17 Unconventional ways to be more Productive - Ali Abdaal | Pt 1

The journey is more important than the destination the journey is the destination the journey is what counts the process is is what counts it's so hard to actually live that way I think girls have it a lot worse than guys do as well girls are taught from a young age to always strive to be perfect this is this is not the way I want to live today's guest is the world's most followed productivity expert with over 7 Million followers across all platforms he's one of the top YouTube Educators in the world he's an entrepreneur he's

a doctor and is now the author of his new book Feelgood productivity my my friend Mr Ali abdal not everything you do is going to feel good all the time but everything you do you can always choose to approach it in a way that makes it feel better everything about a mind and everything about what Society tells us is to strive for the outcome the mind is Not a contentment machine it's not designed for us to be content in the moment it's not designed for us to be happy it's designed for us to so how

can we actually switch out stress for more play more people need to hear this message and one of the things that really came up was this idea of hello dream nation and welcome back look before I get into today's episode so I just have one thing to say look I always wish that I learned about business Entrepreneurship personal development and emotional intelligence way earlier on in life so my goal with this channel is to turn it into that thing that we all wish we had way earlier on in life and the only thing I'll literally

ever ask you for is that you just simply subscribe to wherever you're listening to or viewing this episode today that way you're going to help the show actually get bigger and better making it more possible for us to get even bigger And better guest on the show making the content even better for all of you so if you can take 2 seconds right now make sure you subscribed and then let's talk about today's guest this was an amazing guest today guys today's guest is the world's most followed productivity expert with over 7 million followers across

all platforms he's one of the top YouTube Educators in the world he's an entrepreneur he's a doctor and he came first in his class at Cambridge University and is now the author of his new book Feelgood good productivity but what I love most about this guy is his openness and his willing to want to literally serve and help other people he's one of the most coolest freaking guys I've ever become uh friends with and I'm super excited to bring him to you guys because this episode today is actually a very different one to one I've

ever done before this is a two-part series interview because what I did with Him I sat down and I picked his brain and I went over his 17 most unconventional ways from his new book on how we can become more productive in our lives and in our businesses so buckle up for the first part let's get right into it and please help me welcome to the show my friend Mr Ali abdal Ali welcome to the podcast man thank you so much for having me on the goal of this podcast is what what I want to

do is I've gone through your new book which is actually Just dropped today by the way so massive congrats on that thank you apprciate um super excited for the people actually get that right it's going to be super cool and when I was reading it I actually thought because especially after also meeting you and seeing some of the other things you've do online I thought this was going to be a productivity book which is going to be help me amplify my productivity in terms of his practical things like manage your Time like this do more

of this and less of this and and then I started reading it I was like it is so not what I thought it was and then I was reading I was like this is so much this is actually what you do need to be productive and the whole title is Feelgood productivity so I want to the intention of this I've picked out the 17 unconventional ways to be more productive as an entrepreneur and as a person cool and I want to pick your Brain on them for the next little while let's do it the first

thing is Success doesn't lead to Feeling Good Feeling Good leads to success I found that extremely kind of contrary to what I always thought yeah oh so this is H this idea success doesn't lead to Feeling Good Feeling Good leads to success it's not it's not an original idea people have talked about this there is a very good book by a Harvard psychologist called Shan AER Sean AER called The Happiness Advantage which basically talks about how when you look at studies of you know how people perform at work and how happy they are and all

that kind of stuff you find that people who are happier tend to perform better at work and the you know people always assumed that the correlation was that hey if you a good performer at work then you're more liked by your peers and then you make more money and then you will be happier but what a bunch different Studies then try to do is figure out could the direction of causality point the other way could it be in fact that people who are happier IE people who experience more positive emotions are the ones who perform

better in their in their work life and there's this thing called positive affectivity which is like your propensity to experience positive emotions and they find that people with high positive affectivity are way more likely to be productive Creative less stressed more successful in net work they get better ratings from their managers they get promotions quicker they're on average earn more money all of this good stuff happens if someone experiences more positive emotions in their work and so that's why success doesn't lead to Feeling Good Feeling Good leads to success the people who are successful are

the ones who have found a way to enjoy the process because these days to be honest the only way to Become successful at anything is to find something and do it for a long time and just get better at it over time it's very hard to luck into any sort of success and the way you find something and are actually able to stick at it for a long time is by finding a way to enjoy the process discipline only gets you so far time management only gets you so far enjoying the process and feeling good

about it leads to all of the all of the positive out all of the positive Outcomes what if the thing we're doing is not necessarily exciting like let's say for example I think for people like you and I it's it's quite easy cuz if I have there's only like probably a very small percentage of my weeks where I'm like it's not overly enjoyable and they're the meeting days that's why I put them all in a few hours I get them done they're not overly enjoyable for me um but I do find ways to sort of

still Enjoy it but if I think back to the days when I was a carpenter hating the jobs I was doing hating the people I worked with and all of this how can those people like that discover fulfillment and feeling good in times when they're just like where they are maybe they're in toxic environments or the relationships or whatever it's just like I get what you're saying but how do I do it yeah so that's kind of what the whole book is about um not I I agree not Everything can be fun in games all

the time that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is that every single thing in life that we do we can always find a way to make it even just 10% more enjoyable so if you think back let's say you're a carpenter and you absolutely hate your life there are three PS you can incorporate into your work play power and people those are the first three chapters of the book can you find a way even while hating your life as a Carpenter to approach it more in the spirit of play could you lower the stakes

a little bit could you have a little bit more fun with it could you approach it with a little bit more lightness and ease could you find a way to approach it with more power power means taking responsibility taking ownership taking control instead of thinking ah I'm just an apprentice Carpenter I've got to do what I've got to do what my senior Carpenter tells me Could you find a way to take ownership of the process could you find a way to actually level up your own abilities and think you know what my boss is telling

me to work on this one particular beam but I'm going to do a really good job on this beam the more engaged you are with the process the more responsibility you take over it the more the more ownership you have over it or the more or the more ownership you feel you have over it the more likely you are to be productive and Perform better but you're also going to feel really good about it like no one enjoys being told what to do and there's this weird thing around like you know it's I I think

it's somewhat counterintuitive but we think that H you know if I don't like my job I'm just going to Coast I'm going to do the bare minimum so I can get home from work and do what I really enjoy but coasting is ridiculously draining for our energy like no one likes it if you're the sort Of person that's like oh I hate my job and therefore I'm going to half ass it you're going to you're going to be absolutely miserable if you hate your job and you think okay how do I even I know I

hate my job but you know that's just a story I'm telling myself I don't I might not actually hate my job let me figure out how I can actually approach it with more responsibility and take more ownership of it you will magically find that you're more productive in the Job and you also feel good about it as's play power and then there's people can you find a way to tap into the fact that your work as a carpenter actually is providing a service to either your colleagues or your clients can you like really connect to

that service component because there's something about that that really Taps into intrinsic motivation when we feel as if our work is Meaningful to others even if we don't enjoy it there's something about that That feels really good so the whole book is basically like if you hate your job then you're doing something wrong it is not the job it is not the circumstances it's not the events it's not the government it's not the interest rate it's not the job that you happen to have it's the way that you approaching it and by changing your approach

in a few small ways you can radically change the way you approach a job and the way you perform at it as well I love it cuz it's It's a whole it's like personal development 101 if you if you want your life to become better you've got to first take responsibility for where you are I heard somebody say one time um people only ever admit where they are in life but if they're proud of it that's why you hear self-made millionaire self-made billionaire people like I've done this but you'll never ever ever hear someone say

I'm self-made average I'm self-made miserable I'm self-made Because you only ever admit when you actually enjoy the thing so it's it's taken it really back to because if I do think about that like on even on the shitty times when I was working as as as a carpenter I think I kind of had that in my head or at least after a while I was like I'm going to do this anyway and I've got two options I can either come and hate the whole 10 hours here or I can find a way to try to

enjoy it even doing the shitty tasks like how can I Just enjoy this and time goes faster you do a better job you feel better about yourself it's this reciprocal thing yeah and you end up with more energy at the end of the day if you do that it it's like you know when I was working my sort of 10 12 13 hour shift as a doctor for the first few months I approached I had a really shitty attitude towards it I was like oh I don't enjoy this I just have to grind it out

like oh Junior doctors we don't get paid enough [ __ ] The government oh my God like oh I don't want to be an admin monkey CU I'm just writing these discharge letters the [ __ ] that all all Junior doctors say when they complain about their jobs was stuff that had seeped into my mindset and after a few months of this I was like actually this is this is not the way I want to live I don't want to live sort of grind it grind out the next two years to then grind out the

next seven years of specialty training so that in theory When I become a consultant at the age of 35 or 36 or 38 whatever the thing might be then I'll enjoy my life cuz I was speaking to Consultants who were that age and they were also not enjoying their life it's like the thing you know if you can't be satisfied with a coffee you won't be satisfied on a yacht um and you know I speak to medical students sometimes who are like oh man I really hate medical school I just want to grind it out

so that you know I once I'm a Doctor once I've you know once I get that thing that I've been working for then my life will be fun and I'm like bro if you if you don't enjoy medical school where going into work is optional you will absolutely freaking hate being a doctor where going into work is no longer optional yeah and so I realized that I could actually control my own circumstances here it's it's again the personal development like the the standard stuff that every self-help Guru Has been talking about since like the 1700

yeah like the way you think and the way you approach your work radically changes the way you perform at it and the way you feel about yourself so yeah number two is how does having more play lead to more productivity yeah so play is one of the first well is the first Energizer that we talk about when we approach things in the spirit of play with a sense of lightness and ease where we're engaged with it but we're not Taking it too seriously that is when we get the optimal conditions for Flow State for Creative

creative output and you know often depending on what your job is that that is the same thing as productivity most of us are no longer working in like assembly line jobs where we have to crank out like 10 widgets per hour and so productivity for us is 11 Widgets or 12 widgets per hour in in those sorts of jobs yeah fine like sort of grinding harder will maybe get You to 10 11 12 widgets per hour it's a pretty miserable way to live life uh you know most of us are not in those sorts of

jobs anymore where we're all broadly knowledge workers the reason the thing that we do for our jobs is to use our brain to create something or to transform something or to take some data and interpret in some kind of way and turn it into a report of some sort that other people can understand we use our brains for stuff and so if we Can approach whatever we're doing in the spirit of play by being engaged with it but by not taking it so seriously that it becomes very stressful that is where our creativity can really

flourish and you know there's a bunch of studies that they've done where they found that you know people who feel good you know experience positive emotions in their work they tend to perform better in tasks of creativity as well uh Mii chick Mii chick sent Mei the psychologist in The 1970s who discovered the the concept of flow what was her name Mii chick sent Mii spelled like miale chick and it's a weird weird kind of very difficult to pronounce but I had to look this up when I was recording the audio book you know he

discovered this concept of Flow State in like 1970 wrote a book about it um and we've all had that experience of being in the flow state where it's like time is time is flying and you know we're we we're fully engaged with what We're doing and we perform really well and those times are usually not when we're very stressed they're usually when we're we're taking a little bit of a a little bit of perspective we're approaching our work with with a little bit more lightess and in doing so we allow ourselves to play with it

a little bit more and there are so many stories of Nobel Prize winners and like athletes and stuff who have found that actually if you can approach your work in the Spirit of play it becomes more fun you feel good you're more productive you're more creative you're less stressed all of the good things happen and the choice to appro approach work in the spirit of play is something that we all have regardless of our circumstances so I want to share something funny here so I was having a conversation the other night with a friend of

mine uh business partner actually and he's he's about a old than me I think he's about he's About 40 I think and it was a Christmas party we're having with a bunch of friends and we're all having a few drinks I had maybe five drinks by now and that's usually like my limit now I just I just don't like it I used to drink so hard and party so hard and and I was talking to him I said do you just find it that you know like can because we're talking about New Year's Eve and

he's like oh you got a drink and I'm like probably not you know and um and I'm like how do you like do you still like can you still go and just get absolute shitfaced and feel good about it and I'm like I just avoid I just don't and he's like he goes there was this famous person he was telling me a story so I forget the name it was this famous motorcycle rider and he was winning every single race bang bang bang winning those races and then and then he started to lose a race

lose a race lose a race lose a race and his team com he's Like what the [ __ ] is going on like what what's wrong with you and he's like I'm not sure I'm doing all the things and he's focused on success success success and then what he did was he went and got wasted he went had a loose night right not that this is probably the Cure of for you know but the the idea behind it was he went and loosened up and he's telling me a story he went and just got drunk

had fun and just had a bit of fun again like put some playback into it his First race back was the day after he's hung over his [ __ ] and he wins and he's like so he's he's like not necessarily go out and get drunk but when we're so fixated on the work the work the hustle the grind the the the list these things if we do it for too long it we can get into this thing where we lose that playful side and I did this for I started my first business at 21

and I was lit I didn't know what a day off was until Co came so three about 26 years Old I was and I was talking to my mentor and I was like I can't figure this out like I'm working so hard I want my business to be bigger and he goes when was the last time you had a day off like what are you talking about day off and he goes here's what I want you to do every single week now go and have 2 days off completely off guilt freee yeah I'm like I

don't think you understand what I'm saying to you I want your advice to help me be more successful you're Telling me to go and have fun yes that's exact I'm telling you to do so obviously I'm a good mentee I was like okay if if you say I can do this sure I went and booked uh a place away in the in the rainforest deleted all my social media for 3 days did nothing except hike I read books I watched movies I drank wine I made food by myself and it was awesome I come back

I made more money in my business for those three days that I was off doing Nothing than I did it it beat my biggest week of the year when I was working my my ass off so I was like so in the three days and that was when I really realize that it's the pendulum swing like if I'm so far this way all the time where I'm just on all the time but I never allow myself to actually come back then that is really the secret when when did you learn that actually playing more and

having more of fun in your life was actually a thing that could help you get Be more successful I discovered this when I was in medical school in my so in my first year of University of of medical school I I I had the sort of grindy approach to it I was like oh this is really hard it's like you know I I did pretty well in in high school because I didn't need to work too hard and I got good grades anyway and then I got to medical school where I was like slapped in

the face by realizing I cannot rely on sort of Innate intelligence to get me through this because everyone else was also really smart in high school and I was bang average and I was like God damn okay um so in my first year I tried to sort of grind it out and I was like I'm going to work really hard and pull all nighters and do all that [ __ ] in my second year we had a psychology lecture from this professor who was teaching us about how to study more effectively and I was like

whoa no one's ever taught me How to study more effectively and this like lecture changed my life and I was like oh there's all these techniques that you can use to actually just you know in the same amount of time just memorize way more stuff and given that medical school is basically about understanding and memorizing great that means I can be more productive with this and so I kind of went down a little bit of a rabbit hole and sort of followed up on the research papers myself and kind Of gave some talks about this

because I was like more people need to hear this message and one of the things that really came up was this idea of enjoying finding a way to enjoy the process um there a theory in positive psychology called the broaden and build Theory which is that when you when you experience positive emotions you're more likely to uh you know expand your expand the actions available to you and build resources and stuff we can we can go Into that but it kind of made me realize that hang on there's something here around yes you've got all

these techniques for working smart and previously all I was doing was working hard but there's this whole other thing of like working fun I but like working in a way that that you actually enjoy the process and so I started actually actively trying to apply it to my life so in my first year I was locking myself in my bedroom and studying because That's how you focus right in my second year I was like you know I'm just going to go to the library and I'm going to invite friends along and I'm going to listen

to Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack through my headphones while I'm studying technically your your retention of stuff lowers if you listen to background music cuz I looked at the stuff by by like a small amount like music with lyrics is like kind of bad lyrics for sure lyrics For sure but like even instrumentals is like not ideal because you want to mimic the conditions you have in the exam and you don't have background music in the exam but I was like you know what [ __ ] it who cares I happy to take the hit

in efficiency for the sake of a gain and enjoyment enjoy it and in my second year I smashed the exams I got a first class degree in my third year I continue the same strategy I ranked first in the year that year and I was like okay cool this [ __ ] really does work when you find a way to enjoy the process and just treat it with a little bit more play then everything just improves number three you must choose a new character yeah so one of the things around play is that when we

are kids we find it very easy to play and kids play all the time like you don't need to convince a kid to St playing they just do it naturally but As we get older as we go through school we get told all these stories around all these things like oh growing up means you stop playing and like you know you got to take life seriously and we become we we get into this conveyor belt where we're judged in terms of grades and performance and like you have to do this to get a good job

and all this sort of stuff the play really gets squashed out of us and I remember uh you know when I was when I was in high school and you Know I I I I couldn't let my mom see me playing video games cuz she'd always be like hey you know if that guy's playing video games it means he's not studying and therefore though she would find something for me to do she'd be like well clean the house or like whatever or like you know have you done your homework all all this sort of stuff

so the spirit of play really gets squashed out of us um by very well-meaning parents and society as we get older and So what we have to do as adults is try and reconnect with this idea of play and one way to do that is to choose a different kind of character there's something about getting outside your own head and imagining doing your work as if you were a different character that Taps into something different in the brain it it helps us get out of our own heads and approach the thing more playfully and there's

this there's this psychiatrist um in the US who founded the National Institute of play which is a thing in the US and he did like 5,000 interviews with people from all walks of life during his like history taking and things and he was interested in what were the archetypes of playful behavior um in people throughout life and he basically barded down to eight different things which are all in the book um but one of them for example is it's it's sort of based on how did you enjoy playing when you were younger some People enjoyed

kind of directing they're the director they enjoyed organizing people and like putting stuff together some people were more Kines thees they enjoyed like doing gymnastics and like rolling around and jumping around some people were more storytellers they enjoyed like telling stories and capturing people's attention that way and so part of choosing your character is a connecting to thinking thinking back to how did you enjoy playing when You were younger and how can you bring more of that into your work but also another way of doing it is to think could I approach my work as

if I were a different character so next time I'm working on I don't know a YouTube video or a presentation or writing something for example could I approach that as the Joker which is one of the one of the archetypes of play um could I approach it as a joker what would that look like what would it look like to Inject a little bit more humor into that and almost trying it on like a new like a different set of clothes you're like a new archetype or a new like you're acting kind of exactly yeah

and and when when we're acting again it helps us take the thing less seriously and again we shouldn't need to tell adults this but actually we do like adults need to learn how to play a little bit more in their work because we're so used to being I [ __ ] hate my Job I got to grind all that all that crap and so the character thing is one tangible practical way of in a way encouraging you encouraging your mind to get out of the way and like having a little bit more fun with your

work I I definitely want to I want to go back and revisit that section actually like intentionally um cuz I think like one of my highest values is fun so we do bring in a lot of just fun into everything I do even when I so my one of the events I Run goes for 40 hours in right so kind of like so Tony will do Tony's de with Destiny he's all day right but um like so I'm on stage for about 12 to 15 hours a day 3 days straight and um there's the only

way I'll get through that is if I have a [ __ ] ton of fun yeah it's like so just like playing with the audience and just like not taking things too seriously like I'll literally have a page with a few dot points on it and that's that's 10 hours of content yeah And I'm like the the funest for me is when I get up there it's never the same thing over and over it's quite it's quite similar of course as the major things whatever but it's never the same never same audience and I love

the uh the variety of I love the spontaneity of that cuz if I was up there to just do the thing again I reckon I'd fall back into the when was a carpenter would rock up on the job site oh here's another house just do the same house again if we Just would build the same like units side by side so we finish the whole unit great go next door start it again it's like [ __ ] you know it's just so you know so I I I focus a lot on bringing that in so

I want to look at the new character what what's your favorite character to play for me it's a Storyteller yeah I try find like even when I was writing boring discharge letters when I was working as a doctor as like you know these letters that you write summarizing A patient's hospital visit to send to their GP I was trying to find a way to sort of weave an weave an engaging narrative normally like I would read these discharge letters they were boring that people just like write a few bullet points but I kind of wanted

to tell a story because stories are more engaging and they're more fun to write and I was like I was trying to piece it together in my head and trying to add a bit of banter as well I just love the Storyteller side of things which is I think why I Vibe with making YouTube videos and writing the book it's storytelling at scale I love it man so what what I love so much about the whole like this book is like I said from the start it's not it's not even so much of do these

things like tangible things it's the whole like if you actually improve the way you actually operate and view the world then everything around you going get to improve so one of the Things obviously is feeling better one of the things chemicals in our body bodies that make us feel better is dopamine uh I an absolute addict for I I Skydive and everything so I just love [ __ ] that just you know so what's your favorite ways cuz one of the ways is to actually make us feel good is to produce more dopamine what's one

of your favorite ways that we can produce more dopamine on a day-to-day basis yeah so there's a a phrase that came came Across recently which is that dopamine is not about the pursuit of happiness it's the happiness of pursuit and so pursuing something that feels even if it doesn't feel meaningful just like pursuing anything helps Drive dopamine so the way that I do this and the way I I I apply this to my work is essentially by tracking my progress so when you're uh like a lot of writers will do this for example they'll track

their word count as they're kind of going through a Writing session and they'll feel good about it once they hit a, words or 2,000 words or whatever the thing might be for whatever I'm doing that I'm struggling with that I need a little bit more feel goodess into I try and figure out what is what is that equivalent what is my equivalent of the writer's word count how can I track my progress such that it feels it feels good to be hitting these milestones and reaching for these things so with the gym for example there's

an App I use called strong to track my workouts and it just shows me what did I lift last time uh in this particular exercise and then based on that I think okay I'm going to do that plus one extra rep or that plus 2 extra kg or whatever the thing might be and there's something about writing the numbers down and measuring them where I can see the graph and I can be like yeah that that feels very dopamine inducing it feels it feels good I'm like yeah I'm making progress Um and I think you

know you can find ways to apply that to literally any job there is always a way to track progress and tracking progress feels really good if you feel like you're improving at something we actually embedded into my into my company uh cuz I thought about that cuz everything I do is background of why people do the things I do how do we how do we do better the things that we do yeah and and I I knew that I was like if if we have a score if people Have a score what we naturally want

to do is beat our score video games gym that's why everyone's like my PB this this and this and if we have lists as well people want to get you get doent when we cross L off a list so I actually embedded these scorecards for every single employee that we have so they all have individual scorecards where they have lit to-do lists for the week cuz I know we we all put things on a list and every single thing you tick off you're Going to be more excited but then what we did was this changed

the game everybody has a metric that they have to like a it's a it's a not good good outstanding so we have a not very good number you hit the you hit the nail you absolutely killed it and I let them all make up their own numbers so every single department is obviously different marketing is an easy one having New Leads or whatever right but they they all have numbers so then every single Week when we meet right so we meet on a Monday we go through it all we set them all on a Friday

they have to fill it all out then on a Friday I see it and what I know is we see so much productivity on a Thursday and Friday because they want to smash their own numbers they don't want to write a number that's worse than last week no one wants to get on there and fill out their score card go [ __ ] I did worse this week and if they know it's coming they'll actually change their Behavior they would do something differently and since doing that we've we've just seen insane amounts of productivity increase

nice people are feeling good yeah I think there's something about about scorecards you know tracking numbers gamifying it's it's all the same kind of of idea I think there is a way to overdo it you know like Amazon gamifying their like warehouse workers and making sure like it's like your toilet break is 28 Seconds long and then you have to get back in that particular time people don't enjoy that because that's like that's what they do there yeah it's like you know Amazon has had a bunch of heat about this um heard it like overusing

gamification to exploit their workers would be kind of the narrative uh but I think there are nicer ways of doing it and if we can find that you know numbers Drive our own behavior that's amazing yeah so good all right number five You've already mentioned this one so let's go deeper into this one focus on the journey not the outcome what I'm curious on this so my backup question to this topic here is isn't this easier said than done yeah I mean every everything in many ways is easier said than done like you and I

can talk about hey figure out your values mhm and just change the rules you have about your toward wordss and Away values obviously it's very easy For us to talk about that and very difficult to actually do the thing we can talk about how you know it's important to be consistent when going to the gym or when making YouTube videos but actually doing the thing is really hard I think similarly you know it's it's almost cliche at this point but this whole idea that the journey is more important than the destination the journey is the

destination the journey is what counts the process is is what Counts it's so hard to actually live that way because we're so like everything about our everything about our mind and everything about what Society tells us is to strive for the outcome mhm the mind is a survival machine at the end of the day and it cares about hitting certain outcomes like being safe and like not getting mored by the tiger and getting food and getting more food and getting more food and stuff the mind is Not a contentment machine it's not designed for us

to be content in the moment it's not designed for us to be happy it's designed for us to survive similarly society and capitalism is not designed for us to be content it's design is it's designed for us to drive to want more and more things so that we think that you know advertising when I get that Mercedes then I'll be happy when I get that Lululemon t-shirt then I'll be happy whatever the thing might Be so it's so hard to actually live with the idea that actually contentment is found in the journey the process is

what matters screw the outcome focus on the journey it's so hard to do and I find that the more reminders I I I I think the power I I I think there is profound power in reminders even though it's a bit cliche to say Journey before destination or the journey the destination or like don't focus on on the outcome focus on the process yeah Sure it's cliche but it's cliche for a reason and we still need those reminders we still don't do it enough and I still I still need those reminders for myself whenever I

find myself feeling even vaguely stressed by you know just launching this book and doing all this interviews and dealing with like calendar juggling and having to cancel on people and reschedule [ __ ] I'm just like it's easy to focus on the outcome it's easy to fixate on like okay once Once all this is done then dot dot dot but even you know you and I were talking before this and you were like how's the book stuff and I found myself saying oh man you know it's pretty intense I can't wait for it to be

over and I was thinking no [ __ ] that like what am I doing like the present moment is all there is my my goal here is to enjoy the process my goal here is not like oh I can't wait for like the next month to be over so that I don't have to do any more Publicity it's not like I I I don't have to do any of this [ __ ] I I'm I'm choosing to do it but even then even though I've written books about this and I talk about this so much

I try and remind myself on a daily basis I still fall into the Trap of thinking the outcome is actually meaningful outcome is not meaningful at all it's just about the journey and and you know I think the more people talk about this the more it's talked about in podcasts and books And quotes and motivational things and all that kind of stuff what's up dream Nation have you ever wondered how far ahead your life would have already been if you hadn't got access to this type of content at a younger age look this is why

I need your help I'm trying to build the number one personal development platform out there to teach you guys the tips tricks and attitude of what it takes to live your dream life and to bring the type of Education that we all wish we had in school this show only Grows by word of mouth and new subscribers so it would mean the world to me if you could smash that subscribe button right now leave us a five star written review or drop a comment below and share this episode with a friend I would be forever

grateful all right now let's get back into this episode I think those reminders genuinely make a difference to my life yeah yeah it kind of is like the Muscle cuz as you said that I thought so we have an event we run every single year that's was telling you about next we're doing it called dreamfest and last this year sorry when we're doing in 2023 when we're doing it I James spoke at it James Smith was right um and I found myself it was the biggest one we did it was some moving Parts um you

know and the one the year before we did it like so many things [ __ ] up in it and I was coming into The event like we were at the event the night before so we had a late night and I was I was pretty [ __ ] exhausted I I woke up and I said to my partner we're both leaving and we we co cooked before it even started yeah and we said to each other we're like you know in a really like allow me just to sound like a dick for a second

she like okay I'm like I can't wait for today to be finished I'm like I'm done and she's like yeah and I'm like why do I do this to myself like I don't need these events not really like my like it's it's it works and obviously I'm not stupid we make money from it and and whatever but it's mainly driven from like I want to create an event that I wish I had when I was 18 I want to make an event That's So Dope it's like fun it's parties and it's DJs and it's entrepreneurs

and it's value for like less than $100 for a ticket like I want to create something so sick like that so the obsession of wanting to Make a massive impact and really create something amazing sometimes comes at the the loss of me I guess so sometimes throughout I'm like ah and it was all year man like I woke up on in January having fears because it's the biggest investment we ever made right I was like oh this this event is scary and every time I opened up social media when I was having these fears I

saw some motivational thing come up it was just like timely perfect it's like the Biggest biggest growth in my business was the times after that scared the [ __ ] out of me and I was like okay I get it I got to keep doing I get I get it I get it but I was the same I was walking into the event I can't wait for it to be finished and then when it finished I said well what are we doing for next year's you know I was like this is just it is just

like a sick thing and and I think how I kind of look at it is trying to uh what's that word like cognitive Dissonance I try to hold both simultaneously I try to hold the the outcome of everything I want and at the same time being like it's like half my mind knows exactly what we're going and we're getting to the outcome one day yep and I also kind of hope the outcome never comes cuz as soon as I get about like the 90 yard line I don't know why I say yards 90 M line

I will actually move the goal post again I I've hit goals before and I've felt more unhappy once I've achieved them than I did I was pursuing them and I learned that when I learned during that I was like never actually achieved the goal yeah once you get close enough to it I move the goal push again because it's never actually about that but if I've got to continually make sure that I'm having fun and enjoying it cuz otherwise we just I do what I did coming to the event but I do it all the

time too mate this is like if anyone's listening To this is like the profound truth of life that like the outcome is basically meaningless and the journey is what matters and we all kind of land at that we we all land at that at different times and I I totally Vibe with what you're saying it's it's about being able to hold both ideas in your mind I and I think those of us especially who are in in sort of personal development and Entrepreneurship it's like we're always looking for the next thing to grow we're Always

looking for the next like I want to tox my business or increase Revenue by 30% or whatever the thing might be the way that I found to think about this is to your point the only real point of a goal is so that it can give the the the only point of a goal is so that I can picture a destination and that allows me to choose what direction I'm going in so it's not about the destination it's about the Direction because pursuing the goal of like doubling my business takes me in a different direction

of than pursuing a goal of 10 Xing my business which takes me in a very different direction of I want to get married and have three kids next year which would be very difficult to do in a year but it would take me in a in a different kind of Direction and given that the journey is the thing the way I think of it is like yeah sure let's set goals goals are important but Then we want to almost forget that that's the goal or at least have like you know a part of our mind

being like yeah I'm I'm working towards you know getting sales for my book but the bulk of my mind and my body and my presence is focused on and I want to enjoy every step of the journey to get there yeah and if I'm not enjoying the journey then like what's the point yeah you know the present moment is all we have for yeah I I love that so I've got two reasons why I think goals are super important first is what you said it gives us the direction I think a lot of people who

are lost in Life or they're stuck or they're not sure it's because they don't know what the hell they actually want I think I actually opened my events by saying the the first reason why people don't actually get what they want in life is because they don't know what they want in life they just don't they fail to set goals I put say my story Today actually people are like New Year's resolutions and I said here's a life hack you can set goals every [ __ ] day not just January one right but the main

reason I set goals is because I set goals to require so I demand more out of me than I ever would have asked for if I don't have a goal I would have just did my normal which most people operate about 40% I see this every time I run an event I've I've spoken five different countries around Around the world so at least five different nations do the exact same thing I say put up your hand as high as it can go people put up their hand say great stop look around some people are standing

up some people are sitting down I say go 10% more everybody goes more some people more people stand up the people are standing up stretch more I said go another 10% people on their tippy toes go another 10% and they're finding [ __ ] ways to jump and stand On people's shoulders or get on a table or something yeah I say I told you in the beginning to go as as high as you could go and you gave me what you thought legitimately was the best you could do but it was far from it what

I've noticed is people usually operate they're they're normal they think is good is about 40% of what they can actually get out so without a goal we'll never get that other 60% if we're just coas we're just going for like the Normal targets or what's expected from us we'll we'll ask for about that 40% so I tend to go what's a big goal set it and then I stretch it a little more what's that extra 10% because what if I actually did hit it like what what if I like the I think people get caught

up in the hole but what if I don't hit it which is just interesting the idea of fear of failing is just a very interesting concept um but I would rather fail like if I set The goal here and go an extra 10% I would rather fail somewhere in that next 10% then achieve this I actually get more pissed off when I achieve a goal cuz I know I could have gone more I'm I'm curious on this front so this is something I haven't quite figured out in my own mind around how ambitious should a

goal be because I find for myself yeah sure I can set I can set it more ambitious go let's use a triv example I you know it's pretty doable for me to Make one video a week on YouTube but like it would be a bit of a stretch to make two or three or four or five or six or seven videos per week that would be a you know a a reasonable stretch and I could do it and setting the goal of making let's say three videos a week would force me to learn more things

and make more videos and serve more people but then I'm kind of thinking yeah but like you know one video is enough and I'm pretty content with my Life and actually one video allows me to serve in the way that I want you know it doesn't feel like so much content that my entire life has spent like trying to make crank Out YouTube videos gives me enough time to I hang out with friends and chill out and play some video games and read fiction cuz that's what I want and I'm I'm still a little unsure

as to am I am I missing a trick here by not going for a more ambitious goal rather than compared to One that I know I can I can I I can achieve fairly easily any thoughts yeah well what would happen if you set your new goal knowing what you can accomplish so you set goals thinking I can probably do that if we if we do this and this and this I've a Prett damn good CH that is that true do that and then just go what would just make it a little bit bigger 10

20 30% bigger and then ourself the question what would I need to do differently to Actually get to that and then then I guess you'll you'll know right away you'll either go along the Journey of going I'm doing more than what I've ever done and I I'm either going [ __ ] I didn't know I could do this or you'll be like actually [ __ ] this cuz now I've got less time to do the things I love doing like traveling and hanging with my girlfriend and video games I don't actually like this I think

it comes down to individual values which is why I try To not put too much information into my content of my perception of the world because that's my values and we have a huge values hierarchy yeah like you just did what are your top three top five values uh New or Old your new ones my new ones number one Vitality number two love number three contribution number four growth and number five passion great so if you set a goal none of them were wealth money success if you set a goal to be like I Want

my income next year it's going to go against everything that's super important to you it's probably going to come I'm not suggesting anything but it could if you to have a drastic increase in your income it's probably going to come at the cost of some more work hours maybe at the cost of a little bit of Vitality you know maybe some gym will get sacrificed like it's just possible like it's going to be hard to keep your Vitality super good and also reach New Heights so it's going to clash with what your unconscious mind thinks

is the highest most important thing yeah so if you listen to a podcast like this you're like oh but Morgan says I should do this and then we try to do it it goes against what is actually really important for you and I I think yeah I I think success actually is doing living life in your values yeah see my my second highest value is Success so I get obsessed on going how can I actually just do better I I get obsessed on I want to make sure that when I get to the finish line

of my life when I meet the person I could have become I'm way better than him I want to make sure that I get there and the other guy I could have become looks at me and goes [ __ ] you did well good job that's that's what just gets me going like I think even the day when I never have to work ever again which you know I quit my job at 23 I was financially free I didn't really have to come back out and Build new businesses but I I wanted to and I

think that's but that's important for me so if I was to just coast and do nothing I think after like two or 3 days I'd get bored and hate it yeah yeah I think it's the same for me um in that like periods of time where I've not been again just use that for example making YouTube videos I I have felt less good than in times where I've I have been because for me a YouTube video is Like the vehicle that I use to teach and to share something that I've learned and it's is kind

of interesting but it's when and the speaks to the idea of power uh when it feels optional I I want to do it and when I feel like I'm doing it in the spirit of service to someone else I feel like I want to do it cuz one of your values was contribution yeah contribution love uh growth passion courage um when it feels like it's in in service to someone else and when I feel Like it's optional then I want to do it MH but as soon as I feel like oh there's a deadline on

this because there's a sponsor deadline and the sponsor is paying 20 grand for this video and I'm like uh you know first world problem but then it it sucks some of the joy out of it and it speaks to this idea of like extrinsic intrinsic motivation even when you enjoy enjoy doing something if you start introducing extrinsic motivators that like you get lots of money for Doing the thing it actually takes takes away some of the joy of doing the thing and you would think it wouldn't you would think they're like oh my God I

get to make this video which I would have done anyway and I also get paid money for it but if that money comes with a deadline that that's a removal of autonomy a removal of of a certain type of power um you know I also like annoyingly value Freedom quite a lot and I kind of want to have the freedom to Live learn and teach on my own terms and so whenever any of this stuff clashes with freedom now then it starts to feel bad and I start to feel like okay this process is not

sustainable yeah I can grind it out for a bit but I want to live life in a way that doesn't feel like a grind that feels like I'm doing things that feel good yeah of that any of that makes sense it makes total sense but did you go against any of that while so you you're a doctor you were building Your YouTube on the side to get out was there periods of that Journey there where you did things that didn't feel good cuz you knew it was the way out yeah yeah I think that's the

thing a lot of people don't talk about these days they like cuz there's majority of people are out there listening to these podcasts going I'm in a job or I'm doing doing something and I'm building I'm on the grind and then people cuz I did the same thing for years I I hustled like a Psychopath quit my job moved to LA for a bit then moved to Mexico and I was like oh my God I I just found morning routines I was like oh my God I started telling everyone about morning routines you got to

do this you got to do this you know cuz now I have all this time I have time to do a 3our [ __ ] morning routine but before I I would be I would wake up get in the shower and I'd be checking messages on my phone in the shower so I'm like you know habit Stucking I'm and reply to [ __ ] messages cuz I got no time right I would rather sleep 5 more minutes than get up and meditate like but so I'm really big on sort of you know the actual portions

I think there's certain things to do in certain times and um cuz I think if people would be like I'm just going to do what really feels right right now they they might not actually I I I'm still convinced I'm yet to find someone who goes no I did what Felt amazingly perfect every single step of the away and now I'm really successful there's definitely periods of I didn't like it for a while yeah but that's what drove me yeah yeah I think yeah there's something around like what's the what's the Top Value kind of

here cuz back when I had a day job my Top Value was freedom and freedom to me meant being able to quit the day job if I wanted to and so even in times where it would be like it be like 1:00 In the morning i' arrived late from a night shift from a shift that's just finished I've got to be up at like 7: the next day but it's a Sunday and I haven't sent my email newsletter that week and I was like I I I know I'm going to be consistent with this blured

getting myself out of bed getting the iPad or whatever and just sort of like trying to write something and it taking an hour and losing an hour of sleep that did not feel good I was not like oh feel Good productivity I'm like finding way to make this feel good like it just didn't feel good some of the time um but the my my reason for doing it was this is my ticket to freedom and freedom is the thing that I I really value yeah and now in this new season of my life like seven

years later health and vitality is a thing I value more than freedom and I already have freedom so I don't really you know it's it's easy to not value something When you when you have it already yeah um and actually love and contribution and feeling as if you know I'm sort of showing up with love with my friends and family was less important to me seven years ago when I was building building the business and trying to grind it out so that I could quit the day job but now it's very important to me and

if that comes at the expense of quote Success or financial success or more money then that's totally fine as Well yeah and so yeah I think a lot of it is down to down to what what season of life you are and then with within that still trying to find a way to feel good about the process yes and I think that's again this idea of like see a seemingly seemingly contradictory idea that not everything you do is going to feel good all the time but everything you do you can always choose to approach it

in a way that makes it feel better like like When I woke up blur eyed to write my newsletter at 1:00 in the morning one way I could choose to approach that is like oh for [ __ ] sake why do I have to do this like what did I sign up for but another way I could choose to approach the same thing is like you know what I'm willing to sacrifice an hour of of sleep for the sake of working on my dream it's going to feel good and it's like either way I have

to do the same thing so I might as well just choose to approach it With a more optimistic attitude and I did that some of the time and I didn't do that some of the time and if if honestly if there's one message I would go back and tell myself it's bro enjoy the journey a little bit more cuz you're going to be all right like we got this just like focus on enjoying yourself as much as you possibly can while all of this cool [ __ ] is happening yeah I love it okay what

are we up to we're up to number six we must reframe Our failures yeah that's a pretty standard idea in personal development as well like you know when we think of things as failures they it makes it very hard hard to feel playful about them um there's a really cool experiment that a guy called Mark robber did and he's a YouTuber now but he used to work at Nasa and then I think worked at Apple for a bit and he does these sort of Science Education videos on YouTube and they're really Good um but he

did this fun experiment where he was uh teaching people how to code he you got 50,000 people in his audience to do this online coding puzzle thing that would teach them how to code um but the trick was that it was an impossible puzzle or or or rather was it was like really hard and he he wasn't really interested in teaching them how to code he was interested in their approach to failure so he split the groups he split the 50,000 into two Groups and for group number one whenever they failed the puzzle they got

a message saying you failed please try again and they would do it again but for group number two those other 25,000 people whenever they failed the puzzle they would get a message that said you have failed you've lost five points you now have 195 points please try again and the points meant nothing the points meant absolutely nothing completely arbitrary just made them up and that was The message the only difference between the two groups was just just that one error message and found out that the people in group number two the ones who lost five

points they made less than half the number of attempts to solve the puzzle as the people in group one less than half is like five attempts on average versus 12 attempts on average that is absolutely [ __ ] enormous the difference between doing something five times and doing something 12 times or Doing something twice as often twice as much until it succeeds is absolutely astronomical when it comes to other things in life like starting a business or working out or starting a YouTube channel or writing a book anything like that and all it was was

that arbitrary error message that you lost five points and so he's got a really good Ted talk about this where he talks about you know thinking like a scientist like when a scientist fails an experiment it's not Really a failure it's just another data point there's a thing that Thomas Edison said I think he was he was on his like 10,000th failure at making the light bulb and a journalist was like you know how do you you know how do you feel you failed 10,000 times and he was like no I haven't failed 10,000 times

I've just found 10,000 ways in which this has not yet worked mhm and when we change our approach to failure if we think of Failure as being this terrible thing we're less likely to try stuff we're less likely to have fun with it because now the stakes feel high but if we think of failure is like oh whatevers that's fine we're again it just allows us to play more freely it allows us to be more productive and more creative and less stressed and less attached to these outcomes that may be outside of our control I

I thought about this a little while ago and I asked myself where is Where does this fear from faia really come from and I'm pretty convinced that it's school because if you think about when you're in school and you get an F it's literally like no one knows what ABC d means yeah but everyone knows that an F is fail yeah um and if we get an F we then what happens we need to reset it again we need to do the thing that we didn't want to do already we need to reset again we

get punished our parents get called maybe we get a detention or You know maybe we even get sent back a class all these things where we're like that we don't want that to happen so we associate that failure is something to absolutely avoid at all costs so then we strive to make sure like you said memorizing things and making sure we can get the best grades over and over and over cuz we don't want to fail yeah but then what happens is we come to the entrepreneur world and people try they will go well I

and this is not conscious But unconsciously I won't attempt that because I I'm not sure if I can 100% pass it or not therefore I won't do it because therefore what I believe is failure equals bad punishment I'm an idiot I won't do it yeah mate I completely agree I think it's not even the F thing I think like you know I was I was good in school for me anything less than 100% was failure oh wow because if I got a if I didn't get 100% my grandma would be like oh you know What

happened to the other 2% if I got 98% what's your background uh Pakistani okay yeah and my grandma was a teacher as well so she was like I mean yeah she was super nice about it but like I I I Associated so much to the idea of success I was friends with all the other clever kids and we were all in sort of mini competition with each other to be like hey I got 98% you got 99% oh interesting wow for me like I I went in you know did the 11 plus entrance exam And

my position on entry in the school was was position number one cuz I did the best in that exam out of the other 150 kids in the year and so I was like oh my God I have to strive to maintain this position because dropping down to number two to me would have been failure and so I put in a lot of time and energy and a lot of self-worth attached to this idea of continuing to take the box of Ali ABD is at top of the ear then I got to University and got completely

shaed By then that whole thing like punched in the face cuz I realized oh my God I'm no longer top of the ear anymore um but I think this idea of failure prates like literally everything that we that we attempt um um I think girls have it a lot worse than guys do as well if I think of kind of my female friends who are doing entrepreneurship stuff or like YouTube stuff girls are taught from a young age uh to always strive to be perfect and uh To like downplay their own successes and so it's

like as a girl you've got to like you're trying to you're trying to be good at the thing but you're not trying to be too good at the thing because if you are then like that looks bad and like no one you know if a girl is succeeding she's seen as that is often seen in kind of a negative light just because of the messaging that girls get in society and stuff and so a lot of YouTubers that I've been I I do these I Happen to have found myself in the position of being like

an unofficial therapist to a lot of YouTuber friends and everyone every YouTuber that I know struggles with imposter syndrome and like self-worth overly attached to numbers and feeling like oh if this video didn't do well it means that I'm a failure but the girls have it way worse and they it's it's all this conditioning that they that they have there it's like oh [ __ ] like my my opinions are Worthless and like oh this video is no good unless it hits like you know a million views and all of this kind of stuff it's

something we all struggle with um but man all of the conditioning that we get that any form of failure is just like a terrible thing yeah so number seven so what I'm curious for this is I don't I think this is just like a question I kind of put in because the overall thing I'm really getting is to actually lead with a lot more play And a lot more fun so and then I st to think there is still some days for me that is just genuinely stressful like we're doing like big things or deadlines

or whatever like and but I do it to myself sure so how can we actually switch out stress for more play yeah honestly the main thing is to just take [ __ ] less seriously um you know yeah you've got a big deadline coming up who gives a [ __ ] it's not life and death it's like worst case scenario you'll Lose a bit of money you've got enough money you're financially fre 23 who cares who gives a [ __ ] you know the event flops a little bit people are going to forget next week

M who cares I've started getting bad reviews for my book coming in you know we we sent Advanced copies out and people on good reads bad how uh cuz we sent out Advanced copies to like professional book reviewers and they've started posting reviews and Goodreads and I Looked at it this morning and I saw oh my goodness like there's like a couple of like two star reviews a couple of three star reviews and I kind of started reading them I was like yeah and initially my my initial reaction is like H it's it's that that

internal feeling of stress of like oh my God like have I released something that's really [ __ ] and like and what I find what I find helpful I think I just to remind myself no one Gives a [ __ ] it's all like who cares some people like the book some people don't that's fine it doesn't change my life one way or another whether this person gave it two stars or three stars or five stars makes no difference to me do I want to write more books yeah because it was fun do I want

to write more books yeah because I think it could help people and I like learning stuff and sharing it it's not that deep and I think even you Know people always always like oh there's a philosopher bir Russell who has a great quote from one of his essays around like I think it's something to the effect of one of the biggest sources of misery in in in a human's life is when we think that our work is terribly important no one gives a [ __ ] our work is not that important it's not that deep

even doctors like the best surgeons that I know I've been in the operating Theater in life or death emergencies the best surgeons are the ones who even then are approaching it with a little bit of lightness a little bit more you know this background music they're like maybe cracking a joke while they're saving this patient from bleeding out the ones who are like like full on obviously there are times where you have to laser focus but like the ones who create this atmosphere of stress in the operating theater that's when more mistakes are Made that's

when like the nurses and the anes and stuff feel less comfortable speaking up if there's a mistake being made that's when like everyone gets drained there's like a sense of it's reducing the importance it's not that deep again way easier said than done but I have I I I try my best to train my mind to do this that whenever I feel that sense of stress I I ask myself will this matter in 10 minutes will this matter in 10 weeks will this Matter in 10 years does anyone actually give a [ __ ] no

one gives a [ __ ] it's actually all fine and very rarely are the things that are stressful if someone's listening to this podcast it's very unlikely that the things that make them stressful that the things that feel stressful are the things that are literally going to cause their family to starve it's just pretty unlikely given the demographics of your podcast pretty unlikely so for most of Us our work is not that it's not that important who gives a [ __ ] I try and tell myself this like time and time again whenever I feel

that sense of stress and I think over time I've gotten a lot better at just not experiencing it yeah do you do you meditate or anything like that like you're like you're like a Zen monk you're just so chill yeah man I want I want to get into meditation um I've heard good things about it I'm rereading waking up by Sam Harris right Now I want understand like the whole spirituality thing it's really good um but I think a lot of it is just just mindset just your your perception is of of things I think

is the biggest thing that makes you like you're just like yeah it just doesn't matter yeah I mean I was I was meant to be on the Today Show this morning and they canceled me like 2 minutes before I was meant to go there because the floods in Queensland or something got a bigger Bigger thing yeah I mentioned this to my to like the publicist was like oh my God I'm so sorry you must be so disappointed around my mom she was like oh my God I'm so sorry you must be so disappointed I was

like I I don't think I'm bullshitting myself but I'm genuinely not like I don't I don't give a [ __ ] it's like if I go on the on on the Today's Show on national TV that's cool if I don't that is also cool like who cares in the grand scheme of things like None of this is all all of this is completely meaningless so like let's just enjoy the ride while we're there um again easier said than done all right number eight what is I'm probably going to say this wrong what is the shin

approach yeah so this is a Shen is a thing from Zen Buddhism which roughly translates to beginner's mind and this speaks to the idea that when we think that we are good at something when you think you're an expert at a thing or you Think you've you you've got some competence in a particular field you you start to attach a lot of like ego and identity to the idea of being good at this thing someone who is good at making videos attaches a lot of identity to someone who's a good writer attaches you know identity

to that someone who was good in school attaches this identity to you know I'm good at this thing I'm an expert I consider myself good at this thing and in that Position a lot of us find it very difficult to make progress in those areas because we've closed our mind off to New Perspectives and new new things that we can learn um at one point in my you know I read a lot of self-help books and I was like oh I know all this personal development stuff and then I went to Tony Robbins event and

I was like oh there are levels to this whole thing wow I feel like a total beginner and that was such a nice feeling because It's so nice to feel like a beginner because when you're a beginner again you're taking it less seriously because you're a beginner uh you're open to multiple perspectives and it means you can make progress a lot quicker and you know we talked about the but progress leads to happiness and you know this feeling it feel good when we feel as if we're making progress in an area it drives dopamine it

makes us feel good it makes makes everything better so the Shin approach is basically this IDE of beginner's mind whenever you you find yourself doing something and you find yourself slipping into the mode of thinking you are good at the thing take a step back and try and just reframe it as if you're still a beginner that means for example When approaching conversations with people that you feel are sort of inferior to you in some way in the social status hierarchy if you're a $10 million entrepreneur and you speak To a 100K entrepreneur you know

you can have this sort of like experts curse thinking like oh I know my [ __ ] you know there's nothing this guy can teach me but if you approached it as a beginner's mind if you sort of emptied the cup of your brain as it were and just said hey I can learn you know there is something to be learn from everyone let me just genuinely approach this conversation as if I'm peers with this person even though I make 100 times more money than His business does we're still peers I can still learn something

from this guy and you can it's just a much nicer way to live um and this was a strategy that um Phil Jackson the basketball coach of the Chicago Bulls was you know used to use back in the day he was he was a big fan of Zen Buddhism and he would always try and approach his own coaching and encourage his players to approach the game of basketball with this idea of beginner's mind that you can always Learn more and yeah just speaks to this idea of things things feel much better when you feel as

if you're making progress but it's very hard to make progress when you already think you're an expert I love it so we've gotten through eight so far out of the 17 unconventional ways to be more productive at your life what we're going to do this is the first time I've ever done this I want these guys to soak this Stuff in and then we're going to come back for a part two so where can they get your book we'll put all the links guys check out the links everything in the show notes everything's going to

be there but your book is live today yeah where can everybody actually get this and start soaking up some of this before we even release part two Yeah man so it's called Feelgood productivity so you can go to Feelgood productivity.com or you can check it out on Amazon or bons & Noble or waterstones or whatever you happen to get books but yeah feel free to check it out if you like amazing so I usually have a question I ask all my guests at the end of the podcast but I'm going ask you it on part

two okay so that's a wrap for part one make sure you guys are subscribed subscribe to this podcast to get part two cuz we're going to dive into another nine of your unconventional ways to be more productive more productive so go Ahead and subscribe I'll see you guys on the next episode