Good Life Project - Good Life Bucket Trifecta | Anti-aging Mushrooms

Episode Date: December 7, 2017

Good Life Riff: What if you could do a single activity that had the effect of optimizing your mind and body, deepening beautiful relationships with people you can't get enough of and allowing you to do work that filled you with a sense of purpose? That'd be pretty cool, right?We call this the Good Life Bucket "Trifecta," because, in one fell swoop, you fill all three Good Life Buckets: Vitality, Connection and Contribution (for more on the buckets, just download the intro to How to Live a Good Life. It's free here).The more you can seek out or create these opportunities, the better your life becomes. In today's riff, we're sharing a great example of a Good Life Bucket Trifecta (hint: it involves a whole lotta snow) and how you might explore integrating this concept into your quest to live a good life.Good Life Science: In our Good Life Science segment, we're diving into some fascinating new research on anti-aging, mushrooms, how they affect your health, fight aging and potentially even protect against dementia. Oh, and by the way, we're not talking about "those" mushrooms (ya know, "magic" ones). We're talking about good old-fashioned, easy to find, yummy to cook white-cap, porcini and other delicious edibles. And, as always, for those who want to go to the source, here's a link to the full study.+--------------------------+Our Podcast Partners: ShipStation: Manage and ship your orders. FREE for 30 days, plus a bonus. Visit ShipStation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in GOODLIFE.MVMT Watches: Get 15% off today, go to MVMT.com/goodTunein: Catch all-new episodes of some of your favorite podcasts early with TuneIn First Play? Download the free TuneIn app now.Videoblocks:  Go to videoblocks.com/goodlife to get all the stock video, audio, and images you can imagine for just $149.Thrive Market: Get $60 of FREE organic groceries + free shipping and a 30-day trial at thrivemarket.com/goodlife.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey there, it's Jonathan. Always excited to hang out with you on this week's Good Life Project Update, where we blend together a couple of different things this week on our Good Life riff. I'm talking about a little something called the Good Life Bucket Trifecta, and it's built around the idea of the Good life buckets, which for those who haven't read the last book, I'm going to kind of quickly detail for you and then talk about how to create moments that fill all three of these critically important buckets. And then in our good life science update, we got a kind of fun, short and sweet conversation about science and mushrooms. Now, I'm not talking about the magic kind of mushrooms.

I'm talking about sort of the kind of regular ones that you eat on a daily basis and how they just might affect your health and your brain over time. That's where we're going in today's episode. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So today I want to talk to you about a little something called the Good Life Bucket Trifecta.

What in the world does that mean? So as I sit here reading this, reading this, I'm not actually reading this. I'm hanging out in my studio on the Upper West Side of New York City. But a couple of days ago, I was actually in the snowy mountains of Alberta, Canada, actually Banff and Lake Louise, which was pretty stunning. First time ever, by the way. The Canadian Rockies are absolutely jaw-dropping. Why do I bring this up? Because I've been thinking a lot about living a good life and efficiency and moments. And part of what's going on in my head is how do we tell the story of our lives by creating moments that fill all of our good life buckets simultaneously. And that's kind of what I just was coming out of. So let me talk to you about the good life bucket. So if you are new to the project, to me,

to my work, I've been sharing for quite a while now a simple visual, which is kind of a tool to help you live your best life. And I call it the good life buckets. And think for a moment of your life as three buckets. The buckets are contribution, connection, and vitality. And your contribution bucket is about meaningful contribution to the world. Most of us equate this in some way with work, although it may not be the work that we get paid to do. Your connection bucket is about optimizing

or cultivating deep and meaningful, loving relationships that can start with yourself, that can extend to other beings, to other animals, the environment, to heavenly beings, or to superhuman sources. And your vitality bucket is about optimizing your state of mind and body. And I talk about those as a seamless feedback mechanism. I don't really differentiate between those anymore. And I think it's actually a complete delusion to think that your mind and your body are two separate things. Because in fact, when you're psychologically in pain, your physical body will feel that and potentially even manifest in disease and illness. When you're physically ill or in pain or injured,

that will immediately feed back to your state of mind. So there's this seamless feedback mechanism. So the three buckets, contribution, right? Meaningful work, connection, deep relationships, and vitality, optimal state of mind and body. Now, a good life is about filling all three buckets as full as they can get, and sort of spending your days doing things and engaging in activities and relationships that kind of circle around and perpetually water these buckets. So the buckets leak, which is the bad news. The good news is you can keep doing things every day to top them off.

And as long as you do that and no one runs dry or extremely low, you end up having a pretty good experience of the time that you have on this planet. So when we think about that model, it's actually kind of cool because you can wake up every day and kind of do a really quick what I call bucket check and think to yourself, which one of these feels like it needs a little love today? And then make sure that you give that bucket a little bit of extra love and then continue to top off the others. So what is this thing called the good life bucket trifecta then? What I've realized over a period of years is that there are ways to do things that fill each bucket individually, but there's also a certain amount of overlap.

There's a certain amount of flow through between the buckets. They're independent and interdependent on one another. And so I started to look for ways to be able to do one thing that has the effect of filling all three buckets simultaneously. And sometimes I do this with great intention. I really try and think about it. Sometimes it just kind of happens. And one of those kind of happens experiences kind of happened last week. So I had the great privilege of being invited to give a keynote at an event in Calgary, Canada. First time there, much colder than New York, by the way, this time of year. Beautiful city. One of the friendliest cities, honestly, I have ever been to. I mean, quite literally, every person that I walked up

to in a store or in a cafe would ask for your order and then they would look you in the eye and be like, so what are you doing today? And actually wait for an answer, which as a New Yorker kind of freaked me out at first, but then I realized they were just being kind. I'm going to have more to say about that in a separate riff because I've been thinking about the way that that wires us. But the bigger picture is this. We hung out. I went there and because my partner in life, my wife is also my partner in business, we flew up together and we were kind of hanging out and she was supporting me and we were having conversations about business and life. And then a couple of days later, my daughter, who is in high school and loves to snowboard, flew up to meet us. out to now Banff, for those who don't know, is spelled B-A-N-F-F-F-F, because it's freaking fantastic. It is in the Canadian Rockies. And imagine you leave the city, which is pretty cold,

and you're driving, and it's kind of like you're meandering through suburbs, and then you get onto a highway. And then about, I don't know, an hour or so, you start to see these snowy peaks ahead of you. And then you keep driving and they're getting closer. And then all of a sudden you find yourself on this road, winding through the most stunning mountains, jagged peaks, and less jagged peaks covered with snow, which very early in the season, they got snow. And we're going deeper and deeper into sort of walls of caverns, and it's just breathtaking. The reset that happens when you immerse yourself in jaw-dropping natural environments like that is kind of magical.

It affects your mind on a really major level. It's one of the substrates of awe. And awe not only affects your state of mind, but it also affects your... Actually, there's some research that shows that it affects your state of inflammation and health in your body. And big, jaw-dropping miles of peaks and rocks and mountains

has the effect of cultivating awe for many people, certainly for me. Then I realized as we're driving through this, I'm not in the car alone. I am there with the two people who mean most to me in the world. And we were sharing this experience. At one point, I was just so blown over, I kind of pulled the car over quickly. and we rolled down the windows and just breathed in the mountain air and took some photographs and just kind of together paused. We hit pause. And I didn't really think about it much then, but there was another moment that brought me back to this.

So we got up to Banff, and it's absolutely stunning. And we're staying in this ridiculously cool, almost castle that was built in the late 1880s by one of the big railroad kingpins. And as we got there, the snow started coming down. And by the time that we got to the next morning, we had on about a half a foot of snow. My daughter and I sort of like strapped on all of our equipment, headed off to the mountains for the day as my wife headed off to hang out with a friend in town and do really cool things. And as we got up to the mountain, the snow got heavier and heavier.

And we're hanging out kind of giddy and in our own space. And it started to get so heavy that you could barely see in front of you. And there was this one lift that people said, don't even bother with because there's zero visibility. But we're a little adventurous. And we found our way over to this lift. This lift actually clearly was going to a place in the mountain where they were used to zero visibility, a lot of snow and high winds. Because for the first time ever, we were on a ski lift that had heated seats and a pull over clear plexiglass dome that protected

you from the wind. And it was amber colored. So it was this kind of like funky otherworldly thing as this lift is taking you up into the nether regions of the mountain and the wind is spiraling around outside. You can feel it and hear it whistling through the nooks and crannies, and the visibility starts to drop, so you can barely see anything in front of you. And we get towards the top. And what's interesting is it wasn't super cold. Actually, it was colder in Calgary in the city than it was

up towards the top parts of the mountain. Something that we would later learn is this funky wind pattern there called Chinooks. And as we pulled up to the top of the lift, we kind of slid this giant plexi thing off. We had our goggles on and three layers of clothing. And we dropped down and sat down and buckled into our snowboards. And we kind of cruised along this road of snow towards the top edge of the mountain before we could drop in and start moving. And it was pretty blustery.

And as we dropped down, some of the wind dropped away, but it was a complete whiteout with the snow. There really was almost zero visibility, which created this kind of amazing experience of probably close to a foot of fresh powder there. So the fear is kind of gone because if you fall, it's like falling into fluff. And all you see around you is white. There's no sense of depth or perception. There's no

real easy way to tell whether you're going flat, down, up, sideways. So you're kind of on, imagine being on a fluffy roller coaster where you're strapped in and your eyes are closed, but instead of it being all black, it's all white. And we just start going and we're kind of swishing and swaying. We're surfing in this cloud of fluff and we don't know what's meeting us until literally we're just a few feet from it. And it keeps being constantly new. And because of that, you had to be utterly hyper-present and aware and constantly aware of the environment and your body so that you could adjust. And we're kind of cruising around with the biggest smiles that you could ever imagine.

At one point, we went down this big drop and it's like being dropped in a roller coaster that you don't see coming. But again, it was fun. It was playful. There wasn't a dangerous environment. It's pretty mellow, actually. And we hit a flat where we kind of lost speed. And both of us unstrapped from our boards because we knew we were going to have to walk for a little bit. And we hit a point where we just kind of both fell back into the snow. And we're lying there, like, you know, me and my teenage kid, and just in a total whiteout on top of a mountain. It's not too cold. We're totally warm.

We're, like, just completely embraced by this fluff, like two little snow angels lying there. The snow is blanking out almost all sound around us. And we're just looking up at the sky, which we can't see because all we see is whiteness around us and snow falling onto every part of us. And I kind of have my hand out to the side. My daughter has hers too. And I go and reach her and grab onto her hand. I just look at her and I'm like, there's no place that I'd rather be right now. And we kind of laughed and we just kind of looked up and we

just stayed there. I don't know how long, probably a few seconds. It felt like a few minutes because it was just pure bliss. And at that moment, I also thought to myself, I said, you know, this is the good life bucket trifecta. Moments like these are moments where every part of me is being filled. And I thought to myself, you know, here I am. I am doing something that is affecting my physical body. It's filling my vitality bucket because I'm exercising. I'm moving my body. I'm up in beautiful air.

I'm doing things that are lifting my mood and elevating it and having fun and playful. It's topping off my connection bucket. I'm there with my daughter, and we are just riding side by side and relishing this time together and deepening the bonds of doing something we love together, which is a type of flow state when you can really get there with somebody that becomes group flow or shared flow. And for me, what was really interesting too is I was also simultaneously topping off my contribution bucket. I have created this rare opportunity in the world where I earn my living by essentially moving through life, running a series of experiments to try and figure out what are the ingredients of a life well lived? What does it mean to live a good life? And then take in all these different experiences, figure out what works, what doesn't work, how different things make me feel, and then sit down with hundreds of people and ask them questions about how they've done the same. And then turn around and report that back to others. And that's an incredible gift for me to be able to fill my contribution bucket by doing these things too.

And I realized in that moment that I was in one of these moments, one of these experiences, where I was simultaneously doing one thing and filling all three good life buckets. And I just kind of keyed in on this idea of what if we could sort of look at the opportunities in life? And as we figure out what to say yes or no to, one of the questions we asked was, does this fill one of my good life buckets? And beyond that, will this fill one of my good life buckets? And beyond that,

will this fill multiple buckets simultaneously? And could I make some tweaks or changes to this in a way that would simultaneously fill all three of my good life buckets? Can I somehow reorganize this? Or can I make different decisions? Or can I say no to this because I know I can do something a little bit different, or there's something coming up shortly that will give me

the opportunity to simultaneously fill all three good life buckets at once. And I call this the good life bucket trifecta. Because when you can do that, if you can move through life, choosing experiences and moments, relationships, activities that do that, it amplifies your ability to fill your buckets and keep them full. And it really helps you move towards an extraordinary life. And I didn't spend much time on this, but that awakening just popped into my mind as I was lying there on the top of a mountain, you know, surrounded by snow. And then we promptly got up and strapped our boards back on once we found a place where there was a little bit more slope and kind of giggled away all the way back down the rest of the mountain and did it a few more times. So I just kind of want to share that with you, this idea of the good life bucket trifecta.

And as you move through life, my invitation, as you move into the rest of this year, as you start to think about the year to come and how you want to create it, is look for opportunities to fill all three good life buckets, to hit that good life bucket trifecta, as you try and figure out what to say yes to and no to, as you create the life that you want to live. That's what I'm thinking about today. Good life bucket trifecta. And I'm really excited to share some good life science shortly about mushrooms and how they just might affect us. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference

between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. And we're back and diving into today's Good Life Science Update, where we're talking about mushrooms and your brain and your health. Okay, so let me make crystal clear here. I'm not talking about magic mushrooms. I'm not talking about how those can affect your brain and your health. Granted, if you've been listening to me for any kind of window of time now, you've probably gathered that I do have a bit of a fascination with these things called psychedelics, magic mushrooms, psilocybin, and things like that.

I personally have not dabbled in any of these. I know many people who have, and I'm fascinated by the therapeutic use, and I'm also fascinated by the growing research that's going around them in a controlled clinical environment that's revealing some really powerful outcomes. That said, I am not suggesting that you go run out and do any of these. If you listened at all to my recent conversation with Tim Ferriss, we kind of touched on how critically important it is to understand how these things work and don't work and when and when it is not appropriate to do it and in what setting.

Anyway, that is a conversation for another day. Today, I'm talking about some kind of cool research on how mushrooms affect us. So there is a body of research that looks at how we age. And one of the theories around why we age is built around this idea of our body is constantly in the state of oxidation. And if you want to have a really easy visual for this thing called oxidation, think about rust on metal. When metal, very often iron, is exposed to the elements, to oxygen, to water, over time, some of the chemicals in it create this thing called rust. It oxidizes. We see this in different types of metal, in different types of ways, in patinas, and rust, and stuff like that. And this is kind of a breakdown of some of the things. Now, this rust process,

this oxidation process happens in our body. It's a natural process that happens in life. And it's part of the degradation of our tissue, of our brain, of our cognitive abilities. And one of the theories about aging is that oxidation sort of accelerates the breakdown and accelerates aging and sort of is one of the processes that moves us to eventually no longer be here on the planet as we lose function along the way. So we talk about these things, and I'm sure you've heard this word antioxidant. Antioxidants are things that scavenge up the inner rust, these free radicals that cause oxidation

that goes spiraling throughout our body. And the antioxidants job is kind of to go scouring through the body and basically counter them and scoop them up, mop them up, so that we have less of them doing damage to our body. And the thought is that the more we have powerful sources of antioxidants in us, the more we can stop the damage done by these free radicals, and the less oxidation we have, the longer we stay healthy, the longer we stay cognitively okay,

we can stave off dementia and all sorts of other diseases. Now, some of these antioxidants are produced internally within us. Some can be consumed, which brings us to... If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true changemakers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash futuremba. That's uvic.ca slash futuremba.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mushrooms. So it turns out I'm a little bit fascinated by how different ways that we can eat that in some way help our body be cool and help our brains be cool, especially because I'm in what would probably logically be considered the back nine of life.

So I'm sort of more present to the things that will help me live as well and as functionally and as alertly and as pain-free as I possibly can. And it turns out that some research done on mushrooms shows that they may be really effective at fighting free radicals through eliminating or helping to protect against oxidative stress. So in a research that was actually reported in the journal Food Chemistry, it measured the amounts of something called ergothionine and glutathione in mushrooms, looking at a variety of different species. Actually, 13 different species were tested. Now, glutathione is maybe one of the most powerful antioxidants on the planet. It's one of the things in our body that keeps us healthy, that helps us fight a lot of stuff.

And what the study found was that mushrooms can actually kick butt when it comes to being antioxidants and having high levels of ergothioline and glutathione. According to the lead researcher, Professor Emeritus of Food Science and Director of the Penn State Center for Plant and Mushroom Products for Health, Robert Bielman, who tells us, quote, we found that the porcini has the highest by far of any we tested when talking about amounts of these two very protective antioxidants. Adding to the quote, this species is really popular in Italy where searching for it has become a national pastime, end quote. They tested all sorts of other types of mushrooms in the United States where I'm sitting right now. the white button mushroom is sort of maybe one of the most popular ones. But they found that that variety had less antioxidants,

but it had higher amounts of those two critical antioxidants than almost any other food. So they're still really good to eat. So the other thing that they found or that we know is that specifically one of those antioxidants, ergothionine, is very, quote, heat stable, meaning you can cook it and you still get all of the benefits. So one of the cool things is that a lot of different types of foods or supplements, once they're exposed to heat, they sort of break down and you lose the benefits. The cool thing about these mushrooms is that they're pretty heat stable, which means you can cook them up in delicious dishes and you're still going to get the benefits

of the antioxidants and have the potential to tap the ergothionine and glutathione in mushrooms to lower your chance of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's and all sorts of other degenerative processes in the body. In fact, Bielman adds, I'm going to quote him again, you can see that countries that have more erythrionine in their diets, countries like France and Italy also have lower incidence of neurodegenerative diseases, while people in countries like the United States, which has low amounts of erythritol in the diet, have a higher probability of diseases like Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's, end quote.

And of course, studies like this are correlative, meaning you can't show causation, but we can show that people that eat high amounts of these have reduced incidence of symptoms. It'd be interesting over time to see if there can be more research that comes out that shows that there's actually a causal relationship between mushroom consumption. I happen to dig mushrooms, not all forms, but the porcini, big fan. White caps, big fan also. The final thought here is that it doesn't take a lot of these to make a big difference. We're talking about three milligrams or so per day to have some sort of potential correlation with preventative effects for neurodegenerative diseases. And that comes out to, for mere mortals who don't measure things in milligrams, about four, five, six button mushrooms a day. That's not a whole lot.

Something to think about as you're planning how to keep your brain buff as you move through life. Check out your mushrooms. They're your friend. That's it for today. As always, a lot of fun hanging out with you. I will be back next week with more thoughts on life and science and maybe other stuff. I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for

Good Life Project. Hey, thanks so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we've included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode and then share the Good Life Project love with friends. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what the difference between me and you you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot flight risk