0:00

This is episode number 1,100.

0:01

And to with New York times bestselling author, Greg

0:05

McKeown EP welcome to The School of Greatness.

0:10

My name is Lewis. Howes is a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.

0:14

And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you to discover how to unlock your inner greatness.

0:22

Thanks for spending some time with me today.

0:24

Now let the class begin.

0:25

John

0:25

CarMax

0:25

said

0:25

focus

0:32

A matter of deciding what things you're not going to do.

0:35

And Leo Tolstoy said there is no Greatness weather.

0:39

There is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

0:42

My guest today is Greg McKeown EP, and Greg is a speaker, a New York times bestselling author and host of the podcast.

0:48

What's Essential. His work has been covered by the New York Times Fortune and Inc.

0:54

And he was previously wrote the New York times bestselling book essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less, which has sold more than a million copies worldwide.

1:02

He's now written a new book called Effortless, Make It Easier To Do What Matters Most.

1:07

And in this episode, we discuss the symbol and surprising keys for a productive life.

1:12

The five questions to ask yourself before starting a new project, how to stop beating ourselves up for relaxing more often in our lives.

1:21

And the two questions that changed the course of Greg's life.

1:25

If you're inspired by this, if this helps you become more Effortless in your goal setting and accomplishing your goals and in your life overall, then make sure to share this with a friend posted on social media, to text a friend, you can use the link Lewis Howes dot com slash one one zero two, or you can just copy and paste this link wherever you are listening to it.

1:43

And if this is your first time here at The School of Greatness and welcome, we have some of the most incredible minds in the world here to share with you how to unlock your inner greatness.

1:51

So click that subscribe button right now on Apple podcast, leave a rating and review of the part you enjoyed most about this episode as well.

1:58

Okay. And just a moment, the one and only Greg McKeown, Nothing

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4:43

Welcome back, everyone at school of green is podcast. Very excited about our guests.

4:46

Greg McKeown EP is in the house.

4:48

My man. Good to see you. Good to see you too.

4:50

You have a, an amazing book out right now called Effortless and a great podcast that people should check out called what's Essential podcast.

4:59

They can get the book and subscribe to the podcast they're and you had a, your, your on the, the tail have a massive book launch previously that did incredibly well.

5:10

And the world is learned about a lot of people in my community are aware of.

5:15

And now you have this book about Effortless, and I'm curious, it seems like in a world of burnout, culture, hustle, and grind culture, that there isn't a lot of Effortless newness happening in the world.

5:31

It's more work as hard as you can grind it out and hustle because hard work is the key to success.

5:38

You hear a lot of great athletes say, how did you get here?

5:41

They had to work hard.

5:43

They had to put an hours and hours every day in order to master their skill, to be the best of what they were had too.

5:49

So is there a way to create effortlessness when you also need to work hard and be diligent and your practice and all these things, or do we not have to work Howard?

6:02

And it can be Effortless in accomplishing what we want to do?

6:06

Yeah, well look, I mean, to, to me, Essential is about, was about rethinking prioritization.

6:14

What really matters and figuring out what is a central Effortless is a cousin to that.

6:21

And that's about rethinking simplification, which is that sometimes we just Make getting great results breaking through to the next level harder than it needs to be.

6:33

Yeah. So it's not saying, Hey, you should never work and you should never work hard.

6:38

And you should never put an effort. I believe that you are supposed to put an effort.

6:41

The point is, if you can't work any harder, you got to find an easier path.

6:45

And yet in a grind culture, sometimes people start to get burned out and the answer is push even harder rather than you think different think smarter, finding an alternative route, right.

6:56

And taking a pause, re reflect, have a better strategy.

6:59

It's more just go hard, hard, hard, more spend, more time, more hours in the thing as opposed to reevaluate simplification.

7:06

So how can we do it a bit more effortlessly in a simplified version?

7:12

Not just a hard push push up Of

7:14

course. And one of the things that we can do is, is just, well, the, the, the, the, the book's direct to the model is to have a Effortless state, like three concentric circles, Effortless state EFFORTLESS action than Effortless results, right?

7:27

And that's a sort of like three books in one.

7:29

Each of them can make your life a, and the results you get easier to get.

7:35

You want to first remove all the complexity in your mind, in your heart.

7:41

That makes life more frustrating than it ought to be.

7:44

I was just talking with Tim Ferriss and I asked him a question about this.

7:47

I said, look, how much of your mental and emotional energy have you given on stuff that, you know, holding grudges, being angry, stuff that just got in the way of your success.

7:57

And he said, look from age 15 to 30, he said probably 60 to 70% of my energy was spent on that On

8:06

one of the men angry at What himself, other people in the world And

8:13

awful things that happened to him. And he was angry about from when he was young.

8:16

He's talked about this publicly now of abuse that he'd been through it and so on, but either way he's making his life is more burdened than it needs to be because he's spending so much of his cycles on this stuff that isn't actually propelling them forward or helping him achieve Stop

8:34

process is energy on those things, right.

8:37

Is putting a lot of the time, Right? Just that you, your, just your mindset, what you, what your processing, how you feeling is just burdened, burn energy, burning energy, instead of getting you going forward.

8:50

Yeah. And so simplifying your state, I think is a, is a huge return investment.

8:55

If you can let go of a grudge, if you can let go of something that you keep on, you know, draining you, then you have, there's just more of you are on offer and that's not through grinding effort.

9:10

That's through just removing burden is you don't have to be holding up the mountain at all.

9:15

Right. Number two area is EFFORTLESS action.

9:19

That's a Effortless state, the first, the first one EFFORTLESS state.

9:22

So you're simplifying all of your, your, basically all that clutter that's in your mind.

9:27

So it makes it easier to focus on what matters Before

9:30

we get to the second, the second ring, or how do people learned to let go of grudges?

9:35

How do they let go of resentment, anger, frustration about others, and about the things they've done.

9:41

And that's really hard to do you see my it's a simple, I just get a clear mind, but you know, people have been trying to figure that out for a long time.

9:51

So how do we, how did you learn how to do that?

9:55

Well, well, one of the things that I've learned is that specifically on grudges is that we need to learn, like we have to ask an unusual question about grudges.

10:04

And that is a, what did we hire the grudge to do that in Clayton Christianson says with any product or service that you have, you don't, YOU don't, you don't know, one wants a six, you know, a 60 inch drill bit.

10:21

What they want is a six inch hole.

10:22

You, you, you know, there's a reason that you're hiring that product or service where you can do the same with grudges.

10:28

Every grudge we hold, we hold for a reason, we've hired the grudge to do something for us.

10:35

Maybe we hire the grudge to make us feel powerful.

10:39

See, I am, I am one up I'm above that person, C, X, C, they did this bad thing.

10:44

I'm holding on to that. See, I'll show you that I'm a superior.

10:46

We hold onto it for a sense of superiority.

10:48

Or maybe we hold on it For, because we like that.

10:52

We get to tell a story, being a victim and people go, Oh yes, we get sympathy for doing it.

10:57

Well, we hire grudges to do certain jobs.

11:00

And what I think is that if we simply evaluate grudges, like we say, how are you doing in your job performance for me?

11:08

Are you actually protecting me?

11:11

Are you actually making me powerful?

11:13

Are you actually getting people to build a stronger relationship with me?

11:18

Or if you evaluate them in, in the book is a section specifically, one by one, you can do this.

11:23

Where you you say is you actually find, well, actually it's not making me powerful.

11:27

It makes me more vulnerable.

11:28

It makes me vulnerable with everyone because I'm carrying this wound still and not letting it heal a, is it, is it helping me to build relationships?

11:37

Know if you pay attention, you notice that when you tell these stories, you kind of have to find new people to tell them to cause people get bored a bit, right?

11:45

And so you're not building deeper trust relationships.

11:49

You are. You're actually kind of wearing them out along the way.

11:52

And you can go one by one to suddenly discover that this is like a bad employee.

11:58

We have a grudge is like, you you've hired them to do this.

12:02

They aren't doing any of those things. They're using YOU.

12:05

Grudges use you, they burn you up.

12:06

They waste you out. They make you weaker.

12:08

And so just through this process, you start to find like, I'm ready, ready to find my grudges, ready to be free of it so that I can actually recuperate whatever the percentage is, 60 to 70% with jet with him.

12:21

Maybe it's different for other people.

12:23

Can't all of that back.

12:25

And we can stop putting that into the stuff we really wanted to do in, in the first place.

12:30

Yeah. Can you imagine there's been different stages of my life, where I felt like 10 out of 10 of positivity, of freedom of my thoughts from holding grudges or resentments or angers.

12:42

And you feel like your flying.

12:44

And there've been many years of my life, many years, too many years where I've held onto resentment, anger, frustration, or a lack of forgiving other people, right?

12:53

Where you feel like your at a six or seven, maybe you get to an eight for a moment, but then something triggers you and you're back into anger, frustration mode.

13:02

And that really pulls me back into feeling tired, exhausted, drained, and burnt out.

13:09

Typically not from the effort I put into my craft, but in the effort I put into my mind thinking about the things I don't like.

13:17

Yeah. You've just, you basically made the case for why Effortless state is the first part.

13:23

The athlete was a model and that's it exactly right?

13:25

You use that language. You used, you feel like your flying.

13:28

Is that not just another metaphor for Effortless?

13:31

I mean, what would be more EFFORTLESS than I'm flying?

13:34

That's the idea.

13:35

That's why, even though you would never think of forgiveness as a productivity hack, like maybe no one's has a written that, you know, the Productivity has not true is to forgive people in your life.

13:46

And yet, what else can you call it?

13:48

If you could get back that much energy, that much of your own light and ability and capability its the best rebate available.

13:56

There's a story that I came across in the research that I love of a man who was productive in this community.

14:02

And then one day he saw what he thought it was a piece of string on the ground and it was a piece of string.

14:07

He kept saying, he was like, Oh I can put that to you. So it puts it in this pocket on that same day in the marketplace, someone else had lost a wallet and lost the money.

14:15

And they thought that they had seen him pick up the wallet and take it, accused him of it publicly.

14:22

There was no way for him to prove his innocence.

14:25

And so the word out this person has acted dishonestly, dishonorably.

14:31

And so on.

14:32

Now at this point in the story, he has a choice.

14:35

He can prove his innocence, but he could have in this moment, let go of the accusation of the harsh judgment.

14:43

And he would have suddenly had all that energy back to be able to get back onto what can I do something about how can I serve?

14:50

How can make a contribution?

14:51

How can I be successful again?

14:53

But he doesn't, he gets fixated on it everywhere.

14:56

He goes, he talks about it.

14:58

He nurses' the grudge that explains it's a piece of string.

15:01

Don't you see it was wrong. A piece of string, a piece of string people start laughing about this guy.

15:05

Well, you have a chance to talk about is a piece of string and it makes him IL and on his deathbed, the final words of the story, you know, a little piece of string, a little piece of string, or this is how the story goes.

15:16

Now that is a, it's a fictionalized account, but it illustrates the point of where are you putting your mental energies?

15:23

If we put them on grudges, if we put them on things that have happened, we wished they hadn't happened.

15:27

Or even on our own mistakes, where we go, I wish I had been different and we're beating ourselves up for the past.

15:33

Mistakes would just, we're just putting tons of effort on to things that will exhaust us and burn us out instead of moving forward to the things that really matter of fact, You

15:43

say that the things that our minds will hold us back from an Effortless state in getting and getting the actions and the results we want is the things in our mind first.

15:52

Yes, definitely. There's there's a, a little story about that where I was staring at myself, dressed head to toe in a storm trooper costume.

16:01

Yeah. And I mean I'm in a, in a, in a store of Halloween.

16:06

So this is like, this is expensive suit.

16:08

It's like a movie quality Stormtrooper outfit.

16:11

And as I'm staring back at myself in the mirror, like, should I buy this?

16:15

I'm like, how am I even here? Like what, what, why it for 30 years without realizing it, I had this goal of buying a Stormtrooper costume.

16:24

Yeah. So when I reflect on it, it goes back to like, when you return it, the Jedi comes out and my older brother says, Oh, wouldn't it be cool to have a movie quality suit?

16:33

Wouldn't that be great? And I'm like this, you know what?

16:36

I have a 10 year old kid just amazed by this.

16:38

Like, yes, that would be cool.

16:40

Forget about it entirely. But here we are.

16:42

30 years later still pursuing that goal.

16:45

It's still a part of me has been working on achieving this.

16:48

Well, no part of me wanted that costume.

16:51

I'm like, this is why am I even, what am I even doing here?

16:54

Lets get out of this. I don't want this concept.

16:56

And it became like a shorthand.

16:58

My wife will say to me now, like if I'm pursuing something that she's like, I don't know that it has a certain vibe about it.

17:03

She'll be like, is this a storm trooper?

17:05

I think you can use that for goals that no longer serve you, but also for grudges that no longer serve you, it could be relationships that are no longer serve.

17:13

You can be any mental clutter, any assumptions that I simply like that they were true to a point, but they don't serve you now.

17:21

And, and one of those, one of those storm troopers, I think is the idea that any problems can be solved by working harder.

17:31

That alone is a really limiting idea.

17:34

It'll get you only to here.

17:36

It won't get you to that.

17:37

So it's a good principle as far as it goes, but then we need to invert that question instead of say, how can I work harder?

17:45

We say, look, is there a more Effortless way of doing this?

17:47

And as you read your mind of this old paradigm, you opening yourself up to a new option, a new question.

17:54

And suddenly, I mean, I almost think it's almost like magic.

17:57

There's so many cool options.

17:59

Once you free up the idea that anything worth doing has to be exhaustingly difficult.

18:05

Yeah. What was the thought process that stuck in your mind?

18:10

The longest that it was the hardest to let go of that when you let go of it, life became more EFFORTLESS.

18:17

Whether it'd be in your relationships or your career or whatever might be.

18:25

Yeah. I mean, w one, our answer to that question is, well, I give you one answer to that, which is the, The work at what's Essential needs to kind of be hard drudgery and then you've got separate to that play and fun.

18:44

And that, those two things that just two different categories.

18:47

So yes, they don't have to be, but we often divide them up.

18:52

And so we, we, we just have the fun in the play separate, but what if they, what if the essential things can be the fun thing?

18:58

So what if you can make the, the things that used to seem like drudgery into like fun rituals.

19:03

Yeah. How do you make cleaning your laundry or mopping the floor or cleaning the toilet?

19:08

A fun and enjoyable. Yeah. Or which is a specific example in my family cleaning up off to dinner.

19:14

Yeah. So we, we, we have a pretty good rituals around the actual meal time.

19:18

Like we actually eat together, I've got four kids and my wife and I, we, we we'll do like, you know, a w we'll do toasts for each other at the end of each day.

19:27

Like what's gone right Today. We have some good rituals around this, but as soon as the dinner is over my kids to just like gone to see it disappear like that, they're like ninjas, man.

19:40

They had just gone. It's so silent and like, well, how did they all go?

19:43

Then I have the unenviable task of like, come back and pulling them all back, waiting to all go in.

19:48

Oh no, I've got homework on. It's hard to argue with that and go to the bathroom.

19:51

Okay. That's hard to argue. And it's just this cat and mouse game to get them back in.

19:55

So I'm like, okay, how do we make it Effortless?

19:57

And so we, we, we divide up the chores.

20:00

So everyone's got a certain part of it.

20:02

Right. Many hands make light work and we train them on each piece and I'm like, okay, we'll get to set this up.

20:07

We wrote it all down on a piece of paper where everyone can see it.

20:10

Okay. Ready to stop? What happens?

20:12

Nothing. Chaos. Yeah. It is back at the same that go on the next day that have gone like Ninja is again.

20:17

And it wasn't until my eldest daughter, grace added just a particular kind of music to the occasion that it became like karaoke.

20:25

That was like a classic Disney tracks.

20:28

She's a teenager. She's just turned 18 now.

20:31

But it's just like sing along stuff that you can't not sing to all kinds of music.

20:35

And it turned it into just like a little party.

20:38

And even now we'll start to do it is to have the same problems.

20:41

As soon as someone puts it on the right music, you all do it, you play.

20:44

And, and, and, and it's like now, and in fact, I didn't think people would believe me, but the other day I wasn't even helping them music put on everyone is doing it.

20:52

I grabbed like five seconds of video and put it on Instagram just to like, prove that it really is like that now.

20:57

So the idea is, one of the idea is it's hard to let go of is that is the essential step has to be the drudgery.

21:03

You know, the, the, the important stuff is just hard work.

21:06

Some things are just hard. And then this is fun stuff in that to play out over here.

21:09

But what have you make it? What do you combine those?

21:12

What if you make Essential stuff enjoyable?

21:14

Well, then it becomes relatively speaking.

21:16

And that was that That would add to that and say, if you don't make the incentive stuff enjoyable, then you will be burned out.

21:24

Yeah. Even if it's starts out as like fun, like practice and sports.

21:28

For me, there are many different sports that I played growing up.

21:31

And some of them, I burnt out on it because it came back.

21:35

I started to become a job where it was only like you've got to show up to practice.

21:39

You got to work hard. This is a business mentality now.

21:42

And it kind of lost the idea of having fun.

21:44

Yeah. When were playing a game, but it's like the business of the game.

21:48

Right. And right.

21:49

You almost have to, so what can start out is really fun, turning to drudgery and what could be like this thing that I don't like could be this incredibly fun experience.

22:02

Yeah. Based on the parameters you'd create for yourself.

22:04

I was a truck driver for many months.

22:06

I've

22:06

got

22:06

paid

22:06

$250

22:06

a

22:10

week. I was a truck driver when I was about 22, 23 years old.

22:13

And I remember being like, this is miserable.

22:16

This was not fun.

22:17

This was not, you know, Essential to just pay like for food for the week.

22:22

It was not like the path of my life, but it was a season of my life.

22:26

And I remember saying, okay, I have an opportunity here.

22:30

Like this is going to be happening for many months.

22:31

I can neither be in misery and pain for six hours a day, driving a truck.

22:35

Right. Or I can make the most of it.

22:38

And I downloaded the CD with salsa songs.

22:41

And I started visualizing myself while watching the road, but visualizing myself salsa, dancing, because I was learning how to solve stance at that time.

22:49

And so I would imagine myself doing the moves and in the dance, in the steps, in everything.

22:55

And it made at the time fly to make it more enjoyable.

22:57

What also sing songs as well, and just see like, okay, how can I make this fun?

23:01

Even if people are looking at me, like I'm crazy singing along to myself, but that made it more enjoyable where it wasn't like, Oh, I have to go to work and do this thing.

23:10

But I had a great time and time flew.

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24:17

Well, I love what you're saying. And I, and it really is a form of a lot of what I mean when I say Effortless state.

24:22

Yeah. Is it like wh which is, there is nothing so hard that complaining whining about it.

24:27

Won't make it harder. So some things in life, once you decide I'm going to do this thing, I'm dealing with this, this is a responsibility that's important to me.

24:36

I'm taking on now. You just have to decide, do I want to do it the hard way or the easier way for exactly what happens when we complain and why do we complain so much?

24:43

You know, I searched at one point when I was doing this research for like, just what are the easiest things that to do in the world?

24:49

Like just off the cuff, like what are the answers?

24:51

And I remember that one of the first answers that people really agreed on was complaining as the easiest thing to do.

24:56

Wow. So I thought that was very interesting.

24:58

And I took on a little exercise myself with this and I was like, okay, well, that's not a great state to be in a complaining state is going to limit my creativity.

25:07

It's going to make it harder for me to achieve.

25:09

It's going to be harder for me to attract good talent and all the rest of it.

25:12

So I decided, okay, every time I complain, I'm going to say something I'm grateful for it.

25:20

I read this in a book. I liked the strategy.

25:22

Well here's, what is your strategy?

25:24

Well, I liked, you liked what I noticed about it was that didn't work out well.

25:28

What I noticed, nothing that didn't work. I realized that I complained a lot more than I realized.

25:32

I read that too.

25:33

Is it, this is how much were you complaining a day when you started that?

25:38

The strategy? I don't know if there's a number for it, but I just found, I would walk into a room and I'd be complaining.

25:42

I'd see my wife and Oh, how are you doing well?

25:46

You know, this thing, that was a bit of a drag.

25:47

That meeting took longer. I thought of it.

25:49

And I'm like, why are you saying this is not even how you feel about your life.

25:52

There's so many good things happening.

25:54

But for some reason I was in a habit of just starting with the complaint, you see your kids.

25:59

There's always something to complain about.

26:00

Well, why are you on that? Why aren't you doing this?

26:02

Why aren't you playing this thing up here? That is an endless variety of complaints.

26:06

And what I noticed was the more I complained, the more that was to complain about.

26:12

And as soon as I introduced this new habit, what I was surprised by is how fast the state changed.

26:18

Cause you can't be grateful and complaining in the same moment.

26:21

You can't be fearful and grateful in that same moment.

26:25

You can't be angry and grateful in the same moment.

26:27

And it is a, it is a dynamic, powerful catalytic thing.

26:32

It's not just for too long.

26:34

And we think of gratitude as being like, well, that's a nice, mindful men can be mindful and grateful over that.

26:39

But when you go to be a real stuff, that's not the real stuff.

26:42

Gratitude is the real stuff.

26:44

This is the way to be able to accelerate success in any area of your life and it's instantly effective.

26:49

So I found that as soon as I would say, I was grateful.

26:52

I can see people's eyes light up.

26:54

Just even my kids, my wife, just, it just brought a more positive feeling.

26:57

So then we carry on with our kids and I'm like, okay, my son Jack one time.

27:01

And I'm like complained. And I'm like, okay, give me three things.

27:04

You're thankful for. He says, this I'm so thankful.

27:08

The, my dad wants to play this dumb game after I say something I'm complaining about.

27:14

Right. So is it just like that?

27:15

We all live.

27:17

It works, even though he did it with the, the worst attitude ever.

27:21

And by the time he was doing two and three, he's laughing and he says that, and it didn't match that gratitude is that Power.

27:27

And so I think it's like the fastest way to get ourselves back into an Effortless state.

27:32

And, and, and, and, and I learned about it first in the extremity of a, of, of, you know, a family crisis.

27:40

I found that this thing would help even in the direst of circumstances.

27:47

Yeah. What crisis we moved into a new neighborhood a few years ago, a pretty picture as a beautiful neighborhood.

27:56

A, you know, there's a guy in nature, white picket fences.

27:59

I mean, it's like a lovely plays in, in, in our children's seem to thrive.

28:03

They're out, you know, especially one of my door's is Eve.

28:07

She is out naming chickens.

28:08

I mean, yes, we have chickens, but, but, but also just up trees, she's Easier, barefoot, everywhere.

28:14

She is reading endlessly. She is thriving.

28:16

This can't be angry for more than like two seconds at a time.

28:20

If he tries to she'll burst out laughing, that's just who she is until she turned 14.

28:25

And then she just was like taking longer to do a chores.

28:30

She's not as talkative anymore.

28:32

And she's a little physically all awkward.

28:36

And we think, Oh, well this is all pretty age appropriate behavior 14.

28:40

Okay, fine. We don't think much of it.

28:42

But then we take her to a physical therapy appointment, just normal.

28:45

And, and, and he, the therapist pulls over, my wife has had and says, you know, she failed a reflex test.

28:54

And like, the whole point is you can't fail those.

28:57

Right? Like that just basic health.

28:59

And so the fact that she didn't respond to it, he said like, that's normally kind of neurological and like the knee task where they hit you in a meeting.

29:05

And they basically, this is a few different ones, but that's one of them you can do the same with the feat and your F your, your, your toes curl up in a certain direction.

29:11

And it does nothing you can do to stop that.

29:13

That's what happens. But she wasn't responding to the way that she should've done to those as, so you don't have to be told twice, right?

29:20

Like for real, you're like, okay, maybe what we've seen as being normal developmental behavior, isn't a tall.

29:29

And we suddenly, I mean, we went to a neurologist immediately, but also just re-examined her behavior.

29:35

And what followed for the next several months was a complete discombobulation of her abilities.

29:42

That's like taking some, a perfectly healthy and just, I don't know, like just making them go super slow.

29:50

So like, instead of eating a meal in, I dunno, half an hour, everyone else is taking it out hours a week.

29:57

Instead of being here, the right, you know, a page a night, easily and fast is taking her.

30:01

Literally, I have it recorded two minutes to write her own name, a first, the whole right-hand side of a body of stocks Moving

30:09

in the same Places

30:11

that are left. Personality change.

30:13

You just no emotion in her anymore.

30:16

And all the while these neurologists, these lifelong urologists cannot give us even the beginning of a diagnosis.

30:24

Wow. So there's nothing, we're getting new information.

30:27

That's scary. Yeah.

30:28

I mean, it's, it's what it is really is this stuff that agony is made of, right.

30:33

That is, that is human suffering. I, I that's in the category, there's worse stuff, but it's in the category of the worst stuff.

30:39

And that really opened is up to this moment.

30:46

I remember in my mind's eye seeing this like two pilots ahead of us and it, the first part is like the heavy, hard, and hard path.

30:55

And the other one was the easier path. And you might say, well, it's obvious which one you should take, but actually it wasn't the temp, the temptation, or even the inclination was the heavier path.

31:05

What does that look like?

31:06

Relentless research night and day, all nighters, every neurologist on the planet, every email you get from well-intended people saying, well, maybe she has this, YOU study that problem.

31:18

Why you, you talk of nothing else.

31:20

You think of nothing else. You, you get obsessed about it.

31:23

I mean, that's actually the path that we felt like leaning into.

31:28

Cause you want it to figure out a solution.

31:31

Yeah. 'cause the problem with a solution is because, because of an assumption that says, look that no more and more important, that is, it's such an important thing.

31:37

You have to kill yourself to go do it and a half, or even just, even just a path of even blaming.

31:42

And we talk about holding grudges.

31:44

We could've held grudges there. Why are these neurologists?

31:46

They don't know anything. Why can't they know something?

31:48

Why is it happening to Eve?

31:50

You know, she's innocent, this is unfair, this is wrong.

31:53

And there's a whole set of approaches.

31:56

I think that we, you know, really work on the edge of doing, and then I had this sort of Feeling one day, like among, among the reactions that we were having.

32:06

One was this idea that I go and read this particular article and say, it's an article.

32:11

It's a church article by Gordon B Hinckley a and it's, it's a, it's an article about optimism and thankfulness.

32:20

And

32:20

I

32:20

started,

32:20

I

32:20

felt

32:20

like

32:20

really

32:20

kind

32:20

of

32:20

Guide

32:20

it

32:20

to

32:20

like,

32:20

listen

32:20

or

32:20

read

32:20

to

32:20

that

32:20

every

32:28

day. And I did almost every day for the next, like for months.

32:32

And what happened in that moment really or not, that that Experience was that like, it was like my mind was being re Engineered

32:41

in

32:41

the

32:41

midst

32:41

of

32:41

this,

32:41

me,

32:45

The shading Experience, there was this alternative path.

32:48

There was a different way to do life.

32:50

I started to open up and it began with gratitude.

32:52

We will be grateful, relentlessly grateful, anything we can be grateful for.

32:58

We're going to say it. We're going to say out loud, we're going to say to each other, we got to catch people doing the right things.

33:05

We're gonna catch the neurologist doing the right things.

33:07

Well there that are willing to meet with us.

33:09

That thank goodness that they're willing to meet with us.

33:11

That's a good thing. And what that did is it created almost instantly this kind of magical force at play.

33:18

It meant that we were able to just stay optimistic when you know, you're getting sent emails every day, almost from people saying, well, maybe she has this thing that is going to kill her.

33:26

Maybe she's gonna have this thing that, I mean, that's what you were getting all the time from well-intended people.

33:30

And it started opening is up to like, well, well, let's, let's, let's have a joy through this.

33:35

Let's, let's get around the piano and sing together that we can still eat to end it together.

33:40

We still got to laugh together. We're going to still going to work.

33:42

And it just kept us positive and open and healthy in our marriage.

33:47

Didn't collapse. Our family didn't collapse.

33:49

The culture was actually a positive. And I would say overall, the Experience sometimes agonizing, sometimes tears.

33:56

But overall, I would say it was a joy.

33:58

I don't say that lightly.

34:00

I know what it was, but I also know what happened is we took this alternative path and, you know, if it was a Disney story, I'd just say, Oh, What out?

34:10

Perfectly happily ever after she'd got a series of treatment, pretty miraculously that got her much better, but then the symptoms returned.

34:19

And we had to go through the whole cycle again from the beginning.

34:22

And if we had taken that heavier, harder, just grinding effort, I think we'd have had nothing left of us, either physically, nothing, emotionally, nothing, mentally, nothing but also the culture of the family would of been so burned out.

34:36

I think that's the stuff that breaks people.

34:39

And instead the, the, the, the culture just, just thrived.

34:43

It really worked.

34:44

And so now two years through this experience, she's gone through a whole nother set of treatment.

34:49

As of this conversation, she is, I would describe her as back that mentally, physically back emotionally, just back she is back.

34:58

Congratulations. That's amazing. Well, it, it, it, it is.

35:00

And it's, you know, but this is something to be grateful about all the time for us, but also out of those experiences really came to the fire for the deed for this first to save myself in my own family, to find what are the principles and practices that make doing what Matters a little Easier, a little bit more Effortless, but also now then to write about it and to share with others.

35:22

And I think it comes about a time that it has the power of relevancy, because who isn't feeling a bit burned out right now, who isn't feeling like, well, maybe I got good results, but through grinding effort, do I have another year?

35:34

And me of this exhausted we're.

35:36

And so you've got this highly engaged, capable, driven people who are so scripted in the idea that the only path to greater success is through more hustle.

35:48

Well, their out of juice.

35:51

So I guess I have to give up on their goals, right?

35:53

No, there's an alternative path.

35:56

There's a different way. That's a better way of doing life starts by getting this for a state, the gratitude as a fast mover.

36:03

And the reason that gratitude is so pivotal, I think is because when we focus on What, when we focus on what we lack, we lose what we have.

36:14

And when we focus on what we have, we gain what we live in.

36:19

Yeah. That's two full pages in your book, on the side by side.

36:24

Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And it was a big part of the lesson that the eave Experience taught us.

36:29

Say it one more time. When we focus on what we lack, we lose what we have when we focus on what we have, we gain what we like, and that goes on and on.

36:42

And that's why it's at the core of the model.

36:44

Because as you get into that more grateful state, you cleanse out so much clutter and you start to see the world differently.

36:52

So Effortless action starts to be more achievable.

36:55

You start to build better relationships with the people around you.

36:58

And, and it really, I, if you, you know, if you had a gun to my head, what's the most important thing and Effortless.

37:05

I actually think this is a pretty good contender for that, because it creates an upward momentum.

37:12

It creates a spiral of Success that, that I think brings to you the results you want.

37:20

I think you can't overdo this.

37:23

I think if you are grateful in everything, you will attract exactly the things that you currently lack.

37:30

Yeah. You start to see opportunities that are always there, but you couldn't see them before.

37:34

It's like the M M you know, if you go fly fishing, which I have never done, but if you do, it's hard, I've done it once I did it, once that I can and catch anything, it was hard.

37:45

How do you know that? The hat, the, the, the, if you put on polarized sunglasses, you know about this, okay.

37:51

So if you put it on the polarized sunglasses, when you go fly fishing, It, it means that the water, it refracts the reflection of the water, the, the, the lights on the water.

38:00

So you can see under the water. Huh?

38:01

That's that's how it works.

38:03

The way that the polarized sunglasses.

38:05

Yeah. The vertical and out of whatever.

38:07

So it means you can see the fish underneath, which goes towards them.

38:13

Yeah. You know, where they are. And as a metaphor, I think gratitudes is like that.

38:17

So that it allows you to see what's currently being hidden by grudges complaining, criticizing by old paradigms, that don't serve you old goals that no longer interesting, actually interesting YOU, but they are controlling you.

38:31

All of that gets in the way of seeing the opportunity that is really there.

38:35

And as soon as you can rid yourself of that, if you suddenly go, Oh my goodness, there's so much here.

38:41

That is so much more that it's working on my behalf.

38:44

There's so much in my life that I've been complaining about.

38:47

The actually was given to me, it was happening for me, not to me.

38:51

And, and it just gets you into a state.

38:54

That's like, well, whatever the next challenge is, I'm in a better position to be able to handle it for us.

38:59

The next thing was the pandemic.

39:01

Right. So I was prepared. Yeah. Well, you know, your culture is prepared.

39:04

You're state is prepared, so you can deal with it with a different, better state than you otherwise would have been.

39:09

Yeah. It's interesting. You know, all roads, go back to how we think about ourselves and about others and about the world in our thoughts and our perspective on different things.

39:23

You know, when I went to India and studied meditation at a facility many years ago, four or five years ago now.

39:31

Yeah. They mentioned that there are two States, two, two human States, a beautiful state in a suffering state.

39:38

The suffering state is where we're holding onto the past, you know, resentful, angry, comparing all those different things.

39:46

The beautiful state is gratitude, you know, wanting to support other people, seeing other people succeed, appreciation those things.

39:55

Right. And any moment we're thinking about what we lack, we suffer right.

40:01

In any moment, we think about what we are grateful for.

40:04

We're in a more beautiful state.

40:05

Yeah. A peaceful state of being. Yeah.

40:07

And, And

40:08

I want to build on that for a second. I just had Benjamin Hardy on the watch, the central podcast.

40:13

And we were talking about this and he summarized it this way.

40:17

He said, you in the game or the gap, I love that phrase.

40:21

If you're in the gap, your looking at what you haven't achieved yet, how life isn't the way you want it to be where you failed, you know, what's ahead of you.

40:34

If you are in. And basically he just says, you can do it that way, but you will be unhappy.

40:40

Yes, you can live that way.

40:43

If you're in The, if you, in the gap of what's missing, what's missing what you haven't achieved, who you haven't become.

40:49

But if you move into the gain, that's what progress have I already made?

40:57

Who have I become so far?

40:59

What did I used to be compared to now?

41:01

I've become something better.

41:02

If you can look at the gains you've made, it says the difference is you simply will be happy.

41:08

And your journey, Microsoft

41:11

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41:13

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41:15

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41:19

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41:23

Now the team can meet with two or three times the number of customers than they could before.

41:29

And people from all over the world can visit their, learn more About

41:34

their story and others at microsoft.com/teams.

41:36

I've

41:36

got

41:36

a

41:36

major

41:36

sweet

41:36

tooth

41:36

and

41:36

it

41:36

hits

41:36

me

41:36

as

41:36

soon

41:36

as

41:36

I

41:36

wake

41:46

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42:42

The only focusing on where I'm not, where, where I want to be what's in between now and where I want to be, but think about everything I've become up until now.

42:50

So you got to do is to thinking about both.

42:53

Is it thinking about, okay, I want to be here, but in order to get there, I've got to appreciate how far I've come, where I'm at right now.

43:00

Right. I think for achievers, they will never ever get rid of a, a hundred percent of the gap thinking that they're never going to do that.

43:06

How do I prove, how do I grow? How do I hear a lot more?

43:08

Or how do I achieve? So we don't have to be Worry

43:10

about that. When we try to make these adjustments, we don't have to be like, well, what if I only ever thought about the gain and never thought about the gap?

43:17

Like whatever, that's never happening to me, it's never going to happen to you.

43:20

We don't have to worry about that. The question is, could we spend a little more, what's the ratio who has spent a little more in the game.

43:27

Can we start to feel good?

43:29

You know, for sure when we start to feel miserable, but now that you're going to find your in the gap, right?

43:35

So it's time to just take a pause, be a bit grateful.

43:38

I need, this is a sort of mental health practice.

43:42

I write, like what I'm grateful for it.

43:44

The end of the day is try and do each week.

43:46

Haven't done it each week through the pandemic.

43:49

I used to have a routine for it started again recently I have a need, not like I am so enlightened.

43:54

I must do this. It's if I don't do this, it is miserable, miserable.

43:57

So I'm going to do it out of self preservation, but I find it.

44:02

I find it amazing, unbelievable.

44:04

Sometimes what I have already forgotten about in the day I'm writing it, like literally, What

44:10

do you mean? What do you forgot about things you've done good? Or I think that suffered the response to that.

44:14

Well, good today that I've already forgotten, moving on to the things that our clients And

44:18

learning about something or you're lacking, or I wish I had this or that person did this thing.

44:23

Exactly. So for me, it is, it is a therapeutic thing to each day just to go, okay.

44:28

What are you thankful for? Let's really think about with review the day.

44:31

Sometimes there are more amazing things that I have already just slipped from my memory.

44:36

So we're just, I think terribly forgetful creatures and especially for It, achievement orientation, where like, so looking for the next achievement that we forget, like, wow, what, let's take a moment to pause and enjoy the blessing of this great thing that happened today.

44:54

So what I'm hearing you say is the greatest keys to the highest level of productivity hacking.

45:01

Yeah. Is forgiveness and gratitude.

45:04

Yeah. Is there anything else that would go in there is the highest productivity hack?

45:09

I think inverting the question.

45:11

Okay. Would go in there. How would you invert it?

45:14

Well, it's just literally, instead of, well, most of the questions we ask sit in the back of our head, like we're not aware of them.

45:22

So we live out our answers to questions.

45:24

We don't even know we're asking a brain's like Google search and we're tapped with somewhere along the line.

45:29

We said, okay, how can you work harder?

45:32

So you can achieve your goal.

45:33

That's just back there somewhere.

45:35

And now we keep having the answers. Well, I guess I need to do more here cause I'm not got the result I want.

45:39

And I guess I need to do, you know, more hours on this issue and put more up.

45:42

We're just, those are our answers to a question and we're not aware of it.

45:46

So we can invert that question in to simply asking, how can I make this Effortless?

45:51

I was working with a, a, a manager.

45:53

She's she is the kind of person she's just like the kind of person who's watching this, a, a, a, a listening to this.

46:01

She

46:01

was

46:01

for

46:01

am

46:01

in

46:01

the

46:01

morning,

46:01

Photoshopping

46:01

for

46:01

a

46:01

nonprofit

46:09

things. She is doing the next day. When a group of youth in her church, that's what she is doing it for a year.

46:13

Why is she doing that?

46:16

Why? Well, she is the kind of person who doesn't even take lunch because she feels guilty.

46:22

Yeah. That's too selfish.

46:23

Cause you see, if you believe, if you have the assumption that more work equals better results, if you believe that that's an absolute statement that somehow got ingrained in you, then you'll act out all sorts of peculiar ways, that accounts for productive.

46:36

So I said, okay, just forget all that.

46:39

Like, we're going to ask another question. That's going to cry and cleanse all of this.

46:42

Just next time. You're asked to do something.

46:44

You just pause for a second to us.

46:45

How could this be Effortless?

46:47

So she's working in a university, she's a manager and the administration, she gets a professor who calls her and says, look, I want you to a, to, you know, can you record a semester of my, you know, my, my class.

47:00

And she almost jumps into that.

47:03

Meaning like, come and take notes the whole semester, or what do you mean report video recording that they're recorded for free or something, or, And

47:10

she has a team that is a videography team, got to go several teams.

47:13

One of them is a videographer, a team. So she almost is like, well, I've got the capability we've got, the team has to make it happen.

47:18

I'm going to add graphics. I'll add music and we'll have intros outros.

47:21

We'll edit the whole semester.

47:23

I mean, she's getting, I'm going to, wow, this guy, this is all going on in her hair for free or a paid well, she's, it's a, it's a managerial jobs.

47:31

So it's got it got paid, but it's not like a, a, a new gig.

47:33

It's just one more thing on her plate.

47:36

Got it. And then she remembers, I could've asked this question.

47:39

What if this could be Effortless?

47:40

Is there a simple way to get the result we're going for here?

47:44

She asked a couple more questions to him.

47:45

Well, it turns out this is awful.

47:47

One student who has an athletic commitment.

47:50

So he'll miss some of those sessions, some of the classes through the semester, but he needs this class to graduate.

47:56

So he's trying to uncover, accommodate this individual.

47:59

They come up with the solution.

48:00

One of the other students who is going to record it on the iPhone, whatever classes he misses and email it to him, that's it.

48:06

10 minutes call saves four months of work for her, a video grid team, everything.

48:12

And she just steps back. And she's just like, what just happened?

48:15

She would have gone down this one path thinking it was the only part.

48:19

This is the way to achieve.

48:21

Right? And she resolved achieve the same result with 10 minutes of work.

48:25

That story is so available to us again.

48:30

And again, and again, I am telling you, it's like, I, I know I hate to use the word magic because it sounds so like, whatever, but it is almost like that it is the closest I've come across to like human dynamic magic is asking this question.

48:44

We just don't ask it. So our brain can search for an EffortlessThe.

48:47

Sure. So the greatest productivity hack is asking the question, how can I make this more Effortless?

48:54

Yeah. And that's, I think those three that you said, I would say your Gratitude

48:58

and asking the questions.

48:59

How can, how can I make this EFFORTLESS?

49:04

I was just talking to somebody yesterday who spent years in the military.

49:08

Right? Talk about a, an experience that it's going to train you in.

49:12

Embrace the suck, do the hard way journey, right?

49:16

That's the plan is hard work.

49:18

It's all about hardware.

49:19

I'm not against Hardwick is just not the only strategy I'm not against.

49:24

That is just not the only question we can ask. If we want to achieve something that he gives me the scenario.

49:28

So he was a, he, he got to the point where he's in a special ops.

49:30

He has a specific situation.

49:33

If they need to get in his life, he was, he was in Iraq, Afghanistan.

49:36

That would be Times he had a high value target.

49:39

They have to get to the door.

49:41

This is the way these metal doors that are like barricaded.

49:43

And they got up there, got to blow these things up.

49:46

And the ways that they would do it is that they would put explosives on the hinges of the door, blow them up, and then they can get inside.

49:51

You said, now the problem with that is that it's super loud.

49:54

So you've brought a massive attention to yourself.

49:56

What's going on. Exactly. And the whole community, that whole area, suddenly that that increases your risk.

50:02

It makes it harder to entry because you've got this hole hole in the door, you know, this, this, this, this crazy environment Smoke

50:07

everywhere. You can't see anything. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So

50:09

actually, you know, it, it has a pretty rough way to achieve your objective, but that was all they had was an athlete is a way where he had somebody on his team who has the son of a competition.

50:17

You said, look, if you just gave me a hydraulic drill, I can do this in like half a second.

50:21

We'll just take the hinges off.

50:23

There'll be no sound, no, no know, no smoke, no explosives, no danger, no additional risk.

50:30

Well, that's the Effortless path.

50:32

And they're are so many ways to do this, but it's just like, we just don't know that that path has even been there because we're not asking that question.

50:42

If you don't search on Google for X, then you never going to get answers to X.

50:47

You're going to find lots and lots of answers for something else.

50:51

It's funny. I, I interviewed someone who that was his job as a Navy seal, where he was the guy who put the bombs on the door to, or on the wall to blow it up so that they could all enter.

51:03

Right. That was his job. Right.

51:04

And there's a lot of risks with the hard way also where when of one of the bombs goes off when you're deploying it, and then the person dies.

51:13

What if the shrapnel that comes from those bombs, the effects of it hurting people around there.

51:19

Right. Also, you can only do that job for so long from my memory of what you said, because I guess either you can't go far enough away or you can't get enough barrier from that, where it actually hurt your ears so much from the, the explosion over and over again.

51:34

Wow. That I think he left.

51:36

If I'm in my memory is correct because of like the ear stuff, like the explosion costs so much in the ear where he's like, okay, it's too damaging.

51:44

Right. So the hard way, the forceful way has a lot of repercussions.

51:51

It's a great metaphor for what you just said for the, for the argument against the exhausting, always hard and always hustle strategy.

51:59

Yeah. Yeah. There's a time that just for us is great.

52:02

It helps. Yes. But, but what if you can find a better leverage?

52:05

What if you can find a different path to achieve the results you want?

52:10

There is a thing called you, you mentioned the leverage just now there is a thing in Productivity hacking called delegation, right?

52:17

What's your thoughts on delegation versus the leverage?

52:23

Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I think of, so, so yeah, it's a structurally from the book, we've talked a lot about EFFORTLESS state Effortless actions is how to make an action easier one time, which is useful in all sorts of settings, but the final section of Effortless results.

52:40

What I mean by that is to make, to create effort one time that produces results many, many times over for you, they float to you.

52:49

Give me an example.

52:50

Well, you used the word asked about delegation and this would be an example.

52:54

If I can hire someone that I trust highly by which I would use a Warren Buffet's criteria, three eyes, integrity, intelligence initiative.

53:06

If I can hire someone like that, if I can set up for them a high trust agreement, which I outlined in, in, in that chapter, in the book than they can operate working for me, working as a team, effortlessly many, many times in a row.

53:24

If I hire the wrong person, give them a low trust agreement, which basically means I didn't even come up with an agreement.

53:30

We just did it randomly and kind of hacked our way through it than I can end up getting poor results many, many times over.

53:37

So I don't see delegation itself as, as inherently Effortless or exhausting.

53:43

Is he doing it right?

53:45

Setting up a one-time right.

53:46

Is worth the effort getting, yes, you, you, you want to throw a person.

53:50

That's a problem. When you have what you are an artist And

53:52

you know, you were like, I need a seal, someone in there to solve this.

53:56

Cause I don't have a time and energy and it's very tempting.

53:59

That's blows up most of the time, That's

54:02

it? And so you get poor results many, many times over And

54:05

you were resentful and in your head and you go back to the thoughts of like, why is this person here?

54:09

You have a support in your book about, is this, why is this person here?

54:11

And you think about that for years until you finally let them go or they screw you over, like can happening in your book where someone took all the money.

54:20

Yes. And then it's a bigger problem Longer.

54:22

Yeah. I mean, that's, that was a Steve hall has somebody to a work in his accounting department.

54:27

They find, after a few years, a $300,000 deficit, I ask her about it.

54:32

She says, well, you know, it's just an error.

54:34

You know, it is my fault. And not after that. And they didn't trust a properly, but they just would running too fast.

54:38

They thought it would be economic to just leave her in that place.

54:43

Yes. And in the end they said, you know, we went on for a couple more years and it was then $2 million.

54:49

And she, you know, she texts everybody I'm quitting.

54:53

And so they never even saw her again.

54:56

So he then said, okay, I've made false decision here.

55:02

I thought I was taking the quick path, but really this is the expensive path 'cause of the residual effects of hiring the wrong person.

55:09

So if you hire the right person, they went through a thorough process.

55:12

The three eyes found somebody, that person has just been a dividend every single day.

55:17

It doesn't have to be micromanaged.

55:19

Doesn't have to be control. You don't have to put someone watching over them because they have the integrity already.

55:24

And trust makes everything so much faster, so much Easier.

55:27

If you hire someone, you trust, everything is Easier.

55:31

If you hire someone, you don't trust, everything is harder.

55:35

Right. And it's, it's hard once they've lost their trust a few times over and over again, if you don't make a decision on how to shift that quickly, you're going to be thinking about, can I trust them in the back of your mind?

55:48

Yeah. You don't need to let them go or create a new agreement and commitment to move forward and then let the thought of, I can't trust this person.

55:55

Yeah. I think you're right. You, you, you have, if you have a situation where there's sort of low trust in a relationship, you sort of, Oh it to that person and to yourself to do basically either let them go like, Hey, listen, it's not working that you get on with the whole life.

56:09

I'm going to go home with mine. And that is, I think a legitimate option.

56:11

Option two is maybe we didn't get an agreement really clear here let's reset.

56:17

And you have the reset conversation.

56:19

Yes. And it could be in the reset that they go. I don't want to do that.

56:22

And you know, so now it is good.

56:24

Now we know it. Isn't going to work. Cause you don't want to do what it is I'm asking you to do.

56:28

But getting the agreement is written down like a social agreement.

56:32

I call it high trust agreement in the book, by the way, your clear on what were the results, what are the resources available to you?

56:39

How will this accountability be, be given is at once a week.

56:43

I want a written report from you.

56:45

Is it once a week when and how a one-on-one that you can get clear on this.

56:49

And if you get clear enough on it than sometimes you can turn a, a lower trust situation in to a high performing section, Which

56:56

is what are the factors of this high trust contract we should be thinking about.

57:00

And then you have a whole spot in a way.

57:02

Yeah. So I mean the first thing I think the most important thing is results getting absolutely clear on what is the right result.

57:10

What do you want from this person getting agreement that you both agree and understand what that is when people aren't clear about what they are to deliver on.

57:23

I mean, think of how frustrating that is for them and for you and for everyone involved.

57:28

And, and before I go through the other steps on it, let me just make the one broader point, which is that every relationship has three parties to It, right?

57:39

This person, this person B. And then this is the agreement of the agreement to the relationships, the agreement to the relationship, The

57:46

challenges before you give it to that, the challenge with the most romantic relationship is that, and business relationships is the uncommunicated expectation, right?

57:56

That one person says, well, I am assuming they know the agreement, but they haven't communicated it a hundred percent.

58:02

And the other person's like, well, that's not, what do you ever said?

58:04

I didn't agree to that. And I thought you thought this thing, What

58:09

you have is it by default, you actually have created a low trust agreement.

58:14

Yeah. So sometimes it isn't them and it isn't you, which is what you think it is.

58:19

What is either of them. And I'm blaming them.

58:21

Sometimes you go where they seem like they're okay.

58:23

Sometimes, maybe it's me. And neither of those are helpful.

58:25

Very often. It is the agreement that you have come to.

58:29

That is unclear.

58:30

I mean, how clear are you on the results?

58:32

Not clear a it, you know, how clear are you on the rules of the road of how we're going to work together?

58:40

The rules are unclear. You have a set of rules.

58:42

I have a different set of rules. We're violating them all the time with each other.

58:45

And we haven't got clear about the rules.

58:47

Resources might seem a little different in a romantic relationship, but in a corporate employee, relationship is important.

58:55

What resources that they have available, what is reasonable for them to use, even in, even in a day, you know, even in a romantic relationship that you could have, you know, w w we make these kinds of decisions together, and these kinds of decisions are independent.

59:08

You can get clear about that, what resources are available to help you with it.

59:13

And then I think, you know, ultimately the, the, the final, most important part of it is this accountability that you a clear, a way of reporting.

59:24

That would be the, the, the alliteration, the R they're, the reporting it, so that you're just not taken for granted Clear

59:30

results, rules, resources, accountability was just something else I missed.

59:34

Yeah. Yeah. No, that, those were the ones that I think there's another one in the book, but I can't remember that someone should read it.

59:39

It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think that works for a romantic relationships as well.

59:44

If you don't have clear results of what you're looking to create, which could be a vision for our relationship, what are you looking to have here?

59:50

Do we want to be, you know, have a family, do we want it to be a healthy relationship?

59:54

Are we looking to make an impact as a relationship?

59:56

What is the results?

59:58

The rules here's what is acceptable, not acceptable.

1:00:01

The boundaries, you can say you don't cross these boundaries.

1:00:03

I won't cross those for you. Yes.

1:00:05

The resources who's using their time to create something who is using money, how are we sharing these resources to make the relationship Healthier and then accountability?

1:00:15

How are you holding each other accountable?

1:00:17

Yeah. So it works in business and intimate, I think.

1:00:19

Yes, I think so. I mean, I mean, I'm thinking here about conversation.

1:00:22

I just had with Eve Rodsky who wrote a book called fair play and, and, and w w w w one of the doubt, now I'm down a rabbit hole in this, but, but she, she works with these a highly dysfunctional high net worth families.

1:00:37

And so it's like knives out, you see a movie nights out.

1:00:41

I, I think that last part of it, I knew what you mean, like is This,

1:00:44

she works with the real knives out families.

1:00:46

And one of the things she learned is that you have to try and create, I mean, one of the things she just said to me the other day, this is what made me think of it is that she thinks in every employee relationship, that should be a prenup agreement.

1:01:01

And I love this idea.

1:01:03

And I think that aligns with this idea of the, at the high trust agreement, because every employee relationship is going to end.

1:01:11

Yeah. And yet we use is a model like marriage and family.

1:01:15

We talk about that. Well, we're a family here and you know, and it's like, no, you not, you don't, you, you, you it's something else.

1:01:22

And what is valuable about employee relationship is that you are not family that you can say we can work together, collaborate together for a year, for five years.

1:01:31

Maybe we'd do it for 20 years. But one day we're not going to do is we're not married.

1:01:35

And yet we operate as if it's going to be forever.

1:01:38

And I think that actually introduces a lot of dysfunction on two teams.

1:01:41

And I think what you need is like, okay, one day we weren't going to do this.

1:01:45

Let's make sure we get out. We can do this in a way that we can leave and be okay.

1:01:50

Yeah. I have you heard of the book conscious uncoupling?

1:01:53

Yes. I have a Woodward Thomas who has been out here is amazing.

1:01:55

She's awesome. And she's helped many people consciously on a couple, as opposed to the hard way of doing it, the effort way of doing it.

1:02:04

Right. Which is I hate you and you hate me and lawyers and mitigation, and I'm stealing your money.

1:02:09

And I own this. I deserve this like blow ups for years, anger and sadness.

1:02:14

It's like, what's the Effortless way to do this.

1:02:17

It's a full back, because 'cause,

1:02:20

you can think about like, even the, the, the biblical idea, which I think is so applicable, which is like to agree with Diane adversary quickly.

1:02:27

Yeah. And now that It's 10 years of dragging out.

1:02:30

So yes, Because it kills people.

1:02:32

Man, I talked to somebody the other day, you were talking about the brothers and they said this guy, and he has made a lot of money, but he spent a third of his life has been in a huge, like legal, a connection.

1:02:47

It's so exhausting to you.

1:02:50

You say you making a bargain, I need that.

1:02:53

I want that. I'm going to get that. It's like, you have heard of it.

1:02:55

And I've actually seen it now. It, so it's not just a massive For, but like the monkeys who get their hands caught in something and they can't get there and it can't get there and pull up their hand out of the, the, you know, whatever they container is a trap, whatever is the trap is, you know, I've seen it online or something.

1:03:11

Right. Is that like, when I

1:03:13

saw it was actually like, kind of a, a little, almost like a little cave on, on this mound.

1:03:17

And so he just, as soon as the hand was in it, they just couldn't get away.

1:03:19

Cause they want it to hold onto it. If you wouldn't do that, we'd want the thing that we want.

1:03:23

But actually often we end up without the thing we want and we do it for 10 years, two years.

1:03:27

And also the emotional stress in all of it is it is the heart away.

1:03:31

And let it go.

1:03:32

You get all that time, back, all that emotion back on with creating a thing that you want to create.

1:03:37

I think it's, I truly think that is, it is a more effortless way of doing it.

1:03:42

The employee prenup agreement, what would that look like?

1:03:46

Well, I mean, I don't think it's, I mean, I just think it says when this, when we get to an end, yes.

1:03:52

I mean, it's different to a marriage cause you don't even in a prenup with a marriage, you don't wanting to assume it's going to end, but with this, you know, it will.

1:04:00

So it just says when it ends, we're going to try and honor these fees, ways of doing his rules, these rules, when you, when you leave we'll we'll on a, we'll do it this way.

1:04:09

And we'll, I'll ask you to do the same.

1:04:11

It just, I think it's just the contemplation.

1:04:14

It's

1:04:14

my

1:04:14

kind

1:04:14

of

1:04:17

advice. The first day of your job, what you should be saying.

1:04:19

What's my exit strategy.

1:04:20

Not because you'll know the answer, but because it's going to happen one day.

1:04:26

So you might as well. I understand that from the beginning rather than, okay, well, it's not going well, I'm going to keep on What working harder.

1:04:34

I'm going to keep doing this. I'm going to do it for years and years and Paul, more and more of my life blood into these to make it work and making it work.

1:04:41

Cause I have to, if you don't have to, one of the liberating thing for everyone involved is, okay, So

1:04:48

it's getting to the state in the state of mind first where we're letting go.

1:04:52

Yep. Destroying, letting go relaxing and releasing these negative thoughts, these beliefs that hold it into a low level state, right.

1:05:01

So that we can have a more Effortless States.

1:05:04

And then The

1:05:05

actual, which we didn't So

1:05:07

Effortless action. So we get into a, a state of mental flow where we are free from the, the, the prison system, the thoughts that keep us trapped.

1:05:19

Right. And, and not out of two, as opposed to a 10 a month emotionally, then from there, we can take it into action.

1:05:25

So how do we create an Effortless action state?

1:05:29

Well, the, the, the, the Effortless action is a natural way.

1:05:32

I can connect these three dots here.

1:05:33

These three areas by thinking about, you know, when you have somebody's MBA, they come up to do a free throw.

1:05:39

You see these three? Yes.

1:05:41

You are talking about the girl that 94% or our average, my goodness.

1:05:45

She is a Yes.

1:05:47

She's the, she's the most successful, free throw out across the NBA, WWE MBA.

1:05:52

The history is her name is Susan or a dude doing something done.

1:05:56

So, yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, now I'm thinking about that too, in 94% of your time.

1:06:01

So basically you never miss it.

1:06:04

Right. And I mean, that is what that is the bottom line, Right.

1:06:06

In Shots,

1:06:08

you know? Exactly. And, and so, but, but, but anyone you see doing this, you've watched them do the three steps.

1:06:13

The first thing they're doing is they're getting to the, you know, the finding the dot that dribbling the ball three times, why they've been doing that.

1:06:19

It's just a ritual to get into an ethics course of your mind.

1:06:22

You almost can see them doing it to try to clear out the noise so that not distracted by all the fans that are trying to distract them and, and, and all the pressure that they can feel and all the things that would get them out of being able to do the job.

1:06:34

Well, that step one, step two.

1:06:36

They, I mean, He, she says it this way.

1:06:38

She, she is like, just do it the simplest possible way.

1:06:41

You don't overthink it. You don't try over it.

1:06:43

You know? So it's, you know, your, your, your, your lifting, your Elbert to the, the, the, the, the, the square you're doing it is simply as you've done it practice many times effortless action.

1:06:51

And then the Effortless result of course, is that the people that are the best at this, like her, if the ball was just bounces back to them, they don't even, almost have to move.

1:07:00

The result can be done again and again and again.

1:07:02

So that's how to connect the three state action and results.

1:07:07

But the action is really about how do you simplify de-clutter the job at hand.

1:07:15

There's a few specific questions that I think help any time you have a S Essential project, you say, you say, what does done look like?

1:07:23

What is the first obvious step you can take?

1:07:28

So you're not worried about a hundred step of a thousand steps, the first obvious step a, and then you say, OK, well, how can I, how can I take a 10 minute micro burst on that thing?

1:07:39

How can I, what do the minimum number of steps I can take in order to achieve the result I want?

1:07:45

And then if it's a long ongoing project, project or process, how can I pace myself?

1:07:50

So then within an Effortless pace on the journey, those are kind of the five questions.

1:07:54

I think that really helped. And you can apply it to one project.

1:07:57

I just talked to someone on the podcast.

1:07:59

I said, I can, what is essential to you that you are under investing in?

1:08:04

They said, they said eating healthy.

1:08:07

Okay. So now we know, and it really matters to them because of a variety of reasons.

1:08:10

I was doing it and not doing it.

1:08:12

And the gap it's in the cab.

1:08:15

I said, OK, how can we make it Effortless?

1:08:17

I said, I said, what does done look like you said, well, it just means that I have food when I'm hungry.

1:08:22

So I don't wait till I'm past hungry and eat junk.

1:08:24

That's what success looks like. That's what done looks like a, I said, okay, what's the first obvious step for doing that?

1:08:30

You said, well, I would just get one of these services that you know, that they're gonna automatically send it to your plan.

1:08:36

Is it delivers It? And I, and it was the first step I just searched for that.

1:08:40

I'd search on Google for, for, for something in the area.

1:08:43

I said, what, what would you do within the first 10 minutes?

1:08:45

A microburst what can you do in 10 minutes for that?

1:08:47

He says, he said, well, actually I think within 10 minutes, I could probably do it, solve it, like, put it in my credit card, choose two meals and set up with my address done.

1:08:55

And there was, this I can do is we had to pause.

1:08:58

And I'm like, why is that really?

1:09:00

It he's like, yeah, that would do it.

1:09:03

Right. I said, I said, how long have you been struggling with this problem?

1:09:05

He's like 20 years.

1:09:08

Literally. He's like 20 years, 10 minutes to solve a problem that took, has been with him for 20 years.

1:09:14

So that's whatever is action.

1:09:16

Looks like it's asking me a few questions, a very simple process that helps take something that would either be procrastinated.

1:09:22

You don't even start it, or you've been such a perfectionist about it.

1:09:26

You don't finish it.

1:09:30

Yeah. It's removing the obstacle of staying in that scenario of like, okay, well, every Sunday I'm going to the grocery store and I'm going to meal plan and I'm going to cook all afternoon.

1:09:37

And then I'm going to get the plastic bag and then put them in and out for myself.

1:09:40

And it's good to take all day just to do this one action.

1:09:44

Right? We think about that. And we're like, that's exhausting.

1:09:46

It's what you don't even bother. Would you? Like, I don't have the time.

1:09:48

I don't have the energy I'm drained right now.

1:09:51

Let me get a Snickers. Right? Cause I'm emotionally drained.

1:09:53

I need sugar. And you, Oh, YOU,

1:09:56

you just, what happens?

1:09:58

It's like, when you look at a slide, you'll have somebody has a presentation and there's 500 words on the slide.

1:10:02

We don't read the first 400 words and give up, we do like the pre scan.

1:10:07

We're like, am I ever going to read that? I'm never going to give up and give up before we go too hard.

1:10:12

It's too hot. And so if we perceive something is overwhelming, we just don't even get going with it.

1:10:18

There is a smaller, tiny example in my own life.

1:10:21

But while I was writing a book, I'm like thinking about these things.

1:10:24

And I look around my office. I want to clean up and I see a printer on the floor has been there two weeks.

1:10:28

We replaced the printer.

1:10:30

There is no big deal, but now I don't know what to do with this printer.

1:10:32

I have not spent hours thinking about it.

1:10:35

But every time I think about it, it's just a bit overwhelming.

1:10:37

Do I give it away?

1:10:39

Can I give away who to sell it?

1:10:41

If I can tell it, where would I start? And I don't know how to do I do I throw it away?

1:10:44

Well, if I throw it away, I have to find a digital recycling place because that's all enough in my head.

1:10:49

That 10 seconds, five seconds of thinking about that.

1:10:52

I'm like, Oh, now I'm doing to somebody else. And that's why it's there for two weeks.

1:10:55

So I ask you a different question, write, how can I make this Effortless?

1:10:58

And I look up to some workers that are outside and I'm like, I wonder if they want it.

1:11:02

They're you guys walk out there and ask if they want it.

1:11:04

They do want it within two minutes.

1:11:06

I'm asking the question. I don't just have a solution is executed.

1:11:09

They said, yes, I come back here and I give it to them.

1:11:11

It's done. But if that that's like, again, its kind of full circle.

1:11:15

It's like asking that question delivers options.

1:11:17

That previously weren't available two weeks hasn't been available because I'm asking a D I'm not asking the right question.

1:11:24

Here's a First

1:11:26

world dilemma. Yep. That I get a lot of our audience.

1:11:28

They say Lewis.

1:11:30

When they're thinking about their, their next move, maybe they've had a little bit of Success.

1:11:35

Maybe they're have their basic needs met and they've got some money coming in and they say this to me all the time Lewis, I don't know what to do next.

1:11:45

I have so many passions. Some of the things I love to do, I want to do them all.

1:11:51

Yeah. When someone has the first world problem of lots of options, wanting to do them all and yet they become a master of nothing and they get a, they put a lot of energy spread thin across everything.

1:12:04

They get very little results.

1:12:07

Yes. What do you say to someone on how to make a better decision on what actions?

1:12:10

What, where should they should put it in the majority of their energy, on those things?

1:12:15

So they spread it across a passion, right?

1:12:17

So they find one, passion has to be one main passion in two sides of passions.

1:12:22

Like obviously when you put energy on one of the central thing, that thing expands and grows, like you talked about in your first book and it becomes more Effortless when you put effort on lots of things, it becomes hard.

1:12:35

Right? So what is the balance when people that have lots of passions, I

1:12:39

mean, I really relate to this. I struggle with this myself.

1:12:41

I find wool fascinating.

1:12:43

You know, I want to go everywhere, see everything, do everything.

1:12:45

I mean that that's, you know, in a sense that I wrote a Essentialism for me, right.

1:12:49

To try and to try and go well, is there, is there a w a the time at which that outlives its usefulness?

1:12:57

Yes. It's good to be passionate and interested, but does it get, you get to spread through thin, you know, you don't achieve what you want to, I mean, I think I would say that in any given time you ought to know what the priority breakthrough thing is in your career.

1:13:14

What does that mean prior to the breakthrough? The thing? Well, It's

1:13:17

like, I mean, so for me right now, the breakthrough is that this book Effortless, well, first of all, my mom kind of mantra, and maybe it's not a good mantra, but it was like, don't write a rubbish book.

1:13:31

Right. Don't write a bad book. Don't and for real, the risk of that is high because if you have a book that does well, chances that follow up is that that can be bad.

1:13:40

And, and I think if I'd written a book right away, I think it would just would have been bad.

1:13:44

And I didn't fortunately pause, waited until I was like, this is something that I really want to say and it felt the right time to do it.

1:13:51

So, so that would be the priority objective.

1:13:54

And in one of the things around it is that you kind of know it because you feel it fits, right.

1:13:58

So it feels mentally right. Emotionally. Right.

1:14:00

But also, you know, that if you achieve, this is a breakthrough, the loss of people that will start doing, you know, like they want the, they want the career tent to go higher up to be bigger.

1:14:12

And they do it by like doing more and more temples at the same height.

1:14:16

And now they've got 10 projects on the road.

1:14:19

Well, if they do all 10 of them, they won't go to the next level.

1:14:22

They're actually just going to be busy.

1:14:24

You're doing the same stuff. So I think is always key.

1:14:27

What you're looking for, what I call the 90% rule is what is it?

1:14:31

A 90% above clearly.

1:14:33

Yes. Definite if we could do that, it would change everything.

1:14:35

If I can do that, it would take me to the next level for me that the word is contribution.

1:14:39

I want to make a higher and higher contribution.

1:14:42

So I'm not sitting around going, how can I make more money?

1:14:45

What's the thing that we'll make more money, but it is how can I do that?

1:14:49

Will impact a two X, 10 X impact in the world.

1:14:54

And there's a lot of stuff that won't do that and you can do it superbly well, and he is still be exactly the same level.

1:15:00

And so what I'm trying to do is, well, what's the, what's the thing that would break through to the next level of contribution.

1:15:05

I think that's the, kind of the question you were looking for.

1:15:09

Right. Interesting.

1:15:12

What would it be for you?

1:15:15

I'm just trying to say so, so if people had a lot of these things that they really cared about though, would they have to eliminate those things and just focus on the breakthrough thing first and put those things on the, you know, the side burner, When

1:15:29

I wrote and centralism, I think I probably was leaning towards that.

1:15:33

Like just eliminate the other stuff completely.

1:15:37

And I also think it can make the biggest impact with yes.

1:15:40

And I still think is a basic principle.

1:15:43

That's not bad, but I think I would be more nuanced now about it.

1:15:47

I would say, like, for example, I had had Patrick McGuinness on the show and he's the guy that first came up with the term FOMO fear of missing out.

1:15:58

Really. I really loved talking with Patrick McGinnis and w w one of the things he introduced me to was the idea of the 10% entrepreneur meaning.

1:16:07

OK. So you choose your main thing that your main stuff, but if you say you shouldn't have 10 other things that you're going, Hey, I'm going, I'm trying to do 10% on 10 different things in 10 different directions.

1:16:18

I don't think that's breakthrough success is likely at all, but you say, here's my main thing.

1:16:22

And I'm going to have one additional thing I'm really interested in, in it.

1:16:26

I think it can be something, but I can't, you afford to just spend all of my time on it.

1:16:30

So I'm going to start investing in it.

1:16:32

I'm going to learn. I'm going to see if I still have interest beyond now.

1:16:35

That was kind of a hobby. That's fine. I'll put that aside, try something else.

1:16:38

So I think I would say, look, chews the big thing and then be very selective and careful about the other thing is that you do.

1:16:45

And I do think that there's a lot of stuff you do have to say, not now, not yet.

1:16:51

It doesn't mean I don't like it.

1:16:54

It doesn't mean I don't care. But if I say yes to this, I'm going to be saying no to something more important.

1:16:59

More breakthrough. Yeah. Yeah. My friend Rory Vaden has a saying called procrastinated on purpose.

1:17:05

Yeah. He's like, you've got all these things to you that are important to you and you are excited about, and you may want to do now, but it's not the most important thing right now.

1:17:13

So procrastinate on it, have it here, but don't put a time and attention on it.

1:17:19

Put it in the back burner, procrastinate on it until it's the right time until you want to add that as a bit of a plate right now, but do the thing right now, that's going to help make that more Effortless in there.

1:17:30

The future. I think so. I mean, it essentially has been really about the idea of doing the right things at the right Times for the right reasons.

1:17:36

And so it's not just the right thing.

1:17:38

It, time is enormously important and I think does affect prioritization, but there are some times when things come up and the opportunity is here now.

1:17:46

So you take, you take your opportunities that could bounce it because w well, it's, this is what's here.

1:17:53

The person has emailed them. The opportunity is here.

1:17:56

The moment is here. So you go with it because momentum is so important.

1:17:59

But I think that the thing to be aware of is, is this, this thing I'm doing creating motion sickness or momentum.

1:18:08

Interesting. Ooh. Yeah.

1:18:09

What's motion sickness being you're all over the place.

1:18:13

You can't think clearly.

1:18:15

Yeah. I mean, you're just been dragged in another direction.

1:18:17

It's just, you know, it's just one more thing.

1:18:20

And you're like, I don't see how it fits together.

1:18:23

It doesn't feel like it's cohesive as a, I feel like it's taking me in, in a direction that's meaningful.

1:18:28

It's just one more thing.

1:18:30

And YOU, the thing about motion sickness is that you feel like things are moving fast, but actually your not moving anywhere.

1:18:41

You're just spinning.

1:18:43

Yeah. Yes. It's kind of, its kind of like the difference with teen.

1:18:45

Gosh,

1:18:45

I'd

1:18:45

written

1:18:45

this

1:18:48

down. I'm sorry to interrupt you there.

1:18:50

Between the keys to Productivity and momentum versus busy work and just writing things off a checklist.

1:18:58

Yeah. It's like, well, you know the motion sickness is busy work.

1:19:01

It was like, I'm doing a lot of things, but nothing's actually building, It's

1:19:04

a test of this for me. And I fail at this most days right now.

1:19:07

But the test is the difference between It to do list and a done for the day list.

1:19:12

The to-do list is endless.

1:19:15

So really you don't have to make many decisions on it to do list.

1:19:19

You just go, here's all the stuff, write it all down.

1:19:22

It feels good. Writing it down. And if you could do all of that stuff, that would be great.

1:19:25

You'd like that the done for the day list is something my wife and I started using.

1:19:30

And what is it?

1:19:33

What it forces you to do is to actually think about what would be satisfying to you.

1:19:38

And you say you accomplished by the end of this stuff, I would feel satisfied and I can be done and feel good about it.

1:19:46

So you don't just go, well, it's a six o'clock I could go in at seven o'clock I'll keep going.

1:19:50

Eight, nine, 10. There's the tool to do lists is still there.

1:19:53

You get to the end of the day you go to sleep.

1:19:55

Oh my goodness. I can't believe all this stuff I didn't get done.

1:19:56

This is this. This is the life style we've created on an endless to do list the done for the day list of what I think the challenge with it is is that you have to really think what would make me feel done for Today.

1:20:12

Yeah. There's a list. I do have a list I made, but the thing is I've made it two days ago.

1:20:16

So it's not really a done for the day list.

1:20:18

Maybe it was more like a dumb for the week list. But if I do those things this week, I will feel Greg.

1:20:22

Those are really solid achievements.

1:20:24

And the idea of the done for the day list or the dumb for the week list is once you're done, you go, okay, guilt-free I'm done.

1:20:33

I'm not, you know, like my wife and I we're like, well, you don't get in the hot tub or on the box.

1:20:39

And then sneakily on Amazon and all this stuff and do email on your phone.

1:20:44

There is no sneaker work aloud you're done for the day.

1:20:47

So you can start taking relaxation, like a responsibility.

1:20:50

You actually relaxed purposefully intentionally you figure out the things that you enjoy doing that you liked to do.

1:20:58

You create a fun rituals around them.

1:21:00

And this is so important for peak performance on a sustainable level.

1:21:05

So smart. I mean it's how do people learn to not beat themself up if they get these things done for the day and they have four more hours of like work time.

1:21:16

Totally. I think the beating yourself up when you're not working is as clear and evidence that we need to, to choose a new paradigm is any of the race you do productive work on the things that mattered.

1:21:28

You get them done and get out, but I'm guilty.

1:21:30

I'm not, I'm not doing more. What is that?

1:21:32

What kind of a, a reversed world is that you are working?

1:21:36

How is that Living to work rather than working to live?

1:21:40

You know, what it shows is that we've got skills and competence in working and being productive and not skill in how to relax.

1:21:48

And a lot of overachievers do not even know how to relax.

1:21:52

Like they don't know how the novice is at it.

1:21:55

And it's really important that we can learn because we are not machines that can work 24 seven, like in the industrial age, we are humans that works in cycles and rhythms.

1:22:06

And if you try and work all the time in hustle, I mean, I don't care.

1:22:10

Yes. You can find one of the day, this person in that person who seem to be the exception to this rule, I can point to you a million or 2 million people that prove it.

1:22:19

Right, right. That, that if you just trying to do it all the time, you will burn out.

1:22:23

You will have worse relationships. You will, you will enjoy your life less.

1:22:27

So I think the key though is to start designing relaxation that we want to do, because I think there's a very awkward about like, okay, now I'm relaxing.

1:22:40

I'm taking spring break off.

1:22:41

I'm taking the weekend off.

1:22:43

I'm having a long weekend and we got nothing and we just got blank time and no one likes that.

1:22:48

And certainly over-achievers, don't like that if you just feel awkward and weird and it's like, well, my phone's right there.

1:22:54

I think I'm just going to get it on my phone. Right.

1:22:55

So I think that's one of the things I like it.

1:22:59

And my wife and I have done this. And I think it's useful is to make a list of 10 or 20 things that you, that really create joy for you.

1:23:07

Did you enjoy doing you like relaxing in this way?

1:23:10

This is good for you. You don't have to justify this list to anyone, but you got to be honest about it.

1:23:16

And, and once you have this list, they become like building blocks that you can start matching and connecting together in order to create, like, if you have a day, my wife and I've done it before where I've taken her list, 20 things I go to is her birthday.

1:23:36

What am I going to do? Let's do three or four of these things.

1:23:38

Let's look at these and I can look at the list and go, Oh, if I can, if I can buy in any number of these is going to be a good day for her, because these are the things that she likes.

1:23:45

This is on my list is very different to her list.

1:23:48

But now it's useful to know that.

1:23:50

So she is designing an evening for me on a day for me.

1:23:52

So we can come up with something. What are we going to do on our vacation vacation?

1:23:56

It can be quite stressful. A lot of people can, you almost need to vacation from a vacation when you get home, It

1:24:00

can be. And also that can be miserable if you don't have to design in them.

1:24:05

Yes. That it is not enough. Oh, I, I went to this place.

1:24:07

I went to Hawaii and it's gonna be great.

1:24:09

I hate to sound like such an awful first of all problem.

1:24:12

But, but I, I w my wife and I went to a white list.

1:24:14

We didn't do that at all. Right. That was actually, I don't know.

1:24:17

It just wasn't. We just hadn't figured out what was purposeful about it for us or what kind of, what does she like to do?

1:24:23

What is enjoyable for her? What's enjoyable for me, let's construct something around those activities.

1:24:28

And, and once we learned that, we're like, okay, that's it.

1:24:31

You can't just go in and suddenly sit on.

1:24:34

I don't know, sell on a beach somewhere and assume that that's going to be satisfying to you for failing to someone, you know, relaxing to you.

1:24:40

But you got to by the, by figuring out what are the building blocks, the things that actually a relaxing and enjoyable, you start to have competence from relaxing.

1:24:48

You take relaxing is a responsibility.

1:24:51

Relaxing is a responsibility to relax.

1:24:54

Well, I relaxed better.

1:24:56

Now I'm going to try and be like, like, give me the honest answer to that question.

1:25:00

How do I relax?

1:25:01

Well, I, you know, Yeah.

1:25:07

If you have to ask you something to think about, it makes me And

1:25:11

guilty by, you know, my pause is too long to now be fully credible in this area.

1:25:16

There are a bunch of things I love to do to relax.

1:25:20

I'm going to do, I'll do with them enough.

1:25:22

So yeah, I don't, here's what I haven't done well about them.

1:25:26

Like, I'll give you that. I love to play tennis.

1:25:28

I love to play tennis with my son.

1:25:31

He, you know, he, he, he's enjoying that more and more.

1:25:34

Now. I like to be in the hot tub.

1:25:36

That's a very relaxing place that he has a very, you know, its kind of a beautiful little airway.

1:25:40

The experience is calming.

1:25:42

I would say on those things, I love to go on a walk with my wife, like for an hour w w we would do in almost every day until the last two to three weeks.

1:25:52

But then we did it in the last two days.

1:25:54

That's how I would say we do pretty well.

1:25:55

And that's that we both like it.

1:25:58

We don't bring our phones. We just go out there and we just, you know, talk and connect.

1:26:03

We're normally all over the place.

1:26:05

She's got a different agenda to me, which is fine with just that to listen to each other, just hear what's going on in each other's world.

1:26:10

That is a pretty relaxing experience.

1:26:12

The tennis, I had been amazed at how little I've done over the last year of that.

1:26:18

And I don't even know why.

1:26:19

And I love it.

1:26:20

I love doing it. And I just haven't done it.

1:26:23

I think the pandemic just strained is all a little more than just a little less for the end of the day to go do that.

1:26:30

Maybe a butt, but we just started that more.

1:26:33

What was he? The one I mentioned? Yeah, a hot tub.

1:26:35

Oh no. I'd give myself an a or on a hot, hot tub.

1:26:37

You can go there. I go to every day and I do meetings from hot tips to School.

1:26:42

Yeah. It's a little, was that, is that fair enough?

1:26:45

It's checking the phone.

1:26:47

That's more like, how do you make the most of the meetings if I'm doing?

1:26:51

Yeah. That's more like what you were saying before about making it a ritual funner.

1:26:54

If I'm going to be in the meeting, I just realized I'm like, literally we're here in California.

1:26:59

You paying to be in California, you got the weather outside.

1:27:03

And I stay in a little office through the day outside of the might as well be outside doing this, doing that.

1:27:07

It's made it. I feel like it's a little weird for people that when they call and I'm like, I just always confess it even levels.

1:27:13

They can't even hear it.

1:27:15

But I, I just feel like if they hear anything, that will be weird.

1:27:18

So I'm always just like, Oh listen, I'm going at a hard time.

1:27:20

I'm just letting you know. And we just fast fess up a basket that has been good.

1:27:25

And I, and then we'll do the same with the kids at night.

1:27:27

And I find that good relaxing time.

1:27:28

So I don't know. That's a mixed, mixed bag.

1:27:31

That was the, what do you, high achievers get wrong about life.

1:27:34

They

1:27:34

did

1:27:34

one

1:27:37

thing. What does high achievers get wrong in life?

1:27:40

And if they had one, if they can do one thing to make their life better or more Effortless, what would that be?

1:27:49

I, I feel like the primary thing high-achievers get wrong is that they go off to the wrong thing, right?

1:27:57

They just get on some focus task, you know, high achievers know how to achieve that is what they know how to do.

1:28:04

So if a high achiever go, Hey, I'm going to run a marathon.

1:28:09

Yes. I put my money on it. They're going to do that.

1:28:11

They know how to do that. We'll figure it out.

1:28:13

The problem is if you target the wrong goal, you, you, you suddenly your running the marathon, but actually what you want.

1:28:20

It's a great relationship with your wife.

1:28:22

You want a great family. You, you like you were focusing on the wrong thing that I think is the primary area that, that, that, that, that otherwise successful people make.

1:28:31

So we can describe as unsatisfying success that you've achieved, the thing you achieved, it, you weren't satisfied.

1:28:39

Cause it didn't really match that. Wasn't the right goal.

1:28:42

You went after. I would say that's prime as era.

1:28:45

Number one. And I just say, Erin, number two is a, is doing it in the wrong way is like, it's like a, w it's like a, the, the, the weight lift is lifting with the backpack instead of you, you know, the, the, the correct way.

1:28:59

It's like a, it's like a Baker needing everything by hand, rather than with a machine.

1:29:04

It's just like doing it the hard way, the wrong way.

1:29:07

And it just costs some too much.

1:29:09

So What's

1:29:12

the question that they should be asking themselves.

1:29:15

Well, I mean, Does, there's two questions that I would say has changed my life and, and I mean, literally I've written a book about each of them.

1:29:24

Now. One is what is, what is Essential?

1:29:27

What really is Essential.

1:29:29

What is truly important in another way of asking that same question that cuts through all the clutter is what is one thing that's absolutely essential that I'm under investing in.

1:29:40

Right. Right now, That's

1:29:44

it. That's all to me. That's all like the same question.

1:29:45

The last one is slightly more precise way of asking, you know, That

1:29:49

is Essential. That I'm under invest in the, under investing in right now.

1:29:54

Yes. Because you already know that.

1:29:56

The thing about that question, you already know it matches.

1:29:58

So you don't have to waste time. What that is.

1:30:01

What is a central to me? You already know.

1:30:03

Okay. It's usually relationships and health for granted.

1:30:06

Cheevers, it's like the internet.

1:30:07

They're not investing in their health and their putting in their work with our accomplishments.

1:30:11

It's in general, not for everyone.

1:30:14

So it's like, I'm putting all my time and energy on achieving that my relationships suffer.

1:30:18

Yes. And I think that's right. And so that then leads to why I think that's the biggest error because you get to the end of your life, or even a certain midlife crisis and you go, Oh my goodness.

1:30:28

Yes. I achieved all of these things.

1:30:29

I've got the money. I got to say I got the money or I didn't, But

1:30:33

no meaning, No

1:30:35

meaning, no health, no, no strong relationship.

1:30:39

Yeah. That's it, that's a, that's a full stop. And what's really Essential that you're under investing in right now.

1:30:46

Okay. Let me pause. Really, honestly, the question was a central for me, that I'm under investing in.

1:30:54

Yeah. I would say it is like really relaxing.

1:30:56

I would say it's the thing we were just talking about.

1:30:58

And I, and I would give myself now that I'm reflecting on a second time, reasonably low grade.

1:31:04

I

1:31:04

don't,

1:31:04

I

1:31:04

don't

1:31:04

mean

1:31:04

over

1:31:04

the

1:31:04

last

1:31:04

six

1:31:04

months

1:31:04

of

1:31:04

last

1:31:11

year. I mean like the last week, two weeks a month.

1:31:15

And I've done a variety of things to relax in that time, but I just like literally in the last 24 hours, I'm like, Ooh, I pushed awfully hard on Monday.

1:31:24

Yeah. Like, and I don't mean That

1:31:27

sounds weird. Monday was crazy, but it actually was, it was so intense with so many decisions, right?

1:31:32

High stakes decisions. One after another, the end thing I did was an interview with Chris Evans in the UK is a big radio star.

1:31:39

And somebody I listened to when I was growing up and that was my like 10 till 11 slot, which I wouldn't normally do.

1:31:46

But it all made sense. It was better than 1:00 AM, which is what you mean 10

1:31:49

to 11 at night, at night, early morning there, UK And

1:31:52

the money that time and prerecorded so that we didn't do it in the middle of the night.

1:31:56

All of them actually felt, but here's a thing that I've noticed that you've got to have is a standard.

1:32:03

Something like don't use more energy today than you can recuperate Today.

1:32:08

And certainly not over a week period where you say, okay, well today I pushed a little more, but I need to pull back the next day.

1:32:15

So the over a week I am rejuvenating my energy and I didn't do that yesterday.

1:32:20

So I just hit yesterday, like a normal day, not realizing.

1:32:25

And you just used up a lot of juice to get through and to succeed at the things you did Today.

1:32:30

And so it just meant that by the end of Tuesday, I was both of my wife and I were both feeling a bit frazzled.

1:32:37

And instead of going, of course we are.

1:32:39

So therefore we're just going to chill.

1:32:41

We don't have to be productive right now. We're okay.

1:32:43

We're still thinking, wow.

1:32:45

You know, we must, we must, we ought to do a bit more.

1:32:48

We got to Its kind of like my friend, Shawn Stevenson, who is a Sleep master talks about Sleep debt.

1:32:57

That if you are burning the midnight oil per se or going to bed at 2:00 AM waking up at seven or getting five hours of sleep before I was asleep, pulling all nighters.

1:33:08

He's like, that's a Def that your body can never make up.

1:33:12

Right? And you can, you can S oversleep to try to compensate that, but doing it over and over and over again is just going to make it worse.

1:33:20

What do you need to have time to rest?

1:33:23

You need to have the time to recover and heal your body, your mind, and all the things in your body.

1:33:27

A and you want to try to sleep more than the next day, but it's not always going to be like the thing that equalizes it.

1:33:35

What I'm hearing you say is that when you over exert your energy in one day, if you do that over and over and over again, whether you sleep or not, you're going to be tired and exhausted.

1:33:44

Yeah. So you need to find time to rest recover, relax the next day or the next week, whatever it is.

1:33:49

If you're in a book tour, I get it. It's like, there's gotta be a bit The,

1:33:52

the term that comes to mind now that you use Sleep, debt is relaxing down.

1:33:56

And that's like, that's like a new term to me in this conversation.

1:34:00

And I, I like it because it names that problem relaxing and you can be doing some relaxation, but if you start to not have enough of it, it's not the best, the same asleep.

1:34:12

You might be getting enough sleep, but you aren't getting enough mental just release.

1:34:17

It's like, it's like if you have a bow on a, on a, on a, you know, on a guitar or on a violin, like if you keep it strung all the time, it will lose its spring.

1:34:28

You got to have times when its, you know, relaxed and released and then you tighten it again.

1:34:33

If you aren't doing enough of the relaxing of that, Like

1:34:35

in the box. So you got to, unloosen got to unloosen.

1:34:37

You can keep a tight. Yeah. Why not?

1:34:39

You got to unloosen it. Right. And the same for us.

1:34:41

It's interesting. I was, I mean, this is why I'm, you know, professor's to Tom off, you know, months, six months, right?

1:34:49

It was talking to a pastor, pastor Michael Todd recently, who is a pastor of a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

1:34:56

I believe it is. And he said one of the greatest pieces of advice as a mentor of him, of his told him was in a matter of what you do, you're here.

1:35:06

His mission is to serve God, to serve people and serve God.

1:35:09

And he does it all day, all day long, all night long, right?

1:35:14

That's his mission. He said, the best thing you'll ever do is take a month off where you do nothing.

1:35:18

You don't show up for anyone.

1:35:20

You don't, you're not on your phone.

1:35:22

You're not on social media. You're not at the church.

1:35:24

You're not serving people.

1:35:25

That's your time. And he goes, but there's so many, much people out there that need my health that need my service.

1:35:30

The end, our time, our attention goes, you will be so burned out.

1:35:34

If that's all you do all day for years, you know that you will lose yourself.

1:35:38

And he says, every year he takes a month where he's not on the phone, he's not doing those things.

1:35:43

And he's, there were some self, his family, his wife vacationing relaxing.

1:35:48

And he's like, I get more great ideas in the rest and relaxation time.

1:35:52

And I'm more rejuvenated to go, to have passion and energy for the other 11 months a year.

1:35:57

Yeah. But I, that the best book, the book, he has a book that came from that was a number one, New York times bestseller.

1:36:02

So it's like, I wanted to have written that in the morning, your time.

1:36:04

And so the idea came from relaxing and resting, not always in service, but having that time as well.

1:36:12

Well, I mean, this is another biblical idea that right, which is on a Sunday, the seventh day, you actually say, you know, so if God has to rest, you know, we, we really have a full justification from that firm from a religious point of view, from a Christian perspective to say, well, from, from JD Judeo-Christian point of view, which is like, yeah, it is, you're supposed to have a day.

1:36:35

You're supposed to have a, I mean, that's, what's sabbatical.

1:36:37

It comes from right from the same way with a Sabbath, you're supposed to have time for the other, The its kind of a other type of Productivity.

1:36:45

You can think about it that way.

1:36:47

It's just, it's just the rhythm and that everything has a season.

1:36:51

So the, the best idea is You're

1:36:53

speaking my language with seasons because as an athlete, there is a pre-season there's the season.

1:36:59

Yep. There's the postseason, right?

1:37:01

So there's these different seasons.

1:37:03

There is a playoffs and in the postseason, right?

1:37:05

It's like you got the pre-season we've got the season, you at the, the, the play-offs in a post season and a post season, you got to recover.

1:37:12

Your body has been pounded in football.

1:37:14

You're just hitting over and over again.

1:37:17

Right. You got to let your body heal. Right.

1:37:18

You can train and other ways, but you got to take some time baseball.

1:37:22

Every S every sports team has an office.

1:37:25

Th th and, and if you and your not supposed to, or even in the preseason to be playing like your, in the playoffs now, and if you do remember one time, the goal, the golden state warriors is they, they had like the, The, you know, the winningest seasonings ever, they were like in the playoffs favor for everyone, you know, but they didn't have enough in a tank to get them over the line.

1:37:44

They don't have the year that they, that they lost the, they want like that.

1:37:48

And they lost like five games the whole year. And then, And

1:37:51

so the next season they'd learned that, you know, we, you don't about that.

1:37:55

You don't have to be the top of the league even just to make the playoffs and so on, and to be happy if they made the playoffs this year.

1:38:00

But yeah. So this is something to do.

1:38:02

Is that something you said for that too, but, but I like the idea that you don't even have, you know, you, you have different seasons throughout a, it reminds me of a Madden who is one of the, the, the people that are covered in the book that he just was like, these players, he said, look, you got to, actually, he said, what I wish we'd done more of last year was nothing.

1:38:22

Like, I wish we'd done some more, just do nothing, Relax,

1:38:28

chill, nothing. Yes. That Was

1:38:30

like, we needed more, no time.

1:38:31

A and, and he, he said, and do you mean the season of there?

1:38:36

Yes. He was saying, let's, let's have it.

1:38:39

So that you come in for a game instead of coming in for hours early in Training, hot and so on.

1:38:43

And he's like, let's call it the American Legion week a, which is, you know, it's a, when they were in, when they were, you know, not professional players and they would just turn up to play alright.

1:38:54

In your practice. And it didn't do you, do you just, you just, you want that for several hours before and beating yourself up, you just turned up to the plate and he's like, we're going to start doing that in the regular season for some of it.

1:39:02

And in a, he found that that was so counter cultural.

1:39:05

It took him a while to get it installed, but the results have been incredible.

1:39:10

And what's so funny, a you grew up at the UK, right?

1:39:13

So do you understand American football, but I played a role, Not

1:39:19

like you. That has to be sure about that.

1:39:22

And in college at the division three level, there's three divisions in college.

1:39:25

I was in the division three level, which is a lower level, historically, even though there's a lot of great town in It.

1:39:30

Yep. And there was a team I'm going to forget the name, but it was a team in Wisconsin, a school that was like national champions in this co in this league and division three, like five out of 10 years for like five years in a row, 10 years in a row, something like that.

1:39:48

I was like 10 out of 20 years. Wow. It's like, they were you at the national championship game one.

1:39:53

It or they were there. And they had, they were notorious for never hitting in practice.

1:39:58

They were like shorts and practice.

1:40:02

They would do jumping jacks.

1:40:04

They would sit back on the back of the field and do like snow angels in the grass and just do like silly, goofy things for warmup.

1:40:13

And they wouldn't hit all ever on practice.

1:40:16

And then they would show up at the game and be so fresh and so light and just dominate speed.

1:40:21

No injuries.

1:40:23

No, no. Andrew is how about that?

1:40:26

And most of the time, when I, when I grew up football is like, you have to train, you have to be prepared, hit, hit, hit all practice long.

1:40:32

Maybe the day before it's more of a walkthrough.

1:40:34

And then you're like, I'm exhausted Going

1:40:38

into the game. Yes. You are going into bathrooms.

1:40:40

Austin had you already burned down. I got tired or, Oh, I tweaked my arm.

1:40:44

Cause we're hitting all day long till I prove something out of the practice and train in this way.

1:40:47

And these guys, they did like jumping jacks.

1:40:50

And then they were like, all right, we're Lewis and we're ready to go.

1:40:52

And you were like, how do they keep winning?

1:40:55

But they were doing the Effortless thing in practice, which was counter-productive to the hard work we need to be here and grind it out, all practice long, every minute, squeeze out all the pain as opposed to what's the Effortless thing.

1:41:09

And w what that reminds me of you, you you've heard, I'm sure of the book of the, the, the, the blue ocean strategy.

1:41:15

Right? And so the idea of that, the metaphor behind that book is, is, is that you've got all the competitors who are in fighting over the same fish.

1:41:22

And because they're fighting you on the same Fisher that makes the C read with blood right now.

1:41:28

And this whole book premise is saying, what if you don't fight where everyone else is fighting, and instead you create your own market.

1:41:34

So you're not competing with anyone.

1:41:36

You make your competitors irrelevant. And that's why its called blue ocean strategy.

1:41:39

You goes where no one has playing.

1:41:41

What are you just feel like?

1:41:42

Is that what you just described as such a red ocean strategy?

1:41:46

We're going to kill ourselves all day, every day, all day, every day.

1:41:50

And we're going to kill ourselves more than everybody else is.

1:41:53

I mean, it's like read from a different kind of blood.

1:41:55

It's like, it's like, yeah, that's one strategy.

1:41:57

I'm not saying it can ever work on it.

1:42:00

I'm just going to sometimes. But like if you were just fighting and fighting with everyone else who was doing the same thing, is that not at least a percentage of your time.

1:42:10

I was just talking to somebody who, who is a general manager in, in, in, in, in the NFL.

1:42:15

And I said, okay, have all the speeches you've ever given as a leader to try and get better results from your teams.

1:42:22

What is the percentage ratio between work harder to give more and let's find an easier way to get the results.

1:42:31

What's the ratio. And he just laughs. He's like Greg, it's a hundred percent.

1:42:35

The first I have never given this speech, let's find an easier way to get the results.

1:42:41

Right. That's the problem. I it's like, it's like almost like, it seems like I'm fully attacking this strategy in this book.

1:42:48

And I'm just saying it's just not the only one.

1:42:51

There's another whole strategy.

1:42:53

What if you just ask the other question, you might find that they're is in fact another way to do training, you might find just like the has said, jumping jacks might be the thing relaxing might have its place so that you can be ready to give you your old win.

1:43:06

The moment comes to mind.

1:43:08

This is powerful stuff, Greg. I'm so glad that you wrote this book.

1:43:11

I want people to get it. It's called Effortless.

1:43:12

Make it easy to do a What Matters may sure you guys check this out.

1:43:17

Also check out your podcast, which is called what's Essential.

1:43:21

You guys can download that subscribe.

1:43:23

It's on Apple, Spotify, everywhere.

1:43:25

And where podcasts are at.

1:43:27

This is a book that I've, you know, footnoted in a lot of pages.

1:43:30

'cause for me, my audience knows it's hard for me to read because it just hurts.

1:43:34

My brain reading one paragraph is like, Oh, this is hard work.

1:43:38

You made it easy to go through this.

1:43:40

And I highlighted many pages because its, you know, it's like a, some pages like a kid's book from.

1:43:46

And so it's a graph. There is an image and in some words, so if you make it a really and easy to read, so I appreciate everything that you have here.

1:43:55

And where is that one page again?

1:43:57

I want to highlight this for people.

1:43:59

There's two pages that where you said, ah, here we go.

1:44:03

I like this. When you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have when you focus on what you have.

1:44:07

You get what you lack again, this is kind of a, a key principle from the book that I think is really important to think about.

1:44:15

So I'm grateful you did this.

1:44:18

I have a couple of final questions for you.

1:44:20

This is called three truths.

1:44:23

Okay. A question to ask everyone at the end of every show called three truths.

1:44:26

OK? So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario that it's your last day on earth, many years away, and you get to live as long as you want, but eventually you got to turn the lights off and you've accomplished every dream that you can think of.

1:44:38

You have the life you want, you've done it all effortlessly.

1:44:41

But for whatever reason, you got to take all of your work with you to the next place.

1:44:46

And no one has access to this book.

1:44:48

Any book that you've ever written or anything you've ever said, okay, but you get a piece of paper and a pen to write down three lessons that you've learned that you would like to share with the world.

1:44:57

What I like to call three truths.

1:44:59

And this is all we would have from you as your memory.

1:45:04

So this is the only thing that you get to leave behind Is

1:45:08

all the information we have about you and your thoughts and your ideas in your work as you've taken it all with you.

1:45:14

If you have three lessons to leave behind to the world.

1:45:18

Oh, okay.

1:45:19

Three truce, Greg McKeown EP.

1:45:25

Okay.

1:45:27

The first one would be a one word, a light.

1:45:36

Which spelling? Yeah,

1:45:37

just the light.

1:45:39

L I G H T light two meanings.

1:45:44

Yeah. Well that's good because the first meeting let's deal with the first meeting light as in light versus darkness that in every moment you have a choice to go toward the light or to go toward the darkness.

1:45:59

And it doesn't really matter whether somebody is coming at it with a religious perspective or no faith perspective that everybody knows this.

1:46:08

They know something as the right thing to do.

1:46:11

It's full of light or they know something is not the right thing.

1:46:14

And we all have to choose between that constantly.

1:46:16

So, and I think that's what it means to be a good person is that you keep coming back to the light, you make mistakes, but you just go, okay, my next choice, I'm going to do the thing that I know to be right.

1:46:27

And that will lead to more light and more light until til I think your life is full of light.

1:46:34

Well, that's the best principle. One light I'm a principal to is the same word, but the different meaning.

1:46:43

OK. So light stele. Same way.

1:46:45

L I G H T I think.

1:46:48

Yeah. Cause still has a double meaning light as in T E no, but I think that you just think it's just the same.

1:46:54

Yeah. And, and that's light as in choosing to light or a way of living in a way we've talked about for this way, this way, what are you you're just going, Not

1:47:04

everything has to be so hot.

1:47:06

And then Underneath

1:47:07

that, I think is the question, how am I making life harder than it needs to be my favorite story, actually, it's in the version you have here, but its not in the actual book, which is a shame.

1:47:19

It's the one thing I kind of regret that I didn't get into that we just chose to have it out and I regret it.

1:47:26

But it's a story of a woman who is, He

1:47:31

has a son who's dying And

1:47:34

in the hospital together and it's at the end.

1:47:36

So it's actually really similar to your, to you, to your scenario for me.

1:47:40

And you can tell sometimes you can really tell I've been with people towards the end of their life and sometimes, you know, and, and so she knew.

1:47:49

And so she got up into the bed with him just to kind of, you know, hug him and right at the end, you know, in that, between places he's, it's just the last words he ever said, This

1:48:00

is mom, it's all so simple.

1:48:03

It's so simple.

1:48:05

And then he died And

1:48:09

that was his final message to his mother, to the world.

1:48:14

And I think that's what I mean by the second version of light.

1:48:18

I like, how are we making life harder than it needs to be?

1:48:21

What are we making more complex than it needs to be, has tried and strip life have all of that so that it can be liked in that second way.

1:48:30

And

1:48:30

now

1:48:30

I'm,

1:48:30

now

1:48:30

I'm

1:48:30

thinking

1:48:30

about

1:48:30

the

1:48:30

third

1:48:35

thing.

1:48:37

And

1:48:37

I

1:48:37

think

1:48:41

We had to really be honest about this. I would just say, I would say light for a long time, but now I just have to sort of share my own conviction and I'm not sharing it because I feel like anybody else has to believe this or I'm not trying to pressure anybody else into anything.

1:48:58

But I just believe that that you know, that that God is a source of light.

1:49:05

And, and for me as a Christian, it is, you know, I believe that Jesus Christ is the source of that light.

1:49:12

And I feel that in my own life, I see it in my own family.

1:49:17

It's not, it's not based in some, some Relic of a belief.

1:49:21

It is a living breathing thing for me.

1:49:24

It got us through this experience with Eve.

1:49:27

It is the thing that I, when I, well, for me, it is where I find the great light for my own life.

1:49:34

It makes me want to be kind of be better serve more.

1:49:37

And so I think that would be sort of the final and perhaps most important point is that that I make him and the light of my life so I can feel me.

1:49:48

And it feels me. The thing that I'm currently experiencing is is that it increases the amount of love in me for other people.

1:49:59

And,

1:49:59

and

1:49:59

I

1:49:59

need

1:50:03

it. You know, I, I need that in my life.

1:50:05

I need to feel that love, we all need to be loved and to be able to love each other.

1:50:09

And this is, this has been, this is the journey I'm on is to feel God's love for me, which allows me to then be able to be full of it for other people.

1:50:18

And like, we don't need a bit more of that right now in the world where we're just being told to distrust and dislike and to not love every other people who are different to us.

1:50:26

And we need a lot more of that.

1:50:28

So that's my answer, you know? Beautiful. I love those.

1:50:30

It's a great truce. I want to acknowledge you Greg, before I ask the final question for being an incredible father, cause it sounds like your daughter really needed YOU over the last four years and you showed up with new strategies, new ways of learning on how to make it a better environment for her and the rest of your kids during an incredibly hard and challenging suffering time, which could have been much harder.

1:50:57

Yeah. So for you to show up the way you did and to say, okay, we're not going to do that the hard way and suffer.

1:51:03

We're already suffering.

1:51:04

How can we make this more enjoyable?

1:51:06

I think that's probably the thing that I admire the most about you.

1:51:09

I have no idea what it's like to be a parent.

1:51:12

And I can only imagine the amount of stress, fear Overwhelm, you know, frustration around something like that.

1:51:20

So I acknowledge it for the way you handled it and the way you continue to handle it, even though it's not perfect.

1:51:25

And showing up as the light for your kids in your entire family, I think it's really inspiring.

1:51:32

Well, I can have you say that without just really acknowledging the, the old, the people that played a role in that.

1:51:40

I mean the answer I just gave you, I really have to acknowledge the, that light in my life that guided me even to read that article or to get me through it or to get receive insights and a little revelations that guided us through that.

1:51:55

There's no question about that. I have to acknowledge in a really the hands of God in that, and also other people who showed up who is just literally people and I hadn't heard from in years.

1:52:04

So it showed up now we're praying for you.

1:52:05

Not that can be just a nice, polite phrase, but I tell you, we learned that it is for real, that his, our experience is that things opened up and opportunities opened up that would not otherwise have opened up without that, that has been, I would be intellectually dishonest not to add that to the experience of what that was.

1:52:25

And that's one of the reasons that I, I felt, I guess, obliged a little, a little awkward, to be honest and doing it, but dedicating the book to a single principal, which is, you know, my it's a verse from Matthew.

1:52:40

My yoke is easy. My burden is light.

1:52:42

I just, it, to me, that's a breathtaking phrase.

1:52:46

Having spent all this time now in the principal of EFFORTLESS, it's like, man, that is right there.

1:52:51

A lot of people that are in life does not feel light does not feel easy, but there seems to be a path even in a scriptural path for, for getting that.

1:53:01

Yeah. That's beautiful. Greg, final question for you all before I ask it, make sure you guys get the book.

1:53:05

It's got to be powerful. Get a cup of coffee for your friends, for your team Effortless.

1:53:09

Make sure you got to check it out.

1:53:11

And final question. What is your definition of Greatness?

1:53:16

I think that they're a friend, a mentor for me, it was a Stephen Covey and he used to distinguish primary Greatness and secondary Greatness.

1:53:26

And he, he said primary Greatness is the, is the private victory.

1:53:31

It's all the stuff that is going on inside of you.

1:53:33

That's your character is whether you're being kind grateful, honest, a you know, all of who you are, no one gets to see that that's all in the, that's all the quiet.

1:53:46

Then this public Greatness, secondary Greatness is the public victory it's worth.

1:53:53

That's what people see. That's the, the, the successes and, and really what he was trying to distinguish, I think is that is the primary Greatness proceed, secondary Greatness.

1:54:04

And it is more important.

1:54:05

If you get primary Greatness, you'll often achieve secondary greatness.

1:54:09

You'll often actually gain the accolades of other people because you have something substantive inside of you.

1:54:15

But if you don't, you still, you still have something substantive to society.

1:54:19

You see, you still win a thing that matters most.

1:54:21

And so I think the Greatness to me is, is mostly the first, but it's what also, power's the second that gives life to it.

1:54:28

So this is my definition. And, and, and to add to that, if you only chaste the public Greatness and you don't have the integrity, the character, you're not kind to others.

1:54:40

Yeah. You will suffer at the end of the day and that'll never be enough And

1:54:43

never be enough. You may not achieve it.

1:54:45

And a secondary Greatness disappears awfully fast, quick, having this conversation in the middle of like basically in the middle of Hollywood, the middle of cancel culture, middle of cancel culture.

1:54:54

Yeah, exactly. So someone can be famous.

1:54:56

They can have the money and then tomorrow they can be completely kicked out gone.

1:54:59

So you can construct your life around secondary Greatness.

1:55:03

If you do, that's a high risk strategy.

1:55:05

Let's say it that way. My man and Greg, this has been powerful.

1:55:07

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

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Now I'm excited to get to know you guys even more and be able to serve you and the best possible way.

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1:56:31

And if this adds value to your life where it helps you maximize time in any way, shape or form, then let me know, leave a rating and review and share with me the part you enjoy the most and share this with a friend that you think would find it inspiring and helpful as well would love to hear your thoughts.

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1:57:05

And I want to leave you with this quote from filmmaker, George Lucas, who says always remember your focus, determines your reality.

1:57:13

Ooh. In a world of distractions, in a world of nonstop notifications in a world of endless possibilities to spend on our time, what are you focusing your time on?

1:57:25

What is meaningful to you? What matters?

1:57:27

How would you like to be remembered?

1:57:28

What would you like to be known for?

1:57:30

What would make you proud, knowing what you used with your time, for your energy, your talents, your creation in this world, focus your energy in the right things.

1:57:40

And the right things will usually come back and supporting you as well.

1:57:44

I'm so grateful that you were here today.

1:57:46

I hope this added value in your life.

1:57:48

And as always, if no one has told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved.

1:57:52

You are worthy and you matter.

1:57:53

And you know what time it is, it's time to go out there and do something Great.

1:57:58

This is episode number one thousand one hundred and two with New York Times best selling author wGreg McKeown. to the School of Greatness. My name is Louis Howe's former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. John CarMax said focus is matter of deciding what things you're not going to do. And Leo Tolstoy said there is no greatness, whether there is not simplicity. Goodness and truth. My guest today is Greg McKeown, and Greg is a speaker, a New York Times bestselling author, and host the cant, What's Essential. His work has been covered by The New York Times, Fortune, and Inc. And he's previously wrote The New York Times Hes selling book Essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of Hes, which has sold more than a million copies worldwide. He's now written a new book called effortless. Make it easier to do what matters most. And in this episode, we discussed the simple and surprising keys for a productive life. The five questions to ask yourself before starting a new project. How to stop beating ourselves up for relaxing more often in our lives and the two questions that change the course of Greg's life. If you're inspired by this, if this helps you become more effortless in your goal setting and accomplishing your goals and in your life overall, then make sure to share this with a friend. Post it on social media, text a friend. You can use the link luishouse dot com slash 1102 or you can just copy and paste this link wherever you are listening to it. And if this is your first time here at the school of greatness, then welcome. We have some of the most incredible minds in the world here to share with you how to unlock your inner greatness. So click that subscribe button right Apple Cant. Leave a rating and review of the part you enjoyed most about this episode as well. Okay. In just a moment, the one and only wGreg McEwen. Nothing gets gets me. I'm more motivated during a workout than some great pump up music and upbeat instructor and challenge with world-class instructors, curated music and endless fitness me more motivated during a workout than some great pop up music, an upbeat instructor, and a challenge. With world class instructors, curated youve, and endless fitness variety. Peloton has created an unmatched fitness experience to keep you motivated to work out after a Peloton has created an unmatched fitness experience to keep you motivated, workout after workout. I'm personally a big fan of instructor Ali Love. She has an incredible energy that keeps me pumped up and awesome music to go along with her Peloton workouts. Their instructors are there to help bring out your best during each class, whether you're looking for some extra encouragement, structured workouts, or even in the mood to work Their instructors are there to help bring out your best during each class. Whether you're looking for some extra encouragement, structured workout outs or even in the mood to laugh. Peloton has got Peloton's got you. Music tends to dictate how hard I push my someone to out. And that's why it's important to me with Epic artists, collaborations and instructor, curated playlist, Peloton music experience is unlike any other, and it keeps you in the and that's why it's important to me. With pick artist collaborations and instructor curated playlist, Peloton's music experience is unlike any other and it keeps you in the zone. Peloton isn't only for Peloton isn't only for cardio. Add a strength class to your ride or combined cardio and strength in one workout with bike bootcamp, to get a total body fitness Experience from beginner programs to Tabata Add a straight class to your ride or combine cardio and strength in one workout with bike boot cant to get a total body fitness experience. From beginner programs to tapata intervals, Peloton meets you at every step of your fitness journey. Get started on your Peloton journey go to one peloton dot com to learn more. That's 0NEPEL0T0N dot com. Running a business can be a business can be tough. And if you're business owner like myself, you don't need me to tell you that. I wanna help you out. QuickBooks and spreadsheets might be slowing you QuickBooks and spreadsheets might be slowing you down. So you've got to upgrade to so you've gotta upgrade to NetSuite. You don't need to be paying for multiple systems that don't even give you the information you need when you need it, ditched the spreadsheets and old software that you've outgrown. And I was recently talking with Greg Sulak the CFO over at our partner network wonder, and he could not stop raving about NetSuite and how it has enabled his team to scale up their operations while simultaneously improving their efficiency, productivity, and profitability, be like Greg and the over 24,000 companies using NetSuite right now, upgrade to NetSuite by Oracle, the world's number one cloud business I was recently talking with Greg Zulak, the CFO over at our partner network Wondry, and he could not stop raving about NetSuite and how it has enabled his team to scale up their operations, while simultaneously improving their efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Be like Greg and the over twenty four thousand companies using NetSuite right now. Upgrade to NetSuite by Oracle, the world's number one cloud business system and you won't regret it. it. You'll have visibility and control over everything, your financials, HR inventory e-commerce and more everything you need all in one place instantaneously, whether you're doing a million or hundreds of millions in revenue, save time and money with NetSuite, that NetSuite show you how they'll benefit your business with a free product tour@netsuite.com slash You'll have visibility and control over everything. Your financials, HR, inventory, e commerce, and more. Everything you need all in one place instantaneously. Whether you're doing a million or hundreds of millions in revenue, save time and money with NetSuite. Let NetSuite show you how they'll benefit your business with a free product tour at netsuite dot com slash Greatness. Schedule your free product tour right now at netsuite.com/ Schedule your free product tour right now at net sweet dot com slash Greatness. That's net suite.com/ That's net sweet dot com slash greatness. Welcome back Hes everyone in the School Green's podcast. Very excited about our Hes. Greg McKeown MostIn the Hes. My man. Good to see you. Good to see you Good to see you too. You have an amazing book out right now called Eiffer List and a great podcast that people should check out called What essential podcast. They can get the book and subscribe the podcast there. And you had a you're you're on the the tale of a massive book launch previously that did incredibly well. And the world has learned about a lot of people in my community are aware of. And now you have this book about effortless. And I'm curious, it seems like in a world of burn out culture, muscle and grind culture -- Mhmm. -- that there isn't a lot of effortlessness happening. In the world. It's more work as hard as you can grind it out and hustle because hard work is the key to success. You hear a lot of great athletes say, how did you get here? They had to work hard. Yep. They had to put in hours and hours every day in order to master their skill to be the best of what they were. Had to. So is there a way to create effortlessness when you also need to work hard and be diligent in your practice and all these things? Or do we not have to work hard? And it can be effortless in accomplishing what we cant? Yeah. Well, look, I mean, to to me, essentialism is about was about rethinking prioritization -- Mhmm. -- what really matters in figuring out what is essential. Mhmm. Effortless is a cousin to that, and that's about rethinking simplification -- Uh-huh. -- which is that sometimes we just make getting great results, breaking through to the next level, harder than it needs to be. Yeah. So it's not saying, hey, you should never work and you should never work hard and you should never put an effort. I I believe that you're supposed to put an effort. The point is if you can't work any harder, you've got to find an easier pathToday's yet in a grain culture, sometimes people start to get burned out and their answer is push even harder. Right. Right. I think different I think smarter. Find an alternative route. Right. Then take pause, reflect, have better strategy. It's more just go hard, hard, hard, more spend more time, more hours and the thing. Yeah. As opposed to reevaluate simplification. Yeah. That's what it is. How can we do it more effortlessly in a simplified version, not just hard push, push, push. One of the things I think that we can do is is just well, the the the book structure the model is to have an effortless state, like three concentric circles, effortless state, effortless action, and effortless results. Right. And that's sort of like three books in one. Each of them can make your life and the results you get easier to get. Youve want to first remove all the complexity in your mind, in your heart that makes life more frustrating than it ought to be. Just talking with Tim Ferriss, and I asked Tim question about this. I said, look, how much of your mental and emotional energy have you given on stuff that, you know, holding grudges, being angering, stuff that just got in the way of your success. And he said, look, From age fifteen to thirty, Hes said probably sixty to seventy percent of my energy was spent on that. On More than that. Angry? At what? Himself, other people, other people, the world, anything. And awful things that happened to him, but he was angry about when he was youve, he's talked about this publicly now, of abuse that he'd been through and so on. But either way, he's making Hes life is more burden than it needs to be because he's spending so much of his cycles on this stuff that isn't actually propelling in full without helping achieve. Stop process. There's energy on those things. Right? Yeah. That's a lot of the time. That's right. Just youve just your mind what youve you're processing, how you're feeling is just burdened. Burning energy. Burning energy. Right. Instead of getting you going forward. Yes. And so simplifying your state, I think, is a is a huge return on investment. Mhmm. If you can let go of a grudge, If you can let go of something that you keep on, you know, draining you, then you have there's just more of youve one off. And that's not through grinding effort. Mhmm. That's through just removing burdens. You don't have to be hauling up the MostIn at all. Right. Youve number two area is effortless action. That's effortless state. The first area. Effortless state. Mhmm. So youve simplifying all of your youve all of that clutter that's in your mind. Yeah. So it makes it easier to focus on what matters. Before we get to the sec the second ring, how do people learn to let go of grudges? Yeah. How do they let go of resentment, anger frustration about others, and about things they've done, and that's really hard to do. You see my head's a zip line of my gosh. It's good clear minds, but, you know, people have been trying to figure that out for a long time. Yeah. So how do we how did you learn how to do that? Well well, one of the things that I've learned is that specifically on grudges is that we need to learn Like, we have to ask an unusual question about crutches. And that is, what did we hire the crutch to do? Yep. As Clayton Christian soon says, with any product or service that you have, you youve don't you don't you don't no one wants A6A6 inch drill bit. What they want is a six inch hole. Right? There's a reason that you're hiring that product or service. Where you can do the same with grudges. Every grudge we hold, we hold for a reason. We've hired the grudge to do something for us. Maybe we hire the grudge to make us feel powerful. See, I am I am one up. I'm above that person. See, see, they did this bad thing. I'm holding onto that. See, I'll show that I'm superior. We hold on to it for a sense of superiority. Or maybe we hold on it for because we like that we get to tell a story of being a victim. And people go, oh, Hes, we get sympathy for doing it. Well, we hire Groaches to do certain jobs And what I think is that if we simply evaluate bridges like -- Mhmm. -- we say, how are you doing in your job performance? For me. Are you actually protecting me? Are you actually making me powerful? Are you actually getting people to build a stronger relationship with me. Or if you evaluate them in the book, there's a section specifically one by one, you can do this. Where you you say, well, is youve actually find well, actually, it's not making me powerful. It makes me more vulnerable. It it makes me vulnerable with everyone. Because I'm carrying this wound still and not letting it heal. Is it helping me to build relationships? No. If you pay attention, you notice that when you tell these stories, youve have to find new people to tell them too because people get bored of it. Right. And so you're not building deeper trust relationships. You're you're actually kind of wearing them out. Along the way. And you can go one by one to suddenly discover that this is like a bad employee. We have the grudges like, you you've hired them to do this. They aren't doing any of those things. They're using you. Grudges use you. They burn you up. They waste you They waste you out. They make you weaker. And so just through this process, you start to find, like, I'm ready ready to fire my grudges -- Mhmm. -- ready to be free of it so that I can actually recuperate whatever the percentage is, sixty to seventy percent with with maybe it's different for other people. Get all of that back. And we cant putting that into the stuff we really wanted to do in in the first place. Yeah. Can you imagine there's been different stages of my life where I felt like ten out of ten of positivity, of freedom of my thoughts, from holding rudges, or resentments, or anger, and you feel like you're flying. Mhmm. And there have been many years in my life, many years, too many years where I've held on to resume anger frustration a lack of forgiving other people. Right. Where you feel like you're at a six or seven, maybe you get to an eight for a moment, but then something triggers you and you're back into anger frustration mode. Mhmm. And that really pulls me back into feeling tired, exhausted, drained, and burnt out. Typically not from the effort I put into my craft, but in the f I put into my mind thinking about the things don't like. Yeah. You've just you have basically made the case. For why effortless state is the first part. The athlete was a model and that's it exactly part of the athlete's model. Mhmm. That's it exactly. Right. You youve take the language you use. You feel like you're flying Yes. Is that not just another metaphor for effortless? Yeah. I mean, what what would be more effortless than I'm flying? That's the idea. That's why even though you would never think of forgiveness as a productivity hack. Mhmm. Like, maybe no one's ever written that. You know, the productivity hack -- Youve true. -- is to forgive. People in your life. And yet, what else can you call it? If you could get that that much energy, that much of your own light and ability and capability it's the best rebate available. There's a story that I came across in the research that I love of a man who was productive in his community And then one day, he he Hes saw what he thought was a piece of string on the ground, and it was a piece of string. He kept it. He's like, oh, I can put that to He puts it in his pocket. On that same day in the marketplace, someone else had lost a wallet and lost some And they thought that they had seen him pick up the war and take it, youve the moment publicly. There was no way for him to prove his innocence. And so the word went out this person has acted dishonestly dishonorably and so on. Now, at this point in the story, he has a choice. He can't prove his innocence, but he could have. In this moment, let go of the accusation of the harsh judgment, and he would have suddenly had all that energy back to be able to get back onto, well, what can I do something about? How can I serve? How can I make a contribution? How can I be successful again? But he doesn't. He gets fixated on it. Everywhere he goes, he talks about it. He nurses' the grudge that explains it's a piece of He nurses the grudge, he explains, it's a piece of string. Don't you see it was wrong? A piece of string? A piece of string. People started laughing about this guy. All he ever wants to talk about is a piece of string. And it makes him ill any on his deathbed, the final words of the story, you know, a little piece of string, a little piece of string. And this is how the story goes. Now that is is a fictionalized account, but it it illustrates the point of where are you putting your mental energies? If we put them on grudges, if we put them on things that have happened, we wished they hadn't If we put them on grudges, if we put them on things that have happened. We wish they hadn't happened. Or even on our own mistakes where we go, I wish I'd been different. We're beating ourselves up for past mistakes. We're just We're just putting tons of effort on the things that will exhaust us and burners out instead of moving forward to the things that really matter. So we just say the things in our minds will hold us back from an effortless state and getting and getting the actions and the results we want is the things in our mind first. Hes. Definitely. There's there's a little story about that where I was staring at myself dressed head to toe in a stormtrooper costume. Yeah. And, I mean, I'm in a, you know, I mean, in a store of Halloween. So this is like a this is expensive suits. It's like a quality, stormtrooper outfit. And as I'm staring back myself in the mirror, like, should I buy this? I'm like, how am I even here? Like, what what why? For thirty years without realizing it, I'd had this goal of buying a stormtrooper costume. Yeah. So when I reflect on it, it goes back to like when return of Jedi comes out. And my older brother says, oh, wouldn't it be cool to have a movie quality suit? You know, wouldn't it be great? And I'm like this, you know, what I have a ten year old kid just amazed by this. Like, Hes, that would be cool. Forget about it entirely, but here we are thirty years later, still pursuing that goal. It's still a part of me Hes been working on achieving this. Well, no part of me wanted that costume. I'm like, why am I even what am I even doing here? Let's get out of this. don't want this costume. And it became like a shorthand. My wife will say to me now, like, if I'm pursuing something that she's like, I don't know, that has a certain vibe about it. She'd be like, is this a stormtrooper? And I think you can use that for goals that no longer serve you, but also for grudges that no longer serve could be relationships that no longer serve you, could be any mentholing clutter. Any assumptions that are simply, like, that they were true to a point, but they don't serve you now. Mhmm. And and and one of those one of those stormtroopers, I think, is the idea that any problem can be solved by working harder. That alone is a really limiting idea. It'll get you only to hit. It won't get you to that. So it's a good principle as far as it goes. But then we need to invert that question. Instead of say, how can I work harder? We say, look, is there a more effortless way of doing this? And so as you rid your mind of this old paradigm, youve open yourself up to a new option, a new question, and suddenly, I mean, I almost think it's almost like magic. There's so many cool options once youve free of the idea that anything worth doing has to be exhaustingly difficult. Yeah. What was the thought process that stuck in your mind the longest that was the hardest to let go of. That when you let go of it, the light became more effortless. Whether it be in your relationships or your career or whatever it might be. Yeah. I mean, one answer to that question is well, I'll give you one answer though, which is that that work what's essential needs to kind of be hard, drudgery. And then you've got separate to that play and fun. And that those two things are just two different categories. Yes. They don't have to be, but we often divide them up. And so we we we just have the fun and the play separate. Well, what if they what if the essential things can be the fun things? What if you can make the the things that used to seem like drudgery into like fun rituals. Yeah. How do you make cleaning your laundry or mopping the floor or -- Yeah. -- cleaning the toilet a fun enjoyable very or which is a specific example in my family cleaning up up the dinner. Yeah. So we we we have pretty good rituals around the real time. Like, we actually eat together. I've got four kids in my white house. We we will do, like, you know, we'll do toasts for each other. At the end of each day, like, what's gone right today? And we have some good rituals around this. But as soon as the dinner is over, My my kids are just, like, gone. They're like, see how those are on their Disappeared. Like, they're they're, like, nineties, man. They had just They're just gone. It's, like, so silent. And, like, why did they all go? Then I have the unimvievable task of, like, come back and pulling them all back, where did you all go? And, oh, no, I've got homework on on. It's hard to argue with that and go to the hard to argue with that. Go to the bathroom. Okay. That's hard to argue. And it's just this cat and mouse game to get them back in. So I'm like, okay. How do we make it effortless? And so we we we divide up choice. So everyone's got a certain part of it. Right? Many hands make light work, and we train them on each piece. And I'm like, okay, we're gonna set this up. We wrote it all down on a piece of paper, wherever we can see it. Okay. Ready to Ready to start what happens? Nothing. Chaos there. It is back. They're the same. They're gone. The next day, they have gone like Ninja's again. And it wasn't until male to store to Grace added just a particular kind of music to the occasion that it became like karaoke. It was like classic Disney tracks. It was I mean, she's a teenager. She's just ten eighteen now. But it's just like sing along stuff that you can't not sing to all kinds of music. it turned it into just like a little party. Mhmm. And even now, we'll start to do we'll have the same problems as soon as someone puts on the right music. All do it, you play, and and and and it's like that now. In fact, I I didn't think people would believe me, but the other day, wasn't even helping them music up on. Everyone's doing it. I grabbed like five seconds of video and put it on Instagram just to, like, youve, like, it really is like that now. So the idea is one of the ideas it's hard to let go up is that is that essential stuff has to be. The drudgery -- Mhmm. -- you know, the the important stuff is just hard work. Some things are just hard. And then there's fun stuff in that to play over here. But what if you make it what if you combine those, what if you make essential stuff enjoyable, well then it becomes relatively speaking. And I would add into that and say if you don't make the essential stuff enjoyable, then you will be burned out. Yeah. Even if it starts out as like fun, like practice, and sports for me, there are many different sports that I played growing up. And some of them I burnt out on because it came back. I started to become a job where it was only like you've got to show up to starting to become a job where it was only like you gotta show up to practice, you gotta work hard, this is a business mentality now, and it kinda lost the idea of having fun. Yeah. Yeah. When we're playing game, but it's like the business of the game. Right. And -- Right. -- you almost have to so what can start out as really fun -- Right. -- turning to drudgery. Right. And what could be like this thing that I don't like could be this incredibly fun experience -- Yeah. -- based on the parameters you create for yourself. Was a truck driver for many months. I got paid two hundred fifty dollars a week. Right. As a truck driver, when I was about twenty two, twenty three years old, and I remember being like, this is miserable. This was not fun. This was not, you know, essential to just pay, like, for food for the week. Right. It was not like the path of my life. Right. But it was a season of my life. And I remember saying, okay. Have an opportunity here. Like, this is gonna be happening for many months. I can either be in misery and pain for six hours a day in driving a truck. Right. Or I can make the most of it. And I downloaded CD with salsa songs and I started visualizing myself while watching the road, but visualizing myself salsa dancing. Because I was learning how to salsa dance at time. Wow. And so I would imagine myself doing the moves and and the dance and the steps and everything, and it made the time fly to make it more enjoyable. Right. But also sing songs as well and just say like, okay, how can I make this fun? Even if people are looking at me like I'm crazy, singing along to myself. But that made it more enjoyable where it wasn't like, I have to go to work and do this thing, but I had a great time and time flew. What What do you do you get when you talk to a Dell Technologies advisor? You get someone who understands that there's an art to listening. Who's able to hear more than what's being said and can provide tailored small business solutions that make you feel truly heard for advice on everything from laptops, to the cloud and solutions powered by Intel V Pro platform. Call an advisor today at 877 ask as a global Tech a global tech leader, Verizon is transforming how people, business, and things can act by developing game changing innovations like 5 g and more But moving the world forward takes more than the best technology, it takes the best people. Verizon. You'll be a part of a culture of learning and growth where you're empowered to drive meaningful change in your work and in the Verizon, you'll be a part of a culture of learning and growth where you're empowered to drive meaningful change in your work and in world. You Oh it to yourself to discover what Verizon has to offer for the next step in your career, visit verizon.com forward slash careers to the world. You owe it to yourself to discover what Verizon has to offer for the next step in your career. Visit verizon dot com forward slash careers learn. to learn more. III love what you're saying, and and really is sort of a lot of what I mean when I say effortless stakes. Yeah. Is it like, which is there's nothing so hard that complaining winding about it won't make it harder. Mhmm. So some things in life, once you decide I'm gonna do this thing, I'm dealing with this. This is a responsibility that's important to me taking on. Now just have to decide, do I wanna do it the hard way or the easier way? Yeah. Exactly. What happens when we complain and why do we complain so much? Youve I searched at one point when I was doing this research for, like, just what are the easiest things to do in the world? Like, just off the cuff, like, what are the answers And I remember that one of the first answers that people really agreed on was complaining is the easiest thing do. Wow. So I thought that was very interesting. And and I took on a little exercise myself with this. And I was like, okay. Well, that's not a great state to be. And a complaining state is gonna limit my creativity. It's gonna make harder for me to achieve. It's gonna be harder for me to attract good talent and all the rest of it. So I was at, okay, every time I complain, I'm going to say something I'm grateful for. I read this in the book. I like this strategy. Well, who's like this strategy? Well, I like that you like it. What I know just about was that It didn't work. Well, what I noticed is not that it didn't work. I realized that I complained a lot more than I realized. Right. I read that too. Is this this How much were you complaining a day when you started that strategy? I don't know if there's a number for it, but I just found, I would walk into a room and I'd be don't know if it's there's a number for it, but just found I would walk into a room and I'd be complaining. I I see my wife and, oh, how are you doing well? You know, this thing was a bit of a wGreg. That meeting took longer than I thought. But and I'm like, why are you saying this? It's not even how you feel about your life. There's so many good things happening, but for some reason I was in a habit of just starting with complaint. You see your kids, there's always something to complain about. Well, why are you on that? Why aren't you doing this? Why have you put this thing up? There's an endless variety of complaints. And and what I noticed was that the more I complained, the more there was to complain about. Mhmm. And as soon as I introduced this new habit, what I was surprised by is how fast the state changed because you can't be grateful and complaining in the same moment. You can't be fearful and grateful in the same moment. You can't be angry and grateful in the same moment. I mean, it is a it is a dynamic powerful catalytic thing. It's not just it was for too long. And we think of gratitude as being like, well, that's a nice, mindful men can be mindful and grateful over we think of gratitude as being like, Well, that's a nice mind format. Be mindful and grateful over that. But when you go to be a real stuff, that's not the real when you gotta get real stuff, that's not the real stuff. Ratitude is the real stuff. This is the way to be able to accelerate success in any area of your life and it's instantly affected. So I found that as soon as I would say I was grateful, I could see people's eyes light up just even my kids, my wife, just it just brought a more positive feeling. So then we carry on with our kids and I'm like, okay, My son Jack one time, I'm like, complained, and I'm like, okay, give me three things. You're thankful youve thankful for. He says this. And I'm so thankful. But my dad wants to play this dumb game after I say something I'm complaining about. Right? Yeah. Says just like that. We all laugh. It works even though he did it with the the worst attitude ever. And by the time he's doing two and three, he's laughing and he saves up and it didn't matter. Gratitude is that powerful. Mhmm. And so I think it's like the fastest way to get ourselves back into an effort mistake. And and and and and I learned about it first in the extremity of of of, you know, family crisis. Mhmm. I found that this thing would help even in the diarist of symptoms. Really? Yeah. What crisis? We youve into new neighborhood youve years ago. Pretty picturesque, beautiful neighborhood. You know, there's, like, in nature, bike picket fences. I mean, it's, like, lovely place and our children seem to thrive. They're out, you know, especially one of my daughter's Eve. She's out naming chickens I mean, yes, we have chickens. But but but also just up trees. She's she's she's barefoot everywhere. She's reading endlessly. She is thriving. Just cant be angry for more than, like, two seconds at a time. If she tries to do she first out laughing, that's just who she is until she turned fourteen. And then she just was like taking longer to do a chores. She's not as talkative anymore. And she's a little physically awkward. Mhmm. And we think, well, this is all pretty age appropriate behavior. Fourteen. Okay. Fine. We don't do much of it. But then we take it to a physical therapy appointment, just normal. And and he the the therapist pulls over my wife's eye and says, youve know, she failed a reflex test. And, like, the whole point is can't fail those. Right? Like, they're just basic health. And so the fact she didn't respond to it, he said, like, that's normally kinda neurological. Youve like, the knee where they hit you on the knee. And basically There's a few different ones, but that's one of them. Youve can do the same with the feet and your your youve your toes curl up a certain direction. And there's nothing you can do to stop that. That's what happens. But she wasn't responding in the way that she should have done to those. And so youve don't have to be told twice. Right? Like, for real, you're like, okay, maybe what we've seen as being normal developmental behavior isn't at all. And we suddenly I mean, we went to a neurologist immediately but also just reexamined her behavior. And what followed for the next several months was a complete discombobulation of her abilities. It's like taking someone perfectly healthy and just I don't know. Like, just making them go super slow. So, like, instead of eating a meal in, I don't know, half an hour like everyone else, it's taking hours. week. Instead of being here, the right, you know, a page a night, easily and fast is taking Instead of being able to write you know, Page and I easily and fast is taking her. Literally, I have it recorded two minutes to write her own name, a first, the whole right-hand side of a body of stocks her literally, I have it recorded two minutes to write her own name. Mhmm. First, the whole right hand side of her body stops moving -- Wow. -- the same as her left, personality change, she just no emotion in her anymore. And all the while these neurologists, these lifelong urologists cannot give us even the beginning of a And all the while, these neurologists, these lifelong neurologists cannot give us even the beginning of diagnosis. Wow. So there's nothing. We're getting no information. That's scary. Yeah. I mean, it's it's what it is really is the stuff that agony is made of. right. That is, that is human That is that is human suffering. III that's in the category. There's worse stuff, but it's in the category of the worst stuff. And that really opened us up to this moment. I remember my mind's eye seeing this like two paths ahead of us. And it the first part was like the heavily harder hard path, and the other one was the easier path. And you might say, well, it's obvious which one you should take, but actually it wasn't the temp, the temptation, or even the inclination was the heavier And you might say, well, it's obvious which one you should take, but actually it wasn't the temptation or even the inclination was the heavier path. What does that look like? Relentless research, night and day, all nighters, every neurologist on the planet, every email you get from well intended people saying, well, maybe she has this, you study that problem. You talk of nothing else. You think of nothing else. You you get obsessed about. I mean, that's actually the path that we felt like leaning into. You wanted to figure out solution. Yeah. Because what's the problem with the solution? Yes. Because because of an assumption that says, look, the the more more important is such an important thing. You have to kill yourself to go do it. And or even just even just a path of even blaming. We talk about holding grudges. We could've held grudges We could have held grudges there. Why are these Why are these neurologists? They don't know anything? Why can't they know something? Why is it happening to Eve? She's innocent. This is unfair. This is wrong. I mean, there's a whole set of approaches. I think that we, you know, really we're on the edge of doing. And then I had this sort of feeling one day, like among the reactions that we were having. One was this idea, like go and read this particular article. It's article it's a church article it's by Gordon B. Hinkley. And it's it's it's an article about optimism and thankfulness. Mhmm. And I started I felt like really kind of guided to, like, listen or read to that every day. And I did almost every day for the next like four months. Wow. And what happened in that moment really or not that that experience was that like, it was like my mind was being reengineered. Engineered in the midst of this, me, In the midst of this excruciating experience. There was this alternative path. There was a different way to do life that started to open up. And it began with gratitude. We will be grateful, relentlessly grateful. Anything we can be grateful for. We're gonna say it. We're gonna say it out loud. We're gonna say it to each other. We're gonna catch people doing right things. We're gonna catch the neurologist doing the right things. Well, they're they're willing to meet with us. They're thank goodness that they're willing to meet with us. That's good thing. And what that did is it created almost instantly this kind of magical force at play. It meant that we were able to just stay optimistic when youve getting sent emails every day almost from people saying, well, maybe she has this thing that's gonna kill her. Maybe she's gonna have this initiative. I mean, that's what you're getting all the time from well attended people. And it started opening us up to, like, well, well, let's let's let's have joy through this. Let's let's get around the piano and sing together. We're gonna still eat dinner together. We're still gonna laugh together. We're gonna still gonna And it just kept us positive and open and healthy. And our marriage didn't collapse. Our family didn't collapse. The culture was actually positive. And I would say overall that experience sometimes agonizing, sometimes tears, but overall, I would say it was joy. Now, don't say it likely. I know what it was. But I also know what happened as we took this alternative path. And, you know, if it was a Disney story, I'd just say it all worked out perfectly, happily ever after, she got a series of treatment pretty miraculously that got her much better, but then the symptoms returned and we had to go through the whole cycle again from the beginning. And if we had taken that heavier harder just grinding effort, I think we'd have had nothing left us, either physically nothing, emotionally nothing, mentally nothing, but also the culture of the family would have been so burned out. I think that's the stuff that breaks people. Mhmm. And instead, the the the culture just just thrived. It really worked. And so now two years through this experience, she's gone through a whole another set of treatment. As of this conversation, she is, I would describe her as back. Wow. Back mentally, back physically, back emotionally, just back. She is back. Congratulations. That's amazing. Well, it it it is And it's a you know, but there's it's something to be grateful about all the time for us. But also out of those experiences really came to fire for the deed for this. First, to save myself and my own family, to find what are the principles and practices that make doing what matters a little easier, a little more effortless. But also now then to write about it and to share it with others. And I think it comes about a time that it has the power of relevancy. Because who isn't feeling a bit burned out right now? Yeah. Who isn't feeling like, well, maybe I got the results but through grinding effort. Do I have another year in me of this? Yeah. Now he's exhausted. exhausted. And so you've got these highly engaged capable driven people who are so scripted in the idea that the only path to greater success is through more hustle. Well, they're out of juice, so I guess they have to give up on their goals. Right. No. There's an alternative path. There's a different way. There's a better way of doing life. Starts by getting this effort state. The gratitude is a fast mover. And the reason the gratitude is so pivotal, I think, is because when we focus on what we lack, we lose what we have. Mhmm. And when we focus on what we have, we gain what we like. Yeah. That's two full pages in your book. Yeah. Side by side. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. It was a it was a big part of the lesson that the eve experience taught us. Say it one more time. When we focus on what we lack, we lose what we have. When we focus on what we have, we gain what we like. Yeah. And that goes on and on. And that's why it's at the core of the And that's why it's at the core of the model. Because as you get into that more grateful state, you cleanse out so much clutter and you start to see the world differently. So effortless action starts to be more Mhmm. You start to build better relationships with the people around you. And and really, if you you know, if you had, you know, gun to my head, what's the most important thing in effortless? I actually think this is a pretty good contender for that because it creates an upward momentum. It creates a spiral of success that that I think brings to you the results you want I I think you can't overdo this. I think if you are grateful in everything, you will attract exactly the things that you currently lack. Yeah. You'll start to see opportunities that were always there, but you couldn't see them before. It's like the you know, if you go fly fishing, which I have never done. Mhmm. But if you did it's hard I've done it once. It's hard. I did it once and I couldn't catch anything. It was hard. Well, do you know that the hack the the the if you put on polarized sunglasses, youve about this. Okay. So if you put polarized sunglasses when you go fly fishing it, it means that like the water it reflects the reflection of the water the the lights on the water. So you can see under water. That's that's how it works. They say that the the polar ice and glass is a vertical and whatever. So it means you can see the fish underneath, which makes it Can we throw it yeah. Towards them. Yeah. You know, where they know where they are. And as a metaphor, I think, grassy juice is like that -- Mhmm. -- that it allows you to see what's currently being hidden by grudges complaining, criticizing -- Mhmm. -- by all paradigms that don't serve you, old golds that no longer are interesting, actually interesting but they are controlling you all of that gets in the way of seeing the opportunity that is really there. And as soon as you can rid yourself of that, you suddenly go, my goodness. There's so much here. There's so much more that's working on my behalf. There's so much in my life that I've been complaining about that actually was given to me. It was happening for me, not to me. Mhmm. And and it just gets you into a state that's like, well, whatever the next challenge is, I'm in a better position to be able to handle it. Mhmm. For us, the next thing was the pandemic. Right. So I was So youve prepared. Yeah. Well, youve your culture is prepared. Youve States is prepared. So you can deal with it with different better state than you otherwise would have done. Yeah. It's interesting. Youve all roads go back to how we think about ourselves and about others and about the world -- Yeah. -- and our thoughts -- Yeah. -- and our perspective on different things. Mhmm. Youve when I went to India and studied meditation at a facility many years ago, four, five years ago now -- Yeah. -- they mentioned that there are two states to to human states -- Mhmm. -- a beautiful state and a suffering state. Yeah. The suffering state is where we're holding onto the past, youve know, resentful, angry, comparing all those different things. The beautiful state is gratitude, you wanting to support other seeing other people succeed, appreciation, those things. Right. And any moment we're thinking about what we lack, we suffer. That's right. In any moment we think about what we are grateful for, we're in a more beautiful state. Yeah. A peaceful state of being. Yeah. And And I want to build on that for a build on that for second. just had Benjamin Hardy on the Watch Central Cant, and we were talking about this. And he summarized it this way. He said, are you in the game or the gap? I love that phrase. If you're in the gap, youve looking at what you haven't achieved yet -- Mhmm. -- how life isn't the way you want it to be, where you failed, you know, the what's ahead of youve. If you're and and and, basically, he just says, you can do it that way, but you will be unhappy. Hes. If youve live that way. If you're in the if you're in the gap of what's what's MostIn, what you haven't achieved, who you haven't become. But if you move into the game, that's what progress have I already made. Who have I become so far? What did I used to be compared to now I've become something better? Mhmm. If you can look at the gains you've made, It says the difference is you simply will be happy in your journey. Microsoft Teams is helping priority bicycles reinvent the way they work. When the pandemic hit, the bike shop had to close their New York City showroom. They found a way to reopen by doing virtual visits on teams. Now the team can meet with two or three times the number of customers than they could before, and people from all over the world can visit their showroom. Learn more about their story and others at Microsoft dot com slash teams. I've got a major sweet tooth and it hits me as soon as I wake up, but when I eat something sugary for breakfast, no matter how delicious it tastes, I almost always feel guilty about it. I'm so glad I finally found a granola that's lower in sugar and still tastes amazing. 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So you gotta is it thinking about both? Is it thinking about okay? I wanna be here But in order to get there, I'm gonna appreciate how far I've come where I'm at right now. Well, I think for achievers, they will never ever get rid of a hundred percent. Of the gap thinking. Yeah. And then never gonna do How do I improve? How do I grow? more? Or how do I How do I achieve? So we don't have to be we don't have to worry about that. When we try to make these adjustments, we don't have to be like, well, what if only ever thought about the gain and never thought about the gap. Like, whatever, there's never happening to me. It's never gonna happen to you. We don't have to worry about that question is, could we spend a little more? What's the ratio? We spend a little more in the game. And when we start to feel good? You know, for sure when we start to feel miserable, but now that you're going to find your in the gap, know, for when we start to feel miserable -- Uh-huh. -- well, you're gonna find you're in the gap. Right. So it's time to just take a pause, be a bit grateful. I need this as a sort of mental health practice. I write, like, what I'm grateful for at the end of the day, try and do each week, haven't done it each week through the pandemic. I used to have a routine for it. Started again recently out of a need. Not like I am so enlightened, I must do this. It's if I don't do this, it is miserable. I'm miserable. So I'm gonna do it out of self preservation. But I find it, like, I find it amazing, unbelievable sometimes. What I have already forgotten about in the day I'm writing it? Like, literally. What do you mean when you forgot about things you've done good or things that suffered? Things that were good today that I've already forgotten moving on to the things Because you're complaining about something or you're lacking or I wish I had this or that person did this thing. Exactly. So for me, it is it is a therapeutic thing to each day just to go, okay, what are you thankful for? Let's really think about it. Let's review day. Sometimes there are my amazing things that I have already just slipped from my memory. So we're just, I think, terribly forgetful creatures. And especially for achievement orientation. We're like so looking for the next achievement -- Mhmm. -- that we forget like, wow. Let's take a moment. Yeah. Let's pause and enjoy the blessing of this great thing that happened today. So what I'm hearing you say is the greatest keys to the highest level of productivity So what I'm hearing you say is the greatest keys to the highest level of productivity hacking -- Yeah. -- is forgiveness and gratitude. Yeah. There anything else that would go in there as the highest productivity hack? I think inverting the question -- Okay. -- would go in there. How would you invert it? Well, it's just literally instead of well, most of the questions we ask sit in like the back of our Hes, like we're not aware of them. So we live out answers to questions. We don't even know we're asking. Mhmm. Now brands like Google Search and we're tab somewhere along the line, we said, okay, how can you work harder so you can achieve your goal? That's just back there somewhere. And now we keep having answers. Well, I guess I need to do more here because I've not got the results I cant, and I guess I need to do youve know, more hours on this issue and put more at. We just those are answers to a question, and we're not aware of it. So we can invert that question into simply asking How can I make this effortless? Mhmm. I was working with a manager. She's she's the kind of person She's just like the kind of person who's watching this or listening to this. She was four AM in the MostIn, photoshopping. For a non profit thing she's doing the next day with group of youve at her church, that's what she's doing at four AM. Why why is she doing that? Why well, she's the this kind of person who doesn't even take lunch because she feels guilty. Yeah. That's too selfish. Because you see, if you believe, if you have the assumption that more work equals better results, if you believe that that's an absolute statement, that somehow got ingrained in you. Then you'll act out all sorts of peculiar ways -- Mhmm. -- that accounts are productive. So I said, okay, just forget all of that. Like, we're gonna ask another question that's gonna kind cleanse all of this. MostIn time. You're asked to do time you're asked to do something, you just pause for a second to ask, how could this be effortless? So she's working at university. She's the manager of the administration. She gets a professor who calls her and says, look, I want you to to, you know, could you record a semester of my, you know, my my class? And she almost jumps into that. Meaning, like, come and take notes the whole semester? Or what do you mean record? Record it. Video recording. I'll set their records. Yes. So she or something or Well, she has team that's a videography team. Got it. But several teams when I'm the videography team. So she almost is like, well, I've got the capability. We've got the team. Let's make it happen. I'm gonna add graphics. I'll add music. I'll have intros, outros. We'll edit the whole semester. I mean, she's get I'm gonna wow this guy. This is all going on in her head for free or paid. Well, she's she's it's it's managerial job, so it's got it. Exactly. But it's not like a a new gig. Sure. It's just one more thing on her plate. Got it. And then she remembers I gotta ask this question. What if this could be effortless? Is there a simple way to get the result we're going for here? She asked couple more questions to him. Well, it turns out This is awful one student who has an athletic commitment, so he'll miss some of those sessions, some of the classes through the semester. But he needs this class to graduate, so he's trying to accommodate this individual. They come up with a solution. One of the other students is gonna record on the iPhone, whatever classes he misses email to. Mhmm. That's it. Ten minutes call saves four months of work for her, a video degree team, everything. And she just steps back and she's just like, what just happened? Wow. She would have gone down this one path thinking it was the only path. I This is the way to achieve. Right. And she result achieved the same result with ten minutes of work. That story it's so available to us. Mhmm. Again and again and again, I am telling you it's like, III don't hate to use the word magic. Because it sounds so like whatever. But it is almost like that. It's the closest I've come across to like youve dynamic magic -- Mhmm. -- is asking this question. We just don't ask it. So our brain can't search for an effort solution. So the greatest productivity hack is asking the question, how can I make this more Effortless? Yeah. I think that's I think those three that you said I would say you Give us gratitude and asking the question -- Yes. -- how how can I make this effortless? Yes. III was just telling somebody yesterday who spent years in the military Right. Talk about an experience that's gonna train you in embrace the sut do the hard way journey. Right. This is a plan hard work. It's all about hard work. I'm not against hard work. It's just not the only strategy. I'm not against it. It's just not the only question we can ask if we wanna achieve something. Then he gives me the scenario. So he was he got to the point where he's in special ops. Hes a specific situation. If they need to get into so he was he was in Iraq, Afghanistan, there would be times he had a high value, you know, target. They have to get to the door these metal doors, they're like barricaded, and they gotta they gotta blow these things up. up. And the ways that they would do it is that they would put explosives on the hinges of the door, blow them up, and then they can get the way that they would do it is that they would put explosives on the hinges of the door, blow them up and then they can get inside. He said, now the problem with that is that it's super loud. So you draw a massive attention to what's going on. Exactly. And the whole community the whole area suddenly that if that increases your risk, it makes it harder to entry because you got this whole hole in the door. You know, it's just this this crazy environment. Smoke everywhere. You can't see anything. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, you it it Hes a pretty rough way to achieve your objective, but that was all they had. It was an effort this way. Well, he had somebody on Hes team who was the son of a MostIn said, look, just get me a hydraulic drill, I can do this in like half a second. We'll just take the hinges off. There'll be no sound, no youve know, no smoke, no explosives, no danger, no additional risk. Well, that's the effortless path. And there are so many ways to do this, but it's just like we just don't know that that path is even there because we're not asking that question. If you don't searching Google for x, then you're never gonna get answers to x. You're gonna find lots and lots of answers for something else. It's funny I I interviewed someone who that was his job as a navy seal, where he was the guy who put the bombs on the door to or on the wall to blow it up so that they could all enter. Right. That was his job. Right. And there's a lot of risk with the hard way also where when one of the bombs goes off when you're deploying it and then the person dies. Correct. What if the shrapnel that comes from those bombs, the effects of it hurting people around there. Right. Also, you can only do that job for so long from my memory what he said because I guess either you can't go far enough away or you can't get enough barrier from that where it actually hurts your ears so much from the the explosion over and over again. Wow. That think he left, if I'm my memory's correct, because of, like, the ear stuff. Like, the explosion caused so much in the ear where he's like, okay, it's too damaging. Right? So the hard way, the forceful way, right, has a lot of repercussions. It's a great metaphor for what you just said for the for the argument against the exhausting always hard and always hustle strategy. Yeah. Yeah. If there's a time that just force is great, it helps. Yes. But if but what if you can find a better leverage what if you can find a different path to achieve your the results you want? There's a thing youve leverage just now. There's a thing in productivity hacking called delegation. Yeah. right. What's your thoughts on delegation versus leverage? Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I think of so so structurally from the book, we've talked a lot about effortless stain. Mhmm. Effortless action is how to make -- Yeah. -- an action easier one time -- Mhmm. -- which is useful in all sorts of settings. Yep. But the final section of effortless results what I mean by that is to make, to create f at one time that produces results many, many times over. For youve. They flow to you. Mhmm. Give me example. Well, you used the asked about delegation and this would be an example. If I can hire someone that I trust highly by which I would use Warren Buffett's, you know Three i's -- Mhmm. -- criteria. Right? Three i's -- Mhmm. -- integrity intelligence initiative. If I can hire someone like that, if I can set up for them a high trust agreement -- Mhmm. -- which I outlined in that chapter in the book, then they can operate working for me, working as a team effortlessly many, many times in a row. If I hire the wrong person, give them a low trust agreement, which basically means I didn't even come up with an agreement. We just did it randomly and kind of hacked our way through it. Then I can end up getting poor results many, many times over. So I don't see delegation itself as as inherently effortless or exhausting. Is doing it right, setting it a one time right is worth the effort. Getting yes. You you wanna throw a personal problem. When you when you're an entrepreneur, you know, hire a cool one. Like, I need to put someone in there to solve this because I don't have the time and energy. And it's very tempting. That blows up most of the time. Well, that's it? And so you get poor results many, many times over And so you get poor results many, many times over. And then you're resentful, and then you're sad, you go back to the thoughts of, like, why is this person here? You have a spartan in your book about this. Why is this person here? And you think about that for years until you wanna let them go or or -- Yeah. -- they screw you over, like, what happened in your book where someone took all the money. Yes. And then it's a bigger problem longer. Yeah. I mean, that's, that was a Steve hall has somebody to a work in his accounting I mean, that's that's a Steve Hall hires somebody to work in his accounting department. They find after youve years of three hundred thousand dollar deficit. Ask her about it. She says, well, you know, it's just an era, you know, it's my fault. And after that, they didn't trust properly, but they just would running too fast. They thought it would be economic to just leave her in that place. Yes. And in the end, they said, you know, went on for couple more years and and it was then two million dollars. Yeah. And she, you know, they she texts everybody. I'm quitting and they leave us gone. Yeah. They never even saw her again. So he then said, okay. I've made false decision here. I thought I was taking the quick path, but really this is the expensive path because of the residual effect of hiring the wrong person. Mhmm. So if you hire the right person, they went through a thorough process, the three i's found somebody that person has just been a dividend every single day. Doesn't have to be micromanaged, doesn't have to be controlled, you don't have to put someone watching over them because they have the integrity already. And trust makes everything so much faster, so much easier. Mhmm. If you hire someone that you trust, everything is easier. Mhmm. If you hire someone you don't trust, everything is harder. Yeah. And it's it's hard once they've lost their trust a few times over and over again. Mhmm. If you don't make decision on how to shift that quickly, you're gonna be thinking about cant I trust them in the back of your mind? Yeah. You don't need to let them go or create a new agreement and commitment to move forward and then let the thought of, I can't trust this need to let them go or create a new agreement and commitment to move forward and then let the thought of, can't trust this person go. Yeah. I think you're I think you're right. You you you have if you have a situation where there's sort of low trust in a relationship, you sort of owe it to that person to yourself to do basically either let them go. Like, hey, let's it's not working. Let you get on with your life. I'm gonna get on with mine. That is I think legitimate option. Option two is maybe we didn't get an agreement. Really clear here. Let's reset. And you have the reset conversation. Yes. And it could be in the reset that they go, I don't wanna do that. And now youve so now it's good. Now we know it isn't gonna work because you don't wanna do what it is. I'm asking you to do. But getting the agreement is written down like a social agreement, I call it high trust agreement in the book. Where you're clear on what are the results? What are the resources available to you? How will the accountability be be given? Is it once a week? I want a written report from youve? it once a week, we're gonna have one on one, but you get clear on this. And if you get clear enough on it than sometimes you can turn a, a lower trust situation in to a high performing section, And if you get clear enough on it, then sometimes you can turn a lower trust situation into a high performing situation. What are the factors of this high trust contract we should be thinking about? And then you have a whole spot in the book about this. Yeah. So, I mean, the the first thing I think the most important thing is results. Getting absolutely clear what is the right result. What do you want from this person? Getting agreement that you both agree and understand what that is. When people aren't clear, about what they are to deliver on. I mean, think of how frustrating that is for them and for you and for everyone involved. And before I go through the other steps on it, let me just make the one broader point, which is that every relationship has three parties to it. Right? There's person a, there's person b, and then there's the agreement. And the agreement to the relationship. The agreement to the relationship. The challenges before you give it to that, the challenge with the most romantic relationship is that, and business relationships is the uncommunicated expectation, challenge before youve get into the the challenge with most romantic relationships is that and business relationships is the uncommitted expectation. Right. That one person says, well, I am assuming they know the agreement. They haven't communicated it. A hundred percent. And the other thing is like, well, that's not what you ever said. Didn't agree that. And I thought you thought this thing. What you have is by default, you actually have created a low trust agreement. Yes. So sometimes it isn't them and it isn't which is what you think it is. What is either of what's either them and I'm blaming them and sometimes you go, I think seem like they're okay, sometimes Maybe it's me and neither of those are helpful. Very often it is the agreement that you have come to that is unclear. I mean, how clear are you on the results? Not clear. You know, how clear are you on the rules of the of of how we're gonna work together? The rules are unclear. You have a set of rules. I have different set rules. We're violating them all the time with each other, and we haven't got clear about the rules. Resources might seem a little different in a romantic relationship, but in a corporate or employee relationship, it's important. What resources do they have available? What is reasonable for them to use? Even in even in know, even in a romantic relationship, you could have, you know, we we make these kinds of decisions together and these kinds of decisions are independent, you could get clear about that. What resources are available to help you with it. And then I youve, ultimately, the final and most important part of it is is this accountability that you have a clear way of reporting, that'd be the the the elaboration they are there. Reporting it so that you MostIn not take them ever granted? Clear results, rules, resources, accountability. Was there something else missed? Yeah. No. That those were the ones. I think there's another one in the book, but I can't remember it. It's all it. It's all all good. Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, I think that works for romantic relationships as well. If you don't have clear results of what you're looking to create, which could be a vision for our relationship, what are we looking to have here? Do we wanna be have a family? Do we want it to be a healthy relationship? Are we looking to make an impact as a relationship? What is the results, the rules? Here's what is acceptable, not acceptable, the boundaries you could say? Correct. I'll cross these boundaries. I won't cross these for you. Yes. The resources, whose using their time to create something who's using money, how are we sharing these resources -- That's right. -- to make the relationship healthier and then accountability. How are we holding each other accountable? Yeah. So it works in business and intimate, I think. Yes. I think so. I mean, I mean, I'm thinking here about conversation I just had with Evrodsky who wrote a book called Fair Play. And one of the I'm down I'm down I'm down I'm rabbit horn this, but but she She works with these highly dysfunctional, high net worth families. And so it's like knives out. You see the movie knives out? I think I watched part of it. I know what you mean. I guess. Yeah. This, she works with the real knives out family. Yes. And one of the things she learned is that you have to try and create I mean, one of the things she just said to me the other day, this is what made me think of it, is that she thinks in every employee relationship there should be a prenup. Agreement. Mhmm. And I love this idea. And I think that aligns with this idea of the, at the high trust agreement, because every employee relationship is going to And I I think it aligns with this idea of the at the high trust agreement because every employee relationship is going to end. Yeah. And yet we use as our model like marriage and family. We talk about that, well, we're a family here and and, you know, it's like, no, you're not. You know, it's something else. And what is valuable about employee relationship is that you're not family, you can say, we can work together, collaborate together for a year, for five years. Maybe we'd do it for twenty years. Mhmm. But one day, we're not going to. One day. We're not married. Yeah. And yet, we operate as if it's gonna be forever. And I think that actually introduces a lot of dysfunction onto Teams. And I think what you need is like, okay, one day we weren't gonna do this. Let's make sure we get out. We can do this in a way that we can leave and be with that. Yeah. I have you heard of the book conscious Have you heard of the book cautious uncoupling? Yes. I have a Woodward Thomas who has been out here is Woodward Thomas who's been on here. It's amazing. She's awesome and she's helped many people consciously uncouple. Right? As opposed to the hard way of doing it, the effort way of doing it, which is I hate youve, and you hate me, and lawyers, and mitigation, and I'm stealing your money, and I owned it. I deserve this -- Right. -- blow ups for years -- Yes. -- anger and sadness. Hes. Like, what's the effortless way to do this? It's a full circle back because because you can think about, like, even the the the biblical idea, which think is so applicable, which is, like, to agree with that adversary quickly. Yeah. And now that it's ten years of dragging out some -- Yes. Because it kills people man. It's a dog. I I talked to somebody the other day and they were talking about the brother and they said this guy, and he he's made a lot of money. But he spent a third of his life has been in a huge, like, legal connection. It's so exhausting. Who who Youve you say, are you making a bargain? I need that. I want that. I'm gonna get that. It's like you've heard of it. And I've actually seen it now, so it's not just a metaphor, but like the monkeys who get their hands caught in something. They can't get their Yeah. They can't cant they can't pull their hand out of the the, you know, whatever cant is. Youve. The trap. Whatever. This the trap is yeah. I've seen it online -- coconut or something. Right? Is it like I saw it, like, kind of a a little almost like a little cave -- Yeah. -- on an on this mound they just as soon as their hand was in it, they just couldn't get away because they wanted to hold on to it. If we do that, we want the thing we want, but actually, we end without the thing we cant. And we do it for ten years or years and all the emotional stress and all of it. It is it is the hard way. Then let it go. You get all that time back, all that emotion back, get on with creating the thing that you wanna create. Mhmm. I think it's I truly think it is. It is a more way of doing it. The employee prenup agreement, what would that look like? Well, I mean, I don't think it's, I mean, I just think it says when this, when we get to an end, I mean, I don't think it's I mean, I just think it says When this when we get to an end? Yes. I mean, different to a marriage because you don't even in a pre nap with a marriage, not wanting to assume it's gonna end. Yeah. But with this, you know it will. So it just says when it ends, we're gonna try and honor these these ways of doing these rules. These rules These rules When you when you leave will, we'll on it, we'll do it this way, and we'll ask you to do same. It just I think it just the contemplation It's my kind of advice. The first day of your job, you should be saying, what's my exit strategy? Not because you'll know the answer. But because it's gonna happen one day. So you might as well understand that from the beginning -- Mhmm. -- rather than Okay. Well, it's not going well. I'm gonna keep on what working harder. I'm gonna keep doing this. I'm gonna do it for years and years and or more and more of my life blood into this to make it work and make it work. Cause I have to, if you don't have to, one of the liberating thing for everyone involved is, okay, work because I have to because you don't have to. Yeah. What a liberating thing for everyone involved? It's okay. So it's getting to the state, the state of mind first, where we're letting go, yep, destroying, letting go, releasing releasing these negative thoughts as long as these beliefs that hold us into a low level state. Right? So that we can have a more effortless state. And then the effortless action which we didn't we kind of skipped. Yeah. So effortless action. So we get into a a state of mental flow where we are free from the the the prisoners thoughts that that keep us trapped. Right, and and at a at a two as opposed to ten a month. Right, emotionally. Then from there, we can take it into action. So how do we create effortless action state? Well, the the effortless action is natural way. I can connect these three dots I connect these three dots here, these three areas by thinking about, you know, when you have somebody NBA, they come up to do a free throw. Mhmm. You see these three steps. You're talking about the the girl, ninety four percent -- Yes. -- over our average. My now she's the NBA. Yeah. It's amazing. Yes. She's the she's the most successful free thrower across the NBA, W NBA, like, in history. Starting with Susan or Susan or Susan? Yeah. Yeah. Doon. Doon. Something Doon. So yeah. And and yeah. But I'm not even surprised that to, like, ninety four percent or so. Right? She so it's so basically, she never misses. Right? I mean, that is what That is the bottom line. It's going in. Youve starting. She's making some shots. No. Exactly. And and so but but anyone you see doing this, you've watched them do the three steps. The first thing they're doing is they're getting to the, you know, they're finding the dot, they're they're dribbling the ball three times. Why are they even doing that? It's just a ritual to get into an effort to clear their mind. Youve almost can see them doing it. Try to clear out the noise that they're not distracted by all the fans that are trying to distract them and and all the pressure that they can feel and all the things that would get them out of being able to do the job well. That's step one. Step two, I mean, Hes she says it this way. She, she is like, just do it the simplest possible She she's like, just do it the simplest possible way. You don't overthink it. You don't try, overtry it. You know, so it's you know, youve lifting your elbow to the to the square. You're doing it simply as you've done it practice many times effortless action. And then the effort this result of course is that the people that are best at this like her, it the warms just bounces back to them. They don't even almost have to youve. The result can be done again and again and again. So that's how to connect the three -- Mhmm. -- state action and results. But the action is really about how do you simplify declutter the job at cant. There's a few specific questions that I think help. Any time you have an essential project, you say youve say, what does them look like? What is the first obvious step you can take? So you're not worried about the hundredth step or the thousand step. You're just the first obvious step. And then you said, okay, well well, how can I how can I take a ten minute micro burst on that thing? How can I what are the minimum number of steps I can take in order to achieve the result I want? And then if it's a long ongoing project or process, how can I pace myself so that I'm within an effortless pace on the journey? Those are kind of the five questions I think that really Hes. And you can apply it to one project. Yeah. Just talk to someone on a podcast I said, okay, what's essential to you that you're under investing in? They said they said eating healthy. Okay. So now we know we it really matters to them because of a variety of reasons. Doing it. They're not doing it. And and it's in the gap. It's in the gap. I said, okay. How can we make it effortless? I said, I said, what does done look like? He said, well, it just means that I have food when I'm hungry, so I don't wait till I'm cant hungry and eat junk. That's what success looks like. That's what done looks like. I said, okay. What's the first obvious step for doing that? said, well, I I would just get one of these services that, you know, they are they're gonna What's my understanding? Deal plan. Delivers it. Delivers And what's the first step where I just search for that? I'd search on Google for for for something in the area. I said, what's the what would you do within first ten minutes of micro burst? What can you do in ten minutes for that? He says he said, well, actually, I think within ten minutes, I could probably do it, solve it. Like, put in my credit card, choose the meals, and set it up with my address. Done. And it was this, I come as weird pause. And I'm like, was that really it? He's like, Yeah. That would do it. Right. I said I said how long youve been struggling with this problem? He he's like -- Yeah. -- twenty years. Literally. He's like 20 years, 10 minutes to solve a problem that took, has been with him for 20 he's like twenty years. Ten minutes to solve problem that took has been with him for twenty years. Mhmm. So that's whatever this action looks like. Is asking a few questions, a very simple process that helps take something that would either be procrastinated. You don't even start it. Or you've been such a perfectionist about it. You don't finish it. Yeah. It's removing the obstacle of saying in that scenario of like, okay. Well, every Sunday, I'm going to the grocery store and I'm gonna meal plan I'm gonna cook all afternoon. Right. And then I'm gonna get the plastic bins and put them in for myself and it's gonna take all day Right. Just to do this one action. Right. And we think about that and we're like, that's exhausting. And so you don't even bother. Because you're like, I don't have the time out of the energy. I'm drained right now. Let me eat the snickers. Right? Cause I'm emotionally I'm emotionally drained. I need sugar. And you youve you you just what happens? It's like when you look at a slide, you know, if somebody has a presentation and there's five hundred words on slide. We don't read the first four hundred words and give up. We do like the pre scan. We're like, am I ever gonna read that? I'm never gonna read that. Yeah. I give up. We give up before we get too hard. It's too hard. And so if we perceive something as overwhelming, we just don't even get going with it. There's a small or tiny example in my own life, but when I was writing a book, I'm like thinking about these things and I look around my office, I cant to clean it up and I see a printer on the floor. Been there two weeks. We've replaced the printer. There's no big deal, but now I don't know what to do with this printer. I have not spent hours thinking about it But every time I think about it, it's just a bit overwhelming. Do I give it away? Do I give it away? Do I give it away when I give it away when I sell it? And I don't know Do do I throw it away? Well, if I throw it away, I have to find a digital recycling place because that's all enough in my Hes. The ten seconds, five seconds of thinking about it. I'm like, oh, no. I'm doing something else. And that's why it's there for two that's why it's there for two weeks. So I asked the different question, right, how can I make this effortless? And I look up to some workers that are outside and I'm like, I wonder if they want it. Hey, guys. Walk out there, ask if they want it. They do want it. Within two minutes of asking the question, I don't just have a solution that's executed. And they say, Hes. I come back and I give it to them. It's done. But that that's like again, it's like kind of full circle. It's like asking that question delivers options that previously weren't available. Two weeks hasn't been available -- Mhmm. -- because I'm asking a I'm not asking the right question. Here's a first world dilemma. Yep. -- that I get a lot of our audience they say, Lewis, when they're thinking about their their next move, maybe they've had a little bit of success, maybe they're have their basic needs met and they've got some money coming in and they say this to me all the time. Mhmm. Lewis I don't know what to do next. I have so many passions. Mhmm. So many things I to do. I wanna do them all. Yeah. When someone has the first world problem of lots of options MostIn to do them all -- Yeah. -- and yet they become a master of nothing and they get They put a lot of energy spread thin across everything. Right? They get very little results. Yes. What do you say to someone on how to make a better decision on what you say to someone on how to make a better decision on what actions. What where should they support majority of their energy on those things? Should they spread it across tiny passions? Right. Should they find one passion? Should be one main passion and two side passions -- Yes. -- like, obviously, when you put energy on one essential thing, that thing expands and grows, like you talked about in your first book. And it becomes more effortless. When you put effort on lots of things, it becomes hard. Right. So what is the balance for people that have lots of passion? I mean, I really relate to mean, I really relate to this. I struggle with this myself. I I find little fascinating. I wanna go everywhere, say everything, do everything. I mean, that that's youve in a sense, I wrote essentialism for me, right, to try and to try and go, well, is there is there a a time at which that outlives its usefulness? Hes, it's good to be passionate and interested. But does it get do you get too spread too thin and you don't achieve what you want to? I mean, I think I would say that at any given time, you ought to know what the priority breakthrough thing is. In your career. What does that mean? Priority breakthrough thing? Well, it's like I mean, So for me right now, the breakthrough is that this book effortless. Well, first of all, my my kind of mantra and maybe it's not a good but it was like don't write a rubbish book. Right? Don't write a bad book. Don't And for real, like, the risk of that was high because if you have a book that does well, chances that the next follow-up is, you know, that can be bad. Yeah. And and I think if I'd written a book right away, I think it would just would have been bad, and I didn't fortunately, paused, waited until I was, like, there's something I really wanna say and it felt the right time to do it. So so that would be like the priority objective And and one of the things around it is that you kind of know it because you feel it fits right, so it feels mentally right, emotionally right. But also, you know that if you achieve this, it's a breakthrough. A lot of people that will start doing, you know, like they want the they want the career cant to go higher, to be bigger. And they do it by, like, doing more and more temples at the same height. Mhmm. And now they've got ten projects on road. Mhmm. Well, if they do all ten of them, they won't go to the next level. They're actually just gonna be busier doing the same stuff. So I think it's always key. What you're looking for, what I call a ninety percent rule, is what is it? A 90% above A ninety percent above clearly yes definite. If we could do that, it would change everything. If I could do that, it would take me to the next level for me, the the word is contribution. I wanna make a higher and higher contribution. So I'm not sitting around going, how can I make more money? What's the thing that will make more money? But it is how what can I do that will impact two x, ten x impact in the world? Mhmm. And there's a lot of stuff that won't do that. And you could do it superbly well and you'd still be exactly the same level. And so what I'm trying to do is, well, what's the what's the thing that would break through to the next level of contribution? I think that's the that's kind of the question you're looking for. Right. Interesting. What would it be for you? I'm just trying to say so so if people had a lot of these things that they really cared about though, would they have to eliminate those things and just focus on the breakthrough thing? First, and put those things on the, you know, the side burner. When I wrote essentialism, I think I probably was leaning towards that. Like, just eliminate the other stuff completely. Yeah. And That's probably something you can make the biggest impact with. Yes. And I still think as a basic principal, that's not bad. Mhmm. But I think I would be more nuanced now about it. I would say, like, for example, I had had Patrick McGinnis on the show, and he's the guy that first came up with the term FOMO. Right. That's fair of MostIn Really, I really love talking with Patrick McGinnis. And And one of the things he introduced me to was the idea of the ten percent entrepreneur. Meaning, okay, you choose your main thing -- Yeah. -- that's your main stuff. But if you say youve shouldn't have ten other things that you're going, hey, I'm going I'm I'm trying to do ten percent on ten different things in ten different directions. I don't think that's breakthrough success is likely at all. No. But you say, here's my main thing. And I'm going to have one additional thing I'm really interested in, in and I gonna have one additional thing. I'm really interested in it. I think it could be something, but I can't yet afford to just spend all of my time on it. So I'm gonna start investing in it. I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna see if I still have interest beyond no, that was kind of a hobby. That's fine. I'll put that aside. Try something else. So I think I would say, look, choose the big thing and then be very selective and careful about the other things that you do. And I do think you there's a lot of stuff you do have to say not now. Yeah. Not yet. It it doesn't mean I don't like it. it. It doesn't mean I don't doesn't mean don't cant. But if I say yes to this, I'm going to be saying no to something more important. Cold break room. Yeah. My friend, Rory Vaden, has a saying called procrastinated on purpose. Yeah. He's like youve got all these things that you that are important to you and you are excited about and you may wanna do now, but it's not the most important thing right now. So procrastinate on it, have it here, but don't put a time and attention on it. Put it in the back burner, procrastinate on it until it's the right time. Until you wanna add them to this plate right now. But do the thing right now that's gonna help make that more effortless in The future. I think so. I Essentialism, it's really about the idea of doing the right things at the right times for the right reasons. Mhmm. And so it's not just the right thing. It timing's enormously important, and think does affect prioritization. But there are sometimes when things come up and the opportunity is here now. Mhmm. So you take you take you're opportunistic about it because well, it's this is what's here. The person who's emailed, the the opportunity is here, the moment is here. So you go with it because momentum is so important. But I think that the thing to be aware of is is this thing I'm doing creating motion sickness, or momentum. Interesting. Oh, yeah. What's motion sickness being you're all over the place. You can't think clearly yeah, I mean, you're just being dragged in another direction. It's just it's just one more thing and you're like, I don't see how it fits together. It doesn't feel like it's cohesive. It doesn't feel like it's taking me in in a direction that's meaningful. It's just one more thing. And youve thing about motion sickness is that you feel like things are moving cant. But actually, you're not moving anywhere. You're just spinning. Yeah. Yes. It's kinda it's kinda like the difference between gosh. I've written this down. Sorry to interrupt guys. No. That's alright. Between the keys to productivity and momentum versus busy work and just writing things off a checklist. Yeah. It's like, well, you know, the motion sickness is busy work. It's like I'm doing a lot of things, but nothing's actually building. It's a test of this for Test of this for me, and I I fail at this most days right now. But the the test is the difference between a to do list and a done for the day list. Mhmm. The to do list is endless. So really, you don't have to make many decisions on a to do list. You just go Here's all the stuff, write it all down, it feels good writing it down. And if you could do all of that stuff, that would be great. You'd like that. The dumb for the day list, is something my wife and I started youve. And it? What it forces you to do is to actually think about what would be satisfying to what it forces you to do is to actually think about what would be satisfying to you. Do you say if you accomplish by the end? If I accomplish this stuff, I would feel satisfied and I can be done and feel good about it. So you don't just go, well, it's a six o'clock I could go in at seven o'clock I'll keep you don't just go well. It's it's six o'clock, I'll keep going. Seven o'clock, I'll keep going. Eight, nine, ten, the two to do list is still there. Youve get to the end of the day, you go to sleep, oh my gosh, I can't believe all this stuff I didn't get done. This is the this is the life style we've created on an endless to do list. They're done for the day list. What I think the challenge with it is is that you have to really think what would make me feel done for today. Yeah. There's a list. I I do have a list I made, but the things I made it like two days ago. So it's not really a dumb for the day list. Maybe it was more like a dumb for the week list, but if I do those things this week, I will feel great. Those are really solid achievements. And the idea of the dumb for the day list or the dumb for the week list is once you're done, you go, okay, guilt free. I'm done. I'm not, you know, like, my wife and I were like, youve get in the hot tub or in the bath and then sneakily get on Amazon and order stuff and do email, on your phone, there's no sneaky work allowed. You're done for the day so you can start taking relaxation like a responsibility. Mhmm. You you actually relaxed purposefully intentionally. You figure out the things that you enjoy doing, that you like to do, youve create fun rituals around And this is so important for peak performance on a sustainable level. So smart. I mean, it's how do people learn to not beat themselves up if they get these things done for the day and they have four more hours. Of like work time. Totally. I think the beating yourself up when you're not working is as clear an evidence that we need to choose choose a new paradigm as any there is. Youve do productive work on the things that matter, you get them done and you but I'm guilty. I'm not I'm not doing more. What is that? What kind of a a reversed world is that? You are working How's that? Living to work rather than working to live? What it shows is that we've got skill and competence in working and being productive and not skill in how to relax. And a lot of overachievers do not even know how to relax. Like they don't know how the novice is at they don't know how their novice is at it. And it's really important that we learn because we are not machines that can work twenty four seven, like in the industrial age. We are humans that work in cycles and rhythms. And if you try and work all the time and hustle, I mean, I don't care, yes, you can find one of this person, that person who seemed to be the exception. To this rule, I can point to you a million or two million people that prove it. Right. Right? That that if you just try to do it all the time. You will burn out. You will have worse relationships. You will you will enjoy your life less. So I think the key though is to start designing relaxation that we want to do. Because I think this is very awkward about like, okay, now I'm relaxing. I'm taking spring break off. I'm taking the weekend off. I'm having a long weekend, and we got nothing. And we just got blank time. No one likes that. And certainly overachieveers don't like that. Youve just feel awkward and weird and just like, well, my phone's right there. I think I'm just gonna get on my phone. Right. So I think it's one of the things I like. My wife and I've done this, and I I think it's useful, is to make a list of ten or twenty things that you that really create joy for you, that you enjoy doing, you like relaxing in this way. This is good for you. You don't have to justify this list to anyone. But you gotta be honest about it. And and once you have this list, they become like building blocks that you can start matching and connecting together in order to create, like, if you have a day Why can I've done it before where I've taken her list twenty things. I go, it's her birthday. Uh-huh. What am I gonna do? Let's do three or four of these things. Let's look at these and I can look at the list and go if I if I combine any number of these, it's gonna be a good day for her because these are the things that she likes. This isn't my list is very different to her list. But now it's useful to know that. So if she's designing an evening for me or a day for me. So we can come up with me or we come up with something, what are we gonna do on our vacation? Vacations cant be quite stressful for a lot of people. Cant. You almost gonna vacation from the vacation when you get home. They can be and also they can be miserable if you don't have design in them. Yes. They it's not enough. Oh, I, I went to this 0II went to this place, so I went to Hawaii, and it's gonna be great. And this sounds like such an awful first world problem, but but I I my wife and I went to Hawaii was, we didn't enjoy it at all. Was actually I don't know. It just was we just hadn't figured out what was purposeful about it for us or what kind of what does she like to do what is enjoyable for what's enjoyable for me, let's construct something around those activities. And and once we learned that, we're like, okay, that's it. You can't just go and suddenly sit on. I don't know, sell on a beach somewhere and assume that that's going to be satisfying to you for failing to someone, you know, relaxing to on I don't know. Sit on a beach somewhere and assume that that's gonna be satisfying to For failing to someone you. Relaxing to you. But you gotta by by figuring out one of the building blocks, the things that that actually are relaxing and enjoyable, you start to have competence and relaxing. Youve take relaxing is a responsibility. And relaxing is a responsibility. He relax well. I relax better now. Let me try and be, like like, give me really honest answer that question. Do I relax well I Yeah. If you understand what I was thinking about. No. I know the business. Make me guilty by, you know, my the the pause is too long to now be be fully credible in this area. There are a bunch of things I love to do to relax. Youve don't do them enough. Yeah. I don't here's what I haven't done well about them. Like, I'll give you them. I love to play tennis. I love to play tennis with son. Youve he he he's enjoying that more and more now. I like to be in the hot tub that's a very relaxing place. I think it's very, you know, it's kind of beautiful all the way. Yeah. The experience is coming. I would say on those things, I'd love to go on a walk with my wife, like, for an hour. We were doing that almost every day until, like, last two, three weeks. But and we did it the last two days. That's, I would say, we do pretty well. And that's that we both like it. We don't bring our We don't brand phones. We just go out there. And we just, you know, talk and connect. She we're normally all over the place. She's got different agenda to me, which is fine. We're just there to listen to each other. Just hear what's going on in each of this world. That is pretty relaxing experience. The tennis, I have been amazed at how little I've done over the last year of that. And I don't even know why. You love it. I love doing it. And I just haven't done it. I think the pandemic just strained is all a little more than just a little less for the end of the day to go do I think the pandemic just drained as all little more than there's a little Hes. For the end of the day to go do that maybe. But but we just started that up more. What was the other one I mentioned? Yeah. Hot tub. Oh no. I'd give myself an a or on a hot, hot I give myself an a on hot tub. Go every day. I go there every day and I do meetings from hot tips. That's cool. Yeah. It's a little Was that is that -- Yeah. No. Fair enough. It's checking the phone. That's more like that's more like How do you make the most out of meetings? If I'm doing yeah. That's more like what we're saying before about making it a ritual funner. Uh-huh. If I'm gonna be in a meeting, I just realized I'm like, literally, we're here in California. Uh-huh. You're paying for to be in California. On you. You got the weather outside, and I stay in a little office through the day. Might as well be outside. as well be outside doing that doing that. It's made it a little I feel like it's a little weird for people when they call And I'm like, I just always confess it. Youve can't even hear it. But I, I just feel like if they hear anything, that will be but I I just feel like if they hear anything, it will be weird. So I'm always just like, oh, let's I'm in a hard time. I'm just laying you up. And we just Hes mess of us. Absolutely. That has been good, and and I'll do the same with the kids at night. And I find that good relaxing time. That's correct. So I don't know. That's a mixed mixed bag. What is the what do high achievers get wrong about life? They did one thing. What does high achievers get wrong in life? And if they had one if they could do one thing to make their life, better or more effortless. What would that be? I I feel like the primary thing I achieve is get wrong. Is that they go after the wrong thing. Right? They just get on some focused task Youve high achievers know how to achieve. That is what they know how to do. So if if a high achiever I'm gonna run marathon. Yes. I put my money on I put my money on them. They're gonna do it. They know how to do that. I'll figure it out. The problem is is if you target the wrong goal. Right? You are Youve you suddenly you're running a marathon, but actually what you want is a great relationship with your wife. You a great family. You you're like you're focusing on the wrong thing. That I think is the primary area that that that that otherwise successful people make. So we could describe it as unsatisfying success. Mhmm. You've achieved the that achieved it. You weren't satisfied because it didn't really MostIn wasn't the right goal you went after. I would say that's prime that's error number one. And I just say error number two is is doing it in the wrong way. It's like it's like a it's like the the the weight lifters lifting with the back instead of, you know, the the right way. It's like a, it's like a Baker needing everything by hand, rather than with a It's like It's like a baker who's needing everything by hand rather than with a machine. It's just like doing it the hard way, the wrong way. And it just costs them too much. So what's the question they should be asking themselves? Well, I mean, Does, there's two questions that I would say has changed my life and, and I mean, literally I've written a book about each of there's two questions that I would say have changed my life. And I mean, literally I've written book about each of them now. One is, what is Essentialism? What really is essential? What is truly important? Another way of asking that same question that cuts through all the clutter is what is one thing that's absolutely essential that I'm under investing in right now. That's that's all to me. That's all like the same question. But the last one is a slightly more precise way of asking it. What is essential that I'm under investing in under investing in right now. Yes. Mhmm. Because you already know that the thing about that question, you already know it masses. So you don't have to waste time. What massive. What is essential to me? You already You already know. And that's usually relationships and health for our achievers. It's like the -- Yeah. They're not investing in their health and they're putting it in their work or their accomplishments. It's general, not everyone. I think it's like I'm putting all my time and energy, I'm achieving that my relationship suffer. Yes. I think that's right. And so that then leads to why I think that's the biggest error because you get to the end of your life or even sort of midlife crisis and you go, my goodness. I achieved all these things. I've got the money. I I got I got money order. I didn't. But no meaning, no meaning and love and no meaning, no health, no no strong relationship. Yeah. That's a that's a that's a that's a fool's box what's really essential that you're under investing in now? Okay. Let me pause. I'm really honest with the question. Was essential for me that I'm under investing in. Yeah, I would say it is like really relaxing. I would say it's the thing we were just talking about. Mhmm. And and I would give myself now that I'm reflecting out a second time reasonably low grade. And I I don't mean over the last six months of last year. I mean like the last week, two weeks month. Mhmm. And and I've done variety of things to relax in that time, but I just like, literally in the last twenty four hours, I'm like, oh, I pushed off we had on Monday. Yeah. Like and I don't mean That sounds sounds weird. Monday was crazy. But it actually was. It was so intense with so many decisions -- Right. -- high stakes decisions. One after another, the end thing I did was an interview with Chris Evans in the UK's big radio star. And somebody I listened to when I was growing up, and that was my like ten to eleven slot. I wouldn't normally do. But it all made but it all made sense. It was better than 1:00 AM, which is what you mean It was better than one AM, which is what they'd offered originally. Ten to eleven at night at night. Early morning there. Okay. Early morning that time. And prerecorded so that we didn't do it in the middle of the night. Mhmm. All of that actually felt great, but here's the thing that I've noticed that you've got to have as a stand at something like don't use up more energy today than you can recuperate today. And certainly not over a week period where you say, okay. Well, today I pushed a little more, but I need to pull back the next day. So that over a week, I am rejuvenating my energy. And I didn't do that yesterday. So I just hit yesterday like a normal day, not realizing, man, just used up a lot of juice to get through and to succeed at the things you did today. And so it just meant that by the end of Tuesday, I was both my wife and I were both feeling a bit frazzled. And instead of going, of course, we are. So therefore, we're just gonna chill. We don't have to be productive right now. We're okay. We're still thinking, wow. know, we must we must we ought to do a bit more. We ought to do something. It's kinda like my friend Sean Stephenson who's a sleep master -- Mhmm. -- talks about sleep dead. That if youve burning the midnight oil per se or going to bed Yep. -- two AM waking up at seven or getting five hours of sleep, four hours of sleep, pulling all nighters He's like that's a death that your body can never make up. Right? And you can't you can't oversleep to try to compensate that. But doing it over and over and over again is just gonna make worse. Right. But you need to have time to rest. You need to have the time to recover and heal your body, your mind, and all things in your body. And you wanna try to sleep more the next day, but it's not always gonna be like the thing that equalizes it. What I'm hearing you say is that when you overexert your energy in one day, if you do that over and over and over again, whether you sleep or not, you're gonna retire and exhausted. Yeah. So you need to find time to rest, recover, relax the next day, or the next week. Whatever it is, if you're in a book tour, I get it. Sure. It's like there's gotta be a balance. The the the term that comes to mind now that you use sleep debt is relaxing debt. And that's like a that's like a new term to me in this conversation, and III like it because it names that problem. Relaxation is there. Yeah. Yeah. And you can be doing some relaxation. But if you start to not have enough of it, it's not just the same as sleep. You might be getting enough sleep. Mhmm. But you aren't getting enough menful just release. Mhmm. It's like it's like if you have a a bow on a on a on a you know, on a guitar, on a violin. Like, if you keep it strung all the time, it will lose its spring. Mhmm. You gotta have times when it's, you know, relaxed, released, and then you tighten it again. If you aren't doing enough of the wrist When you put it back in the box, you gotta unloose it. gotta unloose it. You can't keep it tight. Yeah. Why not? You gotta unloose it. Right? The same for us. It's interesting. I was I mean, this is why, you know, professors to time off, you know, months, six months of semesters. Right. It was talking to a pastor pastor Michael Todd recently who's a pastor of a church. Right. And a total of mine, I believe it is. And he said one of greatest pieces of advice, a mentor of him of his told him -- Yeah. -- was it no matter what you do, you're here Hes missions to serve God. Yeah. Serve people and serve God. Yeah. And he does it all day, all long all night long. Right? That's his mission. Right. Youve said the best thing you'll ever do is take a month off where you do nothing. Mhmm. You don't show up for anyone. Mhmm. You don't you're not on your phone, you're not on social media, you're not at church. You're not serving people. That's your time. And he goes, there's so many much people out there that need my Hes, that need my service, that need my time, our attention. Right. He goes, you'll be so burned out if that's all you do all day for years. Yeah. lose yourself. And he says every year he takes a month where he's not on the phone, he's not doing those things, and he's there with himself, his family, his wife, vacationing, relaxing. And he's like, I get more great ideas in the rest of relaxation tonight. I'm more rejuvenated to go have passionate energy for the other eleven months of the year. Yeah. But I that's the best book. The book that he had a book that came from that was a number one yard time bestsell out. Like, I wouldn't have written that number one near Tampa. So the idea came from relaxing and MostIn, not always in service but having that time as well. Well, I mean, there's there's another biblical idea there, right, which is -- So it's a Sunday. -- Sunday. Right? Every seven day. Right? You actually say, you know, so if if God has to rest, youve we we really have a full justification from that in from from a religious point of youve, from a Christian perspective -- Mhmm. -- to say, well, from from Jada Jada a Christian point of view was just like, yeah, it is youve supposed to have a day. You're supposed to have I mean, that's what Subasible comes from. Right? For the same word as Java, you're supposed to have time for the other it's kind of another type of productivity. I mean, I can think about it that way. It's just It's just the rhythm and and and the, you know, everything has a season so that the best ideas come. You're speaking my language with seasons because as an athlete, there's a preseason. There's the season. Yeah. There's the MostIn Right? There's these different seasons. There's playoffs and then the postseason. And it looks like Youve got the preseason. You got the season. You got the the the playoffs and the postseason. And the postseason, you've got to recover. Your body's been pound it in football. You're just hitting over and over again. Right? You gotta let your body heal. Right? You can train in other ways, but you gotta take some time. Baseball, every every sports team has an off season. Th th and, and if you and your not supposed to, or even in the preseason to be playing like your, in the playoffs now, and if you do remember one time, the goal, the golden state warriors is they, they had like the, The, you know, the winningest seasonings ever, they were like in the playoffs favor for everyone, you know, but they didn't have enough in a tank to get them over the There's a and and if you and you're not supposed to even in the pre season be playing like you're in the playoffs. No. And if you do, I remember one of them, the goal the goal state warriors, they they had, like, the the, you know, the winningest season is ever, they will, like, they they hit the plants favorites for everyone. Yep. But they didn't have enough in the tank to get them over the line. Yeah. That's the year that they that Hes they won like Cleveland. They lost, like, five games the whole year and then Exactly. And so the next season, they'd learned that, you know, you you don't worry about that. You don't have to be top of the league even just to make playoffs and so on. I mean, they'd be happy if they made the playoffs this year. But Right. So there's something there's something to say for that too. But but I like the idea that you don't even have, you know, you you have different seasons throughout. It it reminds me of a Madden who is one of the the people I covered in the book, Hes just was like, these players, he he said, look, you've got to actually Hes what I wish we'd done more of last year? Was nothing. Like, I wish we'd done some more just do nothing. Relax, chill, nothing. Yes. Lags, like, we needed more no time. And and he he said Youve MostIn the season of theirs? Yes. He was saying, let's let's have it so that you in for a game, instead of coming in four hours early and training hard and so on. He's like, let's call it the American Legion Week -- Mhmm. -- which is, you know, so when they were when they were you know, not professional players, they would just turn up to play. Alright. alright. In your did practice. And it didn't do you, do you just, you just, you want that for several hours before and beating yourself up, you just turned up to the plate and he's like, we're going to start doing that in the regular season for some of didn't youve just you weren't there for several hours before and beating yourself. You just turned up to play and he's like, we're gonna start doing that in the regular season for some of it. And in Hes found that that was so counter cultural. It took him a while to get installed, but the results have been incredible. You know, it's so funny. You grew up in the UK. Right? Yeah. So So youve understand American football wouldn't matter. But I played in college at the Well, I'd like you to -- Right. -- actually, let's be sure about that. But I play I play in college at the division three level There's three divisions in college. I was in division three level, which a lower level historically, even though there's a lot of great talent It. in it. Yeah. And there was a team. I'm gonna forget the name, but it was a team in Wisconsin, a school. That was like national champions in this in this league in division three, like, five out of ten years or like 5 years in a row, ten years in a row, something like that. It was like ten out of twenty years well, it's like they were either at the National Championship Game, won it or they were there. Mhmm. And they had they were notorious for never hitting in practice. They wore, like, shorts in practice. Mhmm. They would do jumping jacks. They would sit back on the back of the field and do, like, snow angels in the grass -- Mhmm. -- and just do like silly goofy things for warm up. And they wouldn't hit -- Mhmm. -- all ever in practice. Wow. And then they would show up at the game and be so fresh and so light and just dominate. Just speed. No injuries. No injuries. no. Andrew is how about injuries. How about that? And MostIn And most of the time, when I, when I grew up football is like, you have to train, you have to be prepared, hit, hit, hit all practice of the time, when I when I wGreg up football, it's like, you have to train. You have to be prepared. Hit hit hit all practice long. Maybe the day before, it's more of a walk through. And then you're like, I mean, he's Austin. Yeah. Going into the game -- Yes. -- you're going into bathrooms MostIn. And youve already burned out. Tired or, oh, I tweaked my arm because we're hitting all day long till I youve something out of practice and train this way. And these guys, they did, like, jumping jacks And then they were like, alright, we're loose. We're ready to go. And were like, how do they keep winning? But they were doing the effortless thing in practice, which was counterproductive to the hard work. We need to be here and grind it out all practice long. Every minute, squeeze out all the pain as opposed to what's the effortless thing. And w what that reminds me of you, you you've heard, I'm sure of the book of the, the, the, the blue ocean What that reminds me youve, you've heard of sure of the book of the Blue Ocean strategy. Right? And so the idea of that, the metaphor behind that book is is is that you've got all the competitors who are in fighting over the same fish. And because they're fighting over the same fish, make the the c red with blood. Right. now. And this whole book premise is saying, what if you don't fight where everyone else is fighting, and instead you create your own And this whole book premise is saying, what if you don't fight where everyone else is fighting? And instead youve create your own market, youve not competing with anyone. You make your competitors You make your competitors irrelevant. that's why it's called Blue Ocean strategy. It goes where no one is playing. What I just feel like? Is that what you just described as such a red ocean is that what you just described as such a Red Ocean strategy. Mhmm. We're gonna kill ourselves. All day every day. All day every day. And we're going to kill ourselves more than everybody else and we're gonna kill ourselves more than everybody else's I mean, it's like red from a different kind of blood. It's like it's like, yeah. That's one strategy. Yeah. I'm not saying it can't ever work. It can't work sometimes. But like But you're just fighting with and you're fighting with everyone else who's doing same thing. Yeah. Is there not at least percentage of your time, I was just talking to somebody who who who is a general manager in in in the NFL. And I said, okay, of all the speeches you've ever given, as a leader to try and get better results from your teams. What is the percentage ratio between work hard to give more, but and let's find an easier way to get the results. What's the ratio. And he just he just laughs. He's like, Greg, it's a hundred percent the first. I have never given the speech Let's find an easier way to get the results. Right. That's the problem. It's like it's like almost like it seems like I'm fully attacking this strategy in this book. And I'm just saying, it's just not the only one. There's another whole strategy. What if you just ask the other question you might find that there is, in fact, another way to do training. You might find just like the team you said. Right? Jumping jacks might be the thing. Relaxing might have its place so that you can be ready to give youve old when the moment comes. This is powerful stuff, Greg. I'm I'm so glad you wrote this book. I want people to get it. called effortless. Make it easy to do what matters. Make sure you guys check this out. Also, check out your cant, which is called what's essential. You guys can download that. Subscribe. It's on Apple, Spotify, everywhere. Everywhere. Cant are at. This is a book that I have, you know, footnoted in a lot of pages because me, my audience knows it's hard for me to read because it just hurts my brain. Reading one paragraph is like, oh, this is hard work. You made it easy to go through this and I highlighted many pages because it's, you know, it's like a some pages like a kids' book for me. It's like it's a graph. There's an image and then some words. See and you make it really simple and easy to read. So I appreciate everything that you have here. And where is that one page? Again, I wanna highlight this for people. There's two pages that where you said, here we go. I like this. When you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have, when you focus on what you have, you get what you lack. Again, this is kind of a key principle from the book that I think is really important to think about. So I'm grateful you did this. I have a couple final questions for you. Yeah. This is called a Three Truths. Okay. I'm actually gonna ask everyone at the end of every show called Three Truths. Okay? So I'd like you to imagine hypothetical scenario that it's your last day on Earth. Okay? Many years away. And you get to live as long as you want, but you gotta turn the lights off. And you've accomplished every dream that you could think of. K? If you have the life you want, you've done it all -- Mhmm. -- effortlessly. For for whatever reason, you've gotta take all of your work with you to the next place. Okay. And no one has access to this book, any book that you've ever written, or anything you've ever said. Okay. But you get a piece of paper and a pen to write down three lessons that you've learned that you would like to share with the world. What I like to call three truths. Mhmm. This is all we would have from you as your memory. Oh, shit, this is the only thing that you get to leave behind. This is all the information we have about youve. your thoughts and your ideas and your work because you've taken it all with youve. You have three lessons to leave behind to the world. Oh, okay. Three truce. Oh, I'm ready to queue. Okay. The first one would be a one word, a first one would be one word light. Which spelling? Yeah. Just light LIGHT. Light. Two meanings. Yeah. Well, that's good because the first meaning let's deal with the first meaning light as in light versus darkness. That in every moment have a choice to go towards the light or to go towards the Mhmm. And it doesn't really matter whether somebody's coming at it with a religious perspective or no faith perspective. Everybody knows this. They know something is the right thing to do. It's full of like, or they know something is not the right thing. And we all have to choose between that constantly. So And I think that's what it means to be a good person is that you keep coming back to the light. You make mistakes, but you just go, okay, my next choice, I'm gonna do the thing that I know to be right. And that will lead to more at light and more light until until I think light is full of light. Yeah. That's the best principle one. Light. Hindrance to is the same word, but the different meaning. Okay? So light, still same way, LIGHTI think. Yeah. Because that still just has a double meaning, light Or LNTE. No. But I think it's just same. I think it's just the same. Yeah. And and that's light as in shoot. The light a way of living in the way we've talked about from this way. The effortless way where you're you're just going, not everything has to be so hard. And underneath that, I think is the question, how am I making life harder than it needs to be. My my favorite story. Actually, it's in the version you have here, but it's not in the actual book. Which is a shame. It's the one thing I kind of regret that I didn't get into the We just I I chose to have it out and I regret it. But it's the story of a woman who is He has a son who's dying has her son, who's dying and they're in the hospital together and it's at the end. So that's actually really similar to your scenario for me. And you can tell. Sometimes youve can really tell. I've been with people towards the end of their lives and sometimes you know. And And so she knew and so she got up into the bed with him just to kind of, you know, hug him. And right at the end, you know, in that between places, he's It's just the last words he ever says, is MostIn, it's all so simple. It's so simple. And then he died. Mhmm. And that was his final message to his mother to the world And I think that's what I mean by the second version of light. Like, how are we making life harder than it needs to be? What what are we making more complex than it needs to be? Let's try and strip life of all of that so it can be light in that second way. And now I'm now I'm thinking about the third thing. And I think if I had to really be honest about this, I would just say I would say light of the time. But now I just have to sort of share my own conviction and I'm not sharing it because I feel like anybody else has to believe this or I'm not trying to pressure anybody else into anything, but I just believe that that, you know, that that that God is source of light. Mhmm. And and for me as a Christian, it is, you know, I believe that Jesus Christ is the source of that light. And I feel that in my own life. I see it in my own family. It's not it's it's not based in some some relic of a belief. It is a living, breathing thing for me. It got us through this experience with Eve. It is the thing that I when I well, for me, it is where I find the great enlightenment for my own life. It makes me wanna be kind of, be better, serve more. Mhmm. And so I think that would be sort of the final and perhaps most important point is that that I make him the life of my life. So that I it can fill me and it fills me the thing that I'm currently experiencing is is that it increases the amount of love in me for other people. And and I need it. You know, I I need that in my life. I need to feel that love. We all need to be loved and to be able to love each other. And this is this has been this is the journey I'm honest to feel God's love for me, which allows me to then be able to be full of it for other people. And and like we don't all need a bit more of that right now in the world where we're just being told to distrust and dislike and not youve. Other people are different to us. Yeah. We need a lot more of it. That's that's my understanding. know? beautiful. I love those. A great truce. I would acknowledge you, Greg, before I ask the final question for being an incredible father. But it sounds like your daughter really needed you over the last four years and you showed up with new strategies, new ways of learning on how to make it a better environment for her. And the rest of your kids during an incredibly hard and challenging suffering time, which could have been much harder. Yeah. So for you to show up the way you did, and to say, okay, we're not gonna do it the hard way and suffer. We're already suffering. You know, how can we make this more enjoyable? I think that's probably the the thing that I admire most about year. Mhmm. I have no idea what it's like to be a parent, and I can only imagine the amount of stress fear overwhelm, you know, frustration around something like that. So technology for the way you handled it and the way you continue to handle it even though it's not perfect. And showing up as a light for your kids and your entire family. I think it's really inspiring. Well, I can't have you say that without just really acknowledging the the old people that played a role in that. I mean, the answer I just gave you, I really have to acknowledge that that light in my life that guided me even to read that article or to get me through it or to get receive insights and little revelations that guided us through that. There's no question about that. I have to acknowledge, youve know, really the hand of God in that. And also, other people who showed up, who's just literally people who haven't heard from in years showed up, we're we're praying for you. Yeah. Now that can be just a like nice polite phrase, but I'll tell you we learned that it is for real. That is our experience, is that things opened up and opportunities opened up that would not otherwise have opened up without that. That is I I would be intellectually dishonest not to add that to the experience of what that was. And that's one of the reasons that I I felt, I guess, obliged a little a little awkward to be honest in doing it, but in dedicating the book, to a single principle, which is, you know, my wisdom, verse from Matthew, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. I I just could to me, that's a breathtaking phrase having spent all his time now in the principle of effortless. It's like, man, that is right there. A lot of people, their life does not feel light, does not feel easy. But there seems to be a a path even in scriptural path for for getting there. Yeah. That's beautiful. Greg, final question for youve. ask it, make sure you guys get the book. Gonna be powerful. Get a couple copies for your friends, for your team, Effortless. Make sure you got to check it Make sure you guys check it out. Final question. What is your definition of greatness? I think that they're a friend, a mentor for me, it was a Stephen Covey and he used to distinguish primary Greatness and secondary think that the friend and mentor for me was Stephen Covey, and he used to distinguish primary greatness and secondary greatness. And he he said primary greatness is the is the private victory. So all the stuff that's going on inside of youve. your character. It's whether being kind, grateful, honest. It's it's all of who you are. No one gets to see that. That's all in the that's all the quiet. Then there's public greatness. Secondary greatness is the public victory. It's what that's what people see. That's the that's the the successes. And and really what he was trying to distinguish, I think, is that is the primary greatness, precede secondary greatness, and is more important. If you get primary greatness, you'll often achieve secondary greatness. You'll often actually gain the accolades of other people because you have something substantive inside of you. But if you don't, you're still you're still something substantive to deciding. So you're still with it the thing that matters most. And so I I think the greatness to me is is mostly the first, but it's what also powers the second and gives life to it. So that's my difference. That's beautiful. And and and to add to that, if you only chase the public greatness and you don't have the integrity, the character, you're not kind to others Yeah. You will suffer at the end of the day and that'll never be enough will suffer at the end of the day and that'll never be enough. Never be enough. You may not achieve it. And the secondary greatness disappears awfully fast. Quick. And we're having this conversation in the middle of, like, basically, in the middle of Hollywood. In the middle of cant culture. Middle of cancel culture. Exact So someone can be famous, they can have the money, and then tomorrow they can be completely kicked out on. So you can't construct your life around secondary greatness. If you do, that's a high risk strategy. Let's say it that way. My man, wGreg, this has been powerful. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Microsoft teams is helping priority Teams is helping priority bicycles. Re-invent the way they reinvent the way they work. When the pandemic hit, the bike shop had to close their New York city When the pandemic hit, the bike shop had to close their New York City showroom. They found a way to reopen by doing virtual visits on teams. Now the team can meet with two or three times the number of customers than they could Now, the team can meet with two or three times the number of customers than they could before. And people from all over the world can visit their And people from all over the world can visit their showroom. Learn more about their story and others at Microsoft dot com slash teams. I am still giving away Amazon gift cards To my my listeners. Every week, we choose four lucky winners like Donica, Jean from Austria, Alina, f from the UK, Sandra, a from Arizona, and so many others. That's That's right. They each won a twenty five dollar gift card to Amazon. But here's why, I need your help to get to know you better. So I've created a short and simple survey. All you have to do is fill out a quick questionnaire at lewishouse dot comsurvey. survey. And that's that's it. It'll only take a couple of minutes, but it will go a long way towards helping me and this podcast served you at the highest level possible. And as a thank you for completing it, I am choosing four new winners every week to get a twenty five dollar Amazon gift card. So go to lewishouse dot com slash survey to fill it out now. I'm excited to get to know you guys even more and be able to serve you in the best possible way. Thank you so much for being here, for listening to this episode. And if this adds value to your life where it helps you maximize time in any way, shape, or form, then Let me know. Leave a rating and review and share with me the part you enjoy the most and share this with a friend that you think would find it inspiring and helpful as Well, would love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to text me the word podcast as well to my number 6143503960 to get on our texting list. Again, text the word podcast to 6143503960 if you wanna get on our texting community list to be inspired and motivated through text messages every single week from me. And I'll leave you with a quote from filmmaker George Lucas who says, always remember. Youve focus determines your reality. Ooh. In a world of distractions, in a world of nonstop notifications in a world of endless possibilities to spend on our time, what are you focusing your time a world of distractions, in a world of non stop notifications in a world of endless possibilities to spend on our time. What are you focusing your time on? What is meaningful to is meaningful to you? What matters? How would you like to be remembered? What would you like to be known for? What would make you proud knowing what you used with your time? For your energy, your talent, your creation in this world. Focus your energy in the right things and the right things will usually come back in supporting you as well. I'm so grateful that you were here today. I hope this added value in your life. And as always, if no one has told you lately, I wanna remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what time it is, it's time to go out there and do something great.