Habits and Hustle - Episode 231: Ozan Varol: How to Stop Overthinking and Start Quitting

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

How much do you get done when you’re multi-tasking? In this episode of Habits and Hustle, I chat with Ozan Varol about the importance of staying focused on only one thing at a time to maximize productivity, how to stop overthinking, and why we need to learn how to quit. He also shares the importance of taking some time to do nothing, such as staring out a window. Oftentimes, sitting with your thoughts is more productive than answering emails. Ozan Varol is a rocket scientist turned award-winning professor, #1 bestselling author, and internationally acclaimed speaker. He is one of the world’s foremost experts in creativity, innovation, and critical thinking. He helps industry-leading organizations reimagine the status quo with moonshot thinking. What we discuss: 02:03: What does it mean to escape conformity? 04:10: Why should we unlearn the habits we have picked up? 08:44: Why should you stop multi-tasking? 11:43: What’s the tinfoil-wrapped chocolate theory? 15:18: What is Ozan’s villain story? 17:22: What made Ozan want to write a book about nonconformity? 21:26: Can quitting be the solution? 24:54: Is persistence always the answer? 25:21: Where can you find the courage to quit? 28:51: Why are you still doing things the same way? 34:12: What are the adverse reactions to meditations? 39:01: What about Ozan doesn’t fit into the bucket of being a rocket scientist? 43:18: How can we stop overthinking? 46:26: How can we become more resilient? 52:26: What’s the worst piece of advice that Ozan has received? 55:26: What is a brain attic? 01:01:22: Why you should stop calling your office “the office”? Key Takeaways: Experimenting beats overthinking every single time. Oftentimes, we spend a lot of time thinking about the plan for a new project we want to work on. The problem with that is we often get stuck in this stage, as it gives us the illusion we’re making progress when in reality, we’ve made no progress at all. That’s why it’s important that you skip the overthinking and overplanning stage and instead, experiment. By taking action, you learn quickly enough the things you’ve been trying to find out by “thinking” and can adapt quicker.  Knowing when to quit is just as important as knowing when you need to keep pushing. Sometimes, the job you have isn’t cutting it anymore, and quitting it is what will bring you to your next level. In other cases, your business may feel impossible to break even but you need to keep pushing. Whatever it is you are doing or want to accomplish, it’s important you know how to quit and put your foot on the pedal. Most of the habits we have picked up were habits created by other people who ingrained them into us. They thought for us, and we simply take on what they pass on without questioning it. However, that’s no way to live through life as a life of conformity is in no way a fruitful one. You are meant to use your thinking skills to ideate a life you want for yourself and put it into play. Thank you to our sponsors: This episode is sponsored by Hostinger. Visit Hostinger.com/HABITS and use promo code HABITS for an extra 10% off. Go to organifi.com/hustle and use code HUSTLE for 20% off your entire order. To learn more about Ozan: Website: https://ozanvarol.com/ Book: https://ozanvarol.com/awaken/ My links: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I got this Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits in Hustle, Creshion. Today on the podcast we have Ozone Verol. He initially wrote think like a rocket scientist and he's actually been on the podcast before but he was such a wonderful guest that he's back on with his new book called Awake in Your Genius, Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary. And you are extraordinary. So I'm so happy to have you on the podcast. Thank you.

So glad to be back and to meet you in person. I know. The first time, like, we were doing this virtually, and I had computer problems back then, too, or social media problems. And I always am like, you're a rocket scientist, you can figure this out. So, excuse me, because now I have the same situation, so I'm now using my computer here for my questions. But for those of you who don't know,

it was on, like I said, he did write that book called Think Like a Rocket Scientist. But he is pretty remarkable. He is a rocket scientist, he's a lawyer, he's a law professor, a speaker, basically an author, obviously. And are you writing these books yourself? Would you have?

No, I'm writing them myself. Yeah. I want to say this, and I said this before, we even started rolling, was I really enjoyed this. I enjoyed both of your books. That's why, of course, you're back here. But I really love this one because you know, given the fact that you are a rock as a scientist,

you would think that sometimes people like that would write above, you know, kind of like so, so complex that it's like hard to kind of really understand the nuggets that they're trying to, you know, to still. And I found the book so enjoyable. I loved the way I loved how your brain works and I loved the messages. And I really thought you did a great job. So.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. No, and I'm serious. I really, like I said, I really, really enjoyed it. So let's start with the beginning. When you say escape, conformity, night creativity, what is, how would you describe what you write about? I know that you, what category would you say that this would fall under?

Is it kind of, because you're very much about like escaping the status quo, right? Yeah, exactly. So escaping conformity is a big part of it. And I'll actually begin with a title, which is Awakened Your Genius. And a title was a real struggle to get it right. And I picked it because I love the origin of the word genius. So genius, most people use it to mean most talented or most intelligent or the smartest person, right? But genius, there's this quote that opens the book from Falaunius Monk.

He says genius is the person most like themselves. And genius in the Latin origin of the word refers to the spirit present at birth in each and every person. And so each of us, we're like Aladdin, and we have a genius, a genius within each of us waiting to be awakened. And it's not just the most talented or the smartest individual, it's everyone,

has a genius within them. A unique contribution that they can make to the world and the book is about how to awaken that. And then the escape conformity bit comes into play because so much of us, so many of us don't do that, right? We're constantly looking externally for answers. We're copying and pacing while other people are doing. We're assuming that answers are not within that other people know more than we do. So there is this external search for answers, which then results in conformity.

That's why I love the book, because I wholeheartedly agree with so much of what you write about. And it's true, I believe that we do have, we become lazy in our thinking. We are so used to googling things and cutting and pacing things that we hear in the zeitgeist, that we have gotten so used to itling things and cutting and pasting things that we hear in the zeitgeist that we have gotten so used to it that we don't even remember how to think for ourselves.

And you talk about that, like, that's like a through line with the book, right? If people don't recognize that, how do people recognize that? How do we kind of like stop doing that? Because it's become so part of our DNA. Sure. Yeah. And it starts as such an early age for the education system, because the whole education system is based on the fact

that answers have been figured out by people far smarter than you. And your only responsibility is to memorize those answers and then spit them back out on the standardized test. Right, and you talk about that with the education system, like, uneducate yourself. Yeah, exactly. To unlearn all of these bad habits that we pick up of assuming that life is a series of

right or wrong answers that have been determined by someone far smarter than you, and all you need to do is just memorize them. So then people graduate and come out of the education system, thinking that all answers are in a book somewhere or on Google. And so unlearning that habit begins by just returning to the ability to think for yourself. And think of it for yourself, one of the simplest things you can do.

And I give a number of practices in the book, but this is one of them. I call it putting yourself on airplane mode. And I have a story where that phrase originated. And so normally when I'm on an airplane, I follow the same ritual, I pull out my laptop. I'd start working right away. And then when it's time for takeoff,

I'd begrudgingly put the laptop away and then slide the bag underneath the seat, and then twit all my thumbs until we reach 10,000 feet, and that comforting, double-trimed ding-ding. Yeah. Signifies that it's safe for me to pull out the bag again, and then pull out my laptop and go back to being productive I was on a flight maybe four or five years ago and a voice within me said don't do that like leave your laptop where it is and

I honor that voice and I spent four hours doing nothing but looking at the window I just like looked out the window, I ordered some crappy airplane wine, and I just looked at the window, and as I stepped into the void, something really weird happened. All of these ideas started to come. Like ideas for books, ideas for keynotes, solutions to problems that have been bugging me for four months,

the more I listened, the more ideas came. And that's amazing. And that's, and if you think of it in your life too, moments like that, so when you ask most people, where do you get your best ideas? People will say, it's in the shower. Like, when you're showering, that's where your best ideas come from.

And if you think about it, it makes sense. It's like one of the few periods of your day when you're actually free of distractions and notifications and no one's coming at you, and you're just there with your thoughts. Imagine the types of ideas you might be able to generate if you replicate those shower-like conditions throughout the day. So it doesn't have to be like what I did, which is like stare out the window for four hours.

But if you can replicate those conditions where you allow yourself to do nothing but think. So don't listen to an audio book, go for a walk, sit in there at the ceiling, it's incredible what happens. And the science is clearly, when you look out the window or when you just let your mind wander, you're subconscious is hard at work.

It's making new associations, it's consolidating ideas, it's generating new things that weren't there before. But if you're moving from notification to notification, email to email, meeting to meeting, you just don't have time to think. And if you don't have time to think, then you're not going to be able to come out with insights from within.

You're always going to look externally. It's interesting because I think that when people think when they're busy doing like, and they things, it makes them feel productive, but it's actually the opposite, right? Exactly. And those four hours spent out the window, spent staring out the window or the most productive four hours I had spent in recent memory. I think most people, as you said, don't do it because it seems like nothing is happening. Like when you're answering emails, you're seeing visible progress

towards inbox zero. But when you're just thinking, it seems like nothing is happening. But again, your seems like nothing is happening. But again, your mind is hard at work. And if you don't give yourself space to think, then you won't be able to generate good ideas. You know what's, and also I, like, you talk about a lot about this in the book, but like, even the fact that like, it's been kind of like touted, like, oh, you're a multitasker.

You get all this stuff done. But that's, I have to,, but I'm guilty of this. And I do that. And yet, what happens in my opinion is that you do nothing well, nothing, you don't retain anything. You're just doing a lot of shit, but you're doing everything badly, or you're not really present, right? And it's become part of our culture where, like, do more, do more, do more.

That's the through line of life, right? Especially with all this overwhelming amount of like, that's like the message. What do you say to that? Like how can we stop, like how do we unwind what we've been already taught? A ready that's considered to be like what we are, that's how we think we're successful,

that's how we think that we're productive, right? Like sure, yeah. Now I think this pedal that we're productive, right? Like, sure. Yeah. No, I think this pedal to the metal mentality is the enemy of original thought. When you're multitasking, when you're trying to do email, when you're also on a Zoom call, you're not concentrating on either thing. And you're operating at a fraction

of what you're actually capable of. And I think just knowing that, like humans are terrible multitaskers. We're just not good at multitasking, period. And no one is good at multitasking. Nobody is good at multitasking. That's step number one, just to realize that. And number two, also realizing that if you give your full attention

to something, it's sort of like when people meet a famous person. Some will say, you know, they made me feel like I was the only person in the room. Like, I felt like when their attention was on me, I was the only person in the room. They were special. Exactly. Treating everything you do with that kind of laser-focused attention, and being very intentional about it. Like, I'm going to answer this email and that's the only thing I'm doing. I'm going to give myself time to think, and that's the only thing I'm doing. I'm going to give myself time to think, and that's the only thing I'm doing.

People tend to say time or money is the most scarce resource. I wouldn't, that's so built into the zeitgeist. But I think the most scarce resource is your attention, because you can only pay attention to one thing at a time, and there's a reason why we call it paying attention. You should treat it like your money. It's actually more important than your money because it's a limited resource and all of these social media companies have figured out what an incredibly valuable resource it

is, which is why there are in the attention, getting, and attention selling business. So, if you are not making the decision on what you're paying attention to, someone else is making that decision on your behalf, and they are not going to choose necessarily what's in your best interest. And so I think it's really important to just step back and be intentional about whatever it is we're going to do next.

Do I want to answer this email? Do I want to try to multitask and then do a half ass thing in both of the things that I'm trying to do. So what is your take on social media then? Because like you said, it's about you're basically they're taking your attention away to sell you something or put you somewhere and they're caused, they're making the decision not you. And now we're all on this hamster wheel, right? And it's not getting any better, it's getting worse. So how do we kind of refrain from that? And you're like, it's very to like my, my thing is you make such great points, but and then it not but but like, then what? Right? Because we don't have the

willpower or the discipline a lot of times to pull, pull it back. Right. Because we're so down that rabbit hole. Yeah, absolutely. There's a study I cite in the book about people tend to eat fewer chocolates if each chocolate is wrapped in tin foil. I love that thing. The wrapped chocolate versus the unwrap. Can you talk about that? Yeah, yeah.

So people tend to, if you put people into two groups, one group gets just a bucket of chocolates. There is no barrier between chocolate and mouth. The other group gets chocolates individually wrapped in tin foil. And the second group ends up eating a lot less chocolate because you're sort of forced to pause and consider what you're doing because you have to unwrap. And people tend to gamble less when you put money in envelopes.

So you have to open the envelope before you can take the money out. So with that brief moment of pause, forces people to reflect on what they're going to do next. Now, you don't have to wrap your smartphone and tinfoil, although that would probably help. It would help. It would help. But the goal is just to be intentional

about what you're going to do next. We pick up our phone, and if you're like most people, your phone is probably within the arms reach right now. We pick it up, we pick it up impulsively right you're not even thinking about what you're going to do next there is no tin foil. The goal should be to create a type of tin foil and when you pick up your phone and you can even have something on your phone screen saying like is this the best thing I could be doing right now? Like do you want to do this? And then intentionally

choosing what you're going to do. Personally, I don't love all or nothing approaches, like quit social media completely, which I don't think is sustainable or even desirable because once the diet ends, people tend to relax. I think it's just being intentional about choosing to do what you're going to do next. And asking yourself, is this the best thing I could be doing? And then two, this is, this made a huge difference for me. We often pick up our phone or go to our favorite source of distraction to fulfill some unmet need.

So like there's something driving that. It could be boredom, it could be, I'm looking for novelty, it could be this or that. But identifying that unmet need, and then asking yourself, did I just fulfill that need? Like, did I by picking up my phone and looking through Twitter? Actually, fulfill this need that I have for novelty or for distraction.

And the answer for me is almost always no. I love this. I have this written down, actually, because I liked it so much. You put here at Twitter, it makes you neurotic. Facebook, you feel like you're in middle school again, right? And then like Instagram, you feel less then, which when I read that, I was like, oh my god. Like he sees me. You know what I mean? Like it's so true. And I think that everybody says that and feels that.

Yet intellectually, we all know that, and yet we still do it over and over again. Yeah. So, you know, you're listening to this podcast, pause the conversation now, go look at your favorite source of distraction for 10 minutes, and then check yourself. Like check to see how you're actually feeling. If you're like most people, you're probably feeling this low level buzz of stress and anxiety that wasn't there before.

And the more you can be attuned to those signals, the more you can realize that these services, the way we're using them at least, actually making us feel crappier than when we look through them, then the less likely that you'll be able to, or you'll be willing to go to them for distraction. That's just at least been the case for me.

No, I think everyone could agree. Let me just go back a second here, because how did you become this person? Because you, let you say, uneducate yourself is the first thing you say in the book, right? Is that okay? And yet, you're a rocket scientist. Like education, academic, Demia,

I would say that you probably crushed in that world, right? And you know, this is, you're kind of like the anti-guy to be saying some of these things. Like how did you become this person? Like what was your origin story? Yeah, and you know, it's embarrassing actually. I graduated first in my law school class. And when people say that one day introduced me, like I got the highest GPA in my law school.. And when people say that when they introduce me, like I got the highest GPA in my law school. Where'd you go to law school? Once in University of Iowa.

Oh, okay, well at least you didn't go to Harvard. I'm joking. Still a top 20 law school. Yeah, I just joking. And I broke the, you know, the historical record for it. And when people say that when I'm on stage, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed because it says that I am really good

at conforming. Like people who do really well in I am really good at conforming. Like people who do really well in school are really good conformists because the teacher will say, you need to go do this, they go do that. You need to go read this book. I go read that book. Like I was really good at following instructions and I was really good at figuring out what my teachers wanted and giving exactly that to them. So it was actually this way of operating in the world, conformity that led me to succeed in school. And then looking back on that experience, again, it wasn't that I'd be the best lawyer

that my law school would produce. I quit law after two years. It was just that I was really good at following rules. And as I started to write and self-reflects, what was once a point of pride became this thing of like, oh my God, that means I'm just a really good conformist and I've lived my whole life this way. And then that started, this is years and years of self-reflection, journaling, thinking through what drives me,

what ideas I have, and what not, that I came to that realization of the fact that I was a conformist for so much of my life, and much of my writing is actually self-help. I write to help myself to reconnect with who I am and show my true colors to the world. It's interesting because, like I said, it would be the opposite. You are that person. I mean, you obviously are still opposite. You are that person. I mean, you obviously are still that person, but then what made you write a book about anti-conforming

and all the other things that you talk about, right? What was that, because you saw that you were doing it, but it was working for you. So what made you decide to write a book about not, for people not to be doing these things? Sure. And I think... Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And I don't think I am that person anymore. I mean, I'm the same body, but I have very little in common with the version of you

that existed 10 years ago. Really? Yeah. And I think people forget how much we change. And then we stick to the decisions that like, if you're 40 years old, you stick to the decisions that the 30-year-old version of you made, even though you've got little in common with that person. If you've any doubts about that, by the way,

go check out the social media posts you posted 10 years ago. Totally. And when you're done cringing over what you decided to share with the world, come back and ask yourself, like, why should I still follow this path that I've been following, simply because this version of me that existed 10 years ago picked this path that I'm on. And so for me, it was this lifelong journey of continuously reimagining myself, right? So I started out on rocket science and then did that for four years, worked on the operations

team for the Mars Exploration ofvers mission, went to law school, practiced law for two years, then became a law professor, and did that for ten years. And I thought I'd be a law professor for the rest of my life. And then probably five years ago, I realized that that life was no longer for me. I loved the career, I loved teaching, but I had gotten tired of teaching the same classes year after year, you know, attending the same types of committee meetings and answering the same types of questions. And this career that I once loved had just become too comfortable. I had stopped learning and growing. And there was a section in the book where I talk about

how I had this epiphany. And I had tenure. So tenure means a guaranteed job and guaranteed paycheck for life. And tenure professors don't quit their jobs. I had to sip if any. I always thought academia was my safety net, but then I realized that it was actually a straight jacket. It had, like, morphed into a straight jacket and was now confining me and holding me back. And as long as I stayed in academia,

I wouldn't be able to write the type, so books that I wanted to write and give the types of key notes I wanted to give. And so I had to overcome my own ego to be able to let that go because I had professor in front of my name for 10 years. And to be able to say, I'm going to give that up and I'm going to start this and become a complete beginner again, right? Leave all of that behind, all the titles and accolades, and start over.

It's so scary, yet it's so liberating, because you start over from scratch, and you're writing on a blank slate, and you could do anything you want. You could write a book, as I did about rocket science, and then the book you were holding in your hands, Awakened Your Genius is really the combination of that lifelong journey.

My last book was, again, thinking like a rocket scientist, and it's funny even the combination of that lifelong journey. My last book was, can't think of him like a rock a scientist, and it's funny even the writing approach was so different. Like I had the title picked, I had the whole structure laid out, everything was set from the get go. And the book did really well. And when writing this book, I tried to do the same thing. Like I look back and I'm like, okay, what made the last book successful?

I'm gonna take the formula, the same formula, and apply it to this book. And for the first time in my life, I got writer's walk. Like words just stopped flowing. It just wasn't happening. So then I scrapped my outline, all the plans I had for the book, and I said, okay, like we're just gonna start over from scratch

with no intention, no idea of what this thing is gonna look like, and I'm gonna build the individual puzzle pieces first and then see what they add up to. So I let all expectations go, all structure go, and just leaned into what was coming up on a day-to-day basis, and I just started writing, and then we're started to flow again, and then over time different themes emerged that I could connect to to put together this coherent idea with, you know, five different parts. More from our guests, but first a few words from our sponsor. Keep coming back, you got plenty of space!

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Well, what I, like what you said, first of all, you said a bunch of things, but one of the things that you say, you actually talk about this is like this is this quitting mentality, right? We don't want to quit. I mean, sometimes we don't quit because we're so stuck in our ways, but you're saying that sometimes quitting is the best thing to let go of so you can move on to the next thing. Well, number one, can you just talk about the quitting part?

Well, just talk about that first and then I'll ask you my second question. Sure. Okay. So, going back to this personal experience I had, the last time with quitting, which is quitting this, the safety net of academia, I mentioned I was afraid. Yeah. I was also afraid of a number of the things.

I was afraid of losing my safety net. I was afraid of missing life as a professor. I was afraid of honestly, this is probably my biggest fear, I was afraid that I could, I may not make it. Right, the unknown is what you were afraid of. Exactly, totally. But then I realized quitting is an act of love. There is birth and death.

When you know when it's right, and also with persistence, right, you said sometimes persistence is not. Sure. Yeah, and like, look, some people quit too soon. I think it's a totally personal decision. But I think when you, if you're feeling like you've stopped learning and growing, if you're feeling uncomfortable about where you are in life, it's time to do some self-reflection. And so for me, the signals that been there for a while, and I ignore them, the signal that signal of complacency,

the signal of not this again, right? That sinking feeling of standing before a classroom which was so exciting in the first like six or seven years and then I would get up there and I wouldn't feel as excited anymore. And I would actually sink. And the more you pay attention to your body by the way, the more easily you're able to pick up these signals, What it was, a sensation of sinking, of crashing down, and it kept happening. And I was like, okay, I need to pay attention to this. And the more I listened, the more the messages came,

being like, look, this was amazing while it lasted, but it's not right for you anymore. There's this quote in the book from Joseph Campbell. He says, something like life lives on lives, the earth must be broken to bring forth new life. So if the seed doesn't die, there is no plant. If wheat doesn't die, there is no bread. Life lives on lives. So our old selves become compost for our new selves. Our old truths become seeds for new revelations, our old paths become lighthouses for new destinations. And so I think a lot of people are reluctant to quit

because they feel like quitting means wasting what they did before, but I think it's actually quite the opposite. Quitting means remembering the past, and bringing your past to your future as fuel, as like fertilizer for the next thing, and that's what I did. So as I was in this place in my life

where I felt like this was no longer for me, I looked back in my past and thought about how I can pick up these core components from my past to be able to use them as fuel for my future. So like rocket science gave me the ability for critical thinking and I'll form the subject matter for my last book. A decade of teaching gave me the ability

to speak before audiences and then captivate people. A decade of writing gave me the ability to just story tell. So I picked up these core components and then combined them to create what became my first non-academic book, think like a rocket scientist. And then with the success of that, I felt comfortable leaving academia and writing the next one. Yeah.

And then you say here also, but the pull them, I got to pull it up here, but the determined, like I said, the persistence and again, we're conditioned and I talk about like being, if you're persistent, if you're dedicated, if did it, like things will happen for you, you say the, like you're saying sometimes that's not what you should be doing, right? Like, so don't persist something that's broken. Don't persist in that you don't want to be doing basically as your point, right? So, and you're saying that you need to have a piece of self-reflection in that, because some people always will take the path of least resistance, not always a lot of times.

Sure, yeah. Right? And where do people find the courage? Because people are really afraid of the end of the day for failure, for rejection, for the unknown. Right. And where do people find the courage? Because people are really afraid of the end of the day for failure, for rejection, for the unknown. Right. Right. Yep.

And you find the courage, I think, in your own life. You look back, if you're listening to this, look back on your life. And think about the most momentous moments of your life. The things that really moved the needle and really made a difference. Chances are that they did not happen in moments of certainty. Chances are that those moments were not carefully scripted and planned. Chances are they happened precisely

because you leaped into the unknown. And you did something that pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone, that you didn't feel like you, like you didn't know what was gonna happen and you did this thing anyway. Yeah. And magic unfolded as a result.

Well, you have to say like this analogy. You've got great analogies in the book in general. I love a lot of them, like the wrapping of the chocolate. And you talk about like how something can serve you well at one point of your life and then not serve you well. Like the raft. Yes. Yeah, the raft can help you on the boat.

But like if you're walking through the forest, that raft is really kind of like, it's actually a hindrance to your survival, right? And I think that's why I'm bringing up these analogies is that because it's so true, right? Because we get so stuck and how something helped us in one spot or part of our life that we hold on to it so tightly, when it can actually be such a hindrance in another area that we hold onto it so tightly, yet when it can actually

be such a hindrance in another area that we've kind of, you know, if we've, when we grow, right, like we kept to sometimes leave that stuff behind to keep on moving, to keep on growing, but we're, we hate to get rid of stuff. Like we can always add, but we hate to subtract. Yeah, yep, exactly. And like looking back on my life, the best things happen because of subtraction, not addition. Right. I'm more proud of the things that I'm proud of the things that I stop doing as opposed to the things that I have done because it takes more courage to stop.

And just to bring that parable, the raft full circle for those who are not familiar with the story is this Buddhist parable of this man who builds a raft to cross this raging river. And then he gets to the other side, he's proud of himself, he picks up the raft, he walks into the forest, and then the raft starts like snagging against the trees

and getting in the way of his forward progress, but he refuses to let go of the raft. He says, I built this thing, this saved my life. Why would I let it go? But to survive today, he has to let go of what saved his life yesterday. And that's true for so much of what we do in life and in business.

And I see this in businesses too. Like the things that were really successful 10 years ago, five years ago are now getting in their way, but they can't let it go. They can't let it go because it's worked in the past. It's so interesting that you say that because there's a few businesses that were crushing it like 10 years ago, based on something, and they're now like flailing and dying because

they had that same mentality of like what they succeeded with then doesn't work now. So they're unable to keep up with like how things are moving in the times, right? But it's like a mentality, right? Like it's about how, even if you're cognizant of it, how do you let it go? I guess this is where I keep on coming back to. It's like, okay, it's one thing to have that knowledge about the raft or about that business or whatever it is. But what can we do to help ourselves get past that hurdle

so we can actually get rid of the raft or let that business idea like kind of evolve into what it has to. Yeah, I talk about a number of strategies in the book. I'll share one of them. This simple question you can ask yourself, which is such a powerful one. Why am I doing this? That's it.

Why am I doing this? Like go through an entire day and look at your day and intentionally ask yourself, why am I doing this? Why am I checking email first thing in the morning? Why am I doing X, Y, and Z, right? And the answer for so much of what we do on a daily basis is because I've always done it this way. We've always done it this way

or others around me are doing this. So I'm gonna copy and paste what they're doing. But there is no intentionality behind it. We're operating on autopilot. And that simple question, why am I doing this? Is a really powerful one. And it can snap you out of autopilot. So I mentioned checking email first thing in the morning.

That's something that I discovered with as an answer to that question, why am I doing this? I would check my email first thing in the morning for years. And then I would always start today feeling depleted, right? Because I'm like answering emails, which means you're basically tackling other people's problems, things that other people put on your plate, and you start your day on defense.

Versus being intentional in asking, what do I actually want to do today? Like, what is important to me versus what's important to whoever decided to email me today? And the answer came because of that simple question, which is, why am I doing this? And the answer was because I will always check the email first thing in the morning. That was the only reason, so then I stopped, and then I did an experiment. So my change for me always begins with an experiment. I don't make, I usually don't make drastic changes right away

because, and this is true for most people, it can be really jarring. So I said, okay, I'm gonna make an, I'm gonna do an experiment. I'm gonna experiment with not checking email until noon for a week, just to see what happens. Because usually change register as a potential threat, uncertainty registers as a threat, because what's uncertain,

what's unknown, could kill you. And so, to reduce that fear, you can just say, look, we're just going to run an experiment. If it doesn't work, we'll go back to the way that things work, but if it does work, then you can start doing that going forward, and did it for a week. Absolutely nothing bad happened. And then now, that's how I operate. I don't check email before noon, most days.

And whenever I violate that rule, it's always to my detriment. Really. I love that. Because I think that's a good idea that you said to experiment before you go like until you, is it like bringing the house down, you know, just start with like except a small experiment to see if it works. Exactly. And then you can kind see if it works. Exactly. And then you can kind of move from there.

Yeah. The cut and pasting thing about how we like live life, like I said, it really resonated. And you even you've even mentioned this example, by the way, in your book, which is what I'm like, oh my God, is the meditation thing, right? Because every what I think this universal thing like, oh, meditation, quiet's the mind, meditation. So like, you know, whenever I have people on the podcast, and I ask them, like, what do you do to kind of what should one of your daily habits, nine and a 10 times, I hear meditation, right? Out in the ethos, it's always about like meditate, meditate, meditate, meditate. I cannot meditate

to save my life. I've tried a bazillion times. I think about it just gives me anxiety every time I have to sit there. And people are like, have you tried this type of meditation? Have you tried that type of meditation? I'm like, none of them work. And like you actually point that out. Like it's this conformity idea that like everyone,

there's like this, because it's out there, people should all have to conform to meditation. But there's a lot of research even backing the fact that even that's not, I want you to talk about it. But to me, that's a perfect example of what we do as a society like today. Yeah, I love that example. And there's a obsession with people's routines

and particularly morning routines. And as you said, meditation is almost always a part of every successful person's morning with you. And I think it's bullshit person. I'm calling bullshit because I don't believe that every single person, nine and a 10 people, like they can actually sit there in an arm for like nine, 10, 20 minutes. And I don't think everyone can like it. It's impossible. Yeah, totally. And then I think it makes you feel bad too. Like if you're like, always people around me are doing this. It seems to work for them and that it makes you feel

shitty because it doesn't work for you because of the anxiety. Yeah, I look at those stories and like, wait a minute. So before 9 a.m., you meditated, you went for a run, you did a cold plunge, you warmed up some milk from your pet goat in your backyard and then you meditated and all of these things. And I look at that and I'm like, no one

Don't people have like, I don't people have a lie like I mean kid. I mean, I don't know like I think if I can get to like if I can keep a couple good habits of the day in the morning that work for me Great, but like to your point it's like how did people have time for a three hour morning routine? Right exactly And I think there's so much pressure than to do that on people. And it also leads to this false belief that if I just copy and paste someone's morning routine, if I do what the same as versus going to do, that I'm going to have the same results.

Like if I use the same pen that Stephen King is using, I'm going to write as good of a, I'm going to become a successful novelist. I'm exaggerating, of course. But the point being is that I think it gives us full suppression that if you just copy and paste somebody else's routine that you're gonna be successful. And so meditation to go back to that is a good example.

So I cite a study in the book, I don't remember the specific numbers, but a good portion of people who meditate actually have adverse effects from meditation, which is not talked about. And I have an email list, so I shared this research with them before the book came out. Just letting people know.

And the point of the post was like, not everything is universally good. Even meditation is not universally good. It's not the universal right for everyone. And this sort of like black, white, yes, no right wrong thinking, least a lot of problems. That sort of categorical thinking that leaves no room for nuance to say, yes, but, or this

is good for some people, but it's not good for others. Seems to me like a really simple point. I got more hate mail for that post than anything else I've received in recent memory, which is sort of ironic, right? Like the most ardent practice. 100%, that's why I lost this part. Practitioners of meditation. The most ardent practitioners of meditation were so upset

that I was sharing the results of a peer-reviewed research study showing that a good number of people were experiencing adverse effects from meditation and to simply introduce nuance into categorical thinking, to complicate what was before a simplified, categorical thing ruffled so many feathers, so unzend. And it's, again, especially ironic that these people are meditated.

The irony is amazing on this one. I think, what do you think about that? Does that tell you about where we are in life right now? Yeah. Not forbid you have an opinion. Right. And it's these people are the ones who are like down your throat about it.

Exactly. And so this idea of, and meditation teaches you to be loosely attached, right? To your opinions and beliefs, and the people are the holding them so firmly, that meditation is good for everybody. I think it shows that human beings, we are in many ways wire to think in categories, to say this fits into this

category, this fits into that category. This is the right answer, and this is the wrong answer. And this is a standard Hollywood story, right? The hero defeats the villain, and everyone lives happily ever after. And it works because it appeals to this human nature of, it's so much easier to say, college is essential or college is useless,

or to say like Elon Musk is a hero, or Elon Musk is a villain, versus adopting a level of thinking that blurs it to, to be in this gray zone in between to say like, here's this part that supports the use of meditation in some people, and here's this other argument that says that meditation is at the right thing for everybody, and rejecting that type of categorical thinking,

and like realizing that beauty exists in diversity, and that includes diversity of thought, and that includes multi-dimensional thinking that rejects these simplistic categories that in an attempt to simplify things, paints a totally distorted picture of reality. Beyond. I mean, and then why do people's brains work where it's like it's too confusing for them to think in that way? Like, I think again, not to refer back to my note, but I'm going to, because there's so many things here that I wrote down because I liked it so much. And now, of course, I can't find it. But what was that thing you

said about? Yeah. And we don't like to have ambiguity around certain things, right? It's much easier for our brains to kind of understand these like buckets, right? It's true, like even with, you know, my life, too, like people think, because I was in fitness, I'm a fitness person, God forbid, you can get into a different bucket. People cannot, they cannot cross, like, pollinate. But I mean, I know you're not a psychologist, but you play one on TV at some time. But you are a rocket scientist.

What is it about our brains that we cannot have that we don't have that ability to do that? Yeah, that's a good question. I think we do have the ability to do that. Yeah, that's a good question. I think we do have the ability to do that. I just think it's easier as the path of least resistance to just set along some plus the categories. And I'm sure there's, and I don't know this, but there's probably an evolutionary advantage to this, to be able to say, you know, these sorts of things fall into the

threat bucket and these do not, versus constantly evaluating everything as you go through life, right? And so that can be really inefficient. So that's probably why we are not accustomed to doing it, but then we take it to an extreme, which is to put everything into these buckets. And so as you said, like people put me into the rocket science bucket and assume a certain set of things or belief systems follow from that. And they're always shocked when they hear, I don't adhere to all of those belief systems.

And I may complicated, multidimensional individual who does a lot of things that don't fit into that mold. And I think that's what makes people interesting. What makes, okay, so tell me one thing about you that doesn't fit into the mold of rocket science. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into warrior one in the break room

before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of

the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of

the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of the tent. The cat is on the side of Life is full of what ifs. So what if you try something new when it comes to dating?

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I journal about my dreams every morning. Not something that most rock a scientist do. I get up in the morning and I journal about what I dream. You remember what you dream? Yeah, I think, I would say most nights I remember what I dreamed about and I get up in the morning and I journal about the symbols that came up in my dreams and what they signify for me. Because I tend to think that dreams are messages from your own depths, from your own subconscious. And so your subconscious communicates to you in your dreams. And I found dreams to be

really powerful ways of uncovering your own depths. And so the practice of journal I give out them in the morning, so like this person showed up or this symbol showed up in my dream What does that actually mean from my life right now? I actually tell one of the stories in the book. I had this dream where I saw this equation and this by the way is unusual I don't normally dream about math or this equation came up. It was it was It was 0.8 times 0.2 equals 0.16 So 0.8 times 0.2 equals 0.16. So 0.8 times 0.2 equals 0.16. It's middle school math.

Like it certainly makes sense for the scientists in me, but in the dream, I was so confused. I kept thinking, how can the multiplication of two numbers, the final product, be less than either a number. So 0.16 is less than both 0.8 and 0.2. How could that be? I was so confused in the dreams, I woke up in the morning and I like wrote this equation down on my notebook and I kept staring at it and then thinking through what it could mean

and then the answer hit me. I was like, oh my god. Going back to this multitasking thing we talked about before. When we operate at a fraction of our capacity, like when we give, instead of a full one, we give a 0.8 or a 0.2 to something, the output suffers significantly. It becomes so much less than what we actually put in. And then that became like the opening story to one of the chapters in the book. And I now have a post-it note on my computer

with that equation. It says 0.2 times 0.8 equals 0.16. As a constant reminder, if I try to multitask, if I'm not giving my full 1.0, 100% attention to something, my output is going to suffer as a result. Well, I still can understand how can you remember your dreams that vividly every night where you can write in your journal about them?

I can never remember anything. And maybe this could be one of these things where people should be able to maybe con hardness. Could you harness that? I know you're not a dream specialist either, but... I think so. For me, I had our time too, but I started by journaling about one thing I remembered. It wasn't a full story. It could be like an image, and I would journal about the image. And then the dream started to get more vivid and stronger. Like the more I journaled, it's

sort of like using a fitness... Are you thinking you're honest before you? No. No. To use a fitness analogy, it's like... Why? Because I told Joe's in fitness for a second. Right, exactly. No, I told you. Use a different analogy, it's like. Why? Because I told Joe's in fitness for a second. Right, exactly.

No, I told you. Use a different analogy just for that reason. Let's see, you're one of these people who need to be compartmentalized. Yeah. Well, you know, went in row, my gosh. No, with like with every rep, the muscle gets stronger. Yeah, I know.

So the more you do it, the stronger it gets. And it's true for every practice I talk about in the book, like that question I mentioned. Why am I doing this? It's really hard to ask that and to identify that at first, but once you get into the habit of asking yourself that on a regular basis, then the answers become a lot easier to identify. Sometimes you don't even have to ask the question anymore.

It'll just come to you. Dreams are like that too, in my experience at least. The more I journal about them, the more vivid they get. That's interesting because when you walked in here, you said that thing about the woman that you dream about, and you had like, you remember like every detail about that stuff. Yeah. And I'm getting a tattooed tomorrow. I know. That's why I was like, the fact that like when you said that obviously, I didn't, I have that kind of just blew me away. Can we talk about resilience and overthinking?

Because I think those are two biggies that, I talk about a lot of my books, so I'm very curious how, what other people think about it? Let's go with overthinking first, right? What's your take on how we can stop this thing? And how do we get over overthinking and not get into this whole analysis paralysis is what

basically happens? Yeah. And it stops us from doing anything. I'm going to go back to something we talked about before and then I'll tell you a story about overthinking. So going back to experimentation, experimenting beats overthinking. You can make all the pros and cons that you want, but you don't know if something is going to work until you actually try.

As a former rocket scientist, I am so prone to overthinking things to make all the pros and cons that is this gonna work is it's not gonna work. I had, this was back in 2016, I had like just started writing online. I was still in academia and I was thinking about, okay, launching a blog and started to write online

to see if I would get some resonance with non-academic audiences. And I wrote this article. The title was like, facts don't change minds. And here's why. I wrote it because I have this newsletter that goes out every Thursday. It's 100% true, by the way. Yeah.

I looked at it and I was like, God, this sucks. Like this sucks. This is seems so obvious to me. I don't know if this is gonna resonate with people. I don't know if it's gonna work. So I went into that overthinking mode and then I'm like, okay, I need to send out the newsletter tomorrow.

So I'm just gonna put it out there and see what happens. Put it out there. A few hours after the post went out, I got an email from my web designer. No, actually, no, before that, I got an email from an editor at the next big idea club. And he said, this is a really good piece. We went across, like, post it to our website.

I was like, okay, like, weird. I didn't think it was that great, but sure, let's do it. So they put it up there, and then a few days later, my web designer emailed me, and she's like, something's happening. Like, look at your website stats. And it was like this hockey, hockey stick shaped curve, this exponential, the article had gone viral. It became an expec ideas club,

like most popular article of all time. It's been shared on social media, hundreds of thousands of times. And I was this close to overthinking it and not putting it out there. So I think back to that moment, I'm like, okay, you know what, no one knows what's gonna work and what's not gonna work until you actually try it. So you can overthink it, you can make all the pros and cons, all the spreadsheets that you want,

but you don't know what's going to work until you try. So I always think back to that story. So experimenting is really important because you're reducing the threshold to get started. You're not saying this is a permanent change. And you're just saying, I'm just going to give it a shot and just see what happens. And as long as you leave the door unlocked, you can always come back inside. If you don't like the experiment that results that they that produced, you can come back inside. Right. But how do we stop ourselves? We just act basically is what you're saying. Yeah. Just when you find yourself over thinking just remind yourself that like

You never you don't know what you don't know. Yeah, and you don't know what's gonna work and what's not gonna work until you try it You actually try it. Yeah, I agree and then how about resilience because resilience is another thing you speak about in the book Yeah, what would you say about how we how could we become more resilient and how do we become more resilient? And how do we become more resilient? Did I stump you? No, you didn't stump me. I wanted to pause for a moment to see what angle I want to take on that question. I think I want to go back to what I talked about with respect to meditation, which is that some people need to be more resilient,

and some people need to be more resilient and some people need to persist more. Some people need more grip. Others need less of it. And it totally depends on who you are. It's interesting you say that because in the book, those are all points, but you're saying nothing is an absolute, nothing is a universal. So some people, you're saying,

if you are one of these people stop for say it doesn't it's not like umbrella for everybody. Yeah, and I think I actually support the point which is that it's not universal. I think some people need to go to college, other students, some people should start a podcast, other students, some people, some people need to take more risks, Others are already taking too many risks. Like some people need to work more. Others are already flirting with burnout. And I think it's the same with grit and persistence too.

It's like some people need, because you quit too early, some people, you need to just stay with it for longer. But others are repeatedly doing the same thing that's not working and they don't need more persistence and grit. I think it totally depends on your individual situation. And so with resilience, you're saying some people need to learn how to be more resilient and some don't. What would you say is your definition of resilience?

That's a good question. Someone who's able to fall and get right back up. Someone who can take rejection, who is not a little, who is not a flower. Like they can take a beating and still get up and keep it moving, keep it moving, keep it going. Not letting everything that goes wrong be that one thing that is constantly letting them stay down. Yep, yeah. So I love that definition.

And I think that's super important. And the perspective I talk about that in the book is about rejection, particularly from other people. Rejection of your ideas, rejection of your job application, rejection of something you created, and it didn't get the results that you wanted. We are so conditioned, in part of the reason why people can't get up when they fall, is because we are so conditioned to look externally for approval.

We want to be chosen by the people who were chosen before us. We want to be picked. We want to be patted on the back. We want to, we want someone, a teacher, a parent to say, good job. Like, you did great. And the moment that approval was withheld or worse, the moment it's replaced with, you didn't do great. Your idea isn't good.

You fall, and then you can't get back up. And I think I struggle with this personally. And whenever I do, I go back to this idea that I talk about on the book, which is looking internally for approval. Instead of looking externally. And so here's a problem with looking externally for approval. That approval can be denied at any time. It can be with how lend any time.

It's like relying on, and it doesn't burn clean. It's like relying on fossil fuels for energy. It can be without lend any time. It's really expensive. It's like relying on fossil fuels for energy. It can be without that anytime. It's really expensive. It's bad for the environment. Internal approval. Internal energy burns clean. And it's entirely renewable. You always have an infinite source of approval within and you can always come back to that. And you can always check in with yourself. Like, am I with this book, right? I just spent two years writing it. I don't know. I was dying, I was going to land in the world. And so when that voice keeps creeping in of like, how

is the world going to react? What are the powers that be? What are they going to say about the book? And then I get into the spiral of looking externally. I always come back and say, was this the book that I wanted to write? And the answer is absolutely yes. Did I delight myself and enjoy 90% of the process? Absolutely. Did I tell the stories that I wanted to tell? Yes. And I come back to those.

I'm like, am I proud of the work that I created? Absolutely. Those answers for me are the most important ones. Because the moment I stopped doing that, which is what I had done at the very beginning, right, which is to like replicate a formula for success that worked before. Whenever I look externally, I also stop being original, right, I sort of try to cater to what people are going to want, and the magic is just, it just flows out of my writing.

So I just come back to that internal source of approval, which I think is so important to go back to your question of resiliency. Most people are able to get back up. They get back up because they don't take rejection personally. They look within for approval, and they know that with each fall comes learning, right? So even if you fall, even if someone rejected you,

even if you didn't get what you wanted, you'll learn something from that. And the ground is gonna teach you to give you so many more lessons than overthinking ever can. And the goal should be to just learn those lessons and then apply them to the next thing. Right, so far what I really get is that like in order to awaken your genius, you need to leave room for yourself to think. That's the first part, right? Thinking is a big one. And also, I want to ask you, how is that how we, it says here, unlock the wisdom within. How do we unlock the wisdom within by letting ourselves think,

by not conforming, by like not googling everything to find the answers? Is that through line? That's certainly, that's certainly part of it. And quitting and not persisting when things are like having self-reflection to know when to stop. Okay. And then what would you say was the best piece of advice, with the worst piece of advice that everyone's commonly talking about? I saw that as a question. Was the worst piece of advice?

The worst piece of advice that I personally got was five years ago, one of my mentors told me, don't start a podcast. He said, I was thinking of a starting a podcast and he said, don't do it. He's like, everyone in there cussing is starting a podcast. Don't do it.

So I listened to his advice. I didn't start a podcast. I recorded these conversations with people and then I launched a written interview series. So I would record the conversations and I would edit them down and then publish them on my website. This might sound straightforward. It wasn't. It would like take me hours of work to take because people speak very differently from how you actually write. And so it would take me hours to edit these things down. And it was only after like the 15th interview that I stopped and launched a podcast,

which lasted for about two years and it was great. You don't do it anymore? I don't do it anymore, no. It served a purpose. It was awesome. I got to interview the people I wanted to interview. And then just like with academia, like I started to get bored.

I'm like, okay, this is great. I loved it and I'm gonna quit while things are still good. Are you just 15 episodes? No, that was the interview, the written interview part. So I ended up doing a lot more over the course of two years. But that was one of the worst pieces of advice. And by the way, the person who told me don't start a podcast later started one of his own.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, which is sort of ironic. Life is full of irony, isn't it? Yeah. So I think like, so the worst piece of advice is I think that type of advice, which is to tell somebody else exactly what to do and what not to do, because you're relying solely on your world being. Right.

So be on your own experience, and you are an end of one. You are only a single data point about your disturbingly confident advice about this what this other person should or should not do. So I think when we give advice, we have to situate it in our personal context and say like, this is what I tried, this is what worked for me, what do you think? Like what do you, the best kind of advice illuminates paths. It doesn't tell the other person exactly what path they should take. And I think as the advice receiver, it's important to test advice and not blindly follow it. Well, I think also a lot of times people are giving advice based on their own

myopic life, right? So you're using, you're like using someone else's life experience to dictate what you're going to do with your life, which I think you got to be very weary of who you're taking advice from, right? Exactly. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier. What works from one person is not going to work for the other. So just because even if this person had started a podcast and it didn't work for them, it doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. And also, does it mean that it won't work for you?

Right. Exactly. Because you bring a whole other list of things to the game. OK, what is here? It sucks. You talk about brain addict. And what is a brain addict? Well, first of all, let's start with that.

And then you choose what goes into your brain by the signal to noise ratio, what does this mean? So brain addict, it's from Sherlock Holmes. He sort of refers to this thing up here as the brain addict. And he uses the... Sherlock Holmes, the investor, the... Yeah, and he refers to it as the brain addict because just like a physical addict, you have a limited amount of space. And everything that's in there is there at the

expense of something else. So if your brain addict is cluttered with junk, you're not going to have any room for original thoughts, original ideas from within to emerge, because you've loaded it with junk, as most of us do, with like social media, news, and everything else. And so I talk about the signal to noise ratio in terms of consuming, in terms of deciding what goes into your brain act. And this goes to some of what we talked about before too. And like being very intentional about, does this belong in my brain? Do I really want to ingest this, you know, bucket of M&Ms for breakfast every morning

by like scrolling through Instagram for an hour after I wake up? Because that is essentially what you're doing, is you're loading your brain attic with junk. And when you're paying attention to junk, your life becomes junk. Yeah, yeah. And so paying attention to the signal to noise ratio, meaning what actually is valuable

enough for it to deserve space in my brain. And so I mentioned news. I'll give news as an example. News, in my view, has become a form of entertainment. It's become this, because media is so much of what is driven by click-throughs and subscriptions or whatnot. And so there's a race to the bottom and there's a race to get as many clicks as possible, which means all these sensationalist headlines and all of this drama and conflict come into the forefront. And you open the news and you think like the world is going to hell on a handbasket, right?

Totally, yep. And the same news breaks in predictable ways and predictable cycles over and over and over again. And so for me, news is a really low signal to noise ratio. It's mostly noise. And it's become this form of essentially entertainment. And so I would much rather read a book than read the news. And again, this is a personal decision that everyone gets to make on their own.

No, of course. Right? And, but I think it needs to be, it needs to be read-related. But for me, books have a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than news. And I'd much rather read about something after the dust has settled versus like being caught up in the frenzy and the drama and the conflict that characterizes so much of the 24-7 news cycle. Right. No, so I think that's a hundred percent true So what is your day like give me like a day in the life like what do you do you wake up at what time?

Usually eight o'clock eight o'clock. Yeah, okay Yeah, and what's your like I know you don't check your emails until new yeah, okay? So what is your morning routine even though you say you know, I mean like true? What is your day like give me like the day in the life of you Yeah, I wake in your genius even though you are a genius and that's not just you know That's kind of it's a universal note knowledge I think I've become a lot more attuned to the cycles of my own body So instead of forcing myself to do the same thing every morning

There are certain things that I do do every morning Which I'm gonna get to in just a second, but just to preface this by saying I don't have a strict thing that I do every day I used to I used to be very disciplined and very structured and like the raft That started to get in the way in many ways I would force myself to do things even when I didn't feel like them and even when it wasn't the right time to do them and Those starting to get in the way like I would force myself to write every morning. And when I force myself to write, the stuff that comes out is crap usually. And so I'll become a lot more attuned to like if the waves aren't there, I'm not going to go out with a surfboard. I'm going to wait for the waves to come. So with that said, I think the three things that I do reliably in

like the first two hours of my day are spent time with my wife and our two dogs make coffee and like coffee is I have this like process ritual I follow with like grinding the beans and all of that. It's like strangely meditative. And then journal and journaling is something I do almost every morning. It's not just dream journaling, but it's also just like, what is bugging me? What's causing anxiety? What's stressing me out? What am I thinking about? What are the ideas that keep nagging me?

Because over time, and one of the other things I do is in this program I use, which is called room research, to journal, I have this thing set up where I can read the journal entries and I do this every morning from a month ago, three months ago, six months ago, and a year ago. And I take a really quick look at them to see like what I was struggling with and what I was thinking about because over time, you're able to identify those patterns if you ever written record of them. And so that becomes a really helpful way for me to be like, okay, like what is the thing that keeps bugging me and I need to do something to resolve that?

Or what is this idea that keeps presenting itself, which the book sort of came from that, was like an idea just kept presenting itself. And I wanted to write a book about original thinking and non-conformity and finding who you are and finding yourself. And that was something that I was struggling with personally. And journaling every morning,

and reviewing those journal entries over time, make it obvious that, like, that's the next thing for me. Right, because you can see a pattern or what happens. Exactly. You can connect a dots over time. In a way that you may not be able to otherwise. Yeah, no, absolutely. Is there anything else I did not cover that you want to talk about?

I don't think so. I think this is a great, really diverse interview. OK, because I mean, I just open the page. I saw this a few times. Stop calling your office in office. What is that? Can you tell me what that is? And then I will definitely let you out of here soon.

Sure. So stop calling your office in office. It goes back to one of these ideas we talked about, which is like doing things simply because that's what you've done before. So I have this room, I had this room at our house that I would call the office, right? It was my office. And I would go into my office to do some work. And I would call it an office just because that's what you call the room in your house

where work happens. But I would dread going into this room because of the name, right? Because for me, office is like where good ideas go to die. And office is like, it reminds me of like mind numbing water cooler conversations and like fluorescent lights and like, just the type of environment where creativity does not exist. Yeah, where creativity dies. Yeah, where creativity dies. Exactly, where good ideas go to die.

Yeah. And so, instead of calling my office in office, I started calling it an IDLAB. Or like, that's what I normally call it, is like an IDLAB. I'm going to go into my like idea case. Oh, I love it. And that creates delight in me in a way

that an office never did. And you can do this with so many things, not just. And this is just, you can go back to being intentional about everything you're doing, including the name that you give things. Like, don't call it a status meeting. The status meeting is, again, another place where good ideas go to die is just routine thing that who likes going to a status meeting? Would you call it then?

Call it like an idea incubator or like a collaboration cave or something that's going to like the light people to show up in the way that you want them to show up, right? So if you want people to come to the status meeting and generate ideas, don't call it a status meeting. Call it an idea incubator. Like something that's going to, and pick something personal, that's going to delight you and the people

who show up there, a friend of mine who used to work at, it was called Google X, it's now just called X, it's Alphabet's moonshot factory. And like normally this person's name, her name is Obi-Felton, she's no longer there, but her title would be like director of operations. Instead, her title was getting moonshots ready for contact with the real world.

Like that was her, the person responsible for getting moonshots ready for contact with the real world. That's such a playful title. It's not you're not just director of operations. It's not so whole-hum and it gives it some, like I feel like more people are doing that now, but I think it's so smart to do that, right? Because otherwise it's just like, it's so easy to be,

like you're right, like I'm going to the office, it sounds so like dreadful. Right, exactly. And like don't call it a to-do list. Yeah. When I hear to-do list. Yeah. To do it, when I hear to-do list, I want to run as fast as possible. Call it like a design list or something that's going to get you to show up in another way. And ignite something beyond. Yeah, within you.

Within you. Like a dreadful chore that you have to do. Exactly. No, that's amazing. Yeah. So, okay, so tell us where we can find the book, where we can find you. Give us all your details. Sure. So, Awakening your Genius is available wherever books are sold, but if you go to getgeniusbook.com, you'll be able to find all of the sale links there. And then if you'd like to keep in touch with me, I'm not active on social media. The best way to do that is through my email list, I have an email that goes out every Thursday

to over 45,000 people and it shares one big idea that you can read in three minutes or less. And you can sign up for that by heading over to my website, which is my first name and last name, dot com. So, ozonvaryl.com, ozanvismicterarol.com. And this is new, but you can also sign up for a text, my first name, but you can also to sign up for it, text my first name, Ozon to 55444. So if you just text Ozon OZAN to 55444, you'll be able to sign up for my email list. Oh, cool.

And I guess you do practice what you preach because you're not very active on social media. And that was obviously by design. For sure. For sure. Because if you don't want to feel less than or talk about middle school and get neurotic by Twitter. Yeah, exactly. you don't want to feel less than or talk about middle school and get neurotic by a Twitter.

Yeah, exactly. So, good. That's amazing. How often do you say you go on there anyway? Like, once every what month? Um, I probably check Instagram just to see you with some friends are up to once every two days or so, but it's not more than five minutes. And if you look on there, I rarely ever post anything.

Yeah, very smart. I think that's the smartest thing that you've said all day. Thanks. It's amazing from a rocket scientist. Thank you, it's been awesome. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Of course, thank you so much, Jennifer. Absolutely.

It's a pleasure. Bye. This episode is brought to you by the Yap Media Podcast Network. I'm Halataha, CEO of the award-winning digital media This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Halah Tahha, CEO of the award-winning Digital Media Empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world, and I turn

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