00:31:35.340 | because you're present.

00:31:36.420 | So there's a relationship between presence

00:31:38.980 | and feeling that sense of connection

00:31:41.540 | with all of the things that are around you.

00:31:43.140 | And that way, everything is special.

00:31:44.940 | - And that doesn't mean you can't also

00:31:47.300 | have huge, big, ambitious projects at work

00:31:49.780 | and be excited and you just need to live in the moment

00:31:52.100 | and just accept that everything is what it is, right?

00:31:55.180 | - All right, so I'll give you the difference

00:31:56.660 | in those two experiences.

00:31:58.980 | There's two kinds of people out in the world, okay?

00:32:02.220 | There's people who are looking for happiness

00:32:04.620 | on the other side of that project.

00:32:06.460 | And there are people who are engaging in that project

00:32:09.020 | because they feel a sense of happiness inside,

00:32:11.740 | because they feel a sense of fulfillment inside.

00:32:14.180 | So they're informed by where to put that attention next.

00:32:18.660 | And that project seems like a perfect outlet

00:32:21.340 | for what they already have.

00:32:24.060 | In other words, they're not looking to get happier

00:32:26.780 | on the yonder side of that achievement.

00:32:29.260 | And that's a big mistake that we oftentimes make

00:32:32.180 | is we think that the project or the achievement

00:32:36.500 | is going to lead to happiness.

00:32:38.980 | And so we'll indulge ourselves in this project

00:32:43.260 | a lot of times at the expense of our health,

00:32:45.900 | at the expense of our relationships,

00:32:48.220 | at the expense of our connection to family,

00:32:50.780 | because we think that, "Oh, I'm gonna make all this money

00:32:52.740 | "and then everybody's gonna be happy

00:32:53.860 | "once I become a multimillionaire."

00:32:55.740 | And oftentimes the opposite happens, right?

00:32:59.460 | Starting with you.

00:33:00.300 | If that was true that achieving things

00:33:02.500 | would make you happier in a lasting way,

00:33:06.180 | then think about it.

00:33:07.300 | You would still be as happy as you were

00:33:09.820 | the day you walked across the stage

00:33:11.380 | to get your high school diploma.

00:33:12.940 | Remember that day, how happy you were?

00:33:15.300 | And the day you got your first real job?

00:33:17.780 | And the day you got the promotion?

00:33:19.660 | And the day you got your Tesla?

00:33:21.620 | And the day you moved into the nice house, right?

00:33:24.180 | There were these spikes of dopamine and joy and serotonin,

00:33:28.260 | but then after a week or a month,

00:33:30.180 | you settled back into wherever you were

00:33:32.300 | before you achieved the thing.

00:33:34.540 | And that's kind of how it goes.

00:33:37.540 | And so the whole spiritual perspective

00:33:40.460 | is that happiness is not found outside through achievements.

00:33:43.580 | It's found inside through cultivating it

00:33:46.580 | with your inner work, practices like meditation,

00:33:49.060 | practices like gratitude,

00:33:50.500 | feeling more present, more in the moment.

00:33:52.620 | And if you do that,

00:33:54.100 | then not only are you gonna have the spike of joy,

00:33:56.500 | but it's gonna become stable at some point.

00:33:59.460 | And it increases the baseline level of fulfillment,

00:34:03.260 | contentedness, peace, and joy.

00:34:05.340 | And the way you know it's happening

00:34:06.940 | is that you need less and less to feel content.

00:34:13.220 | You're able to let go of control more and more to be present.

00:34:18.220 | So yeah, that's where you start to shift in the why,

00:34:22.260 | why you're doing the things that you're doing.

00:34:24.380 | It's not to try to get happy, it's because you're happy.

00:34:27.300 | That's why you took this job.

00:34:29.020 | That's why you dated this person.

00:34:31.020 | That's why you're engaging in this particular project.

00:34:33.900 | And everybody else on the outside may not understand.

00:34:37.300 | Why did you give up being an investment banker

00:34:39.180 | to work at a homeless shelter, right?

00:34:42.620 | That's what felt aligned with the happiness

00:34:45.740 | that I have inside.

00:34:46.940 | And that's how I wanted to contribute.

00:34:49.100 | And so you were feeling like your soul was being sucked

00:34:53.780 | in the investment banking situation.

00:34:55.940 | And in the homeless shelter, you're lit up inside.

00:34:59.020 | And then what ends up happening

00:35:00.420 | is because you're so engaged and present

00:35:02.740 | in that homeless shelter position, somebody notices.

00:35:07.620 | And then they tap you to become the head of social workers

00:35:12.620 | in that city, and then in that district,

00:35:15.940 | and then in that state.

00:35:17.100 | And then next thing you know,

00:35:17.940 | you're on some panel in the White House

00:35:19.860 | helping to engineer legislation around that work

00:35:23.940 | because you're the one that's obviously so engaged in it.

00:35:27.380 | And that took a leap of faith away from something

00:35:30.420 | that you thought was the higher paying job,

00:35:33.380 | but actually compared to how it was making you feel inside,

00:35:36.940 | it was the lower paying job.

00:35:39.300 | And the surface level, lower paying job

00:35:43.420 | was actually the higher paying job

00:35:44.700 | because it lit you up more.

00:35:46.660 | And then it ultimately manifested

00:35:48.580 | in you making five times more

00:35:51.860 | 'cause now you're a thought leader in that space.

00:35:54.300 | You're on the keynote circuit.

00:35:55.580 | You're writing books about it

00:35:56.780 | because you are so passionate about that work.

00:35:59.940 | And that's what we need to understand

00:36:01.460 | is that again, the heart is already guiding you,

00:36:03.860 | but it's always gonna take you out of your comfort zone

00:36:06.460 | and into your growth zone.

00:36:07.780 | And that's exactly where you want to be

00:36:10.020 | because that's where you need to be

00:36:11.580 | in order to stretch into the potential

00:36:13.940 | to fulfill that vision that you have for yourself.

00:36:17.380 | - I've even found that maybe the role

00:36:20.420 | at the homeless shelter in this example

00:36:22.620 | doesn't turn into the thing at the White House

00:36:24.740 | that's so much more lucrative for you,

00:36:26.580 | but maybe it puts you in the right state of mind

00:36:28.820 | to find another project that you start that becomes that.

00:36:31.700 | Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it used to be.

00:36:36.220 | I get it.

00:36:37.060 | Life comes at you fast, but trust me,

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00:39:13.620 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/deleteme.

00:39:17.620 | I just wanna thank you quick for listening to

00:39:21.220 | and supporting the show.

00:39:22.700 | Your support is what keeps this show going.

00:39:25.540 | To get all of the URLs, codes, deals and discounts

00:39:29.100 | from our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals.

00:39:33.580 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:39:36.900 | I spent a lot of time talking about money

00:39:38.660 | and there's this whole financial independence,

00:39:40.940 | retire early movement.

00:39:42.420 | And what I've seen is that people who end up saving up

00:39:45.300 | enough money to retire,

00:39:46.540 | thinking they're never gonna do anything,

00:39:48.280 | end up spending their time on things they love

00:39:50.580 | and then creating these second careers,

00:39:52.900 | which actually meant they probably could have retired per se

00:39:57.140 | in quotes a lot earlier because when you have the time

00:40:01.180 | and space to find things you're excited about

00:40:03.260 | and only work on those, very often, not always,

00:40:06.300 | but very often they end up turning into things

00:40:09.100 | that can support you and your family

00:40:10.740 | in ways that you probably didn't imagine beforehand.

00:40:13.260 | - Yeah, a hundred percent, man.

00:40:14.420 | And you know, there's all roads lead to Rome.

00:40:17.220 | All roads lead to your purpose.

00:40:18.740 | You can't screw it up, actually.

00:40:20.780 | So even if you stay in that investment banking job

00:40:23.540 | long enough, eventually it'll become so painful

00:40:26.020 | if it's not aligned.

00:40:27.060 | Sometimes it's aligned.

00:40:28.620 | You know, you end up, again, like somebody like Jamie Dimon

00:40:31.380 | and you're creating policy or at least influencing policy

00:40:34.780 | that could be bringing economic empowerment

00:40:37.260 | to certain communities and things like that.

00:40:39.620 | Or you're writing about it or you're speaking about it.

00:40:42.180 | But either way, you can't really go wrong.

00:40:44.380 | My work is all about just awareness,

00:40:47.100 | bringing more awareness to doing the things

00:40:49.140 | that you're doing.

00:40:50.420 | And checking in and seeing if this feels aligned

00:40:54.260 | because I want all the listeners

00:40:56.420 | to have the adventurous route.

00:40:58.980 | I don't want you being in a hospital

00:41:00.980 | and you can't use half your body

00:41:02.580 | because you stayed in it too long

00:41:04.060 | and then it manifested physically.

00:41:06.260 | And even that's a part of your purpose.

00:41:07.700 | Maybe you'll end up writing about that, right?

00:41:09.900 | But that's not the more enjoyable path.

00:41:13.020 | The more enjoyable path is the path of the unknown

00:41:16.260 | where you're choosing this consciously.

00:41:18.540 | You're choosing, I'm gonna leave this

00:41:20.460 | and I'm gonna do this other thing

00:41:21.460 | because it lights me up inside.

00:41:23.580 | I don't know how it's gonna turn out,

00:41:25.340 | but I'm trusting that it's going to lead me somewhere

00:41:29.820 | that is gonna allow me to become more useful.

00:41:33.660 | So if retiring early lights me up inside,

00:41:37.220 | then that's gonna lead me somewhere

00:41:38.660 | that's gonna allow me to become more useful.

00:41:41.020 | If continuing to work lights me up inside,

00:41:44.420 | then that's gonna lead me somewhere.

00:41:45.620 | You know, if you're like the Picasso

00:41:47.140 | where Picasso isn't thinking about retiring from painting

00:41:50.060 | 'cause he loves it so much.

00:41:51.860 | So if your work is so close to your heart in that way,

00:41:55.820 | you're not thinking about when am I gonna retire, right?

00:41:58.540 | All you're thinking about is when can I go

00:42:00.100 | and keep creating and keep finding solutions.

00:42:02.980 | So whatever path you're on,

00:42:04.820 | you're gonna eventually arrive at the awareness

00:42:08.300 | that you've been on your purpose the entire time,

00:42:11.140 | that everything was preparing you.

00:42:12.820 | - And what would you say to someone who's like,

00:42:14.300 | gosh, I know I'm not in the right thing.

00:42:16.020 | I don't know what the alternative is.

00:42:17.660 | They hate the investment banking job,

00:42:19.060 | but they don't have an alternative right now.

00:42:21.020 | They don't have the thing that lights them up.

00:42:22.700 | - So I'll tell you what they do have though.

00:42:24.180 | They have curiosity about something.

00:42:27.460 | And the reason why they may dismiss it

00:42:29.220 | is 'cause it doesn't make sense.

00:42:30.420 | It doesn't align with whatever they think their thing is.

00:42:35.260 | And I'll give you an example about this, okay?

00:42:37.900 | So I remember one time I was teaching meditation,

00:42:40.180 | which I've been doing for 15 plus years now.

00:42:43.140 | I was teaching meditation in New York City,

00:42:45.260 | staying at an Airbnb.

00:42:47.420 | And I'm thinking, you know, it's my dream job,

00:42:51.780 | and I just wanna get as many people as possible

00:42:53.940 | into these meditation trainings

00:42:55.780 | and expose people to this knowledge.

00:42:58.380 | So I'm walking through Union Square one night,

00:43:02.580 | which is in the middle of Manhattan,

00:43:04.260 | on my way back to my apartment after teaching a class.

00:43:07.100 | Something tells me to go to Barnes and Noble,

00:43:11.180 | which is at the north end of Union Square,

00:43:13.940 | and to get a Rubik's Cube and to learn how to solve it.

00:43:18.940 | Just out of the blue.

00:43:19.780 | Like again, it's 9.45 at night.

00:43:22.420 | I get this intuitive hit.

00:43:24.900 | And then immediately I started thinking,

00:43:26.460 | well, it's almost 10 o'clock.

00:43:28.220 | They're probably closed.

00:43:29.500 | I'm kinda tired.

00:43:30.660 | Just wanna go home.

00:43:31.620 | But again, I had been doing so much inner work

00:43:34.660 | that my still small voice

00:43:36.300 | now became the loud, annoying voice.

00:43:38.900 | It was like, get your ass up in Barnes and Noble right now.

00:43:41.620 | Get that Rubik's Cube, hurry up before they close.

00:43:44.300 | So I'm like, okay, fine.

00:43:46.060 | So I go and I get the Rubik's Cube,

00:43:48.060 | 'cause I spent a lot of time in that Barnes and Noble,

00:43:49.660 | so I knew where the toy section was

00:43:51.580 | and they had one Rubik's Cube left.

00:43:53.940 | I paid for it.

00:43:55.700 | I was like the last person in the checkout lane

00:43:57.540 | before they closed.

00:43:58.940 | And I get home and my friend calls.

00:44:01.340 | This is my friend who I talk to him about money

00:44:03.900 | and all that all the time and business strategy.

00:44:06.700 | And he goes, what are you doing?

00:44:07.900 | And I said, I just got a Rubik's Cube

00:44:09.700 | and I'm learning how to solve it.

00:44:11.500 | He goes, what?

00:44:12.780 | I said, yeah, I got a Rubik's Cube.

00:44:13.940 | He goes, what are you doing playing with the Rubik's?

00:44:15.180 | And he starts giving me all this litany of reasons

00:44:17.220 | why I need to put the Rubik's Cube aside

00:44:20.060 | and spend that energy on more productive things.

00:44:24.740 | So this isn't the first time I bewildered my friends

00:44:28.180 | with my weird, quirky interests.

00:44:31.060 | So I just kind of ignored it.

00:44:32.340 | And I went on Google and I researched

00:44:36.620 | how do you solve a Rubik's Cube?

00:44:38.460 | 'Cause I had no idea.

00:44:39.900 | Turns out there's an algorithm to solving the Rubik's Cube.

00:44:43.780 | And you just have to memorize this sequence

00:44:46.220 | and you can solve a cube.

00:44:47.140 | I thought you had to be a genius to solve a Rubik's Cube.

00:44:49.940 | It turns out that's not how it works.

00:44:51.820 | So I started going through the sequence

00:44:53.540 | and mastering the terms.

00:44:54.820 | And it took me about three days to finally learn

00:44:57.740 | how to solve the Rubik's Cube within a few minutes,

00:44:59.820 | which is the most amazing thing.

00:45:01.180 | If you're ever on a New York subway

00:45:02.500 | and you pull out a Rubik's Cube and you start solving it,

00:45:04.980 | it's incredible.

00:45:05.820 | People are like gawking at you

00:45:08.060 | 'cause they think you're a genius,

00:45:09.700 | but you're not a genius.

00:45:10.620 | You just learned the sequence.

00:45:12.700 | So anyways, I'm bringing this Rubik's Cube

00:45:14.700 | with me everywhere I go now

00:45:15.900 | 'cause it's like a little party trick.

00:45:18.500 | And then it dawns on me one day

00:45:21.100 | that the way you solve a Rubik's Cube,

00:45:24.220 | which is how everybody solves it,

00:45:26.460 | you solve it in rows.

00:45:27.540 | You start with the bottom row, the middle row,

00:45:29.580 | then the top row, and then you do some more turns

00:45:32.620 | and the whole thing gets solved.

00:45:34.220 | The way that works is very similar

00:45:36.300 | to the way meditation works.

00:45:38.340 | It works essentially in levels.

00:45:40.500 | So the base level is like rest gets restored,

00:45:44.340 | and then from there, your immune system comes back online,

00:45:49.340 | and then your reproduction system comes back online,

00:45:52.420 | and then your hormonal balancing system,

00:45:55.180 | the endocrine system comes back online, et cetera.

00:45:58.140 | And then the whole thing comes back into balance.

00:46:00.660 | I never would have guessed that there was a connection

00:46:04.060 | between a Rubik's Cube and meditation.

00:46:05.700 | I was so curious about it

00:46:07.340 | that I decided to make a video.

00:46:09.620 | This is back in like 2006 or seven.

00:46:12.420 | So there was this new website, newish website, YouTube,

00:46:15.820 | and I was like, I'm gonna do a YouTube video,

00:46:17.420 | my first YouTube video.

00:46:19.100 | And I got my point and shoot camera.

00:46:21.340 | There were no smartphones.

00:46:22.820 | And I turned my living room in Venice, California

00:46:25.260 | into like a little makeshift studio.

00:46:27.580 | I was like setting it up on shoe boxes and stuff.

00:46:29.940 | Then I created this video

00:46:31.820 | where I demonstrated solving the Rubik's Cube,

00:46:35.460 | and then I had to learn how to put captions over it.

00:46:38.860 | And that video, I uploaded it, it went viral.

00:46:43.860 | And people in the meditation community

00:46:46.660 | started sharing it like wildfire.

00:46:49.700 | And guess what?

00:46:50.860 | More people came to learn meditation.

00:46:53.980 | The thing that I wanted ultimately,

00:46:56.580 | my heart voice knew that that's what I wanted.

00:47:00.260 | And it took me on this really beautiful,

00:47:02.140 | adventurous path to get the result that I was after

00:47:06.860 | that I never could have imagined in a million years.

00:47:09.260 | The first step was to take your ass in Barnes & Noble

00:47:11.860 | and get that thing, get that Rubik's Cube,

00:47:14.060 | and then spend a few days learning how to solve it,

00:47:16.580 | and then use it as a party trick,

00:47:18.660 | and then figure out how to make a YouTube video,

00:47:21.220 | figure out how to do captions, iMovie.

00:47:23.020 | So the whole path took a lot of work.

00:47:26.140 | It took a lot of focus.

00:47:27.300 | It took a lot of saying no to things

00:47:29.260 | because I was working so intently on this project.

00:47:32.900 | But the end result was I had this thing

00:47:36.220 | that was now driving people to learn how to meditate.

00:47:41.060 | And that's how curiosity works.

00:47:43.660 | You never know where it's gonna lead to.

00:47:45.500 | You just trust that if it's genuine and it's sincere,

00:47:49.500 | and your intentions are good,

00:47:51.380 | and you follow through with it,

00:47:52.700 | and it's not harming anybody,

00:47:54.140 | it's gonna lead you to the place

00:47:56.460 | that you've always envisioned for yourself,

00:47:58.340 | but in the most unpredictable and amazing way possible.

00:48:02.740 | - So the answer, I guess,

00:48:03.580 | is if you don't know what you should be doing,

00:48:05.300 | just follow the curiosity and see where it goes.

00:48:08.140 | - Follow the curiosity.

00:48:09.420 | That's the gateway to your purpose.

00:48:11.060 | I say in the book,

00:48:12.020 | you don't have to ever worry about your purpose.

00:48:13.780 | Just follow your curiosity and your purpose will find you.

00:48:16.340 | - I love that.

00:48:17.180 | - That's the hack.

00:48:18.020 | That's the hack to finding your purpose

00:48:19.260 | is follow your curiosity relentlessly, no judgment.

00:48:22.940 | - And just see where it takes you.

00:48:24.180 | You mentioned meditation a few times,

00:48:25.380 | and it brought me back to a few questions I didn't ask,

00:48:27.620 | and I wanna come back to because I think it's important.

00:48:29.820 | I know a lot of people are thinking

00:48:30.780 | there's a lot of things I could do to make my life better.

00:48:33.420 | I could start eating better.

00:48:34.980 | I could start exercising.

00:48:36.180 | I could be sleeping better.

00:48:37.420 | How would you weigh those things, right?

00:48:38.860 | If someone's trying to decide they're not exercising now,

00:48:41.780 | they're not meditating, they're not sleeping well,

00:48:44.220 | all these things, how would you prioritize

00:48:46.100 | which one is the higher order impact on your life?

00:48:49.420 | - That's a great question.

00:48:50.460 | Okay, so here's how you wanna look at it.

00:48:53.260 | You need a key habit, okay?

00:48:55.020 | So let's say you choose exercise.

00:48:59.300 | You decide I'm gonna go to the gym by clockwork every day.

00:49:02.860 | Is going to the gym going to make you want

00:49:06.100 | to be kinder to your family?

00:49:09.260 | Maybe, maybe not.

00:49:10.320 | Is going to the gym gonna make you

00:49:12.420 | wanna sit down and meditate?

00:49:13.700 | Maybe not more than you did before, right?

00:49:17.020 | So then, okay, maybe I can eliminate the gym.

00:49:19.260 | Okay, what about eating healthy?

00:49:20.620 | Is eating healthy gonna make me wanna go to the gym?

00:49:23.060 | Maybe, maybe not.

00:49:24.380 | Is it gonna make me wanna be nice to my family?

00:49:26.020 | I don't know.

00:49:26.860 | Is it gonna make me want to be more purposeful in my life?

00:49:29.820 | So you can keep going down the list.

00:49:31.380 | And what I've found is that actually meditation

00:49:34.300 | is probably one of the best key habits

00:49:37.340 | because it gets rid of that one thing

00:49:39.940 | that makes you not wanna go to the gym, which is stress.

00:49:42.980 | That makes you not wanna eat healthy, which is stress.

00:49:45.660 | That makes you not wanna be nice, which is stress.

00:49:48.220 | That makes you not sleep well, which is stress.

00:49:50.780 | So stress can be tied to most of the bad habits

00:49:55.780 | that we have in our lives.

00:49:59.460 | When you can eliminate stress

00:50:01.340 | by exposing it to its kryptonite,

00:50:03.580 | it's not that meditation is the Superman.

00:50:06.100 | Meditation will help manufacture endogenous chemicals

00:50:10.740 | such as serotonin, dopamine, and anandamine,

00:50:14.460 | and all the bliss chemicals, oxytocin,

00:50:16.660 | that melt stress away inside of the body.

00:50:19.700 | And when you have a body that is freer of stress,

00:50:23.460 | then you naturally feel more inclined

00:50:25.600 | to do the other things that you know you want to do

00:50:29.660 | in order to have the best life possible.

00:50:32.260 | The other thing about it,

00:50:33.700 | and this is potentially even more important,

00:50:35.660 | is that meditation is like Wonder Woman's lasso.

00:50:38.740 | When she lassoes somebody,

00:50:40.660 | her superpower is that lasso forces them to tell the truth.

00:50:44.420 | Meditation is like a truth serum.

00:50:46.500 | It's really hard to bullshit yourself

00:50:47.960 | when you're meditating every day.

00:50:49.740 | It's hard to lie to yourself about what you are gonna do,

00:50:52.620 | what you're not gonna do,

00:50:53.940 | and walk around pretending that things are the case

00:50:56.700 | when they're not the case.

00:50:57.980 | And you find yourself having more moments of boldness,

00:51:01.740 | more honest conversations.

00:51:03.900 | You're calling yourself out more about BSing yourself.

00:51:07.620 | And that also plays a role in you forming good habits

00:51:11.280 | because you're now able to say,

00:51:12.580 | okay, I know I'm not gonna wake up at six in the morning

00:51:14.500 | to work on my memoir,

00:51:16.040 | so maybe I need to institute some other sort of system

00:51:19.820 | that's going to put me in a better position to do that.

00:51:23.380 | And maybe that requires getting some accountability.

00:51:25.880 | Maybe I need to drop money on a coach

00:51:27.700 | 'cause that's what I really pay attention to

00:51:29.260 | is when I spend money on something.

00:51:31.540 | And so you do that, and that's your path, right?

00:51:35.040 | It's different for everybody,

00:51:36.100 | but I think the thing that's lacking for most of us

00:51:38.500 | is honesty.

00:51:39.420 | We're lying to ourselves

00:51:40.660 | about what we think we're gonna do.

00:51:42.200 | Our intentions are great.

00:51:43.220 | We have the best of intentions.

00:51:44.380 | It's just that we don't have any history of evidence

00:51:47.580 | that we're gonna actually do these things

00:51:49.380 | that we're telling ourselves we're gonna do.

00:51:51.300 | And if we're honest with ourselves about that,

00:51:52.980 | then we can put ourselves in a better position,

00:51:55.080 | and there's a million ways to do that.

00:51:56.700 | - Is there a length of time

00:51:57.860 | you think someone needs to, at a minimum,

00:52:00.060 | kind of commit before they feel like

00:52:02.420 | they might be able to check in and see some benefit?

00:52:04.420 | Obviously, if you just meditate one time for 15 minutes,

00:52:07.220 | you're not gonna see a ton of impact on your life.

00:52:11.100 | - It's less about time

00:52:12.260 | and more about understanding what you're doing.

00:52:14.240 | If you don't know what you're doing,

00:52:15.200 | even two minutes is gonna feel like a torture, a nightmare.

00:52:19.100 | But if you know what you're doing,

00:52:20.380 | 20 minutes is not gonna be long enough.

00:52:21.860 | You're gonna wanna go longer than 20.

00:52:23.840 | So, provided that you know what you're doing,

00:52:26.820 | then you wanna do about minimum 10 minutes,

00:52:29.860 | maximum 20 minutes.

00:52:31.580 | - How many days do you think

00:52:33.580 | someone should commit to doing this?

00:52:35.540 | I mean, I know you probably would say all of the days.

00:52:37.540 | Is there a go for three weeks and see what happens,

00:52:40.020 | go for a month, go for a week?

00:52:41.840 | - You need to do 90 days in order for it to become a habit,

00:52:44.600 | in order for your body to get used to the chemicals

00:52:47.020 | being released during the meditation.

00:52:48.460 | And then it becomes in the same category

00:52:50.180 | as coffee, cigarettes, sugar.

00:52:52.780 | You don't have to plan it.

00:52:54.860 | Your body will just naturally crave it

00:52:56.500 | and you'll rearrange your entire schedule to do it.

00:53:00.180 | So, if you wanna give yourself that level of freedom,

00:53:03.700 | and it's a freedom.

00:53:04.900 | You have to earn it, but it's a freedom.

00:53:06.780 | That consistency leads to the freedom of,

00:53:09.420 | oh, my body is craving this experience now.

00:53:12.240 | So yeah, 90 days, three months.

00:53:14.440 | - Okay, 10, 20 minutes a day.

00:53:16.260 | - I would say 20 minutes a day for three months in a row,

00:53:20.600 | and you will find yourself dependent on meditation.

00:53:24.560 | - And you said a coach accountability.

00:53:27.320 | Are there other ways that are maybe not

00:53:29.760 | as expensive as a coach?

00:53:30.900 | Could you have a friend?

00:53:31.740 | Could you have a partner?

00:53:32.760 | - You know those videos where it says,

00:53:33.960 | if I lost everything,

00:53:35.360 | this is how I would rebuild my wealth.

00:53:37.240 | If I lost all of my experience in meditation,

00:53:39.240 | what I would do is I would get my book Bliss More,

00:53:43.760 | which is my how to succeed in meditation

00:53:45.560 | without really trying book.

00:53:46.840 | I would read that book,

00:53:48.320 | and I would listen to the audio of that book,

00:53:51.320 | which will be an investment of about 20 bucks,

00:53:54.280 | and I would do everything that that book tells me to do,

00:53:57.360 | which is essentially to adopt that nonchalant attitude

00:54:00.200 | and to be consistent for 90 days.

00:54:02.100 | And it helps, you know, there's all kinds of questions

00:54:04.020 | that everybody and their mother has had with meditation.

00:54:06.720 | Should I be focusing my breath?

00:54:08.360 | Should I use crystals?

00:54:09.400 | Should I do it at this time?

00:54:10.400 | Should I do it right before bed?

00:54:11.400 | Should I do it right after I eat?

00:54:12.760 | All those questions are answered in that book,

00:54:14.640 | and it'll give you the playbook

00:54:15.920 | for getting a practice started.

00:54:18.960 | And then once you start to get enough positive experiences,

00:54:21.960 | maybe you wanna take it to the next level

00:54:23.280 | where you actually go and study with somebody.

00:54:25.640 | - What gets unlocked at these levels

00:54:27.320 | when you start to study with someone else?

00:54:29.480 | Do you get more out of it?

00:54:31.160 | - Oh, 100%, yeah.

00:54:32.800 | It's like learning how to swim from a book.

00:54:34.640 | I mean, technically you can do it.

00:54:36.720 | They'll tell you, okay, you need to torque your body here,

00:54:39.080 | you need to elongate, you need to move.

00:54:40.680 | There's nothing like having a teacher watch you swim

00:54:43.760 | and give you real-time feedback

00:54:46.400 | and give you drills and answer your questions in real time.

00:54:51.020 | So having that verification and validation

00:54:54.040 | of technique and form and experiences

00:54:56.800 | can really accelerate your enjoyability factor

00:55:01.800 | when it comes to meditation.

00:55:03.440 | Otherwise, you're kind of reinventing the wheel every day.

00:55:06.440 | - Okay.

00:55:07.560 | I think we covered a lot of things.

00:55:09.160 | The one thing we didn't talk about,

00:55:10.480 | which is funny 'cause I think travel

00:55:12.160 | is a very common theme of the show.

00:55:13.960 | I love to travel.

00:55:14.800 | We have whole episodes about places.

00:55:17.200 | And one of the things that,

00:55:19.360 | as you were talking about purpose and happiness,

00:55:22.500 | it made me realize you only have a backpack.

00:55:25.520 | I said that in the intro, but for people that don't know,

00:55:27.360 | I don't mean you have a backpack.

00:55:29.120 | I mean, all of your worldly possessions

00:55:31.400 | fit in a carry-on, a small backpack.

00:55:34.000 | And I realized it's not that you thought

00:55:36.800 | getting rid of your possessions would make you happy.

00:55:38.480 | It seems like you realize you're already happy without them.

00:55:41.080 | Why have more?

00:55:42.200 | But talk a little bit about the transition

00:55:44.720 | to so few things and what that's unlocked for you.

00:55:48.120 | - Yeah, people ask me,

00:55:49.040 | "When did you start becoming a minimalist?"

00:55:51.160 | And what they're expecting me to say is that,

00:55:53.380 | "Oh, I became minimalist on May 31st, 2018

00:55:56.400 | "when I moved out of my two-bedroom apartment

00:55:58.220 | "in Santa Monica and into my carry-on bag,"

00:56:00.280 | which was the first apartment I had was my carry-on bag.

00:56:02.680 | And then a year later, I downsized into a backpack

00:56:05.280 | when I realized I had too much stuff.

00:56:07.080 | But the real answer is I became a minimalist in 2003

00:56:11.880 | when I started taking my meditation practice seriously.

00:56:14.860 | Because what that did was it helped me

00:56:17.400 | to create internal space.

00:56:19.400 | And it's the internal spaciousness, aka fulfillment,

00:56:24.040 | that genuine sense of fulfillment

00:56:26.740 | that allowed me to become more and more unattached

00:56:30.320 | to things going in the way that I thought

00:56:33.480 | that they should have gone in.

00:56:35.000 | And if you think about it,

00:56:36.360 | the listeners can run this thought experiment.

00:56:38.240 | I want you to think about the last time you suffered,

00:56:41.880 | the last time you experienced suffering.

00:56:43.960 | And let's just keep it really light.

00:56:45.800 | Emotional suffering, okay?

00:56:48.000 | Not like you got hit by a car, but just emotional suffering.

00:56:51.360 | I guarantee you it was for one of two reasons.

00:56:54.440 | Either something didn't happen in the way

00:56:56.240 | that you thought it should have happened,

00:56:58.280 | or it didn't happen in the time

00:56:59.840 | you thought it should have happened in.

00:57:01.040 | So all suffering, not pain, but suffering,

00:57:04.920 | which is the soundtrack on top of pain,

00:57:07.600 | all suffering leads back to some expectation.

00:57:12.160 | And that expectation is tied to our past.

00:57:15.960 | Because we've learned, we've been conditioned to believe

00:57:18.760 | that something needs to happen in this amount of time,

00:57:20.960 | or it needs to happen in this way.

00:57:23.200 | And maybe we've experienced pain throughout the years,

00:57:26.380 | and it's helped to hardwire that expectation.

00:57:30.000 | And if it doesn't happen today or tomorrow

00:57:32.680 | in the way that I think it should happen,

00:57:34.520 | then I'm having a bad day.

00:57:37.120 | And that's what makes a bad day,

00:57:38.440 | is a day that we can't adapt to change.

00:57:43.440 | It's really that simple.

00:57:44.720 | And a good day is a day where we may be experiencing

00:57:47.740 | lots of demands and lots of pressures,

00:57:49.360 | but we're moving through it.

00:57:50.520 | We're navigating it successfully.

00:57:52.940 | We're adapting to it.

00:57:54.640 | And that feels good.

00:57:55.560 | There's a feeling tone that comes from that.

00:57:57.680 | When you have a day full of demands

00:57:59.520 | and you're just hitting every single one,

00:58:01.560 | you're moving through them, you're learning things,

00:58:03.920 | you're present, you're engaged.

00:58:06.440 | And if you have a string of those kinds of days,

00:58:08.880 | then that leads to a successful life.

00:58:11.280 | Yeah, I'm talking about feeling tone now,

00:58:12.720 | not like, oh, I have more money than the next person.

00:58:15.440 | But you can have all the money in the world

00:58:17.760 | and still feel like a failure and still suffer.

00:58:20.200 | Or you could be in a situation

00:58:21.680 | where you just have a modest amount of money,

00:58:23.680 | but you've adapted to the changes

00:58:26.000 | in your relationship successfully.

00:58:28.120 | You've adapted to the changes

00:58:29.240 | in your family dynamics successfully.

00:58:31.160 | There was a storm in your area

00:58:33.280 | and something happened to your house.

00:58:34.760 | You adapted to that successfully.

00:58:36.840 | And every time you are able to successfully adapt

00:58:39.360 | to something, you get gifted with some insight,

00:58:42.140 | some perspective that allows you to help others,

00:58:45.280 | to be more useful in the world.

00:58:47.560 | So maybe you wrote something, you started a blog,

00:58:49.640 | you started a podcast, you helped people in some way.

00:58:52.920 | And that comes with its own sense

00:58:54.640 | of gratification and fulfillment.

00:58:56.800 | And so you keep that happening from all sides,

00:58:59.760 | and that's what a successful life is at the end of the day.

00:59:02.640 | So obviously, practices like meditation are helpful for that

00:59:05.300 | because it allows you to just be more present.

00:59:07.680 | But then it's not enough to just solve everything.

00:59:10.720 | You still have to be the best version

00:59:13.480 | of you out in the world, whatever that looks like.

00:59:15.960 | And you still have to be moving forward

00:59:17.360 | and progressing and growing and stretching

00:59:19.120 | into your potential.

00:59:20.160 | And that's where you really get the biggest wins in life

00:59:22.640 | is when you're doing that not as a destination,

00:59:24.760 | but as a process.

00:59:26.040 | - It's funny because I feel like almost anyone you talk to

00:59:28.600 | that practices minimalism in terms of material items,

00:59:32.680 | their answer seems to be, you should get rid of your things.

00:59:34.880 | And yours is like, I haven't heard you once tell me

00:59:37.080 | that I should live out of a backpack.

00:59:39.000 | It's more like that comes later after you figure out.

00:59:42.040 | - Well, the backpack experience is my version

00:59:45.680 | of stretching into my potential.

00:59:48.660 | So I'm not ever telling anybody else to do that.

00:59:51.440 | But you have your version of that.

00:59:53.480 | And your version of that may be starting the business,

00:59:56.560 | starting the podcast.

00:59:58.040 | It may be starting the garden.

00:59:59.520 | It may be volunteering at a homeless shelter.

01:00:01.720 | It may be something that stretches you,

01:00:03.480 | something that's a little bit uncomfortable, right?

01:00:05.680 | And that's what the backpack thing was for me.

01:00:07.760 | The idea of doing it, it was something that excited me,

01:00:11.840 | but it also made me really uncomfortable.

01:00:13.720 | I was in my mid forties when I made that decision.

01:00:16.960 | I was childless and didn't have a relation.

01:00:19.280 | I just broke it up from my girlfriend.

01:00:20.960 | And I felt like I had all of the metrics

01:00:24.840 | that one would need.

01:00:25.920 | I have my shit together.

01:00:27.280 | I'm a good looking guy.

01:00:28.440 | I'm tall.

01:00:29.400 | I'm successful in my career.

01:00:31.720 | I have a purpose, a passion.

01:00:33.360 | I've got this beautiful apartment,

01:00:34.680 | 10 minutes walking from the beach, under market value.

01:00:37.720 | I've got money saved up.

01:00:39.000 | I've got a supportive family,

01:00:40.280 | strong connection to my parents.

01:00:42.000 | I've got all the things,

01:00:43.760 | but I can't seem to get a relationship

01:00:46.840 | that makes me want to take it to the next level yet.

01:00:51.520 | And I'm not getting any younger.

01:00:53.080 | So it's like, I could have easily talked myself out of that

01:00:55.760 | and thought, you know, this is silly.

01:00:57.080 | This is stupid.

01:00:57.920 | Women aren't gonna be excited

01:00:59.360 | about some old ass dude who lives from a backpack.

01:01:02.680 | That's not gonna make them want to get married

01:01:04.200 | and have kids.

01:01:06.320 | So it was like flying in the face

01:01:08.200 | of the conventional wisdom,

01:01:11.120 | but that wasn't the instruction.

01:01:13.440 | The call from inside was,

01:01:15.440 | now's the time to have this experience.

01:01:17.640 | And I'm still in process.

01:01:18.880 | I'm still not married.

01:01:20.120 | I mean, I have relationships and stuff

01:01:22.000 | and those are wonderful,

01:01:22.840 | but we'll have to see how everything turns out.

01:01:25.000 | But I've learned a long, long, long, long time ago

01:01:28.160 | that when you ignore that inner calling,

01:01:30.480 | things don't get better.

01:01:31.640 | Oftentimes they get worse.

01:01:33.640 | And if we have more time,

01:01:34.760 | I could share some of those experiences with you.

01:01:36.480 | But when you do follow that inner calling relentlessly,

01:01:40.480 | things only ever get better.

01:01:42.320 | You only ever win.

01:01:44.600 | And when I say win,

01:01:45.760 | I'm not talking about money,

01:01:46.920 | although that could be one of the symptoms.

01:01:49.200 | You can sleep at night knowing that you did your best

01:01:53.240 | and you lived your life in alignment

01:01:56.040 | and integrity with your heart.

01:01:58.000 | And that is the biggest win that I can imagine.

01:02:02.040 | - I love that.

01:02:02.880 | Are there any other topics or, I don't know,

01:02:06.480 | tactics or optimizations throughout this that we missed?

01:02:09.280 | - Man, there's tons.

01:02:10.120 | I feel like I included a lot in this book,

01:02:12.360 | specifically with things like working out.

01:02:14.440 | - Let's give us one there.

01:02:15.840 | - Well, working out is tough for even people

01:02:18.280 | who've been working out for their whole life, like myself.

01:02:20.440 | I put myself in that category.

01:02:21.960 | I didn't really look forward to going to the gym

01:02:24.520 | until I started taking the minimalist approach

01:02:27.080 | to working out.

01:02:28.480 | And what that means is doing less,

01:02:32.040 | but doing it with a level of quality

01:02:34.600 | that left you wanting more.

01:02:37.160 | And so instead of going to the gym

01:02:39.880 | and doing a whole hour-long regimen

01:02:42.960 | where you're supersetting this and that

01:02:45.000 | and doing this and finishing with that,

01:02:46.920 | I just do one exercise.

01:02:48.760 | I do one.

01:02:50.560 | There's like five to 10 lifts.

01:02:54.160 | And I'm focusing on resistance training now

01:02:57.000 | because it's just important for maintaining muscle mass.

01:02:59.880 | But there's like five to 10 lifts that you can do

01:03:02.720 | that basically hits the whole body

01:03:05.360 | over the course of doing those five to 10 lifts.

01:03:08.120 | And so I've broken down my whole week

01:03:10.200 | in accordance to those lifts.

01:03:12.040 | They call them compound lifts,

01:03:13.400 | which means they help you contract

01:03:15.560 | multiple parts of the body.

01:03:17.280 | So for instance, squatting.

01:03:18.760 | Squatting affects your legs, it affects your core,

01:03:22.000 | and it affects your back.

01:03:23.680 | So squatting is you standing underneath a bar

01:03:26.480 | on a squat rack and you just bending your knees

01:03:29.280 | and squatting down as much as is comfortable

01:03:31.720 | and coming back, pressing back up.

01:03:33.920 | And so Thursdays are my squat day.

01:03:36.160 | So I do one exercise, five sets of five squats.

01:03:40.440 | And I go for progressive overload,

01:03:42.600 | which means doing a little bit more each time.

01:03:45.400 | And that's it, that's all I do.

01:03:46.440 | So the whole workout takes me like 20 minutes

01:03:48.400 | and then I leave the gym.

01:03:49.280 | Even if I want to do more, I leave the gym.

01:03:51.760 | Then I come back on Friday and I do pull-ups.

01:03:55.040 | And I'll do five sets of five weighted pull-ups.

01:03:58.640 | And then I'll come back on Saturday and I'll do arms.

01:04:02.120 | And like that, Mondays are bench presses

01:04:05.000 | and Tuesdays are dead lifts.

01:04:06.880 | So I have something for each day.

01:04:08.280 | And then what I do is I do affirmations

01:04:11.400 | instead of counting down reps.

01:04:13.520 | Instead of going five, four, three, two, one,

01:04:16.160 | or one, two, three, four, five, I'll do an affirmation.

01:04:18.880 | An affirmation is a positive saying

01:04:21.280 | that helps to integrate something

01:04:23.960 | that you want to experience in your life.

01:04:25.600 | So for instance, you could say,

01:04:28.200 | I am perfect whole complete.

01:04:30.360 | I am perfect whole complete, that's an affirmation.

01:04:32.680 | I am perfect whole complete.

01:04:34.600 | I need for nothing, right?

01:04:35.560 | In other words, you could also on the next set,

01:04:39.400 | do your wife, Jill is perfect whole complete.

01:04:43.120 | And then your kids, Dan is perfect whole complete.

01:04:46.080 | Jane is perfect whole, like that.

01:04:47.640 | So it just gives you a different energy when you're lifting.

01:04:50.760 | 'Cause it's like, you got to finish the sentence.

01:04:53.160 | So otherwise they're not gonna be perfect whole complete.

01:04:56.800 | And at the same time,

01:04:57.960 | it's almost like the lifting becomes like a meditation

01:05:00.680 | or like a prayer for you.

01:05:02.800 | And it's a different energy.

01:05:03.960 | You know, it's a different way to bring excitement

01:05:06.680 | into the experience.

01:05:09.120 | And you did something useful for other people.

01:05:12.280 | So it just checks a lot of boxes,

01:05:14.000 | which is what I mean by spiritual minimalism

01:05:16.600 | is doing more with less.

01:05:19.760 | You could have counted numbers.

01:05:21.360 | There's no harm in doing that.

01:05:22.760 | But now you've got to still do your prayers.

01:05:25.520 | You still got to do your affirmations.

01:05:27.000 | You still got to do your meditation, all that.

01:05:28.560 | But you can combine all that too

01:05:30.440 | and make it into this really beautiful special ritual

01:05:34.040 | that you get to enjoy.

01:05:35.400 | So I have a lot of tips for that inside of the book,

01:05:37.880 | how to bring more of that meditative component

01:05:41.960 | into everything you're doing, even like walking.

01:05:44.320 | Instead of just sitting there counting your steps,

01:05:46.040 | you'd make it into like more of a meditation as well.

01:05:48.800 | - There were a lot of those in the book

01:05:50.280 | that I enjoyed reading.

01:05:51.120 | There's some stuff on communication

01:05:52.320 | that I thought was really interesting.

01:05:53.920 | And so I'm not gonna ask you all of them

01:05:55.560 | because anyone here can just go

01:05:57.200 | and check out the book as I did.

01:05:58.960 | So before we wrap two things,

01:06:00.600 | one, I always like to ask people,

01:06:02.520 | especially people who live abroad,

01:06:04.520 | if someone's coming to where you are in the world,

01:06:06.720 | there's a little bit of a detour from everything we've said,

01:06:08.680 | but how would you recommend them spend a day or two,

01:06:12.040 | maybe with at least one or two specific things

01:06:14.520 | that you love in the city?

01:06:16.120 | - So this is great.

01:06:17.960 | I'm in Mexico City.

01:06:19.560 | First of all, if you live in the States,

01:06:21.200 | it's a very easy place to get to.

01:06:22.920 | Most cities have direct flights to Mexico City.

01:06:26.120 | And if you only have a day to spend in Mexico City,

01:06:30.600 | I would say to get yourself

01:06:34.120 | maybe an Airbnb in an area called La Condesa.

01:06:39.080 | And in La Condesa,

01:06:40.200 | they refer to it as like the bubble of Mexico City, right?

01:06:43.360 | It's where a lot of the expats live.

01:06:45.640 | And it's one of the most walkable areas.

01:06:48.840 | And there's like a thousand cafes.

01:06:51.080 | There's a bunch of little shops

01:06:53.800 | and there are central parks.

01:06:56.920 | There's one park called Parque Mexico.

01:07:00.120 | So I would just say just land in La Condesa somewhere,

01:07:03.960 | anywhere, and just walk around

01:07:06.160 | and you can just kind of roam around

01:07:08.560 | and you can use Parque Mexico

01:07:10.400 | as your sort of central point of focus.

01:07:13.040 | So if you get lost, look at your map on your phone

01:07:15.800 | and walk towards Parque Mexico.

01:07:17.560 | And the closer you get to that park,

01:07:18.880 | the more cafes, the more restaurants,

01:07:20.640 | the more shops you're gonna see.

01:07:22.480 | And it's a great place to just get lost

01:07:24.160 | and not have an agenda at all.

01:07:25.840 | And everyone's out walking

01:07:27.760 | and there's these beautiful little paths

01:07:29.280 | that are tree-lined and tons of dogs

01:07:31.640 | if you're a dog lover.

01:07:33.200 | And outdoor seating in these cafes.

01:07:36.000 | It's a wonderful place just to kind of get lost

01:07:38.240 | and roam around.

01:07:39.520 | And if you are a student of language,

01:07:42.360 | you can practice what little Spanish you may know

01:07:45.360 | with the vendors or whoever's around.

01:07:48.160 | And you're gonna stumble upon some wonderful food

01:07:51.560 | and some really charming little shops

01:07:53.600 | and lots of street vendors and things like that.

01:07:56.440 | Whatever you do, don't drink the tap water.

01:07:58.560 | Don't brush your teeth with it.

01:07:59.920 | Just use bottled water for that.

01:08:01.280 | You can drink tap water at the restaurants

01:08:02.800 | 'cause they filter it.

01:08:03.920 | - I will say, I think there's one actually

01:08:05.920 | right near the park.

01:08:07.240 | I think that El Morro is a churrascaria,

01:08:10.320 | or churrea, I can't remember the way to pronounce it,

01:08:12.960 | but they have amazing churros.

01:08:14.760 | And I'll push you to give one recommendation

01:08:16.680 | if there's a place you'd like to eat

01:08:18.040 | if someone's looking for a snack.

01:08:19.680 | - Place to eat here in Mexico City, I would say,

01:08:24.680 | all right, so it's a small little cafe,

01:08:26.880 | but they have a little something for everybody.

01:08:28.440 | It's called Canopia, Canopia, C-A-N-O-P-I-A.

01:08:33.440 | My friend Rocio runs it.

01:08:36.240 | It's right in the heart of Condesa.

01:08:38.800 | And it's a beautiful little place,

01:08:40.600 | really eclectic crowd.

01:08:42.840 | They're open all day long.

01:08:44.520 | It's like a nice little wine bar vibe at night.

01:08:46.840 | It's a nice little sort of lunch/breakfast type of spot

01:08:49.800 | during the day.

01:08:50.640 | So I would say check out Canopia.

01:08:52.320 | - Love it, thank you.

01:08:53.600 | Okay, we talked about the book, "Travel Light."

01:08:55.760 | It's out now.

01:08:56.880 | By the time this comes out, check that out.

01:08:59.280 | Bliss More for meditation, everything.

01:09:01.560 | Where else can we send people?

01:09:03.160 | - You can find me on the socials @lightwatkins,

01:09:06.360 | and you can also find me at lightwatkins.com.

01:09:09.760 | - And the podcast.

01:09:10.600 | - Podcast is The Light Watkins Show.

01:09:13.200 | So I would say the website, lightwatkins.com

01:09:15.400 | is the portal for everything that I'm doing.

01:09:17.240 | The books, the podcast, the online community that I have,

01:09:20.760 | and everything else I'm doing, the retreats I'm doing.

01:09:23.080 | - Awesome.

01:09:23.920 | Well, thank you so much for being here.

01:09:24.920 | This is awesome.

01:09:26.160 | - 100%.

01:09:27.000 | I really enjoyed the conversation.

01:09:28.240 | Thank you for having me.

01:09:29.440 | - I really hope you guys enjoyed this episode.

01:09:33.400 | By the time you are hearing this,

01:09:34.880 | hopefully I've already gotten my meditation practice going,

01:09:38.120 | and I'm really excited to see if I can finally make it stick

01:09:41.240 | by making it feel like a lot less work.

01:09:43.440 | Outside of that, I hope you all are enjoying your summer.

01:09:46.120 | I'm so grateful that all of you are here listening

01:09:48.360 | and supporting the show.

01:09:49.760 | I can't tell you how much it means to me.

01:09:51.800 | If you have any questions or thoughts,

01:09:53.320 | please shoot me an email, podcast@allthehacks.com.

01:09:56.280 | I love hearing from you.

01:09:57.760 | And if you're one of the few who hasn't left a review

01:10:00.600 | on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it.

01:10:03.760 | It means the world to me.

01:10:04.840 | Thank you so much.

01:10:06.040 | See you next week.

01:10:07.840 | (upbeat music)

01:10:10.440 | (crickets chirping)

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