How Can I Implement Book Advice to Live a Deeper Life?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | All right, well, speaking of getting after it,

00:00:06.320 | let's do some listener calls.

00:00:09.680 | So who do we have here first?

00:00:11.280 | - All right, so our first call is from Jeff.

00:00:15.800 | Basically has a deep life question.

00:00:17.960 | He wants an example from you, so we'll take a listen,

00:00:20.680 | see what he has to say.

00:00:22.380 | - Hi Cal, my name is Jeff and I am an IT consultant.

00:00:26.040 | I've been a big fan of yours ever since,

00:00:27.760 | so good they can't ignore you.

00:00:29.900 | And I've read similar books such as "Ultra Learning",

00:00:32.600 | "Peak Performance", "Grit" and "Atomic Habits".

00:00:36.360 | These books are full of practical advice

00:00:38.760 | on how to improve learning and skills

00:00:40.560 | and contribute to the deep life.

00:00:42.140 | However, I find myself never implementing them.

00:00:45.080 | What kind of strategy would you suggest using

00:00:47.800 | to incorporate concepts found in books of this genre?

00:00:51.480 | How long should one try something new

00:00:53.400 | before deciding it doesn't work for them?

00:00:56.400 | And I think it would be great if you can give an example

00:00:58.600 | of a habit or advice you once read about

00:01:01.240 | and then incorporated into your daily life.

00:01:04.040 | Thank you.

00:01:04.880 | - So Jeff, the systematic advice I give

00:01:11.120 | for laying the foundation for a deep life,

00:01:14.080 | integrating new ideas into the deep life

00:01:16.360 | is based on the deep life buckets.

00:01:19.360 | I think that's exactly what you need

00:01:20.580 | for what you're talking about here.

00:01:22.700 | You define the different areas that are important

00:01:24.520 | to you living a life well lived.

00:01:27.080 | We call these the deep life buckets.

00:01:29.320 | The standard examples we give, for example,

00:01:31.880 | is craft, which is the things you produce,

00:01:33.960 | your work, the things you build.

00:01:35.820 | Constitution, which is your health and fitness.

00:01:37.760 | Community, your connection to people

00:01:40.240 | that are around you and that matter to you.

00:01:42.300 | And contemplation, theology, ethics and philosophy.

00:01:45.120 | Just as a starting point, but you have your areas

00:01:49.320 | that are important to you.

00:01:51.440 | Then you wanna have a keystone habit

00:01:53.320 | in each of these areas, something you do every day.

00:01:55.160 | So this is where when you learn new things,

00:01:59.360 | could be integrated into what this keystone habit is.

00:02:02.320 | And that's a warmup.

00:02:03.640 | So now you say, okay, I'm in the habit

00:02:05.680 | of doing optional activity in each of the areas

00:02:10.280 | of my life that are important on a regular basis,

00:02:12.180 | even though I don't have to.

00:02:14.420 | So you're signaling to yourself,

00:02:15.520 | I take these parts of my life seriously.

00:02:17.560 | Then you dedicate four to six weeks

00:02:19.340 | to each of these buckets, one by one,

00:02:21.080 | to say, now I'm gonna do a more systematic overhaul

00:02:24.120 | of that part of my life, where I might remove

00:02:27.520 | multiple things out of my life related to that bucket

00:02:29.840 | that are just in the way, that are cluttered,

00:02:31.200 | that are taking up time, streamline,

00:02:32.760 | and then I might add into it or refine the things I do

00:02:35.880 | in that part of my life so I get a maximum value return.

00:02:38.840 | So it's all about focusing on things that are high return

00:02:41.640 | and avoiding the things that don't give you much return

00:02:43.660 | or get in the way.

00:02:44.640 | That is exactly where you can be integrating new advice.

00:02:47.180 | So just do this once a year.

00:02:49.520 | I suggest doing it in the lead up to your birthday.

00:02:52.080 | That's the way I like to think about this.

00:02:53.920 | You're doing an overhaul in the months

00:02:55.360 | leading up to your birthday, and that's where you can

00:02:57.400 | look at what's working, what's not working

00:02:59.080 | in each of the areas of your life,

00:03:00.720 | integrate new ideas, integrate new systems,

00:03:03.700 | integrate new habits.

00:03:05.600 | That's what I would recommend.

00:03:07.440 | All right, in terms of examples from my own life,

00:03:11.360 | things that I've integrated or not integrated.

00:03:14.160 | Let me think about that.

00:03:18.760 | I'm thinking in my mind, if you wanna know

00:03:20.240 | what's going on here, I'm thinking through my mind

00:03:21.800 | in different categories.

00:03:26.200 | You know, like I've had a pretty major constitution,

00:03:31.200 | so health and fitness overhaul, I do those, you know,

00:03:35.400 | every once in a while, and I've done,

00:03:37.040 | I put a lot of time into that, so I gave it

00:03:39.800 | its four to six week focus to overhaul somewhat recently.

00:03:43.960 | And so there's a few things I do.

00:03:46.400 | So the keystone habit, the keystone habit I do now

00:03:50.280 | is there's a tracking habit where I track the,

00:03:54.160 | as I've done before, the exercise I do,

00:03:56.520 | like what did I do today, and the steps I take.

00:03:59.360 | I had been doing that.

00:04:00.560 | I added to it weight every morning.

00:04:03.760 | You gotta look at it, look at the number,

00:04:06.640 | and that's, you know, you gotta face it.

00:04:08.740 | Best motivator is a very powerful keystone habit.

00:04:11.240 | You have to face it, and you know you have to face it,

00:04:13.600 | and it can really keep you away from, you know,

00:04:17.440 | I should not be eating this or drinking this as much,

00:04:19.840 | and so that was a keystone habit.

00:04:21.800 | Then I've had a pretty radical overhaul

00:04:23.640 | in terms of my actual fitness.

00:04:25.480 | I'm going through a rowing program.

00:04:29.240 | I have a Concept2 Rower, and the stave off,

00:04:32.720 | the winter, can't be outside as much,

00:04:34.960 | blues, and not get as much sunshine, blues.

00:04:37.600 | I have a daily, it's a daily rowing program,

00:04:40.280 | where it's every day, here's the workout you're doing,

00:04:41.920 | here's the workout you're doing.

00:04:42.800 | So that gives me flashbacks from my old college crew days.

00:04:46.400 | I've replaced, I always have a baseline

00:04:48.440 | of doing 1,000 pull-ups a month,

00:04:51.840 | but I've now added into it,

00:04:54.360 | I think I have that right, 1,000, yeah, 36.

00:04:56.280 | Am I doing that math right, Jesse?

00:04:57.540 | 36 a day.

00:04:59.080 | - That's all.

00:04:59.920 | - Yeah, and I've always done that,

00:05:01.560 | but now I'm actually doing workout routines beyond that.

00:05:06.560 | But let me tell you, just to walk you through this,

00:05:09.460 | to me, that's all just breaking the seal.

00:05:11.360 | So this was what I was gonna be doing in January.

00:05:13.560 | I'm doing it now January through February

00:05:14.900 | because I hurt my back in January, so I got a slow start.

00:05:17.540 | I'm just breaking the seal.

00:05:19.560 | I'm getting used to, like, I'm doing a rowing workout,

00:05:24.560 | I'm getting used to doing real workouts

00:05:26.280 | beyond just my pull-ups or whatever.

00:05:28.120 | All of that is just to get me used to that

00:05:30.040 | being a non-trivial part of my life

00:05:31.560 | so that then I can upgrade that

00:05:33.640 | when we get later in February.

00:05:35.760 | And so now I wanna do some serious training.

00:05:38.600 | But I didn't wanna jump straight into serious training.

00:05:40.400 | I figured I had to overhaul my life

00:05:42.240 | to that that's a big part of my day,

00:05:44.120 | and I'm used to it, and I'm in that groove,

00:05:47.080 | and I'm doing hard work every day,

00:05:49.320 | somewhat randomly, but I'm doing it, right?

00:05:51.800 | And then when I'm done doing that for a month or two,

00:05:54.720 | then I'm gonna say, "Now I can up my game."

00:05:57.680 | And actually, Jeff, my idea is I wanna train for something,

00:06:00.520 | and I don't know what yet,

00:06:02.160 | but that is an example of deep life thinking.

00:06:04.660 | That's me focusing on the Constitution bucket.

00:06:06.980 | So I'm turning 40 this summer,

00:06:10.140 | and I figure I really gotta start caring

00:06:11.720 | about my health and fitness more

00:06:12.880 | because that's the age for men where a lot of things,

00:06:15.720 | a lot of things go downhill.

00:06:17.560 | And so there's a high leverage moment

00:06:20.080 | to be in really good shape.

00:06:21.920 | And so that's, I made that whole overhaul plan,

00:06:25.440 | and that's just for the Constitution bucket.

00:06:28.680 | And now that plan's kinda operating,

00:06:30.120 | so now I can, there's other buckets I could think about.

00:06:32.280 | That's an example of what those overhauls look like.

00:06:34.720 | I should get your advice.

00:06:37.680 | So when the time comes, Jesse, I'll get your advice.

00:06:39.840 | Jesse knows about gyms and exercise, so he'll get me.

00:06:44.640 | That's what we should do with the HQ.

00:06:46.600 | Should we just have it be essentially like a gym?

00:06:49.240 | That'd be weird.

00:06:51.240 | - We could put a pull-up bar in.

00:06:52.560 | - We should put a pull-up bar in.

00:06:53.400 | - That'd be cool.

00:06:54.220 | You could just put one right in the door.

00:06:55.800 | - Can I tell you something about pull-up bars,

00:06:57.040 | those ones you just put in the doors

00:06:58.760 | that are supposed to somehow like counter,

00:07:00.480 | just counter-lever in and you can use them?

00:07:02.440 | I've never in my life got that to work.

00:07:04.200 | - Really? I have one at my house.

00:07:05.280 | I've had it forever. It works.

00:07:06.120 | - Where it just like, there's no screws or anything.

00:07:08.160 | It just, I must be doing it wrong.

00:07:10.000 | - Yeah, it works great.

00:07:10.840 | I've had it for years.

00:07:11.720 | - I must be doing it wrong

00:07:12.640 | because I've had multiple of these

00:07:14.000 | because I've been doing pull-ups ever since I was,

00:07:15.600 | you know, left 22 and left college.

00:07:17.880 | It was a rowing thing, right?

00:07:20.480 | I've never got it to work.

00:07:21.420 | I'm like, there's no way this is going to work.

00:07:22.620 | I put it up there and it just drops to the ground.

00:07:24.440 | Like, how am I supposed to do pull-ups on this thing?

00:07:26.760 | I'm doing something wrong.

00:07:27.720 | All right, we got to figure that out.

00:07:30.160 | We will start doing pull-ups here.

00:07:32.080 | All right, anyways, thanks for that question, Jeff.

00:07:33.400 | (upbeat music)

00:07:35.980 | [Music]

How Can I Implement Book Advice to Live a Deeper Life?

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