(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and here with me in the studio today is Liz Moody, making her second appearance on the show. Liz is a writer, cookbook author, and host of the Liz Moody Podcast.

And she has a new book that's filled with so many great science-backed tactics to level up your health, happiness, success, and relationships. And I'm so excited to dive into a lot of them today. The book is called "100 Ways to Change Your Life." It comes out next week, but you can pre-order it now.

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(upbeat music) - Liz, thanks for being here. - Thank you so much for having me again. - Again, I know, this is two times, except now you have a book that is new. You've had books before. I'm a little jealous. I'm working on one book, you've already got how many?

- Three. Two are cookbooks, and one of the cookbooks is about popsicles, so maybe that's a half a book. It's a little baby book. - So, two and a half books? - Two and a half books. - Well, this is a great one. I didn't have the previous books.

I have this one. I got to read this one, and I'm really excited you're here because a lot of what your book's about is a lot of what my audience loves, which is finding tactical ways to improve your life across a bunch of verticals that you can do without spending a fortune.

- 100%. I feel like I read so many personal growth books, and I'll read it, and I'll get like a good, warm feeling while I'm reading it, and then I close the book, and immediately I'm like, what do I actually do? I feel just, what next? What now? And I really wanted to create a book that answered that question, and that gave people the science behind the tools that they need, and then the real tactical tips that they can apply today to change their lives.

- So there's 100. We don't have time to get through all of them. I tried, by the way. Liz said, no, we have to limit it. We can't go through all 100. - I was just trying to make it a good use of your time and your audience's time.

- In the book, you break it into health, happiness, success, and relationships, and I wanted to run through each and talk about a few of the things I pulled out and get you to dive a little deeper, share some of that science behind it, and if people want the rest, obviously there's a book.

We're not gonna get through all 100. I was trying to think of where to start, and I don't really have a formula for where to start, so I just picked success. - Okay, let's start with success. When it comes to goals and building habits, I want to talk about the fresh start effect 'cause it feels like a good fresh start for the conversation.

- So this is from research from Dr. Katie Milkman. Katie Milkman is a podcast guest that I've had on. She's a behavioral scientist from Wharton at University of Pennsylvania, and she is probably the most cited guest by other guests, so other guests come on and they're like, oh, according to Dr.

Katie Milkman's research, and she's shared so much research that I've put into this book because she works on habits and goals and behavior change, and her stuff is so actionable in the moment. - So the fresh start effect is really simple, and it's the idea that research shows that we view our life in this really narrative way.

So we view ourselves as books, and then different moments in our lives, different periods of our lives are like chapters in a book, and when we turn the page, and we can turn the page, start a new chapter by starting a new job, moving to a new house, New Year's Eve would be turning a huge page.

We feel like we're not the same person that we were the chapter before, and thus, we're not stuck with the same habits and behaviors that we had the chapter before. So it's really, really helpful if you're trying to make a behavior change to identify a fresh start in your life so that you can be like, okay, in the last house, I didn't work out, I didn't meditate, I was on my phone way too much, but now that I've moved in this new house, I'm not that same person anymore.

I'm not gonna have those same behaviors. Literally picking up my book is a fresh start because you are not the same person that you were before you had this book, and knowing that science is on your side, if you just have that awareness, the person that I was before maybe couldn't stick to this habit, couldn't achieve this goal, but I'm not them anymore, so I can.

Any time in your life that you can identify, like I want to be a different person than I was before, what's a fresh start that I can identify here to begin that? It's also why it's great to start new habits and routines on a Monday, on a first of the month, on a New Year's Eve, things like that.

You can give yourself a little bit of a push. - I love this, and another Milkman one. So we have this fresh start, we're ready to go. I have a problem procrastinating all the time. So let's talk a little bit about that 'cause I think that's another one that she brought to you.

- So one of my favorite tips for procrastination, I have a bunch of tips for procrastination because it is something that I struggle with really deeply, but one of my favorite ones from Dr. Milkman is called temptation bundling, and basically it's the idea that you take tasks that you don't want to do and you bundle them with the thing that you absolutely love the most.

So for me, I cannot make myself work out for the life of me. I hate it so much. I work out in the morning and I'll literally stall on the entire rest of my day because I cannot convince myself to do a workout. But I save my very favorite podcasts for the time that I work out, and I only get to listen to those podcasts when I am working out.

So I have bundled those things, I've made the workout more appealing, and I'm thus more likely to do it, to not procrastinate on it, and to actually get it done. So you can do that with anything you want to do in your life that you have a hard time doing.

It can be like a little treat that you only give yourself when you're doing paperwork or taxes or something like that. I like to watch my favorite Real Housewives I've gotten really into Real Housewives recently. For the first time in my life, it's like an exciting adventure for me.

I only get to watch it when I'm folding laundry because I hate folding laundry. So it's taking the thing you love the most and you are only allowed to do it. You can watch other shows, you can listen to other podcasts, other times in your life, but you can only do the one you love the most when you're doing the thing that you want to do that you don't like.

- How do you think that compares to creating self-imposed penalties or other ways to motivate yourself? - So there's a lot of, again, procrastination tips in this book because it's something that I really struggle with. So I think self-imposed penalties, that's another bit of Dr. Melkman's research. We have an entire podcast with Dr.

Melkman about habits and routines. I think it's called something like how to get more in shape, save more money. It's like all of these promises, but the thing is that Dr. Melkman's research comes back to achieving anything you want to achieve in any part of your life. So the self-imposed penalties is really fun.

That would be something as easy as signing up for a workout class that you have to pay for in advance, that if you cancel, you don't get your money back, you're significantly more likely, research shows, to actually attend that workout class. If you want to take a vacation and you're one of those people who really has a hard time carving out the time in your life, even though so much research shows we perform better at work, we're happier in our relationship, we're healthier when we take our vacation days, but if that is you, if you pay for your vacation ahead of time and you make it non-refundable, you're so much more likely to take it, obviously.

So knowing the way that our brain works can help us actually stick to the things that we want to stick to in that way. - There's an awesome book called "Happy Money." It's basically like five or six tips to use your money to be happier. And one of them is prepaying for vacations or things in general.

And the argument there is a little bit different. So this is a double bonus if you prepay for vacations. Both you commit to going, but at the end, you don't have to pay the bill. When you're done, you're not like, "And I have to spend this thing." So it's not a letdown at the end of your trip.

And even hotels that aren't pay at the end, you can call them and say, "Hey, can I just give you the credit card now? "Can you run it now?" Even if it's refundable, they'll refund you, but you get rid of that moment at the end of your trip where you see the bill and you realize how much room service, cocktails on the beach, whatever it was you ordered, you can prepay for at least the room part usually in advance.

Tell them to send your bill. Don't need to sign at the end and kind of shelve the spending. Even better if you prepay and you don't even have it show up on your expenses, your tracking, anything. - Do you know what girl math is? - I didn't know math had a gender.

- It's like a TikTok trend right now, but it's like if you return packages, you're making money, that's girl math. It's the idea that all of these ways that we can like begin to justify purchases in our minds and any gender can enjoy girl math, but it's called girl math.

And I do think there's also something about paying for something in advance that when you go do it, it's free and that's girl math. And like, I feel like if I paid for a trip six months ago and I go on it, I'm like, oh my gosh, it's a free trip.

- Although I will say the counter to this is I've met so many people that have paid for something and then they do it even though they don't wanna do it because they've paid for it. This sunk cost fallacy thing is really messing with people. I have a friend who once was like, I don't really wanna go to this concert.

It's raining, it's gonna be awful. And they're like, but I paid for it. And I was like, just don't go. And they're like, well, I already paid for it. I was like, you paid for it. Whether you go or don't go, shelve that decision aside and now say, I've already spent this money.

What do I wanna do tonight? What's gonna be the most enjoyable thing tonight? - I would also say if people are feeling like that, go do the thing. If you wanna go home early, go home early. But I think often we really underestimate how much we're gonna enjoy having an experience and we overestimate how much we will feel safe and comfortable and happy being at home and essentially consuming other people's lives on television and social media.

So I would say air towards going to the concert. And if you absolutely hate it, then go home. - You're trending us towards a conversation about not saying no to yourself. Which is great because it was the last one I wanted to hit on in success. - This is my life motto.

I give never be the one to say no to yourself credit for so much of my success, which is fine because it's my motto and I came up with it. I can give it the credit. But I don't even know where this came from in my life. I feel like I have never been the one to say no to yourself since I was five years old.

The first time I can think of that I never be the one to say no to yourself was when I was a teenager. And I was like, I wanna write a newspaper column. And I walked into my local newspaper. I was like, you should have a column for teenagers and it should be written by a teenager.

And they were like, okay. And so then I wrote a newspaper column and that column gave me writing experience. It ended up being nationally syndicated, which was really fun. And then when I graduated from college, I was able to run an editorial team despite having just graduated from college 'cause I had six years by then of newspaper experience under my belt.

And I got my first cookbook deal by never being the one to say no to myself. I got my second cookbook deal. I got my dream job in editorial in New York City. And the principle behind never being the one to say no to yourself is not that everybody in the world will always say yes to you.

I have gotten so many nos in my life, but the principle is that you are never the one telling yourself no. You are saying unequivocally, Liz, I believe in you. You've got this. If the world doesn't agree, cool, whatever. That's good information. You can go out and find somebody else to say yes, or you can accept the no, you can learn from the no, and you can move on.

But I think always being in your own corner and your own cheerleader is such a powerful message to give your brain. And by and large, when you are telling yourself no, there is likely a yes out there. I have people who have gotten married because they have asked out somebody that they did not think would say yes to them, and then it ended up being a beautiful relationship and is now a partnership with children.

I have so many people who write to me and they have gotten raises they didn't think were possible. They've gotten houses that they didn't think that they could qualify. They wrote letters to the house owners and they were like, I really want your house. And they gave it to them.

There's so many areas in our lives that we are limiting ourselves that if we just went out and we looked, we would likely get a yes. - How do you think you combat that with being irrationally optimistic and convincing yourself that you can do anything when in reality, some things maybe you can't?

- Most of the most successful people that I know are irrationally optimistic. There was some quote I read ages ago that was like, to be a successful business person, you literally need to be delusional because you have to have such a belief in things working that odds show shouldn't work.

So I think you can use no's as information. If you're trying to write a book and you go out and you get 25 no's from agents, that's probably good information. You can ask them why the no. You can use that to rework your proposal and go out again. But I do think that is so much better than saying no to yourself, never writing the proposal, never getting out there.

And I think that you can learn from that and then you can take that information and go forward the next time. - So what about areas of life where there isn't a no to go get? For example, if you wanna go start a podcast or start a blog, there's no no.

You can just do it and you can keep doing it for years. How do you find out when to stop on something like that and say no to yourself? - So the thing that I run into the most with my audience and with people I talk to is not I've started a podcast, I've put in the work for years, I'm not qualified to do this, I'm not learning, I'm not growing.

It's I wanna start a podcast, but I don't think I'm good enough. I wanna start a podcast, but what's all the equipment that I need to buy? I wanna start a podcast, but I spent 17 hours browsing Amazon trying to figure out what camera and what microphone I should get.

And I think those are different ways that we are saying no to ourselves in the creation process. One really powerful way to say yes to yourself is to say I have the tools that I need to create. What I create is gonna be probably really shitty and the thing that's gonna make it less shitty is to continue to create it over time.

Most podcasters I know suck at the beginning. They put out really bad podcasts, myself included, for one podcast, two podcasts, three podcasts. How many podcasts have you done now? - Probably 136. - Hundreds of podcasts. And that's how you get good at a craft is by starting with the shitty microphone, the shitty camera, no camera at all, no microphone, doing it on your computer and then learning and growing from the process.

I meet far less people who have honed their craft over years and years and years and not gotten to a place where the quality is good enough or better. And I meet so many people who quit before they even begin. - And if someone listening is thinking in their head, what equipment?

I would just say buy an ATR 2100X mic. It's a hundred bucks. It's what I used for the first 50 episodes and plug it into your computer and record it and put your podcast into script. That's it. - I read ages ago, that's what Tim Ferriss still uses for his podcasts.

And I was like, okay, that's good enough. - I remember on the video, I was like, what was he using? But yeah, there's basically like three tiers of podcast microphones. That one, the one I'm on and the one you're on and like, those are the three tiers and there are plenty of others, but you can grow as much as you need on a basic microphone if your content is good.

- A hundred percent. - So hopefully people are feeling like they are set up for success, but obviously there's a lot more ways to do that. Go read the rest. I love it when companies build amazing products to make our lives better, but it's even cooler when they help make the world a better place, which is why I'm so excited to be partnering with Daffy today because they're on a mission to help people be more generous more often.

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- Okay, so two things. One thing is that this book wants to solve all of the problems that you are having that are keeping you from living the life that you wanna live on a day-to-day basis. So if you're feeling bloated, if you're feeling constipated, if you're feeling like you don't have the energy that you want, that's all gonna be covered in the gut health section.

But moreover, and I think far more importantly, is that our microbiome impacts so much of our full-body health. So our microbiome is having a huge impact on our ability to sleep well, on our energy levels, on our hormones, on our mental health. The gut-brain connection is very well-studied and it has a very profound effect.

- But what are the kinds of things I could do? Like, are there ways that I can upgrade what I'm already eating that's not too hard to improve my gut health? - So this is a big thing that I've found. I've interviewed hundreds of different doctors, gut health experts, microbiome experts, hormone experts, all these different people.

And one of the questions I always get is what are the best foods that you should eat? And there's a lot of dissonance about what our diet should actually look like on social media. And people are confused and I get that. But I think if you actually dive into what people are saying, the things people are disagreeing about are like the top 10% and they're agreeing about the other 90%.

And so what this book really focuses on is what are the experts agreeing on? What does the research show? And what are the ways that we can take the foods that we are already eating and make them even better for us without spending more money on fancy powders and supplements and just all of this stuff when we're taking care of our base structure you do not need?

So some of my favorite tips are things like if you chop your cruciferous vegetables and you let them sit for 40 minutes, they develop a compound that's incredibly good for our bodies. It's anti-cancerous. It helps with our brains. And then if you add mustard to that, you actually increase that compound even further.

And so you're just taking something that you would normally eat. You're taking your cruciferous vegetables. - Which by the way are what? - That's broccoli, that's Brussels sprouts, that's watercress, that's kale, anything like that. And you're taking these foods you'd already eat and you're just chopping them at the beginning of your meal prep.

So you're making your salad, chop your cruciferous vegetables first. By the time you're ready to eat, they will have developed this compound. And then if you want to take it to the next level, do a little mustard vinaigrette on top of your salad, do some mustard seeds on top of your roasted broccoli, which is so good.

And you're taking it even further. And you're taking this food group that you're already eating and you're making it even better for yourself. - And some of the things you mentioned, I'm not feeling bloated right now, but who doesn't want more energy? So I wanna make sure we hit on that section of health because I don't know that many people that aren't struggling with energy.

Maybe it's 'cause I'm now hanging out with lots of people with children and we're not sleeping as much as we used to and we don't have the free time we used to. But what tips do you have there? - Our metabolism is essentially the energy of our body, but we talk about it in this shitty, diet-centric, '90s magazine type way.

Like, "Oh my God, you gotta hack your metabolism. You gotta lose weight." And no, taking care of our metabolic health is going to give us the energy that we need to take on our day every single day. There's a few ways that we can begin to have better metabolic health.

One of my favorite ways is just to look for the things that you can add to your meals. You wanna add a healthy source of fat. You wanna add a healthy source of fiber. You wanna add as much vegetables to your meals as you possibly can. So looking at your plate and instead of thinking, "What am I taking out?" You're thinking, "I got exactly what I want.

I got my frozen pizza. Could I add some fiber in the form of vegetables? Could I add a healthy fat? Could I add a healthy protein to this thing that you're already eating?" To elongate your blood sugar curve so that you're having a healthier metabolic response to that, which is in turn going to give you more energy.

Another little metabolic health hack that I love is that your muscles essentially act as glucose sponges. So after you eat a meal, your muscles are soaking up that glucose so that you're not having, again, that spike and that dip that's gonna cost you your precious energy. So after you eat a meal, you can go on a little walk.

There's a reason that this is so popular in so many cultures around the world. You can do five squats. You just wanna activate your muscles to create that glucose absorption to elongate that curve so that you're gonna have more energy as a result and you're taking better care of your metabolic health as a result.

Also, you can get a little bit of a headstart on that by creating bigger, stronger muscles in the first place. So weight training, anything that you do that's going to make bigger, stronger muscles is going to help, again, with that glucose response. - Is it better to focus on all your muscles?

Should you do one of those quick, three-minute, hit-every-muscle group-in-your-body exercises? Or is there a perfect thing that doesn't look too awkward a few minutes after dinner that you can do? - I think that this is an example of where people try to over-optimize and they lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Any movement after you eat is going to activate your muscles. If you think you're activating your muscles, you are activating your muscles. So again, literally, don't overthink it. Go on a walk. If you can't go on a walk, do some squats. You can have sex with your partner. You can do all sorts of things.

If you think you're activating your muscles, you're activating your muscles. - Okay, so we can get healthier and we can get happier. So I wanna talk about happiness. We can all agree that it's a noble goal for all of us to achieve more of it. So what's one way you can start to rewire yourself to be happier?

- This is probably my all-time favorite tip in the book. This is from Dr. Rick Hansen. He's at UC Berkeley. He has the kindest energy of any human being that I have ever met in my life. And he's brilliant. He combines neuroscience with Zen Buddhism. He's just a brilliant man.

And he talks about how we can literally rewire our neural pathways so that we can feel the way that we wanna feel on a day-to-day basis. And the way that you do it is this. If you picture your brain like a meadow and you're trying to get through the meadow and there's tall grass everywhere and you're looking for the path and you're gonna take the path that is the easiest path to get through the meadow.

Every time you're thinking a thought that I'm so stressed, I hate myself so much. Why is this so hard? Why does everybody hate me? You're essentially taking those thoughts and you're rewiring your neural pathways in that direction. You're carving a path through that meadow. So the next time that your brain is looking to take a path through the meadow, it's gonna take the one that you already created with those negative thoughts.

It's gonna go to those negative thoughts and you're gonna feel really shitty. But if you intentionally create a pathway for good thoughts, your brain, the next time it's given the opportunity is going to take that pathway because that's the more well-trod path. That's the neurons that you've connected together to feel as good as possible.

And the way that you do that is really simple. The next time that you feel a little bit of something good, it could be, wow, this book's really interesting. Wow, I'm really enjoying this conversation. It can be teeny tiny. I love this sunset. This flower smells great. My dog is so cute today.

You sit in it for a little bit longer than you normally would and you amplify that feeling. You notice it, you amplify it, you sit in it. That's all you're doing. Oh my God, the bubbles in this Coke, yum. Love it, so good, move on with your life. - Does it have to be external or can you just-- - No, internally, that's my, I'm voicing my internal monologue here.

No, I love it because you can be doing it in a meeting at work. You could be doing it while you're talking to your spouse. I sometimes have moments where I'm just overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for my husband. And I mean, I probably should say that out loud, honestly, 'cause he'd probably appreciate it.

But I'll just sit in there and be like, oh my God, I can't believe that if all the people in the world, I found you and I get to live my life with you and I'll sit in that feeling and I'll amplify it and I'll turn it up. And that is literally on a biological level, on a neurological level, you are rewiring your neural pathways.

You are building them together to create the routes that you wanna take through that meadow. So the next time it's gonna take those good pathways, you're gonna feel so much better in your day-to-day life. So look for the little opportunities. The next time you feel anything good, mm, this ice cream is so delicious.

Sit in it, amplify it, and really, really savor that feeling so that you can rewire your neural pathways. - I don't have a corporate job anymore, but this feels like the perfect opportunity for one of those really big meetings where it's a total waste of time, especially if you're in person.

Just stare at something in the room, think about something great. You don't have to distract yourself with your phone and look like you're not paying attention. - You took an example of something that's kind of boring that we all hate. And the thing is that if you go in there with the neural pathways that you've wired towards stress, towards anger, towards bitterness, your brain will again take those pathways and you'll think, "Ugh, why are we having "these meetings again?

"This is stupid, I hate this, I hate my job. "Why aren't I Kim Kardashian at this point in my life?" But if you've wired your neural pathways to good by smelling your dog's fur, sitting in that and savoring it. My cat smells so good, let me tell you. It's the best smell in the whole world.

I'm like, "I never bathed you once. "How do you smell so good?" And I know what you eat. - I'm laughing over here because my dog, I don't think smells good almost ever, except for some reason his ears smell like tortilla chips. - All right, well, that's something. But if you've done that by smelling your pet, by hugging your partner, by eating the Mexican food, the next time you go into that super boring meeting, you wouldn't have to try.

You'll naturally think, "Oh, that's an interesting idea. "Or maybe this is an opportunity to share something "or learn something that I haven't shared before. "Aren't I lucky to have this job?" Your brain will do that effortlessly in these moments that you would have otherwise tended towards negativity. - There is one app I love so much.

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To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals, so please consider supporting those who support us. One of the things that I think can make you really unhappy is just having so much stuff going on in your mind and never feeling like you can actually catch up, so I'm curious how we can start to offload some of that cognitive load.

- So, one of my favorite tricks in life, this is from Annie Murphy-Paul. She's a behavioral science writer, and she studies essentially how we can use things outside of our brain, access outside of the brain thinking, is what she calls it, to become smarter. And then we can save our brain for the really special things that only our brain can do.

But if you sit back and you think about it for a second, you're like, how much am I making my brain do that could easily be done by a computer program, that could easily be done by a pad of paper and a pen? You know what I mean? And so the idea behind cognitive offloading is taking all of those thoughts, every single little possible thing in your brain that you don't need to be wasting your precious neural capacity on and offloading it so that you can save your beautiful, brilliant brain for the things that really matter.

So I cognitively offload everything. I have Notion. I use it for literally everything. I have notes of things to talk about in therapy. I have an ongoing grocery list that I share with my partner. I have every single podcast episode that I ever wanna do in the future. I have things that I wanna buy.

So I have everything on my Notion, and I find that by not having to be like, wait, what did we need to add to the grocery list? Or what was that podcast episode that I think I wanted to produce, but like, I don't know, I was gonna noodle on it for a while.

By taking all those thoughts out of my brain, my brain is freer to have the deep and exciting and interesting thoughts that I want it to have. - So I'm gonna take a tiny segue and get your take on something I got in my inbox yesterday. So there's a company called Rewind, and what they basically do is it runs on a Mac and it just records everything that's happening on your computer.

All the websites you visit, the Zoom meetings you're in. There are some requirements in every state to disclose anything. They pop up and say, do you wanna record this meeting? So it'll record everything you're doing and then you can query it. And you can be like, what website did I look at on last Friday?

You can search the text on everything on your screen. - Wow. - So we can all agree that maybe that has a use case, but here's the crazy thing. They sent me an email, I'm not in any beta program, but they're like, do you wanna pre-order this product? It's called the Rewind Pendant.

And it is a necklace with a microphone that does the same thing in person. So you can completely cognitively offload everything and say, go to a conference, wear this thing all the time and say, what did I talk to that person about at this conference? - Wow. - I'm very curious to get your take.

This is the first time I've actually gotten anyone else's opinion on it. - That is so interesting. - On one hand, cognitively offload everything. And on the other hand, kind of creepy. - For me, I wanna cognitively offload the parts that aren't human interactions so I can enjoy the human interactions more.

So I think that's where my ick would come in with it. The point of cognitive offloading is to focus my brain in the directions that I wanna focus it. And not have it be occupied by the things that I don't want it to be occupied by. And the thing I want it to be occupied by is human interaction.

And I think that the fear would be that this device would make me want to not spend as much of my energy or attention on that. - I was very torn. The thing that I like, which I'm not sure I like enough to actually outweigh all the problems, is just sometimes I get really into a conversation.

I have a wonderful conversation with someone. And then later, I wanna come back to it and be like, oh, I really enjoyed talking to you about this. But it was at a conference and it's two days later. And I couldn't remember a thing. And there are some people who naturally remember.

Some people who leave each meeting and they write down like six notes about the conversation they have. Which for me is the exact opposite. It's like I just took myself away from the moment I love to take notes. And this would do it for you. Using the one on my computer, the software this company Rewind makes, has saved me in like 10 different ways that are all relatively minor.

But I think we've all written something, whether we filled out a form, whether it was writing something that didn't save. And then you close the window or close the tab and you go back and it's gone. - What are they doing for storage? - It's just all locally stored on your computer.

- Does it self erase every week? - You can choose, but I think I had mine set for seven days. And 90% of the use cases I've had for it were not let me query something from 10 weeks ago. This is a strange example, but I was setting up auto insurance with USAA.

And they were like, you're gonna get this special price if you bundle home and auto and add on this policy. And then once I did it all, I was like, hey, I didn't see the discounts. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just gonna come in three weeks. And I was like, well, what are they gonna be?

And she's like, well, you just have to wait and see. I was like, no, no, no, you told me, but I can't go back. And then I was like, oh, I looked at it yesterday. Rewind, take a screenshot. Now I have it saved. - Wow. - Let's go into relationships 'cause we started getting there and I got excited because this was the one that I said I wanted to come back to because it's top of mind for me.

Building deeper relationships, especially with the people that matter, becomes such a different challenge and priority in life after, in my case, having children because you just don't have time. You don't have time for all the relationships. And it almost feels like work to keep up with some people that you wanna keep up with.

I have one thing I'll share at some point, but I'm curious how you think about this broadly in terms of picking who to spend time with and deepening those relationships. - So the first thing that I would say is even by identifying that you're excited to talk about relationships, you're winning.

I think a lot of us in the world today have failed to identify community and relationships as a critical part of happiness, of our health, of the way that we live our lives that will lead to satisfaction and success. Relationships are at the core of almost every single thing that we do.

And we act like they're an afterthought. We act like, "Oh, if I get through my busy day, "if I accomplish all my tasks for work, "if I do all my health hacks, whatever, "if I finish everything that I need to do on my to-do list, "then I can have time to socialize "and to spend with the people that I love." And I almost think that we need to be flipping that equation.

If you need to take away some of your other health habits to preserve your relationships, to create that time, I would say that's probably worth it, at least some of the time, because research shows, this is research from Dr. Robert Waldinger. He ran one of the longest studies of longevity and happiness and essentially living a thriving life.

It is an 80-year-plus study about what makes a good life. And at the end of the day, the one-liner is that the relationships that we form are the bedrock, the foundation of what a good life looks like. So good relationships are gonna make us live longer. They're gonna lower our stress levels.

They're gonna make us excited to wake up every single day. They are the single most important thing. And again, we treat it like an afterthought. So one of the first things that I would recommend to anybody is to just switch that priority level. I think we are really focused on what supplements should I be taking?

How can I optimize my workout routine? Do I need to go do a sauna or a cold plunge? Things that are trendy. And we should be thinking, when was the last time that I saw somebody that I loved in person? When was the last time that I called this friend?

When was the last time that instead of scrolling social media, I had a real human interaction that was really satisfying? And moving that, again, to the top of the priority list. In terms of figuring out which people are worth your time and are worth you focusing your very limited space that you have each day on, I think I'd ask myself, what are the things that you're looking for in your relationships right now?

So I think I hear from a lot of new parents, like, I'm having a hard time connecting with my friends, but the friends that you're trying to connect with are people who wanna go out. They wanna maybe meet a partner. They're just in a different space in their life.

And you're creating this cognitive dissonance between what your goals are and the things that you're trying to do at that moment are and what their goals are. And that can lead to some friction in a relationship. So I think the first thing is, what are you looking to get out of your relationships right now?

And who are the people that can naturally tend towards giving you those things? - One of the challenges I find, and I don't know if maybe I need the energy hacks first to get here. The conversation often just divulges very quickly into the same thing you end up talking about with everyone, and you don't really get to go deep with anyone.

So I meet a lot of people at the park, and it's just like, oh, how old are your kids? What are they doing? It's that conversation. What tips do you have for people that wanna go deeper earlier and kind of understand, is this a person that I could have a long-term connection with?

And I'm not talking romantic. I'm talking about random friends in the neighborhood, people you might hang out with on the weekend. How do you take someone who you think you could have a meaningful relationship with in a completely platonic friendship way and go deep? - Absolutely. So there's amazing research from a woman named Dr.

Marissa G. Franco, and she is a friendship psychologist. And her research shows that the more vulnerable we are, we think people are gonna like us less. We're gonna think people are gonna get the ick. They're gonna be like, I don't wanna engage with this. But in fact, the more vulnerable we are, the more people are going to like us, period.

So if you're at the playground and somebody's like, oh, how old's your kid, whatever, you could say, wow, this was a really exciting week. My kid hit this milestone. I did this work thing that I never thought was possible. You can be vulnerable in a good direction. You can also say, it's been a really tough week.

I've been feeling a lot of anxiety. I'm still struggling to learn how to deal with this. You can open up in a way that's gonna push the conversation and the direction of vulnerability, giving them something to connect to. We think, again, that it's gonna turn people away from us, but it's actually gonna pull them into us.

I'm also a huge fan of putting a little bit of intentionality into our gatherings. I did a podcast episode with Priya Parker who wrote a beautiful book about the art of gathering. And it was about how when we come together as a community, by putting a little bit of intentionality behind that, we can get so much more out of that.

So again, it's like leaning into the things that people find cringy, whether it's a conversation starter, a prompt saying, I don't wanna have the same conversation over and over. Just putting a little bit of intentionality behind the gathering in the first place, I think can be really helpful. I love organized fun.

I love any type of getting together where there's a little bit of structure to it, because I do think we're all sick of having the same conversation over and over. I genuinely think everybody is, and often just acknowledging that and saying, look, I have this conversation starter deck, or I'm really sick of talking about the weather.

And honestly, maybe you even say, I'm sick of talking about my kids right now. I love my kids so much, but I'd rather talk about anything else. What was a vacation you went on that you last really enjoyed? What's your dream vacation? You can pull stuff out of the blue if you have the vulnerability to admit you're not happy with the status quo in the first place.

- I really like that. I think we both interviewed Vanessa Van Edwards, who has some good tips here of jumping into a conversation and not saying, what do you do for work, but what's something awesome that happened at work this week or come up with some ideas and just be intentional about it.

- We all wanna talk about something new and acknowledging the elephant in the room gives you so much permission to be like, oh, I heard this great question on a podcast, or I read this conversation starter in an email newsletter that I got the other day. What do you think of this?

- You have this tip in the book. I think Vanessa shared it on our episode. I've heard it from a lot of people at Negotiating. Building a deeper rapport, whether it's a friendship or even in work, listening is also the key. There's so many ways that we can be generous with our attention.

And we focus so often on being the entertainer, but what people actually want is for us to be present with them. - How many times have you been in a conversation where you think you're having a conversation, but they're just waiting for you to stop talking so they can say the thing that they were gonna say?

And everybody knows that feeling and it sucks. They're not thinking like, wow, they gave a really sparkling response to what I said. You're thinking like, you weren't listening to me. That feels really bad. - Being an incredibly attentive listener is genuinely one of the best gifts you can give somebody.

It makes them like you more. Even if you need to take a second when they finish talking and say, huh, that was really interesting. I'm gonna think about my response for a second. That's not the end of the world. It's actually often really appreciated. I also think in terms of reactions, thinking about how you're reacting to people too.

I have a tip in the book about how we can have more fun in our lives. This is from Catherine Price. We did an entire episode about how to create more fun, how to be a fun magnet, the type of person that everybody always thinks is really fun and wants to be around.

And one of the best hacks for that is to be quick to laugh. And I love it because it is so simple and it's not fake laughing. It's just leaning into the moments where you're entertained and being generous with your laughter. And we can all remember those times when we go out and we feel like we're the funniest person in the world.

And like, how good does it feel to be around those people who make us feel like that? Those are the people that you want to invite out over and over and they haven't entertained you. They haven't danced on a table. They haven't told a really witty joke. They've laughed when you've said funny things.

But those are the people that we want to be around. - I love this. I feel like I need to be more intentional about laughing without being fake. - Without being fake. But I think there's so many opportunities and one, you won't catch them if you're not listening, if you're not paying attention.

But two, we almost hold ourselves back from feeling and expressing those emotions. And they're one of the most beautiful gifts that we can give other people. So wait, I want to ask you, what are your relationship challenges? Like either in your romantic relationship, in your friendship, can we dive into some of your particular problems?

And I can see if I have a tip for that. - We moved into this new neighborhood. I have some friends in the neighborhood and we have very limited time 'cause we have kids and all of the friends that I was the closest with have dispersed around the country.

I remember when we moved in, I asked my wife, I was like, do you think it would be weird if we wrote a postcard that was like, hey, we're Chris and Amy. We have these kids and we live on this block in town and we like doing these random things.

And yeah, it's really weird if we wrote this postcard and dropped it in your mailbox so you can just rip it up. But if you read this and you're like, these people seem like they'd be cool to hang out. Why don't you shoot me an email? And I was like- - Did you do it?

- No, no, we didn't do it. - I feel like the answer, especially in the context of forming relationships and friendships to, do you think it'd be weird if, is always like, no, it's not weird, just do it. I have this theory, it's about friendship and dating, but it's called match theory.

And the idea is that if you go on a date, if you're meeting a new person in your life, the sooner that you're wholly yourself, the better off you'll be because even if you don't connect with them, that's valuable information to have and you have it sooner rather than later.

If you're dressing a way you wouldn't dress on a date, if you're play acting in a different way, you're like, oh, I'm trying to impress them. You're not helping the ultimate goal, which is to find a match for yourself. So by you and Amy going out there and being unabashedly weird, you're gonna meet the people who wanna make friends, who are putting themselves out there, which are gonna be more likely to be your type of people.

- I think Amy and I had a little disconnect on whether that was like her personality or mine shining through in these random postcards. But I think that was the thing. This applies to relationships, both your partner and not. I think so often people hang on to people that they think are the right person, not thinking there's another person or their best friend set.

It's like, this is my best friend since so long ago, they have to still be my best friend. I am convinced that within maybe a quarter mile, there are like five couples that could be our best friends. And I'm trying to figure out how do I find them? I remember telling my wife when Bumble, the dating app, launched this service called BFF.

It's like a dating app for finding your friends. But I just remember thinking that felt like such a strange thing, but it also makes total sense. - So many people are lonely and we all assume everybody else has their friend group sorted. We're the only person feeling the way that we're feeling.

And so we deny ourselves the opportunity to put ourselves out there to like form these relationships. But over and over again, I have a community of over a million people that I hear from constantly. And the refrain is, why does everybody else have this sorted when I don't have this sorted?

But if everybody is saying that, then everybody else doesn't have it sorted. So I think first of all, acknowledging that this is a real societal issue that's happening and it's happening all over to everybody and using that as like deep permission giving is so, so, so helpful. - So you're saying I should make the cards?

- I definitely think you should make the cards. I do. It was interesting what you said that you think that we hold on to these old relationships. And I do think that there's a truth to the fact that we often gravitate towards people that we meet later in our life or more recently in our life because they reflect the person that we feel we are at the moment back to us.

And we want to be reflected as the person that we are at that moment. We don't want our childhood self, our teenage self, our college self reflected back on us because we feel like we've grown and evolved and changed so much since being that person. So this is one of my favorite tips in the book.

And I feel like it's a little bit underappreciated as a tip. So I wanna spotlight it for a second, but it's to let the people that you love change in front of you all of the time. To go to the people that you love with a fresh perspective as often as possible.

So this could look like, hey, I know that you didn't like this food. Do you still not like this type of food or do you wanna give it a try? This could look like, oh, I know you didn't like reading this type of book when we were first dating.

Is that still true? We don't allow the people in our lives to change while we're on this path towards change. And it doesn't make any sense. And so I think that sometimes we can turn those old relationships into really satisfying relationships in the present by allowing for that evolution in each other.

- Can the opposite happen? Can you realize that this person that in high school I was best friends with, we said we were gonna be friends forever. It's not the right thing. Are you saying let it evolve and bring it back? - I think there's both. So first of all, I'm a huge fan of at the point that you think a relationship might be over, have a conversation about what you would need from that relationship to have it not be over because at that point you have nothing to lose.

Like if you're about to cut somebody out of your life or just stop hanging out with them or ghost them or whatever, like scale back entirely, you have nothing to lose by saying, "Hey, Paul, I don't really wanna talk about high school whenever we hang out." Or, "Hey, Paul, I'm not really in a hanging out at the bar and drinking beer phase of my life.

I would really love if you would come over and play with my kids and we could sing Disney songs." And then even if Paul is like, "That sounds awful. I'm not interested in that." You've lost nothing. And there's a chance that Paul would be like, "Oh my gosh, I know every single word to the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack and nobody has asked me to sing it." So I do think that having that conversation can have some really powerful results that we would not expect.

And if you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain by having that conversation. And then two, I'm not a fan of cutting people out, but I am a fan of changing their position in my life. And I think that this can be really important, especially when you're somebody with limited time.

Instead of Paul being somebody you're really prioritizing, maybe Paul becomes, "I see them at the Christmas gathering," friend. Maybe somebody goes from being middle of the night secret friend to, "I go to yoga with them," friend. And I think being clear with ourselves about our expectations and what we're getting out of each friendship can be really helpful.

And so sometimes moving people along in those places can be a way to not cut them out entirely, but to have them have a more right-sized presence in our life. - Okay, I feel like this has been awesome. One of the things I loved is the way you described the book wasn't, "You need to read all 100.

You need to do all of these right away." So I already feel like I have a slate of things to work on, and I feel like I've got some next steps, and it's not the book that you've read millions of times that leaves you unaware of what's next and feeling stuck.

So thank you. Thanks for the conversation. Where can people go? - So the book is called "100 Ways to Change Your Life." You can find it wherever books are sold or on 100waystochangerlife.com. Like you said, it is not a book that you need to consume in its entirety. It's a great book for while your pasta water is boiling, and you don't wanna just pick up your phone and scroll on social media again.

You can pick it up and read a tip, and you get a really satisfying experience in that five-minute interstitial period, which I love. And it's a book that you can reference again and again as your needs and your goals change throughout your life. One of the first tips in the book is about figuring out your needs, your goals, and how you're going to measure success in terms of those needs and goals.

I think that's hugely important so that we don't end up with a ton of habits filling our day that we don't even know why they're there. And then I have a podcast called "The Liz Moody Podcast," which you have been a guest on, a great, great episode. So if you wanna hear a little bit more from Chris Hutchins, definitely go look for the Chris Hutchins episode of "The Liz Moody Podcast." But essentially, we take science, we make it really fun and interesting to listen to, and then we're really focused on those action tips.

How are we applying the science to our everyday lives to feel the way that we wanna feel every single day? So that's "The Liz Moody Podcast," wherever you listen to podcasts. And then if you're a social media person, I'm @LizMoody on TikTok and Instagram. - It's easy, Liz Moody everywhere.

Definitely check all of that out. Thank you so much for being here in person. - Thank you so much for having me. - While it is a bit more work doing these in-person interviews, it's been really fun to get a chance to meet some of my guests face-to-face. I hope you enjoyed this conversation.

I know I did, and I know I have a few takeaways from it that I'm gonna start putting into action already. If you have questions for an upcoming "Mailbag" episode, podcast@allthehacks.com. Thank you so much for listening. I will see you next week. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music fades) (birds chirping)