February 7, 2023 • 39 mins
On today’s episode I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Mike Rucker about his book, The Fun Habit - How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life.
The Fun Habit is a science-backed, actionable case for the importance of seeking fun, rather than happiness, in our daily lives.
Mike argues that fun is a resource available to anyone, at almost anytime, yet most people are not having enough of it. His insightful new book reveals how intentionally increasing your joyful moments can improve your health, relationships, and productivity.
During our conversation we’ll unpack the 4 quadrants of the P.L.A.Y model and how it can help you assess your daily activities so you can incorporate for fun into your life.
Union Home Plus helps union members save money when they buy, sell, or finance their home.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Cadwell (00:00):
Welcome to Grit Nation. I'm Joe Cadwell, the
(00:03):
host of the show. Now on today'sepisode, I have the pleasure of
speaking with Dr. Mike Ruckerabout his book The Fun Habit:
How the pursuit of joy andwonder can change your life. The
fun habit is a science backedactionable case for the
importance of seeking fun ratherthan happiness in our daily
(00:25):
lives. Mike argues that fun is aresource available to anyone at
almost any time, yet most peopleare not having enough of it. His
insightful new book reveals howintentionally increasing your
joyful moments can improve yourhealth, relationships and
productivity. During ourconversation, we'll unpack the
(00:47):
four quadrants of the playermodel and how it can help you
assess your daily activities soyou can incorporate more fun
into your life. After theepisode be sure to check out the
show notes for more informationto help you dive deeper into the
subject.
(01:18):
And now on to the show.
Mike Rucker, welcome to gritnation.
Mike Rucker (01:32):
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Joe Cadwell (01:34):
Thank you, Mike, for taking your time to be on my
show today, I'm really excitedto introduce my audience to you
and your new book, The funhabit, how discipline, pursuit
of joy and wonder can changeyour life. It's just a fantastic
title on a fantastic concept.
How did you come up with theidea to write this book, Mike?
Mike Rucker (01:53):
Yeah, so it was, unfortunately, through a series
of unfortunate events. For along time, I had been studying
positive psychology and reallyuse those tools. And for folks
that don't know what positivepsychology is, it's essentially
a facet of psychology that looksto help people through
(02:14):
betterment. You know, ourclinical psychology is really
tools to help people mitigatedeficits, the kind of school of
thought around positivepsychology was a set of tools to
help people that are in sort ofnormal circumstances, you know,
using that as an academic term,not as a pejorative, but you
know, a set of tools that canhelp people through betterment.
(02:36):
And those tools had really beensuccessful for me from about
2009 to 2016. And in therearview mirror, I now know that
I was over optimizing forhappiness, you know, as really
probably pushing the limits ofwhat should have happened.
Because in 2016, my youngerbrother unexpectedly passed away
(03:00):
from a pulmonary embolism. Andthen around the same time, these
two things aren't correlated,but I found out that I had
advanced osteoarthritis. And upuntil that point, one of the
main ways that I had mitigatedstress and anxiety was running,
and I was told that I couldnever run again. And so yeah, I
really got knocked on my butt.
But I had always had this, youknow, driven drive to be happy.
(03:25):
And the more I tried to say,hey, you know, these tools have
always suited me, I'm going totry to, you know, get myself out
of this mess. I became more andmore unhappy. And so I knew
something was wrong. And Iserendipitously around that same
time, there was some emergingresearch that suggested that
(03:46):
people that are overly concernedabout optimizing for happiness,
so not necessarily valuinghappiness, wanting people to be
happy and wanting people toflourish. There's, you know,
we're not trying to villainizethis year, but people that kind
of always think about, you know,how can I be more happy? What
happens is they tend to see thatgap between where they want to
(04:10):
be so happiness is out there onthe horizon, and where they are,
and subconsciously start toidentify as being unhappy
because, you know, happiness issomething to be found, and you
essentially never find it right.
The concept in psychology iscalled the hedonic treadmill.
And so the kind of aha moment orawakening happened slowly, it
(04:33):
wasn't something that sort ofdawned on me, but what I came to
realize digging both into theresearch and then my own self
experimentation, is that insteadof kind of trying to think about
this all the time, regainingyour agency and autonomy,
especially as an adult, allowsyou to essentially have joy and
delight in the moment becauseyou kind of start to be
(04:56):
deliberate about how you spendyour time. And so What I found
was I just kind of tried toreclaim an hour or two out of my
week to do something that wasgoing to light me up without
really worrying about theoutcome at all, or any sort of
evaluation of the activity, justfinding things that I could
enjoy in the moment. And overtime, that starts to build
(05:18):
equity, right. And so, you know,as long as you don't have a
biological predisposition todepression, so that your malaise
or melancholy, or whatever, youknow, term works for you with
regards to sort of the despairyou're in in the moment, you can
start to index these joyfulexperiences where, you know,
your emotions might notnecessarily be in the positive,
(05:38):
but you're really reconnectingwith the things that bring you
joy and delight. And so there'sa whole host of positive
outcomes that come from that.
But unfortunately, as adults, wesort of start to habituate our
lives, and we forget that wehave that type of control until
someone sort of reminds us
Joe Cadwell (05:57):
until you have that that rude awakening, like that's
right, passing up your brotheror something that was
significant to that, that madeyou happy. And so the book, the
fun habit sounds like, you know,from my understanding, Happiness
isn't a destination, it's ajourney. And along that journey,
we should incorporate practicesthat are fun that that take time
(06:18):
out of our day to day the thingsthat we are can ascribe to do
and and then literally make timeto have fun. So what what is the
definition of fun? And, youknow, in layman's terms, how do
we define fun?
Mike Rucker (06:32):
Yeah, in layman's terms, I just anything that you
find pleasurable, right. And so,you know, the clinical
definition, we call it valence,which is essentially just a
spectrum of, are you enjoyingyourself? Or are you not, and so
not necessarily hedonicpleasure, right, like, but are
you enjoying the things that youare doing in your life. And
(06:53):
that's not to suggest thateverything in your life should
be joyful? Right, I mean, that,again, kind of goes back to the
trap that I talked aboutearlier. Right. And, you know,
in the literature, we call thattoxic positivity, we know that,
if you're trying to optimize allthe time, towards pleasurable
experiences, it can backfire.
But so many of us don't havemuch of that at all in our
lives. And so to be able tostart organizing your time in a
(07:17):
way, that you're deliberatelyincorporating that, and that
doesn't necessarily mean thathas to be an experience of the
Self, you know, you could cocreate those experiences with
your partner, or children orwhoever it is. Because, you
know, sometimes when it's firstposition, people are like, Yeah,
but I don't want to be selfish.
Well, it's not necessarily aselfish endeavor. Quite the
(07:39):
contrary, when you are findingfun in the things that you do,
and oftentimes is quitecontagious, so you're actually
lifting everyone up with you,right, rather than pulling them
down. And so, you know, the realmagic here is just how do you
rediscover the things that lightyou up. And fortunately, the
ways to do that are super, supersimple, you know, once you're
(08:02):
just kind of shoved away.
Joe Cadwell (08:05):
Sure. And it seems like as a society, Americans
seem to take things in excess.
And one of the things that wetend to take an excess as our,
our sort of attitude towardswork and that Puritan work ethic
and, you know, everything elseis going to suffer because of
this goal that I want toachieve. And I think as
children, we sort of start offbeing pretty happy and having
lots of fun, and then it seemed,at a certain point, you're just
(08:27):
conditioned and you get on thattreadmill, and I apologize the
hedonic treadmill is that isthat based in the in the Latin
for hedonistic,
Mike Rucker (08:38):
so, hedonic tone, again, sorry for using sort of
words for psychology. But itessentially means that the
concept there is that we know,through various studies that we
tend to have a setpoint of wherewe feel happy if we're not
living a deliberate life. So youknow, this was first kind of
(09:01):
discovered through studyinglottery winners. And some of the
science here is a little bitsticky. But it has been
replicated over and over again,where you can have these big
windfalls in your life, youknow, whether that's money or
something sort of exciting. Andgenerally over time, if you're
not deliberate about yourgoalposts, you know, to use kind
(09:22):
of a football metaphor, then youwill sort of revert back to
where you were originally happy,or sometimes even worse, because
your social norms have changed,you end up being less happy. The
good news there as just a quickaside is that's also true if
something really bad happens,right? Like, you know, this,
this was studied and folks thathad lost a limb which is awful,
(09:44):
right? When you firstexperienced that, you know, you
have to absorb the fact that youknow, there's going to be quite
significant change in your life.
And generally you follow thosepeople and as long as they're in
loving, supportiverelationships, they become just
as happy as they were beforethey lost their limb. Right. So
there's evidence on both sidesof the of the coin, that we tend
to fall back to this sort oflevel of happiness if we're not
(10:09):
living life deliberately. And sowhat's important about that,
right? What's important is thatif you set the goalposts and
you're like, you know, I knowthat this is what is going to
lead to a joyful life, you cankind of move your life towards
that direction, and then reallyenjoy and embrace the fact that
you have arrived and everythingderived from that place becomes
(10:32):
more joyful, because youunderstand that you're you kind
of have control over yourdomain, you recapture that
agency and autonomy instead of,to your point kind of being led
along by social norms, or, youknow, the considerations of
meritocracy. You know, thatwhere you're like, Okay, so you
know, when, when do I cross thefinish line, the sort of
(10:53):
illusion has there is no finishline. So once you understand
that, then you can start toreally be mindful about how
you're spending your time in themoment. And that's where true
joy and delight lives.
Joe Cadwell (11:07):
Sure, it sounds like it's a more holistic
approach, because again, youalways seem to move the
goalposts, I'm going to be happywhen I, you know, graduate high
school, and I move away fromhome, and I'm going to be happy
when I, I get that career thatI've been after, and I'm going
to be happy when I get thepromotion within that career
that I'm, I'm after, and I'mgoing to be happy when I marry
that person that I've, you know,very fond of. And next thing is
(11:30):
where I'm going to be happy whenI have, you know, children, and
then we're going to be happywhen we have guilt
grandchildren, and along the waythat goalpost continues to move
down the line, but you nevertake the time to be present in
the moment and enjoy theexperiences that are happening
right then and there. It's kindof how I'm reading that, ya
Mike Rucker (11:46):
know, you're spot on. And the addition to that,
why incorporating, you know,various aspects of things that
are important to you and lightyou up and, you know, bring you
joy is that if we don't createkind of this mosaic of life, the
way the brain works is ourhabituated experiences. So if
our life becomes really routine,we think about all of those
(12:09):
routines is kind of a singlememory. So this work is from
Bronnie Ware, and it's beenreplicated, we know that people
that kind of look back at theirlife, if their life has been
really routine kind of justexperiences is that one event
and generally, you know, sort ofends their days with a lot of
regret, versus people who haveexperienced, it doesn't
(12:31):
necessarily need to be a varietyof things, if they really love
their craft, you know, amusician that spent 30 years
becoming an amazing musician,because they had a love for
that, you know, interest. That'snot necessarily bad. So that's
not what I'm saying here. Butfor the most part, most of us
like a variety of activities.
And when we do that we store allof those activities, this
individual events. So when weare older and sort of are able
(12:54):
to really benefit from the actof reminiscing, we have a whole
host of, you know, a wholecatalogue of really fun memories
to look back at. But those needto be created, right?
Unfortunately, for all of ustime is a finite resource. So,
you know, it doesn't necessarilymean you can't start tomorrow.
But you know, being mindful ofhow you spend your time is
(13:16):
important to do as soon aspossible.
Joe Cadwell (13:21):
Absolutely. And again, just going back to some
of the cultural differences Ihaven't lived in spent some time
in Scandinavia, in the countryof Sweden, I know that the
Danish are often ranked as oneof the happiest countries on the
on the face of the earth thatthey even have a special word
for it. And I'm gonnamispronounce it, but I believe
it's Higgy. Are you familiarwith that? Yeah, the concept of
(13:41):
Higgin. And that, you know, it'sthe small things in life that,
that you take pleasure in, inthe moment that will truly add
the flavor and the depth and therichness of a meaningful
relationship with who you areand where you are at that
present time and who you'rewith. So,
Mike Rucker (13:56):
yeah, and you open the door for something that's
really important, I think, whatbecomes problematic when we sort
of do live a life that's, youknow, rooted in duty. And so,
that's not necessarily a badthing, if it's done
episodically, but why you seethese Nordic countries, you
know, always riding on the topis one, they really value
(14:18):
leisure rights, generally, atleast six weeks out of the year.
They have big maternity andpaternity benefits. So you know,
unfortunately, that's notsomething that we can replicate
here in the US, but it issomething to at least pay
attention to. And their socialbonds, you know, they live in a
lot more. In a culture whereengaging with other people
(14:40):
becomes a lot more important,right? And so, what can we do to
sort of replicate that a bithere in the US and especially
for men, right, I met there wasa really interesting article in
The New York Times this pastweek about how hard it is for
men to maintain friendships andhow you have to be more
deliberate and So that's where Ireally do advocate fun as a, as
(15:04):
an important mechanism toconnect with those friendships
and mitigate loneliness. Becausewe do know that people that are
lonely, I mean, it's not adotted line, it's a direct line
to all sorts of, you know,terrible health outcomes,
cardiovascular disease, fastercognitive decline, depression
and anxiety. So, you know, funoften is the glue that helps us
(15:26):
feel connected to others. Andfor introverts at least
connected to something otherthan themselves. So they're not
lonely, you know, oftentimes,that's either spirituality, or
it could be a connection tonature, or again, for a
hobbyist, someone who really isin love with their craft. But if
you don't have those things inyour life, then you kind of look
at the world as being empty andunfortunately, that leads to
(15:49):
some pretty negative outcomesboth psychologically and
physiologically.
Joe Cadwell (15:53):
And so before we get into the some of those
psychological and physiological,you know, manifestations of, of
working too hard, not takingenough time to form a fun habit
and introduce joy and, andleisure into your life. Yeah, it
again, it seems like it's verymuch the social constructs are
leading that way. There was afamous book of some years ago
(16:15):
called Bowling Alone, I believeRobert Putnam wrote the book
and, and how a lot of the socialconnectors that we used to have,
whether it was church or, youknow, bowling leagues, or
softball leagues, or, or afterschool activities have all been
stripped away. And now it seemsas as a society, and possibly as
a world, we are more siloed bythe fact that we have these
(16:37):
miniature computer screens infront of us that deliver just
content to us right to our eyes,and right to our ears and, and
your eye, you see it all thetime, I'm guilty of it as as
much as anyone else, or being ina group, but being completely
alone, looking down at a screenscrolling through playing
worddle Checking the news,checking my emails, and it does
seem like a lot of thestructures that we rely on for
(16:58):
happiness have have sort of, youknow, turned out dated. And
that's unfortunate. Yeah,
Mike Rucker (17:05):
no, you're spot on, I think one of a really telling
sort of visual representation ofthat is looking at any town
square, you know, prior to thetechnology age where, you know,
everyone was out there. And thatwas sort of the social network,
right? You were actuallyengaging with folks face to
face. And we know, there's ahost of benefit that comes from
(17:27):
that, you know, the main thingis, with regards to social media
use, what we're really trying todo is make ourselves feel a
little bit better throughdistraction, right. And then
we're kind of either bored or,you know, again, not to geek out
on scientific terms, but we'rein the state of negative
valence, where we just want tosort of get out of that. And
(17:49):
these tools, to some degree haveled to low level addiction,
because we know that we'll getthis little hit of dopamine,
right? But that's notnecessarily what makes us feel
great. Well, you what we nowknow, just a quick science
lesson here is that dopaminedoes make us feel kind of
excited. So it's sort of aninteresting feeling. And it does
(18:10):
feel good. But the primarymechanism for dopamine, with
regards to at least anevolutionary standpoint, was to
make us be ready for some sortof excitement, right? So when
dopamine really fills, you know,becomes alive is when we
anticipate something, notnecessarily experience
(18:30):
something. And so it's more ofthis neuro chemical cocktail
with an important component ofoxytocin when we have pro social
behavior. And so it's almostlike I use the metaphor of
saccharin versus sugar. Right, Imet, you know, we think we're
kind of enjoying ourselves goingthrough the arts, social feed.
But that's, it's really justsacrament sweet, it doesn't lead
(18:52):
to anything fulfilling. And thebest way to sort of understand
that if you don't believe me,it's trying to remember what you
were looking at in social media,like a week prior, right? I
mean, they're, the brain is notremembering it as important.
Rather now go have coffee with agood friend and try and remember
the conversation like handsdown, you're going to remember
(19:12):
that and so in the book, I usethis metaphor of the nothing,
you know, whenever we're kind ofdoing that and like now this is
enjoyable Is it because youknow, again, try and think back
because if it was important,your brain would remember it and
you know, 99 times out of 100it's not going to because it
wasn't important.
Joe Cadwell (19:31):
I'll I'll draw a poor analogy. I just came back
from Las Vegas where I was doingsome, some training I'm not a
gambler at all, but I can I justdrew this this. This correlation
that it's the difference betweengoing to a casino and maybe
pulling a slot machine handle onwinning $1 a day for a year, or
the one time you went into youwant 365 bucks on one pull the
(19:51):
handle, it's a different feelingall together.
So we've identified a problempeople are having struggling for
(20:14):
whatever reason with withfinding happiness and it like we
said, it can manifest itself inboth physical and, and
psychological ways. And some ofthe physical manifestations, I
understand this is twofold. Youknow, without enough happiness,
you've you physically suffer.
But with enough physicalactivity, it also helps promote
better moods. So let's startthere, just the psychological
benefits of saying being beingactive.
Mike Rucker (20:35):
Yeah, so it's really interesting, you kind of
need to look at it as buildingblocks. And I think that's one
of the reasons that kind ofbecomes problematic, because any
change in behavior is going tocause cognitive load, right? But
what we know is that when wefeel better over time, we end up
increasing our vitality. So thiswork is called broaden and build
(20:58):
theory. Like once we expand ouremotions, and we sort of, you
know, let's say we're kind ofjust constantly moving from a
four to a six on a zero through10, scale, through life, just
kind of trying to get throughonce we're able to sort of
understand that, we have theability to actually go out and
have fun, enjoy ourselves,whatever that looks like, even
(21:20):
if it's just a reframe, right,you know, all the way up to
really being mindful anddeliberate about how you
architect your entire week, youknow, the entire 106, eight
hours that you spend, whateveryou do in that context, it
starts to have this upwardspiral effect. And one of the
reasons that is is that we'velearned over the last 10 years,
(21:43):
the way our brain works isn'tnecessarily cause and effect,
like we originally thought, it'sreally a predictive machine,
right. And so once we start tounderstand that we have more
control over our domain than weoriginally thought, then that
allows us to predict that like,hey, you know, the world is
actually okay. And if it's not,I have control to change it, or
(22:04):
at least more control than Ithought, obviously, there going
to be bad things that happen,you know, my brother's death is
a perfect example that we haveno control over. But we have a
lot more control than we think.
And so, you know, sometimes thisis, you know, talked about in
the terms of a fixed mindset ora growth mindset, we can kind of
just think things happen to us.
(22:25):
Or we can think that, yes,things do happen to us. But we
can kind of control the way werespond to those, which will
have an uplifting effect on bothour physiological well being,
which we've already discussed,and obviously our psychological
well being as well.
Joe Cadwell (22:41):
Right? Good, good stuff there. So let's talk about
what we can do making fun ahabit you have an acronym called
Play. So what does play standsfor?
Mike Rucker (22:51):
So play is an acronym that stands for
pleasing, living, agonizing, andyielding. And to just kind of
give a quick summary of that,it's just four different ways to
look at how you're spending yourtime. And so in the context of
the play, model, pleasing, arethings that we can do any day,
you know, playing with ouranimals, reading a good book,
(23:14):
you know, fun is as unique asthe individual. So you'd kind of
decide what's a pleasingactivity for you. But the main
construct there is that you cangenerally do it whenever you
want. You know, it's easy enoughto execute that you can do it
whenever.
Joe Cadwell (23:26):
But there is some intention to it. It's not a
passive just sitting down on thecouch watching TV flipping
channels and type ofinteraction. exactly it.
Mike Rucker (23:34):
Yeah. And I'm not necessarily here to villainize
media, I think it still couldbe, you know, if you loved
watching, Breaking Bad with yourpartner, and you guys were
actively engaging in it andtalking about the topic or, you
know, maybe you're in apartnership where you don't talk
during the show, but you unpackit afterwards. For me, I would
say that show was lost, youknow, I don't really watch TV
(23:57):
much more. But I watched thatwith a group of friends. And I
wouldn't say that was a passiveactivity, because we love you
know, the philosophicalcomponents of it. But if you're
plopping down on the couch aftera hard day, and just channel
surfing, and then I was to askyou seven days later, like, hey,
what were you watching ontelevision? Again, I feel like
that's a good test of, to yourpoint, a fairly passive activity
(24:20):
that's not contributing to yourwell being. So yeah, you're
exactly right. It's something toeasy, easily execute and not
something we do passively, orkind of mindlessly Pat, you
know, habitually. The Livingquadrant are things that really
light us up. So they take someenergy to do but they are sort
of important to make sure you'reindexing somewhat throughout the
(24:43):
year so that can be mastering anew skill for some folks that
can be you know, vigorousexercise that leads to, you
know, some sort of outcomethat's important to them. For
some it could be a spiritualpractice, you know, a true
spiritual practice. But whateverit is, it really lights you up
potentially lead you to momentsof awe and wonder. But isn't
(25:07):
something that you cannecessarily do all the time.
agonizing are things that wehave to do, you know, that don't
take a lot of work and don'tbring much pleasure. And so why
they're important to identify ascertainly, again, we're not
suggesting that you cancompletely architect those out
of your life. But oftentimes,once people identify those
activities, there are easy waysto either improve them, or to
(25:31):
potentially outsource them increative ways. And so in the
book, you know, it's notnecessarily, you know, something
that requires money, there are alot of creative ways to sort of,
you know, figure out a differentway to approach those activities
that we just hate to do anddrain us.
Joe Cadwell (25:46):
And I think in the I can't remember Mike was it in
the book or a podcast where Imight have heard you on where
you talked about the the act ofbathing your children was one of
those agonizing experiences, notjust for you and your your wife,
but for the kids as well. Andyou found a creative solution to
outsource that, and kind of runan end game around it so that
you could enjoy more. So how didyou work? How did you do that?
Mike Rucker (26:09):
Yeah, I do bring that example up quite a bit,
because I think it's one ofthose ones where people get sort
of the, you know, one of thecrux stuff of what can hold us
up, right. And so the storygoes, my wife and I, over time,
just hated bathing our kids, forwhatever reason, they didn't
(26:31):
enjoy the experience, we kepttrying to, you know, recreate
it, and it never worked for us.
And it got so bad to the pointthat we kind of waited to the
end of the night and sort ofeyeball each other to see who
would be the martyr, you know,and I think they playfully sort
of realized that becomedestructive, and, you know,
poked at us even more. Yeah, soit had just become a disaster.
(26:54):
And we weren't in a financialposition where we could afford a
nanny, but some of our friendsdid. And so we would lament
like, oh, you know, like, theydon't even have to deal with
this. And so long story short,we're like, you know, why don't
we just get a babysitter to doit. And at first, that sounded
really unusual, right? Becausewhat an intimate act to just
(27:15):
bring in someone for a couplehours. But at the end of the
day, that's not really anydifferent than the nanny doing
it. Right? And so we kind of gotover that hump, like, Yeah, it
sounds kind of weird saying itout loud. But how is it any
different, and this is what wecan afford, we can afford a
caregiver for two to three hoursa week, and we hired this
amazing person, her name'sCaitlin. And she turned it into
(27:37):
a complete game, these kids hadso much fun with her, you know,
we generally had her for anextra hour. And what we did is
we replaced this agonizingactivity for my wife and I, and
we ended up going out and havingdinner those three nights a week
that Caitlin would come in tobathe them. And so here's this
huge win, right for people thatreally weren't enjoying their
(27:59):
time together. and turned itinto two kids that just had so
much fun with Caitlin and me andmy wife being able to connect in
a way we hadn't for quite sometime. And then the after effect
wasn't just that, you know, weall had more fun in that
instance, my wife and I cameback, and we were better
versions of ourselves. And thenwe also learned from Caitlin
(28:20):
right, so now that theexperience had kind of been
defamed, we were able to havemore fun with our kids, because
we picked up on some of, youknow, her skill set to make it
more enjoyable, and the wholething just became an upward
spiral. So the reason I likedthat story is, it's a great
anecdote of how you know,something that was just bringing
us all out, has now become thisreally additive experience, and
(28:42):
really didn't cost us all thatmuch money. But I do want to
circle back to, you know, whatyou brought up prior. And that
is yielding, which is are thethings that if you're not
mindful of really are just soulsucking, right. And oftentimes,
when people do these timeaudits, they are so surprised
about how much time they areactually spending on their
(29:04):
phone. So much. So now that it'smuch easier for us to do that,
right? Because Android devicesand iPhones have a wellness
check, where you can go in thereand see how much time you've
been on Instagram and Facebook.
And if it's over two or threehours, I would suggest to you
you figure out where those hourslie and figure out something a
little bit more fun for you todo. And anybody that kind of
(29:27):
engages in this selfexperimentation. Almost always,
it's like, How did I not do thissooner? Because I'm at what a
great piece of low hanging fruitto sort of change something
that's not really that fun andyou know, time that you can
spend on something that doesreally light you up.
Joe Cadwell (29:47):
So yield and when you say two to three hours, I
assume you mean two to threehours of social media scrolling.
Mike Rucker (29:54):
Clear. Yep, that's right.
Joe Cadwell (29:55):
I'm sure for some people listening it may even be
two to three hours a day, whichseems like a whole time suck so
Mike Rucker (30:02):
well, and it's quite spectacular when you look
at those few studies about, youknow, if I'm if they're true
kids are now spending five hoursa day on screen, which is, you
know, something we need tocourse correct. There's a lot of
dialogue around that. But itonly seems to be getting worse.
You know, especially with theadvent of TiC tock, which is
(30:22):
even more addictive thanInstagram and Facebook. So these
are, you know, these are thingsthat not only adults should
think about, but also understandhow they're impacting their
children, for sure.
Joe Cadwell (30:34):
So yielding and then, you know, some some
tangibles that we can kind ofutilize, you're talking about a
metric, I think that says, Howmany hours a day or how many
minutes a day, should you out ofthe 164 that are allotted to us
164 hours a week that areallotted to us, how much should
we devote towards our fun habit.
Mike Rucker (30:53):
So this research comes out of UCLA, the
professor's name is CassieHolmes, she calls it the
Goldilocks spot. But when youlook at and this is a
generalization, so I always hategiving like blanket
prescriptions, but I think it'sa good framework, that for most
people, they should be able tocommandeer at least two to five
(31:14):
hours out of their day. And soto me, that sounds like a lot.
Again, this is sort of, youknow, based on a lot of data,
but I would suggest, okay, sowe'll accept that as a
Goldilocks spot, but why notjust try to commandeer one or
two hours out of your week,knowing that two to five is
possible, and just sort of playwith that and see how it feels.
(31:36):
And the bumper rails that I'llput on that, though, is that
change at the beginning is sortof difficult, right? And so I
would suggest whatever you do inthat regard, when you're
switching out activities, is atleast give it two to three
weeks, because by that time,once you sort of feel
comfortable with the newactivity, you will start to, you
(31:58):
know, understand that it reallyis contributing to vitality. But
so one of the things that I youknow, I find fascinating, but
it's a true phenomenon is a lotof adults don't think they can
do things on quote unquote,school nights, right, like so,
you know, a couple might havereally enjoyed dancing together,
but for whatever reason thatsort of been engineered out of
(32:20):
their life. And I'll suggest,well, you know, why don't you
pick that up on like, a randomTuesday? Oh, well, you know,
can't do things on Tuesdays,because we're too busy. You
know, it's just as common kindof social norm. And what they
don't realize is, obviously, youcan do that. And once you know,
someone does engage in whateverit is, you know, dancing is just
the hypothetical, but whateverthat that thing is for you. One,
(32:44):
you benefit from connecting withothers right around the like
minded activity, but to justgetting active again, ends up
being invigorating, rather thanwhat you thought it would be,
which is, you know, sort of justthe hassle to do. But the first
one or two weeks for a lot ofpeople, it still feels like a
hassle until they habituate, youknow that routine, because
again, for whatever reason, wefeel really comfortable with
(33:06):
you. But you know, when wehabituate our behavior, because
it does make things a little biteasier, right? So you know, the
amount of energy to kind of youtry something new for a lot of
folks, you know, that's the humpthey need to get over.
Joe Cadwell (33:20):
And that making it a habit is does take time, and
like you say, habituation, and Ithink just going back to what we
talked about earlier thatPuritan work ethic. Well, if I'm
having fun, you know, I'm notdoing my part, I'm not working
hard enough. I'm not, you know,putting my part in and, and
there must be something wrong. Ifeel, you know, I think we often
times sort of demonize fun asbeing lazy, oh, you're just
(33:42):
you're having fun, you know, andit's become the social currency
that we use now that we trade,hey, how you doing? I'm busy as
hell, you know, I'm always sobusy. And it's in and it's
unfortunate. And I work withsome people like this, that, you
know, they, they hopefully areenjoying that ride. It's great
to be busy. It's great, in mycase, to be improving people's
lives through education andthrough mentorship, but not at
(34:04):
the expense of your own healthand well being you're not going
to be very effective at yourjob, if you yourself are are not
happy and at ease with yourposition.
Mike Rucker (34:14):
Yeah, the way that I often frame it is I met
remember, it was only 10 yearsago where that same phenomenon
happened with sleep, like, oh,man, I only got four hours sleep
last night, you know, like upwork and late, you know, and we
did you know, there was a lot ofsort of internal pride, you
know, to the grind, and now,sleep hygiene. It's been so
(34:36):
explored that I think, you know,even the most machismo person is
identified that if they don'tget sleep, they're going to fall
down quickly and not be them.
Their best selves. We're quicklyfinding that out. You know, I
label it as fun but just leisurein general, making sure that
there is a transition ritualbetween your work and your
ability to recapture Time hasalmost as meaningful impact as
(35:01):
you know, sleep deprivation. SoI think, you know, my hope is
that in the next few years, we'dlook at Fun deprivation, the
same way we look at sleepdeprivation, because again,
remember, it wasn't long agowhere the sleep deprived were
celebrated. And so, to yourpoint, you know, there are still
people that, that aren't livinga joyful life that were that is
(35:23):
a badge of honor, and don'tunderstand that that's, you
know, it's really wearing awayat their vitality. And, and the
paradox here is, we now knowfrom a host of different
studies, that that people thatlive a joyful life, or willing
or have the ability to producemore and most facets of life. So
if you're looking at your lifewith regards to contribution,
whether you're working for anonprofit, or you know, you're
(35:46):
working in trade, you're likelyto get more work done, if you
are, you know, making sure thatyou guard your time for renewal
in a way that allows you to beyour best self. And we're
discovering that quickly. So.
Joe Cadwell (36:03):
So people who find your book, what do you hope
they're going to take away fromreading? The the fun habit?
Mike Rucker (36:09):
Yeah, I really just want to have people live a more
fun and joyful life for all thereasons that we discussed over
the last hour. So none of thesetools are earth shattering,
right, they're really justreminders that in our adult
life, we do need to take alittle bit off the table for
ourselves. And that that's not aselfish act, that when we do
(36:30):
that, we're able to giveourselves more to others, and
also to have better impact onthe world at large. And so the
fact that, you know, we havethese huge rates of burnout,
loneliness, and to some degree,you know, especially with
children, boredom, can really,you know, if we reorganize our
time, we can solve all of that.
For me, since my audience isadults, it really is burnout,
(36:52):
and the fact that so many of usare burnt out, but we don't
understand why if I couldreverse that through just, you
know, a book of simple tools andhave an impact in that way. I
would be really happy to answeryour question, quite frankly.
Joe Cadwell (37:09):
All right. Well, thank you so much, Mike. Hey,
this has been a fantasticconversation. Where can people
go to find out more about youand your work?
Mike Rucker (37:16):
Yeah. So the books available for preorder now, I'd
be grateful for anyone that preordered it. And my work is
available at my website, Michaelrecord.com. And I play a little
bit on social media onInstagram, under the wonder of
fun.
Joe Cadwell (37:30):
All right. Well, I'll make sure to add that to
the show notes. And if I'm notmistaken, your book comes out in
the beginning of January of2023. Isn't that correct?
January 3. Yep. All right.
Absolutely. Well, hey, thank youagain, Mike, for taking your
time to be on the show today.
It's been a real pleasure.
Mike Rucker (37:43):
Oh, my goodness, it's been a lot of fun. Thanks
so much for having me.
Joe Cadwell (37:45):
I guess day has been Dr. Mike Rucker, author of
the fun habit. To learn moreabout Mike and his work. Check
out the show notes for thisepisode, or visit the grit
nation website at www gritnation podcast.com. Till next
time, this is Joe Cadwell. Thankyou for wanting to know more
today than you did yesterday. Sospeaking of finding the light,
(38:06):
fixing unhappy before we beganrecording, we had a conversation
you said you had visited my faircity of Portland, Oregon, back
during the summer, and you foundjoy, I found out it wasn't in
your book by being part of thelargest dinosaur gathering in
the summer of 2022. For thoselistening to us in the future.
(38:26):
So what can you tell us aboutthat bike? And how did that
bring you joy and what broughtyou to into that? That large
group of inflatable dinosaurs?
Mike Rucker (38:34):
So I think one of the things that I did back in
2007, that kind of was a preludeto the fun habit was committed
to doing something extraordinaryevery three months. And so it's
just something that I do I tryto find something that's, you
know, really interesting andfascinating. You know, whether
that's developing a new skill orgoing to a new place or being
(38:57):
invited to break a world record,and making sure that I, you
know, again, in the spirit ofthe living quadrant, do
something spectacular like that,just that I have, you know, a
host of really interestingmemories to fall back on. That
just happened to be theanniversary of Brian's death
too. So it was even moremeaningful because I know if he
would have been there with me ifif he could so you know, I kind
(39:19):
of held his spirit with me whileI was dressed up in a plastic T
Rex costume.
Welcome to Grit Nation. I'm Joe Cadwell, the
(00:03):
host of the show. Now on today'sepisode, I have the pleasure of
speaking with Dr. Mike Ruckerabout his book The Fun Habit:
How the pursuit of joy andwonder can change your life. The
fun habit is a science backedactionable case for the
importance of seeking fun ratherthan happiness in our daily
(00:25):
lives. Mike argues that fun is aresource available to anyone at
almost any time, yet most peopleare not having enough of it. His
insightful new book reveals howintentionally increasing your
joyful moments can improve yourhealth, relationships and
productivity. During ourconversation, we'll unpack the
(00:47):
four quadrants of the playermodel and how it can help you
assess your daily activities soyou can incorporate more fun
into your life. After theepisode be sure to check out the
show notes for more informationto help you dive deeper into the
subject.
(01:18):
And now on to the show.
Mike Rucker, welcome to gritnation.
Mike Rucker (01:32):
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Joe Cadwell (01:34):
Thank you, Mike, for taking your time to be on my
show today, I'm really excitedto introduce my audience to you
and your new book, The funhabit, how discipline, pursuit
of joy and wonder can changeyour life. It's just a fantastic
title on a fantastic concept.
How did you come up with theidea to write this book, Mike?
Mike Rucker (01:53):
Yeah, so it was, unfortunately, through a series
of unfortunate events. For along time, I had been studying
positive psychology and reallyuse those tools. And for folks
that don't know what positivepsychology is, it's essentially
a facet of psychology that looksto help people through
(02:14):
betterment. You know, ourclinical psychology is really
tools to help people mitigatedeficits, the kind of school of
thought around positivepsychology was a set of tools to
help people that are in sort ofnormal circumstances, you know,
using that as an academic term,not as a pejorative, but you
know, a set of tools that canhelp people through betterment.
(02:36):
And those tools had really beensuccessful for me from about
2009 to 2016. And in therearview mirror, I now know that
I was over optimizing forhappiness, you know, as really
probably pushing the limits ofwhat should have happened.
Because in 2016, my youngerbrother unexpectedly passed away
(03:00):
from a pulmonary embolism. Andthen around the same time, these
two things aren't correlated,but I found out that I had
advanced osteoarthritis. And upuntil that point, one of the
main ways that I had mitigatedstress and anxiety was running,
and I was told that I couldnever run again. And so yeah, I
really got knocked on my butt.
But I had always had this, youknow, driven drive to be happy.
(03:25):
And the more I tried to say,hey, you know, these tools have
always suited me, I'm going totry to, you know, get myself out
of this mess. I became more andmore unhappy. And so I knew
something was wrong. And Iserendipitously around that same
time, there was some emergingresearch that suggested that
(03:46):
people that are overly concernedabout optimizing for happiness,
so not necessarily valuinghappiness, wanting people to be
happy and wanting people toflourish. There's, you know,
we're not trying to villainizethis year, but people that kind
of always think about, you know,how can I be more happy? What
happens is they tend to see thatgap between where they want to
(04:10):
be so happiness is out there onthe horizon, and where they are,
and subconsciously start toidentify as being unhappy
because, you know, happiness issomething to be found, and you
essentially never find it right.
The concept in psychology iscalled the hedonic treadmill.
And so the kind of aha moment orawakening happened slowly, it
(04:33):
wasn't something that sort ofdawned on me, but what I came to
realize digging both into theresearch and then my own self
experimentation, is that insteadof kind of trying to think about
this all the time, regainingyour agency and autonomy,
especially as an adult, allowsyou to essentially have joy and
delight in the moment becauseyou kind of start to be
(04:56):
deliberate about how you spendyour time. And so What I found
was I just kind of tried toreclaim an hour or two out of my
week to do something that wasgoing to light me up without
really worrying about theoutcome at all, or any sort of
evaluation of the activity, justfinding things that I could
enjoy in the moment. And overtime, that starts to build
(05:18):
equity, right. And so, you know,as long as you don't have a
biological predisposition todepression, so that your malaise
or melancholy, or whatever, youknow, term works for you with
regards to sort of the despairyou're in in the moment, you can
start to index these joyfulexperiences where, you know,
your emotions might notnecessarily be in the positive,
(05:38):
but you're really reconnectingwith the things that bring you
joy and delight. And so there'sa whole host of positive
outcomes that come from that.
But unfortunately, as adults, wesort of start to habituate our
lives, and we forget that wehave that type of control until
someone sort of reminds us
Joe Cadwell (05:57):
until you have that that rude awakening, like that's
right, passing up your brotheror something that was
significant to that, that madeyou happy. And so the book, the
fun habit sounds like, you know,from my understanding, Happiness
isn't a destination, it's ajourney. And along that journey,
we should incorporate practicesthat are fun that that take time
(06:18):
out of our day to day the thingsthat we are can ascribe to do
and and then literally make timeto have fun. So what what is the
definition of fun? And, youknow, in layman's terms, how do
we define fun?
Mike Rucker (06:32):
Yeah, in layman's terms, I just anything that you
find pleasurable, right. And so,you know, the clinical
definition, we call it valence,which is essentially just a
spectrum of, are you enjoyingyourself? Or are you not, and so
not necessarily hedonicpleasure, right, like, but are
you enjoying the things that youare doing in your life. And
(06:53):
that's not to suggest thateverything in your life should
be joyful? Right, I mean, that,again, kind of goes back to the
trap that I talked aboutearlier. Right. And, you know,
in the literature, we call thattoxic positivity, we know that,
if you're trying to optimize allthe time, towards pleasurable
experiences, it can backfire.
But so many of us don't havemuch of that at all in our
lives. And so to be able tostart organizing your time in a
(07:17):
way, that you're deliberatelyincorporating that, and that
doesn't necessarily mean thathas to be an experience of the
Self, you know, you could cocreate those experiences with
your partner, or children orwhoever it is. Because, you
know, sometimes when it's firstposition, people are like, Yeah,
but I don't want to be selfish.
Well, it's not necessarily aselfish endeavor. Quite the
(07:39):
contrary, when you are findingfun in the things that you do,
and oftentimes is quitecontagious, so you're actually
lifting everyone up with you,right, rather than pulling them
down. And so, you know, the realmagic here is just how do you
rediscover the things that lightyou up. And fortunately, the
ways to do that are super, supersimple, you know, once you're
(08:02):
just kind of shoved away.
Joe Cadwell (08:05):
Sure. And it seems like as a society, Americans
seem to take things in excess.
And one of the things that wetend to take an excess as our,
our sort of attitude towardswork and that Puritan work ethic
and, you know, everything elseis going to suffer because of
this goal that I want toachieve. And I think as
children, we sort of start offbeing pretty happy and having
lots of fun, and then it seemed,at a certain point, you're just
(08:27):
conditioned and you get on thattreadmill, and I apologize the
hedonic treadmill is that isthat based in the in the Latin
for hedonistic,
Mike Rucker (08:38):
so, hedonic tone, again, sorry for using sort of
words for psychology. But itessentially means that the
concept there is that we know,through various studies that we
tend to have a setpoint of wherewe feel happy if we're not
living a deliberate life. So youknow, this was first kind of
(09:01):
discovered through studyinglottery winners. And some of the
science here is a little bitsticky. But it has been
replicated over and over again,where you can have these big
windfalls in your life, youknow, whether that's money or
something sort of exciting. Andgenerally over time, if you're
not deliberate about yourgoalposts, you know, to use kind
(09:22):
of a football metaphor, then youwill sort of revert back to
where you were originally happy,or sometimes even worse, because
your social norms have changed,you end up being less happy. The
good news there as just a quickaside is that's also true if
something really bad happens,right? Like, you know, this,
this was studied and folks thathad lost a limb which is awful,
(09:44):
right? When you firstexperienced that, you know, you
have to absorb the fact that youknow, there's going to be quite
significant change in your life.
And generally you follow thosepeople and as long as they're in
loving, supportiverelationships, they become just
as happy as they were beforethey lost their limb. Right. So
there's evidence on both sidesof the of the coin, that we tend
to fall back to this sort oflevel of happiness if we're not
(10:09):
living life deliberately. And sowhat's important about that,
right? What's important is thatif you set the goalposts and
you're like, you know, I knowthat this is what is going to
lead to a joyful life, you cankind of move your life towards
that direction, and then reallyenjoy and embrace the fact that
you have arrived and everythingderived from that place becomes
(10:32):
more joyful, because youunderstand that you're you kind
of have control over yourdomain, you recapture that
agency and autonomy instead of,to your point kind of being led
along by social norms, or, youknow, the considerations of
meritocracy. You know, thatwhere you're like, Okay, so you
know, when, when do I cross thefinish line, the sort of
(10:53):
illusion has there is no finishline. So once you understand
that, then you can start toreally be mindful about how
you're spending your time in themoment. And that's where true
joy and delight lives.
Joe Cadwell (11:07):
Sure, it sounds like it's a more holistic
approach, because again, youalways seem to move the
goalposts, I'm going to be happywhen I, you know, graduate high
school, and I move away fromhome, and I'm going to be happy
when I, I get that career thatI've been after, and I'm going
to be happy when I get thepromotion within that career
that I'm, I'm after, and I'mgoing to be happy when I marry
that person that I've, you know,very fond of. And next thing is
(11:30):
where I'm going to be happy whenI have, you know, children, and
then we're going to be happywhen we have guilt
grandchildren, and along the waythat goalpost continues to move
down the line, but you nevertake the time to be present in
the moment and enjoy theexperiences that are happening
right then and there. It's kindof how I'm reading that, ya
Mike Rucker (11:46):
know, you're spot on. And the addition to that,
why incorporating, you know,various aspects of things that
are important to you and lightyou up and, you know, bring you
joy is that if we don't createkind of this mosaic of life, the
way the brain works is ourhabituated experiences. So if
our life becomes really routine,we think about all of those
(12:09):
routines is kind of a singlememory. So this work is from
Bronnie Ware, and it's beenreplicated, we know that people
that kind of look back at theirlife, if their life has been
really routine kind of justexperiences is that one event
and generally, you know, sort ofends their days with a lot of
regret, versus people who haveexperienced, it doesn't
(12:31):
necessarily need to be a varietyof things, if they really love
their craft, you know, amusician that spent 30 years
becoming an amazing musician,because they had a love for
that, you know, interest. That'snot necessarily bad. So that's
not what I'm saying here. Butfor the most part, most of us
like a variety of activities.
And when we do that we store allof those activities, this
individual events. So when weare older and sort of are able
(12:54):
to really benefit from the actof reminiscing, we have a whole
host of, you know, a wholecatalogue of really fun memories
to look back at. But those needto be created, right?
Unfortunately, for all of ustime is a finite resource. So,
you know, it doesn't necessarilymean you can't start tomorrow.
But you know, being mindful ofhow you spend your time is
(13:16):
important to do as soon aspossible.
Joe Cadwell (13:21):
Absolutely. And again, just going back to some
of the cultural differences Ihaven't lived in spent some time
in Scandinavia, in the countryof Sweden, I know that the
Danish are often ranked as oneof the happiest countries on the
on the face of the earth thatthey even have a special word
for it. And I'm gonnamispronounce it, but I believe
it's Higgy. Are you familiarwith that? Yeah, the concept of
(13:41):
Higgin. And that, you know, it'sthe small things in life that,
that you take pleasure in, inthe moment that will truly add
the flavor and the depth and therichness of a meaningful
relationship with who you areand where you are at that
present time and who you'rewith. So,
Mike Rucker (13:56):
yeah, and you open the door for something that's
really important, I think, whatbecomes problematic when we sort
of do live a life that's, youknow, rooted in duty. And so,
that's not necessarily a badthing, if it's done
episodically, but why you seethese Nordic countries, you
know, always riding on the topis one, they really value
(14:18):
leisure rights, generally, atleast six weeks out of the year.
They have big maternity andpaternity benefits. So you know,
unfortunately, that's notsomething that we can replicate
here in the US, but it issomething to at least pay
attention to. And their socialbonds, you know, they live in a
lot more. In a culture whereengaging with other people
(14:40):
becomes a lot more important,right? And so, what can we do to
sort of replicate that a bithere in the US and especially
for men, right, I met there wasa really interesting article in
The New York Times this pastweek about how hard it is for
men to maintain friendships andhow you have to be more
deliberate and So that's where Ireally do advocate fun as a, as
(15:04):
an important mechanism toconnect with those friendships
and mitigate loneliness. Becausewe do know that people that are
lonely, I mean, it's not adotted line, it's a direct line
to all sorts of, you know,terrible health outcomes,
cardiovascular disease, fastercognitive decline, depression
and anxiety. So, you know, funoften is the glue that helps us
(15:26):
feel connected to others. Andfor introverts at least
connected to something otherthan themselves. So they're not
lonely, you know, oftentimes,that's either spirituality, or
it could be a connection tonature, or again, for a
hobbyist, someone who really isin love with their craft. But if
you don't have those things inyour life, then you kind of look
at the world as being empty andunfortunately, that leads to
(15:49):
some pretty negative outcomesboth psychologically and
physiologically.
Joe Cadwell (15:53):
And so before we get into the some of those
psychological and physiological,you know, manifestations of, of
working too hard, not takingenough time to form a fun habit
and introduce joy and, andleisure into your life. Yeah, it
again, it seems like it's verymuch the social constructs are
leading that way. There was afamous book of some years ago
(16:15):
called Bowling Alone, I believeRobert Putnam wrote the book
and, and how a lot of the socialconnectors that we used to have,
whether it was church or, youknow, bowling leagues, or
softball leagues, or, or afterschool activities have all been
stripped away. And now it seemsas as a society, and possibly as
a world, we are more siloed bythe fact that we have these
(16:37):
miniature computer screens infront of us that deliver just
content to us right to our eyes,and right to our ears and, and
your eye, you see it all thetime, I'm guilty of it as as
much as anyone else, or being ina group, but being completely
alone, looking down at a screenscrolling through playing
worddle Checking the news,checking my emails, and it does
seem like a lot of thestructures that we rely on for
(16:58):
happiness have have sort of, youknow, turned out dated. And
that's unfortunate. Yeah,
Mike Rucker (17:05):
no, you're spot on, I think one of a really telling
sort of visual representation ofthat is looking at any town
square, you know, prior to thetechnology age where, you know,
everyone was out there. And thatwas sort of the social network,
right? You were actuallyengaging with folks face to
face. And we know, there's ahost of benefit that comes from
(17:27):
that, you know, the main thingis, with regards to social media
use, what we're really trying todo is make ourselves feel a
little bit better throughdistraction, right. And then
we're kind of either bored or,you know, again, not to geek out
on scientific terms, but we'rein the state of negative
valence, where we just want tosort of get out of that. And
(17:49):
these tools, to some degree haveled to low level addiction,
because we know that we'll getthis little hit of dopamine,
right? But that's notnecessarily what makes us feel
great. Well, you what we nowknow, just a quick science
lesson here is that dopaminedoes make us feel kind of
excited. So it's sort of aninteresting feeling. And it does
(18:10):
feel good. But the primarymechanism for dopamine, with
regards to at least anevolutionary standpoint, was to
make us be ready for some sortof excitement, right? So when
dopamine really fills, you know,becomes alive is when we
anticipate something, notnecessarily experience
(18:30):
something. And so it's more ofthis neuro chemical cocktail
with an important component ofoxytocin when we have pro social
behavior. And so it's almostlike I use the metaphor of
saccharin versus sugar. Right, Imet, you know, we think we're
kind of enjoying ourselves goingthrough the arts, social feed.
But that's, it's really justsacrament sweet, it doesn't lead
(18:52):
to anything fulfilling. And thebest way to sort of understand
that if you don't believe me,it's trying to remember what you
were looking at in social media,like a week prior, right? I
mean, they're, the brain is notremembering it as important.
Rather now go have coffee with agood friend and try and remember
the conversation like handsdown, you're going to remember
(19:12):
that and so in the book, I usethis metaphor of the nothing,
you know, whenever we're kind ofdoing that and like now this is
enjoyable Is it because youknow, again, try and think back
because if it was important,your brain would remember it and
you know, 99 times out of 100it's not going to because it
wasn't important.
Joe Cadwell (19:31):
I'll I'll draw a poor analogy. I just came back
from Las Vegas where I was doingsome, some training I'm not a
gambler at all, but I can I justdrew this this. This correlation
that it's the difference betweengoing to a casino and maybe
pulling a slot machine handle onwinning $1 a day for a year, or
the one time you went into youwant 365 bucks on one pull the
(19:51):
handle, it's a different feelingall together.
So we've identified a problempeople are having struggling for
(20:14):
whatever reason with withfinding happiness and it like we
said, it can manifest itself inboth physical and, and
psychological ways. And some ofthe physical manifestations, I
understand this is twofold. Youknow, without enough happiness,
you've you physically suffer.
But with enough physicalactivity, it also helps promote
better moods. So let's startthere, just the psychological
benefits of saying being beingactive.
Mike Rucker (20:35):
Yeah, so it's really interesting, you kind of
need to look at it as buildingblocks. And I think that's one
of the reasons that kind ofbecomes problematic, because any
change in behavior is going tocause cognitive load, right? But
what we know is that when wefeel better over time, we end up
increasing our vitality. So thiswork is called broaden and build
(20:58):
theory. Like once we expand ouremotions, and we sort of, you
know, let's say we're kind ofjust constantly moving from a
four to a six on a zero through10, scale, through life, just
kind of trying to get throughonce we're able to sort of
understand that, we have theability to actually go out and
have fun, enjoy ourselves,whatever that looks like, even
(21:20):
if it's just a reframe, right,you know, all the way up to
really being mindful anddeliberate about how you
architect your entire week, youknow, the entire 106, eight
hours that you spend, whateveryou do in that context, it
starts to have this upwardspiral effect. And one of the
reasons that is is that we'velearned over the last 10 years,
(21:43):
the way our brain works isn'tnecessarily cause and effect,
like we originally thought, it'sreally a predictive machine,
right. And so once we start tounderstand that we have more
control over our domain than weoriginally thought, then that
allows us to predict that like,hey, you know, the world is
actually okay. And if it's not,I have control to change it, or
(22:04):
at least more control than Ithought, obviously, there going
to be bad things that happen,you know, my brother's death is
a perfect example that we haveno control over. But we have a
lot more control than we think.
And so, you know, sometimes thisis, you know, talked about in
the terms of a fixed mindset ora growth mindset, we can kind of
just think things happen to us.
(22:25):
Or we can think that, yes,things do happen to us. But we
can kind of control the way werespond to those, which will
have an uplifting effect on bothour physiological well being,
which we've already discussed,and obviously our psychological
well being as well.
Joe Cadwell (22:41):
Right? Good, good stuff there. So let's talk about
what we can do making fun ahabit you have an acronym called
Play. So what does play standsfor?
Mike Rucker (22:51):
So play is an acronym that stands for
pleasing, living, agonizing, andyielding. And to just kind of
give a quick summary of that,it's just four different ways to
look at how you're spending yourtime. And so in the context of
the play, model, pleasing, arethings that we can do any day,
you know, playing with ouranimals, reading a good book,
(23:14):
you know, fun is as unique asthe individual. So you'd kind of
decide what's a pleasingactivity for you. But the main
construct there is that you cangenerally do it whenever you
want. You know, it's easy enoughto execute that you can do it
whenever.
Joe Cadwell (23:26):
But there is some intention to it. It's not a
passive just sitting down on thecouch watching TV flipping
channels and type ofinteraction. exactly it.
Mike Rucker (23:34):
Yeah. And I'm not necessarily here to villainize
media, I think it still couldbe, you know, if you loved
watching, Breaking Bad with yourpartner, and you guys were
actively engaging in it andtalking about the topic or, you
know, maybe you're in apartnership where you don't talk
during the show, but you unpackit afterwards. For me, I would
say that show was lost, youknow, I don't really watch TV
(23:57):
much more. But I watched thatwith a group of friends. And I
wouldn't say that was a passiveactivity, because we love you
know, the philosophicalcomponents of it. But if you're
plopping down on the couch aftera hard day, and just channel
surfing, and then I was to askyou seven days later, like, hey,
what were you watching ontelevision? Again, I feel like
that's a good test of, to yourpoint, a fairly passive activity
(24:20):
that's not contributing to yourwell being. So yeah, you're
exactly right. It's something toeasy, easily execute and not
something we do passively, orkind of mindlessly Pat, you
know, habitually. The Livingquadrant are things that really
light us up. So they take someenergy to do but they are sort
of important to make sure you'reindexing somewhat throughout the
(24:43):
year so that can be mastering anew skill for some folks that
can be you know, vigorousexercise that leads to, you
know, some sort of outcomethat's important to them. For
some it could be a spiritualpractice, you know, a true
spiritual practice. But whateverit is, it really lights you up
potentially lead you to momentsof awe and wonder. But isn't
(25:07):
something that you cannecessarily do all the time.
agonizing are things that wehave to do, you know, that don't
take a lot of work and don'tbring much pleasure. And so why
they're important to identify ascertainly, again, we're not
suggesting that you cancompletely architect those out
of your life. But oftentimes,once people identify those
activities, there are easy waysto either improve them, or to
(25:31):
potentially outsource them increative ways. And so in the
book, you know, it's notnecessarily, you know, something
that requires money, there are alot of creative ways to sort of,
you know, figure out a differentway to approach those activities
that we just hate to do anddrain us.
Joe Cadwell (25:46):
And I think in the I can't remember Mike was it in
the book or a podcast where Imight have heard you on where
you talked about the the act ofbathing your children was one of
those agonizing experiences, notjust for you and your your wife,
but for the kids as well. Andyou found a creative solution to
outsource that, and kind of runan end game around it so that
you could enjoy more. So how didyou work? How did you do that?
Mike Rucker (26:09):
Yeah, I do bring that example up quite a bit,
because I think it's one ofthose ones where people get sort
of the, you know, one of thecrux stuff of what can hold us
up, right. And so the storygoes, my wife and I, over time,
just hated bathing our kids, forwhatever reason, they didn't
(26:31):
enjoy the experience, we kepttrying to, you know, recreate
it, and it never worked for us.
And it got so bad to the pointthat we kind of waited to the
end of the night and sort ofeyeball each other to see who
would be the martyr, you know,and I think they playfully sort
of realized that becomedestructive, and, you know,
poked at us even more. Yeah, soit had just become a disaster.
(26:54):
And we weren't in a financialposition where we could afford a
nanny, but some of our friendsdid. And so we would lament
like, oh, you know, like, theydon't even have to deal with
this. And so long story short,we're like, you know, why don't
we just get a babysitter to doit. And at first, that sounded
really unusual, right? Becausewhat an intimate act to just
(27:15):
bring in someone for a couplehours. But at the end of the
day, that's not really anydifferent than the nanny doing
it. Right? And so we kind of gotover that hump, like, Yeah, it
sounds kind of weird saying itout loud. But how is it any
different, and this is what wecan afford, we can afford a
caregiver for two to three hoursa week, and we hired this
amazing person, her name'sCaitlin. And she turned it into
(27:37):
a complete game, these kids hadso much fun with her, you know,
we generally had her for anextra hour. And what we did is
we replaced this agonizingactivity for my wife and I, and
we ended up going out and havingdinner those three nights a week
that Caitlin would come in tobathe them. And so here's this
huge win, right for people thatreally weren't enjoying their
(27:59):
time together. and turned itinto two kids that just had so
much fun with Caitlin and me andmy wife being able to connect in
a way we hadn't for quite sometime. And then the after effect
wasn't just that, you know, weall had more fun in that
instance, my wife and I cameback, and we were better
versions of ourselves. And thenwe also learned from Caitlin
(28:20):
right, so now that theexperience had kind of been
defamed, we were able to havemore fun with our kids, because
we picked up on some of, youknow, her skill set to make it
more enjoyable, and the wholething just became an upward
spiral. So the reason I likedthat story is, it's a great
anecdote of how you know,something that was just bringing
us all out, has now become thisreally additive experience, and
(28:42):
really didn't cost us all thatmuch money. But I do want to
circle back to, you know, whatyou brought up prior. And that
is yielding, which is are thethings that if you're not
mindful of really are just soulsucking, right. And oftentimes,
when people do these timeaudits, they are so surprised
about how much time they areactually spending on their
(29:04):
phone. So much. So now that it'smuch easier for us to do that,
right? Because Android devicesand iPhones have a wellness
check, where you can go in thereand see how much time you've
been on Instagram and Facebook.
And if it's over two or threehours, I would suggest to you
you figure out where those hourslie and figure out something a
little bit more fun for you todo. And anybody that kind of
(29:27):
engages in this selfexperimentation. Almost always,
it's like, How did I not do thissooner? Because I'm at what a
great piece of low hanging fruitto sort of change something
that's not really that fun andyou know, time that you can
spend on something that doesreally light you up.
Joe Cadwell (29:47):
So yield and when you say two to three hours, I
assume you mean two to threehours of social media scrolling.
Mike Rucker (29:54):
Clear. Yep, that's right.
Joe Cadwell (29:55):
I'm sure for some people listening it may even be
two to three hours a day, whichseems like a whole time suck so
Mike Rucker (30:02):
well, and it's quite spectacular when you look
at those few studies about, youknow, if I'm if they're true
kids are now spending five hoursa day on screen, which is, you
know, something we need tocourse correct. There's a lot of
dialogue around that. But itonly seems to be getting worse.
You know, especially with theadvent of TiC tock, which is
(30:22):
even more addictive thanInstagram and Facebook. So these
are, you know, these are thingsthat not only adults should
think about, but also understandhow they're impacting their
children, for sure.
Joe Cadwell (30:34):
So yielding and then, you know, some some
tangibles that we can kind ofutilize, you're talking about a
metric, I think that says, Howmany hours a day or how many
minutes a day, should you out ofthe 164 that are allotted to us
164 hours a week that areallotted to us, how much should
we devote towards our fun habit.
Mike Rucker (30:53):
So this research comes out of UCLA, the
professor's name is CassieHolmes, she calls it the
Goldilocks spot. But when youlook at and this is a
generalization, so I always hategiving like blanket
prescriptions, but I think it'sa good framework, that for most
people, they should be able tocommandeer at least two to five
(31:14):
hours out of their day. And soto me, that sounds like a lot.
Again, this is sort of, youknow, based on a lot of data,
but I would suggest, okay, sowe'll accept that as a
Goldilocks spot, but why notjust try to commandeer one or
two hours out of your week,knowing that two to five is
possible, and just sort of playwith that and see how it feels.
(31:36):
And the bumper rails that I'llput on that, though, is that
change at the beginning is sortof difficult, right? And so I
would suggest whatever you do inthat regard, when you're
switching out activities, is atleast give it two to three
weeks, because by that time,once you sort of feel
comfortable with the newactivity, you will start to, you
(31:58):
know, understand that it reallyis contributing to vitality. But
so one of the things that I youknow, I find fascinating, but
it's a true phenomenon is a lotof adults don't think they can
do things on quote unquote,school nights, right, like so,
you know, a couple might havereally enjoyed dancing together,
but for whatever reason thatsort of been engineered out of
(32:20):
their life. And I'll suggest,well, you know, why don't you
pick that up on like, a randomTuesday? Oh, well, you know,
can't do things on Tuesdays,because we're too busy. You
know, it's just as common kindof social norm. And what they
don't realize is, obviously, youcan do that. And once you know,
someone does engage in whateverit is, you know, dancing is just
the hypothetical, but whateverthat that thing is for you. One,
(32:44):
you benefit from connecting withothers right around the like
minded activity, but to justgetting active again, ends up
being invigorating, rather thanwhat you thought it would be,
which is, you know, sort of justthe hassle to do. But the first
one or two weeks for a lot ofpeople, it still feels like a
hassle until they habituate, youknow that routine, because
again, for whatever reason, wefeel really comfortable with
(33:06):
you. But you know, when wehabituate our behavior, because
it does make things a little biteasier, right? So you know, the
amount of energy to kind of youtry something new for a lot of
folks, you know, that's the humpthey need to get over.
Joe Cadwell (33:20):
And that making it a habit is does take time, and
like you say, habituation, and Ithink just going back to what we
talked about earlier thatPuritan work ethic. Well, if I'm
having fun, you know, I'm notdoing my part, I'm not working
hard enough. I'm not, you know,putting my part in and, and
there must be something wrong. Ifeel, you know, I think we often
times sort of demonize fun asbeing lazy, oh, you're just
(33:42):
you're having fun, you know, andit's become the social currency
that we use now that we trade,hey, how you doing? I'm busy as
hell, you know, I'm always sobusy. And it's in and it's
unfortunate. And I work withsome people like this, that, you
know, they, they hopefully areenjoying that ride. It's great
to be busy. It's great, in mycase, to be improving people's
lives through education andthrough mentorship, but not at
(34:04):
the expense of your own healthand well being you're not going
to be very effective at yourjob, if you yourself are are not
happy and at ease with yourposition.
Mike Rucker (34:14):
Yeah, the way that I often frame it is I met
remember, it was only 10 yearsago where that same phenomenon
happened with sleep, like, oh,man, I only got four hours sleep
last night, you know, like upwork and late, you know, and we
did you know, there was a lot ofsort of internal pride, you
know, to the grind, and now,sleep hygiene. It's been so
(34:36):
explored that I think, you know,even the most machismo person is
identified that if they don'tget sleep, they're going to fall
down quickly and not be them.
Their best selves. We're quicklyfinding that out. You know, I
label it as fun but just leisurein general, making sure that
there is a transition ritualbetween your work and your
ability to recapture Time hasalmost as meaningful impact as
(35:01):
you know, sleep deprivation. SoI think, you know, my hope is
that in the next few years, we'dlook at Fun deprivation, the
same way we look at sleepdeprivation, because again,
remember, it wasn't long agowhere the sleep deprived were
celebrated. And so, to yourpoint, you know, there are still
people that, that aren't livinga joyful life that were that is
(35:23):
a badge of honor, and don'tunderstand that that's, you
know, it's really wearing awayat their vitality. And, and the
paradox here is, we now knowfrom a host of different
studies, that that people thatlive a joyful life, or willing
or have the ability to producemore and most facets of life. So
if you're looking at your lifewith regards to contribution,
whether you're working for anonprofit, or you know, you're
(35:46):
working in trade, you're likelyto get more work done, if you
are, you know, making sure thatyou guard your time for renewal
in a way that allows you to beyour best self. And we're
discovering that quickly. So.
Joe Cadwell (36:03):
So people who find your book, what do you hope
they're going to take away fromreading? The the fun habit?
Mike Rucker (36:09):
Yeah, I really just want to have people live a more
fun and joyful life for all thereasons that we discussed over
the last hour. So none of thesetools are earth shattering,
right, they're really justreminders that in our adult
life, we do need to take alittle bit off the table for
ourselves. And that that's not aselfish act, that when we do
(36:30):
that, we're able to giveourselves more to others, and
also to have better impact onthe world at large. And so the
fact that, you know, we havethese huge rates of burnout,
loneliness, and to some degree,you know, especially with
children, boredom, can really,you know, if we reorganize our
time, we can solve all of that.
For me, since my audience isadults, it really is burnout,
(36:52):
and the fact that so many of usare burnt out, but we don't
understand why if I couldreverse that through just, you
know, a book of simple tools andhave an impact in that way. I
would be really happy to answeryour question, quite frankly.
Joe Cadwell (37:09):
All right. Well, thank you so much, Mike. Hey,
this has been a fantasticconversation. Where can people
go to find out more about youand your work?
Mike Rucker (37:16):
Yeah. So the books available for preorder now, I'd
be grateful for anyone that preordered it. And my work is
available at my website, Michaelrecord.com. And I play a little
bit on social media onInstagram, under the wonder of
fun.
Joe Cadwell (37:30):
All right. Well, I'll make sure to add that to
the show notes. And if I'm notmistaken, your book comes out in
the beginning of January of2023. Isn't that correct?
January 3. Yep. All right.
Absolutely. Well, hey, thank youagain, Mike, for taking your
time to be on the show today.
It's been a real pleasure.
Mike Rucker (37:43):
Oh, my goodness, it's been a lot of fun. Thanks
so much for having me.
Joe Cadwell (37:45):
I guess day has been Dr. Mike Rucker, author of
the fun habit. To learn moreabout Mike and his work. Check
out the show notes for thisepisode, or visit the grit
nation website at www gritnation podcast.com. Till next
time, this is Joe Cadwell. Thankyou for wanting to know more
today than you did yesterday. Sospeaking of finding the light,
(38:06):
fixing unhappy before we beganrecording, we had a conversation
you said you had visited my faircity of Portland, Oregon, back
during the summer, and you foundjoy, I found out it wasn't in
your book by being part of thelargest dinosaur gathering in
the summer of 2022. For thoselistening to us in the future.
(38:26):
So what can you tell us aboutthat bike? And how did that
bring you joy and what broughtyou to into that? That large
group of inflatable dinosaurs?
Mike Rucker (38:34):
So I think one of the things that I did back in
2007, that kind of was a preludeto the fun habit was committed
to doing something extraordinaryevery three months. And so it's
just something that I do I tryto find something that's, you
know, really interesting andfascinating. You know, whether
that's developing a new skill orgoing to a new place or being
(38:57):
invited to break a world record,and making sure that I, you
know, again, in the spirit ofthe living quadrant, do
something spectacular like that,just that I have, you know, a
host of really interestingmemories to fall back on. That
just happened to be theanniversary of Brian's death
too. So it was even moremeaningful because I know if he
would have been there with me ifif he could so you know, I kind
(39:19):
of held his spirit with me whileI was dressed up in a plastic T
Rex costume.
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