Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #183 How To Achieve Your Goals Effortlessly with Greg McKeown

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

We’ve been conditioned to believe that the path to success is paved with relentless work. The more important the goal, the harder we have to grind. That if we aren’t perpetually exhausted, we’re not doing enough. Now, working hard is more exhausting than ever and many of us are stuck in an endless loop of “Zoom, eat, sleep, repeat” and we’re often working twice as hard to achieve half as much. This week, I’m joined by writer, speaker and podcast host, Greg McKeown who believes that getting ahead doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it. In his new book, Effortless: Make It Easier To Do What Matters Most, Greg explains that no matter what challenges or obstacles we face, there is a better way: instead of pushing ourselves harder, we can find an easier path. And that it's absolutely vital that we find it so that we can fulfil the most important missions of our lives. This conversation is full of relatable anecdotes and actionable advice for making the most essential activities in your life the easiest ones, so you can achieve the results you want, without burning out. There is so much freedom to be gained from Greg’s advice and I’m sure your life will be better for hearing it. Thanks to our sponsors: http://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/livemore http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/183 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

People just believe the essential stuff is the hard stuff, the trivial stuff is the easy stuff, and those are your options. Is it not possible there's a third alternative? What would it mean if you could find a way to make the most essential things in your life the easiest things? Let's not distrust the easy. There really is an easier, better way, and it's absolutely vital that we find it so that we can fulfil the most important missions of our lives. Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. Do you feel chronically busy as though there's always something else that you need to do? Do you feel as though you are always rushing around and that your to-do list is never done?

Well, this problem of busyness, stress and overwhelm seems to be endemic in modern society and many of us feel trapped, as if we have no way out. Well, this week's guest believes that things do not need to be like this and that there are simple solutions we can all adopt in our lives to help. He is none other than the author and podcast host, Greg McKeown, who believes that getting ahead doesn't have to be as hard as we make it. Now, a few years back, he wrote a brilliant book called Essentialism. And this is a book that really hit the zeitgeist and took the world by storm. It has already sold over 1 million

copies and really started off this global movement for people to identify what is truly essential in their lives. Now, in his new and latest book, Effortless, Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most, he takes this idea one step further by trying to question the common narrative that doing something worthwhile has to be and feel hard. He's trying to help us find a way to make the essential things in our life effortless. You see, Greg explains that no matter what challenges or obstacles we face, there is a better way. Instead of pushing ourselves harder, we can find an easier path and that it's absolutely vital that we find it so we can fulfill the most important missions in our lives, whether that be in our personal lives or our professional ones. You see, we've been

conditioned to believe that the path to success is paved with relentless work. The more important the goal, the harder we have to grind. That if we aren't perpetually exhausted, we're not doing enough. And many of us feel knackered and feel stuck in this kind of endless loop of Zoom, eat, sleep, repeat. And we're often working twice as hard to achieve half as much. This conversation is full of relatable anecdotes and actionable advice for making the most essential activities in your life the easiest ones, so you can achieve the results you want without burning out. There is so much freedom to be gained from Greg's advice, and I am sure that your life will be all the better for hearing it.

And now, my conversation with Greg McKeown on how to make the essential things in our life feel effortless. So Greg, I thought we'd start with a tweet I saw on your timeline just a few weeks ago. There are two types of people in the world, those who are burnt out and those who don't know they're burnt out. Yeah, I mean, really, this is it. You want to be in the category of knowing about it because one of the interesting things I came across in my research for the new book is that as people approach burnout, they become less aware of it

because the things that burnout leads you to being a bit cluttered, a bit foggy in your thinking across your whole life, well, it includes your thinking about your self-awareness. So as people get close to burnout, they often double down on the things that have led to burnout in the first place. They think, well, things aren't going the way I want them to go. I better double down. I better work even harder, even longer, even more Zoom meetings, even more relentlessly. And so it just produces more and more of the same. And right now, I mean, everywhere I go, everyone I'm talking to, this is what the underlying message is. Everyone's burned out. Of course, the last 12, 14 months or so have been a very unique time. A lot of unique pressures

have been put upon us by factors outside our control. And I think a lot of those natural release mechanisms that we had in the past, seeing friends going out, socializing, going to concerts. Obviously, they've not been possible for many people, depending on where you live in the world, which has clearly made this more of a problem. But on the topic of burnout, there's something about the societal narrative and the societal norm, I think, that really feeds into this. And you beautifully encapsulate that on page seven of your new book. And if you don't mind, I'd just love to read out a few lines, which I think are really relevant. Strangely, some of us respond to feeling exhausted

and overwhelmed by vowing to work even harder and longer. It doesn't help that our culture glorifies burnout as a measure of success and self-worth. The implicit message is that if we aren't perpetually exhausted, we must not be doing enough. Greg, I think that says it all. There's this constant pressure. It's almost like a monkey on your back. If you stop, if you want to just chill out and smell the roses, listen to the birds, there's something at the back of you. I don't know if it's modern technology, but there's something that's constantly talking to us saying, no, you shouldn't stop. You should be doing more. And of course, that's leading to burnout, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you said succinctly, burnout is not a badge of honor.

It's something we have got to, maybe we can't take responsibility for the whole society, but individually, we can say, look, I'm done playing that game. We've been sold a bill of goods. And it's time to take responsibility for this and to recognize that we can protect the asset, that we need to protect the asset that is us, that we need to be careful not to just thoughtlessly get into these Zoom, eat, sleep, repeat cycles cycles where people barely know even what day it is uh where they just you know it is literally endless days just seem to flow into each other and there's no sense of of boundaries whatever boundaries existed before the pandemic and i don't think there were many boundaries there dividing work and personal life and health. But whatever they were,

now I think they're completely obliterated. And this is why people say, well, I'm not working from home, I'm living at work. That tells you where things were, where the balance of power was before. And it's just accelerated now. So we have to do some things to try to avoid this just burnout as a lifestyle that we can reclaim our life, take our life back and say, let's say, for example, let's start with having a done for the day list where you say, I'm not just going to have an endless to-do list. endless to-do list. And I'm not going to have my inbox be my default to-do list so that, again, it just is perpetually flowing to us. I'm actually going to make a list at the beginning of the day. These are the things that really matter today. And when I'm done with them, I'm done. I'm not going to carry on after that. I'm going to create space after it to relax, to recuperate, so that I can slingshot into the next day and feel that energy because we've got a good rhythm of life going on.

The done for the day list is one of those super practical, but very simple tips that you write about. And it's almost deceptive in its simplicity, isn't it? I mean, it's kind of, it's like a lot of truths are kind of obvious afterwards, but they're not obvious until you've thought about it and done it. So is that something you do on a daily basis? Do you have a done for today list? And what impact has that had on your life? today list and what impact has that had on your life? Yeah, I want to do it every day, but I don't do it every day yet. And I noticed there's a real difference in my experience when I do and when I don't. So when I do it, first of all, you have to be thoughtful about your day. It forces, it's a forcing function because you say, well, there's so many things I'd like to achieve.

This isn't, the list cannot be everything you wish could be done today. So you have to really be thoughtful and say, well, which are the things that would be most satisfying? So if I get even three of these things of my bigger list done, I would go, yeah, that was three important things got done today. That's the first difference is that I'm being more intentional and designful going into the day. The second thing I noticed that's different is the experience of the day is different. So yes, you still have all the same inputs coming in, but instead of just reacting to all of it, you do feel, I feel calmer as I'm going through it. It's easier for me, a little easier for me to navigate all of those different responsibilities. When I don't do it, the default is living in the inbox. The default is just reacting to all these things going on.

And so the experience of life deteriorates. It becomes more frenetic and frantic. And so I'm on my way. I'm definitely a work in progress. Everything in essentialism and everything in effortless that I violate sometimes and plenty of times. So I feel like I am on this ongoing journey. I'm in it with everyone else to just try and figure out how to make life a little easier, especially how to make the things that matter most a little easier. Yeah. I guess one of the reasons that a done for the day list is so important is because our to-do lists are never, ever done. I mean, even as you complete your final task of the day,

you could always get another email from somewhere on the planet on someone else's time zone that you have no control over. So unless you define it, you're always going to feel as though you're missing out. You've still got something left to do. And I think, Greg, I really want to start from the beginning, because I think a lot of my audience may not be familiar with your work, because these two books are just beautiful companions. I didn't even know the first one needed a companion until the second one came. I thought that was a complete work, actually. But we're in my brand new podcast studio that I hope to have a lot more face-to-face conversations in very soon. And there's two quotes that I'm getting put up on the wall.

One is a Viktor Frankl quote that I love. The other quote that's arriving on Friday, which will be on the wall, is one of yours. If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. That just hits me right in the core of who I am every time I look at it, every time I read it. And I think in some ways, it kind of summarizes all your work in just those few words. It's about living that intentional life that you thought about and that you're then putting into practice. Well, it's a high compliment that you're putting putting it on the on the wall and uh and and of course i'm i'm seeking to live that myself as well and struggling along with the with the rest of us you know that that lesson grew out of um you know one of my many uh errors in this journey

the i received an email from my boss at the time that said Friday between 1 and 2 p.m. would be a very bad time for your wife to have a baby because I need to be at this client meeting. And I go to the hospital where our daughter is born in the early hours of Friday morning. And instead of being focused on what was the most essential thing that was happening that day, the clear priority, I was feeling torn. I had my laptop out, had my phone out, and I'm trying to keep everybody happy and all these different requests. And to my shame, I went to the meeting. and to my shame, I went to the meeting. I was picked up from the hospital by my manager and taken to the meeting.

So get there, go through the meeting. Afterwards, they said, look, the client will respect you for the choice you just made. And the look on their faces didn't evince that sort of respect. But even if they had, it's clear that I made a fool's bargain, that I violated something much more important for something much less important. And that's where that simple lesson came from, as you said it. If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. your life, someone else will. And that really set me off on a quest to understand better, why is it that we make the decisions we do? And I have found, even before the pandemic,

found that people were feeling stretched too thin at work or at home, that they felt busy, but not necessarily productive, and that they lived in this sense of felt busy, but not necessarily productive, and that they lived in this sense of the day being hijacked by other people's agenda for them. And so essentialism grew out of this research. And if you had to summarize it in one word, it's prioritization. It's taking responsibility for that. And then effortless grew out of other experiences. And if you had to summarize that in one word, it's simplification. And so I think you can read either book separately and have some value in it, I hope. And this is a very presumptuous metaphor to use, but it's a little like sort of Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It's like, yeah, they both made music separately, but the magic was when they made music together in the Beatles. And, and I hope at least there's some kind of multiplication effect between these

two books that as people, people, you know, prioritize and simplify that they can create a different kind of experience, a different way of living. And that's certainly what I'm personally striving for in my life. If we go back to that moment on that Friday, right? You know, it's many years ago now. But on that day, look, I didn't know you back then. But on that day, look, I didn't know you back then, but I imagine that you were a loving husband who dearly loved his wife, as you do now. I imagine that you were a conscientious colleague, worker in your job, like many of us feel. Yet on that day, despite your love for your wife, despite your desire to be in the hospital,

you made a different decision. You know, what's going on there? What is the trap that you fell into that so many of us also fall into? I think, yeah, I don't think it's primarily a motivation problem. Yes, Anna's the most amazing person to be. I love being married. I love her. Of course, I want to prioritize her. moment is itself um sort of unparalleled experience uh you know your love for that child is is you know you have that instant sensation of like i would do you know you wouldn't even think twice of putting giving up your life for their life i mean that's that those are all real the challenge i think is is to treat competing priorities as somehow equally valuable. It's where you start to say it's all essential, it's all important, it's all a priority. I mean, this is one of my favorite tidbits of research, but the word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. And according to Peter Drucker, it stayed singular for the next 500 years. So it wasn't

until the Industrial Revolution where people started speaking with no sense of irony at all, saying, here are my 34 priorities. And they all have to be done now or even yesterday. And so that shift in our language, I think, illustrates a weakness in our thinking, in our logic that says, look, if I can just fit it all in, somehow I can have it all. You know, if everything is, if I treat everything as important, then it will all work out. And in fact, life isn't even close to close to you know that doesn't approximate reality at all uh that what is far closer to reality is that a few things are essential and almost everything is trivial noise and so it's more like uh waking up you know you you've you've spent your whole life thinking you were in a um and i don't say this in any way disparaging,

but you think you're in a coal mine and you've lived your life in that way. It's just productivity, get more stuff done. And then you wake up and you say, I've never been in a coal mine. It's all the time it's been a diamond mine. And so actually my whole job is different than I thought it was. The whole job of life is different. It is to actually explore what is essential. Find those diamonds. That's the most important thing. All the rest doesn't matter. Find those things, invest in them, protect those things. And we know that this approximates reality because when people look from anything like a long-term perspective, they recognize that only a few things matter. At the very end of people's lives, when they're looking at the totality of their life, they don't say, oh, my goodness, I wish I'd spent more time on email. Oh, I wish I'd spent more time on social media and so on.

No one thinks that. No one says that. They can see with a bit more perspective a few things mattered. And I lost that perspective in that moment in an attempt to try and just keep everyone happy and deal with all those pressures. So it's the job of life is to figure out the essential few, to eliminate the non-essential, and then to make it and design it so that the essential things happen as automatically and as easily as possible, so that you don't have to use extraordinary or

superhuman effort to make sure you remember the essential things and do them. You want the default to be the essential things. As I think about your work, and you know, I see, where do I see people commenting on this on social media? A lot of it has been people in the business world or the productivity world. But I actually think your work goes far beyond that, because what you're asking, what you're writing about are fundamentally existential human questions. And actually, I think there's almost a spiritual undertone. I think that on one level, you need self-awareness to be able to apply the principles in your books. But at the same time, I think simply by applying those principles in your life is going to give you a lot of self-awareness. So I think it works both ways.

And I really strongly feel this. This is not just for successful entrepreneurs who want a better work-life balance well i think it has relevance for everyone so i'd love your perspective on that well i don't feel like either books um i'm asking a business question i'm asking a human question. And I also think those human questions are relevant to businesses because all businesses are just humans trying to figure out how to serve other humans. So, you know, it applies there as well. think it really is human first questions, as you say. And I actually do think that a deeper reading of essentialism and effortless is about your spiritual life and about what is guiding you. As a friend of mine put it, are you being led by your scared self or your sacred self? The scared self will tend to operate in a certain way, endlessly the fear of missing out and what other people are doing and competing and comparing and living in that state. But the sacred self will guide you differently.

And so asking better questions will help reveal better answers. better questions will help reveal better answers. I'm thinking now of somebody, of a working mom in England who reached out to tell me her story. So she, after reading some of the stuff I'd written, started asking this question every day. What is the most important thing I need to do today? That's a simple question. But she asked it every day. She wrote it up and she asked it every day. At first, the answers she got were to do with the business that she was trying to run. Which key client to work with, what project was due, and so on. But over time, the answers evolved, the she evolved. And it became, well, self-care. You know, you actually need to sleep better because you're not sleeping enough. You're not protecting yourself. You are burning yourself out. He said, look, nothing to alarm you here. Mom's in the hospital again.

It's nothing serious. Just wanted to keep you in the loop. And she said in that moment, she asked the question that day. She knew exactly what the answer was. It was so clear to her. It was almost like time stood still. And she remembers the weather and the room she was in. And she just knew she had to go to the hospital that day that was the priority

yeah and so she did now that's like a two-hour drive so she's really committing the rest of the day to this it's not completely trivial i'll just go across the street the 10 minutes thing and she goes and she sees her mom she says mom i love you i'm glad to be here. Mother says, Oh, you know, I love you too. An hour after that conversation, her mother falls into a coma and very unfortunately never recovers from that. You know, a year, I mean, a week later, excuse me. Joe has the unfortunate job of turning off the life support machine. And she reached out to me, just wrote to me to tell the story, because she said, if I had not been an essentialist that day, how differently things would have worked out.

I wouldn't have had that moment. I would have missed that and for something inane. And so that was, to me, a very encouraging moment, because I felt like, well, I can't change the hospital moment, but for her, she was able to make a better trade-off. As people ask better questions, as they change and evolve, the answers will change and evolve. I do think that essentialism and now effortless can help people go in different levels when they're ready, as they're ready. And that's what I'm going for. It's beyond just business. I guess it's like any skill, the more you do it, especially if you're intentional each time you do

it, you're getting better at it. So the question you may ask yourself on Monday of, I don't know, the first Monday of 2020, the first Monday of 2021, you are going to be a much better skilled person at answering that same question if you've been practicing it. So, I mean, obviously, Greg, you have written these two wonderful books. what is the most essential thing for you to do in any given day? I mean, that does change from day to day, because what matters is what's important now. And that's a nice acronym, I think, you know, the acronym is WIN. You know, you've got to win this day. And that means getting clear each day. And it does change depending on the circumstances. I mean, today in this conversation, the most important thing today is my relationship with my wife, Anna.

You know, like that. And maybe that should be true every day, but it feels true today. There's lots of things going on and making sure that today I actually create enough space for us to go on a walk. We don't do that every day. Sometimes through the pandemic, we got to the point where it was pretty much every day and it really mattered. No agenda, just listening, sharing, talking. And that became a really important practice. But when that isn't happening every day, it doesn't work as well. And so to me, that would be the priority today. So that, again, doesn't mean that it's the only thing you do today or the only thing I need to do. It's not my only responsibility. But knowing that at the

beginning of the day means that I can try to design the day differently. When the trade-offs come up, I can make the trade-offs differently. And so that would be, you know, that would be my answer today. It's not, that isn't the answer every day, but it is today. What I love about that answer, Greg, is there's a flexibility within it. There's not this kind of rigidity that we can then feel chained to that answer oh i said the most essential thing was for me to meditate for 20 minutes every day but today i don't have time and i can't do it you know it's i think sometimes when we are trying to better our lives and better ourselves we can go to these extremes i certainly know i've been guilty of

that in the past and it's something i feel i'm sort of evolving in my own practice of prioritization, of essentialism, of self-care. It's actually, you know what, I feel I can change things from day to day depending on what my needs are on any given day. So I really like that flexibility that's sort of built into the way you answered that. ability that sort of built into the way you answered that? Well, I've been on this seven year listening tour. It's been the most extraordinary opportunity to listen to people, you know, literally the world over talk to me about what is essential for them and what the challenges are for them to live that in practice. And one of the things that has been like an endless theme is the assumption that the essential things have, like not even have to be, the essential things are the very hardest things to do. I've found that a little confusing at times, especially when I've heard it so often. Because what it feels like people are doing is they're taking essentialism and they're saying, well, I need to be a perfectionist about it.

And I'm like, well, that doesn't sound like a very essentialist way to become essentialist. But it's like they've got this new language, this new, relatively new idea to them. And then they're bringing a bunch of old ideas to how to change to it. In fact, one person told me one day, they said, I loved essentialism, but it should come with a warning. This will be the hardest thing that you will ever do. And it really, especially in hindsight, I listened to that and I think, that just means we're going about it wrong. There's a different way to do this. So even after somebody says, I'm really committed now to pursue what matters most in my life, you've got to, it's literally now, I see it as equally important to say, well,

what's the right way to do it? If you try to do the essential things, the right things, but do them in the wrong way, you'll still be burned out. In fact, you'll still be discouraged and maybe even more discouraged than before, because you're so aware of all the gap between where you are, where you want to be and what's essential and what's not essential. aware of all the gap between where you are, where you want to be, and what's essential and what's not essential. And so when I now think about essentialism, I'm thinking of it as a lifestyle, a way of living, a way of being. And so the way we do it really matters. And being careful not to beat ourselves up because we haven't achieved some idealistic state that we've identified for ourself immediately. It is important. The courage to be rubbish, for example, is something that I now hold as quite sacred in its own right. The idea of like, oh, I'm going to be an essentialist in some

mistake-free way. I'm going to just be perfect at this. What a nonsense, what an unhelpful idea what a way to to to exhaust yourself depress yourself even in the act of trying to be better and so if you can if you can get out of that and say how can how could it be easier is there a gentler way to pursue the things that are essential? What if I could get out of the no pain, no gain mantra? That idea that you prioritize what's important in your life, but you're going about it the wrong way. I think it's very novel. It's very fresh. It's one of the core ideas, I think, that certainly I gleaned from your new book, Effortless, is that the way you do it is just as important as the prioritization. Do you hear that this gets misunderstood? And have you got any examples of people who have prioritized, but they've gone about their priority in the

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forward slash live more. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. When I say it's what I hear from people, I don't mean like, oh, every so often I hear it from people. I hear it all the time. Absolutely all the time, but not in the way it might sound like I'm saying. It's not like people explicitly just say, yes, I tried to prioritize, but I'm doing it the wrong way, or I tried to prioritize and it's just so hard. It's not even that. It's like this. It's like I just started a new, asked to be on a committee, and the person who was initiating this group said, is that concluding speech as they were launching this thing, they just said, now this is so important what we're doing. This could help millions of youth around the world. This could just be so beneficial. It's going to be hard. I mean, it's going to be really hard,

but it's going to be worth it. And no one challenged it. Nobody said anything about it. I've heard those speeches and conversations like it everywhere. It's everywhere. It's embedded as a dominant assumption that's just invisible to people. People just believe the essential stuff is the hard stuff. The trivial stuff is the easy stuff. And those are your options. Just talking to somebody who's trained in the military, I mean, this yesterday or day before. And when he was being trained in the military, one of his, you know, leaders said to him, listen, you know, you can either do it the easy way which is the wrong way or you can do it the hard way and that's the right way it was like these two options where it's a false dichotomy

of course there are times that the right way is the hard way the easy way is that is the wrong way of course that can be. But is it not possible there's a third alternative? What would it mean? What would it mean if you could find a way to make the most essential things in your life the easiest things? Or at least just so much more doable than they were in the past? The consequence would change everything it does change everything because suddenly you can suddenly you'll do it and you'll do it consistently because it isn't so it isn't so costly to take that path yeah i mean not not only is it going to be more enjoyable to experience life on a day-to-day basis if it feels easy or effortless. But it's

also going to be more effective. I know we have a mutual friend in BJ Fogg. I know BJ was on your podcast recently. And, you know, me and BJ have had multiple conversations about this, about, you know, you make something easy, people will do it. So in terms of habit change, we want to make things that we want to do easy. And you were kind of saying a very similar thing in a slightly different arena that whatever the essential thing is in your life, if you can make it easier and feel effortless, it's much more likely that you're going to do the thing that you've already identified is the priority thing for you to do. Totally. What happens is that people identify what is essential. Most people have a sense at least, even if they haven't been very

clear about it, and maybe they ought to be, but they have a sense of the things that are really important that they're not getting to. And they just are in this endless loop. They just think about that essential thing. They feel guilty about it. It overwhelms them. So then they just jump into the dark playground of social media, of TV, of something else that's trivial and appears easy to them. And they just jump back and forth between those two things. They intermittently do the thing that's essential. It's too hard. It's too much. It just exhausts them. It overwhelms them. And then they jump back into something else. And this can happen sometimes, multiple times on the same day. But often what I find is that people just, they start to, and it reinforces, by the way,

the sensation, the belief rather, that the essential thing must be incredibly hard because why else aren't I doing it? Exercise must be hard. How many people have I talked to about exercise who are like, I tried to take up running and every so often I go back to it. Well, do you love running? No, I hate running. I hate it, but I have to do it. Why don't we just find a different way? What there's something else that you you like do you like swimming oh i like well let's do that then like let's find a you know let's not distrust the easy you're you're you you this idea of effortless and that the things that we love the things that we want to do can feel easy and effortless really is a narrative that is swimming against the tide of the common, popular, I was going to say Western narrative, but I think it's everywhere. That narrative that

anything good has to be hard. What is it? Nothing good comes easy. You'll never get anywhere in life if you don't work hard. We're sort of surrounded by this. I mean, you've got kids. Your kids are a bit older than my kids. Mine are currently sort of 10 and 8. But even at that age, you see this kind of narrative being, I don't think with any malice. I think everyone feels that that's the way to succeed in life. You have to work hard. And I'm not sure you're not saying you don't need to work hard. In fact, what are you saying? For

people who might sort of misinterpret that, what are you saying? Because you're not saying never work hard, are you? Well, I believe in work. And I have four children aged 18 to 12. believe in work. And I have four children aged 18 to 12. And of course, we want them to work. We want them to be productive. We want them to take initiative. We value that. We don't want them to be spoiled. All of those things are real. And our children have many responsibilities in our home. But let's give an example. So, you know, we have a whole series of rituals around eating together, not maybe every night, but most nights. And so we'll, we'll like, you know, we'll, we'll raise a glass to each other kind of experience. We'll,

we'll cheer each other on a lot of fun in those conversations, but our trouble happens afterwards, which is the dinner cleanup. Well, what do you do now? That my children are just like, silent ninjas. They're just gone. I turn around and all four of them have like quietly slipped off to a room to whatever. And then my job is cat and mouse, trying to get them back to do the cleanup. And so basically this is a chore. Now, how do you handle that? What do you do? You can say, well, look, you know, life is hard. And you just have to do the hard things. And that's one approach. And that is a speech that I have definitely had. But what if you could change the experience? What if you could turn it into a ritual? A ritual is a

little different than a habit. A ritual is like a habit with a soul. A habit is like what you do. A ritual is how you do it. And so we said, okay, first I said, well, we'll try and make it effortless by dividing up responsibilities really clearly. What does done look like for the cleanup of the kitchen? Okay, that matters. Dividing up roles and responsibilities. Who is doing what? That mattered.

But really, it wasn't until one of my children, my eldest daughter, added music. She just put on basically karaoke music loud in the kitchen. And that just was like the tipping point moment. So as soon as we, and even now, if we forget that ingredient, it just is back to drudgery. It's back to like, yeah, well, you know, it's important, but it's hard. And if as soon as someone puts on the right music it just changes it you start someone starts singing someone starts and and the feeling changes and people want to be there and they want to be part of the little party and and the work gets done that to me is an illustration of the of the difference here so what if you didn't just have to endure the essentials oh it's just harder just

push and so on and relentless what if you could enjoy it what if you can make it into something that the experience of life is better then the important things get done and you you you've built relationships rather than burned them down a bit yeah it reminds me of um one of the things i'd love to do on sunday afternoons at the moment which is make butternut squash soup. Now it's just, it's something my, my wife taught me her recipe a few months ago. I love making it. I love the process, but what happens on a Sunday afternoon is that I'm like, okay, cool. This is going to take a couple of hours from start to finish. And so I will put on one of my favorite CDs. I'm still pretty old school. I've got a CD player. I choose an

album that I really want to listen to. I put it on, I clean up the kitchen. I, you know, I sort of go through the various stages, put the butternut squash in the oven, get everything. And I, I, I, I love those two hours. Those two hours on a Sunday have been transformed. Now I could have looked at it, oh man, I've got to cook this for the family. I've got to prepare it. What a hassle. But actually, oh, I get to actually enjoy one of my favorite albums every Sunday afternoon in peace. And I get to see, and it's the same thing. It's like you guys clearing up after dinner. It's the same, you know, technical thing that you're doing, but the flavor of that experience is completely different.

Listening to you share that, the way that you're, like your body language, the energy talking about it, you are literally describing a ritual. Like I can, I know that you get it in that experience. I know that you get it in that experience. It's not duty. Yeah, there's a duty to it. You're cooking for your family. You're cooking something healthy for them. Like, of course, it's essential in that sense.

But the experience has changed. It's something you look forward to doing. It's something you want to do now. It's part of a routine that actually, you know, the experience of doing it's something you want to do now it's part of a routine that actually you know the experience of doing it gives to you it's not just the output the experience itself is better you're you're reduced the space between the lag indicator the thing you want and the experience itself if you can reduce that space then you then you're just you're far more likely to continue doing it yeah you know, week in and week out. And what a difference that is, if you can be consistent in it, what a difference that makes to the family culture, you know, once you've done it 10 times, 100 times, this becomes part of their

experience, the children growing up, seeing you doing it, seeing you enjoying it, and learning that lesson too. I love it. As a medical doctor, I think about your work, Greg, and I feel it has incredible relevance to health. Even though that may not be explicitly obvious from the outside to some people, I think there is such relevance to health because there is no question in my mind that stress is the number one factor that drives people in to see me. In some ways, stress is related to a good 90%, 80 to 90% of what I see. You can make a case that stress is impacting people's health, their wellbeing, so they end up at my door, whether that's anxiety, mood problems, insomnia, feeling low about their life, relationship problems.

I actually genuinely believe and have seen that if people can apply these principles to prioritize their life, I think the benefits are incredible. Yes, for their productivity. Yes, for their relationships, but also for their health. Is this something that you've been asked about a lot? Have you seen the impact on people's health? And, you know, I'm just interested, is this, is this being reported back to you as well? Because this, this is not just about productivity. No way. Yeah. I actually don't even think about what I do as productivity at all. Sometimes it's put in that category. Amazon will put it in that category, and I have no control over that. And it's not like I lose a lot of sleep over that or anything, but I just don't

think about this work that way. You know, essentialism is about not doing more things. That's productivity. It's about doing more of the right things. And effortless is about doing them in the right way so that you can create an experience in life, a lifestyle that really works for you. I got a note from someone who'd read my stuff and she sent a photograph of herself before and after.

I'd actually never seen anyone do this because, again, it's not like a weight looked like on death's door i can't really even do this justice without just having it shown maybe maybe you put it in the show notes or something like but we can do for sure yeah perfect we'll do it the before and after of her of like it's a like a different person and and so that's you know i'm writing for her yeah i'm writing for somebody um who who's just you know they're highly engaged they're motivated they want to work it's not those aren't the issues It's just that they've thought that life has to be done a certain way. Another story, a woman who is a manager at a university, at Brigham Young University, and she is the type of person who's up till 4 a.m. in the morning, photoshopping for her youth class at church the next day. She feels guilty if she eats lunch, not if she takes time away for lunch. If she even eats it,

she feels guilty. But she definitely believes and wrote to me to say so that she feels if she's not exhausted, she is not doing enough. And so I was trying to work out, look, how to help her? What can I do? What's the path forward? Because again, you don't want to give a prescription that's so overwhelming that you add to the problem. As I say, look, what I want you to do is basically invert your whole life using one question. Don't worry about all the hundreds of things you could do or maybe do just one thing, a question, a new question. I said, just ask. The next time someone asks you to do something, the next time you take on a project, just say, how could this be effortless? What is the simplest way to do this? What if I stripped away any sort of extra expectations I'm putting on it? What would it look like? So she gets a call from a university professor, says,

I'd love you to get your videography team to come here and record my class for the semester. And she is just ready to jump in. I mean, she is such a well-oiled machine with this. She's ready to overachieve, over-engineer it, make it happen. I'm going to wow him. That's his, that's sort of what she's thinking. I'm going to get my whole team of people there. We'll have multiple camera angles. We'll edit the whole thing together. We'll have music. We'll have graphics spliced into the whole video. Every time we'll have intros, outros, all of it. And then she remembers, okay, the coaching, invert, always invert. Let's have a new question. Okay, how could this be effortless? So she starts talking to him about it. What's the easiest solution to this? It turns out it's for one student who's going to miss a few classes for athletic commitments. So the solution they come up with together is that another student in the class will just video it on their phone and just send it to them on whatever class they happen to miss. The professor had not thought of that solution and was delighted to come

up with something that was so easy for him to have to navigate. He doesn't want to have to coordinate with a whole videography team. He just wants to solve this problem. And so he's happy. And she gets off the phone. It's been a 10-minute conversation that saved her four months of headache. And that was like a game changer for her. She said, what if I've just, what if it's not a motive problem? What if it's not a work ethic problem? I've just, what if it's not a motive problem? What if it's not a work ethic problem? What if it's just a mindset problem?

I'm just overcomplicating, overthinking, being too much of a perfectionist. And this is producing stress to a level that is affecting the whole experience and health of my life. That question, what would it look like if it was effortless? But also it's that earlier question about, what would it look like if it was effortless? But also, it's that earlier question about, you know, what does done look like, right? Because by really intentionally understanding, well, what is the goal of this project? What problem does it need to solve? Then you find that actually to solve that problem actually doesn't need five camera angles and multiple edits. It's just an iPhone recording it.

You've told a similar story or similar principles about, I think, was it your son in Scouts? I wonder if you could share that story. different settings really just highlights the point that I would love to get across in this conversation that this material is essential for everybody. It doesn't matter who you are, what you do in your life, what you do in your job, these principles that you write so beautifully about will absolutely help you. The story of my son is that he'd set a big goal. the story of my son is that he'd set a big goal. 12 years old, he came to me, said he wants to do scouting and he wants to get his Eagle Scout by the time he turns 14,

which is, you know, normally your goal is by the time you turn 18, you have to do it literally by your 18th birthday or they won't. It's just like a hundred, but no, no, zero tolerance after that, that time. But he set the goal and so we started working on it together uh you know the whole experience was pretty good positive experience

um and good excuse to spend time together everything was going pretty much according to plan including the final big project that you do he he got a whole group of people to help him build 180 foot fence, paint it, do it in sort of one big day together. It was like fun experience. There was one final thing to do, and that is to write up the report about the final project. And that doesn't sound like such a big thing, but I personally know of someone who did everything but that final report. And eventually, years after they'd completed it, everything else in the program tried to hand it in a day after their 18th birthday, and they didn't get their Eagle.

So they didn't get the Eagle Scout. They didn't complete it because they didn't get that final thing over the line. And we started being like those people. I mean, it's like, first it's days where we're just going to get this little, you know, this report done. And then it became, you know, weeks. And we start moving into months. And I got them together. I said, okay, listen, why is this taking us so long? Why is it taking you so long? Why is it taking me, you know, long to help you? What's going on? And we just realized that we just, we were just overcomplicating it all. We had seen ourselves other examples of people who had built the most spectacular final reports,

you know, in wooden boxes, carved and beautifully designed. And I might say it this way, sort of parent projects rather than the scout projects seemed at play. But there's like 100 hours of work, some of these things. And they're amazing, yes. But we said, well, what does done look like for us? Well, it just means we have taken this to the scout office and they have stamped approval. What are the minimum steps to completion? What's the minimum we need to do to get this job done? We need a small three-page essay. It doesn't have to be 20 pages. It's three pages. That is what the requirement is. So do the requirement. That is what the requirement is. So do the requirement. OK, we need to put a few photographs in there and write down. We don't need an essay about all of them.

Just a little one-liner from him for every picture. What's the very first obvious step we can take? Instead of worrying about the 100th step, what's the very first one? Get a binder. I mean, drive to the shops and buy a binder. That is the first thing we can do. And as soon as we started asking these different questions, the action just became, it's like a physical change in you. When you know what the next action is and it's doable, your whole body changes. It's like,

yeah, I can do that. We can do that. We can go to the shops right now and we can buy that. And we did. Okay, what's the very next step? Well, we can select a few photographs that were taken on the day on the phone. And so it got done after that really fast within the next week. Handed off and completed. And he was able to get his eagle one week before his 14th birthday. So it worked. But it didn't work because we tried to go the second mile on everything. We just said, we're just going to do the first mile,

and we're going to do it. And my life has been, so many of the mistakes I've made in my life have been not because I didn't try, but because I was trying too hard, because I was trying to go the second mile and I hadn't gone the first. And so that's where I think perfectionism really can hinder our ability to start projects and our ability to finish them, because we're just adding on stuff that no one is actually asking for, that nobody needs us to do. That's kind of the key there, Greg, isn't it? It's not that you're saying never go the extra mile. What I hear is you're saying, go the extra mile when it

matters, when you've identified that it really matters to you for what you're trying to do. But when it doesn't matter, don't waste your energy, your cognitive loads. You know, because I think people could misinterpret this potentially and say, well, I'm not going to work hard anymore. I'm only going to do the minimum that I ever need to do, which is, of course, not how we want to bring up our children. It's not how we want to, the message we want to give in society. So how do you, how do you help people find that sort of middle lane between those two extremes? Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life

that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour. And I can't wait to see you there.

This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve our relationships. There are of course many different ways to journal and as with most things it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal. In, you will find a really simple and structured way

of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages

from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three-question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. Well, I think that, again, this is about making the essential things easier. That alone gets you closer to the middle lane. It's not just about living an easy life.

It's not about just being lazy. It's about saying, what is the right and best way to do the work that you came here to do because you don't want to get to the end of your life and realize that you you know you you you were so focused on on going the extra mile on the stuff that didn't matter or or you i'll give you i'll give you actually i i've got to do this i've got to put all of this i probably should have said it earlier but just the the sort of the the core story behind why effortless, how I came to this. We had moved, a family and I had moved into an idyllic new community and it was just lovely, right? It's like white picket fences, it's horse, you know, lots of horse ways, more horse ways than roads, there's no street lamps. I mean, it's all just this lovely place and our children were

just thriving uh just very happy uh playing for hours outside with the you know with our dog um go play tennis together we're making memories go on walks and we just really like great and one of my daughters eve especially seemed to thrive uh so she is, she's always up trees. She's out naming the chickens. You know, yep, we have chickens. She is, she's reading voluminously, you know, literally, you know, scores of books, probably hundreds by this point. And, and just so talkative as well we i took her on a trip with me one time after like an hour uh i texted my wife i was like she has not stopped talking for an hour she cannot stay cross if she if she just she even tries to just burst out laughing this is eve until she turned 14 and she when she 14, she just seemed to take longer doing

the work that she was assigned to do. She was talking less towards fewer words when we asked her questions, a little physically awkward. We just well, it sort of sounds pretty age-appropriate behavior, like, you know, no big deal. And then on a routine physical therapy appointment, the physical therapist, Rod Shorey, just pulled my wife aside and said, I don't mean to alarm you, but she failed a reflex test. And so you may want to go see a neurologist because this really shouldn't have happened. And so we didn't have to be warned twice. I mean, the moment he said it, both of us,

Anna called me and she was already upset. Like, yeah, we got it. We're like, this behavior we've seen could easily be part of a more serious condition. And as soon as we saw it through that lens, we were like, yeah, okay, we're taking this very seriously right now. So we went to see a neurologist and what followed was not only were we seeing it differently, she was changing, her behavior was changing, and there was like a free fall in human capability. Her ability to speak,

she would now literally speak in just one word answers to anything. Her emotions just disappeared. emotions kind of just disappeared so personality as was gone uh it takes her two full minutes to write her own name i remember literally videoing it as she tried to write the last three letters of mckeown and it took her 45 seconds right hand side of her body is going far slower than the left. And we just watched as her light just dims and then goes out altogether. We are, meanwhile, visiting with various neurologists. And I remember one of them, 35 years in urology, he just shrugs his shoulders. He's like, I have no idea. I just have nothing to tell you. Every test is coming back within the normal range. I just don't know. And in the midst of this, which I can say is a recipe for human suffering, we suddenly became aware that we didn't just have one path ahead of us,

the path of suffering. There were two. There was an alternative path. And I just didn't even know that that existed. It surprised me. The path of suffering is, of course, where you're just completely focused on this this disease where you are you know start getting so fearful that that consumes your emotion that you get into resentment

anger frustration why me why her why us i mean all of this and plus plus of course there's this there's this desire in you to say well i'm not going to sleep literally i'm not going to sleep until we've figured this thing out and so there's all of that on top of it so all of that's what i would now just describe as the heavier path the second path as the second path evolved it's like there's a lighter path there's a different way to deal with this uh of course it doesn't mean ignoring the problem it doesn't mean pretending it's not there but we found that there was a there was this other path where we said what can we be grateful for in this moment what anything that we can be thankful for? What can we do to make sure that we stay in a good state so that we can handle this situation for however long it goes on? We have no idea how

long it's going to go on. And being completely discouraged, depressed, frustrated, angry isn't going to help us in what could be a very long journey here and we'd be very grateful relentlessly grateful uh it was it was getting around the piano and singing together it was being having fun together playing together going on walks still together you know praying together it was and what happened as we did that as we got into this other state this other path is that which things just started happening you started to little little insights would come little spiritual promptings would come don't not that neurologist go with this one this is the person to go talk to uh alternative medicines and and and we are generally really open to, and we really love the ideas that can bring about this sort of holistic health.

We just felt like, yeah, that's going to take you down a path that isn't useful, isn't helpful right now. So that whole set of work and expense and time just felt like we don't need to do it. It was like the simplification followed being in this better state. And it was because of that, that we started seeing results that actually did start to help Eve. And so, you know, cutting the story short, I mean, this is like two and a half years ago since we started dealing with this. As of this conversation, she is back. She's psychologically back, physically back. She graduated high school early. She's doing basically university courses

locally now, even a couple of years younger than she would normally be doing it. And she's just like, she's loving life again. There's a whole journey in that. There's ups and downs in that story, as you could imagine. If we'd taken taken the heavier path i just don't know what would have happened at all i literally think if we'd taken the heavier path she may not have made it she was fully on path to going you know falling into a coma and dying and it without so like to me now this subject matter is like life and death. There really is an easier, better way. And it's absolutely vital that we find it so that we can fulfill the most important missions of our lives. And so this is what gave me fire for the deed, to pursue this subject matter, to codify it, and then to teach it.

And the model that grew out of all of this now is really effortless state produces effortless action, which produces effortless results. And that idea of be, do, have, that getting the state right, that is the highest priority. That as you get the state right, it will put you into the right mode so that you'll do the right things and let the other things fall out of your life that don't matter. And that this is a way to produce results that start to flow to you. I mean, we experienced that in the most essential thing that we've dealt with, perhaps in our lives, but certainly in the last few years of our lives i mean first of all greg thank you for sharing such a personal story i'm delighted your daughter um is is doing so well and thriving at the moment that's lovely to hear what did that lighter path like look like on a day-to-day basis because to many people I'm sure um you know what I have had

experiences with uh illness serious illness in children so I certainly I can't claim to know what you have been through at all I certainly know how life-changing how it sort of know how life-changing how it sort of forces you to question everything about your life in those moments but for many people it's one of those situations well of course well you you know you you're you have every right to be worried at that moment and to be stressed out about it and to you know not to sleep and to row with your wife because you're both stressed out about the care of your daughter, right? That a lot of people say, oh, that's completely understandable. But what I'm hearing you say is that there was another path, there was another option available to you that you didn't even realize was available until that point.

Yes. And then there's power in that choice. So I love that, that heaviness versus the lights, take the lights away wherever you can. I love that. But what did that look like as a family with a daughter who were worried about her health? What does that look like on a day-to-day basis? Yeah. Let me just speak to this, the first point you made about, is it understandable? Of course, it's understandable that people would respond with anger, frustration. I don't feel harsh judgment to people that it ruins their marriage, it breaks their family.

I understand it. The problem is that response just isn't helpful. It takes a thing that's hard and makes it harder than it needs to be. That's really the thing. And it's a good time to make the point that I wrote Effortless because life is hard. It's hard and hard in a hundred ways. it's it's hard and hard in a hundred ways and because we make it harder than it needs to be the consequences we burn out and we still haven't achieved the results that are essential and matter most to us and so my position in writing effortless is that easier path, a different way of being and doing. And if we can do that, then we can achieve even sometimes breakthrough results, but without burning out. And so to me, that seems so important. What did it look like?

I mean, first, what did it not look like? There were things we would not do, that we could not do, that that was the first part of making it a little less complicated, right? We wouldn't complain that the doctors didn't have all the answers. That's tempting to do it, but we wouldn't do it. We wouldn't try to force the timetable. Well, we just want this to happen right now. Everything has to happen right now. Everything has to happen right now, this second. We wouldn't ask why us. We wouldn't overanalyze every article from every medical journal the well-intentioned people sent to us. Because people with no medical background

at all would send all sorts of articles about everything. And some of those were really heart-wrenching things to receive because what they're saying even though they mean they're well intended is well maybe she's going to die of this thing or die of that thing or this so we wouldn't just get consumed in those things um what we did instead what did it look like uh i mean we would i mean i don't want to imply that we didn't do anything on the medical side. We, we did, you know, we, we, you know, Anna would, would, would write down every meeting we had. She kept a record of it. That made things easier because you didn't have to try and repeat everything from memory and get it wrong. You just kept an account. So every new neurologist, you could just literally send it to them. This is all the information that we have so far. There were

things we were doing on the medical side itself. But in terms of getting into this state, I mean, we would literally get around the piano and sing together. We would go on walks together. We would read books together. We would play games together. We would look for the positive in anything. together. We would play games together. We would look for the positive in anything. We ate dinner together still. We still toasted each other. We still did that ritual. We told stories. We laughed. We were grateful. Here's a specific thing that I did, the practice that grew up in this moment was every time I complained, I would say something I was thankful for. And here's what I learned, first of all, and it wasn't just because of Eve, but I just learned that I complained so much more than I

realized before. And I think of myself as quite a positive person, quite a grateful person. I mean, actually, to be honest, I have kept a gratitude journal now for like 10 years, and I pretty much don't think I've missed a day in 10 years. So like that practice is sort of there. And yet I realized that just because it was a practice, a ritual I did like once a day is not the same as it being part of the experience of my life. And so that little habit, that habit recipe to use BJ Fogg's great term for it. After I complain, I will say something I'm thankful for, change the ratio. And so doing these things, at first seems like, well, that doesn't change the medical situation. No, that's true. But what I did is it got us in a state

that wasn't a state of suffering. A state of suffering is understandable, but so unhelpful. But what does it produce? It produces fight, freeze, like narrowing of options. You feel stuck. The state produces a way of acting that is unhelpful. And that action will produce results that are not helpful. And so it's a downward spiral. The upward spiral is what we started to experience. We saw it firsthand. I didn't have language for it or codification for it at the time. But for example,

Barbara Fredrickson's work, she calls it the broaden and build theory. Basically, what she's saying is the same model I'm just describing about state, then action, then results. She says, it's not what people think. They think that if you have the results you want, then you're going to be in a great state. She says it's exactly opposite. If you can get the right state, then it will produce a set of options, a set of actions that are better selection to choose from. You'll be in a better position to be able to select them. And she says that it increases all your sense of creativity, your relationships improve. Why does all that matter? This is the broaden and build

part of it is that your capability is being built. Your personal resilience is increasing. Your relationship network is advancing and getting stronger. And so it means whatever tomorrow's challenges, you're better able to deal with it. And that to me is why this model, this state action results is such an important order. You always start on the stake. Let me summarize it this way. is such an important order. You always start on the stake. Let me summarize it this way.

If you focus on what you lack, you will lose what you have. And if you focus on what you have, you will gain what you lack. That is something I can sort sort of i don't know testify to in the most in the crucible experience of my life the by being by being in a better state as a family, by protecting that culture, it created clarity of action. And clarity of action produced results. That to me is what I can say. And it meant that by the time the pandemic hit, where we're dealing suddenly with a pandemic and still a family crisis, because we still have, you know, Eve still going through treatments in the midst of the pandemic. It was like, how do I describe it really? It's like the family, just the culture of the family just knew what to do.

It was like this, this worker just prepared us. It was just like, yeah, we know what to do. We know how to respond to this. It was, it was sort of intuitive and in the culture. And so this broaden and build was sort of intuitive and in the culture and so this broaden and build theory had actually happened and taken you know we were we were better able to deal with that than we otherwise would have been when you focus on what you don't have you lose what you do have that was i mean yeah i'm gonna say it it again, because it's such an important line here. If you focus on what you lack,

you lose what you have. Thank you for repeating it. That's the first time you said it, and I have heard you say this before, but first time we said it in this conversation, again, I felt it deep inside me. I felt that tingle around my heart because there is such deep truth in that. And actually that phrase helped me this morning. There was, as I shared before we started recording, I sort of exerted myself a lot yesterday and didn't sleep well last night and have been pretty exhausted for most of today. And you know, when we haven't slept well, you know, we're a bit more emotionally reactive, less resilient and something, you know, something bothering me in work that I haven't done yet or hadn't managed to do. And I was focusing on that.

And then I thought, and it's great because I was researching this conversation. Yes. That phrase shaped everything. I thought, well, you know what? You kind of do a lot. You're getting a lot done. You've, you know, you're sort of, you've not missed a Wednesday with this podcast

since the first week of last September, you know, through Christmas and New Year. It's kind of like you're doing a lot already. You're doing, you know, through Christmas and New Year, it's kind of like, you're doing a lot already. You don't need to worry about not doing the extra one or 2%. So first of all, thank you, because that phrase was very helpful this morning. It instantaneously changed my perspective, because a lot of what you're talking about is perspective, right? You're talking about the same situation, but just a different experience of that same situation. So I think that quote might be going up on the wall as well.

I love this. And at the point of being irritating, I want to just take the whole quote again, because it's not one line, it's two lines. If you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. If you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack. So it's the combination that to me is such a, for me personally, was such a game changer. And I love that it was useful to you today. It's useful to me many times. And of course, what you're saying you today. It's useful to me many times.

And of course, what you're saying is right. If you focus on what you have, suddenly it all floods to you. Oh my goodness, I've got all the books, I've got all the podcasts I've been doing, I've got all this preparation in life. I've got the whole, you know, I'm a doctor, I've got all of my life's experience is at my disposal in this moment yeah and suddenly it it puts you at hopefully at a better state of like i can handle this yeah you know i don't have to worry about every possible degree of preparation for this in fact i was just talking to a to a to a friend he says that one of his effortless hacks is on his team, he'll just say, look, let's just be light in prep. Like, let's just do our prep lightly so that we can sort of show up either with sometimes no preparation. Now, again, that is a dangerous message if someone is not

someone who's a high achieving, challenging person who's trying to achieve a lot, that's who this book is for. It's for highly engaged, capable people who are on the edge of exhaustion. But if someone is in that category, as you just described, you feel it just today, at least, the message needs to be different. The message is like, hey, it's completely fine. You can have this conversation because you've been preparing it for years. You've got all that you need. All you have to do is show up. You know what? Today was preparation light because of my state, right? Because of my state, which was a bit foggy in my head, tired, and I'm a morning person, right? So because you are West Coast, we're recording this conversation, you know, at 4pm UK time, you know,

I typically will go to bed at 8.30, 9 o'clock, I'm sort of winding down, I get up at 4, 4.30 and write, and do my stuff before the kids get up. So today I thought, and it's something I've discussed with my sort of close team around the podcast before, say, well, you know what? It's sometimes almost an old relic of how I used to cram for exams, that I will artificially create stress on myself before I'm on the mic. But I realized a few months ago, I thought, well, I'm going to hold on a minute. You kind of, you've never been short of things to say, as my wife will definitely testify to. Definitely testify to. I've been having conversations my entire life as a doctor for 20 years. I have conversations every day. That is what I do. I listen. My goal when I'm with a patient is to listen, really make sure that person feels heard, good body language, be connected, and then respond

appropriately to actually what has been said to me. And I've realized over the last few months that that's kind of the approach I take on the podcast. I kind of feel that's sort of like my GP consultations just expanded out on a microphone with people who are not coming to me for help. Do you know what I mean? So it was helpful in the sense of, actually, I don't need to make

this hard. I've read his work before. I'm familiar with it. And again, focusing on not what we lack, what we have. I'm like, Rangan, this is a guy who has sold a gazillion books. He hit the zeitgeist six or seven years ago. I have the luxury of two hours with him to pick his brain and discuss things that I'm passionate about. What are you complaining about? What is wrong with your life? That sounds like a pretty good day to me. You know, same situation, but gone into it with a different intention. Yeah. I love what you're saying because that, the extra, the, okay, I've got to push, I've got to do, I've got to cram for the exam mentality. You don't want to be cramming all the time. I mean, I'm not even sure it's great to be cramming ever, but certainly as a lifestyle, it is counterproductive. For people who are high achievers, who are on the edge of exhaustion, if they try to cram it in their life, if they're trying to push it and to force it, then they won't just get to diminishing returns, where every extra unit of effort produces less result than the last unit of effort, it actually gets to negative

returns, where every unit of effort is actually making everything worse. If you stop, you will definitely be getting a better return on investment than trying an extra unit. And I just think that this is kind of part of the great discovery. Don't push yourself past a point that is helpful. Overexertion makes it harder to achieve the results that you want. I remember a time, listen to this. I remember when I had a client come to me and say, I want you to do three leadership presentations to our tech company, a global brand, but one that was in a high growth state. They say, well, we want you to come. We saw a presentation that you'd created, and we just want you to come and do this three times for us. And then really what we want is a two-year

engagement with you where you help us to scale and so on. This is a fantastic opportunity. Everything is set. All I have to do, I've already sent them the materials. I've already sent them the work. I've already done this presentation for a different client all over the world. Like it is set. It is done.

It is agreed. It is good money. It is everything is right. And then the day before I go, it's like cramming mode. I'm like, yeah, but what if I could do a really something special for them? What if I could just push it? You know? And I go, well, you know, I've been doing this new thinking. Maybe I could just do it on the new thinking. And I get going into this mode and it's like, this is all like after hours.

So this is when I should be done for the day, but I'm like, okay, well, let me just, let me just fiddle with these slides. Maybe I do the slides and then let's do a different handout. And I spent hours and hours on that. I didn't do an all-nighter, but it was that sort of a feeling. It was just went hours and hours later and later. I am, the next morning I wake up, I am foggy. I'm like literally driving to this appointment. I'm emailing them right before I'm driving saying, oh, new slides, here they are. Can you print these documents out at the facility? All of that's unprofessional. So now it's already worse. And I go to the presentation. I start giving the presentation. And I keep having to turn around to look at the slides because I'm not familiar with them and I'm

foggy. And then somebody challenges me on one of them. They're like, well, I don't understand that. I don't really buy that. And I'm so unprepared because it's new content and I'm stressed because I'm tired and I don't handle that well either. The whole thing is like seriously a disaster. One of the worst experiences I've had teaching ever. And they canceled the other two presentations. And of course, there's no two-year experience. I mean, like that is, that is, of course, that doesn't happen every day to us. But that is an example to me of how like overexertion and doing that, the pushing beyond the healthy, helpful, you know, sweet spot can cost us a lot. You're doing the right things and even for the right reasons, but the overexertion makes it harder to achieve the result that was already there for the taking.

Were you a crammer as a kid at school? Yeah, I think I probably was a bit of a crammer, but I was, but let me tell you about my experience in education. My parents didn't go to university. And so they emphasized education, but they didn't teach me the skills of it. You know, like this is how to write an essay, or this is how to go to the teacher and talk about what's going on and if you're missing something. So I just hit education with motivation and work. My best friend growing up, Sam Bridgestock, he questions this story, but I remember it very distinctly, is that he would always do better than me in education, but I always felt like I was trying harder than him.

And it wasn't until years later, like, so he got, you know, sort of two A's and a B and his A levels at the time. And, and, and I'm like, okay, how, what, what, what are you doing differently to me? And he said it, it took him years to actually figure it out the simplest answer. He said, just, you just do exactly what the teacher asked you to do. And he said it took him years to actually figure it out, the simplest answer. He said, you just do exactly what the teacher asked you to do, nothing more, nothing less. You just do exactly. You just do what they ask you to do. And that was like news to me. From that point on, I would just read exactly what they wanted and not go above and beyond it. I would just do what they asked. And that was actually sufficient. From then on, I got A's. I literally hardly ever not had an A ever since

then. That was true in undergraduate. I went to graduate school, went to Stanford, right? And same thing there. You just do what you're asked to do, not more. If you don't know how to do what they are asking, go and ask how to do what they are asking. It's like that was the breakthrough. It's like education in a sense is a bit of a game. And if I was the kind of guy that would go and get other books that weren't even on the curriculum, oh, I just want to learn so much about this. That's a good principle if you want to become deeply educated in subjects, fine. But in terms of just actually getting the results in an educational system uh that is dependent on the social approval of that teacher you're just going to learn that

to do what they ask and nothing else yeah it's it's so fascinating because if you just did what was asked of you with your two books, right? Okay. I don't know. How does that apply to you writing these unique books that have struck a chord with millions of people around the world? about how to apply effortless to the writing of effortless. Some ways I succeeded, some ways I didn't in applying it. But like ways, first of all, let's talk about how I made it harder than it needed to be first, my fails. I worried to the point of fear. And I don't see literally any upside to fear with it. I can see taking responsibility. I can see wanting not to fall into some bad habits, not habits, but typical paths that happen in the publishing world. I wanted to avoid that. My mantra, I thought actually a fairly helpful mantra was like, don't write a rubbish book.

You know, like just don't, don't, don't just, you know, take responsibility for it. That seemed to be healthy. But when it gets into fear, that's not making anything better. When you're fearful about what you're doing, you can make it worse in your attempt to make it better. Here's another sort of success and fail with the book. I found that if I wrote two hours in a day, first thing in the morning, similar to what you described, I could write two average pages, which by the way is, you know, for the most writers, for those listening or watching this is, is actually pretty fast. If I wrote three or four hours, I couldn't write three or four pages of the same quality. I could

write, you know, maybe I would get sort of two and a half or three. If I go five or six hours or more, I'm making the whole manuscript worse than if I hadn't started writing it at all that day. Like there is a point at which I am going back to stuff I've written that is perfectly fine, or even is like well edited. And I'm just, oh, well, but what if I did it this way? And I'm just poor judgment is just pouring all over the manuscript. At this point, you've got to stop. And so I learned that I needed to have a pace that had not just a lower bound, okay, every day, write on the book, at least five days a week, write on, you know, open the Google doc and write something. The upper bound was, was like, don't write more than two pages. You know, like you

have an upper bound where you say, look, don't push yourself beyond what is actually optimal for that day. And so that pace helped me to keep enjoying it and to keep making progress going forward. So that's something that worked. Um, something else that worked that made it, that made the experience a bit more effortless was just having a great team, have the same editor I had before. Brought in Jonathan Cullen, who was a great researcher and helped with the book, bringing in things. And there were moments that the experience felt magic because I actually described it as sort of almost a Harry Potter type experience. Because we go into this Google Doc and you can see other people writing, my editor going through something I've written. I'd see Jonathan bringing in a story I'd asked him to gather and put together and he'd bring

something in and I could watch it all happening while I'm working. And I thought that was just so enjoyable that when we were done, we literally, all of us have said to each other that we miss doing that, going into the doc every day and just working together and seeing this progress. And so having the right people, you know, having people that have, you know, the three I's, which is Warren Buffett uses three words, you know, three criteria to select who he works with, high integrity, high intelligence, high initiative,, high intelligence, high initiative. Integrity, intelligence, and initiative.

And if you don't have integrity, then the other two hurt you. So those are what I'm looking for. And the little team that I had working on this together are so high in those three areas. It just was a pleasure to work together. So those are things that I have, you know, those are examples there mixed together of ways I made it harder than it needed to be rubbish to even begin. We started using the term zero draft, not even first draft, zero draft. This is rubbish,

but I'm starting. This is a rubbish version of this story. This is a rubbish version of this account. It's okay. It's draft zero. And sometimes I might write that and not even put it into the Google Doc just to get something out. Then you work on it. And so in a consistent pace, you make it less rubbish and less rubbish and less rubbish. And eventually it becomes good and then a little better. And hopefully it gets to the point where it's great and it's polished. So it's just, but none of that happens in one crammed experience. You aren't going to make something great in one fell swoop. And when we try to do that, what happens is that you get so burned out. You spend a whole weekend, a whole nothing but this.

It's like you can't even think about it after that for a while. And so it's about this, to me, it's about an effortless pace. Yes, you still want it to be excellent, yet your standards haven't changed. High standard people don't just suddenly lose their standards. You are not going to suddenly lose your standards. The question is, can we construct a life that allows us to get that high standard work done in a way that continues to be sustainable, enjoyable, so that we can do it for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, rather than just all at one moment, and then we get burned out, and then the next book is rubbish because we were so burned out, and we felt felt rushed and so on. So I think the effortless pace is a big part of being able to still try to achieve excellence, but in a way that isn't so costly. And I think that's the key point for me. We can all do a lot in certain ways if we want to, now and again. We can burn the candle if we need to, but what's the cost of doing that?

candle if we need to, but what's the cost of doing that? Sort of the cost of success. Many people who people look up to who are successful aren't necessarily happy. Maybe they're never seeing their kids or their partner. And something I'm deep in writing at the moment is the difference between success and happiness. And when we conflate the two, that's where sometimes the problem starts to arise. There's an amazing essay written by Tennessee Williams, who is the playwright behind The Glass Menagerie and others. And the essay was published in the New York Times and it's called The Catastrophe of Success. And it's a really beautifully written piece just about what his experience was on the other side of having put Glass Menagerie out. It's a big hit. Everyone he's meeting, oh, this was so impactful to me. Wow, you've done something so beautiful. And

it sent him on a path that took him away from the work itself, from the simple pacing of writing. You know, every day, write the next thing. You know, don't overdo it, but don't just stop doing it. And he talks about what followed in his life and how unhappy that existence was. So that's on this. Like success can be a catalyst for failure if we're not careful.

It will undermine the very things that led to success in the first place. It will eat up and consume all sorts of more important relationships without even thinking about it. So success can be, as Bill Gates put it, a very poor teacher. So success makes a good servant, but not a great master. So that's sort of on the, we've got to be careful to make sure that we do things that will help us to get to the next level of success. And that doesn't mean just more of the stuff that got us to this level. The second point here is now on what to do once you are successful, right? Once things, and actually everybody watching this and listening to this is successful, if you take anything like a proper perspective about it.

The fact that they are alive today in the world, the chances are they are in far better position than the vast majority of the people that have ever lived. So they're going to be more educated. They're going to have a better chance of a healthy life and so on, right? Like, of course, there's loads of problems, but we're successful. If they're listening to this, they've got the time to listen to this. If they have the technology to listen to this, they're successful. So they have to figure out what to do now that they are. to this. They're successful. So they have to figure out what to do now that they are.

And I think the thing that was most personally challenging and eureka for me as I was researching Effortless was the final section of the book, this idea of effortless results. Effortless results is about creating systems that produce results for you, rather than producing results through your own direct individual effort. A linear result is one that you achieve yourself. You do a thing, you get paid for doing that thing. Residual results are you build the thing that produces a result again and again for you. And the difference isn't small. It's absolutely massive. Think about a friend of mine, Jessica Jackley, who had gone to a presentation by Muhammad Yunus at the Grameen Bank. And she

was starting to think more like systems. And then she was on a trip in Africa. She meets this woman. She's an entrepreneur. She is selling produce. She's selling vegetables on the side of the road. And every day, she has to be there to survive. to, she has to be there to survive. This is how she gets just enough to survive for her, for her children, and to buy this produce from what turns out to be a middleman. And so Jessica says, well, why don't you go to the original, to the farmers, to the people that actually sell this originally? You'd make a far better profit. She said, yeah, absolutely. I just cannot afford to leave my post to go do that. And so Jessica's looking at this, and she said, well, how much would it cost for you to make the transition? She said $500,

which, of course, isn't a huge amount in the developed world. And she said she had that thought. She's like, well, I could just get $500 and give it to her and I would help her. And that would matter. But instead, she built what eventually became, she and others built what eventually became Kiva, Kiva.org, where that money wasn't just a microloan once. It wasn't just a loan or a gift. It was a microloan that didn't just get paid back once, but gets reinvested. And then other people could start it as well. She built a system that produced residual results to the order of like $1.3 billion now of loans, which are still being reloaned. People repay it. About 97% of these loans are repaid.

She could have given $500. She built something that produced results that flowed to the other people she wanted to help, and now $1.3 billion later. That's the difference between a linear result and a residual result. And to me, it's an absolutely massive opportunity. And my test in my life and for you too is where are the systems of my life developed and where is it just me doing it again and again? Like how much of the results are you getting is just you pushing, making it happen versus I have built a system that produces results for me. And

I use a little harshly, but I use the death test for this, which is like, okay, so if I die today, which things continue? Which things could continue without me? And to start having a vision, I just had a conversation with a friend yesterday he's just i don't even think he's fully human this guy the way he talks the way he thinks and the systems he's created uh like blown my mind but he talks like this just this is like in one sentence he's like yeah i'm just trying to build um i'm trying to invest for like the next 500 years. That's really my vision point. And I've created a family bank that can be in existence for the next 500 years.

And the documents he sent me, he sent me this 50-page document called The Rhythm of Experience. And it's his system for how he's trying to make sure that his life is in flow all the time. And it just puts me to shame listening to all this and learning all this. I think so much of what I'm doing is still one ounce of effort to get one result instead of thinking and building stuff that just continually, perennially, perpetually, almost eternally could be producing results and coming back and back. So this to me is actually probably the single most exciting idea in Effortless and how powerful it can become. Yeah. I think that death idea, I don't think it's that extreme at all, actually. I think it's

you playing out something to its extreme and going, does this still work? You know, you've sort of stress tested it and going, actually, yeah, it still works. Even in that situation, then you know you're onto something. And something my wife and I spoke about recently, because she produces and edits the podcast. And, you know, last weekend, because, you know, I'm deep in this book at the moment with my other commitments. So we kind of we don't have the bank in the back catalog as we normally do and so i recorded late on a friday with gretchen rubin and then so at the weekends she had to work all weekends so that we could meet um tuesday midnight which is when we published so i had the kids and then i

was you know it was just and i said listen this is great we published. So I had the kids and then I was, you know, it was just, and I said, listen, this is great. We're capable people. We can do this, but there must be a better way than this, right? And we should be looking. And it's one of these questions, you know, that you, uh, you have in the book, you know, what would this look like if it was easy? Um, and it's, you know, on, on the subject of podcasts, I know, what would this look like if it was easy? And it's, you know, on the subject of podcasts, I know you have a wonderful podcast yourself. I don't know what your process is like, but, you know, sitting in the room with me at the moment is Gareth, who's my videographer. And when Gareth came to the podcast, the show was already successful. It had already been going for about a year and a half, but it was audio only. So we had a workflow

that worked for audio only. Now Gareth comes in with cameras and like, so he keeps saying, well, this doesn't kind of make sense the way we're doing things. And it was easier. And it, you know, in my head, I'm like, I don't have time to sort of change it. Like it's kind of working, but I'm, it's very clear that it's like you're saying it's kind of don't just do it that way because you can because at some point you may not be able to or what happens if I don't know someone in the family gets sick and you don't have as much you know it's like why not build a better system that gives you the effortless results so I think it applies to health I know you've shared abuse for example of someone who wanted wanted to, perhaps you could,

who wanted to eat better. And I think he had to automate some sort of delivery. Was that what it was? This was just somebody that I just was talking to just recently about effortless. And I said, I asked him this question, what is something that's essential for you that you are under-investing in?

And he just said, eating healthy. And I said, okay, so let's ask a few of these questions from the book. What does Dunn look like for you? He said, well, you know, food would be delivered to me at about noon every day. He said, because what happens right now is that noon comes, I'm not that hungry. And then one, two, three comes. And then finally I am hungry. And then at my judgment's gone, I just go and get fast food because you know, now I just need to have anything. He said, so that was, that's what done would look like. It would just be here. And I said, okay, well, what's the first obvious step you could take to make that happen? He said, well, I could just search on Google for one of these food delivery apps. I said, great. I said, what's the 10-minute microburst. Like if you set a timer for 10 minutes and that was your first step,

and then you worked on it for 10 minutes, what could you achieve in just a 10 minute microburst, a small thing? He said, he paused and he's like, it was a little awkward, but he's like, I think I could do everything. I mean, I think I could put in, I think I could find it, select it, put in my credit card, put in my address, put when I wanted it delivered. I think I could do the whole thing in 10 minutes. I said, how long have you been stressing and frustrated by this? He said, 20 years. I said, it has 10 minutes versus 20 years. That's effortless.

20 years, that's effortless. The A principle behind this is to look for the things that have repeatedly, it's like the other side of effortless results. It's like, what are the friction-filled results you are already getting? What are the frustrating results you are repeatedly getting, residually getting? Irritating, annoying, they don't work for you, and see if you can prevent those from happening in the future. If you can prevent in just a few minutes, in this case, 10 minutes, the same frustration that you've been having for 20 years, and shift the system, and make it automated. This is my friend I was just telling you about. He came up with this word. He says, Greg, I am an automationist. He'd read Essentialism and Effortless. And he's like, I can't believe it. That is what I'm doing. That is how I've done it.

This guy is unreal. So anyway, I'm all inspired by him. But it's like he's built this 10-minute change. He eats healthy every day for a 10-minute investment because he didn't think in terms of just how do I get a healthy meal right now? I've got to go and make a healthy meal right now. And that was just too much. This automated the whole thing.

And the problem solved after 20 years. That's the power of changing the system. Yeah. And the thing is that whatever we want in our life, there'll be things sitting right under our noses that we're not looking at through the right lens. And actually, I think your book, both of them will really help people shift their perspective and things that they've repeatedly done for years, they'll just start to do slightly differently. I've shared my sort of morning workout routine many times on the show before, but essentially, I do a five minute workout every

morning. I haven't missed a day for about three years because I make it easy. I don't have to get changed. I do it in my pajamas while my coffee's brewing for five minutes. I never miss my coffee at the moment. So while that brews, I do a workout whilst it's brewing. There's a kettlebell or a dumbbell in my kitchen that I almost have to trip over to get to the kettle. So I've created a system whereby I don't even have to think about making time in my day. I just five minute workout day in, day out, just like brushing my teeth. And so the point is there are multiple ways and multiple things that people can do. Oh, Greg, we've nearly been going for two hours

and I don't feel I've even scratched the surface. I wanted to talk about Steve Jobs' number one design principle, microbursts, the power of the one minute pause, but they're all in the book. I want to be super respectful of your time. Just to sort of wrap this up, Greg, then one question I had,

maybe the penultimate question is that you said the state, it's that effortless state that leads to the effortless action and the effortless results. So what do you do on a daily basis? Or what do you try and do on a daily basis to get you into that effortless state? The most important thing I need to do personally is take a nap. And I'm being really for real about that. Like I'm not that great at getting enough sleep at night, or at least I wake up naturally. And then I don't feel like going back to sleep. So I'm up. But it means that the way that the balance works for me is if I can get a nap in, and people often think it's like quite a childish thing. But for me, it's like so valuable. And when I do this, I remember driving

home from an appointment a few weeks ago. And I was like, OK, effortless state. Are you in the effortless state? What state are you in? And I was like, no, you are not. You are definitely tired. What's the easiest thing you can do to get back in the effortless state? And I was like, yeah, well, as soon as I get home, I've got to just go sleep for a bit. And I just noticed that over the last week or two, as I've been sort of in this mode

of launching the book, I've basically cut that out. And the consequence of that is that on Sunday, I was just, I wasn't grumpy all day, but a couple of times I basically lost it with the children. I remember one of them just turned around and she was like that was two you know two for two for you dad today you know and i'm not normally like that but it was just i was like why why are you why is this suddenly getting to you i don't think everything's changing around you i think your state is off and i was like yeah i'm not getting this i'm not getting that little nap in so for me it's a real reset uh and so that's like that is one thing i do um the research is very strong about this

that for some some things you know and that is almost the equivalent of a full night's sleep in terms of it's your upgrading of your ability to learn remember uh compute information and so for me it's it's just like this this thishot experience. I do it, I don't sleep very long, but it just keeps everything in a sharp state. I love that. And it also beautifully sort of echoes what we said right at the start, is that often when we're feeling that way,

we think we have to just plow through and keep going, right? But you've learned that actually, no, if I stop and take a nap, I become a better person afterwards. Final question now, Greg, is that this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our lives. And I think your work is really testament to that. When we prioritize better, when we simplify better, we absolutely are going to get more out of our lives, whether that's work life,

home life, relationships, sporting life, whatever it is. So I wonder for people right at the end of this conversation, have you got any sort of final wisdom to share, any practical tips, maybe some questions they can ask themselves so that they can actually get started on this journey immediately? There's a story that I came across in the researching of Effortless that didn't make it into the book. It might be my one regret of what didn't get in. It's the story of a woman, who is in hospital with her very ill son. And he's on his deathbed. Everybody knows this is the end and she knows it. And so she gets up and actually lies in the bed next to him at the very end

because she just knows. And of course, you know, and I've been there with people at the very end. And sometimes you do know this is going to be it. You don't know if it's a minute or if it's an hour, but you know it's here. And so that was the situation. So she gets in just to be close to him. And then right at the end, right in between, you know, that in-between place where somebody isn't fully here, but they're not fully there, he opens his eyes and he just suddenly says,

oh, moment, it's so simple. It's all so simple. And those were his final words to her. Then he died. And that offers us this soundtrack for our lives. It's all so simple. And a question to go with it. To ask ourselves, how am I making life more complicated than it needs to be? it needs to be. And as we get the answer to that question, we have something really valuable. We will know what to do next. And what to do next is so important because in every next moment, in every new moment, we have a choice. Do we take the heavier path or the lighter path?

And whatever's happened to us in the past past whatever is even happening to us right now they pale in comparison to that choice so that really is to me the question to leave people on how am i making life more complicated than it needs to be yeah such a profoundly simple question with the potential for huge transformations in people's lives greg thank you for coming on to the podcast today thank you for writing two quite wonderful books that are helping and are going to help so many more millions around the world and i hope we get the chance to meet at some point face to face. Me too. Rangan, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. As always, please do have a think about one thing that you can take away from this episode and apply into your own life. And of course,

do check out both of Greg's books, Essentialism and his brand new one, Effortless. They are really, really good. Before we finish, I really want to let you know about Friday Five. It's my weekly newsletter that contains five short doses of positivity to get you ready for the weekend. There's usually a practical tip for your health. I'll often write about a book that I've been reading or an article or video that I found inspiring. Sometimes just share a recipe that I'm making or a quote that has caused me to stop and reflect. Basically, anything that I feel would be helpful to share. I really do get such wonderful feedback from my Friday Five readers. Many of you tell me that it is one of

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