Stop Chasing Goals – Do THIS Instead

0:00 Welcome to this after life. Everybody really excited to have you joining us today, as always in your host Edam Gainwell, I'm thrilled to be joined today with doctor and Laura Lecon. She's the founder of nest Labs and the author of a really really cool fourth coming book I'm excited to dive into today with y'all. It's called Tiny Experiments how to live freely in a goal obsessed world, and this is something that definitely resonated with me as someone who is both goal obsessed and trying to get out of that circuit. So and Lork, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat out. So one thing that I'm really particularly excited to talk with you about is the way that your work intersects with some of the most pressing questions that a lot of us are facing today, and things like how do I find fulfillment in a world that I think it's pushing me in one direction, you know, go get this degree, get this job, do this thing, x y Z. You know, it's always this very linear kind of path, and we're finding ourselves in these worlds of different kind of limits now, whether it's thinking about the mental health that I have, the kind of work that I want to do, the environmental constraints that like I feel like the linear path doesn't quite doesn't quite work, you know, as as it seemed like it used to. And then there's just the other side of the equation that's like, how do we both best draw from kind of modern science and contemporary thinking as well as like the wisdom of past and present cultures of of you know, how people lived well in the past. Right, how do I like think about all these pieces together? And so I think it's exciting because your work brings us right into the center of this this area and again something that's super relevant because we're seeing more and more younger generations talking about mental health and what pathways need.

1:27 To be for life. So I think to kind of kick us off, you know, one of the areas that I think encapsulates this is that you that you kind of talk about, is that our kind of pathway of setting goals is broken. And I love this idea because I agree, you know, but I think it's it's something that we find ourselves hitting walls so many times. So like, let's kind of open that up and start us here in terms of like what what what is it like? How do we great goals make? It seems like something you can't really break, but we somehow manage to do it. Yeah, So if you kind of go back to the most common definition of goals, the one that most people are using, it really means getting to a specific destination. Right. We define where we want to get what success means to us, and then we work really really hard to get there. And then two things might happen. Either you don't get there and you're deeply and happy about that and dissatisfied because you feel like you feel or interestingly, you get there and you're also disappointed because you thought that by getting there, all of a sudden everything would be perfect, you'd be happy, you'd get everything you desire, and you realize that actually this goal doesn't unlock infinite happiness.

2:39 And then there's maybe another goal now that you can chase. So it's this infinite treadmill. We're all on chasing the next goal one after the other without ever feeling fulfilled. That's really how we manage our goals today. If you I loved how you mentioned connecting scientific with them, but also antioned philosophical wid because if you go back to how scientists approach progress and success, for scientists, success is not getting to a specific destination, is just learning something new. As long as you've learned something new, this is success. And that may not look like what you have predicted when we started, right, and this looks like for a scientists, like a cycle of experimentation. They ask a question, They're like, Okay, what is going on here, Let's formulate the research question, let's test it, and then let's see what happens. Right, Well, those cycles of growth is really how a lot of ancient civilizations and ancient philosophies recommend the way you approach human growth as well. Right, It's all fields and cycles and circles and seasons. It's never that very linear path that is predetermined and that you have to follow with specific milestones and goals that are that mean failure if you don't reach them. Right, It's about transformation and reinventing yourself.

4:02 So to me, that's the main thing about reinventing our relationship to goals is really letting go of this linear approach to them and having a more psychical. I love that idea too, and it is it is something interesting too that you know, I was always when I was studying anthropology as a you know, in school back in the day, it was like I guess I still study it today too, but like, you know, when I was formally studying it, you know, I would always be intrigued when we would find a group or culture or you know, when folks were talking about the syxical notion of time versus a linear notion, and like, even thinking about that is really interesting when one we kind of talk about, you know, time moves forward, right. We even used like the idea of progress right when you write about in the book too, of this idea of. Like progress is a directional or like a kind of orientation that we're moving in a certain you know, pathway, and like that, like, I think we often don't always connect the idea of like time as being linear and then also our goals as a thing that like we move forward and do x y z blah blah, even though like that's one hundred percent how we make it to do right and how we think about the.

5:01 Pathway that we're going down. But then the right's idea of like seasons is a great example there of like we all know what a season like, there's four of them, you know, and they move and they move our year in a way. And like recognizing that idea is super fun. Then that of course I'm going to put my nerd hat and be like, oh yeah, we can talk about chakras and wheels too, and like everything is kind of turning and moving in and on itself in cyclical and spiral time, and so that is I think a very cool way to help us ref rethink that. And so I'm curious about this too, because the other. Thing that you said here that was was I want to think with is like they did when we were talking about what scientific you know, thinking is doing, and like we talk about what you predict something that will happen and make a hypothesis that I'm going to do X, and then we're going to see why I result, and if we do or don't see it, that's still helpful.

5:41 And this is something that that I've seen too in. Terms of you know, publication around kind of pure reviewed journal articles that there's like a positivity bias, like I want to publish that something happened, meaning there's there's an anti negativity bias not that like we don't want to say negative result, but we don't want to say something nothing happened. But that's totally useful for science too, to say we did not find and the change when we did X, you know, and like why didn't happen? And so even this interesting idea that that like I'm curious how we think about this, Like when we say we predict the thing, we want to see a kind of positive change results, and like we look away from one that that feels negative, and so that kind of pushes I feel like it builds a bit of that linearity right where it's like if I don't see a specific type of change that I that I predict I'm going to see, then it somehow it doesn't doesn't count.

6:22 Does that Does that work? M I love? I love that you're mentioning this because you know there's a big movement at the moment in science for open science and pre registering studies during your study is basically posting your protocol online for everybody to see, and then you run the study, and then you can't go back and change the pole or what you were you were you said you were going to do based on the results, which sounds crazy that this is not the norm, right, It's not so, so you're forced to accept and to publish whatever results you get, whether positive or negative, or whatever results you get, you have to publish them. And I feel like in the way that you manage your goals and the way you design personal experiments, which I took about in the book, this is why it's so important to define what is the experiment you're going to run, and what are the parameters, and to stick to it until the end of the experiment, and to really withhold judgment until you're done. So, for example, if you say that you're going to run an experiment of publishing a new podcast episode every week for a six months, you can't stop in the middle and say, like, ef, I don't know like this and I'm not sure this is working and then decide that nothing happened and not learn anything from it. I mean, you can, but that wouldn't be a very good way or useful way of running an experiment. The useful way of doing this is you decide what you're going to do, you run the experiment,

7:54 you collect all of that data without any judgment yet, and at the end of the experiment, You look and you reflect and you ask yourself, Okay, did I like this? Did I enjoy it? Was that good? What benefits did it bring? Or was that horrible? Maybe I hated every secle of it. And that's data too. That's also useful for you to learn and to grow and to decide what your next experiment is going to be. So you can also take some of that new approach to science that we have now that is more open and more honest, I want to say, and apply that to the way you run experiments and your day. I love that. Actually, yeah, it's because it's we do see like an ongoing conversations too, in terms of like a desire for more transparency and openness across the board, right, whether it is like how we're doing science, whether it's politics, you know, whether it's how I'm getting my degree, because it's like people love also these kind of more authentic conversations where it's like two people talking about their challenges working, getting a job, trying to find something out, versus like here's the five things you got to do to get your resume to have it ready for the you know whatever the interview and it's interesting to kind of kind of note that like there is this that desire to see and like that can be a place also to the notions of like kind of personal experimentation of of what I can do with my life, which I think, I think is really nice, especially because we're kind of seeing again, like we're running up to these these sort of different walls now or different kind of limitations of like this kind of linear path doesn't quite do it for me, right, And like especially you know, we're seeing you know obviously AI and things are changing in technology, you know, how we are learning, how we're playing and spending time together

9:25 on social media this before, right, and kind of changing how we communicate with one another, so that this interesting idea of like we can't just keep doing what we've always done, right, we have to kind of rethink these pieces, and like I mean, I guess to help comcrotize this too. Also, like you know, you have a really interesting story also that you you know, you you did the tech you did the tech pathway right, you kind of found your way into the heart of the Google mecha, you know, and then realize that things weren't quite working out the way you had thought. And so I mean, tell folks, if you're not familiar with your story, like a little bit about how that happened and how that like kind of cracked open the idea of like, wait, let me rethink literally how I'm going to be doing my career pathway and my life could be.

10:05 So I used to have I used to follow a very very linear care pathway. Actually I went to a pretty good school. I tried to get good grades, and then I got a job at Google. And once I found myself there, I discovered that they had an also fairly linear way of managing success, really defining it, codifying it, and then in a very kind of almost yeah, I guess Google is a company made of engineers, right, So they had really engineered what success looked like and how it worked inside of the company. So you had this red brick that was telling you exactly what to do, when to do it, what kind of projects to work on, what skills to be able to demonstrate, and if you did that, and if you followed that re brick, you would end up climbing the ladder again in a very linear way. But you had high visibility and clarity in terms of what success looked like. And I felt like which was a deep realization for me, but it really felt like to me after a while, as if someone had spoiled the movie. I knew exactly what was going to happen, and I somehow lost interest in the game because I knew exactly what would happen to the main character.

11:29 When I left Google, I decided to start a startup, and that was also interesting because I really thought I was leaving that linear path, but I ended up repeating a lot of the same things that I was doing at Google. I tried to follow a playbook, I downloaded all of the case studies from other startups, and I tried to figure out how to climb that ladder just a different letter. And it's only when my startup failed and I found myself completely lost with no clear next run on the ladder that I could climb, that I had to finally stop and take a moment to reflect and ask myself, what is it that I truly want to explore? What am I actually curious about? If external validation and money was not part of the equation. What is something I would want to be doing every day when I wake up, even if nobody was watching. And for me, it's always been the brain. I've always been fascinated with the way we think, the way we feel, and so I went back to school to study neuroscience and ended up on the path that I am on today, which is very wiggly. I generally have no idea where I'm going. You know, I just wrote a book, i finished my PhD. I'm also running a small business, I'm running online, I'm doing a bit of speaking here and there.

12:53 And the reason why I love this path today is that I have no idea what's going to happen in the movie. I don't know what's going to happen next, and I'm a little bit surprised almost every day with what's on my calendar. And I think that's the. Way that resonates. And I think that that's great too, that like you kind of recognize when things aren't working, like how do you then sort of reconjigure things? But then it's like it does require this moment. And something important that you're write about too is that we have to be okay with that discomfort of not really knowing what what is the next thing, But at the same time as as you know it too, like there's the when you have a curiosity mindset to it sentence says, Oh, this is exciting. I don't know what's going to happen. And this is one of these things. I mean, there's two things that. Actually stuck out there that I think are really important for us to think about. And I recognized when I was, like, you know, reading your story, that one can be in the kind of career treadmill and then both be burnt out by the work and like doing too much and then also bored at the same time, and like we also don't realize like those seem like they're antithetical, like how could I else both be like doing too much and be like I don't want to do any of this, you know, And like I've I've seen that in myself too, in terms of like you know, putting work in kind of the wrong pathway and then you realize that like you're doing both these and it's like the board parts, I think your point is really important. It's like I know where the movie goes. I know exactly how to what this ladder climbing would look like. I know where I would go, and I can see it like and like assessed to I want to be in that that spot you know, and at the same time, I'm so busy, I don't really have the energy to do that. And how do I put those two signals together and say, wait, maybe this is not the right piece. And the other side is is this notion of for some for many of us. I mean, it's scary to be like I

14:24 don't know what the next thing would be, right, and so it's like this kind of curiosity versus kind of reactive mindset, and and so I'm curious, like to kind of help help folks think about how do we get out of this box? And I feel like I'm kind of stuck and I'm either burnt out and board or or one or the other. But I'm kind of afraid of like I don't know what to do next, right either if I don't have the resources or I don't know what the pathway, Like, how do I kind of help put that mindset together in terms of being more more curious versus reactive. I guess yeah, I think you'll you'll like that term, considering that you're an anthro apologized. But in the book I use the term self anthropology. And what I encourage people to do is, again, if you think about the scientific method and that cycle of experimentation. Scientists don't just start testing stuff right there's a phase of observation. You just observe how things are right now, and then you ask yourself, how could they be different or why they're working this way. Now, let's test this by designing an experiment and collect data. But it all starts always with observation.

15:28 And what I call self anthropology in a bit of a cheeky way, is basically the idea that you're going to pretend that you're an anthropologist studying your own life and the same way an anthropologist goes and studies a different culture and look at it with fresh eyes, asking why are they doing things this way? Why are they're communicating this way? And why are you doing approaching this in disorder and not that one? Why is this more important to them than that other thing? And taking no and really again without any judgment, just looking at how things are working in that environment, you can learn a lot about your life and you can discover patterns that you may not have noticed in the past because of exactly what you just described earlier. You're so easy trying to climb that ladder that you never take the time to take a little step back and really ask yourself, wait, why am I even doing this thing? And why am I doing it this way? So I encourage people who are in this situation feeling a little bit stuck, not quite sure what to do next, to just go back to starting with observation. You don't need to have the solution yet, you don't need to have a plan yet.

16:46 You just need to observe what is currently working, what is currently not working for you, just taking little notes and in a very practical way. An exercise that I do with members of my community is I tell them, for twenty four hours, you're becoming the anthrologist untroplgious of your own life. You can do that in your Apple notes and your Google keep, whatever notes you're taking on your phone, and anytime you notice something interesting as you go about your day, you take a notes. That could be after a conversation with someone where you're like, oh, I feel weirdly energized after talking for twenty minutes about this obscure topic with the colleague, or that could be things like, oh, I feel really drained after giving this presentation, or I was feeling anxious all morning before this meeting little observations like this, just do that for twenty four hours.

17:37 Those are going to be the seeds for you to then decide what you want to try to tweak and play with and the experiment with. Yeah, that's great. I think it's it is interesting because oftentimes we want to add that value judgment right away is like am I either seeing a thing or I'm not seeing a thing right or that, Yeah, the presentation was hard, but I don't then say it. Let me observe and actually, how is I emotionally feeling? How is I physically feeling? How was I saying other people reacting in the scenario or did I feel energized? And like that is a really important thing that yes, obviously cool plug for anthropology, you know, but like this bonus too because even this idea of kind of withholding judgment, I think is really important, right and probeague of mine Jay Hasburg, you know athopologists, He's been at metaphor a long time. You know, it's also in the tech sector, Like wrote a book called ethnographic Thinking, and one of the kind of features that like goes with design thinking is this idea of withholding judgment as we're observing as we're getting a sense of like what it is that we're seeing, because we do want to be like that's either unimportant data or that one's the most important data, even that like interrogating why why is this more or less important?

18:39 Right is? I think it's a really. Important part to be able to kind of learn to pay attention to right and have that kind of curiosity and willingness to do so, because it is tricky and uncomfortable to be like, let me just watch how I feel and watch how this is happening, and like as if I was an alien coming down to earth and like saying, okay, what what's you know? How is this this this space working? You know? And to your point, I just want to add because I think you're making a really important point here. We talked about how we're too busy to take the time and give ourselves the space to reflect on how we feel and how things are going. But to your point here, I feel like sometimes also we keep ourselves busy because we're maybe too scared of deeply looking at how we're actually feeling. Because we know deep down that if we start doing this, if we start honestly observing the way we feel, inside and the way we behave on a day to day basis. This might lead to very big changes, and big changes can be very scary, So sometimes it just feels a little bit more reassuring and comfortable to just keep busy and not look too closely as to how we feel.

19:54 That's a great point, and it is one of those you know, I'm sure you hear the two words someone's how you doing, I'm just busy, you know, and that's like the everybody's response, and truthfully, yes we are all busy. But like it's this funny point of like it's either become a badge of honor and or I think you're right that for many of us in oftentimes it's like that's why I don't have to think about the other actual questions, because the questions are hard, right. It's like, you know, it's like it's one of those things that you. Know, if you've done it before, you know what will feel better when you do it, But it's hard to excavate, you know, the old bones that you that you don't want to do because I think it's something else that's important that you help me think about too through your book, is that this this idea that like we all have a course of inner curiosity, right, and like we were born with that's that's how kids and babies play. I have I have a you know, almost six month old son now, and it's like watching him just begin to discover and he has zero preconceptions of how things are supposed to go, and you know, to often to hilarity, right, you know, it's it's important to recognize like that's the kind of the you know, the childlike wonder.

20:49 You know, it's like it's very different when you're. Watching your own kid do it, you know, but it's like this this funny thing of like learning that that's that's going to be there, and like, you know, I always want to make sure that, you know, I keep that or like we like how do we keep that in our lives? And so you note that that we often see that kind of inner curiosity kind of quailed over time, right. I think part of it is is, you know, too, like through the linear thinking model, it's like, oh, there's not a ton of space for curiosity. If it's like go down this put this is you know, you can be curious in this little box and that's it, you know. So so some like, let's think about this. You know, oftentimes that kind of inner curiosity gets quelled, like how do we either kind of excavator on earth that you know, like we have observations? Was one bucket, Like what else can we do in that area to kind of say, let me, let me poke at that that little that little voice, you know, maybe be less busy.

21:31 And so so there's observation. And then once you're you start absorbing those different patterns, you can get back into a bit more like an active mode and start playing with ideas, and we be testing some of them. And this is where I really like the container of the experiment for this, because again, as you mentioned, where we're like, okay, how do I even practice curiosity if as been in a you know, just purely execution climbing the latter mode? How do I reinject this into my life? That's why my book is called Tiny Experiments and that Big Experiments, because I really feel like keeping them small means that you can integrate them in your life without making big changes yet, and I think they will result in big changes and transformation. But you don't have to do that from the get go. You can start with something quite small, and so those seats of inspiration that those observations that you made, you can look at them and then ask yourself, Okay, what something that could be different? What could I play with?

22:41 What could I change? What could I test? So, for example, if you've noticed that a specific topic gives you a lot of energy, what if you blocked an hour or two hours every week to explore that topic, no emails, your phone in another room, you tell the kids that they have to go and play and do something else, because for one or two hours, you're just going to be a nerd and explore everything you want to learn about this topic. And do that a little bit every week and maybe take notes, etc. Just for the purpose of exploring an idea that you're curious about. If you've noticed that you're extremely tired in the morning and you can't really get good job done, good work done, maybe try shifting some of your low effort admin tasks to the morning. Test that for a few weeks, and again take little note, see how that feels. Is that working for you or not? And you can really design those small personal experiments in any area of your life. It can be in your relationships with your partner, saying, let's experiment with a weekly date night where we both come with prepared questions for the other one and we just ask each other about our lives. You can experiment with your health, with your creativity, with your work processes, knowledge management, any of those different kind of things, and by doing so, it will also make you even more observant of the way these things are changing your life. You'll be more preasent.

24:13 And so even if there's no big milestone or outcome that you can pin and say this is success, you will actually progress, you will actually change, you will actually evolve as a human being. And to me, that is a better definition of senes No. I love that too, and I think and it puts us pushes us also to this like the more circular kind of framing versusly like I hit milestone X y Z, and now I've done things. You know, now I'm now I'm. Ten percent better, you know, not to hit on ten percent happier but interesting idea, right inter the meditation, you know, But like, but I think that I think that's a great, a great point to kind of recognize that it can both be anything, right, And I love the idea of like, yeah, let's either come with you know, set date night for you know, for six weeks, we're going to have here's ten questions that we want to know about each other, and like they're gonna get progressively harder to answers, but you know, or whatever it is, or even this is like yeah, like are you're not a morning person? Like that's actually fine, Like don't let visit tell you that you're you're crappy. It's like just then change your task that you don't have to eat what was it Mark Twain to eat the eat the frog first or whatever, eat the biggest frog first. It's like, no, eat the biggest frog later, if you want to eat the smallest one first, if that's easier for you, right, and kind of recognizing that like it you know with that too, like this the kind.

25:21 Of time boxing it, right. I think it's really really an important piece that you point out too, because it's like, hey, how do I know if it's working and be like, well, part of it, like say, if I'm gonna do it for six weeks or one week or a month or whatever it is, and like commit to doing that and then you can actually see, Okay, what how do I feel after doing that for this amount of time. And it's funny because you know, as someone that is a uh is a continuously bad planner, that like it's you know, Philly's fist hard to put these things. But when I put a small time box of something, like it's much easier to then both get something done but then feel like it's it's more I can accomplish it, right, It's like it kind of gets sort of the paralysis of. Like how do I how do I do this? You know? And that that ties into this other piece of that was really interesting that you talk about, is that like it's like chronos versus chiros, right, it's like the quality and quantity of time. So like thinking about this idea of like both how much time am I putting into something?

26:08 But like as I'm working on something, it's not about did I put in again We're. Gonna hit on numbers here, ten thousand hours, like do this thing. It's like that's not necessarily the point that we're talking about here, right, but that that's like a big experimise is like a hell of a lot of work, right, But I could do something smaller. So, so how do we think about this idea? Of like this, the Chronos and chiros in terms of the time we're putting into something. Yes, so yeah, you perfectly defined that Chronos quantity of time, Cairos quantity of time, and the ancient Greeks has those two different works to describe time. And so Chronos is really the time of clocks, of meetings, of saying let's be here at ten am and we're going to work on this for one hour, whereas when you focus on Cairos, what you're reading trying to optimize for is that of time rather than as much time as possible. And so if you have twenty minutes of really deep work where you're highly connected with and inflow with whatever you're working on, that's going to have more value than spending ten thousand hours practicing whatever skill. It's also knowing sometimes that some moments have more weight and more quality than others, and that also can help you navigate decisions in your life. So, for example, that's knowing that in this moment, maybe bad time with your kid is more important than answering this email that is in your inbox. That's really having this

27:41 approach of Cairos and knowing that each minute has a specific and special unique quality to it that you can attune yourself to and really decide what you want to experience, what do you want your really your your life and your experience to be in this moment, rather than having the chronos approach where each minute is equal and the goal is to you as much as possible using all of those tiny boxes that all add up to your life. And the best way I think to show to really for anyone listening to this to know that they have experienced chiros, they know what it is intrinsically is that you know how sometimes you have a conversation with someone and then you look at the time and it was four hours talking with them, and you really didn't see the time going. That's chiros. That shows you that time is elastic depending on its quality, and that other times, you know, things go very slowly if you don't want to be here, if you're worried, you don't feel connected with whoever you're with. So that's chiros. We've all experienced it, but we can be a little bit more intentional with it.

28:58 No, I love that idea too, and it's it's it's counter to of course the other like I think frustrating prevailing wisdom, right that time is money, right, Because then it's like because a dollar is an individual thing, right, that it's like worth this much. And like if we say time is that, then it has a different value too. And it's like, but it doesn't, right, Like we have a subjective experience that matters of what we're doing and what we're doing it, and like getting in like as you said too, like that flow right where that time just flies by and something it's been a couple hours and you're like, wow, I didn't realize what I was reading books, talking to a friend, you know, watching a movie, playing with your kid, you know, going on a walk, or I mean, or if you're I don't know, if you're coding, it's fine too, right, It's like doesn't matter what it is. But we all know, we all have we've had that, right. I mean, I think it is really powerful to recognize that that we It's helpful to like again like look back and reflect on those moments and know that when we had them and giving different weight to time is such an important piece. And I think that that speaks to this the like the importance of a mindfulness approach that you also talked about right that.

29:57 You know what is mindfulness? Meaning as you think abo this parayly, oftentimes we're like, oh, some people say, oh, it's like meditating. It's like maybe like part of it, but like I think it's really this. It's like, am I aware of the experience that I'm having? Right? And am I kind of being more attuned to that itself versus you know, I meditated for ten minutes? Right? And it's funny because oftentimes, like if people say I don't know either how to be mindful or what the earth has like some foof food stuff, I don't know, it's like, well, then just sit and meditate for ten minutes and we'll give you a time to start with. But then, you know, think about how you felt during that ten minutes and if it was anxious, that's actually fine. And if it was like bored, that's okay too. If it's sleepy, that's fine. If it was excited, that's also great. And it's like recognizing that we don't need to judge the chronos there, right, It's like the chronos gave us just a bounded moment to try something, but really, then we're going after the cairos after the.

30:45 End of it right. Yeah, absolutely, And that non judgmental aspect is so important. There are a lot of experiences that we simply cannot control, whether you're you to external factors or internal chemistry or just you know, events relationships that we have. There are simply a lot of things that we feel and that we think that are out of our control. But then we have somehow somewhat a little bit more control over how we respond to our own thoughts and emotions. And this is exactly what you're describing here, being aware of them but also not judging them, not judging necessary whether they're good or they're bad. They just happened, and you can learn from any of these experiences, whether good or bad.

31:38 That kind of like goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Also, is that if you start disconnecting your actions from this artificial idea of success, you can just again be aware and observe of, you know, how you feel, your emotions, your thoughts, et cetera. As you explore an idea or a path or something that you're curious about, and if you don't get to the place you expected to get to, that's fine. That can actually be good. Something unexpected, something surprising something that you can learn from. And I think that connects to my. It's a great point too. And yeah, if we're able to not judge a prejudge scenario.

32:22 What's interesting about that too? You know? That has me me thinking that I like. The idea that. The quality of our experiences in time as we can it matters. I don't want to prejudge that. But then also we have things like procrastination that I don't want to do something around, like you know, I just can't get started, right, And what I love is that you also tackle this idea that it's like, well, actually that's not a bad thing, right, you know, we we have such a negative idea because like productivity also again in modern business parlance, right, it's. Like go Google do this. You know, here's your here's your five points of to do list. Procrastination we're always fighting as somehow, how are we always fighting against this thing we don't want to know, we don't want to do or don't want to start. Like that's curious, But I think I like the way you flip this for us and say, actually, let's rethink what procrastination is doing here. It's not just this bad guy that we have to overcome what am I be telling us something important? So I'll tell me a bit about what that is. And then also like, how'd you How did you come to that idea that procrastination is not such a bad guy?

33:18 If you all, yeah, it's a you know, this is a kind of a thread that runs through the entire book, right, is that any challenge can become an opportunity for growth if you choose to approach it from a place of curiosity. And I choose procrastination as an illustration of this because I know this is something that most people think is bad. Most people agree procrastination is bad. I don't want to be procrastinating. If you look up online articles to try and help you deal with procrastination or manage procrastination, most of them are titled how to beat fascination. There's something really violent going on yet, And so yeah, we really want to get rid of it. And so I picked that example as something that really most people just want to get rid of, and showing how you can actually grow and learn if you choose to approach it from a place of curacity. Because what is procrastination really it's a signal from your brain and your body, that something is not quite right and that you're not in the best conditions possible to do whether a task you feel like you should be doing, and that problem can come from different places. It can be a problem coming from the task itself. So maybe actually you should not even

34:48 be doing that task in the first place. Maybe someone else should be doing it, or maybe we should not even be doing that task in the first place. It ended up on your task list, it's been there, and you've been feeling horrible about it for not doing it for two weeks, but actually, nothing bad's going to happen if nobody does that thing, so you can just move it from your task list. So that. Could be the reason why you're procrastinating, is that subconsciously you know there's no point doing this thing. Another reason why you may be procrastinating is because the task is just not fun, not enjoyable, not exciting. That's also a very valid reason why you don't want to work on it. And in that case, once you've identified this by approaching it from a place of curiosity, you can say, okay, so, okay, I do want to do the task. I think it makes sense to do it, but how can I make it fun, maybe work with someone, go to your favorite coffee shop, et cetera. And other times. Another signal that procrastination can be sending you is that, let's say, yes, you're convinced you want to do it, it looks like fun, and you're still not doing it. Why Probably because you feel like you don't have the necessary skills or expertise or tools not able to do it yourself. So in that case, you can get those tools, you can get support, you can get coaching, mentoring, but you're not stuck anymore.

36:07 And you notice when I go through all of those different potential sources of procrastination that again there's no judgment there. I'm really just looking at the signal and I'm asking, hey, procrastination, what are you trying to tell me? Here? Almost talk to it as if it was a friend and say, hey, I know you're trying to tell me something. What are you saying? I'm listening. I think that that's super important. It's and it's it's like that power of reframing too, right. It's something that I it's like I recognized years ago in my life too, that that you know, one when I was feeling anxious for something like you know kind of like this is this doesn't feel great. You know, it's like you want to kind of get rid of the feeling that you feel like this isn't good. But then I kind of learned to reframe and say, well, no, what is this.

36:50 What is this friend in my neighborhood here like trying to tell me like it's trying to protect me for some reason. It's like wants to make sure I'm okay. And it's like this interesting idea of like, oh, like anxiety, you know, stop up to kind of say hello, let me let me see what it has to say. In procrastination, you know that resonates in that similar kind of way that you know, in one box, this is a negative thing, right, and the other side it's like what is this trying to tell me? And like oh wait, maybe I need to get some different kind of skills, or maybe we can actually improve the process entirely. And you know that the whatever the forty emails is supposed to stay, like we can actually automate that process or whatever it is, right, like recognizing we don't have to do it that specific way, and so it's not procrastination that's the problem. It's like us kind of seeing, you know, how can I move through what needs to get done right? And like that might be going around it, it might be you know, getting skills for it. And I think that that's actually really really helpful and like to generate something out of it, right, And I think even this concept of kind of the generative form of thinking is is something that I took away from from the work too that I think is really helpful because it kind of says when we have a roadblock, that's asking ourselves is it a roadblock? And then or what is the block trying to tell us?

37:53 Like and maybe again it is like I need to get a different kind of pathway to get through it or around it. You know. It's something that really stuck with me too. Like so one I've I've got my short term procrastination thinking. The other side is like this like much longer legacy thinking, which I thought was really interesting in a way to approach this too, because it's like, you know, against linear pathway. It's like I'm thinking about, Okay, what am I going to accomplish across my boxes and my calendar and then both either leave behind, But like legacy is an interesting like challenge point because it's like, either what do I leave behind when I when I die or or just when I leave a company or something. Right, it's like how do people know what I did? And we're with a slight obsession with that also in kind of today's contemporary culture, you know, and like you also help us like smack that around a little bit as well too. I guess that's finally metaphor we're asking for gently massage it to can help but think play differently about what it could be. So like let's go to that set end of the spectrum too, Like so we have legacy thinking now of like let's actually rethink what we're trying to do there too, Like how does that how does that reshape our thinking in your pathway?

38:51 Yes, I absolutely had. I felt like I had to have a chapter about this question in the book because I know that a lot of the kind of people like you, like me, who actually do care about having an impact a positive impact on the world and the people around us. As you said, this concept of legacy making sure that we leave something behind were remembered and we're really just having this reinsurance that it mattered that we were here at some point it is something that we all cling onto as if it would give meaning to our lives. And what I want to do in what I do in the book in the last chapter actually is that I challenged that thinking. And what I say is that you can create meaning in your life in the here and now in present by shifting your mindset from how am I going to be remembered when I'm gone, which when you think about it makes absolutely no sense. You're not. You're going to buy yourself to enjoy all of that, you know, So shifting your mindset to how can I be as generative as possible in the present and the here and now positively contributing to the lives of my fellow living human beings for sharing

40:21 this earth with me at the moment. And if everybody did that, actually we would end up, in a indirect way leaving a better legacy. But I don't think focusing on leaving a better legacy is the way to go about achieving that. So that's really what I advocate for, is really trying to have the most positive impact possible again today, and it doesn't have to be on in the entire world. It can be on your local community, family, friends, et cetera. The great thing about this approach as well, which ties back to the idea again of experimentating, is that you can see straight away if what you're doing is working, and you can adapt your approach and you can keep on tweaking until you get to the kind of impact that you want to have. If you wait until you're dead to for the results to be available, you're not going to be able to do anything to change the trajectory if that's not really where you want it to.

41:23 And I think that's a great point. And like, you know, while we're seeing also kind of this I want to say rebellion, but it's also more just like you know, this push against retirement is like wait till you're like, I can't wait till I'm retired. It's like why, you know, you know, do the things like that the kind of push back we see if people say, well, do what you want to do now, like what are you waiting until you're potentially sixty five or seventy or eighty, which you know, will we even be able to retire? I don't know, so, I mean that's probably part of the question there, you know. But but this idea that like yeah, why why are we putting off basically what we want to see in the world? Like that seems it, See when you think about it, it's kind of crazy, right, You're like you won't even be there, So it's like you might have done some good, but like you know, the story might change. And again, one of these things is like, you know, depending who you ask, like say, Rockefeller did great things, you know for the United States, is like, yeah, welly also like screwed a bunch of people and like you know, did a ton of like environmental damage and ruined a bunch of you know, culture. So it's like there's all these like bigger questions of like okay, like where and when does even a good legacy stick around for and like how long does it change as cultural trans change?

42:23 And so it seems like, you know, I think it's a very important point, I guess, to kind of have us recognize that like there's more work to do now than there is like in the potential future. You know. Yeah, And I'm glad you mentioned retirement as well, because another side of the coin of being too focused and obsessed with legacy is that you have a lot of people in their sixties seventies eighties who are perfectly healthy and capable of having an amazing impact on their local communities, that don't feel like they can do anything because it's too late to build a legacy at this stage. They feel like, oh, like, you know, now, I only have a few decades left, Like there's no point. Most people who build a really big legacy they got started earlier, they did that over the course of their enterier career.

43:14 It's too late, right if you stop focusing on legacy and on generativt right now in the present moment. It's never too late to get started with any kind of you know, meaningful, impactful project. That you want. I love that point, yes, because it is it is like, oh yeah, it's it's like no, it's it's too late when you're dead, you know. But it's like when you're if you're living then yeah, exactly right. And and that's the thing, it's like people are living now here, right, so it's like set of a legacy, we need like a generacy. You know. But that that's a really powerful point too. And I think also with that too, and something I take from you know again thematically through the book too, is like it's not like having the biggest impact. It's not doing the most things, right.

43:55 It's not again, it's not the quantity thing necessarily, right, It's like not do ten more things. It's more like look for. That that quality at that that those kind of chirosk experiences that you can have with folks, whether it's cooking a meal with somebody or like your neighbors are taking their trash out. You know, it's like those things are actually what people remember, you know at the end of the day, versus Oh, I wrote three thousand you know pages in this dissertation that no one read. You know, it's like it's big and important, as we all know, but like at the same time, you know, it's it's it's not necessarily it might be the think it changes somebody's life, but it probably won't change as many people's lives. I mean, you know, but again that's the future thing, right, what what what could my thesis do? You know? But I love this idea to have kind of reminding us to come back to the here now. And also that speaks to the mindfulness angle too, right that like if we're being present in kind of noting what am I experiencing in this moment with self with others, you know.

44:42 Then that also says this is this is that moment of generation, you know. And one piece of that too, that another kind of bow to tie there, which I really appreciated that you explored too, is like they did playing and dancing right, like these have to be important parts of our work and how we do and like and like this resonated with me too, because it was like when I I left a corporate job a few years ago and I was I was in the kind of path of like I don't know what I'm like, I was doubt, you know, I'm not sure I was going to do. I wanted to figure out the next thing. And it's like, you know, I ended up taking a month long road trip and like did some speaking engagements and like visited family and it was like this very nice, like first time I've done the thing. I was like, I was gonna take the great American road job. I've never done that, you know, and it was like this very like it was perfect timing and this right moment.

45:25 But it's this it was like I had zero schedule, like I should I did be at this place in this date, but how I got there and like what I did in between, and that was actually one of the most important things I could have done at the time, because it was like, let me put that space into experience this moment now where I don't have to be anywhere else, I don't have to be thinking about what I should be doing, and it like changes your your perception, right because you're like, I'm watching trees and I'm sitting at this rest stop, and I'm looking at these dogs running around in this yard, you know, and it's like it's very you know, spacious, I guess in one way, and you kind of realize there is that space in the center. Once you finally kind of stop moving for a second, you realize how much space is actually around you. And it was I guess from all that.

46:06 Came this idea of playfulness, right, like let me I can play with what I could do, what this could be. And so I'm kind of curious to thoughts about this too, like, you know, how did you come to play as one of these key key pieces of like finding joy and work, finding joy and experimentation because it is fun, I think, you know. Yeah, I mean you did mention at the being of our conversation, how children are naturally curious, and another another behavior that they have that is very natural to them is learning through play, exploring through play, being naturally playful about anything that they do and their approach, and also connecting and relating to others through play and playfulness. I know it may sound a little bit antithetic with the scientific mindset, but it's actually really important because a lot of scientific discoveries happen through being playful, open minded, looking at things in a different way, asking questions are non obvious, so you can really also approach problems and challenges in your life from this angle of playfulness and just asking yourself, what if I approached this a little bit more like a game. What if I stop caring so much about the outcome? What if this was fun? And very often when you ask yourself these questions and you just start playing a little bit more with ideas, with projects, with challenges, you'll not only discover new ways of approaching these things you're working on, but it will just be more fun and enjoyable to you while you're working there.

47:36 I love it, so I think I encourage us all just get out there and play, right. It's like remembering that that it turns out we get all serious, but it's like life can be fun, you know, as creepy as the Joker was in the dark night, like when he's asking why so serious that there's something to it? Right, It's like we can we can have fun with this, right, I think so Again, thank you so much for chatting with me too, Like this has been super fun to kind of think through playful right, to kind of think through these ideas, And I appreciate the work that you're putting out. It is important for us as so many folks are rethinking what they can do for their career paths and again like retirement, like why wait, these questions think are really important for us to kind of learn to let go of legacy and negative perceptions of procrastination and kind of stop talking about time as this one linear pathway, but we can actually experiment, you know, around ideas and around ideas, and so if folks both want to learn more, I'm excited for them to check out you book. You know you've got nest Labs. Also to tell me a bit about nest Labs. So folks want to get it. Even course, you got community, you get a whole, you get a whole like great world there too.

48:32 So what's what's happening over in the in the lab space that folks can that folks need to know about. Yes, So nest Labs. I write a weekly newsletter that I send you about one hundred thousand people every week on Thursday, so that's completely free. You can sign up and I discuss a lot of the topics that we talked about today. There's also a private community where we have online courses and coaching, little workshops, and we also conduct experiments all together, so you can your little luck book there and announce your experiment, and then everybody's kind of like joining in supporting you, providing feedback and supporting accountability. So yeah, so that's next Labs. And then there's the book obviously that's coming out very soon, and that's separate.

49:17 You can go on tiny experiments dot org and you can learn more about it. We'll definitely a link to it in the show notes. Now, all that good stuff, so folks can find out your work. But thank you again so much for putting all this out there in the world. I think it's it's such important topics and conversations and timely for where we're at. So thank you for generating so many good things and great to talk with you today. Thanks so much, Adam, thank you,