August 14, 2025 • 43 mins
This week Scott speaks with author, entrepreneur, and world traveler Chris Guillebeau, best known for The Art of Non-Conformity and his latest book, Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live.
Chris unpacks the concept of time anxiety—the persistent feeling that we’re running out of time—and explains why it’s different from FOMO or ADHD. Together, he and Scott explore how cultural pressures toward constant efficiency can leave us feeling perpetually behind, and how to redefine “enough” in our own lives.
This conversation offers fresh perspectives on slowing down, finding meaning, and reclaiming your relationship with time. Whether you’re chasing big dreams or simply trying to savor the present, this episode will help you rethink how you spend your most precious resource.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Most of us make decisions about time without really thinking
about it. We have these kind of internalized rules. Some
of them come from childhood. It's like this is how
this is how time was spent. You know, we all
had dinner at this time. These are ways that we interacted.
These were the expectations that I had, and so we
tend to carry those on or we like you know,
(00:21):
create our own at some point without thinking about it
so subconsciously. So one time rule is like I am
always responding. I respond to things within a certain time period,
you know, within twenty four hours or whatever. And maybe,
like we've talked about, maybe that's helpful and maybe that's
a good habit, or maybe that's actually a stressful habit
that's not actually serving you that well. So what is
(00:41):
a what is a better habit?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
You know?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore
the depths of human potential. Today, we have Chris Gilibo
on the show. Chris is an author, entrepreneur, blogger, and speaker.
Actually received attention for his travel blog and book called
the Art of Nonconformity. More recently, he wrote the book
Time Anxiety, The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way
(01:10):
to Live. In this episode, we discuss how time anxiety
is more than just fear of missing out and is
also different from ADHD. Chris argues that the fear of
running out of time is very normal and that you
have the power within you to feel better about your time.
We discuss things like what is enough and he challenges
the quote gospel of efficiency in Western culture. This was
(01:32):
a fun and informative chat with someone I've wanted to
chat with for quite a while now. So without further ado,
I'll bring you Chris Gilbo. Hey, Chris, what a Cality podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Awesome? Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, I'm very happy to have you and I really
enjoyed your new book. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh, thank you, enjoyed yours as well, Rise Above. Yeah
that's well, last couple months. A couple months behind me,
I guess, but around the same time, right I saw
you're doing all these interviews, I was ready to publish.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, thank you, but this is about you. This interview
is about you, your new book, Time Anxiety, the Illusion
of Urgency, and a Better way to Live. Can you
just start off by telling our audience a little bit
about you and why you wrote this book?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, of course, So like you, I'm an author. I've
been an entrepreneur. I was an aid worker for several
years in West Africa. I had a project called the
Art of Nonconformity where I went to every country in
the world and started blogging about it. That's kind of
how I started sharing online. Going back to two thousand
and eight, I remember that.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I remember you, Chris, I remember you from the Psychology
Today days when I was valuing there.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, okay, that's right, that's right. Wow, how about that?
That was a that was that was quite a while ago.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, and then I wrote my first book with Perigee.
Actually I saw you've been with them for several of
your books, and yeah, I mean I kind of built
this like on dimentional career community, sharing with them, hosting
events and stuff. And As to as for time anxiety,
I guess I felt like over the past few years,
(03:11):
I was doing a lot of things but also feeling
kind of stressed out about it and feeling a little
bit I don't know, chronically indecisive or you know. I'm
doing all these things. I like the things that I do.
It's not that I'm unhappy, but I also feel stressed
about how I spend my time, and like, am I
(03:32):
doing the right things? How do I decide what to
do next of all the things I could do? And
just as I talk with lots of people kind of
see that this is maybe not universal, but a very
common condition or experience of people just feeling distressed about
time in different ways, a sense of time running out,
a sense of being too late for something. There's various,
(03:52):
you know, aspects of it. But I just thought it
was really interesting and I wanted to delve into it
more like for myself and ultimately for other people as well.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
That's great. Yeah, it's very clear as part of our
culture right now, that's been as long as I can remember.
It's been part of it, this pressure to get as
much done or else or else you're missing out. But
you clearly distinguished between this and FOMO fear of missing out,
and as well as ADHD. I'm surprised you didn't put
(04:23):
the acronym fort the fear of running out of time,
but that's what you're that's the acronym, right is fort?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Okay? Yeah? Maybe for the revised edition.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah, So can you just tell the audience a
little about why is the fear of running out of
time different than Fomo and even Adhd.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Sure, sure, well, I think the fear of running out
of time and it's not only it's like the simultaneous,
like the fear of running out of time, while the
uncertainty over how to spend the time that we have.
And I think that is what time anxiety is. It's
not one or the other, it's a little bit above
and and I think time anxiety occurs through like all
(05:03):
three conditions of time, so past, present, and future. Like
the past, we have some regret, we feel that maybe
we should have made a different choice about something, and
that's has therefore informed the paths that are available to
us now the present, like we talked about what do
I do?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
You know, how do I?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
How do I choose how to spend my time? And
then the future? You know, one am I ultimately working toward?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You know? Is there a sense of purpose? You know
in my life?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Whereas I think Fomo tends to relate more to the present.
You know, it's like everybody's having fun without me, or
like I am I am missing out on something? And
then you know, for Adhd, I think you know I
have experience with that I was diagnosed as a kid
and then as an adult. And the more that I've
learned about ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence, the more
(05:50):
I kind of recognize, Okay, this, you know, this might
show up in different ways, or it might be more
common among those of us who you know, identify with
the traitor. It can like that, but also the general population,
like a lot of people have you know, fears and
concerns and distress over the role of time in their life.
(06:11):
So it's not something that is unique to ADHD. There
are parts of it, like time blindness, you know, that
might show up more for people who have ADHD, but
it's certainly not exclusive.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Cool. Thanks for making all those distinctions. You really this
came to problems with you when you wrote a blog post,
isn't that right? You wrote a blog post about your experience,
and you got a lot of feedback, You got a
lot of comments. What are some things you discovered from
those comments?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, I noticed in the comments. But then also, like
I did a lot of research and talked with about
fifteen hundred people, some detailed surveys of people with different
walks of life and different ages and backgrounds and stuff.
I think the thing that surprised me more than any
other book project I've worked on, or any other research project,
(07:00):
the shared language. People you know, from these different backgrounds
would say almost almost uncannily like the same words, and
I'd say, what does time anxiety mean?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
To you there was the sentence, I feel like there's
something I should be doing, but I'm not sure what
it is. Like there's something I should be doing right now,
but I'm not sure what it is. A lot of
people said that, like, like just verbatim, almost when I
talked with them individually. And also the sense of being
too late for something. And I thought what was interesting
(07:34):
about being too late is I think a lot of
us might think, oh, that's something that people say at
a certain like, you know, generational point in their life.
You know, as you get older you say that. But
I heard that language from seventeen year olds. So it's
like a seventeen year old's like, I feel like I'm
too late, you know, for something, And it's easy for
(07:55):
those of us who are, you know, not seventeen or
anything close to that, easy for us to kind of
like dismiss them and say, oh, but you have your
whole life ahead of you, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
But the whole point is the perception.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, the perception is like the perception people have is
that they've.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Missed their chance.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So see, those are some of the things that kind
of jumped out right away, and I realized, like, there's
a lot to this that we should look at more.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
What if you have missed your chance?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I guess there's other chances, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I mean, you know, I've missed my chance to become
a gymnast, right or you know, there's lots there's certain
things that you do need to do, you know, from
a young age and specialization and such. But you can
dwell on the fact that you know, you're not going
to be a gymnast at the age of forty seven
(08:47):
or whatever someone's age is, or you can say, given
all the life experience that I have acquired thus far,
you know, and there has to be some wisdom through that,
even if you acquired that wisdom by making so called mistakes,
like what's next? Like what what is the what is
(09:08):
the chance that you can now no grab a hold of?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Hmm? Well, yeah, I love this that you have other opportunities.
But I think that there's a great relief in accepting
that it's too late for some things. You know, I
think a lot of people, some people feel a lot
of pressure. I mean, women feel a lot of pressure
to get to have children before sertainaid, right, I mean,
because they're biological constraints. But you know, I spoke, I've
(09:34):
spoken to some women who used to be obsessed with
that and then then it never happened, and you know,
now when their fifties and they're like, yeah, I've made
peace with that. Yeah, it's like life still goes on.
It's okay, I can deal with this. You know, there
are other ways I can leave a legacy, and so
you know, sometimes it's not as bad. You know, you panic,
you panic, you know, maybe you miss it, and then
(09:56):
you're real you do realize that life goes on, you know,
you know there are other things you can do.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, maybe there's a grief process you know that has
to occur, or you know, a process of acceptance you know,
as as you say, but ultimately, like ultimately we are
stressed about time because time is limited and time is short,
and you know, it's just it is a continuous process,
which is I think a big part of what is
(10:23):
to stressing. You know, once it is, once it has
been lost, it cannot be regained, you know, unlike other resources.
And so ultimately I think, I mean a key is
you know, radical, radical acceptance of it.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I want to jump right. I really enjoyed your book,
and I want to shoot right to my favorite chapter,
which you know, so I know usually you're supposed to
go in order and be all like that, but I
just want to shoot to, which is you have a
chapter in your book called what Is Enough? And I
kind of beligned myself to that chapter because I wanted
to know the answer and because I think that it
(10:59):
spoil or you don't you don't, you don't give the
answer once and for all. But can you explain to
people why they're first of all, why is there the
whys of always feel like we're never enough? And how
do you answer that question?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah? Well, I think for let's see, what's the best
starting point? Mentioned?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
You know that I mentioned this thing about how like
how do how do we choose you know, how to
how to spend time and such? Of all the things
we can do and for most of us these days,
like we're not working in factories, you know, we're not
working in manufacturing, like we're doing some sort of knowledge work,
you know, whether it's for an organization or an education
or for ourselves or whatever. So the work never ends, right,
(11:43):
and so like there's always something else to be done.
You finish something, there's always something waiting. And then it's
not only in our work lives, there's all like we
have access to unlimited information, right, unlimited information, education, entertainment,
as youainment, like, there are no limits, there are no constraints,
which is exciting in lots of ways, and it's also overwhelming.
(12:07):
And so I think, you know, the general point is
if we don't set constraints or limits for ourselves, nobody
else is going to. And so what I've found to
be helpful is, like you know, at the start of
any day or any week, or any project or whatever
kind of life cycle you think in, it's kind of deciding,
here is what enough looks like, Like if I do
(12:30):
these things, I'm going to feel satisfied. I'm going to
recognize that as a point of achievement or completion, or
at least like a point of pausing and then just
kind of reflecting right before I just kind of go
on to something else. I think we tend to get
overwhelmed and burned out just because we keep going, you know,
all the time, and that's our natural tendency, at least
(12:51):
it is for me. And so I've started to kind
of like, what would enough be? Like, you know, in
this situation, if I do these things, will that be?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I could do more? But is that sufficient? Why do
you think it was your you know, you said you'd
liked that concept. Why was that resonant to you?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Hil I want to take a moment to make a
few important announcements that I'm really excited about. As you
all know, I'm committed to helping people self actualize. In
the service of that, I just had a new book
com out called Rise Above. Overcome a victim mindset, empower
yourself and realize your full potential. In this book, I
offer a science backed toolkit to help you overcome your
(13:37):
living beliefs and take control of your life. Are you
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(14:00):
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(14:21):
for Human Potential dot com slash s a C. That's
Center for Human Potential dot com slash s a C. Okay,
now back to the show, because I'm low key obsessed
with this this this tension we often feel between doing
and being. And you know, I struggle with the optimal
(14:45):
sense of how much story my day should I be
doing and how much should I be being? And I
like the way you frame it. And in a way,
your book is like a good coaching book because you
don't tell people how to live their life, but you
ask good questions, some powerful coaching questions, things that really
for people to really reflect on and to really think about.
(15:05):
You know, even just like sitting back and just meditating
to yourself, how much would be enough for me? It
is a really interesting question, you know. It's like it
really got me thinking about like I can answer that
question and then I can try to accept it. But
the second after I accept it, I'm already thinking what
should I be doing next. It's like it's like there's
(15:27):
such a tendency that's built into us that that that
when we're being, we're thinking about doing. When we're doing
a lot, we think, oh I maybe need some rest here,
need to be being, you know, we're constantly wanting to
be in another state. Is another thing too.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, well, I mean it's okay to want more, you know,
I think it's okay.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Like I'm still pretty goal oriented and also like low
key obsessed with like, oh I want to do a
bunch of stuff. I mean that's so this is not
a book on minimalism, you know, necessarily, this is not
a book, not a book on do less. It's more
like if you are a person, if you are type A,
or you don't have to be Type A, but like
if you are like a person who likes to do
(16:08):
stuff but also feel stressed out of it sometimes, I
mean that's you know, like it's okay to want more,
but you also might have to accept you know, it's
like there's ways to look at all of it.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
I have so many questions here for you, buddy. I
thought that it was interesting that that you bring in
the literature on cognitive distortions into this, because that's a
topic I, as a psychologists, really care about, you know,
and and I would love to know some ways in
(16:41):
which my cognitive distortions can be hindering or or or
accelerating my feet my what was the acronym? I said,
my fear of my fort when you have time?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Okay, right, right, right, a little bit sure, yeah, yeah,
what cognitive distortions do you feel like you particularly experience
I mean personal personalization?
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yeah okay, oh yes, right, I'm like Michael Jordan over here.
That was personal.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Right, right, right exactly? That that's the name.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Okay, So you're right, right, you know, maybe feeling off
that I don't know that this problem is unique to
you or something, or you know, obviously you are a
high performer, but you should be performing even higher, right,
Like there is no sense of enough, right, It's you're
on some sort of like treadmill or it's you know,
(17:36):
pushing the rock up the hill kind of thing. You know,
maybe a sense of like unable to I don't know,
it's like happiness is a weird word, of course, but
unable to like feel some satisfaction or contentment.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
It's like if one thing is done, you know, what's
the next thing? Or if something goes well, you know,
your your booksells like, you know, bunch of copies, but
then you look like somebody else's book, you know, sold
more copies. I mean these are slightly different, but I
do think they're all kind of connected to, you know,
to a sense of disortion around around personalization. So what,
(18:14):
so what do we do? I mean, you're the expert.
I feel like you're more of an expert than me
in this.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
You know. I always think about, like, how can we.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Rewrite, you know, a story, or write or like write
a different story. It's it's not like the other story
isn't there in our heads as well, but how can
we add to it?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
How can we think about when I when.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I feel like the self applied pressure, or I feel
envious of someone else, or feel like my circumstances are unique,
I often think like would I want to live somebody
else's life, Like would I like, I maybe I feel
envious of this person, but would I want to trade
my life for theirs. It's not even just living someone
else's like, it's trading your trading your own life, you know.
(18:56):
Ye going to say, like, when you trade your life
or someone else, you you don't just get there is
you have to give up yours, right, you have to
like all the experiences you've had, the relationships that you've had,
the like learnings that you've had, like everything that you
know good and bad in your life like no longer exists.
(19:16):
And once I think that way, I'm like, oh, there's nobody, Like,
there's nobody out there that I would want to trade
my life for. And that actually feels pretty good. Were
you going to say?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
No? No, I really resonate with that, and that that's
really helped me a lot with my whatever jealousy of
people on Instagram and I'm like, Okay, that's just one
aspect of their life, but you know it's not. No, No,
really really good point. Can you tell people a little
bit about this concept of time blindness? Time blindness? Yeah? Yeah,
(19:47):
Why can it be so liberating if you understand it.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I wrote this like manifesto for the book and had
the recommendations like one through ten. I put like first
recommendation is, like, one of the best things you can
do your life is to allow ten to fifteen minutes
more than you think you need for transitions or you know,
for going somewhere, leaving to meet someone, or is just
kind of moving from you know, thing to thing in
(20:12):
your life. And it's obviously very simple advice, but it
seems it seems to both resonate and also people some
people feel really uncomfortable with it as well. And time blindness,
you know, is essentially a condition or an experience of
chronically like overestimating or underestimating time. And I think we're
(20:36):
you know, it's it's common for people with ADHD, but
I think a lot of people, most people don't perceive
time very well. I was doing this experiment on my
book tour where we would like count to like everybody
close their eyes and count to sixty and let's see
how accurate you know you are, and like, nobody's accurate.
Everybody's off by like fifteen percent, and so in the
(20:58):
course of one minute, people are off by fifteen percent.
And so if you extrapolate, like if you're trying to
keep track of time in your head, you're going to
be off like all the time. Plus it's not a
very good use of your cognitive functioning. There's a lot
of other stuff you should be doing, you know. So
time blindness is just like you know, imagining that we
are going to be able to do all these different things.
(21:18):
I have to leave for a meeting, but I'm going
to try to, you know, do one more thing before
I go, and then I'm going to be late because
I didn't think about the traffic or how you know,
whatever the other variable or circumstance is. And so most
people who are chronically late, I think they don't like that.
Like most people are like not happy with that. They know,
it's like stressful for them. They feel bad that they're
(21:39):
letting other people down. And you know, the simplest thing
they can do is just to add a little bit
more time and it will make their their life a
lot better. But some people are resistant because they're like
what will I do with all that extra time? You know,
which is a weird thing, but you know, you are
if you are ten to fifteen minutes late all the time.
(21:59):
You're probably not going to shift of being ten to
fifteen minutes early all the time, Like you're probably gonna
shift actually being like on time for things.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
And that's good. It's going to feel relieving.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, I know, that's a great point. And just in general,
this this fear you talk with somebody like beliefs that
people have that they need to unlearn, and this just
even just this thought that it if I have free time,
you know, what am I going to do with it?
You'll you'll end up spending that time thinking about and
(22:31):
what you should be doing more of. But why don't
we think about why don't we ever think about it
in terms of being like like in a wonderful opportunity
for being you know how people like there's not a
societal kind of script that says you should free up
your time so you can have more time to meditate,
or you can favor time so you can have more
time to just exist and like maybe just behold with
(22:54):
all in wonder, like your loved one or your child
or I mean that's just a different framing, but it
feels like that kind of you don't I don't know,
it might beginning.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You don't always need to have a task, I think
is what you're saying, right.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Thank you, thank you for explaining what my point was.
But yeah, no, it goes a lot back to this
this being versus doing thing, you know, And I do
think there are certain beliefs about I have to fill
every second of the day because if I don't, what
am I gonna do? And and it's like, well, you
(23:29):
don't always have to do every do something.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Right, but just do you find this also produces a conflict? Then,
like once you adopt this framework, you're like, Okay, that's good,
that's a good little tweak. But now my choice is
what's the ratio?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You know?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Like, Okay, I now I'm I'm experiencing being more and
that is good in my life, But you know, I
also want to work on things. I want to like
make things and create. Is it just an intuitive process
you kind of understand or like, I'm here's the time
for doing, here's the time for being?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Is it seasonal? Well?
Speaker 3 (24:08):
What I've what I learned from your book is that
a great first step is giving yourself more time. And
I think there's something really beautiful about that about figuring
out how you can have more freedom and maximum possibility
(24:28):
to choose the things you really want to choose, because
I think that's what it comes down to at the
end of the day. It's like like we get so
busy checking things off our to do list that we
start losing our own sense of self or losing our
own connection to ourselves. So yeah, well I like that.
I wanted to say, I like that as the first step.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Oh it's good.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I like the frame, the framing of the you know,
the being and doing the first step is interesting because
I think I wrote the rest of the book first,
and then it's just talking with my editor and it's like, man,
some interesting like research and probably some good suggestions here,
but like, think about the ideal reader for this book.
You know, the ideal reader is is pretty distressed and
(25:11):
they are kind of like overwhelmed, and like we need
to give them something like what do you do right now?
You know, Like what is something you can do to
start feeling better?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And I think one of the one of the great
things that anybody can do is, as you just said,
like give yourself the gift of time. So there's all
these cliches about like time is the most precious resource.
You know, time is more valuable than money, and but
most of us don't really live that way. And so
like there's a whole like industry, cottage industry of decluttering.
(25:43):
You know, it's like all this stuff I got to
declutter from my physical space, my home, my apartment, et cetera.
And I think that can be helpful. But like, time
is the thing that we are stressed about more than you,
like how many socks I have or how many trinkets
are on my desk? So what can we do to
give ourself time? How can we remove items from our calendar?
(26:05):
How can we close off one of our inboxes? How
can we just reframe how we think about saying yes,
you know to people who want to hang out that
we don't necessarily want to hang out with, Like, it
actually feels very relieving to do that.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I agree really well, put thank you. So how can
you use time rules to your advantage not your disadvantage?
Speaker 1 (26:30):
So most of us make decisions about time without really
thinking about it. We have these kind of internalized rules.
Some of them come from childhood. It's like this is
how this is how time was spent. You know, we
all had dinner at this time. These are ways that
we interacted. These were the expectations that I had, and
so we tend to carry those on or we like
(26:53):
you know, create our own at some point without thinking
about it so subconsciously. So one time rule is like
I am all responding. I respond to things within a
certain time period, you know, within four hours or twenty
four hours or whatever. And maybe, like we've talked about,
maybe that's helpful, and maybe that's a good habit, or
maybe that's actually a stressful habit that's not actually serving
(27:15):
you that well.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
And so what is it?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
What is a better habit? You know, what is something
you can do that's different?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You're you're kind of read writing the roles of societal
expectations around this stuff as well. I feel like you
want to change culture too, don't you.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Well, I think I want to.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I always focus on individuals, you know. I focus on
people like you know, I used to. I did a
lot of like work in the entrepreneurial space, and I
wrote a book called hundred Dollars Startup. And part of
why I wrote that book back in the day was
like there's a lot of books about startups and like
companies and organizations, And I really want to focus on
people like individuals, because I mean that's how society changes, right,
(27:55):
it doesn't change like top down with somebody being like,
here's a society, now change you know.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, Chris, what what are you?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I don't I don't know, Scott, I have no idea
what what?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
What? What are you? So? If you had to say,
like your soul is it an entrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
No? My soul? Agree?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Writer? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Author? A creator?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I gain what creator? Now is now a word that's
been like, you know, it's kind of like influencer.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I don't like that.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
But you're not conformist?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, myself?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
You know, right, but you're no but yourself. You're a
very unique You're a very unique self.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I think you look like you are too.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
I mean, I was just gonna say I was just
going to say, kindred feels a little bit of a
kindred spirit.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
You know, I don't know how many Columbia like psychologists
are doing mentalism, you know on the side, right, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
No, I just feel like we both just like being
nonconformists and and living life on our own terms. I
think that's the big thing, that's how can we live life?
On our own terms and that I've resonated with you
about that since I was in grad school writing for
a Psycholoday today and reading your bog posts. That's funny,
that's so well two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, yeah, when you've done ten books, right, ten books?
You know, so I'm only on.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Nine eleven, but he's eleven. Who's yea rise above is
my eleventh but yeah, we're not counting here. But no,
so yeah, no that I really want to just like
get to like what is the essence of you? Like
what is you know? Yeah, like your books are not
their books are very different from each other too.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
You know what's like the thread that runs through like
your your all, your.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Work, the thread that runs through it all is this
message of you don't have to live your life the
way other people expect And I think God love that
starting point. You know, I kind of goes through everything.
I mean, we could say more about it, but it
is also kind of self explanatory, you know, like there's
in life you encounter all kinds of people who have
(30:00):
expectations for you, and they have ideas and here's what
they want you to do, and good for them, you know,
they can they can have those things, but also you
can decide for yourself, and you know, and deciding for
yourself is not, by the way, like a completely selfish,
you know, hedonistic approach, like you ultimately are going to
(30:21):
be fulfilled you know, by doing good things for yourself
and for others. Like there's very much a service component
to it. But I think, you know, if you just
start with that, like you don't have to live your
life with other people want you to. And also maybe
there there's another way. This is another theme of like
there isn't there there's one path, you know, and there's
(30:43):
a traditional path, and there are alternative paths there. You know,
it's more than one way to do things, and you
can apply that to you know, education, relationship, spirituality, business, life, work, travel,
you know everything.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, are you an ely child?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I have a brother and a sister, but I'm the oldest.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Okay, you're the oldest, And like were you was this
part of your personality like in like middle school? Like
do you do you see seeds of this?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Like yeah, well I was kind of I didn't have
the greatest childhood, like I had some like trauma and
things and then uh I.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Didn't go to high school.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
I went to one year of high school and dropped
out and later went to college.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
That's it. Well that's interesting. Look that will yo, let's
double click on that. Sure, Well, this is the psychology podcast,
you know. Yeah, yeah, you got you know, you got,
you got yourself into here. Now. That is so I
won't go I won't go into traumas. I want to
be respectful. But uh, but the fact you only had
one year so did you? So you never graduated high school?
(31:43):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
No? Yeah, I kind of stuck into community college and
because they're not like you know, super checking for you know,
qualifications at the average community college and uh and then uh,
by the time I I think they realized I didn't
have the high school degree, I was doing pretty well.
I actually liked college. College was very different than high
school because I had some freedom. I had freedom of
(32:04):
choice and like, oh, you can schedule a class at
this time or this time, and oh, if I want
to study this, I can take that. So I liked
that kind of thing. And then I transferred to like
a four year institution and so then I was a
transfer student, so I'm like skipping the whole like high
school thing.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
I mean it's amazing what you've what you've done with
your life, and.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I feel very fortunate.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I feel I made some good, some choices at at
like this early age that really led to like a
branching out later, you know, and like that really that
was the thing. If I didn't, if I hadn't made
those choices, like my life would be very, very different.
So it's not like, oh I was so smart. It's
more like I saw this opportunity and figured this one
(32:48):
thing out. So I'm really grateful for that. And I
almost did a PhD. But I came to my senses
before that, so I stop at the master's level. Yeah, yeah,
that's smart. No, I mean, look, you're just you're such
an interesting guy.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
I've never never had you in my podcast, and you know,
it's like I want to talk about your art of
nonconformity stuff too. It's just like you know, I've I
want to like fold in some of your older stuff too,
because yeah, I see the thread. I also just think
it's so interesting because like you're you're known as well
in a lot of these productivity spaces. I mean, you're
spoken in the same breath as James Queer, and Tim
(33:20):
Ferris right, and and you've written books about hot you know,
like finding a side hustle right and and having a
startup and business and and and and and now here
you are kind of writing this book about about It's
not it's not it's not like time management. It's like,
I feel like a new word invented to describe this
(33:41):
book is about time freedom. I don't know, I don't
know time on anxiety, like not not anxiety with time.
You so, but you're what you're doing is you wanting
people to change the relationship they have to time. And
I feel like that's the essence of this when you say.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
That is exactly the essence of it. Yes, like we
need a different relationship with time because what we've been
doing is not helpful. Like what we do is we
kind of look to like the time management methods or
here's a new method of getting things done, a new
method of productivity, and you know, to tie back to
where we started a while ago. It's like, well, then
(34:18):
we get really good at doing the wrong things. Or
we're like seeking relief and ultimately all these steps that
we're taking are not going to provide relief. We're just
going to like get to the top of the mountain
and realize we've climbed the wrong mountain, or or we're
just not ultimately going to be very good at these
(34:38):
like we're going to sure, we're going to like apply
this to this technique, but as I said, the more
you do, the more there is to do. So yeah,
so you're going to You're not going to win that war.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
We have a lot of beat to interest. One is
I think we're both a bit ner diversion so little
h which probably explains our nonconformist lifestyle. I mean, I
think there's gotta be a correlation there between ADHD in
particular and restlessness or a certain like adventure seeking kind
(35:14):
of persona. Do do you agree?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
One hundred yeah? Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
And can you tell people about this event neurodiversion that you.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Hoped we need to we need to have time.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Can I come to you.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I would love for you to be there next year.
We just did the neurodiversion it people can learn about
it neurodiversion dot org. It is a celebration of neurodiversions.
I wanted to create an event unlike any other amazing
I used to have a previous event called World Domination
(35:48):
Summit in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I did ten years.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Was that what Jonathan Fields?
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, Jonathan was there all ten years, like ten years.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Jonathan's my boy.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, yeah, he's one of my best friends. I talked
to him almost every day.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah, tell me he's talked today.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Okay, I will.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
I mean he also started two thousand and eight, or
maybe it was two thousand and seven he started.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
So I did that. Yeah, so we did.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
We did that previous event and loved it. Kind of
came to a natural end, like during the pandemic, and
I really missed hosting events. I like bringing people together
and just doing things, you know, just doing like big things.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
And so.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I talked to as I was getting more into like
the nerd Divergent space and ADHD space, I was talking
with people and they're like, there's nothing like there's academic conferences,
that's fine, but there's no like community focused event. So
so we just did the pilot project in Austin in March.
We brought about three hundred people together and we're going
(36:46):
to do it again next year, bigger and better, and
it will be in Austin again March twentieth to twenty second.
Would love to have you there or maybe the amazing
doctor Scott.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah, I'll do a show if you want.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, no, I totally want. Actually we talked about a
little bit for this one, but the first one, but
I was that was my pilot project and was like
figuring it all out.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Well, that's spring break, so I don't have classes doing
those dates my calendar right now.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That's good, you know, I would love to have you there. So, yeah,
we want to bring people together to well to learn,
but also just to connect. And I think probably my
favorite part about hosting an event like that is when
people say, like I feel really seen. I feel like,
you know, there's other people here who like think the
way I do or see the world the way that
I do, and like I'm finding community. That's like, that's
(37:37):
the reason we do it. So yeah, we'd love you
and some of the listeners to be there as well.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Absolutely. I just think that's uh, it's just so cool
that you're doing that. And I've been a big advocate
of nerdiversity before it was so cool to.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Be an advocate o G.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah, yeah, I just feel like now it's like really
cool to be nerve. The Virgin it's like for young people.
You know, I'm a college professor, so I'm you know,
I see what the latest trends are, and I feel
like nerd diversientcy is trending on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Like I imagine you might have like most I would imagine,
correct me if I'm wrong, you have mostly positive feelings
about that, but also like obviously some caveats and oh definitely.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
I wrote an article recently, aren't we all nerdiversient and
quotation marks and saying no, we're not. You're answering that
question is like, no, we need to chill a little bit,
because an article came out in the UK saying that
every everyone identifies now is nerd diversion, that the word
(38:40):
will kind of lose all its meaning if if everyone
is that, But we're all definitely weird in some way.
That's true, you know, but we're not all. We're not
all you know, wired for ADHD or wired for autism
or a whole number of things that have traditionally followed
under that umbrella. But it is an interesting question whether
(39:04):
or not the term nerd divergent really like just how
much we want to include under that umbrella, you know,
And that is an interesting question. I would be humbly
say I did not have the answer. I didn't have
the answer that. You know, everyone that feels weird or different,
does that mean they're nerd divergent? You know, And I
don't have the answer to that. But I'm okay right
(39:25):
now circumscribing it to a handful of of social disorders
and other kind of developmental situations that make you so
out of the norm that it actually is a disruption
to your life as well as bringing you lots of
gifts to your life.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
That's great. Yeah, yeah, well said, that's great.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yeah, yeah, perfect. Yeah. Do you still travel a lot?
Have you have you chilled at all in your exploration dry?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I have chilled a little bit.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, I mean I'm still traveling a good bit. I'm
going to the Mid East this week, so I'll be
there for a little bit. But I do this like
a few times a year. I'll go on like a
big trip. I used to be like once a month.
I was going around, like completely around the world, and
I did that for eight years. And you know, I
(40:18):
still like it, but I also like not traveling.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
So do you think like it ever reached the level
of like something like pathological, where like you're trying to
avoid yourself.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Sure, I don't know if well pathological, I don't know,
but I don't know it is compulsive. Like further back
a little bit, like let's retreat from pathological and call
it compulsive. But I would say, yeah, definitely, definitely, no
for sure because.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
I speak out a personal experience. I used to feel
like wherever I was, I didn't want to be there,
you know, you know what I'm saying, Like i'd be
I need to go to England next week. I need
to go to England. But then I realized it's just
like wherever you go, there you are, you know. And
I was like, oh, maybe that's the issue. As I
like to come to Jesus moment, like I did about that.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
I don't think I had to come to Jesus moment,
but I did. I mean I kind of even knew
that at the time that there was this element of
I really liked the transit of it. I liked like
I didn't like backtracking. I really hated backtracking. But if
I was going in a direction, I mean, it was
completely illogical, right, But like if it was just if
I was traveling, then I felt better about then if
(41:24):
I stopped, if I stayed in England for you know,
a few days, I'm like, oh, I got to get on,
Like what's where It's the next place. So I think
that was that was part of it, for sure, for sure,
But it was also like enjoy enjoyable. It's like, well,
what else was I going to do? You know, like
you know, I think that was also like a thing
of like, Okay, I can see that this not every
element or aspect of this is pure, and at the
(41:47):
same time.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Some of it is, So you know, what am I
going to do?
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yeah? And also you know you really you really have
decided you wanted to live life on your own terms
and not.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I wouldn't trade for anything.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Well, it's great to get to know you better as
a human. I hope you were okay that we spent
the last twenty minutes talking about you. Great.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
I wanted to talk about whatever is helpful or interesting
to you and your Oh yeah, so let's splip it
some time and talk more about you. I'd love to
learn more.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Oh, thanks, gret I really apprecid. Yeah, absolutely, well, this
can definitely be a to be continued situation. But I
wanted to know a little more context behind, you know,
what leads up to a book like this. This kind
of book just doesn't come out of nowhere, and it's
part of a long history of of you trying to
think of outside the box about life, and outside the
(42:38):
box about kind of societal pressures and expectations. So I
see it within a larger context ecosystem of Chris. So
thanks so much for Yeah cool, Thank you so much
for coming to my podcast to discuss with that's and
good luck with the book tour.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Awesome man, sounds good. Thank you, Ny
Most of us make decisions about time without really thinking
about it. We have these kind of internalized rules. Some
of them come from childhood. It's like this is how
this is how time was spent. You know, we all
had dinner at this time. These are ways that we interacted.
These were the expectations that I had, and so we
tend to carry those on or we like you know,
(00:21):
create our own at some point without thinking about it
so subconsciously. So one time rule is like I am
always responding. I respond to things within a certain time period,
you know, within twenty four hours or whatever. And maybe,
like we've talked about, maybe that's helpful and maybe that's
a good habit, or maybe that's actually a stressful habit
that's not actually serving you that well. So what is
(00:41):
a what is a better habit?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
You know?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore
the depths of human potential. Today, we have Chris Gilibo
on the show. Chris is an author, entrepreneur, blogger, and speaker.
Actually received attention for his travel blog and book called
the Art of Nonconformity. More recently, he wrote the book
Time Anxiety, The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way
(01:10):
to Live. In this episode, we discuss how time anxiety
is more than just fear of missing out and is
also different from ADHD. Chris argues that the fear of
running out of time is very normal and that you
have the power within you to feel better about your time.
We discuss things like what is enough and he challenges
the quote gospel of efficiency in Western culture. This was
(01:32):
a fun and informative chat with someone I've wanted to
chat with for quite a while now. So without further ado,
I'll bring you Chris Gilbo. Hey, Chris, what a Cality podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Awesome? Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, I'm very happy to have you and I really
enjoyed your new book. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh, thank you, enjoyed yours as well, Rise Above. Yeah
that's well, last couple months. A couple months behind me,
I guess, but around the same time, right I saw
you're doing all these interviews, I was ready to publish.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, thank you, but this is about you. This interview
is about you, your new book, Time Anxiety, the Illusion
of Urgency, and a Better way to Live. Can you
just start off by telling our audience a little bit
about you and why you wrote this book?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, of course, So like you, I'm an author. I've
been an entrepreneur. I was an aid worker for several
years in West Africa. I had a project called the
Art of Nonconformity where I went to every country in
the world and started blogging about it. That's kind of
how I started sharing online. Going back to two thousand
and eight, I remember that.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I remember you, Chris, I remember you from the Psychology
Today days when I was valuing there.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, okay, that's right, that's right. Wow, how about that?
That was a that was that was quite a while ago.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, and then I wrote my first book with Perigee.
Actually I saw you've been with them for several of
your books, and yeah, I mean I kind of built
this like on dimentional career community, sharing with them, hosting
events and stuff. And As to as for time anxiety,
I guess I felt like over the past few years,
(03:11):
I was doing a lot of things but also feeling
kind of stressed out about it and feeling a little
bit I don't know, chronically indecisive or you know. I'm
doing all these things. I like the things that I do.
It's not that I'm unhappy, but I also feel stressed
about how I spend my time, and like, am I
(03:32):
doing the right things? How do I decide what to
do next of all the things I could do? And
just as I talk with lots of people kind of
see that this is maybe not universal, but a very
common condition or experience of people just feeling distressed about
time in different ways, a sense of time running out,
a sense of being too late for something. There's various,
(03:52):
you know, aspects of it. But I just thought it
was really interesting and I wanted to delve into it
more like for myself and ultimately for other people as well.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
That's great. Yeah, it's very clear as part of our
culture right now, that's been as long as I can remember.
It's been part of it, this pressure to get as
much done or else or else you're missing out. But
you clearly distinguished between this and FOMO fear of missing out,
and as well as ADHD. I'm surprised you didn't put
(04:23):
the acronym fort the fear of running out of time,
but that's what you're that's the acronym, right is fort?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Okay? Yeah? Maybe for the revised edition.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah, So can you just tell the audience a
little about why is the fear of running out of
time different than Fomo and even Adhd.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Sure, sure, well, I think the fear of running out
of time and it's not only it's like the simultaneous,
like the fear of running out of time, while the
uncertainty over how to spend the time that we have.
And I think that is what time anxiety is. It's
not one or the other, it's a little bit above
and and I think time anxiety occurs through like all
(05:03):
three conditions of time, so past, present, and future. Like
the past, we have some regret, we feel that maybe
we should have made a different choice about something, and
that's has therefore informed the paths that are available to
us now the present, like we talked about what do
I do?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
You know, how do I?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
How do I choose how to spend my time? And
then the future? You know, one am I ultimately working toward?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You know? Is there a sense of purpose? You know
in my life?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Whereas I think Fomo tends to relate more to the present.
You know, it's like everybody's having fun without me, or
like I am I am missing out on something? And
then you know, for Adhd, I think you know I
have experience with that I was diagnosed as a kid
and then as an adult. And the more that I've
learned about ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence, the more
(05:50):
I kind of recognize, Okay, this, you know, this might
show up in different ways, or it might be more
common among those of us who you know, identify with
the traitor. It can like that, but also the general population,
like a lot of people have you know, fears and
concerns and distress over the role of time in their life.
(06:11):
So it's not something that is unique to ADHD. There
are parts of it, like time blindness, you know, that
might show up more for people who have ADHD, but
it's certainly not exclusive.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Cool. Thanks for making all those distinctions. You really this
came to problems with you when you wrote a blog post,
isn't that right? You wrote a blog post about your experience,
and you got a lot of feedback, You got a
lot of comments. What are some things you discovered from
those comments?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, I noticed in the comments. But then also, like
I did a lot of research and talked with about
fifteen hundred people, some detailed surveys of people with different
walks of life and different ages and backgrounds and stuff.
I think the thing that surprised me more than any
other book project I've worked on, or any other research project,
(07:00):
the shared language. People you know, from these different backgrounds
would say almost almost uncannily like the same words, and
I'd say, what does time anxiety mean?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
To you there was the sentence, I feel like there's
something I should be doing, but I'm not sure what
it is. Like there's something I should be doing right now,
but I'm not sure what it is. A lot of
people said that, like, like just verbatim, almost when I
talked with them individually. And also the sense of being
too late for something. And I thought what was interesting
(07:34):
about being too late is I think a lot of
us might think, oh, that's something that people say at
a certain like, you know, generational point in their life.
You know, as you get older you say that. But
I heard that language from seventeen year olds. So it's
like a seventeen year old's like, I feel like I'm
too late, you know, for something, And it's easy for
(07:55):
those of us who are, you know, not seventeen or
anything close to that, easy for us to kind of
like dismiss them and say, oh, but you have your
whole life ahead of you, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
But the whole point is the perception.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, the perception is like the perception people have is
that they've.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Missed their chance.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
So see, those are some of the things that kind
of jumped out right away, and I realized, like, there's
a lot to this that we should look at more.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
What if you have missed your chance?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I guess there's other chances, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I mean, you know, I've missed my chance to become
a gymnast, right or you know, there's lots there's certain
things that you do need to do, you know, from
a young age and specialization and such. But you can
dwell on the fact that you know, you're not going
to be a gymnast at the age of forty seven
(08:47):
or whatever someone's age is, or you can say, given
all the life experience that I have acquired thus far,
you know, and there has to be some wisdom through that,
even if you acquired that wisdom by making so called mistakes,
like what's next? Like what what is the what is
(09:08):
the chance that you can now no grab a hold of?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Hmm? Well, yeah, I love this that you have other opportunities.
But I think that there's a great relief in accepting
that it's too late for some things. You know, I
think a lot of people, some people feel a lot
of pressure. I mean, women feel a lot of pressure
to get to have children before sertainaid, right, I mean,
because they're biological constraints. But you know, I spoke, I've
(09:34):
spoken to some women who used to be obsessed with
that and then then it never happened, and you know,
now when their fifties and they're like, yeah, I've made
peace with that. Yeah, it's like life still goes on.
It's okay, I can deal with this. You know, there
are other ways I can leave a legacy, and so
you know, sometimes it's not as bad. You know, you panic,
you panic, you know, maybe you miss it, and then
(09:56):
you're real you do realize that life goes on, you know,
you know there are other things you can do.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, maybe there's a grief process you know that has
to occur, or you know, a process of acceptance you know,
as as you say, but ultimately, like ultimately we are
stressed about time because time is limited and time is short,
and you know, it's just it is a continuous process,
which is I think a big part of what is
(10:23):
to stressing. You know, once it is, once it has
been lost, it cannot be regained, you know, unlike other resources.
And so ultimately I think, I mean a key is
you know, radical, radical acceptance of it.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I want to jump right. I really enjoyed your book,
and I want to shoot right to my favorite chapter,
which you know, so I know usually you're supposed to
go in order and be all like that, but I
just want to shoot to, which is you have a
chapter in your book called what Is Enough? And I
kind of beligned myself to that chapter because I wanted
to know the answer and because I think that it
(10:59):
spoil or you don't you don't, you don't give the
answer once and for all. But can you explain to
people why they're first of all, why is there the
whys of always feel like we're never enough? And how
do you answer that question?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah? Well, I think for let's see, what's the best
starting point? Mentioned?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
You know that I mentioned this thing about how like
how do how do we choose you know, how to
how to spend time and such? Of all the things
we can do and for most of us these days,
like we're not working in factories, you know, we're not
working in manufacturing, like we're doing some sort of knowledge work,
you know, whether it's for an organization or an education
or for ourselves or whatever. So the work never ends, right,
(11:43):
and so like there's always something else to be done.
You finish something, there's always something waiting. And then it's
not only in our work lives, there's all like we
have access to unlimited information, right, unlimited information, education, entertainment,
as youainment, like, there are no limits, there are no constraints,
which is exciting in lots of ways, and it's also overwhelming.
(12:07):
And so I think, you know, the general point is
if we don't set constraints or limits for ourselves, nobody
else is going to. And so what I've found to
be helpful is, like you know, at the start of
any day or any week, or any project or whatever
kind of life cycle you think in, it's kind of deciding,
here is what enough looks like, Like if I do
(12:30):
these things, I'm going to feel satisfied. I'm going to
recognize that as a point of achievement or completion, or
at least like a point of pausing and then just
kind of reflecting right before I just kind of go
on to something else. I think we tend to get
overwhelmed and burned out just because we keep going, you know,
all the time, and that's our natural tendency, at least
(12:51):
it is for me. And so I've started to kind
of like, what would enough be? Like, you know, in
this situation, if I do these things, will that be?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I could do more? But is that sufficient? Why do
you think it was your you know, you said you'd
liked that concept. Why was that resonant to you?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Hil I want to take a moment to make a
few important announcements that I'm really excited about. As you
all know, I'm committed to helping people self actualize. In
the service of that, I just had a new book
com out called Rise Above. Overcome a victim mindset, empower
yourself and realize your full potential. In this book, I
offer a science backed toolkit to help you overcome your
(13:37):
living beliefs and take control of your life. Are you
tired of feeling helpless? This book will offer you hope,
not by identifying with the worst things that have happened
to you, but by empowering you to tap into the
best that is within you. Rise Above is available wherever
you get your books. Are you a personal coach looking
to take your coaching to the next level. I'm also
excited to tell you there are Foundations of Self Actualization.
(14:00):
Three day immersive experience for coaches is back by popular demand.
Foundations of Self Actualization Coaching is a course offered to
enhance your coaching practice by offering you evidence based tools
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clients and walk their unique creative potential. You can learn
more about the course and register by going to Center
(14:21):
for Human Potential dot com slash s a C. That's
Center for Human Potential dot com slash s a C. Okay,
now back to the show, because I'm low key obsessed
with this this this tension we often feel between doing
and being. And you know, I struggle with the optimal
(14:45):
sense of how much story my day should I be
doing and how much should I be being? And I
like the way you frame it. And in a way,
your book is like a good coaching book because you
don't tell people how to live their life, but you
ask good questions, some powerful coaching questions, things that really
for people to really reflect on and to really think about.
(15:05):
You know, even just like sitting back and just meditating
to yourself, how much would be enough for me? It
is a really interesting question, you know. It's like it
really got me thinking about like I can answer that
question and then I can try to accept it. But
the second after I accept it, I'm already thinking what
should I be doing next. It's like it's like there's
(15:27):
such a tendency that's built into us that that that
when we're being, we're thinking about doing. When we're doing
a lot, we think, oh I maybe need some rest here,
need to be being, you know, we're constantly wanting to
be in another state. Is another thing too.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, well, I mean it's okay to want more, you know,
I think it's okay.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Like I'm still pretty goal oriented and also like low
key obsessed with like, oh I want to do a
bunch of stuff. I mean that's so this is not
a book on minimalism, you know, necessarily, this is not
a book, not a book on do less. It's more
like if you are a person, if you are type A,
or you don't have to be Type A, but like
if you are like a person who likes to do
(16:08):
stuff but also feel stressed out of it sometimes, I
mean that's you know, like it's okay to want more,
but you also might have to accept you know, it's
like there's ways to look at all of it.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
I have so many questions here for you, buddy. I
thought that it was interesting that that you bring in
the literature on cognitive distortions into this, because that's a
topic I, as a psychologists, really care about, you know,
and and I would love to know some ways in
(16:41):
which my cognitive distortions can be hindering or or or
accelerating my feet my what was the acronym? I said,
my fear of my fort when you have time?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Okay, right, right, right, a little bit sure, yeah, yeah,
what cognitive distortions do you feel like you particularly experience
I mean personal personalization?
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yeah okay, oh yes, right, I'm like Michael Jordan over here.
That was personal.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Right, right, right exactly? That that's the name.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Okay, So you're right, right, you know, maybe feeling off
that I don't know that this problem is unique to
you or something, or you know, obviously you are a
high performer, but you should be performing even higher, right,
Like there is no sense of enough, right, It's you're
on some sort of like treadmill or it's you know,
(17:36):
pushing the rock up the hill kind of thing. You know,
maybe a sense of like unable to I don't know,
it's like happiness is a weird word, of course, but
unable to like feel some satisfaction or contentment.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
It's like if one thing is done, you know, what's
the next thing? Or if something goes well, you know,
your your booksells like, you know, bunch of copies, but
then you look like somebody else's book, you know, sold
more copies. I mean these are slightly different, but I
do think they're all kind of connected to, you know,
to a sense of disortion around around personalization. So what,
(18:14):
so what do we do? I mean, you're the expert.
I feel like you're more of an expert than me
in this.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
You know. I always think about, like, how can we.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Rewrite, you know, a story, or write or like write
a different story. It's it's not like the other story
isn't there in our heads as well, but how can
we add to it?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
How can we think about when I when.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I feel like the self applied pressure, or I feel
envious of someone else, or feel like my circumstances are unique,
I often think like would I want to live somebody
else's life, Like would I like, I maybe I feel
envious of this person, but would I want to trade
my life for theirs. It's not even just living someone
else's like, it's trading your trading your own life, you know.
(18:56):
Ye going to say, like, when you trade your life
or someone else, you you don't just get there is
you have to give up yours, right, you have to
like all the experiences you've had, the relationships that you've had,
the like learnings that you've had, like everything that you
know good and bad in your life like no longer exists.
(19:16):
And once I think that way, I'm like, oh, there's nobody, Like,
there's nobody out there that I would want to trade
my life for. And that actually feels pretty good. Were
you going to say?
Speaker 3 (19:25):
No? No, I really resonate with that, and that that's
really helped me a lot with my whatever jealousy of
people on Instagram and I'm like, Okay, that's just one
aspect of their life, but you know it's not. No, No,
really really good point. Can you tell people a little
bit about this concept of time blindness? Time blindness? Yeah? Yeah,
(19:47):
Why can it be so liberating if you understand it.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I wrote this like manifesto for the book and had
the recommendations like one through ten. I put like first
recommendation is, like, one of the best things you can
do your life is to allow ten to fifteen minutes
more than you think you need for transitions or you know,
for going somewhere, leaving to meet someone, or is just
kind of moving from you know, thing to thing in
(20:12):
your life. And it's obviously very simple advice, but it
seems it seems to both resonate and also people some
people feel really uncomfortable with it as well. And time blindness,
you know, is essentially a condition or an experience of
chronically like overestimating or underestimating time. And I think we're
(20:36):
you know, it's it's common for people with ADHD, but
I think a lot of people, most people don't perceive
time very well. I was doing this experiment on my
book tour where we would like count to like everybody
close their eyes and count to sixty and let's see
how accurate you know you are, and like, nobody's accurate.
Everybody's off by like fifteen percent, and so in the
(20:58):
course of one minute, people are off by fifteen percent.
And so if you extrapolate, like if you're trying to
keep track of time in your head, you're going to
be off like all the time. Plus it's not a
very good use of your cognitive functioning. There's a lot
of other stuff you should be doing, you know. So
time blindness is just like you know, imagining that we
are going to be able to do all these different things.
(21:18):
I have to leave for a meeting, but I'm going
to try to, you know, do one more thing before
I go, and then I'm going to be late because
I didn't think about the traffic or how you know,
whatever the other variable or circumstance is. And so most
people who are chronically late, I think they don't like that.
Like most people are like not happy with that. They know,
it's like stressful for them. They feel bad that they're
(21:39):
letting other people down. And you know, the simplest thing
they can do is just to add a little bit
more time and it will make their their life a
lot better. But some people are resistant because they're like
what will I do with all that extra time? You know,
which is a weird thing, but you know, you are
if you are ten to fifteen minutes late all the time.
(21:59):
You're probably not going to shift of being ten to
fifteen minutes early all the time, Like you're probably gonna
shift actually being like on time for things.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
And that's good. It's going to feel relieving.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, I know, that's a great point. And just in general,
this this fear you talk with somebody like beliefs that
people have that they need to unlearn, and this just
even just this thought that it if I have free time,
you know, what am I going to do with it?
You'll you'll end up spending that time thinking about and
(22:31):
what you should be doing more of. But why don't
we think about why don't we ever think about it
in terms of being like like in a wonderful opportunity
for being you know how people like there's not a
societal kind of script that says you should free up
your time so you can have more time to meditate,
or you can favor time so you can have more
time to just exist and like maybe just behold with
(22:54):
all in wonder, like your loved one or your child
or I mean that's just a different framing, but it
feels like that kind of you don't I don't know,
it might beginning.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You don't always need to have a task, I think
is what you're saying, right.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Thank you, thank you for explaining what my point was.
But yeah, no, it goes a lot back to this
this being versus doing thing, you know, And I do
think there are certain beliefs about I have to fill
every second of the day because if I don't, what
am I gonna do? And and it's like, well, you
(23:29):
don't always have to do every do something.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Right, but just do you find this also produces a conflict? Then,
like once you adopt this framework, you're like, Okay, that's good,
that's a good little tweak. But now my choice is
what's the ratio?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You know?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Like, Okay, I now I'm I'm experiencing being more and
that is good in my life, But you know, I
also want to work on things. I want to like
make things and create. Is it just an intuitive process
you kind of understand or like, I'm here's the time
for doing, here's the time for being?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Is it seasonal? Well?
Speaker 3 (24:08):
What I've what I learned from your book is that
a great first step is giving yourself more time. And
I think there's something really beautiful about that about figuring
out how you can have more freedom and maximum possibility
(24:28):
to choose the things you really want to choose, because
I think that's what it comes down to at the
end of the day. It's like like we get so
busy checking things off our to do list that we
start losing our own sense of self or losing our
own connection to ourselves. So yeah, well I like that.
I wanted to say, I like that as the first step.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Oh it's good.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I like the frame, the framing of the you know,
the being and doing the first step is interesting because
I think I wrote the rest of the book first,
and then it's just talking with my editor and it's like, man,
some interesting like research and probably some good suggestions here,
but like, think about the ideal reader for this book.
You know, the ideal reader is is pretty distressed and
(25:11):
they are kind of like overwhelmed, and like we need
to give them something like what do you do right now?
You know, Like what is something you can do to
start feeling better?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And I think one of the one of the great
things that anybody can do is, as you just said,
like give yourself the gift of time. So there's all
these cliches about like time is the most precious resource.
You know, time is more valuable than money, and but
most of us don't really live that way. And so
like there's a whole like industry, cottage industry of decluttering.
(25:43):
You know, it's like all this stuff I got to
declutter from my physical space, my home, my apartment, et cetera.
And I think that can be helpful. But like, time
is the thing that we are stressed about more than you,
like how many socks I have or how many trinkets
are on my desk? So what can we do to
give ourself time? How can we remove items from our calendar?
(26:05):
How can we close off one of our inboxes? How
can we just reframe how we think about saying yes,
you know to people who want to hang out that
we don't necessarily want to hang out with, Like, it
actually feels very relieving to do that.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I agree really well, put thank you. So how can
you use time rules to your advantage not your disadvantage?
Speaker 1 (26:30):
So most of us make decisions about time without really
thinking about it. We have these kind of internalized rules.
Some of them come from childhood. It's like this is
how this is how time was spent. You know, we
all had dinner at this time. These are ways that
we interacted. These were the expectations that I had, and
so we tend to carry those on or we like
(26:53):
you know, create our own at some point without thinking
about it so subconsciously. So one time rule is like
I am all responding. I respond to things within a
certain time period, you know, within four hours or twenty
four hours or whatever. And maybe, like we've talked about,
maybe that's helpful, and maybe that's a good habit, or
maybe that's actually a stressful habit that's not actually serving
(27:15):
you that well.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
And so what is it?
Speaker 1 (27:18):
What is a better habit? You know, what is something
you can do that's different?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
You're you're kind of read writing the roles of societal
expectations around this stuff as well. I feel like you
want to change culture too, don't you.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Well, I think I want to.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I always focus on individuals, you know. I focus on
people like you know, I used to. I did a
lot of like work in the entrepreneurial space, and I
wrote a book called hundred Dollars Startup. And part of
why I wrote that book back in the day was
like there's a lot of books about startups and like
companies and organizations, And I really want to focus on
people like individuals, because I mean that's how society changes, right,
(27:55):
it doesn't change like top down with somebody being like,
here's a society, now change you know.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, Chris, what what are you?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I don't I don't know, Scott, I have no idea
what what?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
What? What are you? So? If you had to say,
like your soul is it an entrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
No? My soul? Agree?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Writer? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Author? A creator?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I gain what creator? Now is now a word that's
been like, you know, it's kind of like influencer.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I don't like that.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
But you're not conformist?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, myself?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
You know, right, but you're no but yourself. You're a
very unique You're a very unique self.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I think you look like you are too.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
I mean, I was just gonna say I was just
going to say, kindred feels a little bit of a
kindred spirit.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
You know, I don't know how many Columbia like psychologists
are doing mentalism, you know on the side, right, you know.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
No, I just feel like we both just like being
nonconformists and and living life on our own terms. I
think that's the big thing, that's how can we live life?
On our own terms and that I've resonated with you
about that since I was in grad school writing for
a Psycholoday today and reading your bog posts. That's funny,
that's so well two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, yeah, when you've done ten books, right, ten books?
You know, so I'm only on.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Nine eleven, but he's eleven. Who's yea rise above is
my eleventh but yeah, we're not counting here. But no,
so yeah, no that I really want to just like
get to like what is the essence of you? Like
what is you know? Yeah, like your books are not
their books are very different from each other too.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
You know what's like the thread that runs through like
your your all, your.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Work, the thread that runs through it all is this
message of you don't have to live your life the
way other people expect And I think God love that
starting point. You know, I kind of goes through everything.
I mean, we could say more about it, but it
is also kind of self explanatory, you know, like there's
in life you encounter all kinds of people who have
(30:00):
expectations for you, and they have ideas and here's what
they want you to do, and good for them, you know,
they can they can have those things, but also you
can decide for yourself, and you know, and deciding for
yourself is not, by the way, like a completely selfish,
you know, hedonistic approach, like you ultimately are going to
(30:21):
be fulfilled you know, by doing good things for yourself
and for others. Like there's very much a service component
to it. But I think, you know, if you just
start with that, like you don't have to live your
life with other people want you to. And also maybe
there there's another way. This is another theme of like
there isn't there there's one path, you know, and there's
(30:43):
a traditional path, and there are alternative paths there. You know,
it's more than one way to do things, and you
can apply that to you know, education, relationship, spirituality, business, life, work, travel,
you know everything.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, are you an ely child?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I have a brother and a sister, but I'm the oldest.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Okay, you're the oldest, And like were you was this
part of your personality like in like middle school? Like
do you do you see seeds of this?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Like yeah, well I was kind of I didn't have
the greatest childhood, like I had some like trauma and
things and then uh I.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Didn't go to high school.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
I went to one year of high school and dropped
out and later went to college.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
That's it. Well that's interesting. Look that will yo, let's
double click on that. Sure, Well, this is the psychology podcast,
you know. Yeah, yeah, you got you know, you got,
you got yourself into here. Now. That is so I
won't go I won't go into traumas. I want to
be respectful. But uh, but the fact you only had
one year so did you? So you never graduated high school?
(31:43):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
No? Yeah, I kind of stuck into community college and
because they're not like you know, super checking for you know,
qualifications at the average community college and uh and then uh,
by the time I I think they realized I didn't
have the high school degree, I was doing pretty well.
I actually liked college. College was very different than high
school because I had some freedom. I had freedom of
(32:04):
choice and like, oh, you can schedule a class at
this time or this time, and oh, if I want
to study this, I can take that. So I liked
that kind of thing. And then I transferred to like
a four year institution and so then I was a
transfer student, so I'm like skipping the whole like high
school thing.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
I mean it's amazing what you've what you've done with
your life, and.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I feel very fortunate.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I feel I made some good, some choices at at
like this early age that really led to like a
branching out later, you know, and like that really that
was the thing. If I didn't, if I hadn't made
those choices, like my life would be very, very different.
So it's not like, oh I was so smart. It's
more like I saw this opportunity and figured this one
(32:48):
thing out. So I'm really grateful for that. And I
almost did a PhD. But I came to my senses
before that, so I stop at the master's level. Yeah, yeah,
that's smart. No, I mean, look, you're just you're such
an interesting guy.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
I've never never had you in my podcast, and you know,
it's like I want to talk about your art of
nonconformity stuff too. It's just like you know, I've I
want to like fold in some of your older stuff too,
because yeah, I see the thread. I also just think
it's so interesting because like you're you're known as well
in a lot of these productivity spaces. I mean, you're
spoken in the same breath as James Queer, and Tim
(33:20):
Ferris right, and and you've written books about hot you know,
like finding a side hustle right and and having a
startup and business and and and and and now here
you are kind of writing this book about about It's
not it's not it's not like time management. It's like,
I feel like a new word invented to describe this
(33:41):
book is about time freedom. I don't know, I don't
know time on anxiety, like not not anxiety with time.
You so, but you're what you're doing is you wanting
people to change the relationship they have to time. And
I feel like that's the essence of this when you say.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
That is exactly the essence of it. Yes, like we
need a different relationship with time because what we've been
doing is not helpful. Like what we do is we
kind of look to like the time management methods or
here's a new method of getting things done, a new
method of productivity, and you know, to tie back to
where we started a while ago. It's like, well, then
(34:18):
we get really good at doing the wrong things. Or
we're like seeking relief and ultimately all these steps that
we're taking are not going to provide relief. We're just
going to like get to the top of the mountain
and realize we've climbed the wrong mountain, or or we're
just not ultimately going to be very good at these
(34:38):
like we're going to sure, we're going to like apply
this to this technique, but as I said, the more
you do, the more there is to do. So yeah,
so you're going to You're not going to win that war.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
We have a lot of beat to interest. One is
I think we're both a bit ner diversion so little
h which probably explains our nonconformist lifestyle. I mean, I
think there's gotta be a correlation there between ADHD in
particular and restlessness or a certain like adventure seeking kind
(35:14):
of persona. Do do you agree?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
One hundred yeah? Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
And can you tell people about this event neurodiversion that you.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Hoped we need to we need to have time.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Can I come to you.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I would love for you to be there next year.
We just did the neurodiversion it people can learn about
it neurodiversion dot org. It is a celebration of neurodiversions.
I wanted to create an event unlike any other amazing
I used to have a previous event called World Domination
(35:48):
Summit in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I did ten years.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Was that what Jonathan Fields?
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, Jonathan was there all ten years, like ten years.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Jonathan's my boy.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, yeah, he's one of my best friends. I talked
to him almost every day.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah, tell me he's talked today.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Okay, I will.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
I mean he also started two thousand and eight, or
maybe it was two thousand and seven he started.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
So I did that. Yeah, so we did.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
We did that previous event and loved it. Kind of
came to a natural end, like during the pandemic, and
I really missed hosting events. I like bringing people together
and just doing things, you know, just doing like big things.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
And so.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I talked to as I was getting more into like
the nerd Divergent space and ADHD space, I was talking
with people and they're like, there's nothing like there's academic conferences,
that's fine, but there's no like community focused event. So
so we just did the pilot project in Austin in March.
We brought about three hundred people together and we're going
(36:46):
to do it again next year, bigger and better, and
it will be in Austin again March twentieth to twenty second.
Would love to have you there or maybe the amazing
doctor Scott.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah, I'll do a show if you want.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, no, I totally want. Actually we talked about a
little bit for this one, but the first one, but
I was that was my pilot project and was like
figuring it all out.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Well, that's spring break, so I don't have classes doing
those dates my calendar right now.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That's good, you know, I would love to have you there. So, yeah,
we want to bring people together to well to learn,
but also just to connect. And I think probably my
favorite part about hosting an event like that is when
people say, like I feel really seen. I feel like,
you know, there's other people here who like think the
way I do or see the world the way that
I do, and like I'm finding community. That's like, that's
(37:37):
the reason we do it. So yeah, we'd love you
and some of the listeners to be there as well.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Absolutely. I just think that's uh, it's just so cool
that you're doing that. And I've been a big advocate
of nerdiversity before it was so cool to.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Be an advocate o G.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah, yeah, I just feel like now it's like really
cool to be nerve. The Virgin it's like for young people.
You know, I'm a college professor, so I'm you know,
I see what the latest trends are, and I feel
like nerd diversientcy is trending on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Like I imagine you might have like most I would imagine,
correct me if I'm wrong, you have mostly positive feelings
about that, but also like obviously some caveats and oh definitely.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
I wrote an article recently, aren't we all nerdiversient and
quotation marks and saying no, we're not. You're answering that
question is like, no, we need to chill a little bit,
because an article came out in the UK saying that
every everyone identifies now is nerd diversion, that the word
(38:40):
will kind of lose all its meaning if if everyone
is that, But we're all definitely weird in some way.
That's true, you know, but we're not all. We're not
all you know, wired for ADHD or wired for autism
or a whole number of things that have traditionally followed
under that umbrella. But it is an interesting question whether
(39:04):
or not the term nerd divergent really like just how
much we want to include under that umbrella, you know,
And that is an interesting question. I would be humbly
say I did not have the answer. I didn't have
the answer that. You know, everyone that feels weird or different,
does that mean they're nerd divergent? You know, And I
don't have the answer to that. But I'm okay right
(39:25):
now circumscribing it to a handful of of social disorders
and other kind of developmental situations that make you so
out of the norm that it actually is a disruption
to your life as well as bringing you lots of
gifts to your life.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
That's great. Yeah, yeah, well said, that's great.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yeah, yeah, perfect. Yeah. Do you still travel a lot?
Have you have you chilled at all in your exploration dry?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I have chilled a little bit.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, I mean I'm still traveling a good bit. I'm
going to the Mid East this week, so I'll be
there for a little bit. But I do this like
a few times a year. I'll go on like a
big trip. I used to be like once a month.
I was going around, like completely around the world, and
I did that for eight years. And you know, I
(40:18):
still like it, but I also like not traveling.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
So do you think like it ever reached the level
of like something like pathological, where like you're trying to
avoid yourself.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Sure, I don't know if well pathological, I don't know,
but I don't know it is compulsive. Like further back
a little bit, like let's retreat from pathological and call
it compulsive. But I would say, yeah, definitely, definitely, no
for sure because.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
I speak out a personal experience. I used to feel
like wherever I was, I didn't want to be there,
you know, you know what I'm saying, Like i'd be
I need to go to England next week. I need
to go to England. But then I realized it's just
like wherever you go, there you are, you know. And
I was like, oh, maybe that's the issue. As I
like to come to Jesus moment, like I did about that.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
I don't think I had to come to Jesus moment,
but I did. I mean I kind of even knew
that at the time that there was this element of
I really liked the transit of it. I liked like
I didn't like backtracking. I really hated backtracking. But if
I was going in a direction, I mean, it was
completely illogical, right, But like if it was just if
I was traveling, then I felt better about then if
(41:24):
I stopped, if I stayed in England for you know,
a few days, I'm like, oh, I got to get on,
Like what's where It's the next place. So I think
that was that was part of it, for sure, for sure,
But it was also like enjoy enjoyable. It's like, well,
what else was I going to do? You know, like
you know, I think that was also like a thing
of like, Okay, I can see that this not every
element or aspect of this is pure, and at the
(41:47):
same time.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Some of it is, So you know, what am I
going to do?
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yeah? And also you know you really you really have
decided you wanted to live life on your own terms
and not.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I wouldn't trade for anything.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Well, it's great to get to know you better as
a human. I hope you were okay that we spent
the last twenty minutes talking about you. Great.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
I wanted to talk about whatever is helpful or interesting
to you and your Oh yeah, so let's splip it
some time and talk more about you. I'd love to
learn more.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Oh, thanks, gret I really apprecid. Yeah, absolutely, well, this
can definitely be a to be continued situation. But I
wanted to know a little more context behind, you know,
what leads up to a book like this. This kind
of book just doesn't come out of nowhere, and it's
part of a long history of of you trying to
think of outside the box about life, and outside the
(42:38):
box about kind of societal pressures and expectations. So I
see it within a larger context ecosystem of Chris. So
thanks so much for Yeah cool, Thank you so much
for coming to my podcast to discuss with that's and
good luck with the book tour.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Awesome man, sounds good. Thank you, Ny
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