February 4, 2026 • 25 mins
Daniel Coyle, author of Flourish, and The Talent Code, talks about creating a meaningful life
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Today's episode is going to be a longer one part
of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
they take their days from great to awesome and any
advice they have for the rest of us. So today
I am delighted to welcome Daniel Coyle to Before Breakfast.
Daniel is the author of the brand new book Flourish.
He is also the author of the best selling books
The Culture Code and The Talent Code.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Daniel, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Thanks for having me, Laura. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, very excited to have you and introduce you to
any of my listeners who haven't read your work. So
why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
You know, I was raised in Alaska, and that as
a writer is always a good spot to live because
you see things from a bit of a distance. Man,
it's like being raised in a foreign country. I've ended
up writing out what was going to be a doctor,
took a left turn into journalism at the last minute,
science journalism, and ended up spending a career writing about
how people kind of the mechanics beneath magic, like why
(01:07):
super talented people are that way, or why great cultures
are that way. And I've lately turned my attention into communities,
like why do certain communities like flourish? Why do certain
individuals within those communities flourish and grow?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, well, what is exactly flourishing?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I mean, because it's a broad topic and sort of
a big word, what would you how would you define flourishing?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It's joyful, meaningful, growth, shared and the thing, the deep
thing to understand about it is that like that's kind
of how we're built. We're pre wired, and we require
other people, We require being in community to bring out
the best in ourselves. We kind of have gotten a
little bit stuck in this culture as thinking about ourselves
just as separated individuals, like I need to work on
(01:50):
myself myself, myself, and that's true, that's totally true. But
to really get to that next level and to really
unlock the parts of yourself that are the deepest, the
thing that matters is being connected with others. Another way
to put it is like all flourishing is kind of mutual,
and if we think about our lives and think about
our journeys and the people who have brought us here.
We're not doing it alone, right, There's there's specific conversations,
(02:13):
there's specific relationships, relationships maybe like people have with this podcast,
where it's like they're consistently consistently opening up new pathways
for you. And that's what I found in the places
that I visited, These flourishing places, Like there was this
little town in Vermont that's produced like eleven Olympians, right,
and they're continually nourishing each other and nurturing each other.
And so these places are like like these marvelous gardens, right.
(02:37):
Or a business. There was a business in Michigan. It
was a tiny deli. It's grown into this ninety million
dollar community of businesses. And in all those places, they're
finding ways to get a toun done and be incredibly productive,
but also kind of balancing that with relationships, with learning
from others, with connecting with others. And so community is
(02:58):
kind of the key to the whole thing. And the
challenge that I think I think about a lot is
how do I bring community into my life When I'm
not in community? How do I like stay connected with
others and make that happen in the mornings and the
evenings all the time to kind of create that level
of energy, because in the end, it's not smartness only
gets you so far. It's like, this is about this
(03:19):
is about energy, growth, joy and meaning and those come
from relationships. It's hard to get those on your own.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Well, what drew you to this topic?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You know? I ended up getting to a point in
my life. Both my parents passed away in kind of
quick succession, and that sort of wakes you up and
it makes you see that this whole thing is short.
And I had spent my life kind of studying people
who were super super talented and groups that were super
super high performing, and I saw that they were all
kind of climbing this mountain, and those mountaintops when they
(03:49):
got there are kind of lonely, windy, empty places, Like
there's so many successful people that are kind of sad, right,
like we've all met them, Like they have everything, but
they're not fulfilled. And so it got me interested in
to get off the mountaintop and get into the valleys
in the gardens, like what are these places that are
growing people? You know, what is this There's a neighborhood
(04:10):
in Paris that has transformed itself from like this really
disconnected modern place to something that feels like a little village,
like everybody knows each other and everybody's connected and growing.
And that's where I've spent the last five years hanging out.
And there's the old saying, like every writer writes the
book that they need, you know, And that was the
book that I needed at that time. And it ends
up being kind of all about that process of joyful,
(04:32):
meaningful growth shared and that was kind of a surprise.
I had kind of always bought into the idea that
you can do it alone, and this book has really
brought in the truth that the power of community is
really transformative. The power of community, and so how do
we get that community into our lives in a regular way.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, that is a good question in which we should
then start to address, because somebody hears isn't like, yes,
I would love to be part of a garden. I
want to be in this flourishing community. But we may
not have magically been dropped in this community in Paris
or this town in Vermont that you know is raising
up all these Olympians. And so if we find ourselves
in sort of a more normal situation and we you know,
(05:13):
have some community, but maybe not as much as we want.
What are some things we should start to do?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, a lot of it has is rooted in the
way we pay attention to things. And what I found
these places doing regularly very almost like it was like
a physical workout. Is they really embraced ritual. These places
really embrace ritual is a way to connect, but also
is a way to kind of ground yourself, your individual self.
Your modern life is like this incredibly fast race. You're
(05:40):
like chasing, you're hunting, you're playing this game. And they
had a way of using ritual to slow down and stop,
and for me, that was that that was the big takeaway,
Like ritual is super powerful to take just a moment
to slow down to do something that's not productive. Because
that's really the weird thing about rituals, Like we focus
(06:02):
a lot on habits in our life, like we want
to build good habits. Habits kind of automate your life, right,
they make things quicker and better. But rituals animate your life,
you know, Rituals give it connection and energy. And so
these places did the unusual thing. They were incredibly reductive
because they had the ability to stop, which is just,
you know, kind of beautiful encounterintuitive. We don't think that
(06:23):
in order to kind of get the most of our
lives that the key thing we need to do is
to kind of learn how to stop and let go.
And that's what they were really good at doing. I
met a guy he studied it, I think it was
the Harvard Divinity School, and he had developed a little
ritual that he did every morning that really grounded him.
And he would be when he'd be brushing his teeth,
(06:44):
he would just say to himself this quick mantra, which
was every day contains joy and suffering, and this day
is no different. And it kind of makes everything a
little It shifts your attention a little bit, it shifts
your perspective. And you know, I met that Deli that
I mentioned in Michigan. The guy had a great He
(07:05):
would just teach his people SBA he called it, which
was stop, breathe and appreciate, you know, just little moments
of mindfulness that lets you let you zoom out and
connect with what really matters. So those are like ways
of building sort of a sense of connection that allow
you to get out of your own narrow attention and
(07:26):
into kind of a broader attention. And the strange thing
about it that ended up kind of really making it
stick is when you look into why that is, the
mechanics of what that is, it turns out that we
don't have just one attention system. We have two. We
have task attention, which is what we're in most of
the time, super narrow. I need to get from A
to B, I need to get the kids picked up,
(07:47):
and I need to get that presentation done. But then
we also have something called relational attention. Relational attention is
really broad, and it's how we create meaning and connection.
And so when when they were saying that little it's
almost like, you know, task attention is this narrow spotlight
that's job is to see the world as this flat
(08:09):
puzzle we should solve, and it makes us kind of
anxious to be in task attention all the time because
the world is just this game that we're constantly catching
up with. But relational attention, which is where community happens.
Relational attention is like, Huh, what's that mysterious thing over there?
I want to check that out? Or who am I
connected to down deep? Or what is their joint suffering
(08:30):
in the world every day where am I seeing that?
And it grounds us and it gives us stability and
calm and peace. And so those moments of ritual are
really ways of like lighting the lamp of relational attention
and letting us let go of that narrow task attention
that makes us always feel like we're chasing after something
(08:50):
and never getting it.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
All right, Well, we're going to talk a little bit
more about ritual when we get back from our first
ad break. Well, I am here talking with Daniel Coyle,
who is the author of the brand new book Flourish.
He is also the author of The Culture Code and
the Talent Code. We've been talking about ritual.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Now, there's an.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Interesting thing here of like find group ritual, right, because
that's part of you know, our relational energy here. And
I mean you mentioned the Divinity professor who starts with
his own personal ritual.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I wonder if somebody's listening to this and like I
would like some sort of.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Group ritual in my life, what can they do to
start setting something like that up?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yeah, it could be the smallest is the easiest, right,
And one thing that I've done for myself lately is
just try to make one little reach out a day
to somebody in my life, you know. And it may
be it may be tiny, maybe a text to a
guy who used to play football with in my neighborhood.
It might be something to an old neighbor, but one
(09:51):
simple reach out a day. My wife and I do
this silly thing too in the morning when we have coffee.
We take a second and we just clink are cups
together and we say clank or we say cheers. Right,
it's so dumb, right, But in that moment of like,
it's not productive, it doesn't create anything. It just creates
this moment of like the small connection. And so finding
(10:13):
those small connections and the rule when you find them
is they don't need to be productive. They actually should
not be productive. Like if you have a tradition with
your kids of always going to Chipotle after soccer practice
or whatever, or having this particular stupid movie that you
watch together every year at a certain time that everyone
dislikes having something silly, actually is where ritual can begin,
(10:39):
because it's it actually needs not to be productive.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
We had go ahead, sorry, well, we were going to
talk about the difference between sort of habit and ritual.
Then because I mean one of the issues is when
we do things over and over again, they often do
become automatic and more mindless. So is there a way
to make something that you are choosing to do over
(11:03):
and over again stay in the mindful category.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, And I think the thing that it should contain,
the thing that I've seen it contain, is an element
of beauty to it. You know people who I know
a person who every time they sit down to write,
they light a candle. Now, lighting a candle doesn't help
you write better. There's no use, there's no utility there,
but there's a beauty to that. Right. Stopping is that
(11:30):
there's a morning walk that's very traditional and Buddhist thought,
where you go walk and you go see the sunrise. Right,
that's the habit. But the thing that distinguishes it is
that presence of beauty, that presence of something bigger than yourself. Right.
The difference to a ritual a habit is that a
habit helps you, helps you get through your life more
(11:52):
cleanly and efficiently. It gets things done. A ritual, on
the other hand, connects you to something bigger than your life.
It makes you just for a second. And so that's
the key if you have a ritual that makes you
disappear a little bit, whether that's you know, watching a
sunrise or reading a particular bit of passage of poetry
that wakes you up in that way, the key is
(12:12):
that it's not useful and that it contains something big
and beautiful. It can be anything.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So you have an image in the book which I
think you borrow from one of the people you interview
about red, yellow, and green doors. Can you talk about that.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yes, it's an idea from a psychologist at Columbia called
Lisa Miller, and her idea is and it's very powerful.
It is rooted in our attention. In that attention, we
go through life kind of in narrow mode often and
we're looking where alert for green doors that are open
and red doors that are closed. Right. Green doors means
to do this right, there's an opening there, go that's
an opportunity. Red doors means there's not an opportunity there.
(12:48):
But what this idea points out is that the key
to fulfillment and flourishing is looking for the yellow doors,
the ones that aren't necessarily go and they're not necessarily stop,
but they appear out of the corner of your eye
and their opportunities to explore, opportunities to try something new,
opportunities to have a conversation with someone that you might
(13:10):
not normally have a conversation with, and switching your attention.
And it's very hard to do. It's really tricky to
sort of wake up and say, wait a minute, was
that a yellow door? Can I give that a try?
But it really is transformative because it knocks you out
of that narrow task attention into that broader relational attention.
And it's the way life actually is. You know, life
(13:32):
is not a machine. We sort of think of it
as a machine. But machines are about being predictable, reliable,
doing the same thing every time. And that's not life, right.
Life is actually alive. Life is this complex journey. And
when you look reflect on your own life, or talk
about anybody about their life, any remarkable life, what you
find is that it ain't a straight line. There's all
(13:55):
kinds of twist. It's a squiggly line. If you were
to take a piece of paper and chart out the
journey of your life what got you to this point
right now, you would not be drawing straight lines. You'd
be drawing oh and then I failed at this, but
it opened up this doorway over here. And then I
failed at that, and it opened up this doory over here,
and then I happened to meet this person and opened
up this door over here. We're all enmeshed in this
(14:18):
bigger ecosystem, and it's all curved, just like you know
a tangled vine or any ecosystem. It's curvy lines, and
yellow doors are the junctures in those curvy lines, like
yellow doors are the moments when new pathways open up
for us to explore. And so taking a moment every day,
and this could be a ritual in fact, say what
yellow doors did I notice today? Or what yellow doors
(14:40):
might be in my pathway today? Who knew? Can I
talk to? What skill could I test out? Can be
a really powerful practice, And I could say for myself
it's kind of changed. It's brought me into connection with
groups of new friends. I got an invite a couple
of years ago to go indoor climbing. Always hated heights.
(15:01):
I don't like climbing. It seems finicky and funny and difficult.
But I thought like, huh yeah, yellow door, Like I'll
give it a try. And now like three years later
they're some of my best friends in the world. So
it brought me in touch with new pathways and people
and connected me to a new community. And like again,
(15:23):
being smart can only get you so far. Like community
and connection and meaning is what is what life is
made of.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, we talk about being open to serendipity around here
because I mean, the truth is, if you already knew
about something, you would be doing it right as a
you know, talented, ambitious person. If you knew about it already,
you would be doing it. So you have to leave
yourself open to the things you don't know, which could
be challenging because you know, there are a lot of
bad ideas in the world and difficult in demanding people.
(15:51):
So you know, people put up boundaries for good reasons,
but you know you have to make sure that the
good stuff can still get in front of you even
if it doesn't have an explo invitation.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
That's right, and even if it doesn't feel very good
at first. You know, there's there's a lot of stuff
about you know, it's it's annoying to fail and stuff.
It's annoying to try things at first, it's difficult and painful,
but when you begin to see that difficulty and pain
as part of a larger squiggly line journey of your life,
and you begin to reflect on how you got here,
(16:21):
and there definitely was difficulty and pain in that way,
Like you know, all that stuff is part of the journey,
and embracing that really helps open up new pathways.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
All right, well, we're going to take one more quick
ad break and then we'll be back with more from
Daniel Coyle. Well, I am talking with Daniel Coyle, who
is the author of the brand new book Flourish, also
the author of the books The Culture Code.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
The Talent Code.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So Daniel, let's talk about your own personal schedule. This
is obviously a show about time management and productivity.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
So what do your days tend to look like?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
You know, as writer and as the father for sort
of unpredictable and chaotic woulby words that come to mind
at times, And so every day can bring something totally different.
It might be a conversation with somebody like you, It
might be researching, it might be interviewing, it might be
running kids around. But so each day I find that
(17:22):
like I have to kind of ground myself into what
the real meaning of that day is and take a
minute beforehand to kind of figure things out. So I
sit down with my coffee and I take a three
y five card, really small, and then I end up
kind of making notes while I drink coffee about what
the day might contain.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And how are you choosing that? Are you basing it
off like a longer term priority list on your calendar?
I mean, what are the inputs for that three by
five card.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Each project has got its own set of rhythms and phases.
So if I'm in a research phase, then I'm thinking
about that. If I'm a writing phase, I'm thinking about that.
If I'm having a conversation with folks like you, I'm
thinking about that. So it's kind of variable, but each
day has got its own I find what's powerful is
to sort of find time to sort of zoom out
and try to see things fresh and staying off technology
(18:09):
seems to really help that. Just having that little card
to write on with there's not much space. It's really intentional,
like I don't have a big sheet of paper or
anything like that. It's like the little card makes me say,
if I could write today on a match book, like
what matters today? What really matters I've got a friend
who's got a better one where he's got a little sheet,
but it's divided up. He's got you know, the family,
what's the family thing, what's the work thing, what's the
(18:31):
individual improvement thing? So I could be way better at
it than I am. But that idea of like trying
to get it on a match book is sort of
liberating because it's easy to feel overwhelmed.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, well, do you have any sort of morning routine
of are you writing on the index card and you're
having your coffee? Are there any other elements of this
that tend to be the same day to day?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
You know, I do this weird little ritual thing where
I put some saline in my eye and then I
kind of think for a second that I want to
see clearly. Seeing is really important to what I do,
And so it's just stupid, but it's like it's still
powerful for me to be like to ground myself and
like I need to see things accurately. Like if I
don't see things accurately, it's going to be a tough day.
And I've definitely in my life gone down a ton
(19:11):
of rabbit holes because I haven't seen things accurately. So
that's that's very meaningful to me. And the other thing
I've been trying lately is an idea that I write
about in the book, which is Morning Pages.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Have you come across that before Julia Cameron?
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's absolutely brilliant, And it
was hard for me to do because I like my
writing to make sense and come together, and she, of
course is telling you just go just say whatever's on
your mind, write that down very quickly and spend fifteen
twenty minutes three pages, kind of sort of purging yourself
of everything that's floating around. And I found that to
(19:44):
be again really powerful because it shifts my attention in
the same way as that did for the you know,
as these sort of practices do. I end up writing
about Julia Cameron in the Flourish book because it's such
a powerful way of shifting our attention, and our attention
is at the very very core of how we spend
our days and our lives, and so learn it's helped
(20:04):
me learn to sense am I in the narrow mode
right now? Or am I not in the narrow mode?
And so it's almost like learning about fitness, like before
you understood that you jogging made you feel better, or
lifting weights made you feel better. We didn't have a
clue about that. We just sort of felt like it
was healthy to be whatever size you were, and however
(20:27):
big you were, and you said that was fixed. We're
learning about our attentional health in exactly the same way,
like right now. There's super interesting research and I write
about some of the book, but this idea that we've
got these two modes and we can choose and we
can tell when we're in each one, and learning how
to do that, learning to say, whoops, I'm focused, I'm spotlight,
(20:47):
I'm narrow, I'm task attention right now, and then saying
I need to do something to let go, to help
me let go and really see, really create some meaning here,
really try to understand what's happening that I find that
to be like transformatively powerful. To sort of say, your
attention is not one thing, it's two things. Dial into
which one you're.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
In right now, and we need both.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I mean, there are moments where you got to I
mean you've got to execute something that has to get done,
and that's the focus is very good. Maybe coming up
with the ideas or thinking something differently might be for
the other form of attention.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Exactly, and to build on that. It's best when you
have the one serving the other, Like I'm going to
pay attention to the big picture, but then I'm going
to do the narrow thing that helps serve that. And
that's the pattern that I see in a lot of
flourishing lives. It's like they're using their narrow attention to
create relationships. They're using their narrow attention to nurture community.
They're using their narrow like it's beautiful rather than the
(21:40):
opposite where they're they're just trying just simply focused on
the narrow thing, but using that to like serve your neighbor,
using that to serve the relationships in your life that matter,
doing concrete things to nurture the garden of your life.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So I always ask my guests, what is something you
have done recently to take a from great to awesome?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Wow? What is something to take a day from great
to awesome? We did it for Christmas. My kids know
that I love games, and so they kind of invented
these games a while back that we've continued to play.
And they're absolutely goofy like. But when we're together, we'll
(22:26):
we'll we'll sometimes have these these quick Olympiads, right, just
a quick Olympics and it's like running around the kitchen
island as fast as you can, or you know, skateboarding
somewhere or whatever. But they're they're all goofy. But there's
an awards ceremony, there are prizes, and when that happens
on a day like that is just just totally playing
with a group of people that you've known and now
(22:49):
they're kind of becoming adults. And it's even getting more
similly than it used to. That took a day from
from great to awesome. So just like the Family Olympics
was an absolute blast.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
All right, Family Olympics. I love it. What's something you're
looking forward to right now?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You know? I am looking forward to I do some
work with the Cleveland Guardians baseball team. I've consulted with
him for about the last ten years, and so, like
you know, baseball's kind of designed in this rhythm, it's
kind of designed to break your heart, you know. And
now spring training is just around the corner, and like
that idea that this here comes this new season. As
(23:25):
a writer, you're alone all the time, and this work
has kind of like saved me in terms of providing
this community really of people that we're trying to win games,
and it's totally delightful and fun. So I find myself
thinking about that a lot.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, baseball is a lot of time.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Exactly each game.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Less time than it used to be. I mean the
upside of the pitch clock true, still epic.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's epically long, which makes you kind of like, it's
so useles. Let's talk about rituals. I mean, they've figured
it all out right. It's all about like, how do
we hang out together for like four hours or if
you're a player, much longer and enjoy each.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Other and so for one hundred and fifty one hundred
and sixty times a year.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah right, it's wild.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah it is, it is. But baseball is amazing. So, Daniel,
where can people find you?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Danielcoil dot com is a good place to start. The
new book comes out February third, and that should be
available all over the place, So that's that's a good
place to go.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Sounds good, well, Daniel, Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you to everyone for listening. If you have feedback
about this or any other episode, you can always reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
(24:48):
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Today's episode is going to be a longer one part
of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
they take their days from great to awesome and any
advice they have for the rest of us. So today
I am delighted to welcome Daniel Coyle to Before Breakfast.
Daniel is the author of the brand new book Flourish.
He is also the author of the best selling books
The Culture Code and The Talent Code.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Daniel, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Thanks for having me, Laura. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, very excited to have you and introduce you to
any of my listeners who haven't read your work. So
why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
You know, I was raised in Alaska, and that as
a writer is always a good spot to live because
you see things from a bit of a distance. Man,
it's like being raised in a foreign country. I've ended
up writing out what was going to be a doctor,
took a left turn into journalism at the last minute,
science journalism, and ended up spending a career writing about
how people kind of the mechanics beneath magic, like why
(01:07):
super talented people are that way, or why great cultures
are that way. And I've lately turned my attention into communities,
like why do certain communities like flourish? Why do certain
individuals within those communities flourish and grow?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, well, what is exactly flourishing?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I mean, because it's a broad topic and sort of
a big word, what would you how would you define flourishing?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It's joyful, meaningful, growth, shared and the thing, the deep
thing to understand about it is that like that's kind
of how we're built. We're pre wired, and we require
other people, We require being in community to bring out
the best in ourselves. We kind of have gotten a
little bit stuck in this culture as thinking about ourselves
just as separated individuals, like I need to work on
(01:50):
myself myself, myself, and that's true, that's totally true. But
to really get to that next level and to really
unlock the parts of yourself that are the deepest, the
thing that matters is being connected with others. Another way
to put it is like all flourishing is kind of mutual,
and if we think about our lives and think about
our journeys and the people who have brought us here.
We're not doing it alone, right, There's there's specific conversations,
(02:13):
there's specific relationships, relationships maybe like people have with this podcast,
where it's like they're consistently consistently opening up new pathways
for you. And that's what I found in the places
that I visited, These flourishing places, Like there was this
little town in Vermont that's produced like eleven Olympians, right,
and they're continually nourishing each other and nurturing each other.
And so these places are like like these marvelous gardens, right.
(02:37):
Or a business. There was a business in Michigan. It
was a tiny deli. It's grown into this ninety million
dollar community of businesses. And in all those places, they're
finding ways to get a toun done and be incredibly productive,
but also kind of balancing that with relationships, with learning
from others, with connecting with others. And so community is
(02:58):
kind of the key to the whole thing. And the
challenge that I think I think about a lot is
how do I bring community into my life When I'm
not in community? How do I like stay connected with
others and make that happen in the mornings and the
evenings all the time to kind of create that level
of energy, because in the end, it's not smartness only
gets you so far. It's like, this is about this
(03:19):
is about energy, growth, joy and meaning and those come
from relationships. It's hard to get those on your own.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Well, what drew you to this topic?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
You know? I ended up getting to a point in
my life. Both my parents passed away in kind of
quick succession, and that sort of wakes you up and
it makes you see that this whole thing is short.
And I had spent my life kind of studying people
who were super super talented and groups that were super
super high performing, and I saw that they were all
kind of climbing this mountain, and those mountaintops when they
(03:49):
got there are kind of lonely, windy, empty places, Like
there's so many successful people that are kind of sad, right,
like we've all met them, Like they have everything, but
they're not fulfilled. And so it got me interested in
to get off the mountaintop and get into the valleys
in the gardens, like what are these places that are
growing people? You know, what is this There's a neighborhood
(04:10):
in Paris that has transformed itself from like this really
disconnected modern place to something that feels like a little village,
like everybody knows each other and everybody's connected and growing.
And that's where I've spent the last five years hanging out.
And there's the old saying, like every writer writes the
book that they need, you know, And that was the
book that I needed at that time. And it ends
up being kind of all about that process of joyful,
(04:32):
meaningful growth shared and that was kind of a surprise.
I had kind of always bought into the idea that
you can do it alone, and this book has really
brought in the truth that the power of community is
really transformative. The power of community, and so how do
we get that community into our lives in a regular way.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, that is a good question in which we should
then start to address, because somebody hears isn't like, yes,
I would love to be part of a garden. I
want to be in this flourishing community. But we may
not have magically been dropped in this community in Paris
or this town in Vermont that you know is raising
up all these Olympians. And so if we find ourselves
in sort of a more normal situation and we you know,
(05:13):
have some community, but maybe not as much as we want.
What are some things we should start to do?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, a lot of it has is rooted in the
way we pay attention to things. And what I found
these places doing regularly very almost like it was like
a physical workout. Is they really embraced ritual. These places
really embrace ritual is a way to connect, but also
is a way to kind of ground yourself, your individual self.
Your modern life is like this incredibly fast race. You're
(05:40):
like chasing, you're hunting, you're playing this game. And they
had a way of using ritual to slow down and stop,
and for me, that was that that was the big takeaway,
Like ritual is super powerful to take just a moment
to slow down to do something that's not productive. Because
that's really the weird thing about rituals, Like we focus
(06:02):
a lot on habits in our life, like we want
to build good habits. Habits kind of automate your life, right,
they make things quicker and better. But rituals animate your life,
you know, Rituals give it connection and energy. And so
these places did the unusual thing. They were incredibly reductive
because they had the ability to stop, which is just,
you know, kind of beautiful encounterintuitive. We don't think that
(06:23):
in order to kind of get the most of our
lives that the key thing we need to do is
to kind of learn how to stop and let go.
And that's what they were really good at doing. I
met a guy he studied it, I think it was
the Harvard Divinity School, and he had developed a little
ritual that he did every morning that really grounded him.
And he would be when he'd be brushing his teeth,
(06:44):
he would just say to himself this quick mantra, which
was every day contains joy and suffering, and this day
is no different. And it kind of makes everything a
little It shifts your attention a little bit, it shifts
your perspective. And you know, I met that Deli that
I mentioned in Michigan. The guy had a great He
(07:05):
would just teach his people SBA he called it, which
was stop, breathe and appreciate, you know, just little moments
of mindfulness that lets you let you zoom out and
connect with what really matters. So those are like ways
of building sort of a sense of connection that allow
you to get out of your own narrow attention and
(07:26):
into kind of a broader attention. And the strange thing
about it that ended up kind of really making it
stick is when you look into why that is, the
mechanics of what that is, it turns out that we
don't have just one attention system. We have two. We
have task attention, which is what we're in most of
the time, super narrow. I need to get from A
to B, I need to get the kids picked up,
(07:47):
and I need to get that presentation done. But then
we also have something called relational attention. Relational attention is
really broad, and it's how we create meaning and connection.
And so when when they were saying that little it's
almost like, you know, task attention is this narrow spotlight
that's job is to see the world as this flat
(08:09):
puzzle we should solve, and it makes us kind of
anxious to be in task attention all the time because
the world is just this game that we're constantly catching
up with. But relational attention, which is where community happens.
Relational attention is like, Huh, what's that mysterious thing over there?
I want to check that out? Or who am I
connected to down deep? Or what is their joint suffering
(08:30):
in the world every day where am I seeing that?
And it grounds us and it gives us stability and
calm and peace. And so those moments of ritual are
really ways of like lighting the lamp of relational attention
and letting us let go of that narrow task attention
that makes us always feel like we're chasing after something
(08:50):
and never getting it.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
All right, Well, we're going to talk a little bit
more about ritual when we get back from our first
ad break. Well, I am here talking with Daniel Coyle,
who is the author of the brand new book Flourish.
He is also the author of The Culture Code and
the Talent Code. We've been talking about ritual.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Now, there's an.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Interesting thing here of like find group ritual, right, because
that's part of you know, our relational energy here. And
I mean you mentioned the Divinity professor who starts with
his own personal ritual.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I wonder if somebody's listening to this and like I
would like some sort of.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Group ritual in my life, what can they do to
start setting something like that up?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yeah, it could be the smallest is the easiest, right,
And one thing that I've done for myself lately is
just try to make one little reach out a day
to somebody in my life, you know. And it may
be it may be tiny, maybe a text to a
guy who used to play football with in my neighborhood.
It might be something to an old neighbor, but one
(09:51):
simple reach out a day. My wife and I do
this silly thing too in the morning when we have coffee.
We take a second and we just clink are cups
together and we say clank or we say cheers. Right,
it's so dumb, right, But in that moment of like,
it's not productive, it doesn't create anything. It just creates
this moment of like the small connection. And so finding
(10:13):
those small connections and the rule when you find them
is they don't need to be productive. They actually should
not be productive. Like if you have a tradition with
your kids of always going to Chipotle after soccer practice
or whatever, or having this particular stupid movie that you
watch together every year at a certain time that everyone
dislikes having something silly, actually is where ritual can begin,
(10:39):
because it's it actually needs not to be productive.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
We had go ahead, sorry, well, we were going to
talk about the difference between sort of habit and ritual.
Then because I mean one of the issues is when
we do things over and over again, they often do
become automatic and more mindless. So is there a way
to make something that you are choosing to do over
(11:03):
and over again stay in the mindful category.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, yeah, And I think the thing that it should contain,
the thing that I've seen it contain, is an element
of beauty to it. You know people who I know
a person who every time they sit down to write,
they light a candle. Now, lighting a candle doesn't help
you write better. There's no use, there's no utility there,
but there's a beauty to that. Right. Stopping is that
(11:30):
there's a morning walk that's very traditional and Buddhist thought,
where you go walk and you go see the sunrise. Right,
that's the habit. But the thing that distinguishes it is
that presence of beauty, that presence of something bigger than yourself. Right.
The difference to a ritual a habit is that a
habit helps you, helps you get through your life more
(11:52):
cleanly and efficiently. It gets things done. A ritual, on
the other hand, connects you to something bigger than your life.
It makes you just for a second. And so that's
the key if you have a ritual that makes you
disappear a little bit, whether that's you know, watching a
sunrise or reading a particular bit of passage of poetry
that wakes you up in that way, the key is
(12:12):
that it's not useful and that it contains something big
and beautiful. It can be anything.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So you have an image in the book which I
think you borrow from one of the people you interview
about red, yellow, and green doors. Can you talk about that.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yes, it's an idea from a psychologist at Columbia called
Lisa Miller, and her idea is and it's very powerful.
It is rooted in our attention. In that attention, we
go through life kind of in narrow mode often and
we're looking where alert for green doors that are open
and red doors that are closed. Right. Green doors means
to do this right, there's an opening there, go that's
an opportunity. Red doors means there's not an opportunity there.
(12:48):
But what this idea points out is that the key
to fulfillment and flourishing is looking for the yellow doors,
the ones that aren't necessarily go and they're not necessarily stop,
but they appear out of the corner of your eye
and their opportunities to explore, opportunities to try something new,
opportunities to have a conversation with someone that you might
(13:10):
not normally have a conversation with, and switching your attention.
And it's very hard to do. It's really tricky to
sort of wake up and say, wait a minute, was
that a yellow door? Can I give that a try?
But it really is transformative because it knocks you out
of that narrow task attention into that broader relational attention.
And it's the way life actually is. You know, life
(13:32):
is not a machine. We sort of think of it
as a machine. But machines are about being predictable, reliable,
doing the same thing every time. And that's not life, right.
Life is actually alive. Life is this complex journey. And
when you look reflect on your own life, or talk
about anybody about their life, any remarkable life, what you
find is that it ain't a straight line. There's all
(13:55):
kinds of twist. It's a squiggly line. If you were
to take a piece of paper and chart out the
journey of your life what got you to this point
right now, you would not be drawing straight lines. You'd
be drawing oh and then I failed at this, but
it opened up this doorway over here. And then I
failed at that, and it opened up this doory over here,
and then I happened to meet this person and opened
up this door over here. We're all enmeshed in this
(14:18):
bigger ecosystem, and it's all curved, just like you know
a tangled vine or any ecosystem. It's curvy lines, and
yellow doors are the junctures in those curvy lines, like
yellow doors are the moments when new pathways open up
for us to explore. And so taking a moment every day,
and this could be a ritual in fact, say what
yellow doors did I notice today? Or what yellow doors
(14:40):
might be in my pathway today? Who knew? Can I
talk to? What skill could I test out? Can be
a really powerful practice, And I could say for myself
it's kind of changed. It's brought me into connection with
groups of new friends. I got an invite a couple
of years ago to go indoor climbing. Always hated heights.
(15:01):
I don't like climbing. It seems finicky and funny and difficult.
But I thought like, huh yeah, yellow door, Like I'll
give it a try. And now like three years later
they're some of my best friends in the world. So
it brought me in touch with new pathways and people
and connected me to a new community. And like again,
(15:23):
being smart can only get you so far. Like community
and connection and meaning is what is what life is
made of.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, we talk about being open to serendipity around here
because I mean, the truth is, if you already knew
about something, you would be doing it right as a
you know, talented, ambitious person. If you knew about it already,
you would be doing it. So you have to leave
yourself open to the things you don't know, which could
be challenging because you know, there are a lot of
bad ideas in the world and difficult in demanding people.
(15:51):
So you know, people put up boundaries for good reasons,
but you know you have to make sure that the
good stuff can still get in front of you even
if it doesn't have an explo invitation.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
That's right, and even if it doesn't feel very good
at first. You know, there's there's a lot of stuff
about you know, it's it's annoying to fail and stuff.
It's annoying to try things at first, it's difficult and painful,
but when you begin to see that difficulty and pain
as part of a larger squiggly line journey of your life,
and you begin to reflect on how you got here,
(16:21):
and there definitely was difficulty and pain in that way,
Like you know, all that stuff is part of the journey,
and embracing that really helps open up new pathways.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
All right, well, we're going to take one more quick
ad break and then we'll be back with more from
Daniel Coyle. Well, I am talking with Daniel Coyle, who
is the author of the brand new book Flourish, also
the author of the books The Culture Code.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
The Talent Code.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So Daniel, let's talk about your own personal schedule. This
is obviously a show about time management and productivity.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
So what do your days tend to look like?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
You know, as writer and as the father for sort
of unpredictable and chaotic woulby words that come to mind
at times, And so every day can bring something totally different.
It might be a conversation with somebody like you, It
might be researching, it might be interviewing, it might be
running kids around. But so each day I find that
(17:22):
like I have to kind of ground myself into what
the real meaning of that day is and take a
minute beforehand to kind of figure things out. So I
sit down with my coffee and I take a three
y five card, really small, and then I end up
kind of making notes while I drink coffee about what
the day might contain.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And how are you choosing that? Are you basing it
off like a longer term priority list on your calendar?
I mean, what are the inputs for that three by
five card.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Each project has got its own set of rhythms and phases.
So if I'm in a research phase, then I'm thinking
about that. If I'm a writing phase, I'm thinking about that.
If I'm having a conversation with folks like you, I'm
thinking about that. So it's kind of variable, but each
day has got its own I find what's powerful is
to sort of find time to sort of zoom out
and try to see things fresh and staying off technology
(18:09):
seems to really help that. Just having that little card
to write on with there's not much space. It's really intentional,
like I don't have a big sheet of paper or
anything like that. It's like the little card makes me say,
if I could write today on a match book, like
what matters today? What really matters I've got a friend
who's got a better one where he's got a little sheet,
but it's divided up. He's got you know, the family,
what's the family thing, what's the work thing, what's the
(18:31):
individual improvement thing? So I could be way better at
it than I am. But that idea of like trying
to get it on a match book is sort of
liberating because it's easy to feel overwhelmed.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, well, do you have any sort of morning routine
of are you writing on the index card and you're
having your coffee? Are there any other elements of this
that tend to be the same day to day?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
You know, I do this weird little ritual thing where
I put some saline in my eye and then I
kind of think for a second that I want to
see clearly. Seeing is really important to what I do,
And so it's just stupid, but it's like it's still
powerful for me to be like to ground myself and
like I need to see things accurately. Like if I
don't see things accurately, it's going to be a tough day.
And I've definitely in my life gone down a ton
(19:11):
of rabbit holes because I haven't seen things accurately. So
that's that's very meaningful to me. And the other thing
I've been trying lately is an idea that I write
about in the book, which is Morning Pages.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Have you come across that before Julia Cameron?
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's absolutely brilliant, And it
was hard for me to do because I like my
writing to make sense and come together, and she, of
course is telling you just go just say whatever's on
your mind, write that down very quickly and spend fifteen
twenty minutes three pages, kind of sort of purging yourself
of everything that's floating around. And I found that to
(19:44):
be again really powerful because it shifts my attention in
the same way as that did for the you know,
as these sort of practices do. I end up writing
about Julia Cameron in the Flourish book because it's such
a powerful way of shifting our attention, and our attention
is at the very very core of how we spend
our days and our lives, and so learn it's helped
(20:04):
me learn to sense am I in the narrow mode
right now? Or am I not in the narrow mode?
And so it's almost like learning about fitness, like before
you understood that you jogging made you feel better, or
lifting weights made you feel better. We didn't have a
clue about that. We just sort of felt like it
was healthy to be whatever size you were, and however
(20:27):
big you were, and you said that was fixed. We're
learning about our attentional health in exactly the same way,
like right now. There's super interesting research and I write
about some of the book, but this idea that we've
got these two modes and we can choose and we
can tell when we're in each one, and learning how
to do that, learning to say, whoops, I'm focused, I'm spotlight,
(20:47):
I'm narrow, I'm task attention right now, and then saying
I need to do something to let go, to help
me let go and really see, really create some meaning here,
really try to understand what's happening that I find that
to be like transformatively powerful. To sort of say, your
attention is not one thing, it's two things. Dial into
which one you're.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
In right now, and we need both.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I mean, there are moments where you got to I
mean you've got to execute something that has to get done,
and that's the focus is very good. Maybe coming up
with the ideas or thinking something differently might be for
the other form of attention.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Exactly, and to build on that. It's best when you
have the one serving the other, Like I'm going to
pay attention to the big picture, but then I'm going
to do the narrow thing that helps serve that. And
that's the pattern that I see in a lot of
flourishing lives. It's like they're using their narrow attention to
create relationships. They're using their narrow attention to nurture community.
They're using their narrow like it's beautiful rather than the
(21:40):
opposite where they're they're just trying just simply focused on
the narrow thing, but using that to like serve your neighbor,
using that to serve the relationships in your life that matter,
doing concrete things to nurture the garden of your life.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
So I always ask my guests, what is something you
have done recently to take a from great to awesome?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Wow? What is something to take a day from great
to awesome? We did it for Christmas. My kids know
that I love games, and so they kind of invented
these games a while back that we've continued to play.
And they're absolutely goofy like. But when we're together, we'll
(22:26):
we'll we'll sometimes have these these quick Olympiads, right, just
a quick Olympics and it's like running around the kitchen
island as fast as you can, or you know, skateboarding
somewhere or whatever. But they're they're all goofy. But there's
an awards ceremony, there are prizes, and when that happens
on a day like that is just just totally playing
with a group of people that you've known and now
(22:49):
they're kind of becoming adults. And it's even getting more
similly than it used to. That took a day from
from great to awesome. So just like the Family Olympics
was an absolute blast.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
All right, Family Olympics. I love it. What's something you're
looking forward to right now?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
You know? I am looking forward to I do some
work with the Cleveland Guardians baseball team. I've consulted with
him for about the last ten years, and so, like
you know, baseball's kind of designed in this rhythm, it's
kind of designed to break your heart, you know. And
now spring training is just around the corner, and like
that idea that this here comes this new season. As
(23:25):
a writer, you're alone all the time, and this work
has kind of like saved me in terms of providing
this community really of people that we're trying to win games,
and it's totally delightful and fun. So I find myself
thinking about that a lot.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, baseball is a lot of time.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Exactly each game.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Less time than it used to be. I mean the
upside of the pitch clock true, still epic.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's epically long, which makes you kind of like, it's
so useles. Let's talk about rituals. I mean, they've figured
it all out right. It's all about like, how do
we hang out together for like four hours or if
you're a player, much longer and enjoy each.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Other and so for one hundred and fifty one hundred
and sixty times a year.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah right, it's wild.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah it is, it is. But baseball is amazing. So, Daniel,
where can people find you?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Danielcoil dot com is a good place to start. The
new book comes out February third, and that should be
available all over the place, So that's that's a good
place to go.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Sounds good, well, Daniel, Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you to everyone for listening. If you have feedback
about this or any other episode, you can always reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
(24:48):
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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