The One You Feed - Johann Berlin on Living a Fulfilling Life

Episode Date: December 27, 2017

Please Support The Show with a DonationJohann Berlin has worked with some of the world's greatest leaders, Fortune 500 companies, has spoken at a Ted conference and is in the process of writing a book about what it means to live a fulfilling life. Have you ever found yourself hating your day job? Wishing you could do the thing you truly love? Not sure what would make you happy at work but you know what you're doing now isn't helping? In this episode, Johann shares really helpful and practical approaches that you can start applying today in order to bring more meaning and fulfillment into your daily life - both at work and otherwise.Johann Berlin is the CEO of TLEX U.S. Johann has grown TLEX nationwide and into leading institutions and Fortune 500 companies. Prior to joining TLEX, Johann scaled boutique triple bottom line and social sector companies from concept to high-impact with a special focus on innovative and disruptive wellness, leadership, innovation initiatives with the project being mentioned in Harvard Business Review, New York Times, and Wharton Journal.Johann has participated as a speaker/facilitator at TEDx London, Stanford Center for Compassion, Harvard Executive MBA Alumni Summit, Wharton School of Business, UC Berkeley’s Leadership Symposium, Yale School of Management, Impact Investor Sustainatopia Conference, GE HealthCare’s Health Ahead Summit Paris, and Dartmouth on Purpose.In This Interview, Johann Berlin and I Discuss...The Wolf ParableThat what you put your attention on growsWhat love means in a corporate environmentThe difference between a question and a wonderMoving from desire to finding things that bring you contentmentIt's not always what you do but that you have meaningful relationships at work"Do service", doing things with honor, treating things as specialHow if you hate your job, you don't have the energy to do the things you loveWhat you resist, persistsSuppressing your thoughtsHow hating your job causes you to sufferHis troubled youthThe role that the kindness of other people has played in his lifeHis three reflections on kindness:We choose who we are kind toNo act is too smallThe starfish storyDon't lose hopeChoosing to show up in the momentIf you honor the moment, you can choose to show up for itLiving wisely with the changing, advancing ageJohann Berlin LinksHomepageTwitter  Please Support The Show with a Donation See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I really live by this principle and believe that what you put your attention on grows. 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. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Johan Berlin, CEO of the Telex Institute, North America. He creates resilience in business by strengthening the connection between individuals, teams, and organizations to achieve a greater purpose. Johan's work has been mentioned in the Harvard Business Review, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has spoken at TEDxLondon, Stanford Center for Compassion, the Harvard Executive MBA Alumni

Summit, Wharton School of Business, and the Yale School of Management. This episode of The One You Feed is sponsored by Health IQ. Health IQ is an insurance company that uses science combined with data to secure lower rates on life insurance for health-conscious people like runners, cyclists, strength trainers, vegans, and more. To see if you qualify, get your free quote today at healthiq.com slash wolf. You can also mention the promo code wolf when you talk to a Health IQ agent. That's healthiq.com slash wolf. And here's the episode with Johan Berlin. Hi, Johan. Welcome to the show. Great to be on. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm very excited to have you on. Let's start like we normally do with the parable, where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, 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 grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. And he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather 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. Sure. The parable strikes for me in a number of ways, but I really live by this principle and

believe that what you put your attention on grows. And I found that on a very interpersonal level where I choose to put my attention is what my reality is. But I also think it's very interesting in what we're learning about biofeedback and neuroplasticity. And so I think of these these two things converge for me and it's very beautiful. But I actually prepared a story that I think is apt to this. So would it be okay if I just share that and then lead from there? Absolutely. Great. So there was a billionaire, and he found out that a very wise sage was coming through town. And he asked, can I speak with this sage to one of the people organizing? And they said, yeah,

we'll see. And they came back to him And they said, yeah, we'll see. And they came back to him. They said, yeah, you can come, but you can only ask one question. So he's thinking all night, what should I ask? You know, should I ask how to gain more wealth? Should I ask, you know, the secret to enlightenment? And he decides on a very practical question. He was a person of principles who built habits. And so he decides to ask, if I could cultivate one quality with the time I have left in this life, if I could focus on one thing, what would it be? And so he goes to the sage and he asked this question and the sage pauses and he looks at him and he says, discernment. And the man's a little taken aback. He's not used to somebody.

He's a very powerful person. Like, what do you mean? I need to be more discerning? So he can't but help ask a second question, which is, what do you mean, discernment? Why discernment of all things? And the sage looks at him and smiles and he says, discerning that which is important from that which isn't is the most important quality you can develop in life. And so I feel this story is very beautiful. And it goes to the parable as well, which is we can really choose where we tend to land. I mean,

we can't control the situations around us, but we can choose what we feed ourselves. And so for me, I've been asking myself this question, what is important in life? And in our work also, I've been asking, what is important and meaningful work? I'm running a leadership institute. And the answer that is coming up for me right now and has been consistently is that love is the most important thing. And it takes people back a little bit, especially in a Fortune 100, Fortune 500 kind of setting. Anyway, I would be curious to hear your thought. What is most important to you if you had to discern something that's important? That's a great question. It's very difficult to get it down to one word. And so I've thought about this actually recently, because there was something

I was doing that was sort of this idea of getting down to a fundamental value. And I, I sort of oscillated between freedom, not just freedom, like from oppression externally, but internal freedom, you know, freedom from the burden of self, freedom from being shackled to my thoughts. I think also presence was another one, you know, being present to myself, to the people around me, and then love was the other. So I'm cheating with three. Yeah, I love it, though. I love this thing of agency and freedom. And so I just wanted to share, though, in a corporate context, how love could apply, because a lot of people say, like Tina Turner, you know, what's love got to do with it? Like, what's it got to do with, you know, transformation and work? And it's an incredible thing.

You know, we spend most of our life at work, most of us, most of people probably listening to this podcast if you think about you spend the majority of your your days for sure now if you're working uh there and uh it seems crazy to me that actually you wouldn't worry about the affective side or or this as being important but on just maybe demystifying it on a more practical note what is a lack of love but disengagement, not loving what you do? Or what is the huge disorders and lack of care for mental health in companies, but maybe a lack of caring for the affective side of the people who work in those institutions? Maybe too much prioritization on money or something else, right? So it's actually, to me, it's really at the heart of all of it. And when you see people who love what they're doing,

it seems to me you love doing this show. Very beautiful things come out of it. It becomes an expression, you know? Yeah, so for me, I've just been thinking a lot about this, what is important and what is not important, and where will I choose to put my energy in life, and what would I want to help other people with? So I've got a question for you, which would be this idea of loving what you do.

And I think this is a question that a lot of people wrestle with because not everybody loves what they do, right? A lot of people are like, I don't even know what I would do if I could do what I loved, right? And, or the thing I love doesn't make enough for, you know, me to make a living. So I'm doing something else. How do I be engaged in and make the best out of that situation and bring love to that thing that I'm struggling with being really interested in? So first of all, fantastic question. And I'll take my best shot at it. But I think it's more than an answer. I would just say to everybody listening, what you've just asked is a beautiful wonder. And I was the difference between a question and a wonder for me is that

a question needs an answer right away. And a wonder is something that can be new again and again when you reflect on it. And this thing of what is my purpose in life, it's kind of like the ultimate wonder or what is it that gives me freedom or agency or lights me up. And it could change, right? It could be different. But I'll give you three categories on a more practical level that I think are really important. So the first one is moving from desire and finding things that bring you contentment. Because the thing with if you jump into action and you're looking for fulfillment and desire, and bring you contentment. Because the thing with if you if you jump into action, and you're looking for fulfillment and desires, and we all have them, is desires are

fleeting, they're constantly changing. And we get one thing, and then our mind races onto the next like a carousel, right? And we avert discomfort whenever we have it, and we're chasing desire. So I think there's a big difference whenever you set an intention around something you want to do or you wonder about something you want to do of having this discernment of is this just a desire and it's just going to lead to more desires and more more desires after that and kind of a never-ending chain which is quite honestly how you see most people live their life uh if we think about it when we're a kid when we're 16 what do we want we want a driver's license we want freedom right then we have curfew and we have to be home and then we think man i just want my freedom or i want to go to college or whatever and then

so then we're 18 we're at college it's cool at first and then you know what three years four years into that you're tired of top roman. What do you want? A job. You want some, yeah, some ego, like a place in life, right? And then we've got a job and, you know, our first job for most of us, it wasn't that awesome. After a while, you're usually at the bottom of the totem pole making less than you would, you know, than you need. And so anyway, then you then what you want a promotion, you know, some people want a family, and they even have kids. And then, you know, what do they want when you talk to like new parents? It's beautiful, but man, I just want a minute to myself. Yeah. And then you just work your way all the way down the chain, right? And

then kids leave the house and what you're feeling this thing of, man, my kids are leaving the nest. And it's, it's, you know, it's the biggest pain for a parent in some ways. And if you talk to old people, they're just looking back and they're saying, remember those good old days? Yep. And so this thing of chasing from one thing to the next, it's very fleeting. So the first thing I would say is don't look for meaning in desires. And instead, find things that bring you contentment. Find spaces in yourself that bring you stillness, where it's enough, where this moment is enough. Whatever I'm doing, whether I like it, whether I don't like it, I feel grateful for this moment.

And then something very big happens. Something very beautiful can dawn in any situation or any moment. And a lot of freedom, too, and expandedness. So the second thing I would say is it's not always what you do, but a lot of times it's that you have meaningful relationships when you do it. So for sure, we can't all control our jobs. But I think the research on this is, I think, one of the longest longitudinal studies on happiness and a purposeful life out of Harvard has shown that the number one indicator was meaningful relationships. And what's really crazy about this is we live in this digital age, but actually our mutual good friend, Amos Seppala, she talks about this in her TED talk and in her book. We have more social isolation today than we did 20 years ago in the United States. More people feel that they

don't have somebody they could fight a serious problem in. It wasn't even that great 20 years ago. So this illusion where we get the dopamine from these iPhone hits and all this stuff and we're getting these rewards, they're kind of like false positives so that would be the second thing is put value on invest in cultivating meaningful relationships and this will probably be one of the best things you could ever do if you want to live a happy life and then the third thing i would say is do service um and and so we can make this in a macro context, but also in a micro context. If I think of like a job as just the sum of its importance or its income or whatever, then maybe it's bringing me reward and fulfillment and maybe it's not. But if I think of whatever I

put my life force into as an expression of something beautiful, and I treat even the most mundane things with an honor, with the reverence. There's this beautiful – I love this text. It's Patanjali Yoga Sutras. And it talks about the value of honor, just honoring something. It uplifts it. It makes even the most mundane very special. Anyway, so those would be the three things. uplifts it, you know, it makes even the most mundane, very special if you know. Yeah.

Anyway, so those would be the three things. And I think I think science supports all three of those in that sense. But anecdotally, in my own life and working with people, I've seen that as well. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No 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 iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now back to the interview. I like the idea of sort of what you said at the end about the honor piece.

about the honor piece. I think that so many of us are looking for the things that we do in life to give us meaning instead of the spirit that we bring to things. The value we bring to things is what gives something meaning often, right? And I know for myself that, you know, I've talked about it. You and I talked about it before the episode. You know, I'm still doing other work to support myself while I do this. And I'll tell you what, sometimes that work is just fine and wonderful, right? It's as far as a job goes, it's got a lot of great things to really recommend it. Yes. The difference is whether I'm feeling it is a burden or not is totally my perspective. And the three that you mentioned are really important. The other

one for me that is so critical, and it's not just at work, but it's everywhere, and this has been on my mind so much lately, is the idea of resistance. When I'm at work and I'm resisting what I need to do and I'm just not giving all of myself to it, I suffer. I'm just, I don't like it. I mean, and I know this and I still do it. But when I give myself to it and I stop resisting it, all of a sudden I'm like, this is great. And what's interesting, I think is I've talked about this with other people around this idea of for people who are hoping to make a transition at some juncture to doing something else than what they're doing. There's this idea that like, if I hate my job enough, then I'll leave. What I found is that in order to get to the point where the work that I'm doing outside of the day job, right, is good enough to support me,

that if I hate my job, I don't have the energy to do it. But if I give myself to the job, then I've got the energy to really pursue the other things outside of it. And so for me, this is a very, you know, I asked the question because I know I've got listeners and it's also, you know, one that's very current and present for me and has been for, you know, years now that we've done this podcast where I'm sort of doing work to support myself and then I'm trying to do this on top of it. And how do I make those two things work together? And I think your answers were great. I love that in this thing of what you resist, persist. I think it's so beautiful. And by the way, there's something, there's in research called thought suppression, which is we try to suppress a thought. A professor at Harvard had done this research. My wife actually did her dissertation at Harvard on this. But what you try to suppress, it comes back. But what's amazing to me, I want to go back to one of your earlier things, which is freedom, right? So often when we're resisting or when we're mad or when we're resentful, it's almost like a false sense of agency. Like it's almost like I feel

like I don't like this and this is my way of taking control of it. But what's totally wild about it is you're the one who suffers. When you're burning up inside or when you're resisting a situation, other people, like, maybe it's making it harder for them, but your internal experience is your internal experience. And actually, it's the total opposite of agency in that sense. I mean, I guess it's an agency toward a very unpleasant feeling, but it's certainly not freedom. I just find this ironic in some ways that we look for power in those sort of things. And I think it speaks to the two wolves that you're talking about in some respects. I was looking at some things of yours online, and one of the things that I caught was you mentioned that you were a little bit of a troubled youth.

Yeah. Talk to me about your story about how you got where you are today. London TEDx, but I started by saying, you know, I was once at like a very prestigious leadership forum, which is kind of this, that's the space I'm in. And they were asking, you know, introduce yourself. And I don't like big, long introductions of yourself. I think it's important for credibility for, you know, but I think when it's too much, sometimes like we're all human beings at a certain level, and it's just more authentic to connect on that level for the most part. But I was really reflecting. I was feeling a little insecure, and I was wanting to at least have some credibility in my introduction. And I was trying to think, well, what have you really done?

And this thought just came to me like, man, you have not done so much if i really am honest with myself i've and and the thing that has been a biggest attributor is other people's kindness and um i feel like other people's kindness has been yeah it's just amazing um if i think about my own life i should not be where i am but if I can say it's all me and agency, but really, like, for example, I write. I grew up totally not writing. Like dyslexic is not like a little dyslexic, like literally I would ace certain classes, history, entrepreneurship, and I would just bomb classes like English. And so this thing of other people who step in at moments of need, other people who mentor you, maybe when you don't deserve it or the merit isn't there,

maybe the merit's there on some bigger level. But for me, it was really whenever I learned to understand my own mind and emotions. And I think this is one of the things we don't teach in school, is how to understand our own mind and emotions at the end of the day we're affective people and we have to go through life with this human experience but what we learn is like you know this kind of base rudimentary stuff and if you don't have good early childhood experiences maybe you know you're not on such a good track in those things it It becomes very difficult. And so for me, that was breathing and meditation.

I have a spiritual teacher, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. And in particular, I think the Bhakti Sutras. I was studying the Bhakti Sutras. It was like a very transformational time for me. For those who don't know, Bhakti Sutras are aphorisms of love. And I was a big tough, I was actually a very tough guy too. Like whenever I was young. I lifted weights actually a very tough guy too like whenever i was young i lifted weights at very young age middle starting in middle school and and somehow whenever i found this maybe it was my better wolf uh cultivated or i fed that was when i started to

feed my better wolf and um yeah and and then people lots of people, somebody mentored me in entrepreneurship. But yeah, whenever I was 12, I went to Juvie. And I was just on track. Both my brothers have been in and out of prison my whole life. That looked like where I was going. And now I've met heads of state and I do programs all over the world and run multiple companies. So it's a blessing. I just take it with gratitude. And I can't give any attribution to anything other than kindness. all over the world and from multiple companies. So it's a blessing.

I just take it with gratitude, and I can't give any attribution to anything other than kindness and luck, and maybe I fed my good wolf, and this helped me. Yep, the kindness of other people is so critical, certainly has been for me when I look back on it. There's so many that I could probably never think of them all. And yet, then there are a few that are so looming, you know, that they're very much there. In your TEDx talk that you did, you talked about kindness, and you ended with three reflections on kindness. So maybe that would be a good place for us just to run through those briefly.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm happy to. So the first is that, I'll have to remember the order here, I haven't seen it in many years, but... We evaluate who we are kind to. That's the first one. Yeah, we choose, like we decide who's worthy of our kindness. And this is, you know, and often, to be honest, if we really think we have so much unconscious bias, one neuroscientist who's one of the top neuroscientists in the world, he says he believes, after looking at all of the global literature and integrating it, or the majority of credible literature, that 80% of our decisions are unconscious. But we think

some people are deserving, some people aren't't and some people were perfectly comfortable kicking to the curb or treating like dirt and then somebody else usually somebody we like and we have no idea we have no idea their story and to my own life we have no idea their potential uh in terms of what they could be with a little bit of kindness and uh and i feel there's this thing that, you know, when life is hard on people, they become very hard and they kind of kick life back. So that's one. And then the second one is that no act is too small. And I think I shared the starfish story. Do you know the starfish story? I do know the starfish story. We've had a guest on and we told it once before, but it's so good. Let's tell it again. Go ahead.

All right. So it's also a grandfather it's so good. Let's tell it again. Go ahead. All right. So it's also a grandfather and a grandson story. So that's appropriate. So a grandson is walking with his grandfather and there was just a huge storm. So all these starfish wash up on the beach and they're walking. And at first it's very entertaining for the young boy. He thinks, oh, wow, look at these starfish. And then he says, you know, Grandpa, where do the starfish live?

And the grandfather says, oh, they live in the ocean. So they walk a little bit longer. And then the boy thinks about it, and he says, well, then what's going to happen to them out here? He says, no, don't worry about it. You know, there was just a big storm. This is the nature of life the the cycles of nature and then the little boy thinks about any things he asks again well well why can't we help them why can't we put them back and you know you see this altruism in kids

a lot of times you see this innocence they want to help they they see a problem or they see somebody not doing well and they that empathy that that ability to that wiring for connection hasn't been so jaded and and they want to help and so at one point he just runs and he just says i'm gonna help grandpa and he starts picking up the starfish and throwing them in the ocean and the grandfather gets a little bit upset and goes over and grabs him and says you know this is something you're just going to have to learn in life and uh and you it's not going to make a difference you know it's not going to make a difference i just want you to know that this is a lesson you

need to learn and a little boy is looking standing there looking confused and he has a starfish in his hand he looks down at the starfish and he says grandfather it'll make a difference to this one his hand he looks down at the starfish and he says grandfather it'll make a difference to this one and he throws it back in in the water and i just think this is such a beautiful story of you know sometimes the problems that we have in our world human trafficking environmental degradation political instability uh they feel bigger than our ability to respond our perception is that we can't we can't fix these things on our own, so we'll just go on with our lives. And I'm sure you've experienced in this life, there's no act that's too small in that sense. And even a small act can have a huge ripple effect across many things.

You just don't know. And oftentimes, big things have changed by small acts at the right time in the right way in a sincere way and we all have the agency to make a difference in whatever way it is and if our intention is right and we're aligned in that way it can be very beautiful If you're enjoying this conversation, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. We are nearing the end of it. Wish you could keep listening once the episode ends? Well, I've got some good news too.

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and pledge to access this additional weekly content. And now, the rest of the interview with Johan Berlin. The third one is don't lose hope, which you kind of covered sort of at the end there, which is, you know, it can often feel like we're not making a difference, and we do make a difference. This kind of picks up on that point. One thing that I think is really passionate about, and this is actually something I wrote about recently. And it goes back to this point of discerning what matters in life, this ability to discern. It's really showing up. And you'd mentioned presence. It's showing up in the moments that matter. I think it's such a big thing. Often we aren't even present to what's happening in our

lives and building, cultivating this quality to be able to show up and choosing to show up in the moments that are difficult and also in the moments that are great. I think if we look at attention span and like with... I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No 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. Bryan 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 iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, with electronic devices and other things, more and more, we're very distractible creatures these days. And meanwhile, every moment is very precious, right? This ability to show up. And I think the myths that we have in our culture are very counterintuitive to it. So the myths that I know of are, if you want to be great, you work harder, you be better,

you sacrifice. And certainly all of those things are true. But I feel that it's gone to an extreme of diminishing returns and actually the way that that one of the things that we're really missing is this ability to restore to refresh um to be able to replenish and in scientific terms to be able to switch into what vagal tone or this more this this more this more open, flexible way of, of functioning, um, is so important. And I would be curious for you, you know, how do you show up in the moments that matter? I think remembering that I want to show up as probably the first, the first piece of it

is, you know, just, just the remembrance, like, okay, bring yourself fully here. That's the biggest challenge for me. If I can do that, although then I sometimes have to remind myself of, you know, why does the moment matter? You know, what is it about this moment that matters? Not that, you know, being present necessarily needs a justification. But sometimes it can feel that way for sure. Yeah, definitely. And I think it goes back to this thing of honor. Like if we honor that moment, we can be there.

If we don't honor it, then we treat it, we're looking at our phone, or if we honor that dinner conversation, then we can show up for it. And if we're not honoring, and it's so often it's unconscious, it's not a value judgment, but I think it's very easy to, in fact, I think our environment is very wired to hijack our brains from being in the moment. Oh, it's incredibly wired that way, and it just gets to be more and more that way. I think culturally it's a challenge. I mean, I'm certainly not a Luddite, and I don't think we should move backwards technology-wise, but I do think there are big ramifications for our near addiction to technology. It was interesting earlier when you mentioned freedom, you know,

and what do people want? You know, 16-year-olds want their driver's license. Well, not so much these days. I mean, amazingly, the studies, these people have been doing this for generations, are realizing that 16-year-olds and, you know, far less, markedly less don't want a driver's license because they're not going anywhere yeah you know they're they're they're safer yeah they're getting less sexually transmitted diseases

drugs and alcohol uh use is waning so those are all positive but they're they seem you know but they are unhappier than ever and it's a lot of because I'm at home with my phone. And again, I don't think the answer is that we just go backwards and we get rid of things. Technology marches on and trying to stop it is usually a fool's errand. But being but being wiser about how we use it and being able to inform people about the impacts that using technology might have on them, I think is important. Yeah, no, I mean, we're in a new industrial revolution. And with every innovation comes risks, right? With nuclear energy, there's also the risk of nuclear bombs. And so we have to, I think, when we go through these major transformations, and we're just beginning.

I mean, you look at machine learning, you look at AI. Some people say that we're many, many years away from sophisticated AI. I think some of the smartest and biggest brands in the world are making it their number one objective. But are we looking at the ethical and the moral principles? And what is the ethics in that innovation? I think this is the key because to your point, we're not going to stop it. But can we live? And this is important to me in understanding and valuing what makes us human is so important. And as we move into that age, how are we keeping the fabric, you know, and throwing out the inefficiencies is an important discussion and debate.

Yeah, for sure. Well, Johan, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. This has been a fun conversation. And Emma introduced us, and I'm glad that we got the chance to talk. Yeah, me too. I'm really happy, and I appreciate your inquiry. I think it's a very beautiful thing of this feeding the two wolves. And so maybe I'll think about this. What am I feeding? I think there's a lot of daily lessons even in that inquiry. in mind, thinking about what's important. It's just another mechanism for that essential question of, you know, what matters and am I doing things that matter? You know, am I spending my time in

a way that lines up with what I value? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Eric, and thank you for the work you do. Thank you. And I hope next time we talk, I have a book. Wishing you all the best. All right. Okay. Thank you so much. Yep. Bye.

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