140: Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer

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1. 00:00:00 So this past week, Mike, I downloaded an app that I should have downloaded a very long time ago.
2. 00:00:06 Can you guess what it is?
3. 00:00:07 What's that?
4. 00:00:08 Keyboard maestro.
5. 00:00:09 You just downloaded Keyboard maestro?
6. 00:00:11 For the very first time, Joe Buellig has downloaded Keyboard maestro.
7. 00:00:15 My mind is blown.
8. 00:00:16 This is...
9. 00:00:17 If Joe Buellig existed as an application, it would probably be Keyboard maestro.
10. 00:00:23 It's very true.
11. 00:00:24 You are not wrong.
12. 00:00:26 [laughter]
13. 00:00:28 I put this out on Twitter and there was a couple of folks that emailed me and texted me and
14. 00:00:32 was like, "What is wrong with you, dude?"
15. 00:00:33 Don't know.
16. 00:00:34 Just never really did it.
17. 00:00:37 And here we are.
18. 00:00:38 So what do you think?
19. 00:00:40 I think I have a big learning curve yet.
20. 00:00:42 Yeah, you do.
21. 00:00:43 Because there's some stuff that it does that I...
22. 00:00:46 Like I know that there's some stuff I would love for it to do, but I haven't spent the
23. 00:00:52 time just to play with it and build some stuff in it.
24. 00:00:55 At the same time, I know that a very large part of why I haven't gotten into Keyboard maestro
25. 00:00:59 in the past is primarily because I do tons of scripting that run automatically...
26. 00:01:05 Scripts that run automatically already and do it the hard way instead of using a GUI
27. 00:01:10 like Keyboard maestro.
28. 00:01:11 So there's never really been a need, I've felt.
29. 00:01:15 And then I don't remember what it was.
30. 00:01:18 I ran across somebody talking about plugins and stuff for it.
31. 00:01:21 It's like, "You know what?
32. 00:01:22 You build plugins for that and have stuff run automatically."
33. 00:01:25 That may save me a lot of time.
34. 00:01:26 So then I promptly went to the Keyboard maestro website, purchased and downloaded the thing.
35. 00:01:33 And now I've got all the thing to play with, a new toy to play with.
36. 00:01:36 So here we are.
37. 00:01:37 Nice.
38. 00:01:38 I have no idea what that has to do with our book for today, but it was fun.
39. 00:01:43 There's a plugin, I believe, for the Stream Deck, which allows you to trigger Keyboard maestro
40. 00:01:48 macros from your Stream Deck.
41. 00:01:50 I assume you have a Stream Deck seeing as you stream things.
42. 00:01:55 Correct.
43. 00:01:56 I have one of the 32 key, like the big ones, Excels.
44. 00:02:00 Yeah.
45. 00:02:01 I just have the 15 and had trouble filling it up for a while, but now I'm starting to
46. 00:02:07 get to the point where I want to create different profiles and things like that.
47. 00:02:09 I don't think I want a bigger one sitting on my desk, but since you got all those buttons,
48. 00:02:13 if you're looking for things to do with them, map your keyboard maestro macros to them.
49. 00:02:18 Yeah.
50. 00:02:19 I figured that out very quickly.
51. 00:02:20 And I will say, like the whole profiles thing on the Stream Deck, like for example, Mike,
52. 00:02:26 you would appreciate this.
53. 00:02:27 If you set one up for Obsidian, a whole bunch of stuff that's normally kind of complicated
54. 00:02:32 gets super easy because you can chain things together and tell it to pull up like the command
55. 00:02:38 palette and then start typing stuff and do stuff automatically.
56. 00:02:43 It's very, very simple.
57. 00:02:44 So I love it.
58. 00:02:46 You should get in.
59. 00:02:47 It's a very deep hole that you'll spend way too many hours in.
60. 00:02:51 You know what I really want is like a Chromebook that runs Obsidian OS.
61. 00:02:56 It's the only application that opens.
62. 00:02:59 You can install the plugins, things like that, but you can't leave Obsidian.
63. 00:03:05 I feel like that would be pretty great.
64. 00:03:06 You're familiar with MDM, mobile device management.
65. 00:03:09 Mm-hmm.
66. 00:03:10 You bought an iPad for that purpose, set up MDM on it, you can lock it to a specific app
67. 00:03:17 so that the only thing it can do is run that one app.
68. 00:03:20 Yeah.
69. 00:03:21 See, that's more money than I want to spend though.
70. 00:03:22 I'm thinking like...
71. 00:03:23 You're the one that brought up this ridiculous idea.
72. 00:03:25 Yeah.
73. 00:03:26 I don't want an iPad.
74. 00:03:27 I literally want a Chromebook.
75. 00:03:28 Just like Chromebooks are forgetting on the web, I want that thing for Obsidian and nothing
76. 00:03:33 else.
77. 00:03:35 So then you would have a separate computer just for Obsidian at all times.
78. 00:03:38 And that's all you would use Obsidian with?
79. 00:03:41 No, that would be the thing like the 8-inch clamshell.
80. 00:03:45 You grab it, throw it in your bag, take it with you wherever kids beat on it as they
81. 00:03:50 bring it back and forth to school and their backpacks sort of a thing.
82. 00:03:53 But you got your full keyboard and all that jazz.
83. 00:03:56 What's the top-end dollar amount you're willing to spend on this thing?
84. 00:04:00 Good question.
85. 00:04:01 I don't know.
86. 00:04:02 I just think that would be really cool.
87. 00:04:03 I was going to say because it was like $2, $300.
88. 00:04:07 It's some of the lower-end re-furbed iPads and stuff.
89. 00:04:11 So...
90. 00:04:12 Yeah, I don't want an iPad though.
91. 00:04:14 Just saying.
92. 00:04:15 I don't like the keyboards that are available with the iPads.
93. 00:04:17 I don't want to put it in a bridge case.
94. 00:04:19 I don't want one of the stupid smart folio things.
95. 00:04:23 Like, I don't know.
96. 00:04:25 I'm just thinking like the Chromebook is like a specialized little laptop.
97. 00:04:28 It'd be cool to have a specialized little laptop just for Obsidian.
98. 00:04:31 Martin has a good tip for you in the chat.
99. 00:04:33 Get a cheap Lenovo laptop.
100. 00:04:35 Put Linux on it and remove everything except Obsidian.
101. 00:04:38 I may have to try that.
102. 00:04:40 Except I don't know a thing about Linux.
103. 00:04:42 You're familiar with Mac.
104. 00:04:43 You'll be fine.
105. 00:04:44 I'll have to try that.
106. 00:04:45 I mean, I'll have to convince Joe Buleg to try that for me.
107. 00:04:49 It is not hard.
108. 00:04:53 I just set up a new Linux thing two days ago.
109. 00:04:55 Super fun.
110. 00:04:56 Anyway.
111. 00:04:57 You should write about this and publish it.
112. 00:04:59 About how to do it?
113. 00:05:00 That's what I follow the how-tos.
114. 00:05:02 I don't know.
115. 00:05:03 No, you should create this thing.
116. 00:05:05 And then publish it.
117. 00:05:07 Oh, like how to have a single, like a laptop that's just Obsidian.
118. 00:05:11 Is that what you're saying?
119. 00:05:12 Yep.
120. 00:05:13 You know what?
121. 00:05:14 You say that I've got a couple laptops I could do that with.
122. 00:05:16 See?
123. 00:05:17 See, you're the guy for this.
124. 00:05:18 Why do you do this to me?
125. 00:05:19 Why?
126. 00:05:20 This is...
127. 00:05:21 I'm just an idea guy.
128. 00:05:24 I'm just talking.
129. 00:05:26 Uh-huh.
130. 00:05:27 Yeah.
131. 00:05:28 I'm gonna charge you for this one.
132. 00:05:30 Alright, we should do some follow-up because you've got a bunch here and I've got a few.
133. 00:05:35 And we should get through it.
134. 00:05:37 Do you want to start?
135. 00:05:38 I was hoping we weren't gonna get to this.
136. 00:05:41 No, just kidding.
137. 00:05:42 Yeah.
138. 00:05:43 I feel like a couple weeks ago when we were gonna record, I was in a much better place
139. 00:05:47 with these follow-up items and now two weeks later, I have no idea what I did with these.
140. 00:05:52 I know I did something.
141. 00:05:54 No, I'll tackle these one by one.
142. 00:05:57 Some of them are more sticky than others.
143. 00:06:01 So list out what I fear in a single sentence.
144. 00:06:04 I don't remember if I did this or not, so I'm assuming I did not.
145. 00:06:07 Asking the question, "How was I curious today?"
146. 00:06:10 I did add this to my billy note and I've filled it out a couple times.
147. 00:06:14 So that's been successful in my book.
148. 00:06:18 Make a list of people who inspire me and start asking questions.
149. 00:06:22 I've done this.
150. 00:06:23 I think there's probably more questions to be asked here, but having the list is the starting
151. 00:06:28 place.
152. 00:06:30 Share encouraging text messages more frequently.
153. 00:06:32 I think I've done this twice.
154. 00:06:34 It's gone really well.
155. 00:06:35 It's awesome.
156. 00:06:36 I want to do it more, but I just never think about it.
157. 00:06:39 So this is a good reminder for me to try to do that more often.
158. 00:06:43 And then find a meditation practice that works for me.
159. 00:06:47 I think we're gonna talk about meditation and mindfulness in today's book.
160. 00:06:52 And there's some takeaways from this book that reframe it a little bit differently for
161. 00:06:57 me.
162. 00:06:58 I've always viewed meditation.
163. 00:07:02 And I know you can do it without the app, but that's the picture I get in my head is the
164. 00:07:07 headspace or the calm and you're focusing on your breathing.
165. 00:07:12 And I feel like there's different ways to practice that just slowing down and being in
166. 00:07:22 the moment.
167. 00:07:24 I think is a form of could be classified as a form of meditation for me.
168. 00:07:29 So I've been looking for those places like on the edges for what I've previously thought
169. 00:07:32 of meditation as where I could just practice the mindfulness.
170. 00:07:37 And I'm calling that meditation and I'm saying that that is working for me.
171. 00:07:41 Do I sit on a cushion for 15 minutes a day?
172. 00:07:43 I do not.
173. 00:07:45 But when I feel myself starting to get stressed out, I notice it and I just stop and I close
174. 00:07:50 my eyes and I take some deep breaths.
175. 00:07:53 And so that's how I'm going to loosely define it.
176. 00:07:56 And I'm going to say that yes, this is sticking for me.
177. 00:07:59 I still I know have a long ways to go with this, but I feel like this has even in the
178. 00:08:04 last couple of weeks, once I had that revelation and I just started looking for those itty bitty
179. 00:08:09 moments to start practicing this regularly that that has helped me stay more even keeled
180. 00:08:14 more centered, I guess would be another word, you know, not the highs aren't as high.
181. 00:08:19 The lows aren't as low, a little bit less extreme.
182. 00:08:24 That sounds very interesting.
183. 00:08:25 And I think I think you're right.
184. 00:08:26 We're going to cover a lot about mindfulness in today's book probably like if you want
185. 00:08:31 to make the differentiation between mindfulness and meditation and calling those two different
186. 00:08:38 things, we should probably do that because I feel like today's book is going to go down
187. 00:08:45 the former and not the latter side of it.
188. 00:08:47 But we'll get into that.
189. 00:08:49 I think so more to come on meditation is what I'm hearing.
190. 00:08:53 Probably.
191. 00:08:54 I'm realizing some of the value of it and like anything that I do, I probably am not going
192. 00:09:02 to be satisfied with just doing it a little bit and I'm going to crank it up to 11.
193. 00:09:06 Sure.
194. 00:09:07 But I got to figure out how to do that for me since all the traditional ways to do it
195. 00:09:10 haven't worked in the past.
196. 00:09:11 Yep.
197. 00:09:12 We'll see if today helps with that.
198. 00:09:13 So I have three follow up pieces.
199. 00:09:17 Number one was go through it all again, meaning go through the entire book again, not read
200. 00:09:22 it again, but some are like go through each of the questions.
201. 00:09:26 Actually what I ended up doing was going through and copying each of the questions into my
202. 00:09:31 note for the book, like my book notes.
203. 00:09:36 And once I did that, I started taking each of those questions and putting them at different
204. 00:09:42 check in points because I've got some check ins at like monthly, weekly and daily where
205. 00:09:48 I'm like setting up what projects am I going to tackle this week or this month, possibly
206. 00:09:53 even this quarter in the future.
207. 00:09:56 And that is something that has it's been setting up really well to have these questions written
208. 00:10:01 down because then I can put them in different check in points.
209. 00:10:05 Not all of them.
210. 00:10:06 I didn't use all of these questions because that would be a lot.
211. 00:10:08 But the ones that I felt like were appropriate I did put into those different places and
212. 00:10:12 have been using that for the last four weeks now simply because we skipped a recording.
213. 00:10:21 And I think that has been super helpful and it's the times that I've gone through it,
214. 00:10:26 it's been encouraging.
215. 00:10:28 So the whole answering questions thing is starting to wear off on me, Mike.
216. 00:10:32 So there's that.
217. 00:10:33 And one of the things that has come out of that is I ask a bank of these questions every
218. 00:10:38 morning as kind of a morning check in.
219. 00:10:40 That was another follow up here is to do a morning and evening check in journaling process.
220. 00:10:45 And one of the pieces that I ended up doing haphazardly was my third follow up.
221. 00:10:50 So I had go through it all again, do a morning and evening check in and then do a visualize
222. 00:10:54 my day ahead of time.
223. 00:10:56 And what I didn't plan on was having the questions that I found from going through it
224. 00:11:00 all again that I had set up in my morning check in to actually create the process of
225. 00:11:05 visualizing my day ahead of time.
226. 00:11:07 So it just kind of happened that way.
227. 00:11:09 I didn't intend that.
228. 00:11:10 It just kind of worked out.
229. 00:11:12 And I will say like that has helped me significantly in just knowing what's coming up today and
230. 00:11:16 getting my head around it.
231. 00:11:18 So I so far it's been going well and I'm grateful for having gone through personal
232. 00:11:24 Socrates now because now I am better at asking questions.
233. 00:11:27 So there's that.
234. 00:11:28 All right.
235. 00:11:29 Yeah, this book is amazing and I gifted a copy to a bunch of the people in my mastermind
236. 00:11:37 group and several of them have read it already.
237. 00:11:40 But I feel like this is one of those books that just needs to be in your collection.
238. 00:11:47 Not to repeat the last episode.
239. 00:11:50 Both rated it 5.0.
240. 00:11:52 But I've been seeing stuff all over Twitter people that I'm following just talking about
241. 00:11:57 it.
242. 00:11:58 Jeff Goins mentioned it.
243. 00:11:59 A lot of people just really commenting about the design of the book.
244. 00:12:03 But even beyond the design those questions man.
245. 00:12:07 So good.
246. 00:12:08 Yeah.
247. 00:12:09 Yeah.
248. 00:12:10 I'm going to make it my my mission to get that book in the hands of as many people as
249. 00:12:15 humanly possible.
250. 00:12:16 It's quite an undertaking.
251. 00:12:19 It is.
252. 00:12:20 Well we should jump into today's book because I feel like we're both kind of alluding to
253. 00:12:26 it a little bit.
254. 00:12:27 Today's book is Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer MD PhD.
255. 00:12:34 And this is about the process and the patterns behind anxiety.
256. 00:12:41 And there's a lot to that and yet it I feel like it's very simple at the same time.
257. 00:12:48 But I mostly I picked this because my sense is that a lot of people that I talk to whether
258. 00:12:54 that's at church or whether that's at like some of the funeral stuff that happens and
259. 00:12:58 such.
260. 00:12:59 It just seems like small groups seems like whenever I'm talking to people a lot of folks
261. 00:13:03 tend to refer to being anxious about something or there's something they're worried about
262. 00:13:06 or nervous about.
263. 00:13:07 I feel like that comes up a lot.
264. 00:13:10 And I don't feel like that's an accident.
265. 00:13:13 Now obviously COVID and I know that that has created a lot of anxiety.
266. 00:13:18 People unrest and our widening chasm between parties doesn't help.
267. 00:13:25 Like none of that is a helpful thing in this regard.
268. 00:13:31 But at the same time like that also means that anxiety levels have gone up as a society.
269. 00:13:37 The question is what do you do about that?
270. 00:13:39 What can you do about it?
271. 00:13:40 And that's mostly what I was shooting for.
272. 00:13:43 I was like okay I know that I deal with this somewhat.
273. 00:13:46 I have one friend who tells me he doesn't understand people who are anxiety stricken
274. 00:13:52 because he doesn't feel it at all.
275. 00:13:54 Like that's interesting.
276. 00:13:55 You're the probably the first person I've ever heard say that.
277. 00:14:00 Can we like swap brains?
278. 00:14:05 So very jealous of him in that sense.
279. 00:14:07 But I feel like this is something that affects everybody in some form.
280. 00:14:12 Whether it's directly or indirectly.
281. 00:14:14 So I feel like it could be a helpful one to work through.
282. 00:14:17 Thus picking it.
283. 00:14:19 Yeah I was really nervous about this one when you picked it to be honest.
284. 00:14:24 Because did it give you anxiety?
285. 00:14:26 Maybe.
286. 00:14:27 Sorry.
287. 00:14:28 If we're defining anxiety as a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease typically about
288. 00:14:34 an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome then yes.
289. 00:14:39 But I was concerned that this book was going to be very much like sitting on a psychiatrist's
290. 00:14:48 couch and how you feel about that.
291. 00:14:51 Which I don't really have a whole lot of interest in.
292. 00:14:55 Unpacking all of the negative feelings.
293. 00:14:59 What comes to mind is the extended mind by any Murphy Paul and the whole idea of cognitive
294. 00:15:04 appraisal and how something happens and we assume that we have a feeling as an immediate
295. 00:15:13 response but actually we can interpret the physiological changes and reframe them.
296. 00:15:21 So when you get nervous about having to speak at an event or something you can reframe that
297. 00:15:27 as excitement because it's the same changes like your heart rate picks up.
298. 00:15:32 Your blood pressure goes up a little bit maybe like that fight versus flight response and
299. 00:15:37 how you can actually choose to lean into some of the things instead of naturally avoiding
300. 00:15:40 them which again he's going to talk about in this book.
301. 00:15:43 And that's very different than just understand your feelings man.
302. 00:15:48 Not that there's no value in that.
303. 00:15:50 But I feel like if that's the approach that we took in the current state of the world we
304. 00:15:56 would find lots and lots of reasons to feel that and feel like there's no way out of it.
305. 00:16:01 And so the extended mind approach where we can change things not necessarily even change
306. 00:16:07 the events that are happening but how we're interpreting the events that are happening
307. 00:16:11 allows us to move forward in a more positive and helpful direction.
308. 00:16:15 So I thought just based on the title the PhD in the author's name that we were going to
309. 00:16:21 get the the former and I'm glad we got more of the latter.
310. 00:16:25 I was very hesitant in picking it.
311. 00:16:28 I felt like I wanted the topic but I wasn't really finding a book that was highly like
312. 00:16:34 more highly recommended than this one in this area.
313. 00:16:38 But I had the same hesitation with like the whole oh no here we go another doctor book
314. 00:16:43 like that's that was kind of my gut reaction.
315. 00:16:47 And yet I'm grateful that yes there's a lot of science in this.
316. 00:16:53 He's not a hair too much but he does break it down quite a bit so that it's a lot more
317. 00:16:58 approachable so I'm grateful for that.
318. 00:17:01 So anyway that said let's jump into this.
319. 00:17:03 This is actually a four part book even though he wanted it to be a three part book because
320. 00:17:09 with a four part book he starts it with part zero.
321. 00:17:12 So then he goes part one two three after that but part zero he he wants to help you
322. 00:17:18 understand your mind and understand anxiety itself before he starts working through the
323. 00:17:24 process of how to unwind that.
324. 00:17:27 And I've got a couple points here I kind of did the outline a little different this time
325. 00:17:30 Mike but the this first one is understanding your mind and he works towards defining anxiety
326. 00:17:38 which you read off here a little bit earlier but one of the things that's underneath that
327. 00:17:45 definition is fear as a base behind it and when you stop and work through like okay
328. 00:17:52 how did I how did I get into this anxiety loop how did I get into this worry pattern
329. 00:18:01 and why am I always so stressed out like ultimately if you start breaking down how and why you
330. 00:18:07 got there fears at the bottom of it like you're afraid of losing your job you're afraid of
331. 00:18:13 the other team winning you're afraid of the reaction you're going to get from your parents
332. 00:18:18 like in some sense there's fear behind that and that's ultimately what like starts the
333. 00:18:24 process and I say start the process because there's like I think I've alluded to it a
334. 00:18:31 few times now like this whole loop and pattern that anxiety tends to to follow but before
335. 00:18:37 I get to that Mike thoughts on fear is the bottom.
336. 00:18:41 Yeah the the reason that fear is the bottom is because in the prefrontal cortex it the
337. 00:18:50 logical part of your brain it tries to predict what's going to happen and then he mentions
338. 00:18:57 that anxiety enters and we don't have enough information to accurately predict the future
339. 00:19:02 but I would argue that I don't even think it's not enough information for some types
340. 00:19:10 of brains like mine there's always going to be more information to collect and so there
341. 00:19:16 is no point in my brain where okay I have I have enough information now to accurately
342. 00:19:22 predict what's going to happen I'm always going to feel at some level a little bit of
343. 00:19:26 that fear anxiety just because I don't have it all.
344. 00:19:32 I mean one example of this is anytime I'm going to make a major purchase on something
345. 00:19:38 I need to over research it and I mean over research it like I had this moment yesterday
346. 00:19:47 when my wife and I were in Costco and they've got all the TVs there the TV we have is like
347. 00:19:54 fifteen twenty years old we've got all this stuff in our house that supports 4k but it's
348. 00:19:58 a 1080p TV and some like wow there's a 4k TV for $300 that looks pretty nice and then
349. 00:20:06 like well what's the difference between this one and that one over there and all this
350. 00:20:09 one's OLED and why is that better I realized at that moment that I was not going to walk
351. 00:20:16 out of there with a cheap 4k TV no I was going to go home and research this until I found
352. 00:20:22 the very best one and I don't think it's going to add anything to my happiness had I just
353. 00:20:30 bought the $300 TV and brought it home I would have been like this thing is great we've got
354. 00:20:36 4k now this is awesome but it's almost like once I know what I'm missing I can't be satisfied
355. 00:20:42 with their option unless it's the best yes so this is a perpetuating cycle for me and I
356. 00:20:53 need to fight against it but yeah so basically come back to the intro here and why fear is
357. 00:20:58 the base it's for most people anyways it's because we don't have enough information my
358. 00:21:04 brain just is never going to have enough I think you're spot on because whether or not
359. 00:21:10 you're worried about the reaction of somebody else or your fear is that something will be
360. 00:21:18 better and you will have made a bad decision which I feel like is what you're saying like
361. 00:21:23 I've got a friend right now that they just you know they just bought a house and it's
362. 00:21:28 taken them a very long time to find and purchase said house and it's it's difficult because
363. 00:21:36 whenever I first saw him it's like hey congrats heard you you know found a place like yeah
364. 00:21:42 but now the what if game starts what what do you mean what if games like well what if
365. 00:21:46 something better comes up we've already committed to this one like so now like the anxiety of
366. 00:21:53 we can't find a house turns into anxiety of is this one actually good enough just at
367. 00:21:59 some point you have to stop and be content with what what you've decided on but that's
368. 00:22:05 that's tough because like that like I was saying like anxiety he calls out is a habit
369. 00:22:10 loop where and we'll talk about like how this works in the next part but like it is a pattern
370. 00:22:16 like you you have anxiety about something and then some people choose to do something
371. 00:22:21 that's not helpful to the anxiety like if you take procrastination a lot of times people
372. 00:22:27 who struggle with procrastination realize that they're super worried because they're
373. 00:22:32 not getting things done but instead of working on those things they do something to pacify
374. 00:22:37 to like know that worry by watching YouTube or scrolling Instagram and it doesn't actually
375. 00:22:46 solve the problem but it feels better than the problem of not being caught up and then
376. 00:22:53 you feel bad about yourself and then when you feel bad about yourself you start to worry
377. 00:22:57 about all the stuff you haven't gotten done which then leads you to scrolling YouTube
378. 00:23:01 because it feels better and you get you get what I'm saying like it leads to this loop
379. 00:23:05 and ends up being a habit just in in that because of the repetitiveness of it so I've
380. 00:23:11 never thought about it this way Mike like I I'm familiar with like anxiety and anxiousness
381. 00:23:15 and worry and stuff like I've been aware of that for quite some time but I've never heard
382. 00:23:20 anybody call it a habit and and for as much as you and I have studied habits that part
383. 00:23:26 caught me off guard and I'm curious did that catch you off guard or was it something you
384. 00:23:31 know with all your emotional intelligence background this was very obvious to you.
385. 00:23:36 Ah maybe it should have been obvious but it wasn't sure like I see how it it does reinforce
386. 00:23:44 that habit loop the depressing part here at the beginning is that going back to the topic
387. 00:23:51 of fear that coupled with uncertainty is the formula for anxiety fear plus uncertainty
388. 00:23:59 equals anxiety says and that's depressing because there's always going to be uncertainty
389. 00:24:08 and I feel like the further we go the more uncertainty there is whether it's did I make
390. 00:24:16 the wrong decision and you're constantly looking back or you're scared to take a step until
391. 00:24:20 you have enough information like me that feels like well what in the world can I do about
392. 00:24:28 this because fear is another constant you're always going to be afraid of stuff you don't
393. 00:24:32 have to let it paralyze you but when I think about those two building blocks and how those
394. 00:24:37 are prevalent in my life it's kind of like you mean I'm going to have to be dealing
395. 00:24:41 with this junk forever right and that's kind of frustrating maybe the habit stuff is kind
396. 00:24:49 of a way he's trying to frame out of it like you can change your habits so you can actually
397. 00:24:56 change how you deal with things I doesn't have to be that bad but this part of the book
398. 00:25:00 I didn't feel was it should have been like super strong like this is the foundation but
399. 00:25:06 the habit loop stuff just kind of feels tacked on to me in my opinion yeah I understand he's
400. 00:25:12 going to talk about habits going forward but I don't think that's the strength of this
401. 00:25:16 book let James Clear talk about right habits you talk about mindfulness right yeah this
402. 00:25:24 is where and let's move on to part one but at the end of part zero he starts to tell this
403. 00:25:29 story about the different gears of a bike and how as you shift up gears you can move faster
404. 00:25:36 and make better progress and so he uses that analogy in the rest of the book so he's got
405. 00:25:42 first gear second gear third gear and you're working your way through those gears as you
406. 00:25:48 progress in different methods and different levels of working your way against anxiety
407. 00:25:53 but at the first portion of part one mapping your mind first gear he explains this whole
408. 00:26:00 habit structure of trigger behavior result like he uses that met like that terminology
409. 00:26:06 and I think that's what he's alluding to at the end of part zero because he's talking about
410. 00:26:11 anxiety is a habit loop well those are the three components if you follow history of the
411. 00:26:18 what is a habit right now there's some questionable points I think you would say there's four parts
412. 00:26:24 to that if I recall your history because there's like a whole awareness part that has to happen
413. 00:26:29 in there right and but he sticks with these three I think what he's referring to is that
414. 00:26:35 when he says that anxiety is a habit loop I think all he's talking about is those three parts
415. 00:26:39 of a habit and and I think you're right like it's hard to figure out if he's referring to like
416. 00:26:45 anxiety breeds itself and makes itself worse at all times and you can never get out of it or
417. 00:26:50 if he's referring to anxiety has these three components to it that lead you to
418. 00:26:55 the anxious thoughts and I never did connect which of those that he was trying to get at because he
419. 00:27:02 did go straight into this trigger behavior result process of showing kind of like what I was
420. 00:27:06 talking about earlier like the procrastination piece of I feel really behind I feel nervous
421. 00:27:11 about that and then that leads me to eating cake and now I have a problem eating cake and I'm overweight
422. 00:27:17 now I don't feel well I don't feel well I don't like myself like all this stuff like it you start
423. 00:27:22 to go down this pattern right so I feel like that's the what he's referring to when he talks about
424. 00:27:27 habits but anxiety as a loop is the part that I think breaks down yeah he builds a large portion
425. 00:27:36 of this book on the Charles Duhigg model which I personally feel is a little bit of a mistake
426. 00:27:44 I understand why he did it I'm kind of curious how other people feel about like those three
427. 00:27:51 components versus James Clear's model which introduces the fourth one which that instantly
428. 00:27:56 clicked for me because basically there's a temptation to do something but that doesn't mean you have
429. 00:28:00 to automatically follow through and and do it and yeah he just building it on the three and that
430. 00:28:07 temptation piece seems like the one that you should incorporate into dealing with anxiety right your
431. 00:28:13 body is telling you to feel this way push against it and act a different way instead I feel like he
432. 00:28:19 gets into that kind of in the the later parts of the the book but yeah this just didn't really work
433. 00:28:26 for me this whole foundation on the habit loop and the the three pieces yeah I I think there is
434. 00:28:33 and when you say that he builds a large part of this book I would almost argue that he builds the
435. 00:28:38 entirety of the book on that and that is like the foundation that he uses to show how to beat
436. 00:28:46 anxiety and he kind of beats it and beats it and beats it so it gets kind of obnoxious after a while
437. 00:28:56 but that said I feel like we're going to come back to this one quite a few times but he refers to
438. 00:29:02 the trigger behavior results but then he also talks about like some of the things that we try to do
439. 00:29:09 that don't work and this part I think I resonated with him quite a bit on because he talks about
440. 00:29:15 some of the problems with willpower the problems with using substitution like people talk about
441. 00:29:22 you have your trigger change the behavior to get a different result like that's the substitution
442. 00:29:27 piece willpower just when you say I'm not going to do that that doesn't work right so he at least
443. 00:29:34 goes through the process of debunking those that part I'm with him on like I feel like those both
444. 00:29:39 have their flaws and it it is something that I know that like at least for me if I'm considering
445. 00:29:45 anxiety a habit and like some of these bad behaviors are habits like that is something that I could
446. 00:29:51 easily see myself trying to do like oh well they say to just use you know a different behavior
447. 00:29:58 whenever certain things pop up maybe I'll just try that well I've done that sort of thing in the
448. 00:30:02 past and works are about two hours and then goodbye that's gone yeah the the thing about this whole
449. 00:30:10 section the anti-habit strategies that don't work and then kind of what he proposes in as an
450. 00:30:16 alternative is simply the awareness of what's going on so you can take a different direction I really
451. 00:30:23 like that I feel like the anti-habit strategies he defines these really well and how they all rely
452. 00:30:28 on a a new brain he calls it but the old brain will take over at any given point so that's the one
453. 00:30:38 we really got to work on and there's a single phrase in this chapter six which I think is kind
454. 00:30:44 of brilliant don't just do something sit there and I know he's not the the first one to say that
455. 00:30:49 I forget who he credits with that but I feel like if there was one piece of advice in this whole
456. 00:30:56 section for me that would be it because I tend to want to just jump in and take action and that's
457. 00:31:02 good in some situations but when you're trying to deconstruct why you feel anxious it's not you
458. 00:31:09 want to be able to have a little bit of time between the impulse and the response so you can
459. 00:31:14 figure out what's really going on and act accordingly yeah that whole you know just sit there
460. 00:31:22 concepts I feel like we've talked about this before but it's something I'm realizing I do a lot
461. 00:31:28 and it drives people crazy because whenever something breaks either there's one of two courses
462. 00:31:35 that I follow the first of which is I have a really good guess at what's wrong and I immediately go
463. 00:31:41 work on fixing it if somebody were to say that my car was running and it just died all of a sudden
464. 00:31:49 mechanics know that some of the first things you're checking are battery connections you're
465. 00:31:53 checking alternators like these are some things that you're going to check because they're very
466. 00:31:56 likely just lost power like it's very simple that's generally where people are going to start
467. 00:32:01 however if someone brings me something and I don't have that immediate here's what I think is wrong
468. 00:32:08 moment usually I sit and stare for a second if not longer than a second which gets uncomfortable
469. 00:32:15 for the other person but I'm okay with that and I'm just kind of processing like okay what are the
470. 00:32:21 options you know the whole Occam's razor concept the simplest solution is the most likely that's
471. 00:32:27 what I'm trying to process of what are the simplest potential solutions and start there and that
472. 00:32:35 whole thing is super powerful like just stop and reflect on what is happening and that brings us to
473. 00:32:44 like the he's kind of wrapping up this first part of mapping your mind like he brings that to the
474. 00:32:49 introduction of mindfulness and that's where he spends the bulk of the book talking about what
475. 00:32:55 to do with this most of it is taking the time to just notice what is happening and become aware of
476. 00:33:03 when you get into these patterns like if you follow this trigger behavior result habit process
477. 00:33:08 how do you identify those points now we could probably argue the whole temptation piece that
478. 00:33:14 you're talking about with clear and probably could alter a lot of his book to include that to be
479. 00:33:20 honest yeah at the same time I think that the the idea of pay attention to what is going on
480. 00:33:28 with your brain and what is leading you down that path is the part that can help you break the
481. 00:33:36 pattern if you're with me yep agreed and this is also where he gets into the fight versus flight
482. 00:33:42 and he introduces a third one which is freeze and again he's probably not the originator of that I
483. 00:33:47 forget where it really comes from that idea we've talked about before but I like the framing of these
484. 00:33:56 behavioral tendencies he talks about and he's got a quiz assessment whatever survey thing did you
485. 00:34:07 take that no but I I didn't take it but I I figured out what his scoring method was and just kind of
486. 00:34:14 walked my way through it and kind of made some guesses like oh well that's that's me like I got
487. 00:34:19 there very quickly I didn't need to do it formally I took it formally and scored 13 towards avoid
488. 00:34:27 which I believe is like the 90th percentile on that end of the spectrum so what that means is that
489. 00:34:37 when I feel anxious my tendency is to avoid I'm the the flight I run away so that doesn't have to be
490. 00:34:50 though fighting for survival if you think about this in the context of the world we live in right now
491. 00:34:58 what that really means is that when there's any sort of like conflict or uneasiness instead of
492. 00:35:04 leaning into it I tend to go away from it and just recognizing that is a good thing because later in
493. 00:35:13 the book he's going to talk about comfort zones and growth and all that kind of stuff so already at
494. 00:35:19 this point in the book even though I disagree with all of the foundational habit stuff and he's missing
495. 00:35:24 a piece I feel like this is a big this is a big revelation for me is that when I feel uncomfortable
496. 00:35:33 that's actually probably an indication that I should lean into that thing or at least that I should
497. 00:35:40 recognize that tendency and then ask myself why and kind of reset and re-engage like okay you're
498. 00:35:47 feeling this way but that's not necessarily the right way so let's look at this for what it is
499. 00:35:51 gather more information again the thing for me is I'll never have enough information so right I think
500. 00:35:57 I generally want to just recognize okay feeling like I should avoid instead I'm going to approach
501. 00:36:03 see what happens right yeah I know that like I didn't do the formal scoring but I came out as an
502. 00:36:09 as avoid as well very very strongly I don't know what the numbers were because they didn't actually
503. 00:36:14 do it but it's something that I know I do like I've mentioned the procrastination thing but you
504. 00:36:21 could also get into like there's a task that I love to do but for some reason I'm not doing it why
505. 00:36:27 like I run into that one a lot it's like okay well now I'm procrastinating on
506. 00:36:31 something that I like to do why that seems strange so just kind of leaning into like okay
507. 00:36:38 pay attention to what's happening and why am I feeling that resistance and here's what happened
508. 00:36:43 I have time to do the thing I want to do but I'm not doing it I did what instead use the youtube
509. 00:36:50 examples like I spent time on youtube and then I felt what which actually brings us to part two
510. 00:36:56 I feel like I'm moving through this quickly but the part two here is updating your brain's reward
511. 00:37:01 value second gear so he's stepping it up it's like okay you've got the first piece of just being
512. 00:37:05 aware of what's happening but once you become aware of it that starts to help you get into second gear
513. 00:37:11 which helps you get into this disenchantment part which he calls out here which if you take
514. 00:37:19 that loop right so you get your trigger behavior result if you become aware of what it is that's
515. 00:37:23 leading you to feel the anxiety and what it is that's giving you the worry you notice what your
516. 00:37:30 trigger is like I don't want to do the thing and instead of doing the thing I spend time on
517. 00:37:36 Instagram and then afterwards I feel icky or like the example that he calls out is somebody who is
518. 00:37:42 in smoking and he taught her this loop process like okay well you have the craving for a cigarette
519. 00:37:52 you smoke the cigarette how do you feel afterwards pay attention to how you feel afterwards and
520. 00:37:58 she noticed that it tastes gross and smelled bad so like just because of that then she connected
521. 00:38:06 that every time she went to smoke she was about to do something gross and something that smelled bad
522. 00:38:10 and she couldn't get that out of her head and it helped her break the habit that process is
523. 00:38:14 what he's getting at it's like learning what the negative feelings are from going through
524. 00:38:19 that loop that's that's what he's encouraging you to do how effective do you see that being in
525. 00:38:27 everyday life though I'm a little bit skeptical of this to be honest I understand what he's saying
526. 00:38:33 he talks about in chapter 10 how that reward value is mapped to the orbital frontal cortex the
527. 00:38:40 OFC so he's got all the scientific terms to support what he's saying here and he wants us to recognize
528. 00:38:46 like specifically with a habit we want to break look at what we actually get from the activity
529. 00:38:53 but for somebody who the average person let's say who has developed an addiction over many years I
530. 00:39:02 I find it hard to believe that simply being aware of oh this is bad for me and I should stop
531. 00:39:09 is enough to get them to do so I think this is bogus
532. 00:39:12 just to be completely upfront with you this is this is why when I finished that I said this is
533. 00:39:18 what he's calling you to do because I don't see this actually working at least this particular
534. 00:39:24 part of it because if you're mindful of what's happening so so just take this like you have a
535. 00:39:29 bad habit whatever it is and you start to pay attention to what it is you're doing and how you
536. 00:39:34 feel about it and that's that's great like you can learn a lot about your bad habits doing that
537. 00:39:40 but noticing that they have bad feelings and bad effects like somebody who struggles with alcohol
538. 00:39:49 abuse they know that it's bad people who smoke cigarettes generally know it's bad for them
539. 00:39:54 and yet they continue doing it so like just that whole piece it doesn't add up it just doesn't
540. 00:40:01 like I feel like he's missing something with that or at least he's trying to set up something that
541. 00:40:06 doesn't connect like I get what he's trying to say in that like learning that the physical
542. 00:40:14 thing that you're doing whether it's smoking or you know something simple like avoiding somebody
543. 00:40:19 if you're avoiding somebody or have these bad habits like just learning that there's a bad feeling
544. 00:40:26 involved I feel like he's not going to be anywhere near the motivation you need to break the loop
545. 00:40:32 that that doesn't add up to me at all I think it could I don't think it will in even the majority
546. 00:40:40 of people but that's just me being skeptical and having no data to support that claim right he does
547. 00:40:45 call out that simply mapping out habit loops and seeing their lack of value does not magically unwind
548. 00:40:51 years of entrenchment but I feel like out of the other side of his mouth he's basically saying at
549. 00:40:56 some point it will right right he there's some good stuff in here he talks about how old habits
550. 00:41:02 are outdated but because they're old they're familiar and because they're familiar we trust
551. 00:41:06 them so this is all true information and it could theoretically be helpful but I just have a hard
552. 00:41:14 time envisioning going through this and having that aha moment like oh I never realized this was the
553. 00:41:22 thing that was happening and now that I realized that like you said that this activity is bad for
554. 00:41:28 me and afterwards I feel bad that I did it now I can start not doing it I feel like that's probably
555. 00:41:35 a step on the journey but it feels like there's a lot missing from this this section it feels a
556. 00:41:42 little fantastic to me I guess is the best way to describe it right right a lot of the productivity
557. 00:41:46 books and this is I would argue not one of the productivity books that we read but like just follow
558. 00:41:52 these three simple steps and you'll save an hour a day every day for the rest of your life that it's
559. 00:41:59 kind of what this feels like for anxiety and habit loops and with it with habit loops specifically I
560. 00:42:05 know it's not that simple right and maybe that's the the issue here is because it's framed on the
561. 00:42:11 key routine reward or TBR trigger behavior reward but he doesn't get into all the other stuff that
562. 00:42:17 we know is true about habits it feels a little bit like just take my word for this and then just do
563. 00:42:26 this thing but we're skeptical because we know there's a whole lot more to it having gone through
564. 00:42:31 both atomic habits and also I would argue tiny habits which that trigger behavior reward is
565. 00:42:36 really based off of yeah I know that this is definitely a a piece of the whole process because like
566. 00:42:44 if you look at his different gears like he wants you to get to third gear so you can break break the
567. 00:42:48 loops but part one he's talking about mindfulness like he's introducing you to becoming aware of
568. 00:42:54 these things too he's like showing you some of the things you're going to find like this disenchantment
569. 00:43:00 piece another one is learning from the past like the reflective piece of just paying attention to
570. 00:43:04 what happens after something happens like if you avoid the gym one day it makes it easier to avoid
571. 00:43:10 it the next day like that concept of learning from your past behaviors the the thing that's
572. 00:43:17 interesting to me is that it's it's something that like these are all steps in the process but yet
573. 00:43:23 he doesn't get to the very end until of course part three but inside that process it's it seems
574. 00:43:31 like it's dependent on the next one but he calls it out as if it's something that could break things
575. 00:43:35 in itself like I get the idea that like doing mindfulness and then learning the disenchantment
576. 00:43:40 thing like those are pieces that can help you break it in themselves but it seems like it's
577. 00:43:45 dependent on the next ones sometimes like it's not a this is the process which is what I feel like
578. 00:43:52 he's he's he's initially saying like this is the answer and yet it's not so I don't know he's hard
579. 00:43:59 to follow so if I were to rewrite this section for him as a non doctor I would say do what he's
580. 00:44:10 talking about ask yourself what did I actually get out of these activities but I would immediately
581. 00:44:17 follow that up with recorded all in a journal and write in it every day and reflect on the day
582. 00:44:24 at the end of the day and I feel like that's maybe the missing piece and I guess I'm kind of curious
583. 00:44:31 if what do you think if you just developed a journaling habit do you feel like some of these
584. 00:44:39 insights would surface automatically I kind of think they would yeah I think so just having
585. 00:44:47 started like this whole morning and evening ritual of journaling and stuff and some of the
586. 00:44:52 questions I'm asking being very like are you being honest with yourself like some of those
587. 00:44:56 questions or ones I'm asking like that is something I find is surfacing some of the anxiety issues
588. 00:45:03 and just that reflective process is all it takes like just being aware of like am I lying to myself
589. 00:45:10 well yeah in some ways I'm convincing myself that something is not easily done when it is like
590. 00:45:17 it's gonna take me two minutes but I'm avoiding it because I think it's gonna be some big hairy
591. 00:45:21 thing so I'm lying to myself yeah just asking myself that question is all it took to
592. 00:45:25 to get there I don't need to go through this whole process here but right I don't know agreed not
593. 00:45:31 a doctor on it not a doctor so I guess that brings us to part three here and this is where we're
594. 00:45:40 supposed to button the whole process up right so you've learned mindfulness we've learned to
595. 00:45:45 learn from the past and be disenchanted with the negatives and then we get to part three which is
596. 00:45:50 finding that bigger better offer for your brain or third year and by the bigger better offer
597. 00:45:57 pretty much what he's telling us to do is to substitute which is the thing he told us to watch
598. 00:46:02 out for and I struggled with this because like basically what we're being told this is my
599. 00:46:10 interpretation of it so correct me if I got this wrong mic but the way I took it was whenever
600. 00:46:15 you're sensing that you've got this negative habit that's leading to anxiety you need to
601. 00:46:20 learn to notice it notice the negative effects of it and then find a better thing to do instead
602. 00:46:28 of that at least that's the way I took it which to me is like the definition of the substitution
603. 00:46:33 thing he told us not to do so I got real confused when we got to this point so hopefully you can
604. 00:46:40 square me away here yeah so the the actual definition for substitution or what he says about it is
605. 00:46:48 that like willpower relies on the new brain may work for a subset of people but doesn't
606. 00:46:53 uproot the craving itself and that's kind of how it's framed in part three is well to create a new
607. 00:47:02 habit you update the value of the old one you present a better offer without feeding the habit
608. 00:47:07 loop through mere substitution is the last piece there so I think it's it's not what he's saying is
609. 00:47:15 more nuanced and more accurate I think than substitution but on the surface it kind of appears the same
610. 00:47:22 so when you update the value of the old one really what he's hoping that does is causes you to realize
611. 00:47:29 there isn't any value in the activity that you're doing and that's enough motivation to give up
612. 00:47:35 smoking like the the lady that he shared in the the book then you present something else and then
613. 00:47:43 that translates into motivation to do a new desired action I don't know I don't know how I feel about
614. 00:47:52 this I understand the motivation is is very powerful and if you can hack your motivation that way
615. 00:47:59 that's probably the ideal way to do it but I also think of and some of these people like they are
616. 00:48:05 too extreme I know we both really liked extreme ownership by Jocko Willink the more I know about
617. 00:48:12 that guy though the less I like him not the less I like it just that he's not not for me you know
618. 00:48:20 he's posting pictures and videos of himself getting up at 4.30 every morning and that's just that's
619. 00:48:25 just too extreme he's one of these super high energy grant cardone Gary Vee sorta types yes
620. 00:48:32 yes exactly but I do think there's some truth to his whole message which is like you don't feel
621. 00:48:37 like it tough do it anyways you can accomplish a lot of good in your life by just doing the things
622. 00:48:44 you don't want to do you don't have to rely solely on the motivation which maybe that comes back
623. 00:48:49 again to the fact that there's that missing fourth leg to the stool when it comes to habits so I
624. 00:48:57 understand what he's doing here it sounds nice I do think that it's not structurally sound though
625. 00:49:06 because it's still built on that the habit stuff now that being set there's a lot of cool stuff in
626. 00:49:10 this section that I really liked so I don't want to bash on this this too much I think he gets into
627. 00:49:17 like curiosity and and that's fascinating to me the two different kinds of curiosity interest versus
628. 00:49:23 deprivation and that's my one action item from this whole book to be honest is to practice curiosity
629. 00:49:29 and he uses it he uses the example of people just saying hmm so that's my my action item I want to
630. 00:49:36 whenever I feel frustrated by a situation just be like hmm and see what options that opens up in
631. 00:49:45 my brain right that is exactly my one and only action item from this book as well so great minds
632. 00:49:51 like and like the curiosity piece like that I wish that was like his core foundation of the book
633. 00:50:00 because I feel like that is the point at which the rest of it is encompassed inside of that so take
634. 00:50:05 what he's saying so far mindfulness pay attention to what's going on be curious about what's going
635. 00:50:11 on ask the questions about how you feel about it what's happened in the past how is this affecting
636. 00:50:15 you is it true is it not like these are the questions that are all kind of wrapped up in this whole
637. 00:50:21 curiosity concept and if you want to take like the bigger better offer whether I've got it right
638. 00:50:27 or you've got it right I don't know but trying to figure out well if I substitute something in this
639. 00:50:31 case will it work like whenever I know like for example I know that I tend to be very tired in the
640. 00:50:37 afternoons and it's hard for me to do like heavy brain work so I know that in the afternoon if I
641. 00:50:43 want to avoid the temptation of losing time to youtube and such that I have to set up things for
642. 00:50:50 me to do physically in the afternoon so like this afternoon I'm tearing apart some shelves behind me
643. 00:50:55 here so like I know that because in the afternoons like I'm not going to be able to spend time
644. 00:50:59 writing out my thoughts and deciding things and writing emails like I cannot do it like my brain
645. 00:51:05 is just shot by that point so like I cannot pull that one off so setting those up and being aware
646. 00:51:11 of that is only like in my case like it's only really been done because I've been curious about
647. 00:51:16 why am I not able to get anything done in the afternoons why do I always get tired before I get
648. 00:51:20 there and what happens when I get tired now he would probably say well you're just paying attention
649. 00:51:25 to that trigger behavior reward result process but I feel like a lot of it just has to do with
650. 00:51:32 wondering why things are happening and so I all this to say like I feel like the curiosity
651. 00:51:37 pieces the crux of a lot of this and I wish it had come up earlier the the why is interesting because
652. 00:51:44 in chapter 20 he asked the question what if the why doesn't matter and that's an interesting thought
653. 00:51:53 experiment yeah as someone whose life is basically trying to figure out why he's basically encouraging
654. 00:52:03 us don't stress out trying to figure it out and I feel like that's good advice and is not
655. 00:52:11 contradictory to the curiosity that he talks about because when you approach something with
656. 00:52:18 curiosity you're not approaching it like a problem that needs to be solved you're just trying to
657. 00:52:25 see it and understand it a little bit better and understand what is really going on and he has this
658. 00:52:32 phrase that curiosity pulls but willpower pushes and I feel like that's a very good
659. 00:52:38 explanation now how does that fit into all of this stuff with anxiety I don't know exactly I do
660. 00:52:47 like this rain thing that he talks about how not to freak out when anxiety hits number one you
661. 00:52:53 recognize or you relax into what is arising number two you accept or allow it to be there
662. 00:53:01 number three you investigate the bodily sensations emotions and thoughts and then
663. 00:53:05 number four you note what is happening from moment to moment so I feel like this is the book
664. 00:53:12 encapsulated and I'm so glad that we went through how to read a book all those years ago at this point
665. 00:53:17 and the whole idea of like this in topical reading and fitting this in with the other books yeah
666. 00:53:22 because basically what this is saying is take the extended mind approach of cognitive repraisal
667. 00:53:28 but journal about it right it down yep and then as you do that you'll start to see things more clearly
668. 00:53:35 and respond less emotionally yes yeah you you mentioned like the the why doesn't matter that
669. 00:53:42 he refers to it is the why habit loop not worrying about the why behind it because like sometimes
670. 00:53:48 people like well I'm not fixing this thing why is that well you know I'm still anxious well don't
671. 00:53:54 worry about why it doesn't matter why I continue to search for the the things that are leading you
672. 00:54:00 down that anxious path which is the curiosity piece so don't necessarily worry about why you
673. 00:54:06 know results focus on the curious of why are you still doing these certain patterns so you had to
674. 00:54:11 be careful with that sort of thing but you do I feel like this is the part that like encompasses
675. 00:54:16 everything in the book and I feel like this is like the wrap-up point here but it's an interesting
676. 00:54:22 overall process that I think he's he's worked through and I feel like it's kind of misfired in a
677. 00:54:26 number of places and I got maybe this is me but I feel like I got confused a lot of like what are
678. 00:54:31 we talking about and why are we talking about this particular thing again I got super lost
679. 00:54:36 many many times and I have my thoughts for why that is but I'll save that at this point
680. 00:54:44 that's interesting I agree with you but again we'll we'll do that when we get to
681. 00:54:50 style and rating I'm curious what is if if you or I were to write a book what is the better approach
682. 00:54:59 because it seems to me the issues that I have with this are the fact that he's trying to make it
683. 00:55:05 all encompassing everything you need to know all the science behind it instead of saying hey there's
684. 00:55:11 other people who have studied habits and go see what they have to say but the big takeaway here is
685. 00:55:16 this no he gets into all the the details and that's where I focused on and I probably at that point
686. 00:55:27 I'm not seeing the forest through the trees because he's saying specific things that I'm
687. 00:55:31 disagreeing with and I recognize that maybe I just missed his his point with this so assuming you're
688. 00:55:38 gonna write a book on whatever topic do you try to give give the reader everything they need to know
689. 00:55:47 in order for this topic to make complete sense or do you just say this is built on some other
690. 00:55:54 stuff that some other people have written so go read this stuff I feel like that's hard to know
691. 00:56:01 where to draw that that line and I can totally see where a publisher or an editor would be like hey
692. 00:56:09 you didn't explain this enough yep you got to go into like why habits work but for people like you
693. 00:56:14 and me that was detrimental yeah I think this is is a good point to bring up Mike because this is
694. 00:56:20 something I feel like we deal with a lot on bookworm we talk about this a lot like you shouldn't have
695. 00:56:25 tried to explain this there are people who did it better it my sense is that and I don't know when
696. 00:56:30 this started how recent this is but if you go back to how to read a book that we covered and didn't
697. 00:56:37 care for and yet reference constantly that book talks about how a great way to find your next books
698. 00:56:46 to read are to pull the references out of the one you're in right now right so so take the references
699. 00:56:53 in the current book you're reading and use that as a jumping off point for where to go next off
700. 00:57:00 the top of your head Mike how many book references did he mention in this book oh I can't think of any
701. 00:57:06 I know he talked about the habit stuff and I know Washington say I know I think he talked about
702. 00:57:13 Charles Duhigg's the power of habit when he introduced that but I can't think of any others
703. 00:57:18 I don't think he actually mentioned Charles Duhigg when he when he got to that point the only one I
704. 00:57:23 can think of is he mentioned Carol Dweck and Growth Mindset uh okay the mindset book yeah
705. 00:57:29 so I know that he mentioned that but again in how to read a book what he's referring to is the long
706. 00:57:36 list of references that people generally have in a book so what what I'm getting at is that
707. 00:57:40 so many times we read these books and it's like there's people who did better than that they
708. 00:57:45 should reference those summarize it for me in like a paragraph the part that applies to what
709. 00:57:50 you're talking about reference the book you don't have to tell me to go read it because if I'm interested
710. 00:57:55 in that topic I'll go read it pull out the part that applies to what you're talking about
711. 00:57:59 reference the book and move on so many of our authors today I feel like they want to
712. 00:58:03 be the single point of truth for everything and I don't want you to do that because the whole
713. 00:58:09 point is you're adding your thoughts to the broader collective of knowledge you're not the one and
714. 00:58:16 only place I'm going to go to learn about anxiety and habits I'm going to apply that to
715. 00:58:22 how many other people but I also know that some of this is just because you and I are oddballs
716. 00:58:29 when it comes to this because of the syntopical reading patterns that we tend to
717. 00:58:32 to apply because of how to read a book and as a result of that we're putting together a very
718. 00:58:39 big picture that not I don't know if I say most but a lot of people don't do that so
719. 00:58:47 it gets to be kind of messy but because people don't reference other books anymore I shouldn't
720. 00:58:52 say anymore because they just don't do it as much but if you if you go back to like take personal
721. 00:58:59 Socrates if you read through that book there's reference after reference after reference after
722. 00:59:04 reference in that book there's there's tons of books that are referenced in that one uh
723. 00:59:10 Ryan Holidays books are the same way there are tons of references to other books if you go back
724. 00:59:15 and look at a lot of our five star books I bet you would find tons of references
725. 00:59:18 inside those books and now I don't know if that's a key indicator for bookworm ratings or not but
726. 00:59:25 I feel like that's something that's very important because it's it's taking the knowledge that I'm
727. 00:59:30 writing into my book and incorporating it into this broader knowledge of books but when you have
728. 00:59:36 somebody who does like what Brewer did here it it gets tricky because I feel like he's not
729. 00:59:42 doing that he's like trying to make it its own thing and not use that knowledge of all these
730. 00:59:47 other people before him I don't know yeah I could I could see that um he does base a lot of this off
731. 00:59:54 of experience people that he's worked with that he's got one guy Dave that he tells his story in
732. 01:00:00 four different parts yeah which I didn't really didn't really care for it's an interesting point
733. 01:00:07 I think you're right that is probably part of my my issue with this and again that's not to say
734. 01:00:13 that there's not good stuff in here but it just does feel a little bit weird like trust me I've
735. 01:00:20 gone up the mountain I have the the stone tablets this is the truth right and that's very anti how
736. 01:00:29 to read a book where we're having a conversation or even a debate and we're asking the questions
737. 01:00:34 and we're arguing with the author there is like really isn't a whole lot of room to argue here
738. 01:00:40 and still reconcile these things in your your head I think that's where where I got off right
739. 01:00:46 right there are a couple of things in this last section though I did like and I want to touch on
740. 01:00:51 he's got some cool visuals he's got one about in Dave's story part three the the comfort zone in
741. 01:00:58 the middle and then the growth zone which is outside of that and then outside of that is the
742. 01:01:03 pantry zone and I don't know if this speaks to everybody maybe if you are the other end of the
743. 01:01:11 spectrum when you take that quiz this speaks to you differently but for me I tend to stay in the
744. 01:01:18 comfort zone so being someone who naturally avoids things when I say I want to start to lean into
745. 01:01:27 things what that does if you look at this like bullseye style target is it forces me outside of
746. 01:01:32 the comfort zone into the growth zone and the big thing he's saying here the big takeaway is that
747. 01:01:39 the world outside our comfort zone is not always dangerous which he's definitely understanding me
748. 01:01:46 when he yeah he says that the other thing is that in chapter 22 he talks about how he did a
749. 01:01:55 personal retreat when he wrote this book so obviously I'm a big fan of that yeah
750. 01:01:59 convince his wife to go away so he could write it yep whatever you got to do what else Mike you
751. 01:02:06 want to jump into action items let's do it so I have the one which is to be curious super curious
752. 01:02:13 like I just want to like be aware like try to do the whole curiosity thing because I feel like
753. 01:02:18 that's a lot of the the crux that should be applied here so like that's that's really it like that's
754. 01:02:25 I want to spend some time you know whenever I'm doing these journaling pieces like I've got some
755. 01:02:30 questions that I'm I haven't formalized but I've started the process of like what should these be
756. 01:02:35 to help me try to understand what it is that I'm off base with so like that's that's the whole
757. 01:02:41 curiosity piece I want to try to apply that's what I got all right well mine is similar but it was
758. 01:02:49 specifically to implement the hmm yeah I feel like that is the action that I could substitute
759. 01:02:59 when I see the trigger even though it doesn't work according to him but uh I feel like I can
760. 01:03:07 recognize now when I'm feeling a little bit stressed out we didn't really talk a whole lot about the
761. 01:03:13 mindfulness versus meditation piece but just real briefly he talks about how meditation is
762. 01:03:20 actually a part of mindfulness and he's got like the circle of meditation that's inside a much
763. 01:03:24 bigger circle for mindfulness and mindfulness is not about emptying it's about changing our
764. 01:03:29 relationship with our thoughts so recognizing that I'm thinking this certain way not implementing
765. 01:03:36 what he calls shoulding like I should be able to let this go or I should be able to move on to the
766. 01:03:40 next thing that's self-judgment cycle and I definitely recognize that I I have tendency to slip into
767. 01:03:48 that as well so just recognizing the feeling and then verbally going hmm because I feel the
768. 01:03:58 application of that physically is the thing that will bring value to me it's not enough just to
769. 01:04:06 recognize it and tell my brain stop doing that go do this other thing that physical action that
770. 01:04:12 is the trigger I think for being more curious instead of more I don't know problem solving you
771. 01:04:19 know not everything that happens not everything that feels uncomfortable is a problem that I should
772. 01:04:25 solve and so I want to insert that as like the pause between the impulse and the response I like
773. 01:04:34 it it's a good one so as for style and rating I have lots and lots of thoughts on style but
774. 01:04:41 suffice it to say it's very disjointed I found there were many many stories that were brought up
775. 01:04:47 there were a lot of examples that I felt like didn't apply I got lost as to what we were talking
776. 01:04:52 about regularly and I feel like he didn't have real good ways of like buttoning up the whole thing
777. 01:05:01 it just got to be super messy and I really struggled with it there was so many times that I was like
778. 01:05:06 wait what is this chapter about again and why is this different to the others like I feel like
779. 01:05:10 you just want to tell a story about some science you've done like that's that was my perspective
780. 01:05:15 and I don't know how much truth there is that maybe I just got jaded at some point in the book
781. 01:05:19 and started to see it through that lens that's very possible honestly I feel like the thing that
782. 01:05:24 you should take away from this is you know be curious do the hmm thing and I tend to just say
783. 01:05:32 like I don't want you to read this like it's just kind of a mess and I feel like it could cause
784. 01:05:37 more problems than good so yes there are some good things in it but I feel like we covered those
785. 01:05:43 and I don't know how much I would have someone dive into this and how much you would get from it
786. 01:05:49 I just I don't know I struggled with this one I thought this would be a lot tighter of a book
787. 01:05:54 and a lot more buttoned up but here we are so as for a rating that makes it messy so I I think in
788. 01:06:03 my case I'm going to put this at a 2.5 like this is way down there for me and it's primarily because
789. 01:06:09 like I just wanted it to be in a line and it was all over the place and there were a lot of things
790. 01:06:14 I'm like wait hold up I don't think that's true like yes you've got all this science stuff that
791. 01:06:18 you're talking about but you're not really showing me where all that comes from like in the broader
792. 01:06:24 scheme of things like it's like this one single point that I feel like you're trying to force
793. 01:06:27 into it so I don't know if you read this one be careful with it but I'm gonna put it at a 2.5 I
794. 01:06:33 don't think I want it higher than that all right interesting hmm wasn't expecting a 2.5 I know I
795. 01:06:40 know I got frustrated pretty bad with this one I feel there is some really good stuff in here
796. 01:06:46 and I do like the general flow of how it's outlined the end of the book chapter 23 is anxiety
797. 01:06:56 sobriety and it talks about how like alcoholics anonymous part of the process is helping others
798. 01:07:02 how being kind feels good and self empowering and you can become addicted to kindness and like
799. 01:07:07 that's the path forward I felt like that was a really powerful way to end the book and I feel
800. 01:07:12 like there's some really great stuff in here I do think that I had some trouble disconnecting
801. 01:07:19 from what I felt was a shaky foundation of the TBR the trigger behavior result and all the habit
802. 01:07:27 stuff at the beginning but I also reviewing my mind node file before recording recognize that
803. 01:07:35 there were several aha moments for me in this just the mindfulness and meditation piece alone
804. 01:07:44 again that wasn't the only place that I heard that but that was kind of like a missing puzzle piece
805. 01:07:50 in where I was with the previous action item about creating a meditation habit that actually sticks
806. 01:07:57 so I felt like this was one of the things that kind of clicked into place and allowed me to
807. 01:08:01 feel like okay yeah I can I can do this for the first time ever yeah so I definitely got some
808. 01:08:09 value out of this and I think it's easy to nitpick the stuff that didn't jive necessarily with us
809. 01:08:17 and I'm trying to disconnect from that because I feel like some of that maybe is just personal
810. 01:08:22 opinion and we tend to weigh it more heavy than maybe we we should have I'm gonna rate it at 3.5
811. 01:08:30 when you say you you hesitate whether you would recommend this to people I feel like I would
812. 01:08:36 recommend this to people but I would also say that this isn't going to be the only thing you should
813. 01:08:44 read on this topic like this is the beginning maybe of your journey but you've got a a lot more
814. 01:08:51 to go and if you've already been reading along with us and you understand atomic habits and things
815. 01:08:56 like that there probably are better books to build on that foundation going forward but I don't know
816. 01:09:03 what they are it was significantly better than I thought it was going to be I told you I was very
817. 01:09:08 apprehensive about getting into this one because I didn't want to have a conversation with a psychologist
818. 01:09:13 via book form and that's not what I got this was I was pleasantly surprised by the the content in
819. 01:09:20 this one to be honest and yeah I can nitpick little things about it but I feel like the
820. 01:09:25 main message is is fairly solid if I can stop focusing on the habit part for for a second and
821. 01:09:34 then just kind of flow with everything that he's telling me throughout the rest of the book I feel
822. 01:09:40 like that maybe changes what you're able to to get out of it but again like that is a skill that I
823. 01:09:46 did not have a couple years ago I recognize now every single book that I go into that this is not
824. 01:09:54 going to be the be all end all on whatever topic even though every single author seems to want to
825. 01:10:01 position their book that way I go into it thinking there's going to be something in here for me and
826. 01:10:07 I'm going to jot down the things that I like and the things that I don't I'm going to discard and
827. 01:10:12 in a podcast format people like to hear his complain about stuff so we'll focus on the the
828. 01:10:18 habit stuff but I feel like just in the content of the book that there's a there's a lot of good
829. 01:10:24 stuff stuff in here so I would recommend this to people I would say don't buy it hook line and
830. 01:10:30 sinker like question all this stuff for yourself and figure out how it applies to you but if you go
831. 01:10:36 into it curious then I think you'll get you'll get something out of it at least I got got something
832. 01:10:43 out of it so I have conflicting opinions walking out of this because on one topic on one hand I'm
833. 01:10:51 like there's got to be something better on this topic that I want to read but on the other hand
834. 01:10:55 I don't want to touch anything else in this genre yeah so I don't know if this genre speaks to you
835. 01:11:03 if you really like this topic and you want to dive into it you know go for it but I was
836. 01:11:09 apprehensive to begin with and it was better than expected yep here you are all right let's put it
837. 01:11:15 on the shelf Mike what's what's up next next is creative calling by Chase Jarvis which is a big
838. 01:11:23 one so if you haven't started it do it now it's like 280 pages or something and it's basically about
839. 01:11:31 living a creative lifestyle I've started this one not very far in it just kind of read like the
840. 01:11:37 introductory section and I feel like this is going to be good because he's kind of calling out doesn't
841. 01:11:43 matter if you're an artist an entrepreneur whatever you have the ability to be creative which is
842. 01:11:51 something that I have long believed and I feel like this is one of those books that will empower you
843. 01:11:56 and hopefully give you some clear you know here's how you would actually start walking this stuff out
844. 01:12:03 time will tell on on that part I guess but yeah creative calling by Chase Jarvis is next and then
845. 01:12:10 after we read that what are we going through yeah so up next after that I discovered a book
846. 01:12:16 called Yes to Life by none other than Victor Frankle which is a series of I believe it's lectures
847. 01:12:25 that he gave after he wrote his other book I'm drawing man search for meaning and I was not a
848. 01:12:33 way that this existed it was translated to English in 2020 I believe and published and when I saw
849. 01:12:40 that there was another book by Victor Frankle that was post his other like yep uh-huh I want to
850. 01:12:46 read that and I figured you wouldn't argue with me I will not I will happily read this one I will
851. 01:12:53 look this look forward to this one much more than I did in winding and there you go there you go
852. 01:12:57 so yeah Yes to Life by Victor Frankle so with the extra blank in time Mike did you read a couple
853. 01:13:06 gap books one at all I read so many gap books it's ridiculous I was on vacation so
854. 01:13:12 I'm going to pick one here uh how to fight a hydra by Josh Kaufman have you read this no I have
855. 01:13:22 it on my list though you would love this it's a short little book it's tiny it's probably about
856. 01:13:29 the size of a little bit bigger than an iPhone the size of the book and it's maybe 90 pages and it's
857. 01:13:36 uh an adaptation of a fable that he found in some old bookstore it's like a 12th century Bulgarian
858. 01:13:46 fable or something that he modernized and uh it's about this person who's seeking fame and fortune
859. 01:13:54 and he's going to go kill a hydra and he's going to get the treasure behind it and there's a whole
860. 01:14:02 lot of lessons to be learned there uh very a la Stephen Pressfield I feel so if you like Stephen
861. 01:14:10 Pressfield's style minus the language wrapped in a fable that's kind of what this is
862. 01:14:17 yeah that sounds fascinating I feel like that's one I should definitely read yeah and you can read
863. 01:14:23 the whole thing in like an hour yeah so I have been going through a book called Shape Up if you
864. 01:14:31 familiar with this this is from the base camp team and this is primarily like shaping and positioning
865. 01:14:40 what they would call pitches basically how do you pitch an idea to your team and shape it in such a
866. 01:14:47 way that you can achieve it in a certain amount of time and I've actually gone through it a couple
867. 01:14:53 times over the last couple weeks just because like what I'm working through at work anyway is
868. 01:14:59 how do I shape some of the projects for the teams that I'm working with in order to have them
869. 01:15:05 achieve them successfully in the time frame we have to do it to do it so trying to figure out good
870. 01:15:10 ways to do that we've been using base camp internally for that sort of thing so I figured it made sense
871. 01:15:16 to try to follow some of their process as well so that's an interesting one I'm not sure how I
872. 01:15:21 would translate that to like personal life scenarios though some people do it but anyway shape up I'm
873. 01:15:29 familiar with this book and I want them to print the physical one so that I can buy correct I'm
874. 01:15:34 not reading a PDF sorry that that was the hard part with it is the whole PDF thing that's kind
875. 01:15:40 of messy not fun to do it that way at all so anyway there's that we are very grateful to those of
876. 01:15:48 you who have joined us live I know Martin and Michael and a few others have jumped in today so
877. 01:15:53 very thank very big thank you to those of you who have done that I know it was short notice that we
878. 01:15:58 recorded the day because we're doing this one is kind of a fast turnaround given our our gap last
879. 01:16:03 time around but if you haven't already another place that you can get connected to us is on
880. 01:16:10 the bookworm club so club.bookworm.fm and inside of that club there is a way to join our membership
881. 01:16:18 and you can get the shortcut to get there is bookworm.fm/membership and when you do that it's five bucks a
882. 01:16:24 month helps us keep the lights on here helps us buy our books but you also get some cool perks
883. 01:16:28 with that you get an awesome background that Mike put together you get Mike's mine node files and
884. 01:16:34 all the notes that he's taken on that as well some old gap book episodes that I've recorded in the
885. 01:16:39 past so there's just a lot of cool stuff going on there and we'd love to have you join that so
886. 01:16:44 again that's bookworm.fm/membership all right if you are reading along with us pick up creative
887. 01:16:52 calling by Chase Jarvis and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.