How To Take Back Control Of Your Life From Alcohol, Porn & Social Media

00:00:00.000 | All right, enough of that nonsense.

00:00:02.040 | Let's move on.

00:00:03.300 | Today's deep dive is not about email.

00:00:05.660 | So what do I want to talk about?

00:00:08.000 | Well, here's the thing.

00:00:08.820 | I receive a lot of emails from listeners and readers

00:00:13.820 | about struggling to take back control of their life

00:00:18.240 | from powerful sources of distraction.

00:00:21.360 | Now, because I'm a technologist

00:00:22.560 | and I write about tech and society,

00:00:23.840 | they're often citing technological sources of distractions

00:00:27.160 | like social media.

00:00:29.040 | I hear increasingly, especially from young men,

00:00:31.600 | about online pornography as well.

00:00:33.920 | In addition, though, I've been hearing more often recently

00:00:36.000 | non-digital sources of super distractions.

00:00:38.560 | So we're talking alcohol consumption

00:00:40.280 | is a big one I hear about as well.

00:00:42.500 | I often call these super distractions

00:00:45.920 | because they're more than just a diversion

00:00:47.980 | for the people who are suffering from them.

00:00:50.040 | It is a major impediment to them actually getting

00:00:54.020 | where they want to get in their life.

00:00:55.960 | They are holding them back,

00:00:57.800 | not just momentarily diverting them.

00:01:00.600 | So I thought I would talk about super distractions today.

00:01:03.760 | I thought I would talk about what causes them

00:01:07.040 | and more importantly, what you can do to combat them.

00:01:11.000 | And so I want to break up this deep dive into three parts.

00:01:14.720 | I'll start by myth-busting common misconceptions

00:01:19.200 | about the source of super distraction

00:01:20.960 | and replace it with the idea I think actually makes sense.

00:01:24.640 | We'll then use that idea, this deeper understanding

00:01:27.000 | of how super distractions actually form

00:01:29.000 | to come up with a new mindset about how you tackle them.

00:01:32.660 | And then finally, I want to use that new mindset

00:01:34.340 | to get tactical.

00:01:35.320 | And I've got a series of concrete steps to suggest

00:01:38.800 | about how you put this new understanding

00:01:40.880 | of super distractions into work, into action,

00:01:44.440 | to take back control of your life.

00:01:46.140 | All right, so that's our plan.

00:01:47.880 | Let's start here with a little bit of myth-busting.

00:01:50.840 | There are two common explanations

00:01:53.640 | for how people get to the state

00:01:55.480 | where there's some sort of super distraction behavior

00:01:57.800 | that really gets in the way of them living

00:01:59.360 | their fully flourishing life.

00:02:01.240 | The first is utility maximization.

00:02:03.960 | It's this idea that in every moment,

00:02:06.840 | my mind evaluates the options and says,

00:02:08.880 | which option is going to give me the biggest return

00:02:11.640 | in the moment?

00:02:12.580 | That's what I'm going to spend my time on.

00:02:14.400 | It's a common explanation for digital super distractions.

00:02:18.080 | The sort of canonical case study here is,

00:02:20.560 | I probably should be studying for my test,

00:02:22.820 | but TikTok in the moment is going to be more entertaining.

00:02:25.600 | So I'm doing that because it's more entertaining

00:02:27.560 | than this other thing.

00:02:28.400 | And I have it with me all the time,

00:02:29.440 | so I'm going to default to the more entertaining option.

00:02:32.420 | The other common explanation behind super distractions

00:02:36.080 | is brain rewiring.

00:02:37.280 | I took the substance, maybe it was I drunk enough,

00:02:42.240 | or I began using a particular drug,

00:02:44.800 | and now my brain fundamentally rewired

00:02:47.160 | to have a sort of craving for this

00:02:49.480 | in the same way you would have a craving for oxygen,

00:02:52.000 | and it's essentially unavoidable.

00:02:54.480 | There are truth to both of those explanations.

00:02:56.960 | They're not wrong, but they are also incomplete.

00:03:02.520 | And we know this because of some of the counter examples

00:03:05.040 | that exist when we look closer at super distractions.

00:03:07.580 | Let's take digital super distractions.

00:03:09.480 | I studied this in depth for my 2019 book,

00:03:12.880 | "Digital Minimalism."

00:03:14.320 | I talked to over 1600 people.

00:03:16.600 | I ran this study with 1600 people who were struggling

00:03:19.560 | with the role of their phones in their lives.

00:03:21.920 | And one of the interesting points that came out of this,

00:03:25.040 | it was not this phone is more interesting to me

00:03:27.920 | than these other things.

00:03:28.980 | It is why am I avoiding things that I know

00:03:32.940 | are more meaningful and enjoyable and more valuable to me?

00:03:35.640 | Why am I avoiding these things to look at this screen?

00:03:38.620 | There was a sense of bewilderment

00:03:40.520 | among the people I talked to

00:03:41.720 | about why they would take their attention away

00:03:44.000 | from their young child during bath time

00:03:46.760 | to look at something mundane on Instagram,

00:03:49.160 | or they would avoid a sunset that would fill them

00:03:52.400 | with awe and peace to comment on something on Twitter.

00:03:56.400 | So the on the ground reports of digital super distractions

00:03:59.120 | was this isn't better than the other things

00:04:01.640 | that are in front of me right now.

00:04:03.280 | This is why I'm upset.

00:04:05.320 | I'm taking time away from really good things

00:04:07.220 | to look at this thing that's not so good.

00:04:09.500 | So the utility maximization argument cannot be complete.

00:04:14.160 | We see something similar,

00:04:15.160 | especially when we talk to more

00:04:16.360 | substance-based super distractions.

00:04:19.400 | Ioann Harari has this interesting book

00:04:21.320 | called "Chasing the Scream"

00:04:23.120 | that looks deeply at substance addictions.

00:04:26.040 | And one of the points that he makes in this book,

00:04:27.760 | which stuck with me,

00:04:29.280 | is he says the way we think about things like opioids,

00:04:32.840 | like heroin, the way we were taught to think about these

00:04:36.000 | is just the substance itself being in your body

00:04:38.760 | will rewire your brain

00:04:40.720 | so that you are hopelessly addicted to it.

00:04:42.820 | The way I was raised in the '80s and '90s

00:04:45.720 | was if, and this is a Harari example,

00:04:48.720 | if a mad scientist kidnapped me,

00:04:51.080 | strapped me down and injected heroin into me,

00:04:53.800 | I would leave the mad scientist den a heroin addict.

00:04:57.500 | But Harari makes this interesting point in the book.

00:05:00.360 | You know, in England, where he's from,

00:05:02.760 | we give heroin to grandmothers all the time.

00:05:05.600 | When you go in to get knee replacement surgery

00:05:07.800 | or hip replacement surgery,

00:05:08.880 | which is incredibly common if you're older,

00:05:11.120 | we use Demerol is what the UK NHS was using,

00:05:13.780 | which is just a medical-grade heroin.

00:05:15.860 | So we're giving grandmothers heroin all the time,

00:05:17.860 | but they don't come out of the hospital

00:05:19.160 | addicted to heroin.

00:05:20.160 | So there's something deeper going on here

00:05:23.020 | than just some substances.

00:05:25.600 | If you ingest them, maliciously rewire your brain,

00:05:28.960 | and now you can't avoid seeking out those substances.

00:05:32.240 | So what else is going on here?

00:05:36.200 | A big part of the answer is the quieting of psychic pain.

00:05:42.620 | So psychic pain is a really distressing feeling

00:05:46.760 | of discomfort that is coming from your emotional

00:05:49.420 | or psychological state, not from your physical body.

00:05:52.260 | So it's not a physical pain,

00:05:53.580 | but it is a mental or psychological pain.

00:05:55.700 | It involves, for example, anxiety.

00:05:57.840 | It could involve, for example,

00:05:59.040 | unhappiness with yourself or your life.

00:06:01.060 | This overlaps quite strongly with shame.

00:06:03.740 | It could be grief or loneliness.

00:06:05.960 | It could be hopelessness,

00:06:07.160 | the sense of nothing's gonna get better about my situation.

00:06:12.040 | Those are all very painful sensations.

00:06:14.620 | And there's a reason why they feel bad,

00:06:16.200 | because of course they are maladaptive.

00:06:18.400 | The reason why they're so distressing

00:06:19.960 | is that in our evolutionary history,

00:06:23.120 | when we felt these feelings,

00:06:25.060 | our brain was supposed to be incredibly motivated

00:06:27.740 | to make a change.

00:06:29.720 | Why does anxiety feel so bad?

00:06:31.480 | Because 150,000 years ago,

00:06:33.200 | anxiety was typically related to

00:06:35.460 | something bad was about to happen.

00:06:38.120 | And it was really distressing.

00:06:39.800 | So your brain would say, "Stop everything else.

00:06:42.560 | "I think something really bad is gonna happen.

00:06:44.480 | "Oh yeah, you're right.

00:06:45.320 | "Like our food is out and there's a saber-tooth tiger.

00:06:47.340 | "Let's try to fix that situation so we're not eaten.

00:06:50.800 | "Let's say you're really unhappy

00:06:51.840 | "or feeling shameful 150,000 years ago."

00:06:54.580 | And your brain is saying, "This really matters,

00:06:56.800 | "because we live in a tribe of seven

00:06:58.340 | "and we all have to cooperate

00:06:59.720 | "to not get stomped on by mastodons.

00:07:02.000 | "We need to do something about this."

00:07:03.720 | And in that context,

00:07:04.560 | there's probably something you could do.

00:07:05.640 | I'm gonna go do something heroic

00:07:06.960 | or try to win back the praise of my tribe.

00:07:09.580 | So in our history, these feelings were very distressing

00:07:12.380 | because they would push us to do things

00:07:14.160 | that would help us pass on our genes.

00:07:16.000 | But of course, in the modern context,

00:07:17.840 | none of this is relevant anymore.

00:07:21.120 | The sources of these feelings are not the sources

00:07:23.200 | that we originally were adapted to respond to.

00:07:26.600 | And we have all sorts of different responses

00:07:28.320 | that did not exist in our evolutionary history.

00:07:30.280 | So they've gone from being adaptive to maladaptive.

00:07:33.280 | So how does this connect to super distractions?

00:07:35.200 | Well, here's what ends up happening.

00:07:37.800 | You have a source of psychic pain,

00:07:39.560 | no obvious way to treat it

00:07:41.860 | in the way we might have in a tribe 150,000 years ago.

00:07:44.600 | You begin using one of these super distractions

00:07:48.820 | as a way to temporarily quiet that psychic pain.

00:07:52.620 | Your brain then makes the association,

00:07:56.560 | this activity helps with this psychic pain.

00:08:01.340 | Psychic pain is very bad.

00:08:04.020 | So we're really now into this activity

00:08:06.060 | that quiets that psychic pain.

00:08:07.540 | This is now the thing we need to do.

00:08:09.940 | And once your brain decides that this activity

00:08:12.580 | is how we make this unbearable psychic pain go away,

00:08:15.820 | it makes it very difficult not to do that activity.

00:08:18.480 | Now the brain's motivational centers, the dopamine centers,

00:08:23.000 | they all get fired up to make you pursue that activity

00:08:26.460 | because your brain is very into making pain go away.

00:08:29.080 | And this is not just a craving, it is also,

00:08:33.480 | and this is something who don't deal with these issues

00:08:35.140 | don't often understand, it is a distress

00:08:38.100 | in the absence of these activities.

00:08:40.660 | Someone who doesn't struggle with alcohol abuse,

00:08:42.580 | for example, doesn't realize it's not just,

00:08:45.220 | I really wanna have a drink,

00:08:46.900 | it's when you're not having a drink,

00:08:48.420 | you feel increasingly distressed and anxious about it.

00:08:51.100 | Your mind is saying,

00:08:52.060 | this is the thing that helps the bad thing.

00:08:54.820 | Why aren't you helping the bad thing?

00:08:57.420 | And it becomes very difficult not to do it.

00:08:59.500 | Same thing when social media

00:09:01.140 | becomes a source of emotional numbing.

00:09:04.900 | It's like, this is what I go to,

00:09:06.580 | and because it presses buttons,

00:09:08.140 | because it's engineered to press buttons

00:09:09.460 | that are unrelated to my particular psychic pain,

00:09:11.860 | it's like putting ice on a sore knee

00:09:13.420 | and that pain kind of goes away.

00:09:14.540 | I can numb for a little while.

00:09:16.100 | Once your brain learns that,

00:09:17.440 | you feel very uncomfortable

00:09:18.660 | when you're not just looking at your phone.

00:09:21.100 | It's not just this craving,

00:09:22.180 | I really wanna see what's happening on TikTok.

00:09:24.020 | It's this, I don't feel good not looking at my phone,

00:09:28.700 | and it becomes a super distraction.

00:09:30.620 | Same thing happens to young men with online pornography.

00:09:32.900 | It's this weird distress.

00:09:35.060 | Your brain wants something to numb or go away.

00:09:37.820 | This is how we do it.

00:09:39.020 | This then is what we need to do.

00:09:41.500 | That is the source of super distraction.

00:09:43.420 | There's often this big aspect

00:09:45.780 | of once your brain learns it numbs psychic pain,

00:09:48.900 | it puts all of its resources at making you do that behavior

00:09:52.620 | and feeling bad if you're not doing that behavior.

00:09:55.520 | All right, so then once we recognize this,

00:10:01.060 | what does this tell us about taking control?

00:10:03.860 | Hey, it's Cal here.

00:10:04.700 | I just wanted to mention,

00:10:06.300 | if you wanna have help taking action

00:10:08.940 | on the type of ideas we talk about in this show,

00:10:11.540 | sign up for my email newsletter.

00:10:13.940 | The link is right here below in the description.

00:10:16.740 | Two to four times a month,

00:10:18.280 | I send out detailed articles

00:10:20.320 | about the types of ideas we discuss here.

00:10:23.500 | It's the best way to stay connected

00:10:26.460 | to me and my audience's quest to live a deeper life.

00:10:28.780 | So sign up below.

00:10:30.740 | From super distractions.

00:10:33.540 | Well, what we need to do

00:10:34.900 | is find alternative treatments for psychic pain

00:10:40.080 | that your brain can learn to love.

00:10:42.220 | Once it gets these alternative treatments for psychic pain

00:10:44.700 | that it can focus on,

00:10:46.180 | then the grip on the super distractions weakens.

00:10:48.580 | So white knuckling it, quote unquote detoxing it

00:10:53.340 | in the absence of anything else is not a very effective

00:10:56.460 | because your brain says the psychic pain is still there.

00:10:58.420 | It's bad.

00:10:59.260 | Go back and do the thing that makes it go away.

00:11:01.300 | If you can develop an alternative way

00:11:03.620 | of dealing with the psychic pain,

00:11:05.360 | then your brain says, okay, that's fine.

00:11:06.660 | Fair is fair.

00:11:07.500 | We'll do this other one now.

00:11:09.300 | And it's almost as if the demon on your back

00:11:12.580 | that was pushing back to your phone,

00:11:13.740 | back to your phone, back to your phone,

00:11:14.640 | back to the bottle, back to the bottle.

00:11:16.020 | It's like that power is suddenly diminished.

00:11:19.320 | I mean, we can see some classical case studies of this

00:11:22.380 | from sort of recent figures.

00:11:24.260 | There's an interesting memoir, Rich Roll,

00:11:27.300 | the podcaster Rich Roll has a cool memoir

00:11:30.900 | called "Going Ultra" or "Finding Ultra."

00:11:34.180 | You know, it's an interesting story, right?

00:11:35.860 | So Rich Roll, if you don't know about him,

00:11:38.220 | he grew up here in the DC area.

00:11:40.100 | His dad was a lawyer in Bethesda,

00:11:41.820 | went to Langdon private school in the DC area.

00:11:46.140 | Really good swimmer, D1 swimmer at Stanford

00:11:50.140 | developed the alcohol problem.

00:11:51.620 | And it became pretty bad,

00:11:53.880 | especially once he was done with athletics.

00:11:55.500 | He developed it, by the way, if you read the story,

00:11:57.260 | the deal with there's a lot of stress and anxieties

00:12:00.340 | and psychic pain based on his like incredible athletic,

00:12:04.920 | what was required to be an athlete at that level

00:12:08.220 | and the realities of how far he was gonna get.

00:12:10.020 | And it was all, he had difficulties.

00:12:11.260 | And so it was an alcohol abuse followed.

00:12:14.780 | He finally got off the alcohol abuse

00:12:17.140 | by replacing it with food abuse.

00:12:19.380 | Similar thing, eating like a lot of junk food

00:12:21.540 | can release a chemical that you can then trigger onto it.

00:12:23.900 | Like this is the thing I need to make my pain go away.

00:12:27.520 | Right as he approached mid age,

00:12:28.960 | he replaced this with a commitment

00:12:33.960 | to these ultra endurance athletic events.

00:12:36.560 | He talks about in this book.

00:12:38.280 | As a different way of dealing with the psychic pain.

00:12:41.400 | And his mind then turned over to that.

00:12:43.160 | So, okay, this is what we're doing.

00:12:45.040 | The alcohol abuse was gone, the food abuse was gone.

00:12:47.440 | From there that blossomed into a bigger commitment

00:12:50.200 | to healthy living.

00:12:51.280 | He got very into veganism and then moved on

00:12:53.520 | from just doing ultra endurance events

00:12:55.280 | to creating his podcast, which is all about

00:12:59.080 | trying to help other people live more meaningful lives.

00:13:02.360 | But anyways, how did he get away

00:13:04.160 | from these super distractions in his life?

00:13:06.160 | He got away by replacing them with something that was better.

00:13:09.440 | We see story after story about this.

00:13:12.120 | Be it Cheryl Strayed hiking the Pacific Coast Trail

00:13:16.240 | as a way to get over the grief induced

00:13:18.680 | drug and alcohol abuse.

00:13:19.820 | Or go back 1500 years and we get Saint Augustine

00:13:24.680 | living his hedonistic life in North Africa.

00:13:28.240 | And through religion completely having something else

00:13:31.080 | to heal the pain that he was feeling before.

00:13:35.380 | So how do we do this then?

00:13:37.840 | Let's get tactical.

00:13:38.920 | So we have super distraction, I'm on my phone too much.

00:13:41.600 | Pornography, maybe too much alcohol.

00:13:44.800 | But every time you try to cut back you find it difficult.

00:13:47.840 | If we're gonna replace these super distractions

00:13:50.800 | with a better source of helping with your psychic pain,

00:13:55.040 | how are we gonna do that?

00:13:55.920 | Let me give you four steps.

00:13:56.840 | Step number one, we gotta redefine your image of yourself

00:14:01.840 | as someone who is disciplined.

00:14:04.880 | As someone who has the capability of doing hard things

00:14:08.540 | even if it's not immediately gratifying.

00:14:10.880 | And the best way to get there is to come up

00:14:14.040 | with a few daily disciplines that are not trivial

00:14:17.380 | but are also tractable.

00:14:18.560 | They should cover a few different areas of your life.

00:14:20.400 | Probably something health and fitness,

00:14:21.680 | probably something work related,

00:14:22.840 | probably something intellectual or spiritual related.

00:14:25.520 | And you just start marking that on your whatever planner

00:14:28.520 | or notebook you use.

00:14:29.640 | You just start marking every day,

00:14:31.000 | did I do these three disciplines?

00:14:32.760 | They should be tractable.

00:14:34.000 | They're not super hard but they're also not trivial.

00:14:37.000 | Even just that for a month is gonna begin to rewire

00:14:40.640 | your conception of yourself as, oh, I can when needed

00:14:45.440 | do things that have a long-term value.

00:14:47.480 | I do have discipline.

00:14:48.820 | You're changing your identity.

00:14:51.040 | Then you need an organizing meaning for your life,

00:14:54.720 | the structure of your life around.

00:14:55.960 | This is what's gonna come next

00:14:57.100 | after you've redefined yourself as someone with discipline.

00:15:00.400 | You're gonna need probably a religious

00:15:02.820 | or philosophical framework to commit to.

00:15:05.920 | Here the word of advice I'm gonna give is practicing.

00:15:09.100 | Most philosophies and especially most religions

00:15:12.880 | are built to be revelatory through action,

00:15:18.180 | not through cognition.

00:15:20.360 | It's not I sat here and I read all about Buddhism

00:15:23.280 | and I've decided that this sounds right.

00:15:25.840 | And until I convince myself it's right,

00:15:27.240 | I'm not gonna do it.

00:15:28.200 | No, it's meant to go do these practices.

00:15:31.060 | And it is through the actual actions

00:15:32.600 | that you have the revelatory insight about,

00:15:34.500 | oh, what is true and what is effective or not.

00:15:37.320 | So you need an organizing structure framework

00:15:40.360 | and you have to live it.

00:15:41.560 | Don't just study it, live it.

00:15:43.040 | You don't know anything about it

00:15:44.160 | until you've actually done it.

00:15:45.520 | Most of these ancient ideas are built around action.

00:15:48.460 | They're not based around just linguistic investigation.

00:15:52.780 | You have some sort of organizing framework for your life.

00:15:57.580 | And don't overthink this, you can change it.

00:16:00.380 | The binary that matters here is the difference

00:16:02.780 | between no structure or framework for values in your life

00:16:05.960 | and some structure or framework for values in your life.

00:16:08.100 | You can change it, but you don't wanna be

00:16:10.060 | in the first option of having nothing.

00:16:11.640 | All right, step three.

00:16:12.960 | Now it's time to do some resets.

00:16:14.440 | You imagine you have discipline,

00:16:16.080 | you have an organizing framework for your life.

00:16:18.200 | This is what matters.

00:16:19.040 | I'm doing these practices to commit my life

00:16:20.840 | to these things that matters.

00:16:21.760 | I have some moral clarity there.

00:16:23.460 | Now you do some reset.

00:16:24.520 | Let's reset how you organize all the junk in your life.

00:16:27.940 | How do I keep track of tasks and work and my calendar

00:16:30.260 | and all my information for my banking?

00:16:32.820 | How do I plan?

00:16:33.720 | Am I using multi-scale planning?

00:16:35.400 | How do I keep track of what's going on?

00:16:36.900 | How do I triage if I have too much on my plate

00:16:38.780 | or not enough on my plate?

00:16:40.320 | Do I owe taxes or how am I doing my financials?

00:16:42.980 | Systematically, I do not want stuff hanging.

00:16:46.040 | I control stuff.

00:16:47.740 | I control stuff on my terms.

00:16:49.280 | You wanna reset your approaches and goals and work.

00:16:52.000 | What's going on in my job?

00:16:53.460 | Where do I wanna get?

00:16:54.300 | Let's do some lifestyles and a career planning maybe.

00:16:55.960 | Let me get more organized.

00:16:56.980 | Let me get on the ball.

00:16:58.160 | Let me start actually delivering

00:16:59.400 | what I'm saying I'm gonna deliver.

00:17:00.600 | Let me be reliable, let me be organized.

00:17:02.520 | Let me systematically cultivate some deep work

00:17:05.520 | so the work I do is at a higher caliber.

00:17:07.460 | You get that dialed in.

00:17:08.940 | And then finally you reset entertainment distraction

00:17:12.960 | and leisure in your life.

00:17:13.960 | What do I actually wanna do with my time outside of work?

00:17:17.680 | Which technologies do I need?

00:17:19.320 | I'm not gonna bring a technology into my life

00:17:21.200 | unless there is a really good explanation for why I need it.

00:17:24.720 | And if there's a really good explanation

00:17:26.120 | then I'm gonna put rules around it

00:17:27.480 | to get the value and avoid the cost.

00:17:29.920 | I'm not just gonna randomly have TikTok in my life

00:17:31.860 | because someone somewhere had some scenario

00:17:34.000 | in which maybe a post would help a business one day.

00:17:36.600 | Now you gotta earn your way into my life

00:17:39.480 | and most technology is not going to.

00:17:42.080 | You replace the cheap stuff with the better stuff.

00:17:44.160 | Here's what I do, I read every day and here's when I read.

00:17:47.400 | And I go for these thinking walks in the evening

00:17:49.560 | after I shut down work.

00:17:50.600 | And I don't use any of these social media services

00:17:52.760 | but I get my news from over here.

00:17:54.200 | And once a week I check these people on Instagram

00:17:56.080 | but that's the only time I use it.

00:17:57.840 | I'm gonna start watching good movies on Fridays.

00:18:01.600 | In fact, I'm gonna go through the AFI top 100.

00:18:03.780 | I'm gonna do that for the next 100 weeks.

00:18:05.520 | You get on top of what is it that I'm laying to my life

00:18:09.560 | when it comes to leisure and entertainment.

00:18:11.260 | And you dial that in as well.

00:18:13.280 | And this is gonna be much easier to do now

00:18:14.720 | because you've already reinvented your identity as yourself

00:18:17.320 | as a disciplined person.

00:18:18.480 | You already have now committed through practice

00:18:20.480 | to a organizing framework for meaning in your life.

00:18:23.080 | And this is a foundation

00:18:24.400 | on which to start building these resets.

00:18:27.080 | And then finally, step four, pursue a remarkable goal.

00:18:31.300 | So you have something like Rich Roll

00:18:34.320 | training for his outlandish ultra endurance events.

00:18:38.840 | You have something that you're turning your energy to

00:18:42.100 | and coming back to again and again.

00:18:44.220 | So when times get tough in the moment, you say,

00:18:46.420 | yeah, but I have this bigger thing going on

00:18:48.860 | that I wanna succeed.

00:18:50.220 | And so I'll go through what's hard right now

00:18:52.340 | or I'll endure what's hard or I'll endure this distraction

00:18:54.940 | and keep coming back to what I think is important.

00:18:57.100 | So you have something pulling you forward.

00:18:59.200 | So redefine yourself as disciplined,

00:19:02.300 | find an organizing structure for your life,

00:19:04.140 | reset organizational systems, work

00:19:06.400 | and entertainment decisions

00:19:08.060 | and then pursue a remarkable goal.

00:19:09.760 | Now you're in a better situation.

00:19:13.620 | Now you have the upper hand on the super distractions

00:19:17.280 | because everything I just described to you here

00:19:19.100 | is gonna give you a solid human response to psychic pain.

00:19:24.100 | It is you recognizing

00:19:27.940 | if you are approaching your life this way,

00:19:29.940 | you can recognize and deal with psychic pain.

00:19:32.440 | And you have outlets for dealing with it

00:19:35.060 | that are sustainable

00:19:36.940 | and that actually amplify what's important

00:19:38.700 | about your humanity instead of squashing it

00:19:41.060 | or putting it down or trying to protect it from yourself.

00:19:43.180 | It's an alternative your mind and body can get on board.

00:19:45.460 | They say, I have no interest in looking eight hours

00:19:48.300 | just at my phone.

00:19:50.740 | I no longer need the four drinks every night

00:19:52.860 | as a way to kind of just numb my anxiety.

00:19:54.500 | I have these other things

00:19:55.780 | that are helping me respond to my anxiety

00:19:57.700 | and this actually feels deeper.

00:19:59.180 | This is deeper aligned to me.

00:20:01.380 | Now if those four steps sound a lot like the deep life stack

00:20:03.740 | it's because they basically are.

00:20:06.300 | We come back to good ideas again and again on this show

00:20:08.340 | and we adapt them as needed.

00:20:09.500 | And basically we're applying those ideas

00:20:11.540 | to this notion of super distraction with some tweaks here.

00:20:14.500 | Very few original ideas,

00:20:16.740 | deep life stack is sort of at the core of this

00:20:18.620 | but this is the big thing I want you to take away.

00:20:21.780 | Is psychic pain demands treatment.

00:20:24.300 | And if you don't develop a good treatment for it,

00:20:27.260 | you're gonna end up treating it one way or the other

00:20:29.820 | and it's probably not gonna be the way that is sustainable.

00:20:32.900 | It might be a way that will ultimately destroy you.

00:20:36.380 | Now of course the final caveat here,

00:20:38.060 | all of these things can get pushed to extremes

00:20:40.020 | that need more serious response.

00:20:43.540 | So if it's not just,

00:20:44.580 | ah, I keep having drinks and more than I want,

00:20:47.300 | I hate being hung over.

00:20:48.500 | If it's beyond that,

00:20:49.380 | if you have a major alcohol abuse problem

00:20:51.020 | then you need professional help

00:20:52.580 | with addiction recovery there.

00:20:55.220 | This is a substance that crosses the blood brain barrier.

00:20:58.420 | It can be very difficult to deal with.

00:21:00.060 | If you have a major alcohol problem

00:21:01.300 | you probably need major professional support

00:21:02.980 | so let's throw in that caveat.

00:21:04.180 | Similar, if the psychic pain

00:21:05.620 | for which these various super distractions

00:21:08.460 | are being palliative towards,

00:21:10.380 | if it's incredibly intense to the point

00:21:12.460 | where it is really getting in the way

00:21:13.980 | of your day-to-day life,

00:21:14.820 | you need professional help for that as well.

00:21:17.620 | So it's not just I'm sort of anxious

00:21:19.420 | and I'm going on my phone all the time

00:21:21.140 | or I'm not happy with what's going on in work

00:21:23.540 | so I'm trying to distract myself or numb myself.

00:21:25.740 | If it's, you know, I'm canceling things,

00:21:27.940 | I can't get out of bed, I'm feeling a hedonic,

00:21:30.340 | feeling a sense of pervasive hedonic hopelessness,

00:21:33.940 | well then there's professional therapy

00:21:37.340 | that is meant to do exactly,

00:21:38.540 | deal exactly with those extremes as well.

00:21:40.140 | So we'll throw in those caveats.

00:21:41.180 | Psychic pain gets really bad, bring in professionals.

00:21:44.260 | Substance abuse gets to a really bad point.

00:21:48.540 | We've dealt with this as a site before

00:21:50.340 | and there's very strong addiction recovery resources

00:21:53.020 | to use here, but for most people,

00:21:54.660 | they're on this too much,

00:21:58.180 | drinking more than they would like.

00:22:00.020 | The young man's looking at pornography all the time

00:22:01.860 | and feeling all the shame for it.

00:22:03.540 | There is a psychic pain here that you can deal with,

00:22:06.140 | you can deal with in a healthier way

00:22:09.260 | and you might be surprised by the freedom you discover.

00:22:12.300 | You can take back control of your life

00:22:14.300 | from super distractions.

00:22:15.260 | You just have to get to the real source of the problem

00:22:19.620 | if you wanna have a positive impact.

00:22:22.620 | So there you go.

00:22:26.420 | That's a cool book, that Yohan Harari book,

00:22:28.380 | "Chasing the Screen."

00:22:30.700 | - So that's the same Harari that wrote--

00:22:34.060 | - "Stolen Focus."

00:22:35.100 | - Okay.

00:22:35.940 | - Yeah, same one.

00:22:36.780 | So Harari has written three contrarian books,

00:22:40.820 | "Chasing the Screen,"

00:22:43.580 | and the main argument in "Chasing the Screen"

00:22:45.180 | is basically what I was talking about here,

00:22:47.660 | that addiction is a highly active substance

00:22:50.780 | plus beginning to connect using that substance

00:22:54.140 | to escape pain.

00:22:55.300 | So you can take a bunch of painkillers after a surgery

00:22:59.260 | and then stop taking and be fine.

00:23:01.780 | But if you start associating the painkillers

00:23:03.660 | with like, this is making me feel better

00:23:05.700 | about my hopeless economic situation,

00:23:09.540 | then you get this Titan loop where your brain says,

00:23:12.180 | oh, this is how we get rid of that pain?

00:23:13.580 | We have to have the drugs.

00:23:14.900 | So that's where it was an interesting book.

00:23:17.180 | Then he wrote a book about depression

00:23:19.660 | that also had some contrarian take,

00:23:21.700 | that it was saying by focusing too much

00:23:24.300 | on just the biological explanations

00:23:28.660 | that got real big in the '90s,

00:23:29.900 | you have a chemical imbalance, let's just fix it.

00:23:32.260 | He was saying we underplay these lifestyle elements

00:23:36.420 | that treatment for depression,

00:23:38.580 | his argument should be like this incredible intervention

00:23:41.900 | in like all the details of your life to make,

00:23:44.620 | like often it's almost like a logical response

00:23:47.220 | to a real hopelessness that you could respond to

00:23:50.300 | by making your life less hopeless.

00:23:51.900 | And he has all these stories about in certain countries,

00:23:54.780 | that's how when people are dealing with that,

00:23:56.700 | the response is like,

00:23:57.540 | well, let's help you get your business going again.

00:23:59.700 | So it was kind of contrarian.

00:24:00.540 | And then "Stolen Focus,"

00:24:01.460 | he's trying to be contrarian about distraction and argue,

00:24:05.940 | I don't know it well, I have to go back and reread it,

00:24:07.820 | but he has some contrarian arguments there about ADHD

00:24:10.540 | and is this really,

00:24:11.820 | is this caused actually by new technology

00:24:16.260 | and not just a completely unrelated brain thing that changed?

00:24:20.460 | So that's what his thing is he does.

00:24:22.260 | He's sort of like contrarian looks at,

00:24:24.340 | I guess, psychological related issues.

00:24:27.980 | - Yeah. - Interesting guy.

00:24:29.780 | All right, so we've got some questions

00:24:30.780 | that are roughly on these topics

00:24:32.100 | as well as a case study to get into.

00:24:34.980 | First, I wanna briefly mention one of the sponsors

00:24:36.900 | that makes this show possible.

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00:24:40.580 | and my bed's good friends, Cozy Earth.

00:24:43.620 | Cozy Earth bedding, these are the sheets that we use

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00:24:50.140 | We bought multiple pairs so that when we clean our sheets,

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00:24:56.100 | For a while, we only had one pair and it was terrible

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00:25:07.060 | So we bought more pairs of the Cozy Earth sheets

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00:25:23.940 | which is a type of fabric, I guess,

00:25:25.900 | that traps less heat so you can sleep cooler

00:25:27.660 | and more comfortably year round, which I care about.

00:25:29.740 | But I just noticed they just feel really, really good.

00:25:32.260 | I really do love these sheets.

00:25:34.460 | They were also Oprah's favorite things five years in a row.

00:25:38.440 | So both Oprah and Cal Newport endorse these sheets.

00:25:43.280 | So there you go.

00:25:45.700 | They are offering, what does Cozy Earth have for you?

00:25:49.300 | Oh, they're offering that if you do not agree

00:25:52.320 | that sleeping on them is fantastic,

00:25:54.540 | they will refund your purchase price plus shipping

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00:25:57.820 | They will give you 100 nights to try them out.

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00:26:28.420 | I also wanna talk about our friends at Blinkist.

00:26:33.420 | Blinkist is a subscription service

00:26:36.540 | that offers you short reviews,

00:26:39.700 | summarizing the main ideas

00:26:41.300 | of over 5,500 nonfiction books and podcasts.

00:26:44.420 | Most of these summaries can be read or listened to

00:26:48.340 | in just 15 minutes or less.

00:26:53.140 | The way that Jesse and I use Blinkist

00:26:55.380 | is as a triage service for the books we read in our lives.

00:26:58.420 | If we're interested in potentially reading

00:27:00.100 | a nonfiction book, the first thing we'll do

00:27:02.820 | is add that to a queue in Blinkist.

00:27:05.900 | Then we get around to it,

00:27:06.820 | we will either listen or read the blink,

00:27:09.740 | which is what they call the short summary, on that book.

00:27:12.320 | And I'm telling you, getting the summary of the main ideas

00:27:15.380 | for an accomplished nonfiction reader

00:27:17.700 | almost always tells you exactly what you need to know

00:27:19.580 | about whether this is a book worth buying or not.

00:27:21.580 | In some books, you say, okay, I've got the main ideas.

00:27:24.280 | I can see how this book's gonna unfold.

00:27:27.380 | It's just gonna gloss on these three A ideas a bunch of times.

00:27:29.740 | I'm glad I know these ideas, I'm not gonna buy the book.

00:27:32.460 | Other times, you'll read or listen to the blink

00:27:34.140 | and say, oh, this is fascinating.

00:27:36.020 | Like, I wanna go deeper on this,

00:27:37.540 | and you buy the book with confidence.

00:27:39.300 | So it makes your success rate with buying a book

00:27:42.060 | and subsequently loving the book,

00:27:44.640 | that success rate goes way up if you are using Blinkist.

00:27:51.300 | They also have a special feature right now

00:27:52.740 | called Blinkist Connect,

00:27:54.280 | which allows you to essentially share a subscription,

00:27:58.660 | getting two for the price of one.

00:28:01.900 | So you're getting two premium subscriptions

00:28:03.100 | for the price for one,

00:28:03.920 | so you can share your Blinkist love with a friend.

00:28:07.920 | So right now, Blinkist has a special offer

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00:28:17.140 | That's Blinkist spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T,

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00:28:32.280 | You will get two premium subscriptions

00:28:34.820 | for the price of one.

00:28:36.580 | All right, let us move on now to some questions.

00:28:41.700 | Jesse, what do we have first?

00:28:43.540 | - First question is from Tracy.

00:28:45.100 | I set a big goal in life and eventually achieved it.

00:28:48.880 | After six months, my life started to take a downturn

00:28:51.900 | as I fell into a comfy zone after hitting my goal.

00:28:55.220 | How can I escape the comfort zone

00:28:56.900 | when I don't know what goal to set next?

00:28:59.740 | - Well, Tracy, there's a common problem here,

00:29:02.100 | especially among high achievers,

00:29:04.660 | which is if you've oriented your life exclusively

00:29:07.660 | around these sort of big ambitious goals,

00:29:10.780 | and sometimes these are professional,

00:29:12.380 | but sometimes they are,

00:29:14.260 | they're actually leisure goals is common too.

00:29:16.180 | So, you know, training for a marathon

00:29:17.880 | or some sort of athletic event that's really difficult.

00:29:21.280 | If your life is oriented exclusively around these big goals,

00:29:25.160 | you are gonna run into the problem you're talking about now,

00:29:27.600 | which is the down period between them.

00:29:29.500 | I mean, for some people in particular,

00:29:32.360 | I'm thinking about the big wave surfer, Laird Hamilton,

00:29:36.080 | his wife, Gabby Reese, will talk about his lows

00:29:40.440 | between the highs of the big wave season.

00:29:42.400 | So there's a season.

00:29:44.340 | In the lows between the seasons,

00:29:46.340 | he'll fall essentially to a depression

00:29:48.940 | because he doesn't have this like, we're out here,

00:29:51.020 | we're surfing, we're fulfilling our goal.

00:29:53.700 | The downtime can be really difficult.

00:29:55.060 | So what's the solution here?

00:29:56.780 | Well, it's unsustainable if all you're doing

00:29:58.900 | is pursuing big things

00:30:00.060 | because you can't always have big things to pursue.

00:30:02.580 | And at some point in your life, no one bats a thousand,

00:30:05.460 | you're gonna have a couple of big things

00:30:06.740 | that fizzle in a row.

00:30:08.020 | And that's where really the hammer comes down

00:30:10.100 | for high achievers.

00:30:11.020 | That's where they really fall into a funk

00:30:13.100 | where this project didn't work and this thing fell apart

00:30:16.400 | couple in a row.

00:30:17.720 | If this is what you've oriented your life around,

00:30:19.880 | then you'll find yourself completely adrift.

00:30:22.760 | What you really want is a deeper foundation,

00:30:25.860 | a deep life foundation that is sustainable and meaningful

00:30:30.080 | from which you launch your big ambitious goals.

00:30:32.900 | If this is a sustainable enough foundation,

00:30:37.320 | you are fine in between goals,

00:30:38.800 | or you're fine if a couple of goals in a row fail

00:30:41.080 | because you have this deep foundation

00:30:42.720 | that's plugging into the things

00:30:43.880 | that are important to you in your life,

00:30:45.380 | making sure that your life in general

00:30:46.820 | is structured around what you care about,

00:30:48.720 | whether you happen to be pursuing a big goal

00:30:50.960 | at that moment or not.

00:30:52.300 | So a good place to start is just the layers

00:30:55.360 | of the deep life stack.

00:30:56.840 | You can just go back to the deep dive

00:30:59.080 | that we just finished a couple of minutes ago

00:31:01.340 | and look back at the layers I talked about,

00:31:03.040 | disciplined and building a framework of values,

00:31:05.760 | then resetting and organizing the big parts of your lives.

00:31:09.680 | Remember the last layer,

00:31:10.720 | only the last layer there was pursuing something remarkable.

00:31:13.440 | So maybe go back and check out those three layers,

00:31:15.960 | really get that souped up and get comfortable with that

00:31:20.600 | before you launch your next big thing.

00:31:22.260 | That's gonna make pursuing the big things more interesting,

00:31:25.760 | more fulfilling, less stressful, less anxiety producing.

00:31:28.980 | You're gonna be able to find more pleasure

00:31:30.600 | in the process itself of the pursuit

00:31:32.360 | and less of an obsession with the outcome

00:31:34.120 | because you don't need that outcome to feel good.

00:31:36.400 | You feel good because you have these disciplines

00:31:38.360 | built into your life,

00:31:39.260 | because you've reoriented your life

00:31:40.680 | around a framework of meaning

00:31:42.000 | with real practice and rituals in there,

00:31:43.980 | because you have reset and reorganized

00:31:46.040 | the aspects of your life that connect to things

00:31:47.880 | that really matter to you on a regular basis.

00:31:49.760 | So whether or not this huge professional project

00:31:51.760 | succeeds or not, is not that vital.

00:31:53.640 | You're finding value in the fact

00:31:55.000 | that you're pursuing the project.

00:31:57.200 | And then when it's done,

00:31:58.760 | you're also gonna be fine for a few months in between.

00:32:01.880 | I'll mention finally, Tracy,

00:32:02.920 | this is something that comes up in my book,

00:32:05.640 | "Slow Productivity" that's coming out in March.

00:32:07.800 | It's second principle of slow productivity

00:32:09.980 | is work at a natural pace.

00:32:12.500 | And I profiled these traditional famous knowledge workers

00:32:16.300 | from time past that all had this up and down rhythm.

00:32:21.300 | There's periods where they're working intensely

00:32:22.860 | on something and long periods where they're not,

00:32:26.580 | and it comes up and it comes down.

00:32:28.780 | And when we zoom out to the period

00:32:30.340 | of the 30, 40 years of their professional life,

00:32:32.520 | we just add up these cool things they finished.

00:32:34.600 | But when we zoom back in,

00:32:35.740 | we see there's periods where they're really into it

00:32:39.180 | and there's periods where they're barely touching it.

00:32:40.700 | And there's this sort of natural give and take ebb and flow.

00:32:43.700 | So this natural pace is what we're wired for.

00:32:47.660 | And I think having that deep foundation,

00:32:50.140 | deep life foundation from which you're launching

00:32:52.240 | these particular goals is gonna make it much easier

00:32:54.240 | to have this more sustainable natural pace.

00:32:56.380 | All right, so work on that,

00:32:58.620 | get that dialed in before you launch your next big project.

00:33:01.540 | All right, what do we got next?

00:33:05.300 | Next question is from Tyler.

00:33:07.300 | Does dopamine fasting actually work?

00:33:09.660 | I'm afraid that if I stop seeking dopamine entirely,

00:33:12.820 | I could become depressed.

00:33:14.400 | - So I guess this is a thing right now, Jesse,

00:33:16.740 | dopamine fasting.

00:33:18.520 | Does this basically mean,

00:33:20.660 | and maybe we should look this up,

00:33:21.580 | but does this basically mean like cold turkey detox?

00:33:25.540 | Like I'm gonna just stay away from the distractions

00:33:28.940 | that are hijacking my dopamine system.

00:33:31.500 | - It's probably similar to like food fasting.

00:33:33.740 | - Yeah, and by doing that, I'll like lose that drive.

00:33:37.980 | Yeah.

00:33:38.820 | I'm not a huge fan of dopamine,

00:33:43.260 | if that's what it is, Tyler.

00:33:44.920 | My issue is dopamine fasting by itself

00:33:48.620 | has a real chance of not working.

00:33:51.300 | And I think our best reason for understanding that

00:33:54.940 | is the deep dive that we just finished.

00:33:57.860 | So a lot of times, again, and very brief summary,

00:34:00.500 | but the super distractions that really plague us,

00:34:04.140 | the me on my phone all the time,

00:34:06.140 | me and my pornography all the time,

00:34:07.300 | me drinking too much or eating too much junk food,

00:34:09.440 | the super distractions that really plague us

00:34:12.060 | are often plaguing us because our mind has decided

00:34:15.540 | this is my primary response to some source of psychic pain,

00:34:18.860 | anxiety or unhappiness or shame about your place in life,

00:34:23.860 | hopelessness, grief, et cetera.

00:34:25.880 | So if that's why,

00:34:27.860 | if that's the driving force with a super distraction,

00:34:30.060 | cold turkey net is a risky move

00:34:33.740 | because your mind says,

00:34:34.780 | "I will not tolerate the psychic pain."

00:34:37.460 | So just saying, I'm gonna rip away from you

00:34:40.260 | the thing that helps with the psychic pain

00:34:42.300 | and we'll just white knuckle it,

00:34:43.660 | by which I use that term to mean

00:34:45.300 | you're just holding onto the table really hard,

00:34:47.300 | so hard that your knuckles turn white,

00:34:49.500 | that's probably not gonna succeed.

00:34:50.920 | Your brain says, "No, I win.

00:34:52.420 | "Pain is bad.

00:34:53.920 | "We need to do something."

00:34:55.720 | Now you might get lucky

00:34:56.940 | and you might stumble into an alternative thing

00:34:58.900 | your mind latches onto and that's better,

00:35:00.660 | but I say, why wait to be lucky?

00:35:02.140 | Why not be much more intentional about it?

00:35:05.800 | So to me, it's not really about

00:35:09.580 | starving your dopamine system,

00:35:11.420 | but reaiming it at something more sustainable.

00:35:13.960 | Your dopamine system is only involved

00:35:16.460 | in these super distractions

00:35:17.340 | because your brain really wants to make sure

00:35:18.740 | that we do something about the psychic pain.

00:35:20.900 | So let's give it something better to do.

00:35:23.780 | And that's gonna require a deeper life,

00:35:25.460 | a foundation of depth that actually is sustainable

00:35:27.900 | and then rebuilding discipline and values

00:35:30.460 | and getting in control and resetting parts of your life

00:35:32.580 | and then rebuilding these more meaningful things

00:35:34.500 | to do with your time,

00:35:35.380 | these more meaningful responses

00:35:37.300 | to the inevitable psychic pains.

00:35:38.820 | And then your dopamine system's no longer your enemy

00:35:42.260 | because it says, "Ah, this weird behavior

00:35:44.260 | "of staring at the phone,

00:35:45.100 | "we have other ways to deal with this now."

00:35:47.220 | So I don't think it's necessarily bad,

00:35:50.960 | but I don't know that it's gonna work

00:35:52.240 | and I think it might generate needless pain.

00:35:54.180 | If you really are suffering, you just say,

00:35:55.660 | "Let me just stop looking at my phone."

00:35:57.380 | And you change nothing else.

00:35:58.900 | Could be difficult.

00:36:02.060 | It doesn't have to be that difficult

00:36:03.380 | once you understand what the underlying mechanisms

00:36:05.380 | actually are.

00:36:06.360 | All right, ooh, a third.

00:36:10.980 | Is this a third T in the row we have coming up here, Jesse?

00:36:13.740 | - Yeah.

00:36:14.580 | - I like it.

00:36:15.400 | Tracy, Tyler, and Tanya.

00:36:18.180 | What do we got here?

00:36:19.660 | - All right, next question is from Tanya.

00:36:21.740 | "I find my inner voice very cruel

00:36:23.740 | "and I struggle with negative thoughts.

00:36:25.740 | "Do you have any advice on how I can overcome these

00:36:27.840 | "on a daily basis?"

00:36:29.380 | - So Tanya, this is a very common thing.

00:36:33.560 | I'm gonna start with that.

00:36:35.540 | I think this is misunderstood about mental health issues

00:36:38.700 | from people who don't suffer from them

00:36:40.660 | is how often the common source of the mental health issues

00:36:45.340 | is these inner voices.

00:36:47.040 | So psychologists will call this negative rumination.

00:36:49.860 | It's a voice in your head

00:36:50.860 | that is constantly pointing out negative things.

00:36:53.900 | So for anxiety, the negative ruminations

00:36:56.980 | are those looking to the future with concern.

00:36:59.940 | What about this, what about that?

00:37:01.100 | What if this doesn't go well?

00:37:01.940 | What if this disaster happens?

00:37:02.980 | What if, you know, it's looking to the future

00:37:05.000 | and constantly pointing out things that it's worried about.

00:37:07.940 | For depression, it's the same voice.

00:37:09.980 | It's just often looking to the past.

00:37:12.140 | Why did you do that?

00:37:13.460 | Oh my God, that was the wrong thing to do.

00:37:15.060 | You're so worthless.

00:37:16.740 | People are thinking about that.

00:37:18.180 | I'm sure people are talking about it.

00:37:20.300 | No one, look at that event.

00:37:22.060 | That guy who snubbed you,

00:37:22.940 | yeah, it's because no one respects you.

00:37:24.660 | So it's just looking back at your life so far,

00:37:29.020 | like a, you know, upset movie critic,

00:37:31.580 | just pointing out everything that went wrong.

00:37:33.620 | That's why there's such a connection

00:37:34.700 | between anxiety and depression.

00:37:36.180 | They go back and forth.

00:37:37.020 | It's your ruminative voice,

00:37:38.380 | and it's just kind of where it's aimed.

00:37:39.500 | And once that voice has a really strong foothold

00:37:42.340 | in your head, it's got a real comfy chair,

00:37:44.780 | and it knows that, oh, I'm gonna be listened to.

00:37:46.220 | Then it can change its, you know, themes,

00:37:48.060 | but it's in there screwing around with your brain.

00:37:49.620 | And that's why we often find

00:37:51.060 | those two particular mental health issues

00:37:52.780 | so tightly intertwined.

00:37:54.180 | So it's a very common, well-understood issue.

00:37:58.460 | I think of it a lot like knee pain.

00:38:01.020 | You know, it's, ah, I have this thing.

00:38:03.300 | It's really common.

00:38:04.140 | It's really annoying.

00:38:04.980 | I should do something about this

00:38:07.020 | because otherwise, it makes my life really hard right now,

00:38:09.420 | and my knee hurts, but also because it hurts,

00:38:11.460 | it's making me walk differently,

00:38:12.820 | and I might get like even bigger problems going forward.

00:38:15.620 | Let's get it treated.

00:38:16.580 | And that's the right way to think

00:38:17.540 | about overwhelming negative ruminations.

00:38:19.860 | Your knee is hurting you.

00:38:20.700 | It's time to get it fixed.

00:38:22.980 | There is a lot of good approaches to fixing rumination.

00:38:27.340 | In particular, second wave and third wave psychotherapy

00:38:32.820 | are essentially focused like a laser

00:38:36.580 | on ruminations and how to dissipate it.

00:38:38.540 | With first wave psychotherapy, which is talk therapy,

00:38:42.620 | the Freud-influenced therapy and analysis,

00:38:44.900 | this is what people think about from Woody Allen movies

00:38:47.260 | and is talking about your kids

00:38:48.620 | and your childhood and your life.

00:38:50.340 | Second and third wave psychotherapy

00:38:51.820 | are much more evidence-based,

00:38:53.020 | and it says we need to tackle ruminations.

00:38:55.220 | So second wave psychotherapy

00:38:56.820 | is, if I'm understanding my history correctly,

00:38:59.420 | and I hope I'm getting my terminology correct,

00:39:01.620 | second wave psychotherapy is defined most notably

00:39:05.740 | by cognitive behavioral therapy.

00:39:07.780 | This is where you directly address ruminations

00:39:11.300 | and point out the distortions in the thinking.

00:39:13.940 | You give names to the distortions.

00:39:15.520 | You separate yourself from the rumination,

00:39:17.400 | and you try to diffuse their power.

00:39:20.160 | Tanya, if you're looking for an introduction

00:39:22.280 | to second wave psychotherapy,

00:39:23.520 | the proper book to look at is titled "Feeling Good,"

00:39:27.760 | big bestseller from either the 1970s or the 1980s

00:39:32.400 | that walks through all the principles

00:39:34.320 | of cognitive behavioral therapy.

00:39:36.120 | Third wave psychotherapy is best defined

00:39:40.520 | by ACT, acceptance commitment therapy.

00:39:43.880 | It's similar.

00:39:44.920 | Again, it's rumination-based,

00:39:46.680 | but here it has more of an Eastern-motivated approach

00:39:51.600 | of noting all the negative ruminations,

00:39:54.860 | not resisting them, but also not entertaining them,

00:39:59.660 | and persisting with committing

00:40:01.480 | to useful value-driven behavior regardless.

00:40:03.500 | So it's a sort of diffusing of,

00:40:05.960 | it's just this thing that's,

00:40:07.520 | there's this voice, and I have a name for it,

00:40:09.880 | and I have a name for the character,

00:40:11.540 | and he's just in there doing all this chatter,

00:40:13.320 | and I sort of like, okay, I'm good to see you there,

00:40:15.160 | but I'm gonna go on and do this thing

00:40:16.320 | I think is important.

00:40:17.360 | So you see like ACT, for example,

00:40:21.320 | ACT is very effective for anxiety-related issues,

00:40:26.200 | panic attacks, for example,

00:40:27.560 | where it's like, well, yeah, bad things could happen,

00:40:29.520 | but this stuff matters, I'm just gonna go forward with it.

00:40:32.000 | Cognitive behavioral therapy tends to be very good

00:40:34.480 | for more of a negative rumination

00:40:36.640 | on your sort of depressive ruminations.

00:40:39.440 | So you can intervene, it's like, no, that's stupid.

00:40:42.080 | Not everyone was embarrassed by me,

00:40:44.440 | and the fact that that guy said this thing

00:40:46.120 | at the meeting doesn't mean that everyone thinks I'm dumb.

00:40:48.040 | So CBT is very good for that backward-thinking rumination.

00:40:51.000 | ACT is very good for forward-thinking rumination.

00:40:53.680 | It's like, that stuff could happen, probably won't,

00:40:56.400 | but I'm gonna live my life, and you get used to it.

00:40:59.120 | So they have different approaches.

00:41:02.720 | If you're looking for the good consumer,

00:41:04.720 | public-facing book on third-wave psychotherapy,

00:41:07.220 | look at "The Happiness Trap,"

00:41:09.600 | which we talked about in a recent book as well.

00:41:12.640 | So, Tanya, buy those books first.

00:41:15.460 | See which of these resonates more with you.

00:41:17.600 | And I would read both of these books

00:41:19.000 | and see which of these resonates more

00:41:20.520 | with your particular brand of rumination.

00:41:22.560 | It's possible that just the ideas in these books themselves,

00:41:26.480 | you start doing the exercises

00:41:27.880 | and you immediately see improvement.

00:41:29.560 | This happens with a lot of people.

00:41:31.240 | If you're not seeing improvement immediately,

00:41:33.080 | then you get a professional therapist involved.

00:41:35.000 | What do they do?

00:41:35.840 | They're professionals that are administering

00:41:37.480 | these evidence-based ideas on minimizing rumination.

00:41:41.160 | They're the brand equivalent of the knee doctor.

00:41:43.720 | The reason why I'm suggesting you buy these books first

00:41:46.060 | is that when you're looking for a therapist,

00:41:47.700 | now you know what type you're looking for.

00:41:49.980 | And so if you're dealing with negative ruminations

00:41:52.380 | on your past and CBT really resonates,

00:41:54.500 | then you're looking for a cognitive behavioral therapist.

00:41:57.180 | If you're dealing with anxiety and forward-facing ruminations

00:42:00.140 | and the ideas from ACT are resonating,

00:42:02.980 | then you look for a therapist

00:42:04.220 | that says they're an ACT practitioner.

00:42:05.380 | So now you can be kind of selective in who you're choosing.

00:42:08.320 | One of our sponsors, for example, BetterHelp,

00:42:10.900 | is an easy way to get involved in professional therapy

00:42:14.200 | that's cheaper and more flexible

00:42:15.520 | than trying to find someone who happens to be open nearby,

00:42:17.860 | but maybe you also just know of someone nearby.

00:42:20.560 | But this is what I would say.

00:42:21.400 | Take this seriously.

00:42:23.240 | What you're facing is incredibly common,

00:42:25.520 | but you do want to get on top of it.

00:42:27.120 | We have a lot of tools to get on top of it.

00:42:28.960 | Learn the tools, and if needed,

00:42:30.680 | find a professional to help you administer them.

00:42:33.320 | All right, let's do another question, Jesse.

00:42:37.600 | - Next question's from Mark.

00:42:39.640 | "I have a good routine in place for my deep work.

00:42:42.280 | "My desk is cleared from all documents,

00:42:44.440 | "same for my computer.

00:42:45.940 | "I set out exactly what I want out of the session

00:42:47.980 | "and how long it should take.

00:42:49.320 | "I then do a loop around the inside of the building twice,

00:42:53.080 | "clearing my head while listening to binaural beats.

00:42:57.280 | "I then do two minutes of breathing exercises outside.

00:43:00.420 | "Then as soon as the door opens, it's showtime.

00:43:03.120 | "My problem is shower work.

00:43:05.040 | "When I block off even to do specific shower work,

00:43:08.360 | "my mind wanders all the time,

00:43:09.840 | "and I find it difficult to get things done.

00:43:12.160 | "Do you do anything ritual-wise before shower work?"

00:43:15.360 | - Well, first of all, I like this deep work ritual.

00:43:18.180 | - Yeah.

00:43:19.020 | - What do you have?

00:43:19.840 | Okay, let's summarize.

00:43:22.020 | Clean desk, clean computer desktop,

00:43:25.000 | lay out a plan for the deep work session,

00:43:29.120 | what I'm gonna do and how long it's gonna take,

00:43:31.540 | a loop around the inside of the building twice

00:43:33.540 | while listening to these,

00:43:35.480 | I don't know what this was either, binaural beats.

00:43:38.340 | - I think it guys are from Huberman.

00:43:40.280 | - Oh, okay, excellent.

00:43:41.960 | So it's probably a specific,

00:43:43.660 | what's this, like a white noise type thing?

00:43:45.400 | - Yeah.

00:43:46.240 | - Okay.

00:43:47.280 | Two minutes of breathing exercise outside,

00:43:49.560 | and then opens the door and goes into work.

00:43:51.960 | Cool deep work ritual.

00:43:53.840 | We talk about these all the time.

00:43:55.600 | Deep work is unnatural,

00:43:57.360 | and so we have to sort of trick our brain

00:43:58.960 | into wanting to do it.

00:43:59.960 | So having a really multimedia, multi-sensory,

00:44:04.960 | highly repetitive ritual

00:44:06.880 | that comes right before deep work,

00:44:09.140 | eventually your brain builds

00:44:10.620 | this automatic reflexive connection

00:44:12.780 | that you finish this ritual,

00:44:14.620 | and it's ready to execute.

00:44:16.100 | So it's a good question,

00:44:18.020 | should we be doing something similar for shallow work?

00:44:21.580 | And I think it's a good question

00:44:22.780 | because I think we don't treat shallow work

00:44:25.700 | with enough respect,

00:44:27.520 | at least from the standpoint of cognitive preparation.

00:44:32.460 | Now, something we've been talking about

00:44:33.660 | more and more on this show

00:44:35.300 | is the cost of loading up a cognitive context

00:44:38.800 | and how this is difficult and takes time.

00:44:40.560 | So like before you're doing deep work,

00:44:42.740 | one of the reasons why these rituals are helpful,

00:44:44.840 | like Mark just talked about,

00:44:45.880 | is not just because it reflexively puts your mind

00:44:48.080 | into a deep work mode,

00:44:49.520 | but you're clearing out,

00:44:50.920 | you're giving your brain time

00:44:53.040 | to clear out unrelated old cognitive context

00:44:56.080 | and load up the context of the work you're about to do.

00:44:58.960 | Part of what's effective about this ritual then

00:45:00.840 | is that Mark reviews everything he's gonna do

00:45:02.920 | at the beginning of the ritual,

00:45:04.720 | initiating the loading of that context,

00:45:07.200 | and this ritual takes enough time

00:45:09.400 | that he can start clearing out the context

00:45:11.280 | of whatever email or Zoom nonsense

00:45:13.680 | he was doing right before the deep work session.

00:45:16.000 | And the ritual is all activities

00:45:17.600 | that aren't gonna trigger other types of context as well.

00:45:20.160 | It's listening and walking

00:45:21.360 | and nothing that's related to work.

00:45:23.360 | And so part of why this deep work ritual is effective

00:45:25.740 | is that he shows up loaded from a brain perspective

00:45:28.440 | to do exactly that work.

00:45:29.760 | Now, I think a shallow work

00:45:31.800 | often requires those contexts as well,

00:45:34.640 | but we don't treat it with the same respect.

00:45:37.480 | So it might seem like the most shallow thing in the planet

00:45:39.760 | that I'm gonna answer emails.

00:45:42.160 | This isn't deep work.

00:45:43.080 | I'm not writing the great American novel,

00:45:44.640 | I'm answering emails.

00:45:45.760 | But from a cognitive standpoint,

00:45:47.240 | each of those emails has this complicated

00:45:49.440 | social professional context

00:45:52.120 | that you need to fully load

00:45:53.400 | to figure out how to carefully word your response.

00:45:57.080 | And if you just haphazardly just jump in

00:45:58.920 | and start typing emails,

00:45:59.880 | your brain's like, I am not ready for this.

00:46:02.280 | And then when you switch to another email

00:46:04.360 | from a client that's completely unrelated

00:46:06.080 | to what you were just doing,

00:46:06.920 | your brain plays the comic break squealing sound,

00:46:10.360 | like, wait a second, we're not ready to do this either.

00:46:13.240 | And you feel that real resistance.

00:46:15.080 | And I think that's what Mark is pointing out here.

00:46:17.760 | It's because you don't have the right stuff loaded up.

00:46:19.680 | You're trying to force information out of your brain

00:46:21.880 | that it's not ready to do.

00:46:23.200 | And so this is a good time to declare

00:46:25.880 | that for certain types of shallow work,

00:46:27.400 | yeah, let's ritualize some of that as well.

00:46:29.560 | So for email, let's start with that example.

00:46:34.420 | Let's take your email inbox,

00:46:36.500 | and I'm gonna give you a ritual right now.

00:46:38.940 | Let's go through the single threading exercise

00:46:40.820 | we talked about earlier in the show.

00:46:43.020 | Break up the emails

00:46:44.140 | into different cognitive context subject matters.

00:46:47.380 | If you're using Gmail, you can label and archive them.

00:46:50.200 | So they're all with a common label.

00:46:52.660 | By the way, here's another hack on that.

00:46:54.240 | You don't have to actually give content specific names

00:46:58.540 | to these labels because there could be over time,

00:47:00.940 | dozens and dozens of different relevant cognitive context.

00:47:04.880 | Just label them context one, context two, context three,

00:47:07.040 | context four, context five, up to context 10.

00:47:09.940 | It doesn't matter what the names are.

00:47:10.780 | It's just you have some way of, okay,

00:47:12.280 | oh, there's a bunch of emails about this very specific thing.

00:47:14.340 | I'll call that context three.

00:47:15.740 | So do that, right?

00:47:18.020 | So figure out like what are the different topics

00:47:20.060 | I have to answer in my inbox,

00:47:21.900 | label them, put them together, and get them all out of sight.

00:47:25.780 | Now you can say, what am I gonna tackle first?

00:47:27.940 | Context one.

00:47:28.760 | Now I'm gonna do the two laps in the building

00:47:30.380 | I did before my deep work.

00:47:32.340 | But now the point of these two laps is to begin

00:47:35.500 | loading up the relevant circuits for context one.

00:47:40.100 | And just think in your head while you're walking,

00:47:41.940 | okay, these emails are all about a conference

00:47:44.340 | that's coming up.

00:47:45.300 | Let's start thinking about the conference,

00:47:46.780 | what's going on.

00:47:47.600 | Let me get that context loaded.

00:47:48.700 | You sit down at your desk, load up just that context,

00:47:51.380 | boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, answer those emails.

00:47:53.020 | All right, what's context two?

00:47:54.020 | I'm up, two laps around the building.

00:47:55.860 | Switching to that context, starting to think through,

00:47:59.820 | okay, these are all emails about a project.

00:48:02.460 | Where am I on the project?

00:48:03.620 | You know, what do I really need to do here?

00:48:06.020 | You know what, we're really behind.

00:48:07.140 | I think maybe we need to do a more drastic reset.

00:48:09.420 | Start thinking about it as a way to get the context shifted.

00:48:12.840 | Do a couple laps around the building, sit down, boom,

00:48:14.860 | email, email, email, email.

00:48:16.060 | So why don't we do the same type of rituals

00:48:18.980 | around this particular shallow work task?

00:48:20.460 | I like that.

00:48:21.300 | Let me give you another shallow work ritual

00:48:23.060 | 'cause I'm on a roll now, Mark, I like your idea.

00:48:25.700 | I've got a Zoom meeting.

00:48:27.700 | All right, well, here's what I'm gonna do.

00:48:28.840 | I'm gonna put that Zoom meeting on my calendar

00:48:30.580 | and I'm gonna put 20 minutes

00:48:31.860 | after that Zoom meeting on my calendar right after.

00:48:35.060 | As soon as I put that meeting on my calendar,

00:48:36.860 | I extended that appointment by 20 minutes.

00:48:39.500 | And so as soon as this meeting is over,

00:48:43.140 | I'm gonna write down all my notes

00:48:45.140 | and I'm gonna just walk and think about that meeting.

00:48:48.460 | Laps around the building, walk around the block.

00:48:50.780 | All right, what just happened there?

00:48:52.780 | What do I really need to do next?

00:48:55.060 | You know, maybe, was that really a good idea?

00:48:56.860 | Are we missing some information?

00:48:58.380 | What are the right steps here?

00:48:59.640 | Actually, I should not do those steps and just talk to Paul

00:49:02.340 | and like, we probably need to just,

00:49:04.700 | this is gonna be a longer conversation

00:49:06.100 | and maybe we, you just start thinking about it.

00:49:07.740 | You're loading, you know, you're thinking about it.

00:49:09.820 | You're trying to make sense of it.

00:49:10.920 | You sit down and you send out the emails,

00:49:13.680 | you update all your to-do lists, you go on your calendar.

00:49:16.340 | You're like, this is great, this is all out of my mind

00:49:18.720 | and I still have 10 minutes left.

00:49:20.320 | Now I can just reset.

00:49:22.980 | All right, what's next?

00:49:24.260 | So we have a ritual there following shallow work

00:49:26.460 | to process all the details, close all the loops

00:49:28.460 | and give your brain a breather.

00:49:30.020 | So again, a shallow work ritual that could be important.

00:49:34.820 | I'll give you one more as long as we're thinking about it.

00:49:37.100 | What about physical tasks?

00:49:39.900 | I gotta get this thing from the store and mail this letter.

00:49:43.500 | Put those all together.

00:49:45.300 | Say, great, I put these all together.

00:49:46.660 | I have a whole hour.

00:49:47.900 | I'm listening to, you know, I have a book I'm excited

00:49:50.460 | to listen to on tape and I'm just gonna use this

00:49:53.420 | almost meditatively, just have this big list.

00:49:55.500 | I'm gonna start checking things off while I'm here.

00:49:57.060 | I'll go to this store, then I'll go to that store

00:49:58.500 | and just sort of feel this feel of just physical progress

00:50:00.780 | of tasks being checked off your list

00:50:02.500 | while you're listening to an interesting book or something

00:50:04.340 | and make that into a whole organized ritual

00:50:07.540 | of I'm now in task mode and I'm really leaning into it.

00:50:10.440 | So I think the bigger point here, Mark,

00:50:13.100 | which you've sparked in me, which I'm liking,

00:50:15.980 | is this notion that shallow work can be

00:50:17.940 | as cognitively demanding as deep work in certain aspects,

00:50:21.500 | in particular, when it comes to the complexity

00:50:23.780 | of the context surrounding different types of shallow work.

00:50:26.260 | So having some rituals that respect that

00:50:28.340 | might make the same shallow work seem much easier.

00:50:30.840 | So we shouldn't be dismissive about shallow work.

00:50:33.860 | Well, that's just something you can do whenever

00:50:35.300 | and it's easy and all I care about is the deep work.

00:50:37.180 | I really need to care about my mind.

00:50:38.860 | We gotta care about our minds for everything we do

00:50:41.180 | in the knowledge for context, deep and shallow combined.

00:50:44.640 | All right, so what I wanna do now

00:50:47.220 | is actually read a case study.

00:50:49.140 | So sometimes listeners send in case studies

00:50:53.440 | of their experience using the type of advice

00:50:57.140 | we talk about on the show.

00:50:58.540 | So this case study comes from Mishia and I will read it.

00:51:04.380 | So Mishia says, "I read Digital Minimalism six weeks ago

00:51:09.380 | "and immediately started an electronic detox.

00:51:12.740 | "I did not have social media before,

00:51:15.320 | "but I used to watch YouTube, Netflix and Disney Plus

00:51:17.760 | "while cooking, cleaning and sometimes for leisure.

00:51:20.220 | "I used to complain that I had no time at all.

00:51:22.360 | "I was struggling to get things done at work.

00:51:23.900 | "I was not able to focus to finish

00:51:25.160 | "my data science certification bootcamp.

00:51:28.380 | "I was not able to spend quality time

00:51:29.620 | "with my 12 year old son.

00:51:31.580 | "I was not getting enough sleep.

00:51:33.980 | "When I started the 30 day detox,

00:51:35.420 | "I noticed that I was able to focus more.

00:51:37.420 | "I enjoyed spending time with myself and my thoughts.

00:51:39.760 | "I was able to read and replicate

00:51:41.340 | "some machine learning papers.

00:51:42.620 | "And most of all, I was fully aware of the present

00:51:45.060 | "and improving my relationship with my son.

00:51:47.780 | "Signify distractions such as YouTube

00:51:49.520 | "and streaming services gave me myself back.

00:51:51.860 | "My thoughts and my alone and silence time.

00:51:55.100 | "I always enjoyed silence, but maybe

00:51:56.660 | "because the fast paced society,

00:51:58.080 | "I felt I needed to subscribe to these streaming services.

00:52:00.360 | "At the end of the 30 days,

00:52:01.460 | "I was able to finish my data science certification.

00:52:04.060 | "I am currently sleeping eight to nine hours every night.

00:52:07.020 | "I spend much more quality time with my son.

00:52:09.440 | "I was able to read four books

00:52:10.780 | "and my brain is not hungry for dopamine anymore.

00:52:13.500 | "I mean, sometimes I wanna just lay down

00:52:15.360 | "and binge on something.

00:52:16.220 | "So I always have my Kindle with me.

00:52:17.660 | "And when I feel this way,

00:52:18.560 | "I purchase a thriller mystery science fantasy

00:52:21.900 | "and fiction or fiction book and I get to read.

00:52:24.600 | "I rediscovered the pleasure of reading.

00:52:26.640 | "I was so impressed how little changes

00:52:28.100 | "can actually make a huge difference.

00:52:29.480 | "Thank you so much, Cal.

00:52:30.380 | "I cannot thank you enough."

00:52:32.380 | Well, Mishia, that's a really cool story.

00:52:35.260 | And I wanted to read it because it emphasizes the people.

00:52:38.260 | We don't always realize the impact

00:52:41.820 | of these super distractions on our life.

00:52:43.820 | We think like, yeah, I look at my phone

00:52:46.740 | and have some streaming services,

00:52:47.820 | but that's just kind of like in the background

00:52:49.100 | and in downtime, it's not a major shaper

00:52:52.260 | of my experience of the world, but it is.

00:52:54.380 | Because it becomes something you come back to,

00:52:57.580 | to escape or to get away from these sources of psychic pain,

00:53:01.240 | be it anxiety or hopelessness or grief or whatever it is.

00:53:04.020 | And they become this background numbness in your life

00:53:08.420 | that takes you away from other things.

00:53:09.740 | We're used to this from the substance abuse community.

00:53:12.380 | Talk to a big drinker about life after drinking.

00:53:16.900 | They tell it's like taking the limitless pill

00:53:19.740 | from that movie, right?

00:53:21.500 | Where it's like, oh my God, I have so much time and energy

00:53:23.620 | and there's all these things I can do.

00:53:24.780 | And they didn't realize how much of their life

00:53:26.440 | was feeling inebriated or recovering from drinking

00:53:31.020 | and what a big impact it was having on their life

00:53:32.940 | until they took it away.

00:53:33.860 | And people report the same thing about digital distractions,

00:53:36.140 | just like Mishia did here.

00:53:37.700 | Her life is so much richer now.

00:53:39.600 | She's doing the things she knows are better.

00:53:42.060 | And because of that, her life is much better.

00:53:45.220 | This goes exactly to the deep dive

00:53:46.780 | from the beginning of this show.

00:53:48.660 | I'm sure if we push closer, there is difficulties

00:53:52.340 | that were being numbed or dealt with

00:53:54.020 | by all these digital distractions in Mishia's life.

00:53:57.180 | She now has other things, explicit alternatives

00:54:00.660 | to deal with that psychic pain,

00:54:02.620 | this sort of pursuing time with her son,

00:54:05.260 | reading, working on stuff that's important for her career.

00:54:10.160 | Once she was able to inculcate these new activities

00:54:12.580 | by using the digital declutter suggestion

00:54:14.340 | from digital minimalism, once these alternatives,

00:54:16.900 | more humane and sustainable,

00:54:18.740 | these deeper sources of meaning were in place,

00:54:22.540 | then the cheap stuff was no longer so appealing

00:54:25.620 | and her life is much better.

00:54:27.020 | So I think that's a good case study.

00:54:30.900 | I love this idea that she thought she had no time.

00:54:33.580 | Then she realized she actually had all the time

00:54:36.460 | in the world.

00:54:37.300 | It was just a matter of controlling who got access to it.

00:54:40.340 | So Mishia, I like that case study.

00:54:42.780 | Hopefully you've motivated some more people

00:54:45.020 | to go through some sort of transformation.

00:54:47.180 | So you can look in digital minimalism

00:54:49.860 | and there's a whole program in there

00:54:51.940 | specifically for digital distraction

00:54:53.880 | or go through the deep life stack we talked about earlier.

00:54:56.420 | But if you are finding more and more,

00:54:58.700 | your life is caught up in these super distractions,

00:55:01.940 | it's time to take back control.

00:55:03.680 | Mishia did it.

00:55:04.780 | I think you can do it as well.

00:55:06.320 | All right, so we have a final segment coming up.

00:55:09.260 | I wanna react to a piece of news I found interesting.

00:55:12.820 | First, I wanna briefly mention another sponsor

00:55:14.620 | that makes this show possible

00:55:17.080 | and that is our friends at Ladder.

00:55:20.340 | Sorry, I was just looking.

00:55:26.660 | I was having a moment there where I was pondering.

00:55:31.100 | I'll tell you what, I was just pondering

00:55:32.260 | in that moment of silence right now.

00:55:34.380 | Do I have enough life insurance?

00:55:35.980 | I was so distracted by that question

00:55:40.360 | that it distracted me from the ad I was reading

00:55:43.140 | and you might be the same way.

00:55:44.820 | Life insurance is one of these things

00:55:47.440 | that anyone who has people who depends on them,

00:55:49.500 | kids, a spouse, et cetera, often feel anxious about.

00:55:53.420 | I know I don't have enough

00:55:54.980 | or maybe I don't have any at all

00:55:56.300 | or I have some small policy through my company

00:55:58.300 | that's not gonna do anything,

00:55:59.700 | God forbid, if something terrible happens.

00:56:01.740 | It's a source of anxiety because it's just hanging there

00:56:04.860 | and why don't we deal with it is because it is ambiguous.

00:56:07.660 | How do I go get life insurance?

00:56:09.380 | It sounds like a hard thing.

00:56:11.060 | It sounds like Flo from the insurance commercials

00:56:15.180 | or the guy with the red shirt has to come to your house

00:56:17.860 | and give you a shot or something

00:56:20.060 | or listen to your heart with a stethoscope.

00:56:22.820 | We don't know, how do you do this?

00:56:23.780 | How do you get life insurance?

00:56:25.300 | That is where Ladder enters the scene.

00:56:27.860 | It's 100% digital.

00:56:29.740 | There are no doctors, no needles and no paperwork

00:56:32.460 | if you're applying for $3 million in coverage or less.

00:56:35.020 | You just answer a few questions online in an application.

00:56:38.940 | You need just a few minutes on a phone or laptop to apply.

00:56:42.040 | Their smart algorithms will work in real time

00:56:43.800 | so you'll find out if you're instantly approved.

00:56:46.540 | No hidden fees, cancel anytime, get a full refund

00:56:49.020 | if you change your mind in the first 30 days.

00:56:50.920 | These are good policies.

00:56:52.140 | These are policies insured by insurers

00:56:54.020 | with long proven histories.

00:56:56.180 | We're talking about insurers that are rated A or A+

00:56:59.220 | by AM Best.

00:57:03.020 | So go to ladderlife.com/deep today

00:57:08.020 | to see if you are instantly improved.

00:57:09.720 | That's L-A-D-D-E-R, life.com/deep,

00:57:14.720 | ladderlife.com/deep.

00:57:18.640 | We also wanna talk about our friends at Mint Mobile.

00:57:23.300 | Mint Mobile is the first company

00:57:24.580 | to sell premium wireless service online only,

00:57:28.920 | which saves a lot of money

00:57:31.600 | and allows them to pass those savings along to you.

00:57:34.440 | With Mint Mobile, you can order a wireless plan from home

00:57:38.220 | and save a ton of money.

00:57:39.980 | We're talking about phone plans

00:57:41.240 | that start at just $15 a month.

00:57:44.700 | That could be $100 or more less per month

00:57:48.840 | that you are paying for phone service.

00:57:51.980 | They get this so cheap because they are online only

00:57:54.900 | so they don't have to deal with expensive retail stores.

00:57:58.860 | For example, they can pass those savings directly to you.

00:58:02.240 | All their plans come with unlimited talk and text

00:58:04.200 | plus high-speed data delivered

00:58:05.560 | on the nation's largest 5G network.

00:58:08.280 | We were talking about Mint Mobile.

00:58:09.760 | I was talking about it recently.

00:58:11.680 | I've been giving a talk at my kids' schools

00:58:15.720 | about phones and kids,

00:58:17.440 | and I brought in my $45 phone I bought on Amazon

00:58:21.600 | that has its wireless service through Mint Mobile

00:58:24.160 | because the parents were wondering,

00:58:27.080 | how can I give my kids access to text messaging

00:58:29.900 | without having to buy them an expensive iPhone

00:58:32.020 | and $100 a month plan

00:58:33.620 | and all the bells and whistles that are on an iPhone?

00:58:35.660 | And I said, just buy a phone off of Amazon like I did.

00:58:38.540 | Get a Mint Mobile plan, $15 a month.

00:58:40.820 | They send you the SIM card in the mail.

00:58:43.260 | You just stick it in.

00:58:44.360 | Now they have a phone.

00:58:45.220 | They can text you.

00:58:46.440 | They don't need the ability to play Roblox

00:58:48.540 | on landscape mode on some sort of fancy device.

00:58:51.860 | So I was pitching Mint Mobile to parents at my kids' schools

00:58:56.900 | just within the last couple of weeks.

00:58:59.140 | So to get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month

00:59:02.480 | and to get the plan shipped to your door for free,

00:59:05.320 | go to mintmobile.com/deep.

00:59:07.000 | That's mintmobile.com/deep.

00:59:09.200 | Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month.

00:59:12.480 | That's mintmobile.com/deep.

00:59:16.540 | All right, for our final segment,

00:59:18.840 | I wanna go back to something

00:59:19.880 | that we haven't done in a little bit, Jesse,

00:59:21.800 | which is our classic CalReacts.

00:59:26.920 | Take a bit of news that I saw or someone sent me

00:59:29.400 | that I thought was interesting and that we could talk about.

00:59:32.640 | So the news I wanna talk about today,

00:59:33.760 | I'm bringing up on the screen here.

00:59:36.080 | And I should mention, if you're listening

00:59:37.680 | and wanna see what I'm talking about,

00:59:39.660 | just go to the deeplife.com/listen, episode 270.

00:59:43.040 | The videos are at the bottom.

00:59:44.880 | So the article I wanna talk about

00:59:46.720 | was published in Neiman Reports.

00:59:49.260 | So Neiman is the study, it's a journalism school.

00:59:54.680 | So Neiman Reports is about the media business.

00:59:57.820 | The title of this article is,

01:00:00.140 | "Six Months Ago, NPR Left Twitter.

01:00:04.060 | The Effects Have Been Negligible."

01:00:06.820 | Well, you could already tell I'm happy about this one.

01:00:09.620 | All right, let's read the subhead here.

01:00:11.780 | "The numbers confirm what many of us have long suspected,

01:00:14.460 | that Twitter wasn't worth the effort,

01:00:16.260 | at least in terms of traffic."

01:00:19.240 | I'll read a little bit from this piece

01:00:21.780 | and then we'll talk about it.

01:00:22.620 | All right, here's a little bit more.

01:00:24.460 | "A lot of people threatened to leave Twitter.

01:00:25.940 | Not many of them have actually done it.

01:00:28.360 | But last April, Twitter gave NPR a reason to quit.

01:00:32.580 | It labeled the network, US State Affiliated Media,

01:00:35.820 | a designation that was at odds

01:00:37.180 | with Twitter's own definition of the term.

01:00:39.300 | NPR stopped posting from its accounts on April 4th.

01:00:42.300 | A week later, it posted its last update,

01:00:44.000 | a series of tweet directing users to NPR's newsletters,

01:00:46.540 | apps, and other social media accounts.

01:00:49.000 | Many member stations across the country,

01:00:50.520 | including KUOW in Seattle,

01:00:54.220 | LAist in Los Angeles and Minnesota Public Radio,

01:00:56.460 | followed suit.

01:00:57.860 | Six months later, we can see the effects

01:00:59.580 | of leaving Twitter have been negligible.

01:01:02.300 | A memo circulated to NPR staff says,

01:01:04.820 | "Traffic has dropped by only a single percentage point

01:01:09.100 | as a result of leaving Twitter."

01:01:11.420 | All right, I bring this up because this is something

01:01:14.500 | I've been arguing for a long time now,

01:01:17.900 | which is we give Twitter in particular,

01:01:21.960 | and social media more generally,

01:01:24.320 | we were giving it way too much credit.

01:01:26.380 | There is this idea out there,

01:01:29.000 | like you have to be on Twitter.

01:01:31.520 | This is where news breaks,

01:01:33.040 | it's where people learn about the world,

01:01:34.640 | it's how people find out about you and what is going on.

01:01:37.760 | NPR's experience says that's not true.

01:01:41.440 | And it turns out the people who were really pushing this

01:01:43.600 | were people who were addicted to Twitter, right?

01:01:46.440 | It's like the people who your friends at the bar

01:01:48.580 | who get really mad when you say,

01:01:49.700 | "I'm gonna stop drinking."

01:01:50.740 | Like, "This is, what do you mean?

01:01:52.020 | Like, this is fun.

01:01:52.860 | This is like where everything happens.

01:01:53.860 | This is where all the socialization happens."

01:01:55.620 | There's a lot of this was happening around Twitter.

01:01:58.100 | Was it really important for this news organization

01:02:01.060 | to be tweeting out their stories?

01:02:02.620 | No, it wasn't important to their mission.

01:02:05.320 | They have reporters, they know what's going on in the world.

01:02:07.580 | They do radio reports,

01:02:08.700 | they publish things on their own website

01:02:10.380 | that they can control.

01:02:11.220 | They have podcasts,

01:02:12.240 | they have email newsletter subscriptions

01:02:14.160 | that they can control.

01:02:15.700 | And that is perfectly reasonable way

01:02:17.960 | for them to distribute the news and it works fine.

01:02:20.500 | And their traffic didn't budge.

01:02:21.680 | Because again, Twitter is heavily used

01:02:23.320 | by a small number of addicts.

01:02:24.920 | There's a slightly larger group of people

01:02:26.520 | who like to watch the car crash

01:02:27.960 | and then everyone else doesn't care.

01:02:29.760 | But it seems so important

01:02:32.400 | because a lot of the people in that first circle

01:02:34.440 | also happen to be big personalities,

01:02:36.960 | they're journalists, they're media personalities.

01:02:39.240 | And so they give this sense of,

01:02:40.760 | because to them it's where everything's happening,

01:02:42.400 | but it's not really.

01:02:43.400 | It's not really.

01:02:46.060 | So if this is true for Twitter,

01:02:47.740 | think about for your own life.

01:02:49.300 | I mean, if it's true for NPR,

01:02:50.540 | that's like major news organization

01:02:51.980 | leaving the social media home of all news

01:02:53.860 | and everything was just fine,

01:02:55.220 | ask yourself the question,

01:02:56.300 | what would happen if you did the same?

01:02:58.100 | And you could, I know the excuses.

01:03:01.820 | This is where I'm gonna learn about the world.

01:03:03.460 | It's not, there's a lot of source of news.

01:03:05.900 | You can learn about the world and everything that's going on

01:03:07.780 | even with a little bit of fact checking involved first

01:03:10.740 | without having to be on Twitter.

01:03:11.980 | Today's where I'm gonna meet interesting people.

01:03:13.420 | Hey, guess what?

01:03:14.580 | You can meet interesting people who are not on Twitter.

01:03:17.000 | And the very fact that they're active on Twitter

01:03:18.920 | probably means they're not that interesting anyways.

01:03:21.340 | You say, well, this is where I learn about

01:03:23.460 | like really interesting ideas.

01:03:24.980 | Guess what?

01:03:25.820 | There's a lot of ways to learn

01:03:26.680 | about really interesting ideas.

01:03:28.180 | So I wanna generalize this NPR example to more people.

01:03:32.080 | These services are not as vital

01:03:35.820 | to the functioning of our civic life,

01:03:39.060 | our personal lives, the media landscape.

01:03:41.260 | They're not as vital for all these things

01:03:42.800 | as we told ourselves.

01:03:43.760 | It was this period of social media totalitarianism

01:03:48.760 | that we're just coming out of

01:03:50.060 | where it felt like there was no other option

01:03:51.900 | but to be subservient to these services.

01:03:54.780 | And I think we're realizing that's not the case.

01:03:56.200 | And we're leaving that thinking.

01:03:58.380 | And I think this is an important piece of it.

01:03:59.980 | I mean, I wrote in deep work, 2016,

01:04:02.860 | right in that book, I said,

01:04:05.380 | this decision by the New York Times in 2015

01:04:07.900 | to tell their reporters

01:04:08.980 | you need to be using Twitter is wrong.

01:04:12.100 | And it was last year that they circulated a memo

01:04:14.280 | and said, we actually don't really want you using Twitter.

01:04:16.840 | It was wrong.

01:04:17.680 | Do your thing, do your thing really well.

01:04:20.820 | You probably don't need to be on these services.

01:04:24.160 | And if you do be there with care.

01:04:25.060 | Anyways, it just made me happy, Jesse,

01:04:27.520 | to see that I just,

01:04:29.240 | I have dealt with this my entire career.

01:04:31.720 | You're crazy.

01:04:32.900 | You have to be on these services.

01:04:34.320 | And it's because the people who write about these services

01:04:36.400 | are all on them and addicted.

01:04:37.400 | They just can't imagine life without them.

01:04:39.520 | A major news organization left and nothing happened.

01:04:42.740 | Look at all the wasted cycles of all of those reporters

01:04:46.460 | spending so much time like on Twitter

01:04:48.620 | and battling with people on Twitter

01:04:50.140 | and trying to get their tweets up

01:04:51.460 | and how it influenced their reporting and all.

01:04:53.500 | They could have just avoided all of that.

01:04:55.380 | They had just read deep work and been like,

01:04:57.060 | yeah, we're not gonna do this.

01:04:59.100 | They'd be heroes.

01:04:59.940 | All right, I wanna end with just something fun.

01:05:04.560 | So the reader who sent in this article, Matthew,

01:05:08.340 | also sent me some photos from a bookstore he came across.

01:05:12.380 | I just wanted to show a photo because it's cool.

01:05:14.260 | This is a train station that they converted to a bookstore.

01:05:19.260 | And I love that.

01:05:20.640 | So I've loaded on the screen here

01:05:22.120 | for those who are watching,

01:05:23.040 | just a pleasant thing to leave us with,

01:05:25.380 | an image of a train station

01:05:27.900 | that has been transformed into a new bookstore.

01:05:32.060 | I love this type of thing.

01:05:33.440 | By the way, not to nerd out on bookstore stuff,

01:05:36.240 | but if you're seeing this image online,

01:05:37.740 | you're looking at the shelf that I'm showing here.

01:05:41.280 | It's predominantly face out.

01:05:43.900 | That's a cool move.

01:05:46.660 | More and more bookstores are doing this.

01:05:47.940 | Ryan's Bookstore does this in BossDrop

01:05:50.140 | where it might be less inventory,

01:05:52.580 | but more curated inventory,

01:05:54.100 | and you have much more face out shelves.

01:05:55.700 | You can see the books face out.

01:05:57.860 | So that's kind of cool.

01:05:58.700 | Anyways, nothing makes me happier

01:06:00.260 | than to see cool bookstores in cool places.

01:06:01.880 | The more bookstores, the merrier.

01:06:03.660 | So Matthew, thanks for sending that along

01:06:05.420 | and good for whoever built that bookstore

01:06:08.820 | in the train station.

01:06:10.060 | Good on you.

01:06:12.340 | All right, so that's all the time we have for today.

01:06:13.840 | Thank you for listening or watching.

01:06:16.400 | If you're a listener and you enjoy the show,

01:06:17.740 | please leave a review, please subscribe.

01:06:20.060 | That helps iTunes tell more people

01:06:22.580 | and Spotify tell more people about the show.

01:06:24.980 | And I do want more people to find out.

01:06:26.880 | Otherwise, we will be back next week with a new episode.

01:06:30.060 | And until then, as always, stay deep.

01:06:32.980 | Hey, if you liked this video,

01:06:34.100 | I think you'll really like this one as well.

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