The One You Feed - Brad Stulberg on The Practice of Groundedness

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

Brad Stulberg researches, writes, and coaches on health, well-being, and sustainable performance. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, Forbes, and more. In his coaching practice, he works with executives, entrepreneurs, and physicians on their performance and well-being. He is bestselling author of the new book, The Practice of Groundedness: A Transformative Path to Success That Feeds-Not Crushes-Your SoulIn this episode, Eric and Brad Stulberg discuss several tools to develop a practice of groundedness.Sign up NOW for the next Spiritual Habits Group Program! This 8-week program begins on March 20, 2022. Let Eric teach you how to establish simple daily practices that will help you feel more at ease and fulfilled in your life. Enrollment ends on March 7 so sign up today!But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!Brad Stulberg and I Discuss The Practice of Groundedness and…His book, The Practice of Groundedness: A Transformative Path to Success That Feeds-Not Crushes-Your SoulDefining groundedness and the metaphor of a mountainThe importance of not letting the outcome supersede the process in our mindsBridging the gap of knowing versus doingHow community is one of the most influential factors of doing hard thingsHeroic individualism is the constant game of one-upmanship and is the opposite of groundednessLearning to accept “good enough” rather than perfectPatience is having the restraint to slow down for sustainable progress long termHis experience with OCD of repetitive thoughts that started with a panic attackHis work with exposure and prevention therapy and his meditation practiceWorking with your thoughts and knowing which are worth engaging or letting goAsking yourself what advice you’d give a friend when dealing with difficult thoughtsThe benefits of naming your thoughts and continuing to do what you planned The importance of clearly defining your values and creating practices to live your valuesBrad Stulberg Links:Brad’s WebsiteTwitterWhen you purchase products and/or services from the sponsors of this episode, you help support The One You Feed. Your support is greatly appreciated, thank you!If you enjoyed this conversation with Brad Stulberg you might also enjoy these other episodes:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder with Paul McCarrollCultivating Mindfulness with Cory AllenSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We want to see changes in our lives, in our minds, and in our hearts. So we read inspirational authors, we listen to podcasts like this one, and get fired up to apply what we've learned, but then inevitably we fall back into old patterns. It can be so frustrating and maddening. When we can stick to our spiritual practices, we see real change. But without enough consistency, we barely scratch the surface. In the Spiritual Habits Group program, I apply behavioral principles to powerful spiritual wisdom to help you live this wisdom so that you can experience the benefits on a deeper level.

This is your chance to get accountability, ongoing support, and a proven system as you journey towards a greater understanding of yourself and start to bridge the gap between knowing what to do to access the life you desire and actually doing it. And you do this in our group setting in which community, connection, and friendships are all created which support you along the way. This program is open for enrollment until March 7th. Head to spiritualhabits.net to learn all about it

and sign up. Go to spiritualhabits.net to learn all about this opportunity for us to connect and dive deeper into how spiritual habits can transform the way you experience your day-to-day life. That's spiritualhabits.net. I hope to meet you in this special program that starts very soon. There is a linkage between being and doing, between love and putting your cell phone away when you're doing the dishes. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.

We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. Wolf. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. This January, join me for our third annual January Jumpstart series. Starting January 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth.

If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully into the possibilities of the new year. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you?

We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Brad Stahlberg, researcher, writer, and a coach on health, well-being, and sustainable performance. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, Time Magazine, Forbes. I

had to include that one just because it's my last name, but that's actually true. In his coaching practice, he works with executives, entrepreneurs, and physicians on their performance and well-being. Today, Brad and Eric discuss his book, The Practice of Groundedness, A Transformative Path to Success That Feeds, Not Crushes Your Soul. Hi, Brad. Welcome to the show. Hey, Eric. It's great to be here. I am really excited to have you on. Your book, The Practice of Groundedness, A Transformative Path to Success That Feeds, Not Crushes Your Soul, I just resonated with every bit of it. So know, it's so much of

it. I was like, this is just my worldview. So I think we've got a lot to talk about there. And I'm really excited, but we will start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it and looks up at their grandparent and says, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and

in the work that you do. Well, I'd be remiss not to mention the Zen master and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, who's had an enormous influence on my philosophy of life and certainly on my writing as well. And as we're recording this, it's really just not even a week after his passing. And he wrote so beautifully about the seeds you water are the seeds that grow. And within us, we all have seeds of love and openness and presence and care. And we also have seeds of delusion and anger and greed. And to me, that parable is really about trying to align your doing out in the world with the being that you want

and watering the right seeds, feeding the good wolf. I think that in spiritual and psychology circles, there's this perception that being informs doing, but I think people often forget that doing also informs being. It's a cycle. So to me, that parable is all about the doing part of that cycle. You know, one of my favorite phrases that I use on this show all the time, I got it somewhere in AA. I don't know if I've ever traced it back to who actually first said it, but it's sometimes you can't think your way into right action. You have to act your way

into right thinking. You know, it's that idea. I absolutely love it. And I'm sure we'll get into it. It's such a big part of groundedness is this notion that mood follows action. Yeah. Or as you say, right doing often precedes right thinking. Yep. Yep. Well, let's jump into groundedness. You use that term groundedness. So what does that mean to you? Yeah. I like to use the metaphor of a mountain to convey the two predominant meanings of groundedness. And the first is if you think about a big, beautiful mountain, most people immediately gaze up. They look to its peak.

And perhaps if the mountain is really prominent, it has a very steep slope. They'll take note of that too. Very rarely does someone see a big mountain and admire its base, its foundation. But without that base and foundation, there is no slope. There is no peak. And when rough weather comes over time, a mountain is only as strong as its foundation. So all the beauty that you see up top is impossible without the base, without the ground. And I believe, and I argue in the book that we are very much

like mountains. We focus a lot on our own proverbial peaks and climbs. And at times that can cannibalize energy and attention focused on the base, the foundation. The second metaphor of a mountain and groundedness is about actually climbing a mountain. So you can imagine that you've got two mountain climbers and each really want to get to the top. And one climber is constantly thinking about whether or not she'll make it to the top and the selfies that she's going to take when she gets there and how her self-worth will be validated when she's on the top of the mountain. Another climber, she's just focused on every step that she's taking. She's also enjoying the view from the side of the mountain. Now, both climbers have an equal chance of getting to the top. What I also enjoying the view from the side of the mountain. Now, both climbers have an equal

chance of getting to the top. What I argue in the book and what the research supports is that the second climber, the one that's enjoying the process, has a much better chance of climbing for a long period of time. That first climber is more susceptible to burnout, to emptiness, to feelings of longing. That second climber, they might still care about the result. Don't get me wrong. They want to get to the top, but they're where they are along the way, which is the number one most important thing for sustainability in whatever it is that you're climbing toward. So it's really about this idea of paying attention to where we are as we continue to strive for other things. Yes, exactly. And not letting the outcome supersede the process in our minds.

Yep. Because we spend a lot of time thinking about outcomes. So do I get the promotion? Do I get married to the specific attractive partner? Is my book going to be a bestseller? But when you think about it, 99.999% of our life is the process. So even if you have the ultimate of outcomes, you're on the gold medal stage at the Olympics representing your country, well, you only get to be up there as long as the national anthem is. So maybe you get a good 90 seconds worth of your life up there, but the rest of it is process. And being grounded is about really being firmly in the process. And I think that

that's just a much better way to strive. Yeah, you've got a sentence you wrote, and I'll just I'll read it because it's a question that I ask people often on the show is about this sort of tension. You say it's okay, even admirable to set a high bar, but, and this is a big, but you need to be present and accepting as you strive. So you're sort of actually saying to the question of like, is it better to strive? Is it better to be present? You're sort of saying both. Yes, exactly. And I think that there's this misconception, particularly amongst people that have perhaps a more Eastern sensibility, that striving is the cause of suffering or not necessarily a good thing. But one of the eight principles on the

eightfold path in Buddhism is right effort. And if you actually look back at the Pali Canon, right, the old text that's been passed down from the historical Buddha, right effort sounds a lot like grounded striving. So the Buddha didn't say that you should just be a recluse and not engage in the world and not strive. What the Buddha said is you want your striving to be wholesome. And because it's Buddhism, such a big part of that is being present, striving towards worthy goals, not getting caught up in ego and something out in front of you, but being where you are. And like so many of these ancient wisdom teachings, fast forward millennia and modern science now coins this, the arrival fallacy, which is this notion that we think that if we just

strive enough, eventually we'll arrive and then we'll be content. Then we'll have our self work, but it's a fallacy. The goalpost is always 10 yards down the field. So if you can't learn to enjoy the process, the striving, then you're constantly just going to be chasing your tail and that's no fun. Right. Yeah. It is the ultimate sort of if then, right. Or when, then, you know, when I get this or if I get this and it just doesn't work that way. You know, my experience has been your dominant mindset follows you. Right? And if your dominant mindset is always there's someplace better than here that I have to get to, when you get to here, which you thought would be the place that would make you happy, it just simply doesn't work. It really is about both. And I think that, you know, right

effort is always so interesting. You know, in Zen, we talk about great faith, great doubt, and great determination. It's always this paradox of, on one hand, there is a striving there, there is a determination, there is an effort, and there is, at the same time, a profound letting go or acceptance that has to happen, at least my experience for these steeper spiritual states to unfold. And I think that you see this so clearly in a meditation practice, but also in other domains. So in meditation or any contemplative spiritual practice, if you're really striving or craving a certain state, you're never going to get it. But once you give up on that, then you suddenly have these moments of peace, freedom, wholeness,

whatever word you want to use. And I like to think of an athlete. If an athlete is so focused on winning the game or scoring high, they're never going to perform well. But if an athlete can have that disappear, get out of their own way, then suddenly they're in the zone and the scoreboard doesn't exist. They're just playing the game. And those are the peak moments when we play the best. So it's this huge paradox that by wanting to be the best, but then not really wanting to be the best, you have the chance at being the best. It's like ambition works until it gets in your way. Striving works until it gets in your way. Yes. Yes. The spiritual teacher, Adi Ashanti said to me once, and this just made so much sense to me, he said, your will is good to get you to the meditation cushion. Like you need it,

you need it to get there. And then at that moment is precisely the moment you have to discard it. It's at that point, it is no longer of value to you. And I think that speaks to the same thing with like an athlete, right? Like you've got to have the practice and the work and the effort to get to the game. And then when you're in the game, you got to be in the game. Love it. Yeah. You alluded to this a minute ago, which was we've got these ancient spiritual teachings. We've got these modern science practices of peak performers pointing to the same truth.

You say, I'm interested in convergence, right? When multiple of these things come together, it's probably worth paying attention to. And that's something I've articulated before. Also, it's like, when I see the same thing coming from multiple places, it gives me a higher confidence in the fact that like, okay, there's really something here. Yes. And I think that for my own writing practice, for anything to make it into a book, it's got to have that convergence. I like to use the image of a three-legged stool where one leg is modern science and empirical findings. Another leg

is history and ancient wisdom teachings. And then the third leg is people out in the world actually trying to do this stuff. And a stool with three legs is really sturdy. You can be confident it's going to hold up and sit on it. Two legs, maybe one or zero legs. No. And the bar of this book was all three legs, because I think that people want certainty and they want to know truth with a capital T, but in science, it's all about probabilities. And for me, again, if a finding is there in multiple domains of science, if all the spiritual wisdom traditions are pointing towards it, and then you go talk to people and they manifest it in their own life. That gives me confidence. It's true. And I think that that works opposite to what I call like the single small study or the one guru, right? The study of eight people that did something. And

there's this finding that gets a headline in the newspaper, the single guru that knows the path versus lineage and tradition and teaching and meta-analyses and science and all these peak performers in different domains pointing towards it, that gives me the confidence to be like, you know, I'm not so special. This will probably work for me too. Yeah. And then I think the next leg of the stool that comes in that is also an incredibly important one is when it starts to become personal experience. When your own experience of it also, then you go, yeah, and not only do these three other places align, it's working for me. Okay. And maybe that's where we go from faith to knowledge. I'm not sure, but it's another

important piece. Yeah. And I think that's also where it gets sticky. So, so many of these concepts in books like the one I write and the concepts that you and your guests talk about on this podcast, there's knowing and then there's doing. Yes. And Judson Brewer, who I know has been a past guest on the show, he talks about knowing is in your head and like wisdom is in your bones. And for me, I say more doing. And I think once you have that self-experience, that's when it transitions from this idea that makes sense to something that has a higher likelihood of becoming a habit that you're actually going to show up in an act in day-to-day life. Yeah.

You use the phrase, the knowing doing gap. And I talk about that so much in the spiritual habits program we created. I mean, that's the part of the program is how do you bridge that? How do we go from, all right, these are really great spiritual principles that I believe in to ones that actually have a chance of doing something in my life that's useful. Yep. And just being able to show up and pound the stone over and over again.

And I think a lot of people in self-improvement are looking for a switch, but there are very few switches that I've found. It tends to be much more of an ongoing practice and you're only as good as that practice. Yeah, absolutely. Do you know of ways that you do with your coaching clients of sort of bridging that knowledge to doing gap, either what stands in the way for people or what are some ways to kind of get through that gap? The thing that seems to stand in the way most is taking too big of a swing right off the bat.

So trying to go from zero to a hundred instead of zero to one, a close cousin is trying to just move too fast. So trying to expedite progress instead of being patient and taking these small baby steps and allowing yourself to have a string of little victories and build up an inertia and momentum and consistency. That's the first thing. And then the second thing is I find that any kind of behavior change has a much higher likelihood of succeeding if it's done in a community of practice with others. And it doesn't necessarily have to be, Hey, you're all showing up to do the thing together, but you're all checking in once a month to report on your challenges and your

successes. And over the long haul, I think that community is perhaps the most influential factor in stickiness of hard things because doing hard things is hard. And if there's a striving element, as we talked about that mountaintop, it's a shiny object, man. And if there's a striving element, as we talked about, that mountaintop, it's a shiny object, man. And if you're looking at it alone, it's easy to get caught up on it. Whereas if you're doing it with other people, there can be a lightheartedness, a fun, and that too keeps you grounded and it keeps you coming back consistently. How have you found that community in your life? Or where are the places you found that community in your life? Because this is such an important topic and is also a very difficult thing for a lot of people to find. Yeah. Well, I found it in a few places and I'd say that it is in some ways activity specific.

And then in some ways it's kind of overarching. So for my strength and weightlifting practice, I go to a gym and it's a small gym and I know the people pretty well and we're all working towards similar goals and having fun with it. For my meditation practice, I have a meditation coach that I check in with however often I need to and will help guide me on the path. And I have a few friends. They're more Buddhist than me, so they would call it like Sangha Dharma Brothers. And we talk about our practice. In writing, my first two books are with a co-author. And this book is almost every bit his as it is mine. There was no parting. It was just as we might get into. There's a lot of my personal story in this book. But even my writing practice is not really a solo effort. So much of what I do is with Steve, the promotions

with Steve, the planning. He's got his book coming out. I will treat it as if it is my own. Steve, the promotions with Steve, the planning, he's got his book coming out. I will treat it as if it is my own. And then I think the last step in a really important one that I think a lot of people are struggling with is your local community. So your neighbors, the barista at your coffee shop, the mail person, just having a sense of physical rootedness in a place. I'm sure there's all kinds of science as to why, but it helps you feel a little bit more secure. And I think that what often happens is even prior to the COVID pandemic, productivity cannibalizes time for building community. Yeah. Because hanging out with your neighbors and like taking care of their dog is inefficient. Walking to the coffee shop when you could just have something delivered

is inefficient. And I think if we prize efficiency, we soar at work, but then we feel empty and lonely and we wonder why. And it's a practice. I mean, there are times pre-COVID in my life where I am almost embarrassed to say that I didn't walk to the coffee shop because I was in such a writing groove that I didn't want to spend nine minutes commuting each way. And those are failures on my part. And those are the periods when I string a few days consecutive together, but at the end of them, I start to feel empty or restless. So in the moment it's hard, but I do think that like there's a local element of community too, that's not efficient, right? Because all these other groups, weightlifting, meditation, writing, they're still, they're focused on some sort of project, which is great. But I think it's really important to have community that's not project specific. That's just there.

You use the term early on in the book. You talk about what most of us are stuck in is heroic individualism. Say more about what that is. Yeah, I define that as an ongoing game of one-upsmanship against self and others. So you're constantly trying to beat yourself and other people where the goalpost is always 10 yards down the field. It's that notion of the arrival fallacy, right? If then you think you're going to get there, but you don't. And measurable achievement and efficiency and productivity, those are the main arbiters of success. And that's the culture that we're in. It's the water that we swim in. An extreme example of this and something that I touch on just briefly in the book, but I see more and more of my coaching

clients is these devices that portend to help you be healthier. And while they have a lot of utility, for many people, they've now turned sleep, which is supposed to be the most restful part of the day, into a game to win at. Because you get a sleep score. So if we're quantifying everything, and if we're trying to be good at everything, of course we're exhausted. So many people are like, why am I so exhausted? I'm doing everything right. And I'm like, well, that's why you're so exhausted because you're doing everything right. So I think that nothing

gets all green lights and nothing gets all red lights in my mind. These devices are but one example. They're helpful until they're not. But I think that we're in such overdrive in so many areas of our life where we're trying to quantify things and measure things and beat ourselves and think that, oh, then we'll be content only to end up exhausted, empty, lonely. And back to what we were discussing earlier, I think heroic individualism has the mindset that success is out there in front of you and you have to go get it. And if you want to get meta for a second, all of consumer capitalism works that way. When I was working on the book, I did this experiment where I paid really close attention to ads and commercials. And all the people are beautiful. I would see an ad for dishwasher detergent or cat litter, picking up my cat's pee and poop. And it's this beautiful blonde haired woman or this super strong, full head of hair, masculine man. And they're not

selling you the cat litter. They're selling you this lifestyle. If you just buy our cat litter, then you too can be flawless and beautiful. And it sets us up to constantly chase this elusive thing that's not there. And as a result, we don't feel very good. And we get distracted from the stuff that's right in front of us that will make us feel good. Yep. So heroic individualism in many ways is the nemesis or the opposite to groundedness. It's this frantic, frenetic chase of the next thing without that foundation, without that ground.

Yeah. And I think you made a couple of interesting points there. The one about sleep is a great one. I tweeted something the other day, like the sleep police are helpful till they're not right. Like the idea of like, well, you should get eight hours sleep. Yeah. It's probably a good idea. I went through a phase where I had restless sleep syndrome and I wasn't sleeping well. And that constant, like you're going to die if you don't get eight hours sleep was not, was not helpful. And there's that old, what gets measured gets done, right?

It's non-dual. Yeah, exactly. Like you said, I think it's no all green lights, no all red lights. It's useful till it's not. It's like the two most important rules of sleep are do everything you can to get seven to nine hours of sleep. That's rule number one. And then rule number two is if you don't get seven to nine hours of sleep, don't freak out about it. Yep. Yep, exactly. I think the other thing that's become challenging for everyone is we want

groundedness. We want more peace. I think people are starting to see through to some degree the achievement mindset on some level and yet what ends up happening i think well i don't think i know i see is we then go okay if i want more groundedness i'm gonna have to move my body every day that's really important i need to a community. I need to connect with more people. I better start meditating. Boy, I hear breath works really good. And I should probably be in the sauna for like 20 minutes a day. And all of a sudden, before you know it, like you said, you've added all this extra stuff on that is supposed to help but doesn't. And yet just taking it all off leads you right back to, oh, I'm just running around all day focusing on work and nothing that's really valuable. Yeah. And I think that gets into the incrementalism. So if in the book, there's a menu of, I don't know, 30 practices in my own life at any given time, I'm probably only shooting a hundred percent. I'm like eight of the 30. And that tends to be enough. And when I go down to five or six,

I start to feel anxious, a little sad. If I go down to two, I feel depressed. And if I try to do 15, I feel totally restless because I just can't, I can't be perfect. Again, it gets back to what I would call like wholesome striving or right effort that is doable. And you're not doing it to try to win it a game or like optimize yourself. You're doing it because it genuinely feels good. My meditation teacher, when we had our son, Theo, this is now, I don't know, three and a half years ago, I was like really trying to meditate and I'm coming off of, or I guess half years ago, I was like really trying to meditate and I'm coming off of, or I guess I'm still kind of in like really bad obsessive compulsive disorder.

Meditation was such a helpful part of my recovery. And I remember him telling me your new challenge is you're not going to meditate for six months. You can still call me once a month, but no meditating for six months. And I think what he's getting at is what you were saying. His point is you've got an infant drop the weight. Yeah. Like if you don't want to go to the cushion and this is where there's nuance. Cause if you don't want to go to the cushion or you don't want to go to the gym or you don't want to build community, well, sometimes you actually do need that oomph to do the hard thing and get going. But that oomph can very quickly turn into an obsession or a compulsion at which point then it's problematic. And I hope in the book, I point towards that and I give people some language and

some tools to try to figure out like the texture of your drive. Are you doing this because you want to, or because you have to? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, it's really important, you know, intention. Why am I doing this? And reflecting on that regularly is really important. You know, what's important about this? Why does this matter to me? Yeah, that, and you know, Eric, I know that you're a master of language because you have these wonderful conversations. So I know I'm speaking to a kindred spirit. Just language is so important because once you can name something, then you can like wrestle with it. You can play with it. You can make it your own. And I think a set of words that gets to what you were saying is good enough. How can you just be good enough?

Yeah. So not bad, not the best, not great, but good enough. And to me, that's what we're going for. I wanted to title the book Good Enough. And my publisher, of course, is like, it's got to be marketable. No one's going to buy a book called Good Enough. You can put that on the inside, but not on the cover. But that I think is what we're really talking about. And as a type a perfectionist striver, that's

something that I've really tried to take on. How can I be a good enough parent? How can I be a good enough writer, a good enough friend? And it takes the weight off my shoulders to be perfect. And it makes me a happier, more peaceful person. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow.

I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. It's a little bit of past, present, and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity.

It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir.

Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called really no really. And you can find it on the I heart radio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I know, you know, the psychological precedent of Winnicott talking about the good enough parent. You can get into this, you have to have a perfect, but no, good enough. And if there's anything in my opinion and my experience that will cause you to go, I am nowhere in the neighborhood of perfect with this, it's parenting, right? And so that phrase good enough is a really useful one there also,

because boy, does parenting bring you to the edge of your capacity over and over and over. Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned Winnicott. Donald Winnicott used good enough in terms of parenting specifically and not being a negligent parent, but also not being a helicopter parent and needing everything to be perfect all the time and letting your child have some frustration because your child learns that through those frustrations, they're their own independent person and you're failable. And I think that it's nice to take Winnicott's theory and apply it to ourselves. So not just good enough parenting with our kids, but how can we be good enough to ourselves? How can we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt? Let ourselves unfold. It doesn't mean let yourself go off the deep end. Like

there's a time for, you know, the imagery of the Zen whip, but we can loosen the grip a little bit and paradoxically by loosening the grip and letting go a little bit, we tend to feel better and be better. Yeah. It's why I'm such a middle way guy. Like that idea of the middle way is just the very heart of my entire personal philosophy or whatever you would want to call it. It's so important. We're not going to get through all the principles of groundedness, although we've hit on a number of them already just in kind of talking about it. But let's talk about one of them, which is patience. The title is Be Patient and You'll Get There Faster. Talk to me about how that works. Heroic individualism tends to prioritize speed. And it is both speed day to day in our lives. So it feels, I think I used the words earlier,

frantic, frenetic, like you're kind of just in a rush to the next thing. And then it's also speed in projects. So how fast can I get this done so I can move on to the next thing? And what all the research shows is that oftentimes going slower on the meaningful things in your life helps you go faster. We can even relate this just to adopting habits. If you try to go too fast, what generally happens is you get out to a great start and then you get to mile 12 of the proverbial marathon and you start to feel like crap and you're like, holy shit, there's 14 miles ahead. Now, patience requires showing restraint early on. And it is so antithetical to the culture of crush it, go all in, post your heroic workout on Instagram.

In the moment, it can be hard to hit the brakes because you might be feeling really, really good. And what patients ask you to do is to think of your future self, to think of yourself tomorrow, next week, next month, and have some respect for your future self and stop one rep short. So I use that analogy in the book. It comes out of strength training where the most successful strength training programs, contrary to popular belief, they never actually want you to go to failure. Maybe you go to failure like once or two times a year, but you stop one rep short. And why is that? It's so that you can pick up

where you left off the next day. So you don't dig yourself too deep of a hole that you can't come out of. Then you look at what artists have to say about the creative process. It's very much the same. I stop when I know where the paintbrush is still going to go. I stop one sentence short, one paragraph short, so I can pick up. Think about it in a professional sense. Oftentimes what tends to blow up our big projects is we try to make things happen all the way. And at some point, generally, especially if you're working with other people, you have to learn to let them happen. So patience is really about having the restraint to stop one rep short, to go slowly by slowly

and to zoom out and take a long view. Because if I wanted to make the most progress on anything in my life over the course of a week, I'd probably work 20 hours a day, slam some Red Bulls and coffee, take a two hour nap and do the same thing. And at the end of those eight days, I'd be toast. If I want to make progress over a couple of decades, it's going to be very different. So it is both about in the moment, having that restraint, and then over the long haul, zooming out and thinking about your time scale as something that you want to be sustainable, not just blip in time. I worked in software startup companies in my

late twenties and thirties. And you know, that world is just all pedal to the metal all the time. But at a certain point I went, you know what, I've really got to measure productivity over months, years, you know, if I'm measuring it over a course of a week, like that's not a that's not an accurate way to measure it. Really got to zoom that out and go, okay, yeah, What is sustainable? What can I keep doing? Yeah. I really like how you think about like that. What is sustainable? And I want to hammer this point home because it's easy to say, I'm sure, I think Johan Harari now it's probably a few episodes back said something similar and he's right that like, oh, it's just the people posting workouts on Instagram. But I think there's an internal thing happening too. Because when you're in the moment and you've got that excitement and that energy, you've got to put the brakes on yourself. It's not just about wanting to keep up the Joneses. It's about forcing yourself to say, hey, this is like a thrill. I could go on a work bender or a creative bender. And maybe I can get by doing that once a year. But any more than that, I'm

setting myself up for failure. So it's easy just to put all the blame on the social forces around us. Maybe we give them 50% of the blame and then also turn the gaze inward and realize that this is about having some boundaries for yourself as well, especially if you're a workaholic, which many people are. And I say that with no judgment. I mean, I always talk about workaholism. I'm really glad that the team that developed the mRNA vaccines were all workaholics. Right, right. Yeah. You've referenced it a couple times. You talk about it in the book, A Fair Amount, your bout with OCD. Talk to me a little bit about kind of what happened there and what's the healing from that been like for you? So about five and a

half years ago, I did a very long run in central park, won a vacation. I was training for a marathon, so probably like 20 miles. And I had all kinds of stuff during the day. And I rushed from one friend to one friend to the next to family. And I just didn't eat enough. And dinner came around and I thought I was meeting a friend for dinner, but it turns out it was just a bar. So I had a stiff drink and some kettle chips and my blood sugar dropped precipitously. And I had a panic attack, which can happen when your blood sugar drops. And the next day I went to an urgent care. I wanted to make sure that, you know, it wasn't like a heart arrhythmia or something more serious.

And the doctor said, you know, your blood sugar looks fine now, but based on everything that you're saying, it sounds like your blood sugar dropped and you had some panic. Most people have a panic attack and they hear that and they move on. Not everyone. And I'm in that latter bucket. So intellectually I could trust that doctor, but I just became so worried about my health. I thought maybe that doctor's wrong. Maybe I have a heart problem. So then I wore an EKG machine. I thought that maybe something's wrong with my adrenal gland. So I saw an adrenal gland specialist and I developed a real obsession with my health that spurred from that panic attack.

I got with a good therapist that understood what was going on and I was being treated broadly for health anxiety. I was making a lot of improvement. And after about two weeks of what I would call good improvement, so maybe this is like six weeks after that initial episode, I am supposed to go on a trip with friends to do a bunch of trail running and hiking. So obviously at that point, I'm feeling pretty good about my health. And it's a four-hour car ride to get to where we're going. And about 40 minutes into the car ride, I just get absolutely pummeled with the thought that you should just drive off the road out of nowhere.

And not only am I having this thought, it is accompanied by the most painful, intense wave of despair and anxiety and just a ball of anxious depression. So I'm sitting in the car for three hours, just like, don't drive off the road, don't drive off the road, don't drive off the road. I get there. I try not to think about it. I try to forget it. And it's just repetitive. I wake up in the middle of the night to go pee. You should just go down to the kitchen and get a knife and stab yourself. Just nonstop barrage of thoughts of self-harm. I know deep down inside that I don't want to hurt myself, but the onslaught of these thoughts is just becoming increasingly painful. So maybe I'd have one hour of freedom from them and then it's

a half an hour and then it's 10 minutes. The drive home, I'm just praying like maybe I'll get through. I've got all these podcasts queued up, just trying to distract minutes. The drive home, I'm just praying, like, maybe I'll get through. I've got all these podcasts queued up, just trying to distract myself. And of course, it didn't work out like that. That drive home was twice as bad as the drive there. The most painful moments of my life, hours of my life, felt like years. I get home and I tell my wife that, like, something is wrong with my brain. I need to get help ASAP.

And I tell my wife that like something is wrong with my brain. I need to get help ASAP. And I am terrified. My wife is pregnant at the time with our first kid. So you layer that on. And I think I'm becoming either suicidally depressed or schizophrenic or psychosis. It just feels like I'm losing total control of my mind and my emotions. So I'm living in California and it's very hard to get into a psychiatrist. So when I had the health anxiety, I couldn't, but if you call them and you say that you're having nonstop thoughts of harming yourself, you get an appointment pretty quickly.

So I got an appointment with a psychiatrist and I go in and I tell him what's happening. And he's sitting there nonjudgmentally as a good psychiatrist does. And I end by saying, like, I really hope that I don't have to be in an inpatient facility, but I'm just terrified I'm going to hurt myself. And I would be okay with that if it means I wouldn't hurt myself. And he just smiles and says, you're not depressed, man. You have OCD. I had no idea that OCD could manifest like that. I always thought that OCD was about being really clean or having a set of numbers that you have to count. But OCD

is often misrepresented. So I quickly learned that OCD is any kind of repetitive thought or feeling that causes you tons of distress. And when you try to push it away or make it not happen, it just gets stronger. And while there are visible compulsions like touching a doorknob or counting to 10, there are also mental compulsions. And in my case, the compulsion was trying to reassure myself that I wasn't actually depressed. So I'd have all these terrible thoughts about harming myself. And then I'd say, well, I must not be depressed. I'm successful. I'm this, I'm that. I'd reason with myself. And then the thoughts would just come back. So thank God that I saw a psychiatrist that was well-trained

in OCD. And I later learned, and I'm still learning about OCD, that it's actually a pretty common theme of OCD. It's called self-harm and other harm, where these are the kinds of thoughts and feelings that you have. And at a certain point in my OCD, I definitely became depressed because it's no fun being in your head when that's happening for 12 hours a day. Like the first thought you have when you wake up in the middle of the night is maybe I should go kill myself. Not fun, but the depression was always secondary. And I am so thankful again, that I found the right care that could identify that. I started an SSRI, which is the medication, the first line medication for OCD and then intensive therapy with a therapist who specializes in treating people with OCD. And therapy was

probably twice a week for the first three months and then once a week for about five months. And then after that, the therapist tried to fire me and I said, no, I still want to meet with you once a month. And now it's just something that I live with. What did the therapy look like broadly? Can you sketch kind of what you were doing? Yeah, I can. The evidence-based model for OCD starts with something called exposure and response prevention. So what this means is you expose yourself to the thing that causes you fear, and then you prevent the response. Well, in my case, the response that makes the anxiety go away is convincing myself, well,

I would never hurt myself. I'm not actually depressed. So it started off with just like reading scripts to myself about how I'm super depressed and how I might kill myself. And every time my brain tried to say, you wouldn't do that, I had to say, but maybe I will. So just learning to live with the uncertainty and it starts very small. So they talk about it on a graded scale from one to 10. So maybe you read scripts. That's a one. Then my therapist had me watch a really tragic movie about people who died of suicide. So it's just exposing myself to these things that are causing me so much fear. It ended with like pretty intense exposures around holding objects that I could harm myself with and just being terrified to hold a knife for an hour, but holding the knife for an hour and realizing that I wasn't

just going to jam myself with it. So then the second phase of therapy is rooted in a school called acceptance and commitment. I know you've had Stephen Hayes on the show, so you're a veteran of his thinking, which basically says that for many challenges, mental health challenges, we just have to accept that we're going to live with them and still commit to living in alignment with your core values. So the exposure therapy worked really well. And then like six months into it, the obsession switched and I became obsessed with doing the exposure therapy. I'm like, I have to spend an hour a day doing this. Otherwise the OCD will come back. And at that point, my therapist

is like, Nope, no more exposures. You're done. You're just going to learn to live with these thoughts. And at that point, meditation came in because what is meditation? If not seeing thoughts and feelings without reacting to them. And then this notion of having a rough three hours of these kinds of intrusive ocd thoughts but not canceling what i had planned to go do exposures just doing what i have planned taking the thoughts with me and over a year it's remarkable how the intensity and frequency subsided. And I say this not in any way as like, to say like, oh, I've arrived because there's a decent chance I'll have really rough times, but more as a way of people out there are suffering. I mean, I went from not having more than a half an hour of peace for a solid three months to now, maybe one hour a month,

I get caught in an OCD loop. That is really a hopeful message. I know plenty of people who are listening to this who deal with OCD. I mean, I literally know who they are. I mean, there's plenty I don't know, but I've come across a bunch of people who listen to this show. So I'm hoping that's a hopeful message from them. Just find a good therapist if you're out there, because it's very often misunderstood. And sometimes even in the therapeutic community, it can be, and man, when you're in it, it just feels hopeless and like it's never going to end. But if you look at the research, it's actually one of the more responsive to treatment mental illnesses that there is. And that's the message of hope to hold on to. And, you know, now, of course, that I'm at the other side of this for now, when I was in the

thick of it, I wasn't thinking about groundedness or my writing or anything. I was just like, dude, like, hold on for dear life. But now it's become just a beautiful model for thinking about our addictions to everything and our obsession with success. And we were talking about our obsession with sleep, our obsession with becoming enlightened. And again, I only can say this looking back. I would have never said it in the middle of it. But now that I look back and I'm sure that some of this is just my bias to create meaning from it, I feel like it's helped me be able to take something like striving or success and realize that the thought is a thought and the texture behind it can change. And our job is to pursue the right texture to feed the wolf.

That's going to be the right texture. And I don't think I would have had that without having OCD. But again, it's so important to say this. This is not like, you know, tidy bow. This is where I'm at right now. And that could change in the future. I hope not, but maybe it will. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harnon Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls, and I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you

were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present and future, all to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. It's a little bit of past, present, and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Talking about convergence, I see this in ancient literature, in different traditions, different ways, and I see it in modern psychology. And what I see is two broad approaches to working with difficult thoughts and emotions. One, you just articulated it. It's a mindfulness approach. It's an acceptance and commitment therapy approach. You know, in Buddhist communities, we might say it's sitting with what's going on. But it's you just go, all right, there's difficult stuff here. My thoughts are this. My emotions are this. Just let it be. Invite it in. Let it be. Right? One approach. one approach. Then there is more of an approach that in certain parts of Buddhism is talking sort of about pulling the weeds. You're noticing the thoughts that are no good and you're pulling them out. Cognitive behavioral therapy goes in this direction. It says, look, you know, you've got thoughts in there. They're not accurate. They're, you know, you've got faulty beliefs behind them. Let's go in and monkey with this stuff, pull it out.

And I'm curious how you think about knowing you and having read your stuff. I know that you're going to say, you know what? There's a valid place for both those things. So I'm not asking you to pick one of those two. I'm asking, how do you think about when is the right tool for the job? Oh man, you are going right to the heart of like an almost unanswerable question just because I can't find the words for it. And I've asked this question intrusive thought like I'm with the wrong partner. I should leave. And you could say, oh, that's just the thought. I'm going to let it go. But maybe it's true. So how do you know what thoughts are worth wrestling with? How do you know what thoughts are worth engaging versus what thoughts are just totally intrusive? And that is really, really, really tough. In my own end of one experience,

mindfulness practice has been the most important here because just by sitting and watching same thought patterns, same responses to them, there is a way in which you just kind of notice like, oh, this is an OCD thought trying to ruin my day or uproot me versus like, oh, there's a there there. Because we need to have intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts tell me that on a much more minor scale, that's a shitty sentence in my book. You should change it. But someone with OCD, if your mind's telling you that for every sentence you write, you're never going to write a book. So it's like, how do you discern signal from noise? And again, I think that just sitting with your thoughts, paying good attention and something else that I think is helpful is to imagine that a close friend is in

that situation, having that thought, what advice would you give to your friend? And that creates just a little bit of space between you and what's going on. And in that space, I think that you can start to know like, okay, this is something, really three things. This is something to weed out and reason with and prove to myself it's wrong. This is a pure anxious thought and any negotiation with it's just going to make it worse. Or, holy crap, this is telling me something that I actually need to pay attention to in my life. And maybe the best that I can do is just give people those three distinct things. And then over time you pay close attention. And maybe this is like the work of wisdom or becoming a more mature human being is learning for everything that comes your way, which of those three buckets it

falls into. Yep. We've created elaborate flow charts around this. We've done all kinds of like, is there a decision tree to go down that might help you sort these out? And I do think there are some ways of thinking about it that are helpful, but this is kind of the question that I'm most sort of interested in these days is like you said, I've got kind of three choices here, right? One is, this is a useful thought. I should do something with it. Two, this just shows up all the time and I'm just going to ignore it. Or three, no more. And to give like concrete examples of this, right? Like in my life, like there's a thought pattern based on addiction that I have a no tolerance policy on. And it is like, if my brain starts to fantasize about what it would be like to be drunk or high, cut it off. Like, how do you cut it off? What does

that look like for you? Well, a lot of times I simply just go, no, not having that thought. And then I go in a different direction. When I was earlier in sobriety, it was harder. And so I would sort of just say, any distraction is is fine that gets me away from this ruminative thought loop. That's non-destructive, right? Because that one was so destructive for me, right? It was a thought that was really destructive. And so for whatever reason, I've been fortunate enough that that one, when I sort of just give it the no to, it works. You know, if it turned into OCD with it, obviously,

I'd have to approach it differently. And I think that, at the end of the day, is kind of what I get to with all of this is what works for you in the moment, right? And it may not be the same thing that works for you next week, next month, but what is working now? Or what have you been trying recently that hasn't been working? Maybe try something different. Yep. I think that's spot on. You want to have a big toolkit and then learn what tools are fitting for the right circumstance. Knowing that, as we've alluded to, a lot of things work until they get in your way. And then it's time to drop that tool and pick up the next one. And then it's time to drop that tool and pick up the next one. And I think that that is the most grounded, sound way to go about dealing with any big

challenges that we have. You know, there's maybe one category of things that I'm skeptical about, which are like things that are heralded as quick fixes. So whether it's a supplement or if you just do this, if someone's selling it like that's the solution, then I worry. It can be part of a solution, no doubt. But if you think that this one thing is going to solve the problem and someone is trying to have you believe that, then I'd be skeptical. Like in my own recovery from OCD and not just to make it about OCD, just what I see in my clients and my research and my

reporting just for like overcoming less extreme challenges. Generally, there's a role for some kind of spiritual practice. There's a role for some kind of physical practice. There's a role for community. When it comes to mental health, there's often a role for medication. For some people, there's a role for supplements. For other people, it is some kind of like art or creative expression. So there's no one size fits all. It's about, you know, figuring out, Hey, these are the tools. If I can provide someone with a toolkit, 30 practices, 30 tools that I'm pretty convinced work for a lot of people in a lot of situations, then your job is to try those on. And if you're sick with the help of a therapist or physician and figure out the tools that work for you in that moment.

Yeah, I think that's really well said. And you do provide a lot of really great tools in the book. And as you were going through your list there and you were like, you know, there's a psychological work, there can be medication, there can be community, there can be spiritual work, you know, and I've thought about like my ongoing challenge has been more depression, right? Addiction, I kind of was a couple times, but I handled it. But depression was the ongoing and I often joke, like, I just have thrown the kitchen sink at it. Like, I mean, a little bit of everything has been what it has sort of taken it as I was thinking through that I was thinking, like, if you took the G off the front of your book, you'd be talking

about roundedness, which is what a lot of these solutions need to be, right? They need to be sort of, you know, encompassing a variety of things. Yeah. And I also think that like the acceptance and the learning as you go. So I heard this from Stephen Hayes, the developer, one of the developers of acceptance and commitment therapy. I heard this from my own therapist and coach who I love and trust as much as anyone that when you have a challenge like depression or anxiety or panic or OCD or bipolar, the experiences over the course of your life can be every bit as bad, but how you relate to them changes. And every single time there's maybe a 10th of a percent more of you that knows that it's going to pass. And by the time you're 60, going through a depressive episode still sucks. But by then,

like a whole 4% of you knows it's going to pass. And then you have that 4% to hold on to. And it makes the whole experience perhaps a little bit easier versus like trying to push it away or being scared of it, because that's what makes it sticky. But again, it's non-dual because if you feel a depression coming on, you're like, oh, here's depression. I'm just going to lay in bed. For most people, that doesn't really work. But if you're like, oh my God, here's depression. I'm scared. I need to do all of these things. Then depression is going to be like a German shepherd that sniffs your fear and comes right after you. Yep. The analogy I've often used is treating it like the emotional flu. And so like, if I got the flu, I would try and take care of

myself. I'd be like, I need to rest. You know, I should probably get some vitamin C, some chicken soup might be good. I don't, I'm not vegetarian, but you get where I'm going. So I make sure that I'm taking care of myself. But I also just go, like you said, flu comes, it passes. I know it's going to go. And as somebody who's 51, I've got that little bit more time of going, yep, I know this is here now. And I know that it's going to go. You know, it always has. Now, again, that's easier to say when you're not in it, because one of the salient factors of mental illness, I think, is like, I'm not going anywhere this time. I'm here for good. But yeah, knowing that that's not true, you know, that it will pass is such an important piece. Yep. And I think that that I'm here for good. Again, if there's that like 1% of you, it's like maybe, but maybe not maybe not, then that's the part that you can hold on to.

I think a lot of people, myself included, benefit from naming it too. So sometimes I'll experience like what I would just call like an intense wave of like depressive feelings. So just like emptiness out of nowhere, instead of running away from it, I'll just be like, whoa, I'm feeling really depressed. And then for my own kind of like toolkit, it's just don't change what you had planned. So if you're going to go out to dinner with your wife, go out to dinner with your wife. You're going to watch a movie, watch a movie. Don't do it because you think it's going to make the depression go away, but just, just stay the course. And for me, that's, that's something that's been effective. So it's name it, acknowledge it, don't repress it,

but then don't change what you were going to do. That's beautiful advice. And it leads me to the final question I'll ask you about. You referenced acceptance and commitment therapy a number of times. And, you know, one of the main principles there, right, is simply just, yeah, you allow the thing to be there, whatever it is, but then you act according to your values. And I'm kind of curious for you, what are some of the tools that you have found most helpful for you or for your clients when it comes to figuring out what your values are? This seems to be a very nebulous space, you know? And so I'm kind of curious, do you have tools that you've used that you find helpful in that area? I do. So there's a couple of ways to think about it. One is some people, if you just get a list of like a hundred core values, it just gets the brainstorming going. And then you can start to

identify the ones that make sense for you. Sometimes people are like, Oh, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know. It can be helpful to think of someone that you admire in the world. And then to ask yourself, well, what do you admire about that person? And those are generally things that you hold in high regard. You could organize a half day or day long retreat with friends that you really trust where the whole point is like, let's talk to each other about like what we value and try to come up with these values. I actually don't think it's hard. I think it's hard to create space to do this kind of reflective work. I don't necessarily think it's that hard to come up with the things. What I talk about in the book, and maybe this is where it's like a slight departure from pure ACT and more into my way past days as a business consultant is it's like, it's not enough just to have the

values. You have to define them in super concrete terms. And then you have to come up with a list of three to five menu items that you can just execute on, just show up and do. So an example of this might be you have a core value of love, really honorable, beautiful core value. Looks nice up on the wall hanging over your computer, but what does love mean? So then you spend some time, you dig, you think, and let's say that you define love as being fully present for the people in activities that I care about. Okay, that's good. That's closer. Are you going to be fully present always?

What if there's competing priorities? So then it gets down to the practices and that's where you turn love into, I'm going to put my phone in the glove compartment of my car from six to nine so I can have dinner with my family, with my partner and watch a TV show before I get it out again. Or three times a week at work, I'm going to block off an hour to work on one of these two meaningful projects with full focus. So you get from like this very noble thing, like love all the way down to literally like what you're doing is you do the dishes. And I think that is so important. And sometimes that gets lost. It's not enough just to have something on your bathroom mirror, particularly if you're

susceptible to emotional lows, because when you're in those lows, you're going to look at that mirror and you're going to be like, screw this, none of this stuff's true anymore. But if your value under health says 20 minutes of aerobic exercise on Thursday, you don't have a choice. You just do it. And maybe you'll feel better, maybe not, but there's a higher likelihood that you will. So I think the extension of ACT and what I try to do in the book is really like connect being and doing and help people get super concrete in how they define these things. While at the same time, not forgetting the beautiful things that these seemingly trivial activities ladder up to. The writer Annie Dillard said, like, how we spend our minutes is how we

spend our days. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. The philosopher Matt Crawford talks about character, and the root of the word character is habit. So our character are our habits. It's what we do. So there is a linkage between being and doing, between love and putting your cell phone away when you're doing the dishes. I love that. And I love that idea of, yeah, you've got to sort of connect the dots up and down that chain. And what I see is oftentimes people get one or the two of those down. They've got the doing down. There is doing, but they don't know why they're doing it necessarily. It may not be the right thing. Then there are other people who really are in touch with big values and big ideas, but it's not translated down.

And if you can get both of them, right, connected, like you're saying, up and down the chain, you know, I often say that our plans are simply like the vehicle that we bring our values into the world, right, is via our plans. And if you've got a good plan, it's a vehicle to bring your values into the world. You know, my challenge with values, and it must be because I'm an Enneagram 9, is that I look at them and I'm like, all of them. Yeah. Which isn't real helpful. So I have two thoughts. The first is, I think you'll appreciate this because earlier in the conversation, you remarked that you're such a middle way guy, is I think that what happens with those two archetypes of people is like,

they let idealism maybe get in the way of pragmatism. So the person that's so into doing but doesn't know why they do, they can't fathom having time for reflection and being because they see that as going on a 10-day retreat. They don't see that as a couple minutes of structured reflection and silence. And the person that is so into being can't imagine doing 90 things in the world because they see that as being rushed and being anxious. And I think it's just, again, those incremental steps while realizing there's a challenge. I mean, there's a reason that monks live in a monastery where there are no distractions.

That is a being environment, but there's a whole gray area between being and doing. And the second thing is I'm really shocked and I wanted to poke fun at you. I would have suspected that your answer to your Enneagram would have been the same as mine. So when people ask me about my Enneagram, I just quote Walt Whitman and say that I contain multitudes because I look at them and I'm like, well, it depends on the day. It depends on the mood. It depends on how I slept. I can be a helpless romantic if I didn't sleep well. But if I slept well, I'm like a seven that just wants to do projects all day. It depends on the mood. It depends on how I slept. I can be a helpless romantic if I didn't sleep well. But if I slept well, I'm like a seven that just wants to do projects all day. Totally. I feel that way about personality tests, all of them. I'm like, well, what day?

The thing about Enneagram that's interesting is nine is considered the one that contains all of the other types. And I'm like, yeah, there you go. Yeah, that actually makes sense to me. But I'm with you on that. Personality tests always drive me up the wall. I'm like, yeah, there you go. Yeah, that actually makes sense to me. But I'm with you on that. Personality tests always drive me up the wall. I'm like, can you give me some more context on this question, please? I can't answer without context. And I think that's where like Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies are so helpful. So I have a dear friend who may be listening, but I'm not going to name him because he wouldn't want to be named.

But if you're listening, hi, dear friend, who is like the Enneagram four, right? That's like the romantic. Yeah. I think so. I think it's a four, but I'm not uber familiar with which aligns, but there's the romantic archetype and it's like dashboard confessional ban. Like everything is so this, and he struggled in relationships and it's like, well, you're telling yourself this story. So I've slowly introduced him to like more Eastern ways of thinking, which is like, you can experience being a four without being a four. Like you're not a four, four is a strong pattern, but there are other patterns available to you. And you can, in a way, choose when you want to be a four and when you don't. And again, non-dual because you go far East in like full on Ram Dass, and then you just are. And that's beautiful if you're spending your entire life as a spiritual

teacher, or maybe you're retired and you're content. But if you're trying to be in the real world, it can be hard to just be. So it's like this middle way between it's helpful to have a story. It's helpful to have a personality. Just don't get too attached to it. It's helpful to be able to just be until you need a story. Yeah. And I think that's it. That's the challenge. I couldn't agree more.

All right. We are going to wrap up because this is already a very long episode. You and I will talk a little bit more in the post-show conversation because I suspect we could do this all night. Listeners, if you'd like access to the post-show conversations, ad-free episodes, all kinds of other good stuff, and a good feeling of supporting something that matters to you, go to OneYouFeed.net slash join to learn more. Brad, thanks so much for coming on. I absolutely loved the book. I knew I was going to love this conversation, so I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. I feel exactly the same. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a

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