The Daily Zeitgeist - Flow-state, Creativity and Driving

Episode Date: December 21, 2019

Jack and Miles record in a Mazda and talk about flow states and what makes them happy and feel creatively fulfilled. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We are. And we're sitting inside a car. Yes. I often listen to podcasts inside a car. I've been told by our listeners that they listen to podcasts inside a car. We have never spoken to you from inside a car. And now we're doing it. But this

is not just any car. It is not. Okay. This is the 2020. Tell them what it is. Mazda CX-30. Okay. Now for some of you, you might say, well, what's that? I'll tell you what it is. It's one of the greatest cars I've ever seen. Full disclosure. Do I own a Mazda? Yes. Do I love Mazda? Yes. Am I half Japanese? Yes. Is Mazda a Japanese car company? Yes. All of the above, yes. Is this car lit? Yes. Not just in a very slang sense.

There's actually a really nice light coming in right now. Yes. It's lit pretty beautifully. I think there's cameras in front of us as well. There is. This is an unusual environment, but this is an unusual circumstance. Mazda saw that the Daily Zeitgeist is probably the number one podcast on earth. Probably. Officially. Undeniably. Verifiably. Don't look at the charts.geist is probably the number one podcast on earth. Probably. Officially.

Undeniably. Verifiably. Don't look at the charts. It's not about the charts. It's about a feeling. Right. And we feel like the best podcast on earth. Just like we engineer this podcast towards a feeling.

Yes. Mazda engineers their cars towards a feeling. Yes. Yes. I just do want to say, being in a car like this makes me feel very accomplished. It has stitching with leather on the dashboard. That's something I never thought I would say. I would be looking out as I sit in this driver's seat.

Miles is weeping. There are tears rolling down his face, but he's doing a great job keeping it together. I'm proud of you, man. I'm sorry, Jack. I've got to keep talking about this car. Actually, just full disclosure, I'm sitting in the driver's seat. And again,

people have heard me on the past in the show talk about posture and how important that is. This seat I'm in, it is tilting my pelvis in a way that is aligning my spine. Because you know, when you get in a car, you just want to lean back. Some people want the gangster lean. Yes.

Sometimes I want to be upright because my back hurts. And this is accomplishing that. And I feel, I just feel hugged. You look more upright. You look like healthy. Yeah. Like you're breathing for the first time. And also, the seat is giving me the hugs that my father never gave me. But that's a different episode entirely. Yeah.

I mean, we're here to talk really about this feeling of being alive. And when I think Mazda said, hey, we like y'all. Do you like us? I said, well, I do. Yes. But what are we talking philosophically here? And they were talking about this whole campaign of feel alive, right? And feeling alive and what that means to people.

And that got us thinking, what does that mean? Flow state. Exactly. Yeah. There's a really good book by this doctor named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi. Yes, who I learned about. He was maybe still based at UCLA, but when I was going there,

that's when I first heard about this man's work. And it's all about kind of how we quantify or how we qualify what it means to feel alive or what adds to our general feeling of, what's the word for life? Virality? Virile? Vitality. Vitality. Thank you so much.

See, I'm overwhelmed by the interior and the new car smell. Yeah, it does smell good in here, actually. I know. We might just do 30 minutes of hard sniffing. Is it weird that I'm breathing so much on this episode? You know what? Hold on. Yeah, that's leather.

Steering wheel? Leather. Yeah. That's a new one for me. Yeah, and just sort of this idea of what it means to actually add to this feeling of living. Yeah. You were saying that he has kind of an interesting background, right? Yeah.

That brought him to this study? Essentially, right? He was growing up in war-torn Europe after World War II and sort of looking around at people's, trying to understand, you know, with the complete absence of like property or infrastructure and things like that, he still noticed that people were able to maintain some sense of well-being. Right. As the Daily Zeitgeist resident historian, I had always imagined that war-torn Europe would be, I think the technical term is a bummer. Yeah. Yeah. But you were saying that he found people who... Technical term is a bummer.

He found people who were enjoying their lives. They were... Yeah. And were kind of... Yeah, and that kind of sent him on this journey of trying to understand, like, okay, what does it mean to feel alive? Like, how do we even define what we do in our lives that give us this feeling of, like, wellness or meaning?

Right. And so at first, he was trying to find that secret sauce and what that all means. And I think we'll talk about that after this break. All right. all means and i think we'll talk about that after this break all right this summer the nation watched as the republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months these events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when president gerald ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.

And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer.

This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.

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Still in the car. Reminding you, still in the car. You know, I'm going to actually close this moonroof because I just wanted to say moonroof. Yeah. Want to get a little atmosphere going in here? Should I? I'm going to get in the backseat really quick. Are you?

Yeah. I just want to feel this. Hold on. Sorry, guys. Can he do that? Yep, I can. Watch me. Oh, yeah.

Oh, there we go. Oh, yeah. Oh, there we go. Oh, yeah. Now, is it strange for you to be in the backseat of a car? I know, like, after, like, driving the same car for three years, I got in the backseat of that car. Of your own? Of my own car, and I was like, wow, this is strange. To be honest, with me in the backseat, you in the front passenger seat,

and no one in the driver's seat, I'm pretending we're in an automated vehicle. Yeah. And the year is 2020. So, yeah, back to the flow. Back to the flow. Let's get in the flow. Yeah. I think a lot of people, you're probably asking, okay, what is a flow state?

I'm sure you've seen TED Talks. Maybe you have. Maybe you haven't. Right. But it's basically, you know, it's a zone that people get in. Right. Athletes call it the zone. Yeah't. Right. But it's basically, you know, it's a zone that people get in. Right. Athletes call it the zone. Yeah.

Artists with their more flowery language call it flow. Yeah. Inspiration, maybe creative inspiration that they don't know where it comes from. But through Csikszentmihalyi's research, he was first interacting with people like musicians and artists and trying to find out like, OK, how do they feel alive? musicians and artists and trying to find out, okay, how do they feel alive? And realized a lot of what they were discussing is, with a painter, when I'm painting,

time just seems to melt away as the creativity flows through my brush. And I know not what I'm doing. I'm merely a vessel for this inspiration. And a lot of art, even musicians, would describe this. And at first, he was like, okay, maybe this is a thing limited to just musicians or creatives right then he realized musicians are

the only happy people on earth right well no you know why he says it right is because like a lot of artists they'll toil and they will they will pursue their art sometimes without any kind of fame or fortune right because to them that whole pursuit is what's meaningful to them. And I think that was sort of the beginning part of like, wait, hold on. So it's really not about a lot of the times we think about, is this happiness tied to like wealth or your location or your age? And, you know, through a lot of research, you realize income hardly affects your overall state of wellbeing or sense ofbeing. Right. And people will chase creative fulfillment despite, you know, not having some of those things that we think are the goals of life, right?

How many people do you know who have a SoundCloud page? I think it's everyone. How many people have a podcast? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No, but I mean, I think like at the same way, we look at a lot of people, you'll see people who, whether it's through their art, you'd be like, man, I can't, they're still doing it. They're still doing it. Because at the end of the day, a lot of it

isn't really about what maybe we define as like the end goal, but more about what is actually fulfilling us in that pursuit. And that's what this flow state is all about. It's a zone where you engage in a task that requires skill. It has to be skill. It can't just be you can't just be on autopilot. Right. And so it has to be slightly challenging and also provide you instant feedback. That's when he realized, OK, this is a way to achieve this state without being a creative, so to speak. Yeah, I think there's an aspect of it that is like what you know, when you're going downstairs and you if you think about how your feet are moving one in front of the other, like it messes you up. But you are you're there's like a part of your mind that has no like conscious awareness that is making your feet like move faster than the speed of thought.

Like it's like that. But at a larger overall level, there has to be like all these other things. your feet like move faster than the speed of thought like it's like that but at a larger overall level there has to be like all these other things like creative fulfillment I'm sorry do you struggle walking down you know how I'm always thinking so you know how I have to audibly say, one foot, other foot. One foot, two foot, three foot. I'm like, oh, I don't know how you know such a good step. Oh, boy.

No, it is. And I think just with the studies they've done, they've even played the same music played by two different kinds of performers. One, we'll say it was like a mozart quartet piece or something yeah and realized they played two groups of musicians one that were like seasoned pros who just do like just they're like put the music in front of me and i can just rip through this right and then another group who was a little more less about just sort of like less mechanical right like they were more engaged rather just on autopilot. And even when they played this music for people,

the people 90% of the time said the version that was not on autopilot, the one where people were like much more engaged and even playing the piece, even if they didn't know music, it sounded better to them. Right. You could almost like feel the feeling coming through. Exactly. Yeah, there's another kind of example of this. People think of photographic memories as acting as if it's a camera, right? So one of the groups of people that famously have photographic memories are chess masters.

They can just look at a board and like for one split second and remember every piece, like where it was on the board, the position of the pieces. But they found that it doesn't work if the pieces are just arranged randomly in a place in a way that they couldn't actually get to for a game. So it has to be like part of some overall structure. Oh, right. Like you couldn't just randomly put like a pawn in a part of the board it wouldn't reach or a rook or something right yeah it has to actually be like part like somewhere in the course of an actual chess match or else their brain like won't capture it so it's like connecting the actual context, the actual overall goals with whatever their art form is, with, you know, being able to be so good at the thing that you can kind of dissolve into it.

Like some people can when they're going downstairs and I can't. But I've been studying it and I think one of these days I'm going to get it. So is going downstairs a flow activity for you? That's why you always take the stairs you're like yo i gotta get right real quick i'm gonna go up and down these steps and just bliss out you know the feeling i'm talking about though like yeah your your feet are actually moving like that was one of the things that when i was young like first made me realize like oh like the thought is not something necessarily that you can fully, you know, put into words.

Like there's there's things happening that I don't have access to. Yeah. Well, I think that's that's the part where you're trying to make like the subconscious like part of your consciousness. And then you're like, wait, it's better when this is just on autopilot. Yeah, exactly. I don't need to actually look into how that's happening. Right. happening. Right. The, um, the, the one actually important thing about the, uh, the flow state is like back to that musical comparison piece is that the whole reason is like, it has to be a challenge, right? So there, some people have actually researched, I think it was Swedish researchers found that it has to be like something like 4% sort of above your skill range. So it's not quite enough to frustrate you while you engage in it but just

enough that you're like wait i'm actually i'm able to do this and it's something is you know giving me a little bit of a challenge right and that's kind of the sweet spot that people always look for is like it can't be autopilot but just a little bit of a challenge that way it really brings out this feeling of achievement and purpose and what you're doing right uh yeah chick sent me hi said that like if you're too good then you you know despite the fact that you're succeeding at the goal over and over again like the the thing that it made me think of is like michael jordan you know retiring Well, I think it's one of those things, too, because it adds to your state of well-being. I think for Michael Jordan, he has to be winning and competing, or else he loses that sense of, am I even alive?

Right. And like tennis players, they have to be going against someone that they're evenly matched against, or it like you if they're playing me i won't bring like if andre agassi is playing me i will bring yeah he will definitely lose i could beat andre agassi with a frying pan but he wouldn't be challenged by me so he would like not need to get into the zone basically um right well i guess yeah because it would be autopilot at that point he might as well be playing like a tennis ball machine. Right.

That's got a weak forehand. They do call me the machine on the tennis court. The machine with the weak forehand. Yeah. I'm actually going to come back up to the front seat. What a pleasure. Full disclosure for the listeners. When you hear this, that's okay.

I'm just out here. Hi, how are you? Good to see you. Okay. Shaking hands. Kissing babies. I love your jacket. It's great.

And the gold embellishments on your jacket as well. Oh, yeah, look at that jacket. Don't worry. There's a wonderful jacket. I see. We do a little audience participation. Yeah, yeah. I got an eye for style.

It's not just about the... Clearly, I have an eye for style because I'm into CX-30. Yes. But back to the flow states i think with flow states it's interesting to sort of dissect or kind of talk about how it differs from person to person because i think right now a lot of the examples are like well i'm not michael jordan i'm not uh i might not be a chamber musician right uh or an artist necessarily and like looking at different people's flow states

is also really interesting. Because I think it's just in general, it's good to identify that for yourself. Because everyone has some kind of activity where that does happen. And you probably didn't realize what it was. You're just sort of like, oh, I really like to drive, or I like to play video games, or things like that.

CHIK SAMIHAI talks about how you can actually do this with everyday activities. If you like give yourselves the, if, if you give yourself the right constraints, like getting to work, like your drive to work and like beating your record for getting to work in a safe manner. Uh, but it's like at a breakneck speed. Yeah. You can, uh, you can make that into a flow activity.

Right. And so he was even looking at people who, you know, people who seemingly, I guess on paper, you would say this person is in their, like, 60s. They work a factory quality control job. Right. But they were off the charts with, like, happiness and fulfillment. Right. And he would look at people like that and be like, okay, what's the secret here? like happiness and fulfillment.

And he would look at people like that and be like, okay, what's the secret here? And in talking to this one guy who I think would quite literally, as cans came down like a line at a factory, would just sort of tap on the tops to be able to understand like, okay, what's inside or there's too much air, there's not enough, whatever. Yeah, that even by checking through, like sort of using this method of tapping on top of the cans, his day melted by. He's like, I don't even feel like I go to work because it's like coming at a speed that

is relying on a very developed skill to sort of give him meaning, purpose, and again, gives you that flow state. Yeah. You were saying like Cormac McCarthy has, I mean, I don't know if it's necessarily a flow state, but it's definitely some kind of state involving his creativity. Yeah. I always find it interesting to like look at people who are really good at what they do and what their method is or how it feels to them when they're in the flow state.

And Cormac McCarthy, when he was writing The Road, said it was basically dictated to him by a voice in his head, and he was just typing to keep up with the voice. Wait, so it wasn't even, so it wasn't like thinking, it was like, you know, like in the old, I guess, Greek like sort of idea of the genius, like being visited by a genius. Yeah.

Because I think that's how they used to actually define it, right? It wasn't that you had, or you had a genius, or now people became geniuses. At first you were visited by this sort of genius or like inspiration. Right. Yeah. Or is that how he explains his like grammar when he writes?

He's like, yo, man, it's because this voice is talking to me. I'm just getting the words out. I can't keep up. Look, it doesn't capitalize. It doesn't punctuate. That's why it doesn't put punctuation on anything. It doesn't use commas or quotation marks. Yeah.

He also wrote a really interesting essay recently that kind of ties into this called The Kukule Problem that's about the guy who figured out the, he like won the Nobel Prize for figuring out the structure of the benzene molecule. Okay. And the way he did it was he was having a nap by a fire and started dreaming about a snake eating its own tail. And then he woke up and was like, ah, that's it.

It's like an Ouroboros is the structure of the thing. So his mind basically melted into having access to, like he couldn't put it into words. Right. His mind basically went to this visual place. Whoa. But the person who I most like to think of the zone for is... Have you ever seen that guy folding the pizza boxes really fast? No.

You haven't seen that? The guy who's... Maybe I've seen a gif of it. Yeah. Wait, of just, like, taking cardboard pizza boxes and just going through them wildly? He, like, turns it into one motion. For me, it would be 17 motions.

Like, it would take me forever. Wait, but don't you have to, like, fold, like, five sides? He's, like, folding it as he's throwing it forwards and then, like, bending it. It's really incredible. Is this something you saw at Mac and Manco's pizza? Mac and Manco's, shout out. Shout out to Mac and Manco's.

Wait, wait, wait. This is just a video? Yeah, it's just a video. But I do love videos of people who are really into, who are just way too good at everyday tasks. Yeah, or you see people, even chefs, breaking down a pineapple in three seconds. I mean, exactly.

I think that's exactly the kind of zone you're in because at a certain level, even if it's pizza boxes or wielding a knife with a pineapple, you need to have the skill to do that or else you can completely get taken out of it or even hurt yourself, as I've learned. Dan O'Brien gets really into loading dishwashers. That gets him in his flow state.

Really? Yeah. What's the challenge there? Doing it fast, doing it perfectly, putting everything in the right spot. Okay. What kind of flow states do you rock with? Oh, Miles. Oh, boy.

One of the things, even though I'm not a gamer, one of the reasons that I'm not a gamer is because I've had video game playing experiences where my time just melted away completely. I had no access to what I was doing for four hours while playing Angry Birds. I know. Angry Birds really got me, man. You're like, man, it's that one. It's so big.

I don't know how to get around that. Right. Boss pig. What about you? I have a few different ones. I guess we'll go back. We'll trade. I think in line with that, video games is definitely something that uh

gets me in a state where time melts away and i think that's a lot of the reasons why gaming is pretty big because i think most people will describe it as an activity that you're engaged in requires a little bit of skill unless you're just you know pwning people online i don't know if you're playing a bunch of noobs but like you, it requires a little bit of skill It gives you instant feedback like as you can see exactly what you're doing on the screen And it I gives me a sense of purpose. Yeah, I Can't it's really like one of those things where I can look down and like I Have wasted well not wasted but like I'll look down and blink Okay, three and a half hours have passed. Yeah, and I need to get up and do things but it's it's very enjoyable i think another thing for

me actually is like driving um in like new cities yeah or places where i'm not as familiar with the roads uh i mean i think being in la like we drive very it's like we're we are on autopilot for the most part because we have our predefined routes to get from point A to point B. We know all the roads. And also with traffic, you're not driving very quickly. Right. But when I find myself driving in other places, like I'm so just fascinated, engaged, and then like just, I don't know,

I treat it like a more of a, like a task or something. Right, you're more alive to it. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's what's that's something that also, you know. Although I will say that you and my other friend who grew up in Los Angeles, like really come alive. Like when you're in the car in L.A., just like figuring out the best way to go. Like because you guys know, like you have the whole map of the city basically in your mind so it's they they actually say that like one of the most developed brains are cab drivers in london because yeah yeah because they just know like an entire city and like all the

different i think part of the test though also is like that you have to know almost without maps right the entire city and i think that's an you know that's a skill that we're losing as people. Yeah, no, I do wonder how much the fact that people are now relying on Waze instead of really engaging with the grid of their city and the act of getting where they need to go is affecting. That might have something to do with rising, because accident rates went way down and then they started going back up again especially when it comes to uh to pedestrians

well i think also too it's because you're you're when you engage your mind like that it is like a muscle so in a way not that it could atrophy or whatever but you you aren't you aren't keeping your tools as sharp as they can be and i I think that's a really important thing to think about. Another really big one for me, and I realize I'm not actually doing it enough and could be leading to my sense of not feeling as alive as I could be, is actually playing and making music. I used to do that a lot. Almost in college, every day. I was like a producer who was not making any money but i could sit at my computer i could bring in samples i could play keyboard bass or whatever

and it would instantly instantly i could i'm not even joking like eight hours could pass and i would have this like you start vibing with your own work or whatever you have that instant feedback it'll be the skill involved is sort of trying to figure out what kind of chords you want to use what kind of rhythms you want to use and things like that and that is such a such a beneficial activity and i think it's really important i think for anyone listening too is like realizing like what those things are for you because it could be as simple as like you know they had truck drivers who were in in one of his books too were just saying like purely doing that on the road knowing i have to like be careful to get this thing safely from point a to point b is super engaging and the time goes by i think it's really

important that like everybody tries to figure out what that what that is for them what that means to them yeah that was actually one of the really cool things about this experience is Mazda gave us like a half hour to talk to one of their engineers and they were talking about how they engineer the car, like including up to like the split second, like which wheel is moving faster, which wheel is getting the emphasis to G vectoring. Yeah. To specifically like feel as opposed to, as opposed to being right on the nose of whatever. The scientific balance would be they actually engineer it to what it feels like to the driver. Well, right, because it's all about, I mean, in the abstract, you can crunch numbers and say, mathematically, this is the ideal thing.

Or even with what you're talking about, a flow state, that you can say, well, these are the parameters, but at the end of the day, it really this is the ideal thing. Or even with, you're talking about a flow state, that you can say, well, these are the parameters, but at the end of the day, it really is the feeling of it. And I think that's what's interesting is, I think most car companies would be like, okay, how do we get it as tight as possible on paper? And that's it. Ship it off because we figured out mathematically,

engineering, from an engineering standpoint, this is the best thing. But for them, at Mazda, they go, okay, we know what the best thing is on paper. Now, how do we also then find that middle ground the balance between what's perfect maybe algorithmically mechanically and then what's sort of perfect from an experiential side and I think that's really you know it's kind of dope they they kind of add a soft science element to yeah the hard science of you know engineering they're gonna have trouble getting me out of this car, actually. I know the auto show is happening, but I can't go back to my Mazda 3 after being in the X30.

It is super nice. The stitching really does do it for me, man. It's also this perforated leather on the back. It feels like I'm racing. All right, let's take one more break, and we'll come back and talk about some of the benefits of flow. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two

attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer.

This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.

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that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And are there any other experiences that put you in a flow state you want to talk about?

I was going to say that uh writing we were talking before one of our sales people works or I used to go to Ocean City New Jersey when she was growing up yeah just like me and that brought me back to body surfing body surfing was a thing that just like would I would go out there and like be there for like five hours. Oh, really? Yeah. How many times did you just get absolutely slammed?

I loved getting, like that was fun because you're just like kind of. Wait, that's fun getting slammed? Yeah. I mean, because the waves on the East Coast aren't as big. Man, the few times I tried body surfing places where it was big, I nearly dislocated my shoulder. Yeah. Because you get that first arm out and And then when you get down, a lot of injuries happened on a beach in Costa Rica once. Actually, that happened to me in ocean city two years ago when I was in

terrible shape. Nope, never happened. Okay. Full disclosure. Two years ago, I wrecked myself, yanked my arm behind my back. Is it being in the water or you think it's just that? It's kind of, I think it's being in the water. It's what Csikszentmihalyi talks about with having the overall goal, but then smaller goals in between. Right, right, right. You know, just being in there treading water, like picking a wave. Right.

Yeah, just overall the experience of it, and you kind of dissolve into the ocean. You know what would be so hilarious is like a body surfing mixtape. It's just cute. It's just cute. But using GoPros and stuff for like a drone. And you're just out there like, dude, super slow-mo, this guy's catching a wave.

He's almost 40 arm in the middle of the way he's just cutting it up so tight what's the ideal soundtrack for for a body surfing mixtape oh man yeah i don't know maybe flow rider something by i don't know actually that's it flow uh yeah not. Okay, so when you look at the, we talk about flow a lot and how it's good or whatever, but there are actual tangible benefits. Obviously, aside from the enjoyment aspect, a lot of it does actually have an effect on your well-being associated with your subjective well-being. And sort of, you know, when you're able to do these activities that put you in this state,

each time you do it, it just kind of bumps your well-being or your sense of purpose up just bit by bit. And also just generally it adds to your like feeling of overall happiness, like when they actually talk to people who regularly engage in it or have identified flow states, like how they feel after it, increased levels of happiness or even at your job. Right. If you actually end up having a job where what you do puts you there like i know some of our listeners uh like are butchers and things like that and you can tell i'm sure you know processing those things require skill you want to do it quickly you have instant feedback boom and it also leads to just you know you're more productive shout out to him what's What's that butcher's name? Travis. Travis. Yeah. American butcher.

When you see him putting work in, you definitely can feel the flow state through the screen. Well, I think that's one of the reasons why even what you're talking about with that pizza box thing. When you watch it, you're like, you can contact. Yeah, contact. Contact flow. Contact flow. Flow state, basically. Yeah. can contact yeah contact contact flow contact flow state basically yeah yeah i mean they talk about yoga being like kind of being a way to almost hack yourself into a flow state a little bit because it's like putting you it's making you mindful of your body in a way that's like sort of

in line with kind of flow state right and i think a lot of people think too like if you there is something that they refer to as a sort of general mindfulness right and that's sort of a step down but at the same time still has those benefits because you know being mindful is just adding a level of awareness or just taking yourself out of autopilot so even as something as simple as you're driving like even being like okay what's some how aware can i be as i do this like when am i braking when am i turning the wheel um so mindfulness is like another way to at least begin to move in that direction i think just to become familiar with that feeling yeah with driving like i i jokingly mentioned getting to work like at breakneck speed but you

can also do it like one way that i've been able to do it through driving. Very slowly and have everyone behind you. Drive as slow as possible. See if you can make it take two hours to get to work. No, try and like find ways to make other people's days like just tiny bit better, like by like letting somebody in. Oh, I mean, I could talk about that all day. That what you're talking about is almost really a realignment of how you're even engaging day to day

because I think a lot of the times we're always thinking of like, well, what can I get? Yeah, what can I get? Who's going to give me something? And I think when you do that too, a lot of the times you'll find yourself in situations where maybe the universe is like, what can I get from you? Right.

And you're like, oh, what? Versus like what you're saying, you're out here being like, how can I serve? Yeah. i add yeah i mean i think they you know even well like regardless of religious beliefs like people who have those sort of frameworks that they're working within tend to have like higher levels of overall like well-being and just like oh yeah no i think in general right like I think the more you can you know as I shift to miles is philosophical corner the more of like an abundance mentality you have like you know when you have the theme song the

way for miles is philosophical miles is philosophical moments brought to you by Oprah no like those moments right where you're you if you feel that there's more abundance you're more you'll be more generous because you see that there is there's much to give and i think when you look at things as being finite or uh you have a scarcity mentality that's when you see people especially in la where they're like never let anybody into a lane or like never want to be accommodating it's because they're just like, they're operating in a place where like,

well, if I do that, then there's nothing for me. And then I'm getting to my, you know? And I think that's, what's, I'm just going to,

I just want to see how far this seat goes back. Sorry guys. I'm doing an experiential thing in the car right now. This is new for me being in the passenger side. This is a very nice passenger side, but my, do you never, are you never in the passenger seat?

Never, never wants to drive. I'm always driving. Is yours automatic? Oh, this is going back. Wow. Yeah. Is this legal? All right, we're going to take a nap. Is that cool? Yo, this is going so far back. Oh, wow, I love this.

Yeah, this is nice. You know what? Now, see, now I'm ready for therapy. Jack, tell me about your childhood. Did you ever sit in the front seat as a child? By the way, listeners, that was the sound of me weeping. That wasn't a playful laugh. I don't like where this is going. Also, this has really great crash rating. Crash radius?

Rating, not radius. Really great crash radius, you know, the whole thing. You know, 180, big car guy. Might be obvious to you you know, the whole thing. You know, 180. Big car guy. Might be obvious to you. Oh, see, that's where I come in. Yeah. Hold on.

Although this has been super cool. Well, no, I think even, too, like what the engineer was talking about, his background is like rally car driving. Right. And then to even talk about just sort of how that philosophy even goes into their cars, even though you might not be driving rally tracks or courses, blasting through Baja, you still have those same philosophies that are put into just your everyday driving because those are subtle things that actually add to the overall experience. And I'm just going to say, Maz, I'm not getting out of this car.

I'm saying this now. He's serious. When he gets this tone, you guys, it's not a joke. This is my serious tone. This is me saying, I'm saying this now. He's serious. When he gets this tone, you guys, it's not a joke. This is my serious tone. This is me saying it. I'm not leaving. Yeah. And I will be.

It's going to be a problem for a lot of people. Please keep these cameras rolling. Because I have found, man. Seriously, what do we got to do? You look pretty good in here. For me to stay in here. Do I look good in here? Yeah, you look.

You fill it up nicely. What are you basing that off of? What am I basing it off of? What do you see? Just like your just like your posture your general like it you you've adjusted the seat right to like where you i feel like you would be sitting do i look confident you look you look confident and fulfilled thank you so much on a deep level i mean no i've i'm feeling like i'm living my best life right now

and it's not because there are all these cameras around us. Right. Maybe that too. Yes. You've been smiling broadly like a cheerleader for the past 40 minutes. I'm kind of impressed that your face hasn't cracked. Well, I'm the self-proclaimed king of the LA Auto Show. Please come by my throne at any point.

Yeah, so with that, y'all, thanks so much for joining us on this special episode. Very special episode. And also, let us know what your flow states are, because I'm always curious. People have so many different ones. My mom's is just literally trimming cactuses in her backyard. Oh, I thought you were going to say feeding possums. No, no. Well, I think feeding possums is her passion.

Right. But she doesn't achieve a flow state. That's just sort of out of her overall ethos as a human being. She has to project weird stories onto possums as to why they need to be helped. They're always single mothers, just so you know. Actually, one question I had is watching movies, that can't be a flow state, right? Because like I'm not, it's completely passive. It is very passive.

Right. But I think if it makes you more mindful, that's one thing. Makes time melt away. And I also have a weird connection where I remember where I saw every movie that I saw in theater. Did you used to keep all your movie ticket subs? No, I never did that.

I used to, as a kid, I'd collect them, and then I lost them all. I used to really think it was the coolest thing to me. Look at all my movie ticket stubs. I saw three ninjas without my mom. Just 40 pieces of three ninjas tickets.

I saw it a bunch. Alright. Well, shout out to you guys for listening to this and let us know about your flow states. shout out to you guys for listening to this. And let us know about your flow states. Yeah. Shout out to Mazda. Yeah, Mazda.

Thank you so much for having us. Again, at the end of the day, it was the alignment of two great brands. Obviously, iHeart, but the Daily Zeitgeist, more importantly, and Mazda. Most importantly. And I think, look, eventually, I feel like maybe we'll have our own custom car. Yeah. The Zeitmobile. The Zeitmobile. Oh, wow. Could you we'll have our own custom car. Yeah. The Zite Mobile. The Zite Mobile.

Oh, wow. Could you imagine? Oh, it's happening. With like footnotes just on the side with racing stripes. We saw those bootleg headphones that had the Zite guy's logo on them. Oh, on Amazon. Yeah, on Amazon. Somebody's bootlegging our logo. So maybe we can...

No, this would be official. I know, but we should Google, see if anybody's made the Zite Mobile yet. I'm going to talk to Dino after this at Mazda. I'm going to say, look, man, we need the racing car. We need the daily Zite guys car. I want to mop through the streets of LA so people already know. I want to, I want them to hear us coming down the street. And would you mind requesting that we have like a airbrushed portrait of ourselves?

On the hood? Our heads on baby's bodies. Like cherubic? Yeah, cherubic. Wow. Yeah wow yeah wait that's the version is what no that's not that's not something that i have on my hard breath it's like you just doing all these iterations of yourself as a cherub you're like yes that's your secret flow state yeah trying to find yourself as a cherub all right well follow us uh on twitter and instagram and all that. Yeah, yeah. What it is. And thanks so much for listening.

We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Hey, fam. I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up your day. Check out our recent episode with Grammy award-winning rapper

Eve on motherhood and the music industry. No, it's a great, amazing, beautiful thing. There's moms in all industries, very high stress industries that have kids all across this world. Why can't it be music as well? Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture

of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture We'll see you next time.