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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

Overstimulation Is Ruining Your Life! - Do This To Reinvent Yourself Before 2025 | Light Watkins

Could you live out of a single backpack? Not for a few weeks or months, but as a lifestyle choice?

Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostLight Watkinsguest
Nov 1, 20231h 59mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 1:23

    Overstimulation and “low‑grade addictions”: why external fixes don’t satisfy

    1. RC

      If I look out across society, what I see is a lot of people who are being overly stimulated. They're constantly looking outside of themselves for things, possessions, promotions, validation, whatever it might be to make them feel better. But it's a trap because [laughs] it doesn't ultimately lead to you feeling better, and often you have to go there and get those things to realize, oh, wait a minute, it doesn't make me feel better. I also see a lot of what I would call low-grade addictions.

    2. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      I'm not talking about the kind of alcoholism that may lead you to going to AA or the gambling problem that leads you to Gamblers Anonymous. Of course, those things need addressing, but I'm talking about the low-grade addictions that people have to caffeine, to sugar, to social media, to online pornography, to retail therapy and shopping, whatever it might be. And then I think about you and the fact that you have lived out of a backpack for five years. It's almost the opposite, right? Instead of being addicted to things and possessions, living out of a backpack is kind of the opposite, right?

  2. 1:23 – 8:39

    Intentional abstinence and the “freedom of choicelessness” mindset

    1. LW

      Uh, somewhat. Um, yes. Here's the thing. I'm not immune to any of those things you talked about. [laughs] The sugar and the social media and, you know, we talked about that as well earlier, how when you go off of social media, those first few days, there's some withdrawal symptoms. And you don't realize how addicted you are until you stop ... you intentionally stop using them. So what I've been try- w- what I've been intentional about doing in my life is I'll go off sugar for 30 days and just to show myself that I can exist, you know, by minimizing that, and then I'll go off caffeine for 30 days, and then I'll go off social media, you know, on occasion. And so when we can mitigate the, the supposed addictions in our life as a lifestyle, like this is just a part of my lifestyle. It doesn't have to be some extreme thing. I don't have to hit rock bottom. It's just something that I intentionally abstain from or minimize on a fairly, uh, occasional basis. Then I can kinda see, okay, this relationship could potentially get a little bit, uh, dangerous for me on o- on occasion. And so just by being more intentional about, about that and about what I can do about that, that's what this sort of lifestyle is about. Like the backpack thing, I'm basing myself right now in Mexico City. I've been there for two and a half years. If you walked into the place where I'm normally staying, which is an Airbnb, you would have no idea that somebody who just lives out of a backpack, you know, operates from there. It just looks like a regular old apartment, you know? It's got a bunch of stuff in it. Um, but the question is, do I need to be in that place in order to find some sense of centering, grounding, fulfillment? And I've shown myself that no, that's not the source of-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. LW

      ... the thing that I've been looking for. Nor is the sugar, nor is the caffeine, nor is the social media, but I can still indulge just like anyone else can.

    4. RC

      This is really interesting for me. As I was thinking about you turning up in the studio, and I was thinking about what do I want to talk to Light about this time? For me, I was thinking about you, and I saw you when you came into my house with your backpack on, and I was thinking, "Wow, all his possessions are in that backpack." So you have had to be very, very intentional about the choices you have made. What's gonna get allowed in, what's not? You told me in London you've just bought a new coat-

    5. LW

      Mm-hmm

    6. RC

      ... I think, and I said to you, "When you bought that coat, did something have to leave?" And you said, "Yeah. If I'm gonna bring that in, something's gotta go." So to me, as I reflect on that, I think Light, for the last five years, has had to be very, very intentional about his life. And so it's interesting for me to hear that despite being so intentional, you can also fall prey to a lot of the addictions-

    7. LW

      Mm-hmm

    8. RC

      ... that many of us fall prey to, and that's really interesting for me.

    9. LW

      Yeah. And I think, you know, part of it is just being honest with yourself about the fact this is an addiction. This is something that could ... This is a slippery slope, you know? Could, could get really bad very, real- very quickly. And just that, and I talk about that. Discipline is not about willpower. It's about honesty. That's what it's about. Can you be honest with yourself enough to put stopgaps in place? And when you put those stopgaps in place, you may find yourself being able to, to navigate those addictions a little bit more successfully or a little bit less difficult, you know, with a little bit less difficulty than if you are telling yourself with good intention, yeah, I can stop anytime I want. Yeah, you know, it's not a problem. Yeah, I'm gonna wake up at 6:00 in the morning and work on my passion project and, and still, you know, watch Netflix and sleep in and go partying on the weekend. No, that's not ... You have no track record of, you know, being able to do the things that you've said you wanted to do. So you have to get honest with yourself about that, and maybe you have to, you know, hold yourself accountable in some way. Maybe you have to spend a bunch of money on a training or a coach-

    10. RC

      Mm

    11. LW

      ... so that you give yourself what, what I call in the book the freedom of choicelessness. And that's what that backpack represents for me. It's choicelessness. If I wanna buy something new, I have to get rid of something old. [laughs] There's no ... I can't carry it all around with me. So, um, so that gives me a little editor in my mind 'cause I, I don't have as much discipline as people would think with taking on new things, so but when you have to carry everything around with you, then you have to make those choices. So I've painted myself into this corner to make-

    12. RC

      Yeah

    13. LW

      ... the choice.

    14. RC

      I mean, there's so much there. I, I love that idea that discipline is not about willpower. It's about honesty.

    15. LW

      Yeah.

    16. RC

      And I think everything in this new book, and frankly if I think about your previous books as well, it's about intentionality and what do you get if you're being intentional? You get honesty, right? You have to be honest with yourself. Actually, that coffee that one needs to get going every morning is an addiction for many people. Maybe not for everyone, but for many of us, and we can tell ourselves stories that, "Oh, well, I don't operate well without coffee." And actually, if you look at the literature, I think it's pretty clear that actually... And I'm using caffeine as an example here because-

    17. LW

      Yeah

    18. RC

      ... I'm currently in the process of resetting my own relationship with caffeine, so it's front of mind for me at the moment. But if you need this external substance every single day in order to just operate at your normal, I think we need to ask ourselves some questions.

    19. LW

      [laughs]

    20. RC

      Like, you know, is this a choice-

    21. LW

      Mm-hmm

    22. RC

      ... or is it, you know, a bit of an addiction? And it's okay. There's a... I, I'm not saying people should not drink caffeine. I, I, I enjoy caffeine. I have done for many years, but I'm currently resetting my relationship with it because I do feel I was becoming a little bit too dependent on it. And one of my favorite studies was from Bristol, I think it was 2010, where they... University of Bristol, where they compared caffeine drinkers and, and people who don't drink caffeine, and essentially what they found was that, is caffeine really a performance enhancer? It can in certain situations, but generally, for most of us, if we regularly consume caffeine, all it does is bring us up to the level that non-caffeine drinkers- [laughs]

    23. LW

      [laughs]

    24. RC

      ... are at every single day.

    25. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    26. RC

      Right? That's all it does. It's a dependency. And why... I, I'm so fascinated, Light, by your backpack.

    27. LW

      [laughs]

    28. RC

      Because to me, I would've thought that having to really be that intentional about what you're having in your life would make you intentional about every other aspects of your life. In fact, what are, what would you say the crossover skill is that you've learnt from living out of a backpack? How, how does, how do the skills you've learnt through that process help you navigate other parts of your life?

  3. 8:39 – 12:48

    From meditation to minimalism: internal spaciousness before external simplicity

    1. LW

      Hmm. Well, I think the backpack really is, is an extension of something else, right?

    2. RC

      Okay.

    3. LW

      Like, people say, "Light, when did you become a, a, a minimalist or a spiritual minimalist?" Or whatever you wanna call it. And what they're expecting me to answer is, oh, on May 31st, which was the day I gave up my two-bedroom flat in Venice, California, which was beautiful, 10 minutes walking from the beach, uh, two cars, Vespa, you know, all the art and furniture and all the things-

    4. RC

      Living the dream

    5. LW

      ... yearbooks. Yeah. I had a really nice setup, and I, I gave all of that up. I s- I got rid of everything and I moved into... Initially, I moved into a carry-on bag. A 22-inch carry-on bag, which I, I d- found out was the biggest one, 'cause I did all this research. Like, what's the biggest bag that an average airline will let me put in the overhead compartment? 'Cause I didn't wanna have to check luggage. Then you have to wait for an hour to get your luggage [laughs] at the end of a flight, and they may lose it, and I didn't wanna lose everything. So I wanted to keep everything with me and have that, uh, flexibility if I, if I... And, and also, you didn't have to stand in lines to check into the airline to dr- drop your bag off.

    6. RC

      Hmm.

    7. LW

      So just to free up that, that time. And, um, but I wouldn't say that's when I became a, a minimalist. I would say I became a minimalist back in 2003, which was the year that I began taking my meditation practice seriously. Because it was through the meditation practice. I didn't realize this was happening, but an unintentional side effect of daily meditation is it creates spaciousness inside.

    8. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    9. LW

      Which means you're getting rid of the internal clutter and the emotional baggage that may keep you feeling stuck in, um, a part of your life that may no longer be relevant for your personal growth and evolution, and that's gonna be different for everybody. So, so my, uh, lifestyle now, the living out of a backpack, et cetera, that's my unique expression of what happens when you have more space internally. What do you wanna explore? But someone else's may be, you know, starting a podcast. It may be writing a book. It may be, uh, starting a nonprofit. It may be tending to a garden or, you know, that thing that's in the back of your mind that you've always sort of wanted to do, but you keep talking yourself out of it because I don't have enough time. I don't... There are too many bills. I need to take care of such and such. And, you know, we keep the excuses kind of streamlining in this ticker tape in the back of our mind, and it, we can... It's really difficult to break free of that. And, and we don't realize that the reason why it's so difficult is because there's some old stories, there's some old belief patterns that are i- deeply entrenched in our consciousness. And it's kind of like, you know, again, living in a... being a hoarder. [laughs] You know, having a bunch of stuff in our place that doesn't allow us to navigate very easily and, and really see what's there and appreciate the, the small things. So once we can clear some of that stuff out and we create that space internally, then your version of living from a backpack for five-plus years could be, you know, something completely different. And so I, I, I, I wanna just present the backpack thing not as, oh, this is what everybody should do, just for the record. That's not what I'm advocating here, is to, is to physically minimize. But that was really... That, that idea to do that was really interesting to me. So interesting that I decided to get rid of the things that I felt were, you know- ... socially more acceptable for this life stage I... I was in my mid-40s when I did this. I was single, no kids.

    10. RC

      Mm.

    11. LW

      I wanna have a family. I wanna be in a long-term partnership, or if not marriage, right? But when you're in your 40s and you don't have anything, [laughs] that's not, socially speaking, that's not the best position to be in. But that was what I was feeling called to do.

  4. 12:48 – 18:04

    Heart voice vs. head voice: acting early to avoid pain and self‑betrayal

    1. RC

      Was there a pain point? Because sometimes we experience, don't we, a pain point in life that leaves us with no option but to make a change.

    2. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      You know, if I think back to you in Venice Beach, right? Two cars. You've got the Vespa scooter.

    4. LW

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      You've got a nice place, right? The art deco whatever, right? To many people, that sounds like you are... That's success, right?

    6. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      You're living the dream. So was there a pain point? Was there something there that you thought, "This can't be all there is"? Like, for example, could you go back to that life now with the lessons you've learnt, and could you exist in that life in a very different way now?

    8. LW

      You know, that's a good question. And look, I've been, I've been meditating for 20 years. I've been teaching meditation for 15 years and, um, what I've learned from that experience is that when you get that internal nudge from your heart and you act upon it within a reasonable amount of time, then you can actually avoid the pain. If you ignore it, then the internal tension will build until it becomes painful and potentially even physically manifests into pain, some sort of internal or-

    9. RC

      Mm

    10. LW

      ... uh, physical pain. And so over the years, I've, I've experimented, I've practiced, I've tried to see what happens when you don't follow it versus when you do follow it. And what I've now come to realize is that there are essentially two paths that we can take. There's the path of ignoring those internal urges and continuing to do what seems to be more socially acceptable, because following your heart is not socially acceptable.

    11. RC

      Mm.

    12. LW

      That's always gonna take you away from your comfort zone and into your growth zone, which is gonna cause you to challenge some sort of belief or convention or something that people just accept as, as normal, because that's what your path actually is. And if you can do that, it's going to lead to a greater sense of adventure in your life, which means you're not gonna know how it's gonna turn out, but it is gonna be exciting, and it's gonna have a sense of anticipation-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. LW

      ... attached to it. If you ignore it, you put yourself on a more dramatic trajectory, where you're still experiencing change and a lot of tension, and you end up finding yourself in situations... Because y- when you ignore your heart, you're betraying yourself, and when you betray yourself, just like when you be- when someone betrays you in life, you're gonna end up in very dramatic situations that you then have to kind of put the pieces back together again. But if you make a habit of ignoring yourself, then you stay in this sort of constant state of betrayal.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. LW

      And I talk about that in the book. Uh-

    17. RC

      You do, and, and, and, in fact, one of the things I, I really love about the book is at the start of each chapter, each of these guiding principles on how to be a spiritual minimalist, there's a quote.

    18. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RC

      And the one I wrote down this morning really speaks to what you just said. "Not following your heart is a form of self-betrayal, which means whatever comes after that is on you."

    20. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    21. RC

      Now, that's pretty brutally honest.

    22. LW

      [laughs]

    23. RC

      Right?

    24. LW

      Right.

    25. RC

      But it, it, it completely resonated with me-

    26. LW

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... because I think, I certainly know many times in my life I didn't follow my heart. I went with my head, what I thought was the right thing to do, and you regret it, you resent it, and it comes out in some way.

    28. LW

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      Right? And as you were talking about people not following their heart voice to try to ignore it and, and that it's a type of betrayal, one of the ways I see this showing up in people, and I've seen this in so many patients over the years, is when they're in a job-

    30. LW

      Yeah

  5. 18:04 – 23:53

    Purpose, values, and curiosity: “small hops of faith” while staying responsible

    1. LW

      Mm-hmm. I wanna just go back and put a bow on the last thing you were-

    2. RC

      Sure

    3. LW

      ... asking about, which is the pain point. So there's a couple of different qualities of pain. There's the pain of resisting what your heart is nudging you to do, right? Which could result in me hating my job, crying going to work and coming home from work, and feeling like I have to go and cope by, you know, drinking a bunch of alcohol or whatever kind of, uh, escapism that I'm, I'm indulging in. And then there's the pain of- Going to do the thing that my heart is nudging me to do, but then having to deal with other people's opinions, harsh opinions, people saying things like, "You're not being responsible," people saying things like, "You're not being a good father or a good, you know, uh, whatever, provider," because you're now spending time doing something that doesn't seem to be related to producing income or to providing or to nurturing or to taking care of some- someone or something else. And that can be a very difficult thing to come up against, you know, if you're a thoughtful, mindful, caring person. But the opportunity there is, again, to trust. You have to trust in this thing that you're feeling inside, and really the only way to do that, to develop that level of trust, is to have some sort of consistent exposure to, um, that heart voice that I talk about in the book. 'Cause the heart voice is very maternal itself. It's very nurturing for you individually, and it's kinda like on the airplane when they say, "Put the oxygen mask on yourself." And we've all heard that thousands-

    4. RC

      Mm-hmm

    5. LW

      ... and thousands of times, and the reason why they have to keep repeating it is because our human tendency is to not do that. So we have to hear it over and over and over and over until it starts to become more and more subconscious-

    6. RC

      Mm-hmm

    7. LW

      ... and, and we can start to, to prioritize ourselves with the intent to help other people. It's not about just doing this thing 'cause I'm, you know, just in this mood. It's like I'm doing everything that I do because I want to be of service to other people.

    8. RC

      Mm.

    9. LW

      And that's really where you start to find your, quote, purpose, is when you're engaged in service-based actions, okay? Now, the mistake that we make is that, oh, this has to have something to do with my job, and the reality is that you can still work as a secretary, a virtual assistant, a doctor, an engineer, you know, a, a toll booth operator. You can have these kinds of jobs and you can still be living in your purpose. And I use a n- story in this book about Rosa Parks, who was seen as the mother of the American civil rights movement. She was the Black woman who stayed on her bus seat when the white bus driver tried to get her off in 1955, and that became the catalyst for initiating the modern civil-

    10. RC

      Mm

    11. LW

      ... rights movement when Martin Luther King and all of those historical figures that we now look back and go, "Oh my God, these people were so brave." Well, Rosa Parks was a seamstress, you know?

    12. RC

      Mm.

    13. LW

      She wasn't, she wasn't a entertainer, she wasn't a poet, she wasn't some, you know, artist. She was a seamstress. She was coming home from work, and the demand was placed on her to get up out of her bus seat so a white man could sit down in it, and she just refused. She was tired of giving in. And people then think, "Okay, well, she was an old lady. That's why she's, she was still seated." Rosa Parks was 42 years old.

    14. RC

      Mm.

    15. LW

      You know, she was eight years younger than me right now, and I was just doing deadlifts in the gym the other, the other day. [laughs] There's nothing tired about, about being in your 40s if you've been taking care of yourself. But she was just tired of giving in, and that's because she had a set of values that she was, um, that she was committed to. And so in the book, I talk about, you know, in order to find your, your purpose, a couple things need to happen. You need to be clear about your values, and you wanna follow through on your curiosity, the things that just make you naturally curious. So yeah, go work your job, pay your bills, be responsible, and on top of that, if there are anything s- if there's anything that makes you curious, go and explore that. It doesn't have to be some massive leap of faith.

    16. RC

      Mm.

    17. LW

      It can just be like a little hop of faith. You know, I get it. The leap of faith is scary. But just one little action, one little thing. Just give a compliment. If, if, if, if you're w- in line with someone and, and you genuinely like the way they dressed, maybe you compliment them about that. Or if you are on social media and you see, you keep seeing the same-- you s- you keep focusing on the same types of posts-

    18. RC

      Mm

    19. LW

      ... about, you know, style or something like that, or decor, maybe you, you start intentionally posting about that and writing a little caption about decor and your thoughts about it based on your own unique perspective. And you just never know where these things are gonna lead to, right? So when we look back after we've had a little bit of recognized success in any area of life, it all started with me following my curiosity on something. And when you look back after having some, uh, very dramatic thing happen in your life, some negative thing happen in your life, there was a moment where you ignored your internal guidance. You ignored your heart, right? If you're being honest with yourself.

    20. RC

      Yeah.

    21. LW

      Something told you, "Don't, don't get into this business deal with this person." Something told you, "Don't go into this room," or, "If you're in this room with these weird negative people, leave." But you stayed in it because you were afraid of what people were gonna think about you, and then the snowball effect occurred.

    22. RC

      Yeah.

    23. LW

      So we're getting all the cues internally. We just have to get better at listening to them.

  6. 23:53 – 28:09

    Why stillness feels hard: stress as “happiness debt” and meditation’s real function

    1. RC

      For sure. And, you know, you make it very clear in the book that a daily practice of stillness is essential.

    2. LW

      Yeah, foundational.

    3. RC

      Yeah, and I would, I, I would completely agree with that based on my own experience personally and with many patients. Like, I, I just don't think you can truly be healthy or happy unless you are able to spend time by yourself. Now, many people, Light, struggle with this.

    4. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    5. RC

      They can't sit with themselves. They can't meditate. And it's really interesting. You may-- I maybe never shared this with you, but I have had so many messages since our very first episode- Maybe four years ago when you came on to talk about Bliss More, your, I think your, was that your first or second book?

    6. LW

      Second book, yeah.

    7. RC

      Your second book. So many people credit that episode as inspiring them to actually meditate. I think there was something about the way you delivered your message, the way you made it quite easy for people, I think- I think it was really quite special. So broad, big picture here, why do so many people struggle with stillness?

    8. LW

      Uh, well, it- they don't struggle with stillness. They struggle with the thing that's stopping them from [laughs] being able to be still, which is the stress. When you, when you let the stress just run wild in your body because you don't have a reliable outlet for it, then it's gonna make practices like stillness seem 100 times more difficult, and that's, that's something that you've written about before. And, um, I think it's an underappreciated, um, aspect of living life, is that, you know, when the stress doesn't have any way to get out of the body, it's going to eventually manifest itself mentally, emotionally, and physically. And you know, people f- we, we're very intentional about building wealth in our society, you know, increasing capital, making money. There's certain steps. Like, if someone were to say, um, you know, "It's not possible to be wealthy," you'd be, you would be laughed out of any room of, where people who are serious, uh, were in. But if someone says, "It's not possible to be happy," th- there'd be a debate would ensue. Yeah, well, you know, maybe it's not, or maybe it is, or who knows? Or you know, there's not a lot of clarity around this. But I think what we underappreciate is that, yes, you can be happier in the sense that you can be more fulfilled if you're intentional about doing the things that will decrease the debt, and the debt of happiness is stress. Look at happiness as income, and look at stress as debt. If you have more debt than you have income, then you're gonna feel bankrupt in terms of your own happiness and inner fulfillment.

    9. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    10. LW

      But if you're intentional about increasing the income from the inside out, then you can create a state where you're wealthy with fulfillment. You're wealthy in happiness. You're able to pass around, pass that, that wealth down generationally to your kids because they are emulating the behaviors and the lifestyle patterns that you are-

    11. RC

      Mm-hmm

    12. LW

      ... displaying to them. So when what meditation does and all the, the only thing it really does is it puts you in a position to reduce the stress. Once the stress reduces, then the fulfillment increases, right? You're not having to go outside and find the fulfillment on a tree somewhere or in, in-

    13. RC

      Mm

    14. LW

      ... you know, for someone to give it to you. It's already inside of you. Once you get rid of the stress, though, then that's where you'll, you'll feel more fulfilled as a byproduct.

    15. RC

      So is one way you could interpret that saying if you can reduce the stress in your life-

    16. LW

      Mm-hmm

    17. RC

      ... you're gonna find it easier to meditate? Because I think many of us think meditation is a way of reducing stress.

    18. LW

      Yes.

    19. RC

      So how do those two things fit alongside each other?

  7. 28:09 – 39:57

    Demystifying ‘monkey mind’: doing less in meditation and reading stress release correctly

    1. LW

      Yeah. It's interesting because w- if you've not been meditating for decades and you start meditating, then it can feel quite intense initially when the stress starts getting dissolved 'cause that was what causes what they call the monkey mind.

    2. RC

      Mm.

    3. LW

      That monkey mind-

    4. RC

      You don't like that term, do you?

    5. LW

      No. [laughs]

    6. RC

      Why? 'Cause people say it all the time, and you do write about it.

    7. LW

      Yeah.

    8. RC

      So why don't you like the term monkey mind?

    9. LW

      It's a misrepresentation of what's actually happening. People s- associate the monkey mind feeling as a reason why they can't meditate, and it's kind of like, it's kind of like... I, the analogy that I like to use is with swimming. You know? Like, if you can't swim, it's not because you have monkey arms and monkey legs. It's because you haven't learned the mechanics of swimming. Once you learn the mechanics of swimming, then the water will support you. If you fight the water, it will drown you. And so what people do when they first start meditating, because there's not a lot of good, uh, meditation instruction out here. It's a lot of the blind leading the blind, to be frank. Um, but a lot of people are fighting their mind. They're fighting the natural tendencies of the mind. And I talk about, uh, the minimalist approach to meditation, which is doing less, doing least, and ultimately doing nothing, just practicing pure being, sitting comfortably, having a passive attitude, and that will position your mind to become more settled. And as your mind becomes settled and your body becomes rested as a byproduct of your settled mind, all the body needs is to achieve some sense of rest, and then it, it automatically begins to rehabilitate itself, which means it begins to dissolve stress. And it's the stress dissolution that will cause your mind to then have a spike in activity, and that spike in activity is what people then, you know, fight against, thinking, oh, this shouldn't be happening. But actually, that is a byproduct of stress release. So the way you know the stress is actually being released is that through consistent practice, where you're going deep in some meditations and then having some, some spiked activity in other meditations, you're finding yourself becoming increasingly more and more adaptable to change outside of meditation. You're sleeping better at night. You're getting sick less often. You're able to be more compassionate, generous, and empathetic out in your real world, out in the field, as I call it. And so that becomes an ongoing process that can last for years. The stress continues to go down. The adaptation energy continues to go up, and you find that you're able to drop into more and more of a flow state just in everyday regular life. And that doesn't mean that everything is going your way. It means that whatever y- life is presenting to you, you can navigate it more successfully without having an overreaction.

    10. RC

      Yeah. Do you think meditation's for everyone? To make sure you're taking action after watching this video, I've created a free Breathing Guide that's gonna help you reduce stress, calm your mind, and boost your energy. In this guide, I share with you six really simple breathing practices that work immediately. Even just one minute a day will start to make a big difference. To receive your free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below.

    11. LW

      In the sense that rest can be beneficial for everyone, yes, I think that meditation is for everyone. I don't think everyone necessarily needs to meditate. Like for instance, with me, I didn't start meditating until I was 30. Not-- I didn't start taking it seriously until I was 30.

    12. RC

      Mm.

    13. LW

      Now, does that mean I was miserable up until I was 30? I had a pretty good life, you know? Fortunately, I've never struggled with mental health, and I've always considered myself to be a relatively happy person and never really a stressed out person, right? So I would theorize that if I had never introduced or been introduced to meditation, that I probably still would have had a pretty good life. I was sleeping well and, you know, the whole thing.

    14. RC

      Mm.

    15. LW

      But what I never anticipated and what actually still surprises me to this day as a result of my daily meditation practice is the s- the strength to which my intuition has grown over these years and how just cle- the clarity around those internal, the internal guidance, and that's something I never experienced before I started meditating. There would be some whispers, you know, and some maybe little pokes here and there, and that's why they call it the still small voice.

    16. RC

      Mm.

    17. LW

      You know, that in spiritual circles, the still small voice of inner guidance, and you have to get quiet in order to hear it. And, you know, if there's any other movement or noise or concerns, maybe it's, it's, it's, it'll go away. But once you've been cultivating that through a daily practice, it starts to become less of a still small voice. The volume gets turned up, and it becomes a loud, annoying voice, and that's where you ultimately want it to be because then it becomes harder and harder to ignore.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. LW

      And I find that to be very useful when I can't ignore it anymore.

    20. RC

      Yeah. It's interesting. When I started to engage in a daily stillness practice, uh, of which meditation forms a part of it, I've, I've had a, I would say, a love-hate relationship with meditation over the years.

    21. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    22. RC

      I think like many people, I struggled initially. I knew with my rational brain the benefits. I'd read the science. I'd say, "Oh, you-- it does this. It helps with your perception of pain, reduces anxiety, improves sleep, helps you feel more calm." Right? So y- you tell yourself that, and then you, you know, you wanna meditate-

    23. LW

      Mm

    24. RC

      ... because you know of all the benefits. Yet, I think maybe ten, fifteen years ago, whenever it was, I fell into the trap of thinking that, oh, I should be able to just suddenly sit there, do nothing, and feel bliss and feel this calm, quiet mind.

    25. LW

      Yeah.

    26. RC

      And I, I really feel I overused willpower. I'd go through streaks of a few weeks of doing it. Then I'd, you know, then I'd go through weeks and streaks of not doing it. And something has shifted in the past few years where by now I don't do it every day. I have a stillness practice every day. I don't always meditate. But when I do, and I did this morning, it's something that I luxuriate in. I really enjoy it.

    27. LW

      Mm.

    28. RC

      It's not a struggle anymore. It's, it's just a, frankly, a wonderful experience. Some mornings I wake up, and I really want to meditate. I don't want to read. I don't want to pick up my phone. I, I want the feeling of calm to continue. I wanna take advantage of that early morning time and sit with myself and my thoughts and my mind. And it, it's interesting. Can we say that meditation helps to reduce stress? Well, I think we can. But at the same time, I feel that making other changes in my life, getting better at saying no to things-

    29. LW

      Yeah

    30. RC

      ... um, reducing workload where I could, all kinds of different things help me to meditate better. So I kind of feel it's not either/or, you know? Medi- It's funny you say that the benefits of meditation are often seen outside the meditation. What's happening in the other twenty-three hours of the day?

  8. 39:57 – 56:33

    Making meditation stick: comfort, breath-counting, and changing your attitude to thoughts

    1. LW

      Yeah. I would just, um... You know, so in the book, the, the basic instructions are, and this is pretty huge for, I think, most people, is you don't have to look like you're meditating, you know? That's one of the reasons why it can be difficult is 'cause you're sitting on a cushion or you're crossing your legs or you're trying to have your back as straight as possible, and that's not actually helpful when it comes to having a more relaxed experience in the practice, and it's not necessary. Uh, Dr. Herbert Benson proved that back in the '60s or '70s, that you can still elicit the relaxation response while sitting comfortably. And in fact, he said you need to sit comfortably if you wanna get the full effect of the relaxation response-

    2. RC

      Mm

    3. LW

      ... which is that deep and profound de-excited physical state that one can experience from a daily meditation practice. So sitting on your couch, sitting against your headboard on your bed, sitting in your favorite reading chair, like you can meditate in those positions, and you can just look like you're sitting there relaxing. You can look like you're watching television.

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. LW

      And that could be your meditation position. So right off the bat, that will increase the, the, uh, delightfulness of the practice by, you know, 60%. And then you only have to deal with your mind, and that's again, that's one of the b- other big obstacles is people see their mind as a erratic monkey swinging around. [laughs] But when you understand that the nature of the mind is to think and to look for better possibilities, the reason why it seems like the volume in your mind gets turned up when you close your eyes is because you don't realize how much of a distraction to your mind that just visual stimulation is. So your mind is still thinking at the same rate as it was before you closed your eyes, except now you just don't have anything to look at except the back of your eyelids, and it's not sa- trying to sabotage your meditation. It's just functioning opt-- or it's functioning normally in the way that it always functions. And so one thing you can do to, again, make it more enjoyable is to just shift your, your attitude away from this is bad to this is just normal. This is just what it is. There's nothing wrong with my mind. There's nothing, uh, trying to sabotage my meditation practice. And when you start to have the attitude that the mind is your ally in your meditation as opposed to the enemy coming in to sabotage your meditation, that will also increase the enjoyableness of the pr- of the experience by another, you know-

    6. RC

      Yeah

    7. LW

      ... 30%. And then from there, you just, you know, you can f- you can notice your breathing, or you can just adopt, you know, a passive attitude with whatever thoughts are occurring during the practice. I mean, there's a whole f- you know, like we said, there's a whole thing in the book where I walk you through it. But just sit for 10 minutes or just sit for five minutes. Just start with five minutes, just sitting like that.

    8. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    9. LW

      And maybe you breathe deep, um, 10 times. If you breathe deep 10 ti- 10 times, that's one minute goes by. If you breathe deep 20 times, that's two minutes. So every 10 deep breaths is another minute. Do 50 of them, and that's your meditation. And that gives you a little bit of something to do so you don't feel like you're just sitting there, you know, thinking about dinner. And you get that, you know, you get to, to intentionally, um, tune into your breath and tune into your body and maybe some insights come to you during that period or right after that period, and that's great. But if you keep it manageable and, and as easy as possible, it's going to... And, and, and maybe a little bit less than what you think you're capable of, it's gonna leave you wanting more for the next time.

    10. RC

      Mm.

    11. LW

      And meditation is a consistency game, but the reason why I talk about it is because I think it's one of the key habits that then makes you more prone to be grateful, to go to the gym, to eat better, to be more compassionate, do, to do all the other things that you ultimately already want to do.

    12. RC

      Yeah. I completely agree. You said if someone's sitting there, they might be thinking about what they're gonna have for dinner tonight.

    13. LW

      Mm.

    14. RC

      Is that a problem?

    15. LW

      No. That's, that's, that's normal.

    16. RC

      So for that person who's taken your advice, they're doing that, and they're saying, "Okay, I don't need to worry about my posture because I was spending all my mental energy thinking about how I'm gonna keep my back straight and my head aligned," and you're saying, "Hey, just chill out, relax. Whatever you're comfortable with." Uh, that makes complete sense to me. You used a great analogy in another interview I heard you give where, you know, you... I think you said if, if you had to watch Netflix whilst keeping in perfect alignment-

    17. LW

      Mm-hmm

    18. RC

      ... and sitting with your back straight, you know, how much energy [chuckles] would you be spending on watching the show? It would all be spent trying to manage your body, right?

    19. LW

      Mm.

    20. RC

      So I think that's really, really good advice. But for that person who is doing that, they're slumping against their sofa in their comfortable position, they're shutting their eyes, but all that's coming up is their to-do list or what they need to cook for dinner that evening, what would you advise them to do in that moment?

    21. LW

      Uh, to see it as a, a normal part of the experience. To, to even celebrate it if they can. Like, this is great. I'm sitting here. I'm in my body. I'm thinking all these amazing thoughts. And, you know, it's like what Captain Jack Sparrow said in Pirates of the Caribbean, "The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem." [laughs] That's the only problem you're having right now. Not what you're thinking about, but what you think about what you think about. And so-

    22. RC

      Yeah

    23. LW

      ... the opportunity is to keep tweaking your attitude back towards nonchalance or, if you can, towards celebration of the thinking mind. And what's ironic is when you can go the other way with it, you'll find that your mind actually becomes more settled. It's the whole adage, you know, what you resist persists.

    24. RC

      Mm.

    25. LW

      So if you resist it in any way, it's just gonna persist. It's gonna get louder. It's gonna become more bothersome. But if you go the other way with it and accept it, it actually will... Your mind will settle beyond that, that, whatever that thought is.

    26. RC

      Yeah. Would you say that it's common for people to initially... Let's say we make it super simple for people. Five minutes a day.

    27. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    28. RC

      Right? In your favorite spot in your, in your house or apartment where you feel really comfortable. You sit there. I know in the book you say ideally first thing in the morning.

    29. LW

      Mm.

    30. RC

      I completely agree with that. If I don't do it first thing in the morning, it never happens. [laughs] So I think it's a, it's, it's a good time to do it. And would you say that the natural trajectory for most people is initially lots of thoughts are coming up, to-do lists, dinner-

  9. 56:33 – 1:04:15

    Presence, expectations, and “no throwaway moments”: learning to relate differently to life

    1. RC

      Yeah. Do you know one of the most transformative things for me in my meditation practice as I reflect on it now? Just really tuning into some of the things you just said. I remember a few years ago, Light, I think like many people, I, I needed the conditions to be right-

    2. LW

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... for me to meditate. The room needed to be clean. It all had to be just right, the right light, whatever it might be, the kids asleep. And this is years ago now. I can remember times when I was, you know, meditating and when my kids were younger, they'd get up, and they'd come into the living room where I was meditating. And I'd like to think I didn't show it. You know, I was trying to be magnanimous about it, but I think internally [laughs] I was a bit frustrated that my meditation was being interrupted.

    4. LW

      Mm.

    5. RC

      And it's like what you just said. It's not the problem that's the problem. It's the attitude to the problem. One day, I don't know why exactly, I thought, "Rangan, why is this a problem? This is great. The kids are excited they're coming in to join you in the morning. Like, this is good." So literally, I changed my attitude genuinely from the inside out, and I would smile and invite them to come and sit with me and join me, and I generally wouldn't feel frustrated.

    6. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      And although it sounds quite a small thing, I think it was really significant because it reshaped how I viewed it. I don't need perfect conditions. I don't need the children to be in another room being quiet. In fact, if I think I need those things, I'm setting myself up for a lot of disappointments in this practice, so I leaned into it. My attitude to that, what could be called a distraction, which I wouldn't call it distraction anymore, I think it's an opportunity.

    8. LW

      Mm.

    9. RC

      It's really elevated my practice. Is that something you hear of? I mean, I don't know what-- As a meditation teacher, what would you say to that?

    10. LW

      No, that's great. That's exactly what I'm, I'm essentially teaching people is, you know, the way you gauge success in meditation is based primarily on your attitude. It's not about how deep you go or how settled you become.

    11. RC

      Mm.

    12. LW

      It's how you feel about whatever you're experiencing because then the meditation, again, it has utility, it has purpose. You're using it to be a simulation for life because if you do that every day, you know, ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there, five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, five minutes, ten minute, eventually, that attitude will start to carry over into your life outside of meditation where it really counts. Because when you think about suffering, you know, and the listener can run this thought experiment. Think about the last time you suffered. I guarantee it was because of one of two things. Either something didn't happen in the way you thought it should've happened, or it didn't happen in the time you felt it should've happened. That's it, and you had a problem with that. Inherently, was it good, bad? You know, we could debate both sides, but it was the expectation that was the most problematic.

    13. RC

      Mm.

    14. LW

      And so when you can simulate coming back to this place of, "You know what? This is okay. This is not the end of the world," or, you know, adjusting my editate-- my, my attitude back towards, "This is fine, this is good, this is okay," then eventually that's going to become more of a default state when things aren't going the way you think they should be going.

    15. RC

      Mm.

    16. LW

      Now, this is g- this is not a call to not care about your life or about the things that's happening in your life. It's, it's a call to not be so rigidly attached to the way it's all playing out-

    17. RC

      Mm

    18. LW

      ... or to the timing that it's all happening in and just trusting that, look, if I do the best that I can do, and I keep trying all these other things, and it's not really happening in the way that I want it to happen, then probably things are happening as they should, and it's probably positioning me in some advantageous way that maybe I can't see right now.

    19. RC

      Mm.

    20. LW

      So let me just keep the camera rolling, and let's see how the whole thing plays out as I continue to do my best.

    21. RC

      Mm.

    22. LW

      Right? I'm not waiting for something to happen. I'm treating life, I'm treating the journey as the destination. And, you know, it's just like what they say in the Bhagavad Gita when they say, "You have the right to the work itself, but not to the fruit of the work." And I think that's where we find the most joy is when we can find ourselves okay with the process. The process, the various processes, right? The relating, the... I mean, having a child, having a child be born, that's a very joyous occasion, but most of your experience with that child is gonna be the process of parenting the child-

    23. RC

      Mm

    24. LW

      ... and eventually the child leaving and, you know, being out in the world on, on their own. And there's really no moments that- Are gonna be able to equate to the entirety of that process and the day-to-day choices that you have to make-

    25. RC

      Yeah

    26. LW

      ... and continuing to show up, and it's really a reflection of you as the parent. Like, how am, how I'm showing up is really, is what's teaching this, this little mini version of me, and that's also happening in work, and it's also happening in relationships, and it's also happening with your health and, you know, all these little things-

    27. RC

      Yeah

    28. LW

      ... that could either throw me off and ruin my day or week, or when they don't go my way, I can say, "You know what? This is okay, too, and I'm just gonna keep moving and, and see it for what it is, which is just a part of the process." And, and then it keeps you in that present moment awareness state, which is where you could argue the ha- the happiness is being, is continuing to be cultivated.

    29. RC

      Yeah. You have a principle in the book, there are no throwaway moments.

    30. LW

      Mm-hmm.

  10. 1:04:15 – 1:10:34

    Following internal cues in real time: the Rubik’s Cube story and staying present as a lifestyle

    1. LW

      When you optimize for presence, it doesn't-- you're not walking around going, "Oh, I'm present now. I feel present," you know?

    2. RC

      [laughs]

    3. LW

      Optimizing for presence is you fully immersed in whatever it is that you're doing.

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. LW

      So if you're washing dishes, you're optimizing for presence if you're fully immersed in that experience. If you're with your family or your kids or your partner or yourself and you're fully there, then that's how you're optimizing. But the way you optimize for it is you don't wait until the moment to optimize for it. [laughs] You have to, you have to cultivate that beforehand and that's where, again, it-- everything ties back to that daily practice, that stillness practice-

    6. RC

      Mm

    7. LW

      ... because that is your, your simulator for becoming more present in your life outside of that. 'Cause otherwise you can have all the time in the world, but you may be constantly thinking about what didn't happen before or worried about what could happen next. And as my spiritual teacher once said years and years ago, he said, "The seeds of the future are always planted in the present." So if you wanna know what's gonna happen tomorrow, then it would serve you best to be completely present in whatever's happening right now, and then you can tune into those cues about what's coming. And as you do that, you can make better choices, and those better choices, again, they're not conscious choices a lot of times. They're just choices that just feel like the right thing to do. But when they play out, you see, oh, wow, something told me to, dot, dot, dot, and I did it and it didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time, and it really didn't make a lot of sense to other people, but I ended up, you know, in this really interesting situation. I was walking through New York one night and got this internal cue to go and buy a Rubik's Cube from a books-- from a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Union Square, and it didn't make any sense at the time because I was early in my meditation teaching career. I was trying to figure out how to get more people in to teach meditation and, um, and it wasn't necessarily because I wanted to make more money, although that would've been a happy side effect of teaching more meditation. [laughs] But really it's 'cause I was just passionate about teaching meditation and I, I knew the profound effect it had on me, and I wanted it to have that same effect on other people. But I got this call to get this Rubik's Cube and I went with it because that's what I made myself, um, conditioned to do, is whenever I get those internal urgings, just go with it. Try not to, try not to question it too much. And I went and got the last Rubik's Cube from that store and I came home and I started trying to figure out how to, how to solve it. And I went online and I looked up, you know, how do you solve a Rubik's Cube? I never knew how to solve one. And apparently... I, I thought you had to be a smart person or a genius in order to solve a Rubik's Cube, but actually it's just like, it's a sequence you learn. You learn a series of turns and twists and if you keep repeating the same series again and again, eventually the cube will solve itself. So I taught myself that sequence over the next few days, and finally I knew how to solve a Rubik's Cube. And through the process, I realized that there was a correlation between how a Rubik's Cube solves itself and how meditation can help to bring the body back into balance.

    8. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    9. LW

      Starting with a foundation of rest Then after rest comes back online, your digestive system, your immune system, your reproduction system, and all the other long-term survival functions come back online. And like that, you solve the-- a Rubik's Cube solves itself in rows. You know, one row could be considered the foundational row, and then, which is the rest, and then the other rows represent the other functions in the body. So this was a very interesting correlation to me. No one else would even really care.

    10. RC

      Mm.

    11. LW

      But it just was fascinating to me, and I thought, "There's gotta be somebody else out there who would be interested in this correlation." So I made a, a video. This is back in two thousand and ten or something. So I made a video, and I decided to post it on the new website, YouTube. [laughs]

    12. RC

      [laughs]

    13. LW

      And I had to learn how to do all this. Had to go on iMovie. Had to learn how to put, like, little captions and all the things, put music up there, and I ha- I had a point-and-shoot camera. I didn't even have a, like, a video ca-- There were no smartphones at the time.

    14. RC

      Yeah.

    15. LW

      I didn't have a video camcorder. So anyway, I put it all together. That was a bit of work, but I was so happy throughout the entire process because I was thinking about how many people this would eventually help. And I upload it to YouTube, and it became a viral video. People who were interested in meditation saw this thing, and guess what happened? More people came to learn how to meditate-

    16. RC

      [laughs]

    17. LW

      ... as a result of it. And that's kinda how it goes, you know? When we talk about listening to the heart and, um, and being present to whatever-

    18. RC

      Mm-hmm

    19. LW

      ... internal urges or nudgings we're getting and just kind of trusting that, hey, the thing that I, I want in my mind or in my ego is also connected to what's happening in my heart, except my heart has a much more interesting, imaginative, and adventurous way of getting there, and it potentially is even more sustainable, and you're gonna learn some stuff along the way. You may learn some stuff emotionally. You may also learn some stuff just informationally-

    20. RC

      Mm

    21. LW

      ... on how to, you know, how to get there and then how to sustain while you're there. And b- and also, the thing that it takes to get there is not gonna necessarily be the thing that grows whatever your purpose happens to be. So you, you have to continue to stay present.

    22. RC

      Yeah.

    23. LW

      You can't just be present one time and expect that everything is gonna happen from that. It has to become a lifestyle, not an isolated act.

    24. RC

      Can you still solve a Rubik's Cube today?

    25. LW

      [laughs] I've forgotten the sequence, but I'm sure if I put, put a l- you know, spent half a day remembering it again, I probably could do that. I haven't, I haven't-

    26. RC

      So if I get one out now, would you have a go?

    27. LW

      This was-

    28. RC

      No, I don't have one here. That was a joke.

    29. LW

      This was back in the old days when I had an apartment. So I, I had-- There's no room for a Rubik's Cube in my backpack right now. [laughs]

    30. RC

      Oh, that's a good excuse. That's a g- [laughs] that's a good reason.

  11. 1:10:34 – 1:18:45

    Is life random or purposeful? Choosing the belief system that empowers you

    1. RC

      Do, do you think to adopt this sort of approach that, um, there's no throwaway moments, that you actually have to believe in something greater, that there's a powerful force guiding us, that the universe-

    2. LW

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... is working for us, not against us? And then if you do, what would you say to a skeptic who says, like, "That's a load of rubbish," right? "Things happen."

    4. LW

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      Um, "Of course there are throwaway moments. Things happen that I don't want to happen, and I just learn from them and move on."

    6. LW

      I, I would say that, first of all, it can't really be both. So it's gotta be either one or the other. Either everything is happening randomly or everything is happening on some sort of divine purpose, right? Now, I also admit there's no way to know one way or the other, you know? No one can definitively say if everything is happening on purpose. No one can say if everything is happening randomly until maybe after you die, and then, of course, you're not here, so-

    7. RC

      [laughs]

    8. LW

      ... um, so yeah, you don't know. No one knows. So what I have decided for myself is that whatever your belief is, that's a religion. That belief that maybe it's all rubbish, you know, people may think, "Oh, I'm not pr-- Religion is rubbish." No, you're practicing a religion when you, when you believe that everything is happening randomly, uh, 'cause you're acting then on that-

    9. RC

      Mm

    10. LW

      ... and you're probably worshiping other people's, other people, other figures who say the same things.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. LW

      And maybe, you know, the person who's, has the biggest platform is the guru of that religion. And if you believe everything is happening for you, that also is a type of religion, right? A thing that you believe, a thing that you act upon those beliefs, et cetera. And so we're all practicing some sort of religion, what, what could be identified as a religion.

    13. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    14. LW

      Something with shared values, shared beliefs, shared ideology, something that, um, we stand firm in, et cetera. And I invite everybody to adopt the religion or the belief system or the i- ideology that empowers you the most.

    15. RC

      Exactly.

    16. LW

      Whichever one empowers you the most, since no one can say definitively which was which and which one is real and which one is not, we all admit that, but which one empowers you the most? If you believe that the things that are happening to you are also happening for you, are you more empowered in the choices that you're making on a day-to-day basis-

    17. RC

      Mm-hmm

    18. LW

      ... versus adopting the belief that it's all just random and who cares and, you know, everything is just kind of like y- you could get taken out at any point and nothing really matters? Does that make you genuinely feel empowered over a long enough-

    19. RC

      Mm-hmm

    20. LW

      ... period of time?

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. LW

      And if it does, great. Try that out. And maybe th- adopting that belief will help you come back to the other belief, [laughs] and you'll b- you'll b- be even more committed to that. So you really can't go wrong.

    23. RC

      You can't go wrong.

    24. LW

      But at least make a conscious choice of which one you're gonna adopt.

    25. RC

      Yeah, if you follow your curiosity and see everything as an experiment-

    26. LW

      Mm-hmm

    27. RC

      ... you're gonna learn throughout it.

    28. LW

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      You know? And I, and I very much share the same perspective. Can we prove that it's all- Divinely been written? No. But that's where I come to in my life. W- how do I prefer to live? Well, I prefer to live believing that it is, and that everything is happening to me for a reason.

    30. LW

      Mm-hmm.

  12. 1:18:45 – 1:41:55

    The book’s principles in sequence: heart-based decisions, discomfort, and painting yourself into a corner

    1. LW

      You know, I read that book years and years ago. I haven't even read it recently, but it just, there are some parts of it that really stuck out to me, and it was the first time I thought I really, um, was presented with this idea that the way you do anything is the way you do everything.

    2. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    3. LW

      And that's essentially what it's about. It's about how, um, it's a fictionalized story of this guy that drives across country with his son on a motorcycle, and he's teaching his son these philosophical and spiritual lessons about, um, how when you maintain a motorcycle, there's no difference in the motorcycle and you. You and the motorcycle are one. And so the care and the attention you give to maintenance of it is a part of the process of being with it. And y- if you, if you're sloppy with it six days out of the week, you can't expect to be perfect with it on the seventh day.

    4. RC

      To make sure you're taking action after watching this video, I've created a free guide to help you build healthy habits. We can all make short-term change, but can those changes become a fundamental part of our life? Often they don't, and that's why in this free guide, I share with you the six crucial steps you need to take. They're really, really effective. If you wanna get hold of that free guide right now, all you have to do is click the link in the description box below. Mm-hmm

    5. LW

      Right? If you, you have to be perfect every... He, he, he's-- There's this, this quote from the book. He says, "If you wanna paint the perfect picture, all you have to do is make yourself perfect and then paint naturally."

    6. RC

      [laughs]

    7. LW

      And I love that, you know? If you wanna be, if you wanna be fulfilled, all you have to do is cultivate fulfillment and just act naturally. Like in, in other words, you don't have to try to go out and do things-

    8. RC

      Mm

    9. LW

      ... that will lead to fulfillment. Just create that internally, and that's why the first principle in my book is about cultivating inner happiness. And then the second principle is then making your most important decisions from your he- from your heart and not from your head. Now, if you skip the first step, it's a real, it's really challenging to make those decisions-

    10. RC

      Mm

    11. LW

      ... from your heart because you're not gonna be able to hear it very clearly, first of all. But then also the head or the ego is really good at disguising itself as your heart-

    12. RC

      Mm

    13. LW

      ... and making you think that you're listening to your heart when actually you're still listening to your head. Because the telltale sign is you're too attached to the outcome. With the heart, you're more engaged in the process of the whole thing. The head makes you think about, okay, what's the payoff? Am I gonna be more recognized? Is this gonna help me become more famous? Is this gonna help me get more money? Is this gonna help me do this? It's all about me, me, me, me, me. Can I provide? Can I... You know? Whereas the heart is really about, hey, you have this gift, and you need to share it with other people, and you're sharing it to help them, right? That's the payoff. The payoff is they get helped by it, not you. You don't need their approval for you to be fulfilled. You're sharing it because you're fulfilled. You're sharing it because you're happy. And then no throwaway moments comes after that. That's principle number three. It's very difficult to treat life as though there are no throwaway moments if you haven't been making heart-based decisions, and if you haven't been-

    14. RC

      Mm

    15. LW

      ... tuning into those internal nudgings of the heart. It's hard to give what you want to receive, which is principle number four. It's very difficult to follow your curiosity because it's just not as much of a priority, which is principle five. And then finding comfort in discomfort 'cause discomfort is too, it's just too much, and it's m-

    16. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    17. LW

      That's why most people are-- they're equating success with comfort. They're striving for more comfort because there's such discomfort internally that they-

    18. RC

      Mm-hmm

    19. LW

      ... can't cope with. And then seven is, is freedom of choicelessness. And then you hear people like me walking around living out of a backpack. Oh, I can't. There's no way I could do that, right? But again, I'm not asking you to do that. [laughs]

    20. RC

      Mm.

    21. LW

      I'm saying paint yourself into a corner in some way. Post a daily blog. That's your version of it. Put yourself on the hook. You know, it's kinda like what Seth Godin says, "Be on the hook." It's actually better to be on the hook than it is to keep taking yourself off the hook from whatever your commitment is, your personal contribution to the tribe is. And that could be, you know, the podcast. It could be going off social media for two months.

    22. RC

      Mm.

    23. LW

      You know, that's a corner you painted yourself in 'cause every- everyone around you is on it.

    24. RC

      Mm.

    25. LW

      You obviously wanna be on it, but you've told yourself, "I'm committed to not being on it for a certain period of time." What's the payoff? Maybe I'll get an insight. Maybe I'll be more present with my family and my kids. Maybe, um, that will lead to something else, some other idea, a book idea perhaps-

    26. RC

      Mm

    27. LW

      ... that I can then share with the world, right?

    28. RC

      Why did you ask me just before we started, "Did you really go off social media all summer?" W- was that-- Um, I'm really interested in that question. I haven't been able to shake it-

    29. LW

      [laughs]

    30. RC

      ... since then. Is it because you think it's unusual these days? Is it because... I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm genuinely interested as to why did you ask, "Are you really doing that?"

  13. 1:41:55 – 1:45:44

    Minimalist exercise: removing friction with a weekly template and micro-workouts

    1. LW

      So during the pandemic, um, obviously I was a big gym goer. I've been for years. And I would go to the gym prior to the pandemic and stay in there for like an hour, hour 15, you know, and do a bunch of exercises, dead lifting and compound exercises and stuff. And obviously that, all that got shut down during, during the initial lockdown periods. And I found myself not really continuing with my exercises. And um, and then eventually I thought, well, okay, let me get honest with myself. Why am I not exercising? Well, there's nowhere to go. It's too much of a hassle, blah, blah, blah. I need all these different things to be in place. And I thought, okay, well, what's something I can just do right now using what I have? And um, and I just started this sort of calisthenic program. But one of the things that would stop me was, okay, what am I gonna do today? Oh, let me think. Well, I did that yesterday. I don't wanna do that the same. And so eventually, over many weeks, I devised this sort of w- seven-day plan where I would do one body part each day, and I would only do, say, 20 reps of that body part. So I would do pushups on Mondays. I would do air squats on Tuesdays. I would go find a pull-up bar somewhere and do pull-ups on Wednesdays. And I was only doing 20 reps.

    2. RC

      Mm.

    3. LW

      So it would only take me five minutes. And what I found was that it left me wanting more.

    4. RC

      Mm.

    5. LW

      And there was something about the consistency of doing the same thing on that day of the week that I didn't have to, and I didn't have to think about it, and I started looking forward to it. And then I started introducing exercise bands into the equation. So to make the pushups, to increase the resistance on the pushups and the squatting, wrapping the bands around my shoulders and standing on the bottom part of the bands.

    6. RC

      Mm.

    7. LW

      And um, and eventually it just became this sort of minimalist, um, workout program that I started doing every day. And then I created this online challenge to help-

    8. RC

      Mm

    9. LW

      ... you know, 'cause people kept asking me about it. And so then it became this sort of 108-day movement challenge where we were all doing the same thing on the same day of the week, and you're building up to 100 reps, and you're focusing mainly on quality, quality of movement. Full form stretches, um, and breathing and making-

    10. RC

      Mm

    11. LW

      ... the whole thing sort of a moving meditation. And, uh- And I found that to be very... I, I was able to kind of trim back down again, uh, just doing that, not doing anything else. And again, I was in my late 40s when I started-

    12. RC

      Mm

    13. LW

      ... doing that. I'm 50 now, and I feel like I've... I'm in the best shape of my life.

    14. RC

      Yeah.

    15. LW

      [laughs] Um, I've back- gotten back in the gym now, and I started implementing the same thing, but with weights. So I do one weight exercise per day, five sets of five, and I go to... on- on the last set I'll go to a failure. But yeah, it's, it's like yesterday, uh, was... What was yesterday, was, um... What day was yesterday?

    16. RC

      Yesterday was Monday.

    17. LW

      Monday. So Monday is pushup day.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. LW

      So, or, or bench press day, and then today is squat day and-

    20. RC

      Yeah

    21. LW

      ... things like that. So, and if I don't have access to a gym, I'll just do the calisthenic version.

    22. RC

      Yeah, I love it. And the... You- you've gone through all the details i- in the new book. I love it for so many reasons. Number one, it reminds me of what you said earlier in this conversation about meditation. You know, make it easy and stop when you still feel you can do more.

    23. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    24. RC

      So you're, you're kind of itching to come back. You know, you don't go to max and beyond. It's like-

    25. LW

      Right. Yeah

    26. RC

      ... oh, I could do more.

    27. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    28. RC

      And then you're excited to come back to it. I think that's, I think that's really good. And again, speaking to that sort of, I guess, Western v Eastern

  14. 1:45:44 – 1:49:33

    Values and the ‘no free lunch’ principle: counting the hidden costs of choices

    1. RC

      approach, the Western approach is much more about pushing it hard, going to failure, doing as much as you can, leaving nothing out there. Right? Whereas the Eastern approach might be, and it... These are generalizations I know, might be more the approach you're adopting, which is do this amount, you know, leave something in the tank. Don't, you know, kill yourself with fatigue and stress so you can come back the next day. So I like that aspect of it. You said sometimes it only took you five minutes to do these reps-

    2. LW

      Mm-hmm

    3. RC

      ... or potentially less sometimes. Again, I've been talking about a five-minute kitchen workout for years on the show. I love approaches like that because I think the obstacles people put up in their minds to moving more are very, very fragile once you start to explore them, you know?

    4. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    5. RC

      I don't have the right equipment. I don't have the right shorts.

    6. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      Right?

    8. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      Um, uh, the gym's too far. So, okay, cool. All right. Well, we can-

    10. LW

      [laughs]

    11. RC

      ... we can address all of those with the approach you just outlined.

    12. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      Right? And I also love the aspect of eliminating choice.

    14. LW

      Mm-hmm.

    15. RC

      And I know there's a lot about choicelessness and the beauty of that in your book, which we probably don't have time to explore today. But again, big fan of eliminating choice from our lives, and you've just made it super easy. You know, you don't have to procrastinate on Monday and figure out, "Well, what workout I'm gonna do today? It's pushup day."

    16. LW

      Mm, yeah. Every day. Every Monday.

    17. RC

      You do pushups.

    18. LW

      If you're traveling, you know you're gonna do pushups on Monday.

    19. RC

      Have you done your workout today?

    20. LW

      I haven't done it today yet.

    21. RC

      Okay.

    22. LW

      No.

    23. RC

      But you will?

    24. LW

      I will. Yeah, absolutely.

    25. RC

      'Cause it's a commitment you made to yourself.

    26. LW

      It's air squats. Yeah. Uh-huh. So later on when I check into my... When I get to Dublin and check into the hotel, I'll just do my air squats. I'll even do them in the shower, you know? Like, I... It doesn't matter where you do them as long as you do them, and I kinda like doing them in the shower. That's what-- That was one of the things that was the catalyst for me writing this book, is I was in the shower with all my clothes on doing air squats. [laughs]

    27. RC

      With all your clothes on?

    28. LW

      With my clothes on. [laughs]

    29. RC

      Explain.

    30. LW

      Because I had started hand washing my clothes as a way of just, you know, being more efficient and cutting down to the-

  15. 1:49:33 – 1:59:34

    Sacred commitments and identity change: daily emails, daily meditation, and a final challenge

    1. RC

      And, and this, this, this, um, this 108 day program that you-

    2. LW

      Uh-huh

    3. RC

      ... and you, I know you run lots of them. I think it's for your email list, is it?

    4. LW

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      Um, which is really good. I enjoy getting your emails.

    6. LW

      Oh, thank you.

    7. RC

      Yeah, really, really. And you're still doing them daily, right?

    8. LW

      I am, yeah.

    9. RC

      How long has that been now?

    10. LW

      It's been seven plus years now.

    11. RC

      Seven plus years.

    12. LW

      Yeah.

    13. RC

      Have you ever missed a day of sending this email?

    14. LW

      No.

    15. RC

      Okay.

    16. LW

      Freedom of choicelessness. [laughs]

    17. RC

      So you have no choice. Like, you've made a commitment to yourself-

    18. LW

      Yes

    19. RC

      ... that you're sending this email.

    20. LW

      Correct.

    21. RC

      So what happens on those days where your plane's delayed, um-

    22. LW

      [laughs]

    23. RC

      ... the Wi-Fi's out, your phone freezes, whatever it might be, and you just think, "Ah, you know what? Just one day. It doesn't matter. You know, I've done the last six years. I've done the last seven. I just miss one day"? What goes through your mind?

    24. LW

      Uh, I'll... By any means necessary. So I'll just... You know, it's a priority for me, so I'll, I'll make whatever, whatever adjustments I need to make. And you know, we do this anyway. People may s-hear that and s- say, "Oh, it sounds extreme." You do it for coffee. If you're a coffee drinker, you'll go out of your way to get a cup of coffee.

    25. RC

      [laughs]

    26. LW

      If you're a sugar addict, you'll go out of your way to get sugar. If you're a pothead, you will go, you'll... You can go to Amish country and find out where to get pot, you know? Um, if-

    27. RC

      Mm-hmm

    28. LW

      ... that's what you, you're, you're dependent upon. So if you do it enough times, it becomes a lifestyle, in which case you just accommodate. You, you adjust. You, you make... It's not a, it's not an intellectual thing anymore. It's really a, you've embodied it. And so I think about it days in advance if I have to go somewhere or do something, or I'll, I'll decline an invitation if it's gonna be too disruptive. I just won't go, you know?

    29. RC

      This is really interesting to me because this sounds like a sacred commitment that you've made to yourself.

    30. LW

      Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:59:34

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