Good Life Project - Good Life Jam: Just Be Kind. Smart Phone Dumb Life.

Episode Date: July 13, 2017

What if we didn't have to wait for tragedy in order to be kind?What if there was no WAY to kindness, but rather, kindness WAS the way? That's what we're talking about in today's GLP Riff, inspired by an awakening during a Broadway show about a powerful true-life story from the town of Gander, Newfoundland.And, be sure to tune in for today's Good Life Science Update, too.We're diving into some new research that shows something just a tiny bit terrifying about how even having a silent smartphone in the room with you might affect your ability to think and perform at the top of your game. For those who want to go deeper, here's a link to the research cited.Rockstar Sponsor:Thrive Market has all the top premium healthy and organic products that I usually get from a grocery store but unlike your typical organic & non-GMO products that are marked up to premium prices, Thrive Market sells the same organic & non-GMO premium products at wholesale prices! To start your FREE 30-day trial, 25% your first purchase and FREE shipping by going to thrivemarket.com/GOODLIFE. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to this week's new blended format for our second show of the week. As you know, our Monday shows are always full-length, in-depth conversations with awesome human beings. And we've started to have a little bit of fun with this complimentary show by playing with some different formats and bringing you some new things. This week, we still have our traditional riff. And the idea behind the riff this week is around kindness in the world today. And we're also exploring new and different segments. Last week, we started with a new Good Life Science update. And today, we will also bring you a Good Life Science update. And be sure to stay tuned for future episodes where we will start to play with some other ideas and always trying to shake things up a little bit, try new things and give you

more of what will help you live a really good life. So we're diving in today with conversations around humanity, kindness, and on the science side of things, how simply having a smartphone in the room with you may just make you a little bit dumber. On to our show. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series X 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. So, as I sit here and record this just a few days ago, I actually went to a Broadway show. And I've been going to shows more lately. It's kind of funny. I'm a New Yorker, so we are in the town that is sort of the heartbeat for plays and shows and musicals.

I've never been much of a musical person. Oddly, a lot of my friends are very much in the theater, actually have performed on stage, sung and danced on Broadway many times. And it's never quite grabbed me, but I've started revisiting shows. I went to Hamilton not too long ago. Mine was blown, absolutely blown by the musicality and the sets. And I went to a show over the weekend. And the name of that show is Come From Away. And I went in, you know, it's one of these shows that's become really hot. And I was expecting something fun and interesting and great music. What I wasn't expecting was that about halfway through, I got a lump in my throat and my heart was just kind of bursting. And I was kind of, you know, like holding back and trying to like hold it together, Jonathan, hold it together. And it was so emotional and so powerful and so moving. And the reason is this.

The story takes you back to 9-11. And when the U.S. airspace was closed in the blink of an eye to all flights, there were, you know, like thousands of flights still in the air and many flights headed into US airspace from all over the world. And something had to be done with those flights. So for a lot of those flights, for 38 of those flights, actually, they were coming from a location where they were redirected to an airport, a small airport, in a tiny town named Gander in sudden nearly double the population of the entire town in a place that is not prepared to handle this number of people, this amount of complexity. And they're essentially grounded there for five days with very little information about what's happening, with no notice whatsoever, with no supplies. And it's this really beautiful story of how this town and the towns around it all come together and just say, hey, listen, like, we're all going through

this together at the same time. We all know this is incredibly emotional time. And they just, they offer up everything. They offer up their homes, They offer up their food. They offer up hugs and friendship. And they just, they take everybody in and just embrace them like they were old friends. And it's kind of funny because when I came home from the show, I was, you know, I jumped on, I think it was Instagram.

And I shared that, you know, this show just blew my mind. It opened my heart. And within an hour, I already had a number of comments from people on that post saying they were from Newfoundland, one even from this town of Gander, who said, yeah, in fact, you know, we housed and fed a number of people. And it reminded me, it reconnected me with this sense of shared humanity, this sense of open-armed welcoming, this sense of innate kindness that I think we all have inside of us and has gone missing. And it's funny because when I left the show, I was thinking to myself,

you know, why was I so moved? Why was I so emotional? I literally, I couldn't really speak for a little while after the show or else I think I would have just been in tears because I was so moved by the gestures and by the idea. And then of course, this beautiful, beautiful production and music. And I think part of what was happening for me also was that I'm a New Yorker. So I was in New York City when the airplanes hit the towers and when the towers came down. And I was here and I ended up shortly after down right next to what they called the pile. And it was really powerful

and emotional. And there was something that happened in New York City in about the six months that followed that, which is among the profound sorrow, the profound sense of loss, there was a melting open of hearts and of minds. There was a sense of shared sisterhood and brotherhood and just openness to everybody. There were people just saying, how can I help? There was less judgment. There was a sense that we're all in this together and we all are only going to get through it together. And how can we all come together and just help each other? I don't care who you are, where you came from, what your political leanings are,

what your gender orientation is, what your sexuality is, what your faith is. We're all in this human experience. And how can we help? How can we be there for each other? And there was a sense of community that stuck around New York for a bit of time, but also left. And it's funny, I never wrote about that experience for a couple of years. I just couldn't. It was too close to the surface. And when I finally did, I shared how I was almost ashamed that while I would never want that moment to happen again, I really missed the sense of openness and spaciousness and

kindness, shared humanity that blanketed the city in the months that followed. And as everyone slowly got back to their sort of everyday lives, that sense left. It kind of started just flowing away a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit until you go a couple years out. And it was kind of pretty much gone. Everyone's back to their pace, back to their snarkiness, back to their a lot of self-interest and driving for the self. And I get that that's part of the human condition as well. But I missed that, that earlier ethos of shared humanity and leading with kindness. And when I went to this show, it reconnected me with that. And I think that's part of the reason that it really moved

me so much also was because it kind of said to me, you know, that lies within all of us. And it was brought out by extreme pain and extreme incident in New York City, you know, many years ago now. And the idea that this actually could just kind of be the guiding ethos, the culture of, you know, a particular town or village or even, you know, this is something that we can tap into. It's not gone. It's always there. And how can we create that not just on a tiny island, but, you know, on the bigger island of Manhattan and in the bigger states and provinces and counties and countries around the world.

Because when we look around these days, very often we see separatism and isolation and judgment. And we're so focused on the things that make us different. And we're so focused on winning. We're so focused on coming out on top. And it was a real, it reminded me that there is a kindness that lies within all of us. And while we sit there saying very often, why can't the world,

why can't we just let all this vitriol go? Why can't the world be a kinder place? Kind of starts with us. It kind of starts with me. Kind of starts with a single intention, a single action, the way that I bring myself to the world, the way that I interact with a single person every moment of every day.

And, you know, it's like Thich Nhat Hanh said, I'm going to totally butcher the quote, but it's, you don't go out to seek peace. You know, like there is no way to peace. Peace is the way. I think the same thing goes for kindness. There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. I think the same thing goes for kindness. There is no way to kindness. There is no, like, how do we meet the world, a kinder place. There is just be kind.

And that's what I'm thinking about. How can you move on from this and move into the rest of your day and stop wishing other people were kind. Stop wishing the world was a kinder place. Stop wishing and stop hoping and stop trying to make things happen and just be kind. That's what I'm going to try and do for the rest of the day.

I'm human. I'm sure it won't come entirely naturally for the whole day, but I'm going to do my best to try and make it my guiding ethos as I move into the day. That's the thought I want to leave you with from this week's riff. And, of course, stay tuned because after this short break with a word from our wonderful supporters, we are going to dive into today's Good Life Science Update. Some really interesting new research around cell phones and how even having them present affect your intelligence.

Back with you shortly. Mayday, mayday. We've been 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 gonna 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 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. And we're diving into today's Good Life Science update. This is a new segment that we're playing with and exploring where we bring you some interesting science, science that relates to your ability to live a better life. Some weeks it'll be me, some weeks I will be bringing in guest really smart people,

pretty much always smarter than me, which is probably not all that hard to be. People who are out there in the world, sometimes doing the research, sometimes in the specific field. Today I wanted to share some interesting new research that was just published last week. It was done by a team at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, Austin. Hey, go Austin. Love Austin, Texas. By the way, if you haven't been there, you got to go. And as always, we will include a link to the actual research in the show notes,

if you want to go deeper into the methodologies or understand it, or check it out for citation purposes and all that other yada yada. Here's what this team was looking to do. So essentially, they were looking to explore how does simply having a cell phone either in the room, on your body, or in a bag affect your ability to think, to problem solve, and to keep things in memory? And, you know, we've all heard a lot of things about stuff like this. But what they did was essentially they took about 800 people who were regular users and owners of smartphones, you know, any variety of smartphones. They weren't exclusive to Apple or Samsung or Google or any other particular product. And they created this experiment. They asked them to essentially sit down in front of a computer and then they were given a series of challenges and these were challenges that actually you had to really be

focused and give your full attention in order to complete a series of questions and at the end of that you would get a score that would tell you how well you did so you knew how well you were performing on these cognitive tests, these cognitive challenges. And they were really about trying to figure out how cell phones affect people, because here's the second part of what was done. People were told to do one of three things with their cell phones before they took the test. Either they could keep their cell phone with them and they would put it on the desk next to them. They would put it face down and the cell phone had to be silenced. So nothing was ringing or vibrating or no notices or anything like that.

It was simply there. It was on the desk and it was face down. So they couldn't look at it. They couldn't see what was on it. The second option was to either have it in their pocket or in a bag if they had a bag. And then, you know, so it was actually physically in the room with them, but it wasn't on the desk, so they couldn't see it. And then the third option was they actually couldn't even have their cell phone anywhere in the room with them. They had to leave their cell phone completely in a separate room. No matter what, the cell phones were all turned to silent and so there was no way to actually get alerts

or notifications or anything like that. So what do you think happened? I bet you can kind of guess, but what's interesting is the science is starting to validate the fact that simply having a cell phone with you, even if you can't see the tests on the computers substantially outperformed pretty much everybody else. So they outperformed their performance on tests of cognitive tasks

were substantially better than people who had their phones on the desk but silenced and face down. And interestingly, they were even better but not as much than, they performed better than the people who had their phones in the room with them, but they were either in their pocket or in a bag. So what does that tell us? Well, pretty straightforward. 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 10. 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. It tells us that even having your phone in the room with you, simply around you, actually impairs your ability to think and problem solve and keep things in memory. And what's interesting is that if you ask these people, do you feel like it's making a difference in your performance? Most people say no. They have no awareness that simply having the phone silenced face down on a desk or in their pocket or in their bag is actually affecting them. As the researchers say, I'm quoting, we see a linear trend that suggests that as the smartphone becomes more noticeable, participants' available cognitive capacity decreases. And they added, your conscious mind isn't thinking about your smartphone. But that process, the process of requiring yourself to not think about something uses up some of your limited cognitive resources. It's a brain drain, end quote.

So really interesting here. You know, it's kind of like saying, hey, don't think about that pink, fuzzy, polka-dotted, tap-dancing element in the room. No matter what you do, do not think about it. Do not think about it. The bandwidth that it takes, the cognitive bandwidth that it takes to ignore these almost addictive call, to constantly check and to wonder what's actually happening there goes up when your phone is in the room because you are reminded of it. So really interesting bit of data there. So of course, the question becomes, how do we use this

information to live a better life? Well, I know here's how I might try to use it. If there's something that I really need to use it. If there's something that I really need to focus on, if there's a test I need to take, if there's a challenge, if there is a creative task that I'm under deadline for, if there's problem solving that I need to do, even if I think I'm totally cool, if I just slide my cell phone in my pocket or put it on my desk, turn off all the, you know, like anything that buzzes, rings, vibrates, put it face down, I'm now going to know that that actually is going to impair my ability to perform at my highest levels. And when there's something that I need to do where I really, I'm time limited and I need to perform at my absolute highest from a sort of brain standpoint,

a cognitive standpoint, rather than saying, I'm just going to throw my phone, you know, like in a knapsack or even in my pocket, I will go the extra mile or rather the extra few steps, take my phone, silence it and put it entirely in another room so that it is so removed from my sort of sphere of awareness that I won't have to use up some of my cognitive bandwidth to stop myself from thinking what's happening on that device. So something to think about in your work life, in your creative life, maybe even in your relationship life, which yes, can take a fair amount of problem solving sometimes and cognitive attention and bandwidth. So hope you found that valuable.

As always, I have fun spending a lot of time. I do research voraciously all the time and it's fun to be able to share this with you. And I'm looking forward to starting to rotate in some guest good life science geeks to share the wisdom with you. As always, enjoy spending time with you. Signing off, this is Jonathan Fields for Good Life Project.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If the stories and ideas in any way moved you, I would so appreciate if you would take just a few extra seconds for two quick things. One, if it's touched you in some way, if there's some idea or moment in the story or in the conversation that you really feel like you would share with somebody else, that it would make a difference in somebody else's life, take a moment and whatever app you're using, just share this episode with somebody who you think it'll make a difference for. Email it if that's the easiest thing, whatever is easiest for you. And then, of course, if you're compelled, subscribe so that you can stay a part of this continuing experience. My greatest hope with this podcast is not just to produce moments and share stories and ideas that impact one person listening, but to let it create a conversation, to let it serve as a catalyst

for the elevation of all of us together collectively, because that's how we rise. When stories and ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change happens. And I would love to invite you to participate on that level. Thank you so much as always for your intention, for your attention, for your heart. And I wish you only the best. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch Series X 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.