How to Build More Memories Instead of More To-Dos - w/ Jodi Wellman

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain about how short it is. But as Seneca said, it's not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. And this month we have been talking a lot about living with more purpose and depth, finding ways to be more mindful to the opportunities around us.

After all, each week that goes by is a week that we don't get back. Jody Wellman is my guest today, and she started the 4,000 Weeks project as a reminder to us to take life more seriously and to kick us out of autopilot.

From her research on personal fulfillment, she found that more people are spectators in their lives and fall into the living dead category than those who are astonishingly alive. She's. Absolutely bursting with positive ideas from existential psychology to help us diagnose the dead zones in our lives and live with more vibrancy. So hello and welcome to the Growth Mindset Podcast with me, Sam Webster Harris.

As always diving into the psychology of self-improvement. And today It's an absolute banger of an interview, and I very much hope you enjoy it.

Defining a Growth Mindset

welcome to the show. firstly, I would like to understand how you personally define a growth mindset.

Ooh, juicy. I'm gonna see if Carol Dweck would approve. I am really interested in the outlook part of growth mindset, overcoming that idea and the feeling that life's a test. and that we wanna avoid looking foolish. And so we wanna arrange our lives in this perfectly safe, contained scenario where we can just stay super fixed and comfortable and cozy.

And I gotta tell you, I really like a fleece lined life. I like the coziness, but the growth mindset is bursting through the fleece comfort in search for maybe uncertainty, but so much more. That's the way I look at growth mindset.

I like that as a definition. I have not heard that before. I really enjoy asking this question 'cause everyone has a sort of quite different flavor,

I also find that often when I then go into the rest of the interview, people somehow have something that really harks back to the way they define growth mindset, which is why it's interesting to start with.

Preventing Regrets and Shaping Your Life

but I would like to ask you about the three questions that you outlined in your TEDx of like

what you would ask yourself to actually sort out your life and start living properly.

Wow. Well, thanks for

If you

remember those three questions. I mean, when people ask me about my TEDx, I'm like, oh, what did I actually say in that thing?

Right. I banished it from my mind the minute I was

done. Yeah.

I think I could hit, hit some of the high notes,

one of the questions,

is this idea about identifying what possible regrets we might be careening towards, if we got to a

deathbed, so I'm super interested in this life where. We're able to prevent most of the regrets that we have, right?

So many people think, oh, regrets are all about wishing we didn't do stupid things. And yeah, they'll be lovely if we didn't do stupid things, but we're gonna keep doing them and we're gonna find a way to rationalize them. It's about the feeling about getting to the end and thinking, here I am looking back on this life and I have a bunch of coulda, should've, would've, these things that I really wished I'd taken action on because my life could have been more invigorating or more meaningful, or more something. And so I love the idea about identifying what those things are in service of saying, well, good news, you're not on your deathbed likely. And so what do you wanna do to prevent that regret? And I call them regrets. I know it's super corny.

like what do you wanna do to prevent that regret? it's not your last night,

So how do you wanna shape this life, in such a way that you get to avoid the regret? I'm super interested in the regret avoidance situation.

me too. I,

picked up on.

Talking to older people when I was a teenager of the things they said they'd wish they'd done. And being like, I really don't wanna be this old person in a job doing the same thing, telling some other young person what they should go and do with their life.

I wanna be the person that's done the stuff with their life

Uh, but yeah. How do

shape your life.

Like you do all these really cool things. And I don't know if for you it's because you have a talk track about avoid regret. Avoid regret, or if you're just driven to explore

definitely I being very curious and

a bit of

regret, avoidance around an awareness that you can't do things.

Forever, as in you are gonna get old, you're not really gonna want to live in hostels or sort of hitch across Kazakhstan when you're old, so you should do that like earlier kind of thing.

Exploring the Regret Avoidance Bucket List

of when you're coaching with someone, how do you coach them to have less regrets?

Well, most of the stuff I do now is in groups, and I love this because, so let's just say we're doing this. It's a workshop or it's a keynote and there's a lump bunch of people. The thing about regret avoidance that I find is that initially if you ask somebody, and let's just, we'll do this right now, like

I'll ask you or anybody listening in, like, what would be something if here you are horizontal on your deathbed, the good news is you are, heavily medicated, so you're not in any pain and you're pretty peaceful and you're looking back on your life and

What are things that stand out that you wished you'd done? Most of us do draw a bit of a blank.

Some of us have an idea like, darn it all, I had that one goal. for many people it's, I wanna write the book or I wanted to go back to school and study or something specific. But for many people we're kinda like deers in

headlights. And where I do find it amazing working in groups is like one person might volunteer something, right? Like, oh, I wished I'd learned to speak Spanish. And then that helps someone else go, oh right. That reminds me,

I wish that I went to Spain. I always wanted to go to see the whatever in Barcelona

So for many people, like I encourage a list that is, nothing is too small, nothing is too big, because this isn't meant to be seen by anybody necessarily.

It's that. Get it outta your head and add to it as you go around your days about things that it essentially becomes a bucket list in

reverse, right? It's like cool things I would really like to do before I do in fact kick the bucket. And for many of us, some things are large, some things are really small.

Like, was at a workshop last week where someone said, you know, I've never tried a rutabaga and I just feel like I need to try rutabaga before I die. And of course the joke was like, tonight, you and your whole team are gonna go out and try and find a rutabaga.

that was something I also really loved about adventure, by the way, which is like finding new foods

and fruit. I just have a thing with fruit, but if there's so many fruits you've never heard

of until you go somewhere else

and you're like, what? I've lived my whole life without this thing.

Oh, it's so

I could see a book in the Making for Forbidden Fruits that you just didn't even know were out there. I love that. Living a fruitful life. don't get me started,

but yeah, it's so to identify a preg grit and then action on it. So it's noticing what those things are you don't have to rank them or rate them, but I do think that some of them are worth highlighting or starring and then saying, because you are not on the cusp of death, good news, which one do you wanna start to take action on first?

And like everything, this is the real difference between, they talk about the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

My belief is that the road to the grave is paved with brimming leaf, full bucket lists that we just, ah, thought would be cool, but we just didn't do anything about it. And the difference is you full well know

between living a life that feels like it was lively and or it doesn't have to be lively.

And by the way, we can talk about how, I'm not trying to say your life needs to look a certain way. There's no one size fits all. But living a life that you felt like you did it. you check the boxes that felt important to you. The difference between having a really neat idea and an intention and making it happen. there's a step, but it's super subtle and easy. It's like, did you put it in your calendar? or what would the first step be? Obviously the rutabaga go to the store and buy one and go online and figure out what to do with it. But if it's about, I really would love to, go and, do an archeological dig in a country that's just so foreign to me. What would the first step be? And when do you wanna take that first step and when do you wanna be accountable to do that? And for most people, you get the ball rolling and next thing you're out in the dig.

it's definitely just prioritizing it and just Having an Identification of like just the day when it

happens, it's just like surprising that you kind of go through a week and no one's told you what to do and you're like, oh, I didn't do anything.

I just was waiting for like this hour to appear where I would suddenly be ready to do the thing, but I just, it just never happens. And you're like, oh yeah. You just have to schedule it.

I love your point because you just highlighted so clearly how our lives can become super automated and that's literally the autopilot

that we fall into, right? Because, and it sometimes we need to zone out and just get into a routine. 'cause otherwise, we've got a lot going on. It's hard to function. But for many of us, we need to throw a wrench in that, So for some of us, it does just mean, oh hey wait, I keep saying to a friend of mine, let's go out for lunch. Or go out for a drink. And we keep saying it, but well, we actually have to schedule it. Okay then all of a sudden the thing you wanted to do happens 'cause you took the initiative, but also it breaks up the monotony of a week when otherwise it would just be.

An indiscernible mash of Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday. They're all the same.

I think this is controversial for a lot of people who love habits, but habits are the fricking worst for those of us that want to live astonishingly alive lives because according to a lot of philosophers, they kind of dull the edges of life. They do turn us into what I call like really amazingly functioning zombies where we're just going through the motions. And I don't know about you, but the idea of a life where I get to the end and I feel like I just went through the motions. 'cause then life takes you along for the ride.

And sometimes it's cool, But usually then we're left feeling like, oh, I didn't, really get to have a vote for what I wanted to do in my life. and so therefore I'm very suspicious of

habits that I want the rest of us to also

be.

I really love having a routine, but I love changing where I am for a while and just creating a new routine wherever I am for like a few months 'cause of. You kind of need some routine if you wanna be creative and get stuff done, it's sort of essential, but

equally you need to have some adventure and differences and spark interest in creativity through abundance of other stuff that you

won't expecting,

Prioritizing Adventure and Novelty

but definitely we've been talking about priorities I was wondering in terms of when someone's trying to go through their regret list. If you just start with prioritizing the easy things to do

help them with like the low hanging fruit and then make them choose like one big thing a

year? Because like Derek Ss has a really nice

saying that maybe he didn't even start around a really thirsty and hungry donkey where he is got like hay on the one

side and then water on the other and he can't make a choice and just keeps on looking at one side to the other and then eventually just collapses and dies.

'cause he didn't suck it up and go drink some water for 10 minutes and then go over to the

hay. most people wanna do these big things with their lives, but they don't accept that they could do the big thing for eight

years and then go to do the next big thing for eight

years.

And they're like, I wanna do all at once, but I can't. And so then just do nothing.

yeah. What a fabulously practical, question. I love it. I'll expand it for a second if I can, beyond even this idea of about the regrets,

those regrets in the making, because sometimes, they can be maybe a bit grandiose or not, but I like to widen it and say, okay, let's look at our lives in two different dimensions.

And you would recognize from the TEDx talk that it's not just that we wanna live longer, it's that we wanna live wider and deeper. So the widening dimension has to do with vitality, and that's adding in more pleasure, more fun, more of what's known as sort of the hedonic aspect of wellbeing. It's great, it's fun. It's kind of like neat things. It's going and trying crickets to eat, or it's going and having, a really fun time at a concert, or it's just, it's taking up a new hobby that just makes us feel alive. All

great stuff. That's one dimension, living wider, right? And then living deeper has to do with adding more meaning and purpose into life. A little bit more substantial, if you will. And it could be or involve something with spirituality. It could have to do with connection to other people, more of the character building virtues. And so some of us will, I recommend actually a starting point is to say, okay, look at your life along these two dimensions.

And of course it creates a framework, but where do you feel right now? Like, things are going really well. Good, do more of it, but more importantly, I like to call it diagnosing the dead zones. Where are some of those areas flat? where are they flatlined in your life? And you feel like, man, there is no pulse.

Like most people are feeling like they have, enough meaning. But they are bored and they feel like they need a little more fun in their lives. Maybe they fell off the wagon during covid and they just haven't really gotten back into the swing of things with getting out there and having fun or socializing or whatever's important to them. And so they need to identify, yes, specifically it's that part of my life that I would really like to give CPR to

and how do I do that? And so for them, it might relate to the regret list, but it might not. And I think that the faster path, so back to your point, do you do a bunch of little things that then add up to something big or what? Most often, and I noticed this from, as a practitioner, for most people, if they're feeling like they don't know where to start, a bunch of small little things build confidence and they

build momentum. if someone has said, I don't have enough vitality in my life. Like I just, I'm bored, I want more fun, I wanna do more things, wanna try more things, participate in my life more. Then that might just look like, well, what's one small thing you can do in the next couple days that might even be going online? And, looking up, researching where you might wanna take a sketching class, for example, that might give somebody the feeling and then maybe they register for the class that's gonna start in a month.

And that gives them a little bit of a boost. Like, yeah, I've got a plan, like I'm gonna do something fun on the horizon. And then you feel better about yourself and you're more inclined to say yes if someone asks you out for a happy hour, because you're already now in your mind, you're associating yourself with somebody who lives a little rather than not a lot at all.

And so I do think that identifying the small things you want to do, whether it's widening or deepening, or both, and starting small, is one of the most practical ways to live a life worth living.

I really like the terminology around that. It's definitely very accurate,being proactive is super important on versus reacting and letting your life live.

You, which you alluded to and

we've mentioned, like habits can be really bad, but if you have the habit of spontaneity, like, I had a guest who was like a relationship expert who said that date night is super important, like once a week to stop your relationship, feeling like a dead zone.

But every single

week you should do something completely different. Like never go to the same restaurant, never do the same thing,

maybe once a month, one person like schedules it as a surprise and doesn't tell the person what they're even doing. it's not that hard to

put an extra 10 minutes into

thinking about what to do and make it like fascinating and constantly build new experiences together.

And just having

the habit for spontaneity. Amongst the

habits that like keep your life going is

just essential

prioritizing the way you spend your time is, just like a small little thing that makes such a big difference

you've spoken about waking people up to kind of living their lives and

we do have so many reasons to be way more grateful and way more happy compared to anyone else in human history in terms of all the things we have.

And yet we are

like fundamentally more anxious and more depressed and more worried.

Overcoming Habits and Autopilot Living

Like at

least one reason I feel is just the amount of attention grabbing that makes it hard to actually prioritize what you should be doing with your time because of,

it's so easy to go straight to your phone and go onto Instagram or whatever and lose that half an hour

that whenever your brain is a bit bored

and doesn't know what to do, it doesn't think, to try and do something

really big and difficult or interesting.

It goes.

Oh, I can just fill this like weird board time that I haven't worked out what to do with my brain with, and I dunno

if you've looked into that area that much with people or

help them with those kind of

addictions.

Oh, absolutely. When what you're talking about, is on the small scale, minute to minute thing that we choose to do, because it's mindless and because to be honest, we don't

have a better option. We don't have a plan in

place, a conscious plan to say, how can I enjoy my life today?

And again, not only is it the autopilot we've let ourselves slip into, but in the absence of an actual agenda, like today at lunch, I'm gonna make it a little bit special. I'm gonna not check my phone. I'm gonna go sit outside. I'm gonna have a sandwich and I'm gonna sit outside and look at the trees and the clouds and the birds and take a deep breath and maybe shut my eyes for a minute and maybe I will listen to music.

but having an experience in your life that's just, it's simple and it's free. And most cases, I mean, the sandwich might cost you a buck, but you're gonna eat anyways. So being very conscious about planning a life that might bring you a little bit more joy rather than going through the motions that don't give us much of a return.

And I think your example, what you've said about these things that we do that are the path of least resistance,

that feel sometimes there's an addiction. Like there's that dopamine squirt that does come when we check our phone. and so we're getting little tiny bits of satisfaction in life that are not. Substantive, right? It's a very hollow,

feeling of

elation that is very fleeting. but what, that is actually a very small and fabulous example of what goes on in a bigger scale in our lives in general, which is the thing that I am most rabid about, which is we are doing that on the grand scale of life, right?

We are letting the months and the years go by doing stuff that seems to be valuable and productive. Okay, I'm doing the thing that lets me pay my rent or my mortgage. I still have this group of friends, or I'm still in this relationship, but when you look at it in the bigger grand scheme of things, are you doing the things that really let you

up? Are you going along with it? are you kind of letting life carry you down the lazy river like this current versus stopping and saying, is my life happening to me? and this is the whole point of what I love to talk about is that it's only when we stop and realize that life is finite, that

we can really appreciate the limited time we have and we're living like we're gonna live forever.

That's exactly, I think our issue

is we're living now as though I'm gonna do that thing later. I'm gonna go to Prague later, I'm going to take that course, I'll do that when I retire. Or all the things that we are delay, we're pushing it away for a future that we may never see because not only might we die, that's, that would suck, but

it's possible. But we might get to retirement and we actually don't have the energy or our fibromyalgia flares up and we can't do the things we wanna do, or life changes. And I'm not even that worried about the deferral because later we might not be able to. I am so defensive about the life we're living now.

Like all we have is now. And so why not? Make the choice to say, I wanna participate and do the things now because my life is so worthwhile that I wanna enjoy it today. Not just defer it till tomorrow. What about today? so yeah. the grander scheme of life is that we're just online and letting, all of a sudden 20, 30, 40 minutes pass us by.

and that's the same thing we do day to day. So let's just get more deliberate and more conscious. How do you wanna fill the time? So you feel like when you get to the end, I killed it,

I showed up and it was worth it.

Which is kind of the goal and, well, in some ways it's very much the point of this podcast and just examining how to match your own human potential. 'cause I feel like so many people never even get close to

what their potential

is,

The Power of Positivity and Potential

but I've always found myself unable to stop myself from seeing potential in other people and like reminding them of it and being like, bro, you're so good

at this. Why aren't you doing more of this? This makes you so much happy. Do that. And like,

I can't not be the

annoying positive person that's like, come on, you've got this. And I kind of sense that vibe from you as well.

Which does make

me think perhaps we could segue into like positive psychology.

'cause I, never really thought of positivity as like a strength that much

But then I've

really recognized that it's actually very useful for

people. I. Having

gone deeper into the whole area of psychology and just actually

matching your potential and doing things with your life, it's actually a lot easier if you are positive.

I think that there is confusion out there. with positive psychology, the scientific study of what makes life worth living

said differently, you know, the conditions that allow us to thrive, whether it's for individuals or teams or groups or communities. So, okay, let's look at the science of thriving.

The science of it comes down to what you just said, like helping people use their strengths and doing more of the things that they're good at. and being positive is actually not even a requirement, like I think some people feel 'cause we're, we have genetic tendencies of whether we're born optimistic or pessimistic.

Right. And, fortunately I'll say I was born a natural optimist, but. I know people who are, okay, so Martin Seligman started positive psychology. He's a

psychologist, about 20 years ago or so, and 25 years ago, and he admits that he's, anxious and, struggles with being optimistic. And so you can still, as you full well know from so many of your guests, I

mean, you can still reach your potential blast past what you ever thought your potential was.

You can still achieve and live a life that is, meets the high notes of wellbeing without necessarily succumbing to and being this like a positive ray of sunshine.

Like that's just, it's not required. It's lovely. it can be lovely. Like you said. It can also be annoying, but it's also, it's an extra sprinkling in the cookie batter.

you could still, reach, your potential and experience what I call astonishingly alive lives. In the absence of being perhaps an optimist, and that is again about being conscious about living wider and deeper.

I think it's actually quite interesting the way you described that. It's given me an idea of around like certainly for things like A DHD and just a lot of things in life, the people with ex who are extroverts get noticed and the people who aren't don't.

As in

like, no one

guessed that I had a DHD until like I'd spent the last sort of 12 years running around the planet doing stupid stuff, running five different businesses at once and ultra marathons.

Even though, like if you spoke to me, I'm pretty quiet, I'm respectful. Like no one thought I had A-A-D-H-D at school at all. Like I turned up, I did. My classes

Yeah.

and I think it's the same with positivity. Like I would say I'm a positive person, but I'm not the person that's sort of like.

Cheerleading, like go, go, go. I'm sort of, by the way, you're actually really good at this. Or if I got rejected from

an interview, I'd be like, oh, well there are more jobs out there. I wouldn't have it as a problem in my life. Or if like someone was addicting me on a train, I'd be like, wow, that person's weird.

As opposed to being like, all people are dicks. I hate life. Or Someone's nice to me on a train. I'm like, wow,

all people are really nice. if it's a positive thing, I kind of generalize it. I'm like, yeah, everything's great. If it's a negative thing, it would be specific in like a

sad moment, but not a problem.

Whereas you're more expecting everything to be negative if you seek one negative thing,

I love this stuff. 'cause when it comes to, optimism, it can be a trait in state. So there

can be your, your explanatory style is one definition of it, which is exactly how you just said, like when something bad happens to you, you don't internalize it, make it personal, make it seem like it's like this pervasive, permanent thing in your life.

You're like. Yeah, no, this is the thing that happened and I'm gonna move on.

nor is it something that defines you. The part you started to talk about, I think is fascinating because it doesn't, the way we, project our outlook on the world or our hopes or whatnot, with introversion and extroversion is irrelevant because there may be a, classic profile of someone being positive who is extroverted.

But I think that this comes back to where I love to temper a lot of the research I do and what I recommend for example, my encouragement for us to live astonishingly alive lives. I chose the word astonishing. And that sounds like it's a pretty fricking big thing.

Right? And I think people

think well, wait a minute, I am more of an introvert.

I like the quieter life. I don't wanna do something that's showy and oh my goodness, I say. It does not need to be showy. It does not need to look good on Instagram. It does not need to be for anyone. Your version of a life that is wide with vitality is like your version of fun can be very different than my version of fun.

Same thing about your version of a deep life with meaning. And so it is very much relative to what lights you

up. So your version of a really great weekend could just be super quiet and lovely and restorative and reading and cozy and oh my God, I want that. And someone else's might be like, that's so boring.

I need to be swinging from a rope somewhere. And that's fine. You do you and you do you. But as long as you're doing you, I think that's the

point. As long as you're doing the thing that you know, lights you up, then we're good. But it doesn't need to be an outward projection for other people, in fact. Oh, that would just be exhausting.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's definitely the highlights, the. Age old wisdom of like, it's not about the answers, it's about the questions of what are the questions you need to ask yourself, not just looking for answers from someone.

which is cool.

The Astonishingly Alive Model

how did you come up with the Astonishingly alive model out, out of interest?

Oh, it was in grad school. So it was while I was doing my thesis and I was looking at the interplay of my connection to, , living the good life, And in the wellbeing science, there were two dimensions of wellbeing, hedonic, which I alluded to, which is the vitality spectrum.

And then there's EU demonic, which is more of that, the deeper section.

And so I believe that though, that interplay to me then became really clear that most of the clients I've worked with over the years, and just myself being a human, it's

like there are times where we might index towards wanting more substance and something that feels meaningful, like a connection. Or helping someone, volunteering, doing something that feels good to do good, I should

say. It does feel good to do good.

There's a return there.

there are times where you're like, I just wanna have fun. You know, I've been working really hard and I now really feel like, can I get out there?

and so that interplay to me was what was fascinating around the two different dimensions. And then it came together to make a really convenient model, especially from my research around this notion of where we find ourselves. And unfortunately my research is, kind of depressing, but it shows opportunity because there are more people out there who identify in the dead zone,

which is when we're anywhere negative on vitality and anywhere negative on meaning.

More people are

there than they are in that astonishingly alive zone, which is. Positive on vitality and positive on meaning. So admittedly, most people find themselves in the camp of

meaningfully bored or vitally empty or in the mid

zone, but more people are dead than alive is

essentially the way that, I'm gonna just baseline that.

Which is sad

cause it definitely doesn't need to be that way. You'd think, and it's interesting that as in 60% of people have a fixed mindset, although obviously 95% of people think they have a growth mindset. I was just wondering how much of a crossover there is than if you've ever

done a further test on like whether they

have a growth mindset or not.

So that'd

oh, oh, that's such a great question. I think because such a hallmark of a fixed mindset is a fear of uncertainty.

and I think that there's a fear that if I was to overlay that onto this like astonishingly alive idea, I think. Well, I mean, doesn't it all come back to fear, right? Like, I think there

is a fear of

engaging in life sometimes.

I don't, this is sort of the next frontier of the research I do around what's really going on behind the scenes when we defer our plans. Okay, so let's just say we make this decision. Oh wow. I'd love to travel to Japan. Yeah, I'm gonna do it someday. Okay, so someday, well, that's basically like good luck with your life.

Like you're gonna die before you go to Japan. I'm sorry, I'm just being relieved. Snarky.

But then it's like, oh, no,

no, no, I'm gonna do it later. I'm gonna do it

later. I have to keep like kicking it down the curb. Keep going, keep delaying it. Well, I'm suspicious 'cause I think, yeah, you know, we are busy,

but busy is also a super easy, convenient

Excuse And I recognize also it takes a little bit of cash to go to Japan or to do any, insert any dream that we have, right? Like

starting a business or going and dating again and like putting yourself out there on a dating app or like, whatever the thing is that could represent real fabulous life. But also that's a little bit scary.

So I think that there's way more to it than just, I'm busy, I'll do it later.there's a hurdle, it's a fixed mindset in my opinion that relates to if I get out there and like start dating again, or if I do try and go and apply for that job, that would be so fabulous, but I could also get rejected

and will I need to go home and lick my

wounds? Yeah. I think we're, I think we're choosing quite, it's not quite conscious, but it's still, it's just

below the surface. I think we're

not

Yeah. Yeah. So those things a hundred percent, and I think it's part of lack of awareness of your own ego that's self-protecting you and I,

Creating Conscious Routines and Rituals

I did talk about sometimes the concept of what you want to do versus what you want to have done.

hmm.

there's a lot of things that you want to have

done, but you wanna skip like the hard part or the failure to get there or like you wanna find the perfect partner.

But actually that might involve like a hundred dates if you actually gonna look at statistics of it and that you don't want to go through like 99 dates at a crap before you find the actual person. And you just wanna have like two different dates to be like, right, done. That took a few weeks, everything's now fine.

And yeah, there's a lack of commitment to actually doing the difficult part,

which it's sad, but. often even not as difficult as in

suddenly like, I'll put off my accounts for like weeks on end and like, oh, this is a

terrible scary thing for me to do and it'll take me like two hours and I'll just wasted like days of my life avoiding it.

And you're like, the hard thing often isn't even that hard,

Oh

even more surprising.

a

lot of it's just

starting,

well said. Which to me, again, if we make this macro, 'cause it is like that little procrastination of something that feels annoying or maybe it's a bit scary or whatever the reasons we are, 'cause why we procrastinate. it's just we can scale it up. We're afraid to embark on life. Ben Franklin had that great quote. Many people die at 25 and aren't buried until they're 75. you can interpret that a bunch of ways, right? So that's definitely about our choice to participate and engage and choose the things that might light us up and let us live and feel like we nailed it by the time we get to the end. but again, I think we're dying at 25 'cause it is a little bit about. Overcoming that fear.

It's so much easier and safe. It's safer to have a fixed mindset.

And yet, I've always loved that expression, you must love this too. You know, the difference between playing to win versus playing not to

lose.

And like I've spent so many years of my life, I still do this playing not to lose. I like safety.

I'm very comfortable in a safe environment and I

don't wanna necessarily put myself out there. And so I feel scared. So I will choose the play not to lose route until I really stop for a while and then I have to bust myself and I say, Aw honey bunny.

this isn't the way you wanna

live. and the thing that snaps me out of it, to be super honest, back to everything Memento Maori with me is I have 1,841 Mondays left in my life. Like I cannot be playing around,

playing not to lose, come on,

snap to it, and then I slap myself in the

face and I get out there.

Yeah, I really do really like that concept, which we haven't spoken about that much is I think any tools that help you nudge you to remind you of those things is like so essential. And as you're talking there, it's something I've never maybe thought of in this way, but you like

loads of people get advice to sort of meditate or journal or like actually just running, going running, or just having a few hours exercise to myself is just one of like the best life hacks for just reflecting in like.

Those nudges that I need to, stuff that I'm like

putting off for a few days. So I'm like knowing that this would be like a harder decision that actually would be so much more useful for my life compared to avoiding the difficult thing. 'cause I find something perhaps worth I going into is like there's actually fears that we haven't even recognized the fears.

Like for example, I had a friend that was doing standup comedy. It didn't even enter my brain that I should be scared of doing standup comedy because it was so far from what I would even consider my potential. It was like not even vaguely near my comfort zone. It was just like I would die before doing standup comedy.

So it was more of just a spectator being like, oh wow, that's nice. You do standup comedy. And then like, I started running the podcast. I ended up doing a TEDx, but because I was coming up to the TEDx, I ended up doing, Toastmasters. I did the comedy track and I ended up doing standup comedy as well.

It was like, okay, I'm just gonna throw everything at this. And it was so much fun

and it was scary. But like from a few years before when it like, didn't even enter my brain to even imagine that I could do it, and I was so proud of

myself for like actually realizing that there was this thing that I could even do, which I probably wouldn't have noticed if I didn't have a friend in like a mentor club that I was in that was doing it.

And

I just wonder how many fears people have in their life that are just a spectator on, 'cause like, I have an auntie that like will forever tell me about all these things that she could never do herself. And I'm like, you can, you could do any of these things. But she's just so safe she just loves putting everything at a massive arms distance.

probably loads of people that are just spectators on things that they haven't even realized is even a fear.

oh, I think you're right. And I think there needs to be like a summer camp for adults to go

to, which is like f fear and with all sorts of experiential things where like a lot of it's physical. Like I have major fears around athletics. 'cause I grew up self-conscious about not being athletic.

And then of course, well if you never try out for volleyball, you're never gonna play volleyball. And then you're never gonna, you're always gonna be afraid of volleyball. Right. but there needs to be sort of an experiential, like, see, you can experience it and maybe if I went on a volleyball court and I didn't break my face and other people's bodies,

it'd be like, this is fun.

And again, not caring what people think about you, at least not as much. I love your point there, there's a whole freaking world out there of stuff and it's funny to me, I always consider what is it about fate? Is it fate? Is it just, what is it? Like people talk about how different people come into their lives, whether it's a partner or a friend or someone.

and is there any coincidence? I look at it the same way with opportunities in life and hobbies and interests and things that might create a spark of passion. is it a fluke that you know, someone, exposes you to standup comedy and you'd be like, I never knew.

I had no idea this could be something really cool for me

or. Rock climbing so I, talked to someone this morning who's getting into glass blowing,

like, how is it that these little tiny little things get into our lives? and it mind blows me because there's just so much out there that, I want us to do the sampler plotter,

we can't possibly give it all a go, but almost like a little elective sort of thing like

we did in school where you just get to pick and plot and

try it out.

And if you don't like it, leave it, that's fine. But try it, give it a go and see if it sparks you. And if it doesn't spark, I'm a big fan of abandoning something swiftly if it's not doing it for you. Now, by the way, I'd love your opinion on this because as a growth mindset guy, I'm not suggesting like, when it starts to get a little bit hard and it feels a little, you're nervous because maybe you are at risk of looking like a fricking idiot.

I'm talking about like when I'm starting a book and I'm at page seven and I'm not feeling it. Science. See you later. I do not wanna waste my life trying to like a book,

but what's your thought on applying yourself to growth? What do you think?

one of those really hard questions that's

It really does depend

because you shouldn't give up just 'cause something is hard. Of course, like

there's plenty of things in life and hard. If anything, that's usually a sign to put more effort in because it's the hard things that are worth

doing.

Like nothing worth doing is easy.

especially when you make a New Year's resolution and you're like, oh, this is hard thing I've never done. I really wanna do this hard thing. And then like two weeks into it, it starts getting hard. Like that's a sign you're actually

doing the hard thing. So carry on. 'cause you're doing the

hard thing finally. Like, don't give up

'cause you wanted to do the hard thing.

so yes, do hard things when it's hard. that's a good sign.

Equally,

why is it hard? If it's hard because actually it doesn't resonate with you at all and there's like 20 book ideas that you have.

It could be right to move on to the next one. no

book idea is gonna be that easy to write. I doubt

dunno if you heard of Jannis. Raki, he wrote a really good book in like eight days. But I think

it's the same as like. Musicians, like some of the best songs were written in like half an hour, but there were people that spent like 10

years learning to write songs and had written like hundreds of songs before they ever wrote a song like

that. So I wouldn't,

give up on a book seven Days into It, just because if you've got like, okay. Lots of other ideas, but

if you've started it and realized that actually it only needs to be a blog post or something like

then yes. Give up on it. maybe I'm going a bit too far into the books explanation,

I

love it. It sounds like an honest interrogation

of yourself and saying, really what's behind this?

I, I started taking, bridge lessons with a

friend to learn how to play bridge. I have no interest in bridge, but she was like, do you wanna do it? And I said, yes.

It sounds just ridiculous enough to do and have fun.

I go,

I hated it. Like I was in over my head. and I thought

would I feel good about myself if I stuck to it? Maybe at the end I'd feel like, wow, I really learned a hard thing, but do I need to torture myself in the meantime? No.

So my interrogation was, am I giving up because I'm just afraid of, admittedly, I mean, I would've looked like an idiot, but I could have handled it. But it was about, no, this will not bring me joy,

taking this for 12 weeks. Would actually decrease my quality of life. And so that was a good litmus test, interrogating

what's behind my no.

And like I was saying, with

the want to do versus want to have done, it can sometimes take some time to realize that you don't want to have done 12 weeks worth of bridge. Like when you first signed up, you might

have had the intention of wanting to do it, but like you quickly realized that it wasn't for you.

Like I've always been in choirs when I've been in different cities. I turned up to this choir and I got to Amsterdam and it was just so boring. so I quit after two weeks and wasn't in a choir in

Amsterdam.

it's okay if something's boring or like isn't for you.

You have to at least try

but I, I totally agree with just doing lots of different things with your life though.

maybe it's also because I'm curious about, I've done way more three month bootcamps of cool stuff than I, that I'm probably never actually gonna do long

term. And like I have a Sailing Captain Sea Master's license. I've never used, like I'm a qualified Himalayan Mountain guide now, and like I might go back and use it.

That would be nice, but if I don't, it

doesn't matter.

Well, I think back from what we're, we're aligning back to again, your value of adventure and curiosity, both of those values. And I think right now about how there are some people that, like I think about why a lovely dear dad, he's, 87 years old and nor would he be, sailing or mountaineering, but he has a very sort of sweet and simple, way of living where, and even when he was more able bodied, he was not interested in getting up and out and doing stuff.

And so for him, his joy is watching baseball on tv

and I look at that and I go, okay, right. I wanna remember that participating in life back to it being relative for different people. I

just want us to pay attention to that little signal inside. I do believe that there's that niggling sense that we get when we know. I think there might be more,

and again, your version of more is up for absolute interpretation for you, but that

sense that, could I be getting out more or could I be like, for me, it's usually about being social. I'm an introvert and I'd rather be home. I'm a homebody and so I'd rather be home. But I also know that that is not a recipe for like a full well-rounded life.

And I always end up liking it when I come home from being out,

like I have a

lunch out today with a friend and would it be easier for me to stay curled up with my cat? Yes. And I know going out will be lovely and I'll come home and I'll feel like, oh, I did a thing and that's better for me to do in the right dose. And so that's the question is when you get that niggling about the desire,

Honoring Life's Fragility and Impermanence

I think that like life just wants to be lived. It's like a green shoot. In spring coming outta the soil like, just let me live. I don't care if I'm in a parking lot. The life says like, let me just prosper and somehow flourish and let me just somehow not get run over by a car today. And I think that's in us too. if we pay attention to those signals for you, your signals are probably a little more cool sounding on the outside with adventure

and with doing neat things than for someone else. I mean, again, whatever it is for you that whatever that whisper is, that might actually end up being a little bit of a dull roar.

We just have to listen to

it and honor it and not punt it

Yeah,

retirement.

a hundred percent. even for me it's so easy to slip into not doing exciting things even just the going out as in like, yeah, last week both me and my girlfriend didn't really want to go out to photo club. I just, I think my mom did whilst we were like visiting her.

'cause I dunno, we're just tired. Can we asked? But then we did and it was so much fun and it's just so hard to make you do these

little things sometimes. But I definitely

have tried to build a muscle of like, when life gives you two options, what is the one that's gonna give you like a memory or like a story it's so worth it in the long run.

when you think about your life was a book that you are writing every day to someone else to read,

are you gonna be this super boring person or you actually gonna have done some stuff like worth them actually reading the book about And like, you're always gonna want to choose the one that's like, okay, yeah I did hop on that random wagon full of people going somewhere weird into the deserts or whatever.

I just feel like memories are super important and like that's kind of all you have when you die. And on your concept of

regret. And so I've

always thought that. But then one thing, like I worked on oil rigs for a bit

like redesigning systems, which was really interesting.

But it's basically like a prison where you just have the same day every day in day out. Like, and just meeting all the people that worked on

them was crazy cause they

just for like slightly bigger wage, just lost like

half their life because if they just did the exact same jobs in like this prison for money and I'm like, oh my god, that's awful.

as far as the experiential side of it, it's just like the same day, day, day after day. And I'm like, oh my God.

it really forced the importance of what a memory is in your head and just realizing

how days blur into one 'cause if it's easier to not

notice it quite so much when you're at home and you have like a bit more stimulation, like yeah, you do go see some people on the weekend maybe, and you do go into the office like there's.

Some difference, but

actually like after three months, it's still mostly forgotten. It's mostly blurred. You can't

remember the thing that you watched on

TV or like the podcast you listened to

yesterday. Whereas, yeah, if you go to a completely different place for dinner, you do speak to random people on the train or whatever and force yourself to like do weird stuff or like couch surfing.

Like have some

people go stay at your house who you've never met, things like that. Like

it'll add

weird stuff

yeah.

weird is great.

Shaking Up the Snow Globe of Everyday Life

right. this is back to that like I call, like shaking up the snow globe of life. Like when

you've got the back to the routine, there's something that is really magical about even for those people who are not as adventurous, but it's that okay if you normally take the same route home every day if you're on the same route, what about shaking it up and like going a different route and all of a sudden you are exposed to new storefronts or new people or new sidewalks And, it's fascinating in psychology there's this self-determination theory.

it's a theory of motivation. What kind of, what causes us to plug into life? And One of the aspects of the researchers were very clear. Novelty is so crucial to our experience of feeling self-determined and feeling engaged and motivated in life. That because

we need the newness

have you heard like the difference between neo iliacs and neo phobics, you are clearly a neo ciliac. you want new,

cool, interesting things. And it sounds maybe the weirder the better. 'cause it will

make a memory, oh my gosh,

your memories are gonna be so cool. and some people are like, oh, no, no, no.

Like my dad, for example, will be like, if it's not cheddar, he doesn't wanna try any other

cheese on the planet. You know what I'm

saying? like, I want what I like and da da. So, within reason, again, shake up the routine, shake up that snow globe, try a different workout. Back to your point about like date night, you can still have the ritual of a date night, but. What are you gonna do that's different? And even back to your point about spontaneity and all these things are interesting to me because while they are not necessarily difficult to do, and while they don't necessarily require a lot of resources like money, it just takes, it takes a beat. it takes a minute to stop.

You're busy life, especially so busy that, you know, you're on your phone and say, how do I wanna make date night special Thursday or next week? what do I have in my calendar that I have to look forward to? What could be something that's interesting and a little bit different? maybe I do something different on Saturday.

maybe I go to that museum. I keep saying I'm gonna go

to, but I never do. You know what? You're dying. You have to go. Time is ticking. we don't have time to wait.

a hundred percent.

And yeah, it's crazy how much potential there is in your brain to come up with ideas if you just sit in a room without any technology and just like a pen and paper of stuff that will come out of you if you just allow yourself to be

bored and not let yourself jump into something else that just like

Oh, such a good point. And you know what? I would never choose technology over a nice analog moment, but I would say that there can be benefit in doses. Of course. Like I'm in a relatively new town. We moved here about two years ago in California and I don't know much about what's going on. So I will look online about the little things, what's what to do in town over the next week.

And I'll look and I'll click on something and I'll be like, well that's kind of randomly weird. There's a talk by some mountain climber, like

let's go see him talk 'cause it's fun or interesting and normally, and so saying yes to something, I like the way you worded it. Sometimes life gives you a choice, like one of two options. I also think that there are these sort of. Passive moments that I

could never look online and see what's going on in town. Or I could say, here's this thing if it twinkles, and it makes me go, Ooh, that's interesting. Just book it,

just do it, rather than letting it pass you by.

those are sees the day or seizes the weak moments, I think that are back to your low hanging fruit,

it's definitely those moments where you're like, oh, I'll be able to think about it better tomorrow or something, and you just never get back to it if like, we just, just do it. It's like this

really good thing. the other thing there is like, actually now it's, we're talking about that is the amount of times you don't realize there's the opportunity to do something different, as in like, it's kind of obvious to reflect or something when life does give you like an ab situation of like one is much cooler

and like slowly you start to notice them, but then there's

the regular weeks just passing by where you just don't notice how many moments there are to just have a jazzy breakfast or do something kind of funky

Yes. Well, I

think about people

that have, you wouldn't, and this is back to us, how we are just wired to take our lives for granted.

We take our time in our lives, and so there are people, I understand, parents might have a summer vacation with their kids and you just go through the motions and then all of a sudden it is now the end of the summer and we took it for granted, and now it's all of a sudden in the last weekend, you gotta cram in something fun versus what if we did stop, sit back for a second. I prefer to do it over a drink, but you drink whatever you prefer and be like, what do I wanna have? Ha Like, I'm a fan of actually what I call them, these little bite-sized bucket, not the big

life bucket list. That's good too. But

I look at it like, if there's a discreet amount of time, say I'm doing a vacation which is only like a week or two. I will make a list and I do this with the husband where we're like, the list of all things amazing summer. And believe me, these things are not always fancy. Right. It could just be

something like, we're gonna go for a Popsicle at the corner store and we're gonna sit on the curb and eat a popsicle like you do when you're seven years old.

or bike to that park and do whatever. Like they can be simple things. Often those are the things that we treasure more

that are, just those sweet little moments in life, right? But planning for them, being conscious of it and building it in and making it happen, because otherwise summer's gonna pass you by, and just like life.

So you might as well just be a little more thoughtful about what you wanna build in. I think that really is the moral of our story.

I feel like, you know, like the phrase, a fish doesn't know it's in water and you just don't

see like the culture of your life and how you live it. And

suddenly, whenever I come in in an airplane and like you take off, you just recognize that like humanity basically lives in like this kind of completely 2D film just on the Earth's crust.

And you're

like, there's so many like more dimensions that like. I spent my whole life on the floor. Not even noticing, but it's the same in time. Like you're just going through time doing your thing, not realizing like, like every single moment you could technically do something completely crazy. Like within five minutes I could be in jail if I really tried.

Like I obviously don't wanna go to jail, but you know what I mean? Like

Yes.

there's nothing stopping me from

going absolutely bonkers. But I could do that in a very

different way. Like surprise my girlfriend with a crazy card that just makes her, tells her I love her. Or like make a cake or

yes. Oh, oh, oh. This

is so cool. You're so right. Like we are always on the precipice of something that we could

design and do. sometimes we just gotta sit back and like,

there's a lot going on.

But you're right, we could take a minute.

I.

we're always on the cusp of moments that we could choose to either delight ourselves or, or again, we could miss it. even if we just took the bait,

like one more time a week

doing that, that to me is the difference I think between a life where someone feels like, wow, I'm giving myself an a plus for showing up and actually like participating in my life rather than that sense that we've squandered it and we know what that feels like and it sure doesn't feel great.

Overcoming the Illusion of Personal SpecialnessConsistent Reminders and Psychological TricksAbandoning What No Longer Serves You

okay. I have two final questions that I like asking people.

Earliest Memory

One is, is one of your earliest memories?

I was four, maybe three

early and in the crib and standing up and, looking around my room at night and looking at how my mother had decorated and her coming in. So I very vividly remember lots of crib memories.

Interesting.

Very

You have a very nice decor where you're at. I have noticed.

I also was wondering that, is that like a big poster of lots of different photographs arranged in a nice way? Or is it like a tile thing of

Okay. So my, yeah. One of my favorite artists is David Schley.

And I went online and, and, uh, got little images of 685 of his little paintings, and I cut them out, printed them out, cut them out, and glued

them on. So it's a collage of

my, some of my favorite. Now, you know, it's, it's not copy written, so it's

not for sale, it's just me doing it at home.

But I love his stuff. And so when I stand there and I could, any given moment, could look at one of the little paintings and he does little sarcastic quips and I just love it. So it

brings me joy to watch to look at.

Cool.

Yep.

That's excellent. Nice. Glad I asked.

Kindest Thing

the other question is, what is one of the kindest things someone has done for you?

I feel like it's very kind that I reached out to several people to do blurbs from my book coming out.

many people, don't have a system set up and they didn't respond to any emails or any requests.

And I get it, people are busy,

but many people, regardless of whether they took the time or not, some people were very kind to, get back to me. And it wasn't that I would say that the kindest people were the ones that gave the, blurb. Although I will give a special shout out to Adam Grant for being extra kind to make time in a short timeline,

to take a look at the

book and give

a endorsement. Isn't

he?

emails.

Yes, he's lovely.

And that to me, he was the first

example that kind of came to

me before my parents,

Also, he is organized. Like I feel like I'm kind, but I'm just not that organized. So I don't know.

Yeah. He's got like a system. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like somebody that is super busy and still makes time for people to make them feel like they matter, that to me is kind.

Cool.

Send Off

All right, well thank you so much for coming on the

show. you for It was great. It's been such a pleasure to chat with you. You're amazing. You're

inspiring.

Oh, thank you very much. You too.

Boy. Oh boy. Was Jodi a bundle of positive energy. If you want to hear more from her, she has a book you Only Die once, and her website, 4,000 Mondays is full of good advice. I'll put links in description to find her social media or other contact details.

And then if you know a lot of people in your life who are already the living dead, do, please send them this episode to let them know how dead you think they are. Because after all, that is how the podcast grows and how you subtly show people that you think they're useless.

Any feedback for me, do please stick it in the comments or shoot me an email at Growth Mindset podcast@gmail.com. And if you're feeling very kind, a positive review on your app of choice does go a long way.

Now finally, if you happen to have your ears switched off all episode, you might be very surprised to hear that life is kind of short and you need to make the most of it in the present day and not wait to do those things you truly want to do.

Thank you so much for listening. Go you. Your consistency to reach the end of an episode is legendary, my hero. If you have any ideas or feedback for the show, I'm always interested to hear from you. You're the best studies show. We need time for information to sink in, so I'm going to give you a five second pause, silence to reflect on one idea from the show before you jump back into your busy life.

Ready and go.