Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 982: Improving Digital Wellness with Tommy Sobel

Episode Date: March 7, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin talk with Tommy Sobel of Brick (www.gobricknow) about developing a more healthy relationship with tech. How he aimed to make science cool again. His background and humble beginnings. (4:02) Is Hollywood freaking out over these YouTube stars and are movie theaters a thing of the past? (10:12) What has he seen since leaving the studio industry? (12:25) What brought him to what he is doing now? (15:21) Will technology become an all or nothing thing? (17:52) What does he potentially see from kids using tech at early ages? (21:51) The movement and mission behind Brick. (23:37) Why you must structure your life to create a world of ‘Digital Wellness’. (30:32) Why most people feel they do not have a problem. (34:30) Does he feel depressed people are more likely to use their phone or is his finding that screen time usage is actually contributing to the issue of depression or anxiety? (38:50) How will he breakthrough with the current generation of kids today who are born into tech? (43:11) What are some of the practices Brick teaches at their events? His 5 step process. (48:11) Are there any parameters to where you can track your ‘Brick’ time? (1:04:50) What are the steps someone can do to get involved? (1:07:45) The NEED to find balance/structure in our lives. (1:10:19) What feedback has he gotten from people that have attended his events? (1:18:35) Why the underestimated mind is the most creative one. (1:19:30) What is in the pipeline for Brick? (1:24:15) How does he support himself financially? (1:24:56) Does he see expansion for the future of the company? (1:27:55) Featured Guest/People Mentioned: Website Brick: The Phone-Free Movement (@gobricknow)  Instagram Tristan Harris (@tristanharris)  Twitter Joe De Sena (@realJoeDeSena)  Twitter Products Mentioned: March Promotion: MAPS Aesthetic is ½ off!! **Code “BLACK50” at checkout** Mind Pump Episode 957: Fyre Festival- The Story Netflix did Not Tell with Marc Weinstein Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked - Book by Adam Alter Amazon.com: Watch Surrogates | Prime Video Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike - Book by Phil Knight Chinese city designates lanes for walking while texting - CNBC.com iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us – Book by Jean M. Twenge PhD Elon Musk launches Neuralink, a venture to merge the human brain with AI Digital Wellness Collective Wisdom 2.0 Conference - Living with awareness, wisdom, and compassion

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. We got in contact with Tommy because he was mentioned by Mark Weinstein when we had him on the podcast. And what you're about to hear is an interview with a gentleman who started a company. It's brand new and the aim of the company is to get people to structure time away from their phones which

Sounds funny, but this guy's getting businesses growing because people see a need for it. It's really really interesting And he's he's got it. he's a really interesting guy too. He's, when I first came across his Instagram and his page, I started looking into him. I listened to one of his interviews. What I didn't find out until way later, after I dug through all stuff, was he's a Duke University grad and he's got a background in neuroscience.

And he's got a killer background in Hollywood I mean he actually literally worked for Spielberg and Dreamworks. And so he's got a he's got some serious connections. He's also I think was hearing things earlier than a lot of people like and I just felt the same way I felt when I first read the book that I talked a million times about that everyone teases me about a couple years ago that thing just it sent me down this this rabbit hole of oh my God like what do we have coming ahead of us and I really believe that we are heading this way and it was only a matter of time before other people started to recognize it and see it and then somebody

creates some sort of a movement to counter it, right? Yeah, I like what he's doing. I like that it's about creating kind of boundaries and figuring out how to navigate through all these new technology pitfalls that we find ourselves in. And it's the thing is it's addictive, but you don't have to feel ashamed that you're being addicted, because that's really what's engineered into these phones. And I just like that he hasn't,

the message isn't abandoned your phone. It's, you know, how do we now implement good practices? Yeah, total health and wellness today includes a practice that involves becoming more active. It includes a practice around understanding when it's appropriate to eat certain foods and when you should eat other foods and had to be healthy around that. It's also currently in modern times about developing a practice with your technology. This is just a reality.

It's digital wellness is how Tommy talks about it. And we couldn't agree more. And so we talked all about that in this episode. And he talks about what his company's doing and then the app that they're creating that's going to help people create those practices to develop a better sense of digital wellness. Now, you can find Tommy, his last name is Sobel.

His website is Go Brick Now, g-o-b-r-i-c-k-n-o-w.com. And then the Instagram page is at Go Brick Now. It's because the company is called Brick and it talks about turning your phone off, putting it on airplane mode, structured throughout the day, literally creating, turning it into a brick, if you will. Before we get into the interview that I do want to remind everybody that Maps aesthetic is 50% off

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use the code black50black50 for the 50% off discount. And that's it. So without any further ado, here we are talking to Tommy Sobel of Brick. Two or three years ago, I had read a book, Irresistible. And these guys were just teasing the shit out of me because not because the book we thought the book wasn't good.

Just because he meant he just said it like all the time. Yeah, I just kept we just just predictable. I just kept bringing it up and are you familiar with Adam Atlas Irresistible? I know Adam out atler. I haven't read it now. Yeah, Irresistible is a really good read. Oh, I was thinking of predictably irrational. That's where. Okay. So I read that like two, maybe over two years now.

And it was just, it really impacted me because here we were right in the middle of building this social media business and using podcasting YouTube Instagram as a platform. And the storylines are super compelling. They make, they draw parallels to tech and cocaine and the addictiveness and even scarier part that they try and talk about is that, when someone's a drug addict, it's pretty obvious because you see all these signs

and we kind of shame that person, but we're in the middle of glorifying tech. We're not shaming you because you're using your phone or you're on the computer or you're doing these things. So their argument or his argument is how scary it is because of that. Like not only is it as addictive as some of these other things they're talking about, but then in addition to that,

it's also something that we actually celebrate versus something that we would shame you for. And so in turn can be even more dangerous because of that. Yeah, yeah. Tommy, I found your, I think you should go over your background a little bit for the audience before we get into the discussion that Adam's starting because I found it fascinating.

I found your background fascinating. I know you have a background in neuroscience and kind of how you came to what you're doing. I thought was pretty interesting. So if you don't mind giving kind of shorts and obfaces of... Yeah, definitely. So we are recording. We are.

Yeah, it's happening. That's a good one. Yeah, so I grew up in LA. I grew up trying to be an actor basically in LA. My dad was in the film industry and I wanted to be in movies. And as I grew up, nothing really worked out. And so I got into a really good college.

I got into Duke and was like, you know what? I'm gonna become a doctor as a backup in case the film world didn't work out. I was very interested in the brain and behavior. And I came out of that pre-med and ended up with a focus in neuroscience. And basically was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was working days as a production assistant at this film production company run by Kathy Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who were Steven Spielberg's producers.

And then at night, I was working on this long-just-dating project at UCLA, this neuroscience project, and then was going from there to DJ and promote out in Hollywood. And then on the weekends, I like producing and directing music video. So I was basically, I felt like there's octopus trying to experientially figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And at around the same time that this neuroscience project got published, I got offered this job to be Steven Spielberg's assistant pretty standard epitously. And so I realized that I love science, but I love the results of science.

I don't love conducting the scientific research. And with this opportunity, I was gonna go full on into film and basically try to make science cool through this premium storytelling. Oh, interesting. Kind of in like a Michael Kretten type way where he'll take this idea of bringing extinct species back to life and wrap it in this broad thriller, get this guy like Steven Spielberg to direct it, and then people will come and watch it because of their interest

in kind of an adventure thriller, but then might come out of it being more interested in how chromosomes work or DNA or something. Oh, pop culture has done that for a long time. My Carl Sagan was responsible for thousands of kids wanting to learn astrophysics. Yeah, exactly. So how can we make science cool again? My career thesis for a long time. We're trying to be PR for science.

Yeah, exactly. That's a cool hat than the making too. Yeah, we sometimes should make that hat. And so, yeah, I served for him for five years directly on set on a bunch of movies and TV shows, and that was a pretty incredible and demanding experience. And then about three years ago, he placed me in a new position in a new department

as the digital creative exec. And so basic at DreamWork Studios. So what is DreamWorks going to do beyond film and TV? What are they doing? What are we going to do in VR? What are we going to do in podcasts? What are we going to do on YouTube and Facebook and Snapchat and so on? These conversations are already happening.

This was my job three years ago. I was the first one. Yeah. It was like a whole new, what do we do in digital? But it's like Spielberg, you know, what does Steven Spielberg's company do? Oh, yeah. Oh, fast.

So they were already looking at all these brand new platforms and like how are they gonna look? Yeah, they were super curious about it. We had a CEO who was super forward thinking and wanted to, basically this became my argument with a lot of it that the average consumer buys four movie tickets a year. And so this is in, like the MPAA is 2017 or 2015 statistics.

So instead of being a studio that's trying to make your movie that year one of those four, how can you reach people where they are when they're also checking their phone 150 times? Smart, yeah. So I think a lot of big studios have been asking that question a little bit. How do they, you know, if you're like a film exec and you're focused on film and then you come home and your kids are just talking about YouTubers and you have no idea who Pewdie Pie is.

100% my kids have no idea who's on TV or movies, but they know all the YouTube stars. Are they scrambling? Are they freaking out at this point? Or are they, because it's a big ship, like we're talking about Hollywood, they're already making billions of dollars. That's a big ship to try to turn.

Are they freaking out? Are they kind of just like, let's put our toe in the water and see what's going on. I think they're freaking out. Oh, I bet they're. So what's your, Tommy, what do you think? Do you think that we've actually speculated on the show before about like movie theaters?

Do you think they're going to be a thing of the past? I think there always will be movie theaters, but, you know, Stephen was actually one of the first guys to say it, I think that it will kind of go the way of the playhouse of, like, theater or opera, where like, you know, back in the day, opera and plays were like the destination where we think to go. And now fewer people go for a higher price point. It's a more mature audience, and it's a rarefied event that still has this prestige

to it, but it won't be the same. It feels, yeah, it's not like the casual thing. And so, we are this mobile first digital, first world where we're already paying for Netflix for $12, $13 a month now, the amount of friction to get you to put on pants, go out of the house, pay for parking, arrive at the movie theater at the right time, like sit next to your friends, get your friends

to go get you, I mean, there's a lot of friction. And then you're, then you're paying $17 for a ticket and then you're also paying for popcorn or hot dollars. Aren't that $90 for popcorn and kids? Yeah. You're doing a pants is real rare for me. And if you're a family, like, and you've got kids, like you could easily spend $60 for like two hours or it becomes so easy to just stay at home and live on the

Netflix and Amazon. And so I just think they're super smart and it's causing the studio model that thrived in the 20th century to really rethink how they're going to reach audiences. And I think it's a good thing. So what are you seeing? Are you seeing anything that they're going to reach audiences. And I think it's a good thing. So what are you seeing? Are you seeing anything that they're doing to make that pivot? I feel a little out of touch because I've been out of it

for the last year and a half. I unsubscribed from deadline.com and the rap and like all of the trades, trade magazines. So I don't know how, what the zeitgeist is feeling right now. But when you were in it, did you see something that you think that they're gonna head in that direction?

Or is it is nothing moved in that direction since you've left? I mean, what have you seen since then? It's been three years now. They are having this discussion. Is dream works even on podcasting? I mean, are they making moves on YouTube? Like what are they doing?

I know they're, well, when I left, my understanding was the position shut down. So I don't know what they're doing right now. I do know that just generally as an industry, all of the character-driven films, all of the... Basically creating a movie, like the first movie of something, let's say, like the Incredibles, that is basically just a pilot. And the best you can do is have seven episodes, and that's fast and the furious. So the we're in a global

world now where you're making a movie not for an American audience, the domestic market is one out of 150 or so territories. And so you would need to think of things from a international marketing perspective. It's now marketing people that are running these studios, not old creative producers or directors. And so that's why I think we're seeing more in the last 10 years, I would say, this change from being this character-driven industry where you would see movies like in the bedroom, let's say, or house of cards would have been a movie 10 years ago.

And now all of that is going from trying to fit a two hour story into a hundred hour story where the writer is king, that's all moving to TV. And we are just seeing this franchise factory of the superhero movies, that's what works on an international level level where you can translate super easily. There's no loss of translation of humor and comedy because comedy is cultural. It's difficult to translate action movies do the best.

And so the, the, the, it's kind of a race to survive. And the best way to do that is have this international focus, which leads you to the more action and marvel. Yeah, all the good writing is Netflix, HBO, Prime. That's all marketing driven now is the movies. That's crazy. So what brought you to what you're kind of doing now? Yeah. Was it being in that position and seeing all that?

Yeah, exactly. So in this kind of exploratory position, I built all these relationships with YouTube and Facebook and Snapchat, and a lot of their influencers and realized basically that these kids that were super successful at social media felt this constant need to keep up with the algorithms and constantly create content in their own digital rat race and We're so anxiety riddled and so lonely that I realized basically I realized I wasn't the only one that was addicted to my phone This again was about three years ago before it was mainstream that our phones have been designed to be addictive.

I kind of thought at the time that this was my own private shameful problem that I had these compulsions to overuse and didn't really feel like I was in control of how I spent my time with the constant scrolling and swiping on dating apps, I thought it was my problem. And as I got to know all these kids who lived successfully on social media

that it was even worse for them because they didn't even know what life used to be like before the smartphone. They kind of developed in this hyper stimulated dopamine-driven world. And so I kind of realized it was this secret epidemic. And then at the same time, I was doing all this VR for my job

and being totally blown away by it and realized that Facebook didn't buy Oculus for $4 billion for fun, but to have a stronger stranglehold on the attention economy. And so if me and everybody I know multi-generationaly is addicted to our phones with it just being this foreign screen in our hand,

is gonna be game over once mass adoption hits for AR and VR, and it's in all of our eyes filtering everything we see. And I know that's coming. So we all know it's coming. We don't know how long, but you know, could be sooner than we think. And how can we create, so with those two things at the same time,

I realized we needed to create this ethical balance, this boundary, with our relationship to technology. Today, there's a term for it, and we are calling it digital wellness or digital wellbeing. And, but so my kind of my journey started there and I can talk more about it. Yeah, no, it's earlier when Adam Likend or talked about the book He Resistful and how they compare to cocaine, I don't think that is a good comparison because cocaine is not a necessary part of function in life.

Now food is a necessary part of life and we've gone through this processed food, you know, generations now and we've seen the results of that because you have to eat and it's everywhere and it's cheaper and it stays a long time in your shelf and it's hyper-palatable. And so we've seen the results of that and that's what I compare tech to. It's like that. That's necessary. Like, you can't conduct business without it.

Oh, I don't think that's true. I don't think it's, if we feel it's necessary because of what we're doing, but you still have a choice. You still have a choice to not use it. Well, my point is it's, if you want to conduct business or work for someone, you're going to use tech as my point. Tech is going to be, you have to use it. And so what I mean by that is you have to learn how to manage it.

It's not something you can just, like cocaine I can be like, I'll never use it again. I think, and I'd love to hear your opinion, I really think that we're heading in this, have you seen the movie, Saregots? No, I haven't seen it. So that's where, I mean, it's the Bruce Willis film, right? It's Saregots, right?

Yeah, that's the Bruce Willis one, where everybody is living in this virtual world and they've made the virtual world so much like reality where you can buy things and do all of stuff and everybody lays back in their chair and they get hooked up and you just, and you think the way the movie plays out is like you think that's real life until they they pull the goggles off and you know oh shit he's actually plugged in and everybody seems to be

plugged in. I've made the prediction that we're heading in a direction where we're going to have a split down the middle there's gonna be the plugged in people and then there's gonna be the unplugged in people and we chuckle about it, but I really believe that I really believe we're heading in that direction because as much as I'm pro your movement and what you're trying to do, my fear is that majority of people will not adopt and a majority people will go with this natural progression. What do you think? I mean, you're giving me flashes too of HG Wells's

the time machine. Oh, time machine. Yeah, we're basically, he zooms like 100,000 years into the future and humanity has diverged into two species. And one is like the underground species that never sees the light. And they're like the smart ones. And then you have the above ground beautiful idiots.

Yeah, I mean, so basically what we're talking about is whether this technology is gonna end up being an all or nothing thing. I mean, my hope is that we can find balance or technology. I mean, we're kind of more preaching, we're not saying become omnis, we're not saying don't use technology, we're not saying social media and technology is bad, we're saying

take control of how you use it, use it in a way that only serves you and not you just serving it. And I guess to respond to the first kind of conversation here, I feel like with kids especially or teenagers, their social system lives on social media. And so, people are age and higher, can use Facebook, can use social media, they might get a lot of value out of it, but could take it or leave it. I mean, kids, if you are not on social media, you don't have a social life. That's where your invitations and the way that you talk to girls,

like it's, you're basically choosing to not go to the party. Yeah. And so I do think that there's like now this cultural aspect to it that does create the feeling like you have to be on it, whether you really do or not. I wanted to ask you a little bit too, like having a neuroscience background, like as far as the brain development, and especially with kids being exposed to this so young and how they're going through the process of living with tech now and interacting with it. What potentially do you see happening as a result of this?

Well, what we're already seeing, if you haven't seen some of the crazy studies, is that teenagers today are number one, they're safer than they've ever been. They're not going out and getting their driver's licenses. They're not going out and getting their driver's licenses. They're not going out and getting drunk. They are not having sex, and they are lonelier and more anxiety riddled than ever before. So basically what they've done is the reason why they're safe is because they're staying at home and they're on Snapchat, and they have replaced their real world relationships with these relationships through technology.

And so the problem with that is that you can only get dopamine through your phone, what you're missing, and that's this endless searching neurochemical where there's no real satiation point, you can kind of never get enough. And so, and it's also the relationships that you form through social media are more surface because of that. You can have 5,000 friends or 50,000 followers, but can you ask them to help you move? How many of those people?

Nobody wants to do that. I'm going to try that. I'm going to put it out there the next time. It would be a great experiment. You, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm being a great experiment. You know, I'm moving this weekend, who wants to help out? How many people? Crickets, yeah. My lowest comment, it liked post-event. I do have a piano. That's why I never bought a truck.

You're on a truck, you're always the guy that's got to help people move. So what you're doing is, are you trying to help people create practices? Are you, you're putting together events, right? That's how it started. Yeah, let's talk about break. Yeah, okay cool. So so basically When I realized those two things I I realized that I needed to solve this problem for myself and and then could start helping other people for it so basically small anecdote my favorite thing in the world to do is to read and Basically, small anecdote, my favorite thing in the world to do is to read.

And I have this bookshelf that's in my bedroom with like 150 books that I bought over the years and airports mostly. And I'd only read like five of them for a really long time. And I would just sit in bed every night and every morning on my phone, feeling my bookshelf looking down at me. Like, condos. Yeah, that's that sense of shame of basically not doing my favorite thing in the

world. And so when I challenged myself to put my phone down for an hour a day specifically to read, at the end of that year, I ended up reading 28 books. And that sense of achievement of taking back control of how I spent my time to do my favorite thing was priceless and to regain that kind of agency. And so, and what I know now, kind of on like a neuroscience and behavioral perspective, is that's what they call a keystone effect, where you have one behavioral change that creates a cascade of other positive habits.

And so my life really opened up after that. I felt more confident just in the daily world. And then when I was back on my phone, I felt more in control of how to spend my time, because this app feel good. Do I really want to be doing this right now? It kind of helped me to get more awareness and ask questions of myself.

And so I started challenging my friends to do the same thing. I got 25 friends, was like, hey, put your phone down and do something engaging in the real world for an hour for seven days. At the end of those seven days, three of my friends ended up deleting their Instagram account. They were like, wow, this is making the, like, I don't want this in my life anymore,

which wasn't even what I was looking for, but was kind of an interesting find. And then what they also told me was, this is really great, but I wish I could do this with other people. Like how can I know, you know, when someone else is off their phones so we can go and hike together or something?

And so I started throwing these phone free events. It started beginning of last year, started office like dinner parties and game nights, basically said, let's all turn our phone into a brick and then do something engaging in the real world. And now how did you market these were these paid events or were these just friends coming together?

It was mostly just friends coming together. I mean, we would probably just split the bill at dinner. Yeah, game nights were free. Would test a bunch of different things. So at this time, are you thinking of the grandiose vision? Or are you just kind of really trying to solve your own problem and turn some of your friends in the same direction? At that point, I knew that I...

So at that point, I created an LLC. I had wrapped it around this brand called Brick. Basically turn your phone into a brick, and which means set your phone down, put it in airplane mode, or put it into a box, basically turning it into a brick, and then go do something engaging in the real world. And then our job was to make your brick time,

or your phone free time, super fun and easy and social. And so we were just trying a bunch of things. And we're still trying a bunch of things. Well, I would think it would be kind of challenging without utilizing tech. I mean, how do you, how do you orchestrate that, right? Yeah, I mean, there is a lot of, a lot of, it's a lot of texting and creating,

you know, events online and getting people to buy tickets and making it look cool and taking photos and using Instagram You know you use a lot of social media to create a Company that doesn't use So this steps away from You know basically like you're still using people with smartphones. This isn't like, you know, abandon your smartphone, get a flip phone, get one of these dumb phones, and that's the movement that we're trying to push towards is like going back in time and just like getting it

out of our life. This is more of like, okay, here's how you're gonna be able to manage this and we're gonna take a break. Yeah, exactly, that's exactly what we're pushing. We are not saying, go get a flip phone, we're not saying, let's go into the past. We want to use technology, but we want to use it in a way that makes us feel good

and serves us in easy utility. Now, how's the response around this bin? Has it been growing? All right, what do you see? What do you see? It's still crazy, yeah. I mean, I feel like a year ago, everybody was like, oh man, you're gonna have people get off your phones like good luck. You're, you're, it's a great idea,

man. All condescending. Yeah, just like I don't know. All right. And in the last three months, six months, we've just continued to go down this path of kind of revelations with the negative effects that the more like the more time you spend on your phone, the more likely you are to become depressed. I mean, all these kind of mental health studies are coming out and similarly issues with Facebook and privacy and camera genitalitica and just like there's, it's just been this constant thing and I feel like in a really short amount of time there's been this shifting tide

where now people care about getting off their phones. Digital wellness, so at wisdom 2.0, which was this conference I was at until yesterday, the keynote speaker was Tristan Harris who was the whistleblower at Google who basically was saying, we are making, we are the problem, we are creating dopamine driven technology that now 2 billion people are using, more people

that even believe in Christianity are using this being designed by 50 engineers or 500 engineers that are maximizing our weaknesses instead of maximizing our strengths. So, I mean, and then after that, I mean, the Q&A was like, you could not even stand in a room. It was insane. People really are interested. The reason why I compare this to processed food so much is because we, you know, we're trainers, right?

So we talk to people all the time about getting fit and healthy. And, you know, the number one thing, or the top few things you should do when you want to get fit and healthy is you'll watch your food intake, make sure you're doing too many calories, watch your macros, and get active. But we know that it's almost unfair. If you're going to eat highly processed foods to try to eat an appropriate amount, they're just designed to hijack your body. It's, you're fighting an unfair fight.

You're going to a fight with a knife and you're fighting somebody with a gun. Art is tech that way. Is it like, oh, no problem. I'll just use it in self, you know, regulates not a big deal. Do you think it's so good at hitting those dopamine circuits and so good at figuring out what gets you addicted that you have to structure

a plan to moderate your use because if you try to just rely on, oh, I'll know when to whatever that you're not going to win that battle. Yeah, I really like the way you just put that absolutely yes. You need to structure your life and your lifestyle in a way that is what we would call digitally, well, digital wellness. And, you know, as, as to look back, you know, 50 years ago, I just read Shudog. So this is like in the front of my mind, but 50 years ago, nobody went out of their house and strapped on running shoes and went on a run. Running was like unheard of. You just had a more active lifestyle

and physical wellness, physical fitness was not something that you had to create to put into your life. Now today, everybody has their gym membership, everybody has their practice that, you know, you're running, you wake up early, you set the alarm earlier to do your push-ups or go on a run, whatever it is, you have to structure that into your life for physical fitness, which is part of your long-term health. That's the first pillar of wellness,

I say. So then more recently, we've had this movement towards emotional wellness, where you have your mindfulness practices, you have your meditation apps with the headspace and calm being the top apps of the year. You might have your therapist, which is much less taboo than I feel like it was 10 years ago. So you've got your emotional wellness. Then you have your nutritional wellness, where you now have to work hard to eat organic. And if you don't, you will eat poorly. You specifically are designing your paleo diet or whatever it is. So the fourth pillar of digital wellness is creating

a healthy relationship with technology. And it's only with all four of those pillars together that you have a wellness lifestyle. What I find interesting is that you're getting this increased amount of activity and interest in what you're doing. And I think it's because people are starting to recognize it themselves. Like what's the feedback that you got?

People come into you being like, yeah dude I'm here because I know that this is causing issues for me. Yeah there's two responses. One is like, oh my dude, I'm here because I know that this is causing issues for me. Yeah, there's two responses. One is like, oh my God, this is amazing. I need this and the more common one is, oh my God, this is amazing, my girlfriend needs this. Really?

My, like, yeah. And, uh. Like a true, like true, true addicts. You know what I'm saying? Like for the good. Oh, but you need to help my friends. Exactly. He's way over the top. He's way over the top. Meanwhile, I'm doing its, you know, say like, for the good. Oh, but you need to help my friends. Exactly. He's way over the top.

He's way over the top. Meanwhile, I'm doing it too, you know. Well, I think we underestimate people's ability to start to self-identify problems. Sometimes it takes a generation or two. Well, I think we underestimate that because you know, there's movements on the internet. They're called no-fap movements.

I don't know if you guys have heard of it. We're dudes talk about not masturbating and not watching porn. That was 100% created because of the easy access to porn. That didn't exist when we were kids. Nobody would have said that. Well, I also think it's easy to tell yourself too that you don't have a problem with it

when you know somebody who's worse than you are. And so because it's so predominant in our culture right now that everybody, I mean, we're now getting the point where we're giving tickets away, right? You can't walk, you can't walk in texts across the street anymore, and soon we'll be like China where we have a texting lane. Yeah, it's getting crazy.

Yeah, no, it's getting crazy. And so I think a lot of people don't think they have a problem because they're not as bad as their friend Suzie, or my buddy Justin, he's just, he can't put it down put it down right So they think like always throwing me on the bus, right? So I along those lines Do you have a story or do you have a time like when you were the worst like do you have like a how much like what did you streak? Some some hours some days like how what what was bad? I was like the ultimate Well first I definitely think that this is cultural like Like we are now, we all woke up one day as society and realized we are all addicted to

our phones and we now are trying to figure out what to do with it. And it's kind of like, there's like two great analogies. I think one is the organic movement that we kind of were touching on a little bit and the other one is smoking, where if somebody pulls out a cigarette, you're more likely to pull out a cigarette and smoke is like social smoking.

You have these like social cues. And so now today, because we know smoking kills and it has all these negative health effects, you have a smoker's lounge where you have to leave the dinner, the restaurant, the party, because second hand smoke has all these negative consequences to go separate yourself. And so, yeah, I mean, I feel it's similar with our phones, where if you're being phubbed, if someone's using their phones with you, you feel more likely to,

you're more likely to pick up your phone. 100% of it. Oh, I've done it. I know I have. Oh, yeah. I've been somewhere where I see the people that I'm standing next to, they pick it up, and I'm like, well, I always have something

and I need to do on that, right? You look at any restaurant, any lunch, you know, salad bar, and you've got two people with each other, half of them are more gonna be looking at their phone or at least their phones are gonna be sitting on the table. Yeah. It's, that's the norm right now. And I know I'm not really answering your question

because I don't really have any experience. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm curious to what, like, you know, cause again, I think so many people listening right now don't think they have a problem. Just like normal addicts that you would meet that have that have a drug addict. Yeah, we're in complete denial of that. And so, you know, and I know Apple came out with their screen time. Yeah, the screen time thing, which that just reminds me of like tobacco slapping a warning on the side of the cigarettes. They're not really trying to say it.

But why is there, you know, anti, you know, drinking commercials? Right, right. They're not really trying to solve the problem. And shit, that's not like again, like there's, it needs more than just sure awareness is maybe the first step. But, you know, what, what is a lot of time? Like what, what's a lot of time on your phone in the day and what's, what, what, what point or what are you seeing with these people that

are coming to you? Like how bad is it? Are you getting people to test it out there? Yeah, so for sure over use, over consumption is one specific problem, one like crazy tidbit, if you just spend only two hours a day on your phone over the course of a year That's an entire month of your life So if you're spending the average today is up to 10 hours of screen time on your phone So if you're on your phone 10 hours a day

10 hours a day is Like up to 10 hours. Oh, we go. Yeah. So if you're on your phone 10 hours a day, that's five months out of your life over the course of a year. If you sleep an average of eight hours a night, that's three months. Oh, man, I had this. Carry the two.

That's three months out of the year, right? A third of the 12 divided by, no, four months out of the year. So your sleep is, so you sleep four months of a year. If five months are spent on your phone, that only leaves three months of each year of your life that you're in the real world. So that's just crazy. That's a very interesting way to look at it. And so you know that the number was,

and this was back when I read Irresistible 2 Plus years ago, Igin has these stats too in that book. It was two hours and 40 minutes is what the average person was. And that was back then. And I think that's how much more now. I think so too. Which is so crazy, because we're talking about two years ago.

Yeah. The growth is exponential. The amount of use is exponential. It's insane. I would argue it's probably double, since you had mentioned that you had brought up some health studies show that people use their phones more or more depressed or more anxious. Now I like to look at studies, I like to read studies, but I also like to reverse them at times, because sometimes we think one is cause and one is effect, but they might be reversed.

Do you think maybe depressed people are just more likely to use their phone, or are they finding that that screen time usage is actually contributing to the issue of depression or anxiety? Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think about that too. I think that probably what's happening is both.

You have people that are susceptible. So basically our phones have taken all of the historical vices, whether it's drinking or smoking or gambling. All of the reasons to act out in those ways, we can now find in our pockets. So it has become the easiest way to distract yourself from an uncomfortable feeling to like anxiety in an uncomfortable social situation,

or if you're just had an argument with your partner and you don't know how to solve it, you reach out to your phone, or otherwise you might have had a drink. The phone has become this kind of catch-all for all coping mechanisms, which once or twice is not bad, but if it becomes a habit, it becomes maladaptive.

And you end up never working on the problem and solving it, which is addiction. Addiction is kind of a compulsive, a habit that causes a negative effect in your relationships or in your career or in your work. And so, there's also a lack of quiet time. And this is, my girlfriend brings us up all the time. How important it is to have time where you're not doing anything but just being with yourself and thinking. And we never have that. And I wonder how big of a role,

because the big ones, the statistics, the statistics for me that are a little bit alarming or the rates of anxiety, anxiety now, I believe is the number one psychiatric issue in America. And it's exploded. Like it literally took off. Yeah. If you looked at the chart, it matches the usage

of these types of devices. And I wonder if it's just, we're so distracted and so have no time to be quiet, that that's amplifying that. Do you wonder if it's also that, I mean, you brought this up earlier, that there's just more people also going to therapists and recording and reporting on a lot of this stuff too.

I mean, we didn't have 10 years ago, it was taboo to go see your therapist. We're now, it's almost cool to have a therapist or to meditate for 20 minutes. So are some of these numbers skewed because you've got people that are reporting this, that we weren't reporting it before? I think the best evidence would be to look at past research on people who watch TV and consumed a lot of news. Just because it's so new, technology is so new, we have to kind of look back and I know that for a long time, psychiatrist and psychologist, as somebody came to them that, a lot of anxiety, a lot

of stress. One of the first things they would say is stop watching the news, don't watch a lot of TV and a lot of people notice relief just from doing that. And I know that's exactly the same, but and a lot of people notice relief just from doing that. And I know that's exactly the same, but. But we probably, I'm sure during that time, we probably went through a lot of this when TV first came out, right? I'm sure we were, as a country, we were probably freaking out before television hit.

I've heard a lot of people reference TV as we were freaking out about TV, but my concern was like, I've noticed just the distance between technology plays a massive factor, like just watching my kids how they interact. And so, I've tried to actually move away from any handheld device to the TV because it's away from them and they access it,

but just having them have access to a phone right here, and you see just the screen glowing in their face and they're so into this you take it away, their behavior is crazy if you take it away. Well the question then is, and this is where, you know, the Elon Musk thing is, I've been tripping on that for fucking the last whatever, him and Neuraline can all this stuff. Why, like what, you know, is this our future though? Are, are we going to be just instead of beans, you know, TV here, you know, now we're connected here soon, not here, it's here. Right.

And now it's this, that's just the natural progression or evolution for us. And what we're all freaking out about is the way people connect and do things. Well, is it because we're going through this growth phase of this new way of connecting? And is that potentially the future that like this is going to be the norm? And that's where I think I still think there's going to be people like you. I think there's going to be people like us who I think I would choose to be unplugged. I really do. But I think that for the most part, I think the majority, especially that are being born into it, try telling, and I'd be interested to hear from you, Tommy, like, I mean, how many 15-year-olds do you have, you know? How many of these, I bet your

demographic is probably 25 or 8-ish and up. Yeah, 20 to 35. Yeah, right. is probably 25 or eight-ish and up. Yeah, 20 to 35. Yeah, right. Probably people who knew what it was like before. Yeah, and so they can appreciate it. But like a kid, I mean, this blew me away. We have a 19 year old that works for us.

And he tells me a story about, I'm asking him just, I love picking his brain in here. I'm so, you know, 20 years out from high school, right? So I like hearing about what's going on in high school with him and what's cool, what's not cool, whatever. And he's like, yeah, house parties aren't really a thing. He goes, it's rare. He goes that they happen.

I'm like, wow, we live for that. Every Friday night, you're out at somebody's house, you know, illegally drinking beer or whatever, right? So that was the thing. And he's like, no, that rarely ever happens. And I go, everyone's like no that rarely ever happens and I go Ever and he's like yeah, well every once while they are and I'm like why I'm those the funnest times like that's whatever and I go what then how do you meet girls? You know how does that work?

And he's like oh well if you're at a party and you and there's a house party and imagine 30 40 people in there doing their thing as high schoolers do and There's a girl across the room that you're attracted to. And you know, oh, she's in my third-period class or whatever like that. And you're attracted to her. You don't go over and talk to her. The way what you do is you actually look her up on Facebook

and you friend request her first. And it isn't in there. Then you're hoping that she opens it up, accepts it. And then you now have the right, or it's okay for you to message her. Then you message her if and only if then and she responds, would you then go over to interact with her? And I just find that fucking crazy, but that is normal. That's and you would be more weird if you didn't get the permission from her.

And that she's requested your friend and you just walked over to her touched her on the shoulder and said, hey, I think you're beautiful or start a conversation with her. You would be the outcast. So how do you break through to that generation that they need to disconnect from this when it is now already become a part of them? And that's the part that I wonder of movements like what you're doing and what I think we need. And what will happen is I wonder if we're just going to divide people in half that some of us are going to agree with you. And then the other half are going to say, you're crazy. This is a part of me.

Yeah. Well, I do think what you're describing with Nuro Link and having the internet in our eyes is the future. And it's kind of like right now where in, so in the industrial revolution, everybody's lives sucked. Like they were, they were covered with soot and coal and like coughing, like lung cancer, everybody was suffering that lived during the day, was suffering of building all these factories in the revolution. Today, our lives are awesome because we are reaping the rewards of an industrialized nation. We are currently in a new digital revolution where the technology in the future with AI and neural-link type stuff is going to be awesome. where the technology in the future with AI and

neural-ink type stuff is gonna be awesome. And we are just suffering the consequences because we haven't built up our ethics and our boundaries with technology to catch up with it yet. And that's what you're talking about. That's a very interesting way to look at it. That's cool.

Yeah, and that's what you're talking about. You're talking about creating practices for people and teaching them how to create practice. Well, yeah, remember, I'm not saying, how to navigate. I don't use your phone. I'm not saying live without it. I'm saying, this stuff is coming.

Let's use it in a way that, I use social media. I would use dating apps. That is a part of life. I want to enjoy that and use that. I just don't want it to be taking advantage of me. What are some of the practices that you teach at these events, you guys talk about.

You talked about the one hour phone off, make it a brick, do something engaging. Is there any other practices? Yeah, so we have this thing called brick mode, auto reply, which is an auto reply for iMessage. So right now with our always on world, one of the reasons why we don't put our phone down, one of the reasons why we don't take vacations

is because we feel like when we're off our phone that feeling, when we come back to our phone, we get this notification flood and the guilt of having not responded to someone fast enough or having also having missed on something. So when you put on this auto reply, which is like an out of office, which email has had forever,

it relieves you of that pressure because anybody that reaches out to you knows that you haven't seen it yet, you're not ignoring them and that you'll get back to them when you're back on the phone. That's more. That's more. That's like five steps. It's kind of a hack of do not disturb while driving on our website.

That's a super great way to just live for a few hours off your phone without any of that kind of Subliminal twinge of guilt or or friction that makes you not want to do it so you can do that right now There's a way to do that right now. Oh wow, and he said it's kind of a hack. It's a five-star Yeah, my client I just found this out literally like two days ago a good client friend of mine was messaging me back and forth And like I got back to her like two hours later and I got an auto reply that she was driving. Yeah. I was like, what? I didn't even have that. Yeah, I didn't know that existed.

So that has been on phones for a couple of years and we're using that technology to change that message. So you can set that up manually, so it's not just when you're driving. It's whenever you don't want to be on your phone. What we change that to is, hey, I'm in brick mode. I'm not on my phone right now. I'm off the grid enjoying life. I'll get back to you when I'm back.

Very cool. And so you then knew, oh, like she hasn't seen this yet, it also, we feel like we get upset with people when they don't reply quickly. It's kind of this two-way street and this always on culture we're in right now. And so, you know, it relieves, relieves. I just had this with my two best friends. We're all on a thread together and they just happen to be talking politics and baseball, baseball's my least favorite sport

and then I don't like talking politics that often. And so I just hadn't- Or monotone reply. Well, no, I hadn't responded, but it was just in a day's time and it was just funny to see them, hey, they asked me the next day, hey Adam, everything okay with you?

Are you all right? And I'm like, no, I'm just busy doing other things and everything like that. It was the end of the topic. You guys did addressing, I just didn't care to get involved and just to get involved in it. So it's funny how we've created this culture now

where we expect people to do that. The same thing with Katrina, I had, it was all my way to, where was I at? I was on my way somewhere to meet somebody and what ended up happening was I just got caught up talking to them, like two hours. And when I interact with somebody like we are right now, like I get rid of my phone,

like I've definitely began to make that practice already and notice a difference when I, as soon as I get in a setting like this where I'm tough, especially people I may I don't know very well or I'm meeting them to talk to them in person. I put it away and she got really upset at me because I didn't, I ended up dragging on for like two and a half hours. And you know, as soon as I got out, I called her and let her know. She's like, why didn't you tell me you were going to be that long? I said, I didn't know. I didn't know and then I got to talking and then we got caught up in this, this deep conversation and it

was really, it was all positive, it was all good, I was telling her this and she's like, I wish you would just text me and I'm like, yeah, I just, no, no, I wouldn't, I don't want to have my phone on me and realize like, oh, you've been talking for 45 minutes, hold on, you know, let me text my, let me text my wife here and just let her know that I'm going to be home for another five hours or whatever. It's like, come on, dude. So maybe that brick mode auto reply could have saved totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. no, I love that. I love that.

I think that's a great idea. Are there more practices? Yeah, so you have the daily hour that we preach to collect at least one hour, brick time a day. We actually have this five step challenge, five step digital wellness challenge that is a great kind of one new step a day way to establish a healthier relationship with your phone and technology.

The first step is to turn on screen time, Apple's screen time feature, if you don't have it on already, and look at your data just to get baseline. So just have an awareness of how long you are spending on your phone, whatever it is, whether it is one hour or ten hours, just knowing that kind of sets your bar. And then you want to, the second half to that is to release the shame you have associated with it, to basically realize that our phones are designed to be addictive and they are constantly battling each other for our attention.

And so it's not a surprise that, and the smartest people in the world are doing it, by the way, to try to get our attention. That's why Facebook and Google and Amazon and Apple are literally like the five most profitable businesses in the world. They've done a really great job capturing our attention. And so it's not your fault that you are now spending a lot of time on your phone. So it's turning on screen time, getting a sense of your baseline and then releasing the shame. That's step one. Step two is now that it's on looking at which apps on your phone you're using intentionally

and which you're using unintentionally. So like for instance, Google Maps, nobody wastes their time on Google Maps. You put your destination in the phone and you use it as a utility. The moment you're there, you shut it off. No one's been like, no one's wished they spent less time on Google Maps. Or Uber would be another good example. Yeah, Uber. Right. Uber. Exactly. Unless you strike up a great conversation with your driver.

Has it ever happened? No, no, no. As you lost your flasters conversation, that was fun. Yeah. And then you have typically social media apps or the apps that have the bottomless feed. They're much more likely for you to get lost in. You might reach out to your phone to check the weather. But then 45 minutes has gone by. And you realize that you just watched five videos on YouTube.

And now you believe in the flat earthery. So it happens, guys. So which apps do you use intentionally versus unintentionally? I just gave you a couple clues for like what's typical. And then also which apps are you're using and then you're feeling worse after using them. So like Instagram, if you go on there and you look at all these beautiful people connected to you with all these awesome filters on it and then now I feel fat. Yeah, exactly.

I feel less about myself. Yeah, because Instagram. Instagram is a very common one. Instagram can be used very intentionally. Like if you want to go on to get good information or learn from people, but most people don't, mostly most of the time people spend on there or not to do that. It's the perfect example where it's just a tool.

Like it can be used for good. Like a lot of people are finding out about brick, through Instagram specifically. That's actually the platform that we use more than anything, but then at the same time, especially with young people and especially with young women, biologically, we have a tendency to compare.

And it's basically comparing fitness. Back in the day, you used to compare yourself to the hottest girl in your high school. And maybe you would see 17 magazine or something in the supermarket. But now you're not just comparing yourself and comparing your fitness with people in the local realm. You literally have the entire world

of all of the most beautiful people, plus the photoshopping element. I mean, it is the most impossible of impossible standards. And in addition to that, the most impossible of impossible standards. And in addition to that, you're comparing your inner reality to their outer highlight reel. And so you actually have no idea how happy they are

or if they actually look like that. Not to mention it completely skews your perspective too. Like it completely makes you think that that's more common than what it really is. I mean, you follow, if you follow, there's only about 10,000 super, super fit people on Instagram, you know, and we're all following the same 10,000, you know, and they're spread out all over the world,

but because they're in your feet every single day, five days a week. It looks like a norm. Yeah, you're a norm and I use the analogy to people who don't realize this is, go walk into your local gym. Right. I used to say this as a week. It looks like a norm. Yeah, you're a norm. And I use the analogy to people who don't realize this is, go walk into your local gym. Right. I used to say this as a trainer.

I used to, when people would be telling me about a magazine, like, I had to get clients to come in and say, oh, I want to look like this Adam. Yeah. And then I said, you sure you really want to put the work in, discipline to look like that, or you just want to be healthy and a better fit. And then I would stand them up.

And I say, look around in my gym. And I said, find me five bodies that you would like to look like. And they couldn't. It's like, most people in there are working towards getting in better shape. And there's a little bit of a self-selection bias. These are people going to a gym. Don't even use the gym. We're just looking real world.

Right. And you're not going to find, we evolved to compare ourselves to the people around us. We evolved in tribes. And our brain doesn't know that we're not living in tribes anymore. And so now you're on Instagram and global tribe. Yeah, you know, I use the analogy of how often have you ever seen someone who's seven feet tall in their life? You never say, I've never in my life have I ever seen anybody who's seven foot tall except for when I went to an NBA game. That's the only time. So if I've never seen basketball players,

I would not know that people who are seven feet tall existed. It's the same thing with the super small waist, big butt, fake boob, you know, whatever people on Instagram. Didn't when you guys just post that there's like a one in 88,000 chance dating a supermodel or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm going to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we have a tendency to compare and that's natural and that's an example where Instagram maximizes our weakness, where we're susceptible to that. And so that step two is kind of in like a little innocuous way, helping you kind of pay more attention to that. Step three is turn your phone into a brick for an hour a day and do something engaging in the real world. We challenge you to choose something that is meaningful to you or something that you love to do and something that you can do every day.

So like skydiving is not as good of an example as like going on a hike or watching the sunset or something. That's step three. Step four is moving that brick hour to the morning. So the first hour of your day becomes phone free. Now what is that? Why is that so challenging? So this, my, one one of my biggest issues, I think, that I was struggling with was exactly that. Where? First thing you wake up, you grab it. Yeah, first thing I wake up, I would check my phone

in the middle of the night. This kind of. You gotta imagine once that's fucking your sleep up. Oh, with the blue light, with the, even if you don't even respond to the emails, just reading that or seeing that, your brain can't help but start to grind its gears, and you're pretty much guaranteeing to lose it an hour of sleep when you do that. But I mean, so that's the worst case scenario.

But what's predominant and much more common, and we now, through people that have filled out our, is brick for you survey on our website. We've had like 2000 people do it. I think like 70% of people check their phone first thing when they wake up, so it's pretty common now. And what you're doing is you're coming out of the dream state when you are most suggestible, and also you are basically trying to set an intention for your day. What is your day gonna look like? If you go straight to a phone,

that puts you in a very reactionary state where you're suddenly needing to respond to other people's requests of you, to the emails or the agenda, instead of setting your own agenda, and also collecting and integrating, what came up for you overnight, through your dreams and through the kind of,

wherever we go. And so, when I moved my break time to the morning and spent the first 20 minutes meditating, and then showering and making coffee and then checking my phone. I mean, it totally changes, changed my day and I mean, that I could not record. You know, Tommy, in exercise, we call what you do before you work out priming. And if you treat it properly, you will have a much better workout by priming your body properly

to do squats or deadlifts or whatever. It only makes perfect sense that you're going to come out of an extremely parasympathetic state where you're basically unconscious, recover, recuperating, and then you wake up. The first thing you do is prime your brain for the short dopamine hit. It's all the simput. That's only going to make it much worse later on. So what you're saying makes absolute perfect sense. That priming your brain first thing in the morning with your phone is probably not a good

idea. I love that. I'm going to use that priming your brain for how you want to spend your day. Exactly. That's really cool. Hopefully it sells more tickets for you. I got you. What's the next one? Then step five is whenever you are with other people, that should be brick time.

So we argue that phone time should be solo time because the moment you're on your phone and you're with other people, you're not really with them. You're in Instagram land or you're in email land. And there's also studies about it that show that having your phone on you or visible makes for less meaningful connections, less means it's called the iPhone effect, which is similar to another study that shows that just having your phone on you actually reduces your IQ by 10 points.

I think just the kind of baseline distractability that you have, that I've personally noticed, which I feel like I totally agree with you where you were saying, like, my phone's not on me, it allows me to be more present and be engaged and not kind of wonder like, oh, what time is it? Or feel the vibration of your pocket. Totally. Yeah, well, I'm even worse than that. I don't even need, my phone is on,

do not disturb all day, every day. And I still check my phone constantly. I don't need any external stimulus anymore. It's, I've been programmed, you know, my own internal programming and dopamine drivers are. Well, I also find too, just the critical thinking aspect,

being away from it, it's like, I feel like that part of my brain somehow gets like atrophy because I'm so, it's so accessible all the time. I did have Google answer everything for me all the time. And for me to sit back into, really analyze what somebody has told me or, you know, how I'm gonna deal with a situation

like I need that time to process. You know, for people hearing what Justin's saying right now and who are thinking, oh, that's not really what's, here's your example right now. Think of five people that you talk to on a regular basis and tell me their phone numbers. You can't. You don't remember anybody's fucking phone number anymore.

Now, when we were kids, I could tell you my aunt's phone numbers, all my aunt's phone number. I still can tell you phone numbers from my childhood, and I couldn't tell you the people that are five closest to me now. Right, because we've basically outsourced that to our technology, and what Justin's talking about is starting to happen. We're outsourcing all of this critical thinking and abstract thought and whatever to our phones. I think the last step that you said when you're with people

that you don't have your phone on you or you make it a brick. I personally, I think that's the most impactful one. That I think would be the most impactful. I haven't tried any of these steps yet, but I feel like that's the most impactful one. Like when you're with people, just, oh, that's it. Off the phone, turn it off, and then just be with those people. Now, have you, have you, have you started to create any sort of like parameters

or even like a graph to give people like, like I'm curious right now, like man, I wonder if I started to do putting my phone on brick every time that I put it down, and put it away from me. I have no idea what it would amount to in a day. So do you have like these, like what's really bad and what's really good and where everybody kind of is

and what we should strive to be? Do you have any parameters like that? Well, we are developing an app that will allow you to track your brick time and kind of gamify it. So you can see how much brick, you know, if you're collecting your daily streak over at least an hour a day, how many days in a row you have at least. Very smart. So you build like a house or a wall or bricks or something.

Yeah. A brick road. Yeah. Yeah. To a new path to know the yellow brick road. Yeah. Yeah. That's like what our billboard could be. It's a bunch of phones on the ground. Really? Oh my God. So where you can track your phone time, did you collect more phone free time this week versus last week? I think that it's similar to physical fitness apps like Strava or if you're familiar or where even just the 10,000 steps. I think that there might be aspects of a leaderboard or an ability to see how you're doing versus your friends and kind of an aspect

of positive reinforcement through peer pressure. So that's something that we're working on. Yeah. Everfield conflicted developing an app that has like the open loop theory and trying to attract people to utilize it while you're also trying to like, do you feel conflicted a little bit? I don't. Right.

Do you feel a little conflicted a little bit? I don't feel conflicted at all. I feel like it's kind of like me, part of what I'm trying to preach where we're not saying the phones are bad. Right. We're not saying that apps are bad. We're saying that technology, we're using the same techniques that are currently being used against us with the endless scroll, with the red notifications that boost the dopamine

response. We're using the same competitive and social drivers for habits, but for positive habit change. To get you to spend more time in the real world. It's good to work out here. Look, technology is a tool. It's no different than if I put a hammer on the table and I said, is that a good or a, is this hammer good or bad? Well, if I swing it at you and hit in your head,

then it can be bad. If I use it to build something, then it's good. Technology is, is incredible. It's an incredibly powerful tool. It's all in how we wield it. And I like the term that you use, would you call it digital wellness? Yeah.

I think that's absolutely brilliant because I think you're right. I think it's something that we're gonna have to wrap our arms around and really start to manage and develop practices around it because it didn't exist 20 or 30 years ago. We didn't have to have practices around technology. Like we are gonna have to have today. So walk me through what this would look like. You find, I mean, we didn't have to have practices around technology like we are gonna have to have today

So walk me through what this would look like if I mean you got people that are listening right now that are you know You have one half that are probably an aisle you have the other half that are like okay. I need to send my life One half wants it for their girlfriend Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Yes. Yes exactly right so for the girlfriend's out there, right? What are the steps that you that you would tell someone to do to get involved in what you're doing? I mean, the easiest thing is just to sign up and join the crew on our website.

So if I join the crew, what does that mean? I'm part of the click. Then you get the brick challenge. So you get an email that says, hit, you know, it's kind of explaining our mission. This is what we're about. This is what it means to turn your phone into a brick. We challenge you to turn your phone into a brick each day.

And then if you're in LA, you'll get our invites to come to our phone free events. So we, yeah, I guess I didn't really talk about this that much, but so beginning of last year, we started throwing dinner parties and game nights and then it kind of grew into takeovers of big venues, typically with a focus of wellness. So we took over this huge co-working spaces movie theater in Hollywood and did a holotropic breath work experience phone free.

We took over a meditation studio a week before it opened and had 70 members come in and do a free meditation class and then they were able to get a discount on the membership. And so and then this year we're doing quarterly retreats. So phone free weekend getaways, typically for people who are super successful at social media, but have then felt this obligation to be on it all the time and keep up with the algorithms. We provide a structure for them all to get together and reconnect with themselves and others more meaningfully in the real world

and the natural world off their phones. And so our weekends are like fully programmed wellness weekends with like yoga and meditation and hikes by wilderness survival experts. And we've got like impossible meats is going to do a meatless taco night, which I don't know if they've done before. And so, so we bring health and wellness brands to the table as well to say, hey, we have this influential young demographic of people who care about getting off their

phones and who are very rarely fully present. This is an opportunity for you to engage as an athlete or a brand or as an outdoors brand with these people that are interested in this. And you're saying the response has been growing pretty, when I talked to you on the phone before we did the podcast, you're saying how it's kind of this exponential response. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, we, that's I think what I was saying in the last three months, I feel like people really

have started to care about finding the structure for phone life balance for themselves. You're gonna have to. You're gonna, I know we were comparing it to TV earlier, but here's the difference. TV, TV's like caffeine, TV's like caffeine, tech is like crystal meth. I mean, they're both stimulants and they're both kind of addictive, but TV had limited bandwidth. You know, you had one or two in the house, maybe three max, it wasn't in your pocket.

It was very limited what you could look at, what you couldn't look at. It couldn't change instantly. Like, if I'm watching a TV channel, I have to kind of watch commercials and okay, I change a few chat with, with tech, it's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it's very fast, very fast feedback. And it's personalized to you. So you, you are seeing specifically what the smartest algorithms in the world know you will respond which will make you most aroused I I think I and look I see this with my kids. I have to Develop a structure with my kids around food and activity. Okay, that's not there's nothing crazy about that

A lot of people do that, but I also have to put a structure around Tech with them to teach them skills to manage their relationship with technology because if I just Let it be no different than having just all the candy and processed food and shitty food in the house available to the kids and Allowing them to govern themselves. They would never develop the skills. They just can't. The human body didn't ever evolve in an environment this way, it's just not fair. And I feel like if you count on your,

because I've done this, I'm a very, I can sort of myself very self-aware, right? All of us were all fitness guys and so we're all like, okay, we're very self-aware. And I've tried to self-regulate with technology without practices, it doesn't work. I've had to develop like one rule in my house, now that I've started to do is the only time

I can look at my phone has to be plugged in. And so it's in one central area. And so if I wanna check it, I gotta walk over. And if I didn't do that one practice right there, that one practice has helped me significantly. But I think you have to start, you're gonna have to start to create these practices and it's a growing market.

We're seeing it now with, you're doing these retreats, but we see it in like all school course racing and all these other kind of getaways and stuff that weren't really that popular before. I think people are starting to feel it. Oh, that's a great one to talk about as OCRs because it's just like, it's exactly like that. Absolutely.

Whoever thought that people would pay tons of money to go beat themselves up and climb under Bob wire fences in the mud and do all this stuff with that bloody and muddy. But there is this, we all have this in us. Like it's this animal instinct to want to feel, to want to do these things. And we've been so plugged into the tech

that there's opened up an opportunity for somebody to create Joe to see it, to create Spartan in this massive movement, and it's continuing to grow, because we need it. Yeah, and we're all, I mean, all we want is connection. That's why we reach out to our phones, to social media.

We're trying to see if we got a new like, or a new follower, that's what is driving us towards it. The problem is that those aren't meaningful connections. And so we are so lacking in these meaningful connections in this sense of like tribalism. You know, we are we are we have evolved to to live in in working groups and create human bonds. And so that is why things like this are starting to exist and why people are responding so well to these phone free experiences. Because we don't do anything in the real world

unless there's a structure for it. Now nobody just goes out to play. Like kids don't just like go throw a ball anymore. Yeah, you don't go walk to your neighbors house, three doors, they're not gonna store it. You need to specifically structure it into your life. Yeah, you have play dates. You know, when I was a kid.

I hate that term, but yes. You have to schedule play dates. The thing that worries me most is, and again, I keep going back to the way people eat. And that's just because that's the field that I've worked in for so long. But I know when people eat hyper-palatable, high sugar, salt, fat fat type foods that are processed,

after a while, you actually, your brain becomes wired towards those things. So then when you go eat a strawberry, it tastes bland. You eat food that's natural. It just doesn't taste good because you've been, your brain is now big condition. And what I noticed is when you go off those, those other foods for a long time, then you go back and you destroy it and all of a sudden taste delicious again. My fear with tech is that where our brains are getting wired to respond to these quick dopamine hits so much that there's going to be a serious withdrawal like you unplug and shit's not going to be normal boring. It's going to be depressing boring. It's going to be like quiet. And what do I do now? And that's my fear of the kids.

Like when you say that, that's why I brought up the point about the generation that's, is it too late? You know, have they already made it such a part of their life for so many years that you try and pull away from them, and they're going to spiral out of control? Ask any parent, I'll guarantee Justin will agree with me. When my kids are on their phones or on their computers,

and they've been on for an hour or two hours straight, and I take them off, take some about an hour to get back to normal. Yeah. I mean, we all suffer, I mean, the withdrawal is real. And that's what our retreats, I think, tackle so well that people come out of them, they go through the withdrawal,

however long that lasts a couple hours, they're not kids, so maybe it's different, but I don't really think it is. I think we're all in... It would be interesting to see if you're attracting the people that really need it, or more people like yourself or like our side. I need it. I'm doing this because I need it. I need it more than anybody.

Well you didn't tell me how bad you got. I wanted to hear a fucking bender. Don't be shy. If you went on a fucking nine day cocaine bender and never came out of your room type of deal, did you ever? I mean, when did you really tell yourself like, holy shit, this is a major problem. Did you have a moment where, I mean, are there kids right now that don't leave their room for two day straight? Like does that exist? Absolutely, yeah. It does.

Yeah. Yes, fucking great. I noticed with myself, it was, I've been working out consistently since I was 14 and my workouts have always been my place of solace, you know, meditation, if you will. I'm alone, I'm in my zone and I noticed the problem when it completely infiltrated my workouts. I'm alone, I'm in my zone. And I noticed the problem when it completely infiltrated my workouts. In between sets, I was on my phone.

And I am plugged, I mean, you were too, you know. I am plugged from my workouts and I got back to my old like feeling from them. And I was like, holy shit, man. It totally, if it infiltrated something that I've always respected and valued and loved, gosh, it's gotta be like that with everyone. I tell people now when I coach them, like turn off your tech when you work out.

Listen to music, but don't go on your own. Well, I'm all for the, you know, that automated response for driving because I've noticed, and I've always prided myself as a really good driver and very aware, and like, you know and present in my driving. And I've just noticed over the years that I'm so distracted, so constantly distracted.

And I didn't really attribute it to my phone. I just knew that I listened to podcasts, I commute every day here to work for like an hour or so a day. And I just realized, and it's funny because I got in a fight with my wife about this a bit because she started, so you're starting to drive like an old man, like you're swerving, like you're off the road a little bit

and like I was just getting mad about it. I'm like, no, I'm a good driver. I don't get an accident, but I'm realizing, like I am, my mind is in other places, but I'm constantly like looking down where my phone is and like I got a text message that just hit me, you know, things are just always on and I'm going to start implementing that practice. I'm convinced it's from that.

Let me know how it goes. Yeah. What kind of feedback are you getting from people who are attending your events and applying, you know, your steps and practices. There was one guy who said that he can never remember anybody's name. And he's just something he's had a problem with since he could remember. And he came out of that retreat, remembering 52 other people's names. And he didn't even try. And he was so surprised at himself.

He was like giddy that he effortlessly remembered everybody else's name and it was because he was just fully present. He was engaged and he was connecting with these new people that everybody was basically a stranger at the beginning of the week and it came out of it like best friends, it was so crazy. But people are saying that they felt like

they were more themselves than they had ever been, at least in recent memory. So it's super cool. Do you from a, you know, neuroscience background? What are some of the fears that you have surrounding this? We talked about dopamine, but, you know, with your background and with the way people are using this tech, are there any fears from that perspective? Yeah, I mean, we are to use the food analogy, we are eating donuts, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We are constantly getting, we are constantly feeding that dopamine response through our phones. And it creates this low grade distractibility and the need for a fix.

That's why people, that's why I would wake up in the middle of the night for no reason, except to check nothing, nothing. There's no reason. How many times do you reach for your phone when you just put your phone back in your pocket? There's no, we are doing these things out of habit. And so that's, I don't wanna say that we're all addicted,

but those are addiction, those are habits that are not serving us. And so the goal is to, and this is, I feel like the conversation to have with kids where don't lock up the cookie jar and set it aside because the moment you get the cookie jar, you then like want to binge it. It's really more having the donut, but having it only for dessert, being able to structure it so you have your,

maybe I should have used that analogy at the same time, those are kind of two different points. Well, no, or your workout, you could use it like that where it's like you've earned that time for you to utilize this tool. And so you're learning to integrate it within your life is what you're saying. Yeah, we're not saying, yeah, exactly.

We're not saying don't do it. Just don't have it right when you wake up or don't have it constantly throughout the day. I mean, it is the unstimulated mind that is the most creative mind that allows you to integrate. And the irony is too that you'll find yourself way more productive on these apps

that you quote unquote feel you need or you have to do. And I'll use an example like Instagram because that is an app that we use a lot because we're on that platform. And we've recently grown to the point where it's now impossible for me to respond to everybody like we just there's too many DMs and emails every single day that even if I stayed on all day long, I just can't I can't get to all of them. So, but one of the things that we all pride ourselves on is our engagement with our audience and trying to respond to as many questions as possible. And so, you know, what do I do? It's gotten so overwhelming. And so there's always, right now there's just messages

coming in, so how do I handle this? When I actually follow this structure, and I'm not 100% on this, there's days I do, and there's many days I don't, where I tell myself, okay, I'm gonna lot myself 30 minutes sometime in the morning, so sometime before 10 or 11 a.m., where I'm going to sit down and for straight 30 minutes,

I'm gonna answer as many questions as I can get through, and then I'll do it at the end of my day one time. The irony is I actually get way more of the work actually done. I respond to more people than if I allow myself to just check it all frequently all day long and try and respond to a few, for I've responded to a few, I actually get more work done in the smaller amount of time because it's very focused on what I need to do and get out of there versus getting caught up, you know, scrolling up and down and checking

somebody else's Instagram and what they're doing or a destructive booty pick or whatever that makes me hang a left. You know, and then I go down the rabbit hole. So there is something to be said about, you know, people are probably, some people might be freaking out that oh God, I gotta put my phone down and I can't be on it that I won't be able to do this. You know, I know there's people like us who use these tools for their business,

social media business, your emails, your website, all these things. Well, I have found personally that when I structure it and I follow the structure that I've laid out for myself, I actually get a lot more fucking done and then allowing myself to use it all day long anyways. Yeah, you're just using it more intentionally. You're creating a specific intention, a purpose for using your phone and you don't stray from it. If you grab your phone without an intention,

it's much easier to find yourself using it unintentionally. And you're also kind of doing what, you know, the Pomodoro method where you do a specific task for 25 minutes and then you give yourself a short break. And so that is a really nice way for like focus and productivity. So you're like, okay, for 25 minutes, you can do anything. So I'm just going to do this one thing and then give myself a treat, a reward of a break after it.

Interesting. Now, you were talking about the app, how long until that's ready for use. We're going to do our first beta test for a small number of people, hopefully in about a month. Okay. Okay. Okay. And we are also developing a physical product that I'm excited to share more about, but basically it is a physical box that will allow you to collect your brick time.

And kind of has the central concept that out of sight, out of mind, is one of the key components to actually doing the phone-free behavior. Now, how the hell do you make money? I mean, you have a neuroscience background, you come from Duke University, I'm sure there's plenty of jobs that you could have done that pay you very well. I can't imagine this being very profitable to build, how the fuck are you supporting yourself? Um, I'm not yet. So, are you, did you come here in like a minivan and you're living in the back of it right now? No, I, yeah, I'm basically just been living on my savings from my last job and

Got a little lucky and bought some cryptocurrency kind of early and I've kind of just been building the business off of that The 2018 was Community building and kind of testing the value proposition and the message which community building and kind of testing the value proposition and the message, which we now have a lot of confidence in 2019 is going to be making more revenues so that I can survive. I'm moving back into my time. Well, I think a lot of ways we're testing right now for that. So I think you're tapping into a movement that's already building and happening.

It's going to grow. Yeah, if you don't do it, someone else will. It's my personal opinion. Yeah, no. And so separately from Brick, the reason why I was at Wisdom 2.0 is because I'm involved in this group called the Digital Wellness Collective. So it's 90 other people like me who have devoted their careers to digital wellness to solving this problem, whether it's 90 other people like me who have devoted their careers to digital wellness to solving this problem, whether it's with apps that block you from social media or it's therapists or researchers or authors that are writing about this,

all working together as a membership-based organization to support each other with like peer mentorship and events, to then make this a true bonafide industry and rise the whole raise the whole tide so We had a booth there and you know that's that's the grassroots Organization that is Trying to support and give a voice to to all these people at me. I think the smartest thing you did was calling it wellness

because have you gone yet to like health and wellness conventions that are not tech that are just about health and wellness because if you haven't, that's probably a great place for you guys to go. This was the first conference I've ever been to for this stuff. I've kind of been building in the dark a little bit. I almost like didn't even go. It was like on Thursday that I was like, okay,

everyone else in the leadership team is going. I have to go. But yeah, I would love recommendations on. Yeah, because I could see the wellness sphere. I mean, we're talking to you about it. I could see the wellness sphere really adopting this as part of their mantra, which includes the ones that you listed,

which I thought was also brilliant. You talked about food exercise, activity, and now digital wellness. I think that's a very, very smart strategy. Has this all just been centralized around the LA area or have you gotten a good response throughout the country? So I'm based in LA and I'm trying to, I feel like LA is the perfect city for it.

Everyone's so image focused and has their dream. They're trying to, you know, they're all trying to become successful on Instagram and so I think it's the perfect place to help people find a balance. I want to make it work there first. It's also just where I have the strongest network. We have thrown events in New York in San Francisco, but what it will probably be as we expand to specifically for BRIC is like an ambassador program where anybody can throw a BRIC event, anybody can put together a phone free experience, invite their friends, whatever it is, whether we are going to go to a concert or we're going to have a game night or something, and everybody knows

and opts in to, hey, we're not going to be on our phones during this time concert or we're gonna have a game night or something and everybody knows and opts in to hey We're not gonna be our on our phones during this time. Let's just like have a fucking good time And yeah, well good deal. Yeah, I mean wish you all the luck in the world I think I think you are grabbing on to a trend that's growing So I think if you do everything right you guys are gonna do very well. It really feels like it. Yeah, yeah Really enjoying it too. Wouldn't want to be doing anything else. Awesome man, well thanks for coming on the show brother. Yeah, appreciate it.

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