The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - Stop Endlessly Chasing the "Next Big Thing"

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

We're often looking into the future... hunting for the "next big thing". That could be an exciting new job or a new relationship. We can get so fixated with these events and the happiness we hope they'll deliver, that we forget to look for joy right now.  Actor and author Tony Hale (Veep, The Mysterious Benedict Society, Arrested Development) was always chasing new accomplishments, until he realised he was missing the chance to be happy living in the moment. He used his experience to write one of Dr Laurie Santos's favourite children's books Archibald's Next Big Thing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. can motivate us to improve our careers, our health, our habits, and our happiness. But when we start to think about how to go about making all these improvements, that's when things start to get really, really loud. We start to hear all these outside cultural voices shouting at us about what we should be doing. That number that we're really supposed to have on the scale. Or the glossy gym we absolutely need to join. Or the new productivity or dating app that all our friends are trying. These outside voices tell us there's one way to get fit or quit biting our nails or get that big promotion at work. It's a new year, they scream, and this is how things

are going to have to change. These new year voices are all very well-intentioned, but they can sometimes get so loud that we can't even hear ourselves think. So in this new year season of the Happiness Lab, I want us to try something different. Instead of listening to all these loud outside voices, we're going to do the harder work of looking inward. Over the next few episodes, we'll try to pay attention to the wise voice inside us,

our inner compass, if you will, that often gets drowned out by all the outside noise. And we'll see to pay attention to the wise voice inside us, our inner compass, if you will, that often gets drowned out by all the outside noise. And we'll see that carefully listening to the quiet voice of what our bodies and our minds truly need may be the real path to happiness in 2023. Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy.

But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction. You're listening to The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos. In the coming episodes, we're going to take a closer look at the perennial urges we have in the new year. To work out more, to eat healthier, to throw ourselves into our jobs, and to push ourselves to the limit. At first glance, all of these seem like reasonable personal goals.

But we rarely take a moment to stop and think, could there be something else underlying all these desires? Why are we putting so much emphasis on how much we can bench press, how much protein we eat, or what our new job title is? And the place where I want to start this deeper exploration may seem slightly unorthodox. I want to start with a children's book. Archibald's morning always started off the way it would end, in an egg. My husband Mark and I have a ritual where he reads me bedtime stories at night. Sometimes we pick classic texts, but lots of nights these days, we just go for a children's book.

And that was how I stumbled upon the book that inspired this entire episode. It's called Archibald's Next Big Thing. Archibald woke up deeply frustrated that he hadn't figured out his next big thing. The book tells the story of Archibald, a cartoon chicken who's desperately trying to find what he refers to as his next big thing. I've got to find my next big thing!

Often missing out on exciting moments that were right there if he just took a moment to notice. A dinosaur riding a roller coaster is pretty big, so what you're searching for must be huge. It is, said Archibald. I know it. The book ends with Archibald realizing that big things are sometimes right in front of our noses, or our beaks, as it were. Of course, of course, Archibald clucked loudly. How could I have missed it? Archibald's next big thing is a book for children, but many adults struggle with the

same problem that this little chicken faced. Many of us spend a lot of energy looking forward to that next big thing when our new gym membership finally pays off, or how happy we'll be when we get that huge raise or promotion. We hear all these outside voices telling us how great it'll all be in the future, which makes it kind of impossible to hear the soft intuition that may be telling us that what we need to be happy is right here in the present. The author of Archibald's Next Big Thing knows this lesson all too well. He wrote the book for his daughter to help her learn what he'd gotten wrong so often before, that if you only concentrate on the next big thing, you'll miss the chance to be happy right now. Hello. Hey, Tony. I'm just realizing now, I think I took your course.

Oh my gosh. It's a course, right? Yes, it's called The Science of Wellbeing on Coursera. Now this makes so much sense why you talk so eloquently about happiness. It's what you taught me.

That author, whose voice you may recognize, is Tony Hale, the star of Veep, The Mysterious Benedict Society, and the actor who played Buster Bluth in Arrested Development. Like many of his characters, Tony admits to having been deeply affected by anxiety. And just like Archibald the Chicken, Tony spent many years searching for his next big thing, including the next big role he thought would bring him the happiness he craved.

I mention this story a lot, and I really believe in it a lot. And I don't know, I'm a guy that needs a lot of reminders, so I don't mind talking about it a lot. But when I was living in New York, I was an actor in New York for like seven years, and I was doing commercials, and I was actually doing pretty well in commercials. But there was something called pilot season,

where there was like a three-month period during the year where they would audition for TV pilots. And if you missed that window, you probably weren't going to get on a show. And really, all I wanted in life was to get on a sitcom. That was my goal, my end goal. Every year would go by and I would miss pilot season. I'd be like, what is happening? But I was always... Anytime I would go through something, I was like, you know what? That day is coming. That day is coming. I'm going to get that sitcom. It's coming. It's coming. Finally, I booked Arrested Development, which was the best cast,

best scripts, incredible show. And when I booked Finally, I booked Arrested Development, which was the best cast, best scripts, incredible show. And when I booked it, I found myself that I wasn't as satisfied as I thought I was going to be. And it really scared me because you can't get better than Arrested Development. So I had no excuse. And I was like, wait a second, this is what I've dreamed about. And it didn't satisfy me. And when it was canceled in 2006, so it was a time during that season of like, what's going on? What's happening? So when it got canceled, my daughter was born. And one thing that you have to do with a child is you can't be distracted. You can't... Because my thing was, when I realized through this aggressive development experience, I just

wasn't present for most of my life. And it wasn't just in New York. It was like whenever something was going on in my life, I would just check out. I would just really just kind of... Disassociate is a strong word, but I would just check out. I would look into the future. I would just think I would just kind of not be there. When my daughter was born, I realized like, I can't check out. I've got to keep the child alive. So I've got to be present. And it really woke me up to just the many times in my life. For most of my life, I wasn't present. And so really woke me up to just the many times in my life, for most of my life, I wasn't present. And so then began this journey of just waking myself up to where I was. In my career, there's a lot of highs, like there's big highs. And I was kind of putting

my satisfaction for most of my life in those big highs. And I wasn't giving a lot of power to the ordinary, a lot of power to the present, a lot of power to the everyday, and just didn't know how to find really joy and contentment in those moments. So I did something called CBT, which is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and really just allowed myself... He would always say, Hey, why don't you just activate the five senses where you're at? What are you hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and just really grounding myself. He would say, you have to wake yourself up 100 times a day to where you are. And that's where this children's

book came out that I did called Archibald's Next Big Thing about this little chicken who gets this card in the mail that says, your big thing is here. And he's like, where? And he goes on all these adventures. But every time he's on an adventure, he's like, I got to get to my next big thing. And this bee comes along. It's like, you got to just be man. You got to just be. And he realizes that the card is right, that his big thing was right there. It wasn't somewhere else. And I had given that sitcom a lot of weight. And nothing can match the weight that I gave it. Now keep in mind, I sound like I'm a professional at this. I'm not. This is something I struggle with. This is something that's very easy for me to check out. I think I talk about it a lot as a reminder, but it's just my default is to check out and I have to daily find the power in

the everyday and the ordinary, which is a challenge for me. I mean, I think it's a challenge for everyone. I mean, I think you're in an industry where like looking ahead is really, you know, I'm sure every single interview you do, somebody's like, you know, what's the next big thing for Tony, right? But it's also just a feature of human nature. I mean, you talked about this idea of waiting for the next thing. Like this is a bias that psychologists call the arrival fallacy. It's kind of like the happily ever after fallacy. Like I'll get this next thing and I'll be good.

But you're always looking to whatever the next thing is. Totally. And I never want to give the impression that dreaming is wrong. I never want to give the impression that ambition is wrong. Or I never want to give the impression that ambition is wrong. Or having those moments of a creative like, Oh, where's this going to go? I think that's great. My thing is, that's all I was doing.

I always tell people that the value you have before success is the same value you're going to have after success. And I'm in a business that tells you your value will be with what you get. And I say that because it's okay to ambition, but am I changing my value with what I think I'm going to get? Or am I giving myself the same value that I have now? And that's the trick. But the cool thing about the Arrested Development story is that you had the realization, right? You kind of did realize you were chasing and chasing and you were in the present moment. So what caused you to have that realization? Was there a moment when you're like,

wait, this is never going away? What was that like? Honestly, I think it was the gift of getting my dream. I got it. And I mean, you've heard stories of people getting Oscars and then the next day they go into a depression. Mine was more in my anxiety has amped up because all these expectations were not matched

and I just freaked out. Also, another component of that is the guilt. When people would come up to me and say, oh my gosh, are you so excited? Are you so excited? And my insides did not match their expectation. And so then I walked away like, what is wrong with me? What is wrong with me?

And that's when everything began to unfold and dissect. And I was like, wait, I got to go back. And I got to realize being present is a big struggle for me. And the fact is, all these are very buzzwords right now, being present, all that kind of stuff. But for me, it's a huge component for me is that it's being present. Cause I say that because there's a part of me that fights like Tony or something cliche, but it's true. I just was not very present for most of my life. And we need to know what being present means. I think we think when we do the buzzword version, it's like, Oh, just be present. But it's like,

no, that means sitting with the awful voice that's screaming at you. That means noticing that you're, you know, your heart is freaking out and your chest wants to bust out and you feel awful and you're saying really mean stuff to yourself. So it's one thing to just be present when it's unicorns and rainbows and ice cream cones, but it's one thing to be present when it feels awful. I love that you said that because I never thought about that way

that being present, there's a compassion element to it of I want to check out of this space right now. Hey, why am I feeling this? I'm sad. Or I've had a tough day where I'm pissed off at my daughter. Why am I wanting to check out? So let me just, hey, I hear you. And that's hard. And that's something honestly, when people have said, I'm sure you've heard this before, but if my daughter comes up to me and says, Dad, I'm really sad. I'm having a hard time. I would be like, oh my gosh, honey, this is really hard. Give yourself a break. We don't talk to ourselves that way. I don't talk to myself that way. So it's like beginning to talk to myself as I would my daughter.

And I think one of our many misconceptions is I think we have this drill instructor theory about motivation where it's like, if I just scream at myself and just call myself really terrible names, obviously that'll stop making me feel sad or scared. Yeah. Yeah. Cause let me tell you right now that shame closet is packed. Like it is full. There is no more room. The grace compassion has got a lot of space. Let's start filling that closet. But it's hard. I mean, this is what you're articulating so nicely, right? It's like, and it's hard in part because I think we want to push ourselves. Yeah. Right. I mean, especially in the industry you're in, there's this like, push, push, push, don't admit vulnerability. And I mean, you had to fight against that kind

of mantra a lot. Yeah. And I mean, and that's, what's the gift of life of when I remember years ago, I did a Pepto Bismol commercial in New York where I was having diarrhea on a train and I was, this is my first national commercial. And my 10-year reunion was coming up from high school. And I remember thinking, I'm going to go back to that reunion. And I'm going to be like, guys, I'm just this feeling of like, I'm on national television, a diarrhea commercial. And I gave that so much power because I wanted to go back to these people

that bullied me, or I didn't feel a part of or I wanted to feel superior to or I just wanted just mainly just to feel like the popular kid. I remember leaving that reunion feeling worse than when I came in. And it was like, God, I gave a lot of power to wanting to redo trauma or whatever with these quote accomplishments, you know, and it was a diarrhea commercial on a train. One of the first things you talked about when you're talking about Arrested Development and wanting to do more, just articulate that urge for more. You finally get a sitcom that's, it's like one of the coolest characters and one of the most well-regarded characters in like the last two decades of TV history. How did that not feel like enough?

TV history. How did that not feel like enough? That's the, but that's, I think the curse we can fall into is, and I do, sometimes I can get a little dark because bringing up the fact that it, it is never enough. If you don't wake up to what you're around, the sad truth, it is sugar. You have sugar and you're going to want more sugar and it's never going to satisfy. And then you're going to get to when you're in your 80s and you're going to still be going, I want more. What's next? This isn't enough. Thinking the whole time, the next thing is going to be what's enough. Isn't that amazing? The very simple truth that I would think I would get, but it takes that reminder of like, I have been doing this and I still believe the next thing can be enough. It's very easy to go to that place.

Yeah. And that's with career. I mean, on the podcast, one of my favorite episodes of my own podcast was talking to this guy, Clay Cockrell, who's a wealth psychologist. And so he works with the super infinitely wealthy and they'll say things to him like, I thought it was the first billion, but it wasn't. It turns out it's the second billion. I need to be a multi-billionaire. And he's watching this being like, how can that...

You just had the data that that wasn't enough. But we don't encode like, oh, the whole premise is wrong. We encode like, I just didn't get there yet. I need three hit sitcoms. And that's when the happiness comes. And the truth is, I say it, but it's so easy to fall into that pattern. And also just all the... And again, not that money is bad or success is bad and all that kind of stuff.

But I remember, honestly, I was watching an interview with Amy Schumer. And it was a long time ago. And someone was asking me about, what advice would you get that's so exciting? You've got to be where I want to be. And I remember Amy saying something to this person like, you have to understand, I've gotten to the other side. And I've seen behind the curtain. You're still thinking that thing is behind the curtain. And it's not.

Or something to that effect. And it was so wise. Oh, and this was my favorite. Jim Carrey's speech. Do you know what I'm talking about? Jim Carrey at the Golden Globes. I had the chance to meet him recently. And I rushed him and I told him, I was like, I've told this story so many times and I so appreciate you doing this. But he was at the Golden Globes years ago. And he said something to the effect of, as a joke, he said,

I've got two Golden Globes, but a third will be enough. And it went to the audience. And you can see half of them were laughing. And then you saw half half of them like kind of like, it will be. Like, because we do tell ourselves that narrative and he was making a joke, but what a profound statement, you know? I loved it. Yeah, this idea of never having enough is really, I think, such a problem.

I mean, again, I was not consulted when human minds were built, but like, you know, three golden globes, like you should cross it off your list. You can walk away and go hang out on the couch. Exactly. And I think another trick is kind of navigating all the other psychological biases we bring to the table. And I know this is something you've talked about too, about kind of having had a history of anxiety and things like that. You're known as an actor who plays anxious characters. In fact, one of my, one of my

students once said in the midst of midterms, she was like, I feel like I'm a Tony Hale character this week. For Hale students to be saying that. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so talk a little bit about like how this has played out even before being an actor in your early life. Yeah, I love that question. A, talking to you, which you're so intelligent and well-read about psychology. I'm sure I'm sounding like a complete simpleton. But when it comes to anxiety, man, there's so many things to say. Because when I was a kid, the word anxiety was not as much of a buzzword as it is now. And I didn't know how to categorize

myself. I had a lot of feelings. I was very sensitive, a lot of panic, a lot of fear. And I think I was very extroverted and wanted attention, but there was a way just to get those feelings out, which is good. I'm glad I had those outlets. But just a lot of interferes. And then I remember my... I think it was my junior or senior year, I did a show, Little Abner. And I was this character, Marion Sam. And in the middle of the song, I had what I thought was an asthma attack, and it was a panic attack. I didn't know what it was. Then for the rest of my decades ahead, that became a marker of what I was terrified to have again.

And I did have it other times, but there was this fear of like, Oh my gosh, that's going to happen again on stage. That's going to happen again in an interview. That's going to happen when I have to speak in front of somebody. And it was just absolute terror. And then over time, getting back on stage and doing things, I would... I remember there's this famous preacher named Joyce Myers, who would always say, many times we feel like we have to be in this place of peace or strength in order to do stuff. And she's like, you know what? You just got to do it afraid. You just got to keep walking and do it afraid. And I found myself constantly having this mantra of like, Tony, just do it afraid. And so I would just keep walking because I can

honestly say that I felt like I was a victim to my thoughts and my feelings. I was so drowning in my thoughts and my feelings. I'm never going to work again. There's that thought that I'm going to have a panic attack. There's that thought that my daughter's going to get kidnapped or anything. There's just these thoughts and feelings that are going by like cars on the highway. And when I became more of an observer of them and took a seat and didn't identify with them so much, again, this is something I deal with all the time, but it was an angle I never thought about. And I was just incredibly grateful to have that new...

And I'll never... This therapist I worked with, he was really just a godsend. And actually, he just gave me tools that I so appreciated. One being, I want you to close your eyes for 10 minutes a day. And if a picture came in your mind, say image. And if you find yourself going over conversation, just say words. And the fact is, we cannot control our thoughts and feelings. We cannot control what goes on our heads. But there was something about putting a name to these thoughts and these images that you're never going to be fully in the driver's seat, but it felt like I was a little more in the driver's seat. And just simple things like that, that was great. And to your question of characters that I've played, I do. I do anxiety

very well because I know what it feels like. But I think it is so cool to be in a stage in my life where all the stuff that I've walked through, and not nearly what other people have walked through, but what I personally walked through, I can bring them into comedy. I can show a more authentic version of anxiety. I can talk about it openly. It is cool how something that was so broken in my life, how it can be used for restoration in others.

And that's a cool equation that happens, I think. Tony's portrayals of anxious characters have made a lot of us laugh, but they've also gotten a lot of us to think. When we get back from the break, we'll hear more about how Tony learned to listen to the anxious voice in his head. We'll see how really hearing that voice

and showing it some compassion allowed Tony to make peace with his thoughts and fears and feel a little happier. The Happiness Lab will return in a moment. sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Gemini's because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want. And you know what? We love that for you. Someone else will too. Be more you this year and find them on Bumble. Many of us experience a little social anxiety now and then. But we don't usually have to perform in front of a theater full of paying customers or to step out before a live TV audience of millions.

Actor Tony Hale loved being a performer, but his mind was often filled with terror that he'd freeze or panic when the stakes got high, which, as you can imagine, is a scary and lonely place to be. So how did he overcome it? People who have had panic attacks can understand this. It feels like you're never going to get out of it. It feels like the tsunami is coming towards you and it's just going to eat you alive.

And nobody understands what you're going through. I'll never forget, I was about to do Conan O'Brien. And when you're on a talk show, you're about to go on and they have a curtain and they open the curtain and you walk out. And there was two guys about to open the curtain. I was going to walk out and I felt a panic attack coming on. There was this moment of, I'm either going to run because what I wanted to do was just bolt. Or what I did, by the grace of God, is I started asking these two guys questions that were holding this curtain. And I said, so where are you guys from?

Oh my gosh, how long have you been doing this? Wouldn't it be crazy if there was a documentary back here about people? I just started to ask them questions to get my eyes off the anxiety. And then the curtain opened and I went. But there's this crossroads you hit where it's like, it's coming and you so want to fight it. You so want to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't, it's too overwhelming. What you don't want to do is give yourself over to it, but that's kind of what you have to do. Like there's something about surrendering to the feelings and be like, you know what? There it is. This is what this feels like.

I know this feeling and I know this feeling is going to pass. I remember Bill Hader was talking about his anxiety once and he talked about just how he would name it as a funny little friend that would crawl all over him. And I was doing a play two years ago in San Francisco. And it was practically a one-man play. There was another character that came in towards the end, but most of it was just me talking for 45 minutes. And every night before going on, I would think tonight's the night that I'm going to lose it on stage in front of a thousand people. And I would, that little voice would come up and say, you know what, tonight's the night. And I've never had compassion to that voice. I've never

looked to the voice and say, Hey, I really appreciate you being here. I know you're trying to protect me. And I can't tell you how much that means to me. I'm going to go out and do the show, but I'll be back. And there was something about having compassion to that voice. It dissipates the power rather than fighting that voice, which I had done for most of my life, but really giving it the love and care that it needed because it is a part of me and my anxiety is a part of me. And why not begin to embrace and have love towards it? Because that's what's going to release the power of it. Yeah. I mean, I love, I really love that suggestion for two reasons, right? One is we know psychologically this idea that what you resist persists, right? If you try to like squish the beach ball under the water,

it's going to come flying back out at you, right? So it just doesn't work, the resistance, but also recognizing that that voice is there. It's trying to tell you something and listening to it. I think all too often we think of our emotions, whether it's anxiety or anger or whatever, as this annoying thing that's rumbling around in our brain that we want to shut off. But it's really just like a signal. It's like an alarm bell that's telling us something. It's like when your microwave beeps when the popcorn's done. It's like, it's just telling you something. And if we listen to it and say, hey, thanks for telling me this. I do have to go on stage right now, so I'm not going to listen to you right now. But thank you for trying to look out for me. It kid. So the motivation of this voice is really, begins from a loving place, like wanting to help. And it has, it got distorted and it was crippling, but the motivation is they just want to protect me and I want to give it that love.

I think also, especially, you know, for you as a kid, you had this secondary thing that I think went along with the anxiety, which probably, you know, the voice was really trying to protect you from. I know you've talked before about your history with asthma and there's such a connection just physiologically between what happens in anxiety and with your breath and what happens in asthma. And so, cause if anything, I imagine the asthma made you a little bit vigilant in a very anxious way as a child anyway. Yeah. Cause there's a, um, I would also get really,

really nervous on elevators because I would think if I have an asthma attack, I can't get out and there's a hospital nearby. And that just kind of triggered the anxiety. And many times it became a cycle where the anxiety then triggered the asthma. And a lot of people don't talk about the anxiety associated with asthma. And our breath is our life force. So it feels like you're breathing through a straw. Like it is a terrifying feeling. And the thought of that coming back and not knowing because anything could trigger it. For me, it could be environmental. It could be anxiety. It could be anything. So you never know when it's going to come, which is very similar to

kind of panic stuff. So there's a real kind of similarity between the two. I'm glad you're talking explicitly because I think people just think asthma, you know, just a breathing thing, but it's like, no, it comes with all this psychology. But just really quick, like something I've mentioned, I don't give like details, but there's been addiction issues in my family growing up. And there's a hypervigilance of being around addictive cycles. And it puts you in kind of high alert a lot. And so there's kind of a perfect storm that can happen

with that high alertness, the asthma, all that can kind of like create a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah. Talk about hypervigilance. You're like, what the heck is going on? Totally, totally. And I think that the kind of what I wanted to dig into about the anxiety is that it's related to this vigilance that takes you out of the present

moment, right? Like all these voices are talking about things in the future, what might happen if, you know, you're kind of fast forwarding. And so has this kind of practice of being in the present moment also reduced your anxiety? Like it's good to just be in the present moment generally, but has that also helped you with some of these emotions? It has. If I'm honest, it's just hard, man. It's really hard to be present. You know, I just admire a friend of mine, Natalie,

her and her husband, they just moved to LA and Natalie meditates every day and she really practices it. And I just, it's something that I so wish came naturally. And it just, and I know she's worked at it and started, but it's, I want to do that more because I know it's amazing. Like, you know, it really works if I, if I'm still, and I sit in that stillness and I allow that space, it always works. But man, my body fights to do it. Like it is just not a default. It is not a default for me. And I

know the more I do, I get better at it, but jumping into it is really tough for me. Really tough. Yeah. I think you're not alone. My colleague, Dan Harris, who talks about this stuff, talks about the meditation is kind of grabbing a goldfish in your hands and trying to keep it still while you're like holding it out of the water. That's what we do with our minds. God, I wish I could like be in your cool circles when you guys talk about this stuff. I bet if you want to talk to Dan Harris, you could be on his podcast. But one of the things we want to do, and one of the reasons I love talking to you today is that despite the fact that this is so hard for you, you've also come up with this toolkit you can use

whenever this stuff comes up. And they're so evidence-based and so straight out of CBT and you know, such a great way of talking about how they work for you. So I kind of wanted you to walk through some of these. One of these techniques that you've talked about is the not now technique. So explain what this is and a situation in which you might use it. Yeah. I feel like I use this a lot. It is very easy for me to live in the what if. My daughter just started driving. So the what if kicks in big time. There's a job that I might be getting in the spring that there's a lot of uncertainty to the location. So there's a what if there. Again, this is the first time I've thought about this, but I really think these voices are coming from a place of protection. Hey, I'm going to give you every scenario you

can think about so that you can prep for whatever emergency situation happens. I think it's motivated really by a place to help. And I need to have compassion. I hear you. I hear that. What if not now? Right now, I'm having a great talk. This is where I'm now. She has a better Zoom background than I do. It's just like, that is where I am now. and during that moment, let me just touch the table. Let me smell the smell. Oh, somebody said, oh gosh, they use something like five, four, three, two, one, where it was like, start. Have you heard this? It's like you seeing what five things are you seeing four things are you, and you, I don't remember how it went down, but it was such a great tool. Yeah. So this is one that's often called the five senses technique where you just force

yourself. Like what are five things you see what are four things you hear what are three things you smell what are two things you taste one thing you touch and when you get down to like taste you're kind of like I guess my mouth maybe that's the one that might be the one yeah um but the key is that you you can't be thinking about the what if at that point because you're just kind of scanning for like, well, I guess I smell, you know, my hand or I don't know, you know, it's like, and so it's a powerful technique to just ground you in the moment. That's the big thing is grounding. And I recently got into rope bowl making. Wait, wait, wait, what is rope ball making? I make these rope bowls and this friend of mine, Sean, gave me a rope bowl after I wrapped this last season of the first season of Mysterious Benedict Society. And I've always wanted to paint. I've always wanted to do this kind of stuff, but I'm not a painter.

And you make these rope balls on the sewing machine like pottery and then you paint the rope and I give them as gifts and I just can't get enough of it. But it's a focus practice for me because I'm watching this rope going through the sewing machine. I'm painting this rope. I'm listening to something. And it's really... It's a tool I need because maybe for me, at this point in my life, I'm getting better at meditation. But doing a rope bowl is my form of meditation right now. I'm not sitting in a room quiet with my legs crossed, but I'm doing something that's a little more focused. So that definitely, that's a tool that really has helped. But the what if to your question is,

I find myself just saying not now a lot, not now. And many times I don't want to be in the now. Many times I don't want to be in that space, but I not force myself, but I try to ease into it a little more. And just remembering, I think one of the things I love about this mantra of not now is you force yourself to remember that you have a choice, right? That, you know, it's not easy, but you can kind of shift back to the now, right? There's a sort of choice to our thoughts.

And I think that is such a powerful realization. I mean, it comes from therapy. It comes from CBT, but it's just powerful to realize like, okay, thank you, thought, but I'm not going to listen to you. We'll come back later. Like you have a choice whether it feels like it or not. Do you know what's crazy though is, I don't know if you can, if you relate to this, but when I do say not now, if I'm living in kind of a fearful, what if space? And I say, not now, my body does not want to be more in a comfortable space. My body wants to be more in the fearful space. And that is something really interesting to analyze.

Like, why do I, why is my default to go to this fearful space or creating this emergent situation, which is clearly a lot of anxiety. And I don't want to be in the silent space I am now around my family. And you're like, what is that about? You know, that's wild to me. This is a problem. I mean, you know, I wasn't consulted on the design features of our bodies and our brains. But one of the things that has good features, but in this case is not very good, is that our thoughts are connected to our bodies, right? So you could be not now, not now, not now, but your fight or flight system's activated. You have cortisol, the stress hormone, rushing through your body.

You might be like, not now, but your body's like, no, fear, like the future, like what? But the good news is that your thoughts, there's lots of evidence that your thoughts actually can hack your body, right? So if you just start saying, no, not now. Oh, let me talk to the guy at the curtain instead. I'm just going to pretend like things are fine. Then your body reacts too, because your body's like, oh, he's talking to the guy at the curtain. I guess this is not an emergency. Like, you know, shut everything down, like shut it down. So it's harder because your body is connected to your thoughts, but you can also use your thoughts to hack your body too, which is pretty cool. That is cool. And I think the

rope bowls is good for that to me too, because it's doing something. It really does divert the attention for me big time. Yeah. Chatting with Tony was an absolute blast. I enjoyed every single minute. We even ran over our scheduled interview slot because we were having so much fun that we lost track of time, which kind of felt nice. This was fantastic.

Oh, I loved it. Thank you for doing this. Leaning into the present moment like that isn't always easy. And it's especially hard in January when we feel like we should be planning out

the entire year ahead in the hope that that next big thing on the far horizon will finally make us happier. Tony learned the hard way that big things don't always feel as good as we imagine and that they don't fundamentally change who we are as people. So this new year, why don't we commit to being a bit more like Tony's children's book creation, Archibald, the brave little chicken who decided to stop being so obsessed with big-ticket changes. We can stop worrying about the new jobs, new romances, and new bodies, and instead just be. Next time on The Happiness Lab,

we'll look at the many loud and competing voices telling us to change what we eat in 2023. We'll see that we may want to shut them up a bit so we can listen to a more compassionate voice that's telling us how to eat for ourselves. The Happiness Lab is co-written by Ryan Dilley and is produced by Ryan Dilley and Courtney Guarino. The show was mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to Shane Beard, Greta Cohn, Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Maggie Taylor, Jacob Weisberg, my agent Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team.

The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and by me, Dr. Laurie Santos.