Breaking Free with Dr. Ellen Langer

Dr. Ellen Langer earned her Ph.D. at Yale University in Social and Clinical Psychology and joined the faculty at Harvard in 1977. She is considered the mother of mindfulness and has written five books on the topic, starting with her bestseller, Mindfulness, and her newest book, The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health. Find out more at https://amzn.to/49qxvpB

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About the host:

Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert's favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome today on the show, doctor Ellen Langer. Doctor Ellen.
She is a renowned psychologist known as the mother of
mindfulness and the mother of positive psychology. I am thrilled
to have her, Doctor Ellen Langer, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
All right, I got to ask you this off the top,
all right, happy to have to ask me. We're gonna
have so much fun. I want to talk about the path,
your journey, if you will. I don't want to sound
too mystical, but your path, I mean, what initially sparked

(00:48):
your interest in psychology and kind of maybe give us
a description of your path to becoming the first woman
tenured in psychology at Harvard.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Okay, one never knows how they got to wherever they are.
There's an accumulation of all your past experiences. When I
was an undergraduate, I was majoring in chemistry and then
I took an intro psychology cost with Phil Lombardo. He
was a spectacular teacher, and that's why I went into
psychology to social psychology, so that one was easy. And

(01:23):
then I don't really remember making any decisions in my life.
You know that if you did well as an undergraduate,
it's expected you to go to graduate school. If you
did well in graduate school, it was expected you were
going to become an academic. If you're a young academic,
you know, junior faculty, there's an expectation, hopefully that you'll

(01:43):
rise in the ranks and become senior. So it all
just sort of happened, and I'm glad it.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Sure, sure, absolutely, Okay, So speaking of tenure, let me
ask you this, what is your thoughts on tenure? Is
it still a viable strategy for school?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I think so, especially in today's world. It's the major
reason for tenure is so that people can pursue their
strange ideas without having to worry about how well they're
being received at the time. Of course, there are always
subtle ways that people can make you uncomfortable and make

(02:27):
you want to leave, you know, whether you have tenure
or not, right, but it serves that purpose. It did
in the past, and in today's world, where there's so
much dislike, distrust and what have you, I think it's
even more important rather than less important.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, to your point, now we have I think for
the first time, when I think of going to college,
I think of an environment where you could discuss things
you can debate openly and not be afraid of debating
different points of view. But in multiple yeah, multiple episodes,

(03:10):
now it's we they yes, you know, the good guys,
the bad guys.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
And it's interesting because this speaks to a lot of
my work where no matter what somebody says, there's a
way of understanding it so that it's yay ornee right.
And you know, so once you you assume that posture
where they know nothing or they are the bad guys. Uh,
the evidence becomes overwhelming and supported that. But the same

(03:39):
evidence could just as easily have been used in reverse. Absolutely,
let me an example. You know, it's so it's so
interesting to me that after forty five years of doing
all the work I've been doing, we get findings that
I think are quite remarkable, people living longer, being healthier, happier,
and so on. But the one thing that I think

(04:00):
meant most to me in all of this was the
realization that behavior makes sense from the actor's perspective, or
else the actor wouldn't do it. And that means every
time you're taking somebody to task, you know, you're being judgmental, negative,
you're being mindless because they're not the fact that you're
inconsistent can drive me crazy. But if I'm mindless, but

(04:25):
you're not intending to be inconsistent, so what do you intending. Well,
you're intending to be flexible. For me, I'm very, very gullible,
and you can get me to try not to be gullible,
and you'll point out all the time, believe in it.
You wouldn't have difficulty finding very good examples evidence for that.
And so I agree with you, I should be less gullible,

(04:47):
But it's not going to hold over time because going forward,
it's not my intention to be gullible. What I am
is trusting, and as long as I'm trusting, I'm going
to be gullible. So for each and every negative way
of characterizing somebody's behavior, there's an equally strong but oppositely
balanced alternative. And you know, we did this study forever

(05:09):
ago where we gave people about two hundred hundred somewhere
between one and three hundred behavior descriptions, and we said,
circle those things you keep trying to change about yourself,
but you're unable to keep failing. Except for me, I
would circle gullible, I would circle impulsive. I won't tell
you the rest. Then you turn over the page and

(05:32):
in a mixed up order, the question is, which of
these following behavior descriptions things about yourself do you really value?
And so for me, I would circle being trusting and
being spontaneous. And as long as I value being trusting
and spontaneous, I'm going to be gullible and impulsive. So

(06:00):
you know. And what a nicer world, you know, much
nicer world we live in, right, right? And so that
means that for all these bad guys, all the people
on the other side, rather than just you know, presuming
that they're all idiots or nasty or whatever way we
describe them, if we were more mindful, we'd understand that

(06:23):
each of the things are saying and doing in some
other context makes sense.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yes, And to your point, we see this again now
in politics. You see it all over social media, where
if you don't agree with my point of view, you're
an idiot and you should be destroyed or eliminated.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Or there are very few of us for whom that's
probably true, right, No, I'm joking.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Oh my goodness, Okay, all right, so I want to
talk about mindfulness here. You are the mother of mindfulness,
and see if how you define mindfulness today. Let's say
the context are your research and how you think it
differs from the commonly understood conflict of mindfulness.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
When many people hear the word mindful, they think of meditation,
and meditation is fine, but it's very different from what
I study. Although I did some of the early work
on positive consequences of meditation. Meditation isn't mindfulness. Meditation is
a practice you undergo in order to result in post
meditative mindfulness. You take yourself out of the world and

(07:39):
sit still for twenty minutes twice a day. Mindfulness as
I study it, you're very much in the world, and
it's not a practice in some sense, it's a way
of life. Once you recognize that you don't know. People
know they don't know, so they pretend they think they're
supposed to know. When they realize that because everything is

(08:00):
always changing, everything looks different from different perspective, nobody knows.
So you can be confident and uncertain, which I think
is the most successful posture any of us. You're to
sell when you know you don't know, you listen right,
If you know what I was going to say next,
why pay attention? And so the problem is all of us,
especially the a students like myself memorized and learned a

(08:24):
lot of absolute facts, and these facts are simply wrong
in some context. So to persuade you, I've said this
so many times. Now soon everybody will know the answer.
But if I were to ask you, how much is
one plus one? No, not always. If you add one
cloud plus one cloud, one plus one is one. You

(08:45):
add one pile of laundry plus one pile of laundry
one plus one, one plus one is one. Here's one
that's fun. Even though if you put one pizza on
top of another, so you're adding one pizza plus one pizza,
that would equal two pizzas. But if you put one
lasagna over one lasagna, one plus one would be one.
It would just be a total bigger meal. So in

(09:10):
the real world, one plus one probably doesn't equal to
as often as it does. Moreover, most people are not
aware that one plus one is two if you're using
a base ten number system. If you're using a base
two number system, one plus one is written as ten.
So now, the reason I find this potentially enlightening is

(09:30):
if after we finish speaking, someone were to come over
to you and ask you so how much is one
plus one. You're not going to mindlessly blurt out too,
You're going to pay attention to the context. And now
you have choices, and that's very important because when you're mindless,
the past is dictating your present. When you're mindful, you
have many options. So you can see how it has

(09:53):
nothing to do with meditation. Now it's interesting, Well, so
many people in the world use the word mindful and
in context where meditation would be totally ridiculous, but are
not not aware of the way we study it, which
I think is important for people to understand because the

(10:13):
consequences are enormous. The simple process of noticing new things. Remember,
you're not going to notice if you think you know
right right, So very simply noticing new things, the neurons
are firing. And forty five years of data shows me
that it's literally and figuratively enlivening. And when you're mindful,

(10:33):
you're light up. People find you more attractive. As I
said a moment before, that you recognize that people's behavior
makes sense because you understand no matter what you're trying
to explain has potentially many understandings. So your relationships are better,
your memory is better, virtually everything, and if forty five years,
there is a lot of time to study this, and

(10:56):
you know, so we find we make people more mind
they live longer, It improves your health, it improves your relationships.
But beyond all of that, it leaves its imprint on
the things that you're doing. And so everything is in
some sense improved. And it's so easy. So there's either
there are two ways to get there. Either top down,

(11:19):
recognize you don't know, so then you'll naturally tune in,
or bottom up, have experience after experience where you're looking
for new things about the things you think you know,
and then all of a sudden you see, g you
didn't know it as well as you thought you did,
and your attention will naturally go.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
To I like that. That's all right. So something that
you said, mindfulness will extend life. You live longer with mindfulness.
Talk about this, do you okay?

Speaker 2 (11:51):
In many ways, you know you're going to end up
living a happier, longer life. Lots of the work that
I talk about in a new book, The Mindful Body,
I deal with a mind body unity not you know,
there's many other things in the book, but this takes
this is one of the major points people don't realize.

(12:12):
You know, people think they have a mind and a body.
And if you think in terms of mind and body,
then the question is how do you get from this
thought to the body to something real? And I point
out these are only words. If we put the mind
and body back together, then wherever we're putting one, we're
necessarily putting the other. It's one thing, right, So now

(12:34):
imagine all of the things that you can think of,
you know, the respect to your health and happiness and
so on. And so we have lots of studies. The
original study it is called the counterclockwise study, which I
can tell you as a famous study. How could I
call my own study famous because if you tune in
to the Simpsons go to Havana, they talk about the study.

(12:57):
But this was the first test of the mind body unity.
All right. We took a retreat, retrofitted it to twenty
years earlier, and had elderly men lived there as if
they were their younger selves. Speaking about past events is
if they're just unfolding. So what we found was their
vision improved, their hearing, improved, their strength, their memory, and

(13:17):
they look noticeably under Now we have many many studies
that I report in the book. Let me just tell
you a second and then I'll go to the last
so we can talk about other things as well. We
took chambermaids, and first thing we do is, just as chambermaids,
how much exercise do you get? And oddly, I mean,
it's all these women are doing all day long, right
cleaning hotel and hotel. They don't think they're getting any

(13:40):
exercise because they think exercise and according to the Surgeon General,
is what you do after work and after work, they're
just too tired. Right now, we have women who are
doing all of us exercise but are oblivious to it. Okay, now,
so they should be healthier, right if exercise, it turns
out there. So now we divide It's such a simple study.

(14:02):
Ali Creminally did this. We divide them into two groups,
and we teach one group, your work is exercise. Making
beds is like working on this machine at the gym,
Dusting is like working on this machine at the gym,
and you know, and so on. So now, yeah, we
just have two groups. One group that realizes, ge, my
work is exercise. The other group doesn't realize their work
is exercise. We take many many measures before we start,

(14:24):
and then at the end turns out that the two
groups are not working any differently. One group isn't working
any harder, they're not eating any differently. It seems really
all that's different at this point is the belief that
the work is exercise. As a result of that change
in mindset, they lost weight, there was a change in
waste to hip ratio body mess index, and their blood

(14:47):
pressure came down. Wow. Now this is much more important
in some sense then than I even realized when we
first did the study and reported it. This is a
study on the no sebo effect. Okay, now everybody knows
what the plus ebo is.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Right.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
You take a pill that you think is something, but
it isn't. It's right, it's just a sugar pill. It's
in it by definition, and yet you get better. And that's,
by the way, probably the strongest evidence forward his mind
body uniting. Right, nothing is happening except the change in
belief and your health improves. The noseebo is in some
sense the opposite of this. You take something real but

(15:27):
you don't think it'll have an effect, and it turns
out it doesn't have an effect. All right, So here
these women are exercising both groups. Everybody who's got that
job as a chamber made it, but they don't realize
they're exercising and they don't reap the benefits. Now you
think about that, because if you go to a therapist,
for example, it could be medical psychiatry doesn't matter. But

(15:51):
you're given medication and the medication doesn't work, what is
the doctor likely to.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Do it a different medication or.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Raise the dosage? And when perhaps what you should be
told is you're a partner in all of this. You know,
if you don't believe it's going to work, it's not
going to work. So let me tell you the last study.
We have many, many of these with all sorts of illnesses,
and the life we inflict a wound. And I bet you,

(16:21):
knowing me now for all of ten minutes to think
I probably really hurt these people. But it was a
minor wound, but a wound nonetheless. And the people are
individually run they're in front of a clock unbeknownst to them.
For a third of the people, the clock is going
twice as fast as real time. For a third of

(16:41):
the people, the clock is going half as fast as
real time. For a third of the people, the clock
is real time. The question we're asking is does this
clock time influence the healing. One would expect it's going
to heal when it heals, right, it doesn't matter what
the silly clock says. But that's not what. The perceived
time determines how long it takes to heal. We have

(17:05):
people in a sleep so we have so many There
are people in a sleep study. They wake up, and
I have a lot of clock studies. I'm not sure.
You know, once you start doing something, you do too
much of it. But anyway, we change the clock again.
They're sleeping, they wake up, they say, oh, they got
two hours more sleep than they got two hours fewer.
But the amount of sleep they actually got. Biological and

(17:27):
cognitive functions seem to follow clock time, perceived time. Our
thoughts about our health are crucial now, you know, when
people there was an article written about all my stuff.
It was the cover story for the New York Times
Sunday Times many years ago, and the editors just kept asking,

(17:47):
but what's happening? You know? They they want to know
what is the mechanism. But if it's one thing, we
don't have to look for a mechanism. However, people shouldn't misunderstand.
I'm not saying there's nothing going on under the foot.
What I'm saying is what's going on internally tends to
happen simultaneously, rather than this affects this, and affect this

(18:10):
and so on. But anyway, we have lots and lots
of studies showing that our thoughts are far more powerful
than most of us understand today.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Absolutely well, I know for years. For example, let's say athletes,
professional athletes especially will spend hours on visualization and they
and they can feel that they put their body in
there in that situation really important.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
So let me let me interrupt you to say that
other labs, not I, but I report this in the
mindful body have found that imagined exercise, so you're you're
not lifting weights, you're thinking of yourself lifting weights has
virtually the same effect as the actual exercise. And that's
that's really important. For a whole different reason that when

(19:03):
you're diagnosed with the chronic illness, you along with most
people who probably think, well, the symptoms are going to
stay the same or just get worse. Nothing moves in
only one direction. You're led to believe or you know,
not explicitly, but I think most people assume chronic means
that's it. But there are lots of things you can

(19:25):
do about not the least is imagine exercise, if be mindful.
You know, when you're told you have a chronic illness,
most people shut down in some way. They are depressed.
They reduce the number of activities and interactions they have
and so on, and those things increase their mindlessness. And
when your mindlessness system is turning itself off, there's no

(19:50):
reason when you have this chronic illness you can't have
a lively active mind, and then the neurons are firing,
and that will be good for your health.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
One of the things, one of the things, real quick,
that that I've enjoyed so far, I've never thought about.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
I enjoyed all of this.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
I've enjoyed it so far, every minute, every minute it.
But I've never thought of mindlessness.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
I love that description, and it really helps you to
understand that when your mind is going in all these
different directions and you're stressed out, you're being mindlessness.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
No, no stress is stress is mindless.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Stress. So yeah, and
so this idea of mindlessness to me, is is.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Very powerful, very powerful. Now when I he'll enjoy this
since we're having such an intimate conversation. Uh, many many
years ago, when I started all of this work, I
was studying mindlessness and I don't remember who. I can't
even remember the situation, but the abstract version of this
where somebody said to me, not nice, I guess you

(21:01):
are what you study. And so I switched it around
and started studying mindfulness. And it was at that point
that I started to learn about Buddhism and meditation. I
was already in a very different place, but that was
very rewarding because I saw from this Western scientific perspective
when was able to come to many of the very

(21:22):
same advantages.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, that's incredible thing. And going back to the person
who says you are what you study, that's the same
thing as saying the same thing as you are what
you eat or whatever you focus on, you get more of.
So back to living in a negative environment, you're gonna
feel worse. And then the study where you took these

(21:48):
older guys and they were feeling younger because they were
in that state of thinking about being younger.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, and their earlier selves was primed. And most of
the things we think we can't do or just a
function of our minds. And so if you start to
realize there's no evidence that you can't, you know, all
you can there's no way of doing an experiment to
show that something can't be. All you can do is

(22:16):
see test something and see if that does result in
whatever you're looking for doesn't. And if it doesn't, that
doesn't mean there isn't some other way of doing it.
But we start off with so many negative mindsets that
are limiting, you know, mostly as you get older, the
assumption is you can't. And so the first experience, you know,

(22:37):
many older people worry so much about their memory. So,
you know, I teach Harvard students and these are very bright,
wonderful kids, right and you know, so periodically I give
one lecture on age or two on agents, and to
make clear that they don't have to worry the way
many of their grandparents and great grandparents are worrying. I

(22:57):
just asked them, what was the last thing I said
on the last lecture? Nobody remembers, you know, The point being,
these very smart young people are also not infrequently forgetful,
but if you believe that as you get older, you're
going to be your memory is going to leave you,
and that could result in dementia and big bad things.

(23:19):
Then as soon as you get a little evidence, it
becomes again of self fulfilling prophecy. If people don't realize that,
since everything can be understood in so many different ways,
we can find support for virtually anything we believe. And
so if I asked you, what are all the ways
you're wonderful, You're going to generate all the ways you're wonderful,

(23:39):
Now all the ways you're awful or not the opposite
of this. You know, we have to be careful about
the way we talk to ourselves. Yes, so for example,
the you know, am I rigid? How am I wonderful?
And very consistent? How am I awful? I'm you know,
I'm very boring or rigid? You know, So every thing

(24:00):
can be turned around in multiple ways. But the way
we talk to ourselves and our beliefs are far more important,
far far more important than I think most people realize.
You talk a little about stress, and people need to
understand that stress is psychological. It's in our heads. It's
not an events. Events don't cause stress. It's the way

(24:22):
you view the event. Sure, if you say to yourself,
this thing is going to happen, and when it happens,
it's going to be awful, how could you know it
would be irrational? Feel good after that? And if it's
a simple little way of turning it around, if you
said to yourself, what are three five reasons that this
thing won't happen, so you immediately feel better. Yeah, maybe

(24:44):
it'll happen, maybe it won't. But then I like to
do the next step is, let's assume it does happen.
How was that actually a good thing?

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (24:53):
And then you know when you do this often enough,
I've done this my whole life. You just sit back.
It doesn't matter what ever happens, you know is going
to be fine. You know. So we're talking now. If
we lose the connection, you know, I'll go have lunch.
It won't be bad, right, right, But you know, then

(25:14):
you become very powerful, right once you recognize you don't
have to be afraid of events and for stress. Two
things I want to point out. One is almost always
the thing that you're stressed about doesn't happen. You know,
So look at all that time you're wasting. People are wasting. Second,

(25:36):
that if we're having the conversation now and it happened
to man, you got through it, you know. So. I
think people, when when they get themselves crazed, need to
take a breath and just ask themselves is it a
tragedy or an inconvenience? I didn't finish the assignment. I
are I burned the you know who cares? And you

(25:58):
know so I think that Again, my view is a
little more extreme than most people. But I'd make you
a wager that in ten years the whole world will
agree with me. Which is that stress? No, I mean
this seriously, that stress is the major killer that I
wanted to do. This research was before COVID and I

(26:19):
was dealing it with people in China, and for a
million reasons, we could then end up doing it. But
if we took people who were just diagnosed with cancer,
pick whatever cancer we could do with five different kinds
of cancer, then no one's going to be happy. And
you tell somebody you have breast cancer and then I say,
oh wonderful or who cares? Okay, so give then then

(26:41):
let's say a couple of weeks to adjust to it. Now,
if we measure their level of stress every three to
four weeks. I think the stress that they experience will
be a better predictor of the course of the d
disease then genetics, nutrition, and I even think treatment right now,

(27:03):
think about that because stress is psychological, right right, you know?
So I think we've just scratched the surface. And let
me tell you something. When you were talking about athletes,
this is I think probably it will be interesting to people.
It takes something like fatigue. Most people who have a

(27:24):
notion of mind body dualism, so they don't think your
thoughts have anything to do with how you feel. Believe
you just keep doing. At some point you just become exhausted.
Don't tell me I can change that. I experienced myself
as well. Okay, So I ask my students how far
is it humanly possible to run? And they know a

(27:45):
marathon is about twenty six miles, so they say twenty
six miles. They know it's more than twenty six, so
they keep guessing and that eventually somebody will say something
like fifty miles and everybody groans because they're just too
far from where they are. And then I turn on
a YouTube showing the Tarayamora, who are a tribe in

(28:06):
Copper Canyon, Mexico, who as a rule, can run over
two hundred miles without stopping. Wow. The difference between what
people tend to think they can do and what you
know has already been shown people can do doesn't even
compare to the difference I think between the control we

(28:26):
think we can exert over our health and what we
can actually exert. And another way of understanding this is
that everything is mutable because people think they are these
things that I just can't deal with, and you know,
then I'm going to be a failure, and they work
themselves up and diminish every aspect of their life. But
when you recognize that virtually everything that is was at

(28:51):
one point a decision. Somebody decided to make it that way, right,
and those people lived at a different time are different
from you and have different biases and so on. And
when you simply recognize, yeah, this was decided by people,
I'm a different person who cares about you, then you
feel the freedom to do things differently, and it really

(29:11):
makes a difference. Most of the time. If you ask
somebody if they can change the height of their chair anything,
they'll say yes, but it won't occur to them because
we take what is as if that's the way it's
supposed to be right, and give up all the control
we can actually exercise over our lives.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Now I'm reminded. I'm reminded of was he an author,
Norman Cousins, when he was diagnosed with cancer.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
And he laughed himself into health right.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
To prove that point that it is psychological? And so
he would just watch comedy shows for eight hours, ten
hours a day.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, humor is mindful. You know that? What something is
only funny when you're thinking one thing and then you
get to the punch. Oh yeah, ha ha. At this
point I have them break into telling you jokes to
prove the point, but I'm not going to.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Do.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
I even remember the jokes. But anyway, so yes, I
think it was the mindfulness that did in fact affect itself.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
So okay, going on that same uh stream there, something
like you mentioned chronic illness or immune disease loop is fatigue,
chronic fatigue, whatever it's called. If somebody was to be
mindful about it and just more and more, would it

(30:40):
be positive thinking? Would it be what? How do you
go about? Yeah? How do you go about using mindfulness
to correct or to.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
I'll tell you so, the mindful body I talk about
how you know, I wanted to find since placebos are
so important, so powerful is and we can't give ourselves
a placibo because you know, you can't take this thing
that you know is nothing and believe it's something. But
so that I came up with instead of that, what

(31:09):
I call attention to symptom variability. That's just a fantasy
way of saying the mindful and variability is changed, noticing change.
Oh that's not why I thought it was, and you
tune in. Okay. So now we've taken many big diseases
and all we do is call people periodically and we say,
you know it is a symptom better or worse than before?

(31:32):
And why all right? So now this little procedure is
wonderfully effective for four reasons. The first is that when
you when you have a chronic illness and believe there's
no you have nothing you can do for yourself, you
feel helpless. That's bad for you and bad for your health. Second,
by examining that you know this symptom is now perhaps

(31:57):
a little better than it was before, you realize, gee,
I'm not always in maximum pain, for example. Third, by
this process of why why now is a little better
a little worse than before? That engages mindful search, and
that mindfulness itself is good for your health. And then finally,
I believe you're more likely to find a cure if

(32:20):
you're looking for one then if you're not. So we
did this simple thing with people who have Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, stroke, arthritis,
chronic pain, a host of biggies, we'll say, and in
each case we get very positive results. And this is

(32:41):
something that there's no downside, you know, It's not like
taking medication that it turns out to be the wrong
medication for you. And you don't have to do this
in place of anything medical you might want to do.
But it's often the case that there's a long time
between you take the tests and you get the result,
so you get the appointment in the first place, and

(33:02):
so there are things that we can do to help ourselves.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
I think that back to your thing about your point
about we're just scratching the surface, which I find intriguing
that we're just that you're thinking we're just scratching the surface,
We're still finding out about it because you've been studying
it for forty five years. There's tons of books on

(33:27):
on not only positive thinking but the but just different
things about visualization and changing your thoughts changes your your environment.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, but I don't want to call it positive thinking,
even positive psychology.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Positive psychology, because what's the difference?

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Go ahead, I'm going to tell you that people who
who are being positive with a friend who's being negative
sees you as you know, sort, I mean, just you know,
and you know, the person who's these things positively assure
they're right. The person of the things negatively assure they're right,

(34:04):
because both both the potentially right. So I think that
what we need to do is this active noticing and
not evaluate whether it's positive or negative. Now, if I
can think of three good reasons to do to do
this thing, and maybe one negative reason to do it,

(34:26):
but the good things that I'm thinking of are much bigger,
I'm going to choose to do it to think about
the advantages, right, right, I mean, once once you have
a choice, I can see you again as impulsive, in
which case I don't want anything to do with you,
or I can see you as spontaneous, in which case
I look forward to the interactions, you know, And so

(34:47):
when you start living this way, you come to the point,
what's the point in that negativity?

Speaker 1 (34:55):
I like that so much. But it's training, right, It's
it's a habit that you have to build back to
this mindfulness. It's when you're experiencing whatever you want to
call it, whether it's it's that stress or negative thinking,
what's the counter to that? How do I go? Okay,
I'm sorry, I start thinking negatively. Now I'm aware of it,

(35:17):
so that makes me mindful.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
And then and at that point then you look for
other ways of explaining you. Then, so if it's stress,
the first thing to do would be to ask yourself
how it's not going to even happen. You know, people
mistakenly think they can predict things, and prediction is an illusion.
You know, you can predict for the group, but no scientist,

(35:42):
no thinking person, after they think about it, well, believe
you can predict any individual action. So if I were
going to make a wager with you, We're going to
go to a Mercedes parking lot, and you can randomly
choose a car and you put that key into the car.
Will the key, will the engine start? Or not, and

(36:02):
we're going to bet. If it doesn't start, you give
me your little pinky. Okay, cut that off, and if
it does start, I'll give you a million dollars. Okay. Now,
Mercedes is a great car. I mean, chances are most
of the but are all of them going to start?

(36:23):
You know, nobody's going to take the bet. So we
know that you can't predict the individual event. Now, when
you deeply know this, then you see all your stress
is a function of making this prediction, which you can predict,
and so the best way to train yourself not to

(36:44):
think you can predict is to predict the opposite and
explain it. You know, you know that he's been miserable
for so long. When I see him this time, he's
probably going to be happy because you know, it can
only be down for so long, or he's been miserable
for it's not you're going to continue to be There's
no way of knowing. Everything is always changing, and we

(37:04):
have to realize we confuse the stability of our mindsets
with the stability of the underlying phenomenon. Every time you
think something is steady state, it's because of your thoughts.
Because it is changing, it's sort of like the perverbabial brook.
You know that, yeah, it's the same brook, but nothing

(37:24):
None of the water is the same, none of the water,
not one molecule. Yet we hold it still by calling
it a brook and seeing it as the same brook.
So once we recognize that everything can be understood in
many different ways, that everything keeps changing, and we're aware

(37:47):
that we don't have to worry about outcomes because our
experience of those outcomes is going to be dependent on
the way we frame events, and then you know, every
day is new, everything is potentially exciting.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
All right, let me ask you this, as as humans,
we need a certain level of dependability, of certainty that
I don't think so because it seems like that would
be like if you're constantly saying, hey, things are changing
all the time. Nothing's the same now.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
But the dependability is in yourself. You know, once you
know that you can deal with whatever happens. You know
that I just came back from a reef ship to
the cave, and the weather report was that it was
going to rain and it was going to be cold,
so I packed all these rain and cold clothes. It
was beautiful, you know, it could have been the reverse, right,

(38:40):
you know, I'm expecting you know, but so what you know,
there are ways of being fun in having fun in
the rain, right, and so on. So again, the more
mindful you are, the more choices you have.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Well, I like that right there. The more mindful you are,
the more choices you have. That a great, great slogan.
I don't know, it's it's a it's just a great thought, right,
it's a. It's good. I like that. Write that one down.
That was good.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Well, I mean, it's also interesting because it illustrates many
of the other points we've been talking about. Because people
hate doubt, right, But if you don't have doubt, then
you can't have a choice.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
That's interesting. I like that idea down. Yeah, so if
you don't have doubt, you don't have a choice. What
what a spectacular way of thinking about that. Again, that's
that is something good to write down.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Now I've written almost all of these down, so all
you really have to do is read Myndful Body.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Mindful Body, all right, and I'm gonna put it. I'll
put I'll put a link here in the show notes
for Mindful Body. It's available on Amazon or where you
get your favorite books. Yeah. So I like this, all right.
So so as you've been doing this again for forty five years,
you're are you constantly just I guess I mean, I'm sorry,

(40:10):
not rediscovering, but discovering I guess a new level where wow,
I didn't I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
So everything is, you know, it feels new, and if
it doesn't feel new, that's because you're mindlessly folding it still.
So you're looking at the brook as if all the
water is the same, you know, as it's always been.
You know, before I started to paint, if you had
asked me what color leaves, I would have said green,

(40:38):
you know, leaving aside the fall where they change colors.
And then I started to paint, I started, Oh my god,
there are hundreds and hundreds of shades of green, and
they all change depending on the time of the day,
you know, and this thing that was just green became
multifaceted and exciting. So, you know, we do this with

(41:01):
our spouses or close friends whatever, where you think you
know them and you don't pay any attention to them.
That's the way relationships fall apart.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Right right.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
If you start, you know, just go home today, and
if you live with somebody, if not on your neighbors
stort and just notice three five new things about them.
And the beautiful thing about that is that they then
feel seen. And that's the essence of a good relationship.
So it's good for everybody, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
And to your point, there's a there's a show called
forty eight hours that has has gone all in on
spousal murder. Every episode is they look like the perfect family.
They had a loving this and a loving that, and
you know, you know it's somebody's gonna kill somebody in
some weird way. It's so we never really truly know anybody,

(41:56):
even though you might know them for twenty thirty, forty
fifty years. But I love this idea of looking, being
mindful and noticing one, two, three different things, or focusing
on some of the.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
More positive relationships. In some sense, just like gaining weight.
You know, one morning you wake up and you clothes
don't fit well. You don't gain ten twenty pounds overnight.
If you're not paying any attention and you only notice
when there's something big, then it's much harder to deal
with things. If you noticed you gained a pound two pounds,

(42:31):
anybody could take off a pound and two pounds without
it being a big deal, you know, And we do
this with most things. Once we think we've got it,
then we go to something else and think, whatever that
thing we've got, the success at work, the relationship or
what have you, is going to be as sad as

(42:52):
it was initially. And even though things need care, it's
almost like dusting. I've never really realized the relationship between
relationships and dusting. You know, it's not what you dust
terrible who likes dust any but you dust? You can't
then leave it forever, right because the dust is going
to come back, and so you know, you have to

(43:13):
organize yourself differently rather than trying to complete. And that's
another mistake I think that people make. They don't realize
that it's the the doing, the creating, the journey. Other
people have said this as well, that's fun not getting
there once you get there. And an example that I

(43:34):
use frequently is you're a little kid in the elevator
and you can't reach that button, and let's see, your
father picks you up, and now you can reach and
you're excited. Then you get a little next time you
go in, you're a little taller. So and at some
point well, you hit that button, you can reach it yourself,
You're ecstatic, and then that's the end of it. I
mean when it was a lot of time you were
excited when you went into an elevator, you know. So

(43:56):
the point, the point is that can we stop right
there in just a second, because my bad seems to
be I don't understand why something's not plugged in. This
shouldn't be. Well, the mistake people make is that they

(44:22):
think life is going to be wonderful once they've mastered something, right,
And it's the mastering that's fun. Once you think you've
mastered it, then it becomes mindless. And when it's mindless,
you're not there to enjoy it one way or the other.
And so if we recognize that, then the difficulties we

(44:43):
experience will be part of the experience, you know, rather
than something to let us lead us to quit and
say it's too hard, right. I mean, if you wanted
to win every competition, you know, let's say play Tic
tac toe against four year olds or a five year old,
you're gonna win all the time, you know, But what

(45:06):
fun is that?

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Right? Right? Well, and I think this is something that
takes time to understand because we're all excited about reaching
that goal. We got to get there. You know, I
got to get this degree, I gotta get I got
to get you know, the job or whatever. But when
you think about college, you spend almost no time talking about, yeah,

(45:29):
I graduate and got this degree. Look at my degree.
You think about the friends that you've made, the experiences,
the ups, the downs, the whole journey, and then you
and people always talk about when I look back, I
look back in fondness because of this and that and
in this event or this person. So you're right, but
this journey, this this enjoying the journey is a mindful

(45:51):
thing because most of us don't enjoy it as much
as we should. We don't appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Now, very often we don't enjoy it at all. We
think we'll enjoy the final outcome. But the final outcome,
so you get the award grade, the day is over,
it's you know, it no longer has that zing. But
I think that what people don't realize is or you know,
when I say it, they're going to say, of course,

(46:17):
but every action suggests that that's not leading them to
how they're being in this world. That all the money
people seek and the success and the status is empty
in its own right. The only reason we want it
is so that we'll have the respect of other people,

(46:37):
so that will have our self respect. Now, if you
if that's true, you can you know, bypass all of
this nonsense by simply acknowledging that what everybody does make sense,
or else they wouldn't do it. And so there's no
reason to be taking yourself to task. All the things

(47:00):
that people regret regrets are mindless. You know. It's so
funny to me when somebody said, oh, you know, whatever
they've chosen doesn't work. They should have done the other thing.
The other thing could have been worse, could have been better.
There's no way of knowing. But more than that, you
don't have to rely on this mindless understanding of the outcome.
You know, no matter what happens, there's a way that

(47:22):
it's actually an advantage. You know, there's some data not
from my lab, that people once they have heart attacks
or even they get a diagnosis of some dread disease,
then they first come alive that all of a sudden
you realize we're not going to be here forever, and
why do I care about this? Silly thing, you know,
all the things that seems so crucial, all of a

(47:45):
sudden fade and importance, and we can adopt those attitudes
without having to get that dread diagnosis. But it's all
to get to a place where we can get to
without the mindless part of that journey.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
You know something I'm wondering. I find that interesting that
all this activity to again get the accolades, the money
or whatever, is to get the self respect of others
so we can have our own self respect. So you
look at somebody, let's say, an extreme version of that,
Jeff Bezos, who's one of the richest men in the world,

(48:26):
and it just recently retired. So I guess I guess
he finally got enough self respect where he said I
don't need anymore. I don't give a crap about the
you know, I'm just gonna go enjoy my life, right,
and took off with his new wife and is out,
you know, traveling the world with all his wonderful toys.

(48:47):
But that's to me of such an interesting idea that
the greatest stuff I'm writing it down, I wrote it.
I'm gonna have a buck by the time all the
things I've learned from doctor Ellen. But it is a
great way of thinking about that that all this self

(49:07):
respect or not, I'm sorry, all the respect that we
want from others is to have our own self respect, right.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
I'm going to give you another one one liner, okay,
and I describe this. I make it very clear, I
think in the mindful body. I'll try to do it
briefly here, which is that most of our stress comes
from worrying about the decisions we have to make, and
that the bottom line is, rather than waste your time

(49:42):
trying to make the right decision, make the decision right now.
There is no way to evaluate a decision in advance
of making it. You know that. And once you've made,
you make a decision to take action. Once you take
the action, you can't evaluate the other alternative, right because

(50:04):
you're not the same person. I mean, should I eat
this or this? I eat this, I'm no longer as
hungry if I eat the other, I can't see what
it would have tasted like before any of that, you know,
And so we were taught and I think typically more implicitly,
but to do cost benefit analysis when you're making a decision,

(50:27):
it's ridiculous. I'm with great respect for my colleagues who
study cost benefit analysis, I think that it's mindless because
if every cost is a benefit and every benefit is
a cost depending on how you frame it, then if
you add it up, it's not going to tell you
what to do. And that when you're gathering information, which

(50:48):
is fun in its own right, it's not going to
lead to a better decision, but it's going to tell
you more about the world you know and may be
useful in the future. But as you're gathering the information,
at some point you have to stop. Now when do
you stop? Okay? So something tells you you have enough information,
but then you find out, you know, okay, should I
go to Paris or should I go to Florence? And

(51:11):
I think that you know, first of all, if you
can't decide, that means that the options of psychologically the
same for you. They're the same. That's why you can't decide.
Now you start gathering information and the information might pull
them apart. So let's say, if I asked you, we'll
change it, did you want A or B? Who knows? Okay,

(51:35):
So you don't know. You gather information and then you
find out A is one hundred dollars and b as
ten thousand dollars. What's the decision? Right, So once you
articulate the difference, the decision follows mechanically. All right. Now,
as you're gathering the information and you think you have enough,
so you decide, you know, so back and forth between

(51:57):
let's say, what was I named Florence or Paris? And
I go back and find and found Okay, yeah, I
really I prefer going to Paris. And then I find
out my new best friend you just bought a ticket
to go to Florence. That would be more fun to
go to Florence, all right, but damn I already bought
my ticket. So the point is there's no natural endpoint

(52:21):
to the information we could take in, and any new
piece could change the decision that we're making. And you know,
the bottom line for all of this is that you know, uh, oh, yes,
you know, I have. I'll tell you I have. I

(52:45):
checked to see everything hooked up, right, So I have
an extension cord. So I made sure that the computer
plug was tight in the extension cord, right, But I
never saw that the cord it's self wasn't plugged in
all right, So where were we? Oh?

Speaker 1 (53:07):
My goodness, that's funny. Uh where were we good? It's
a good question.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
I was talking about decisions about passions.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Yeah, so okay, so you know what I think that uh,
that uh, this idea first of all, going back to
the beginning of the conversation, where mindfulness is not meditation,
and I think, unfortunately that is the biggest myth or

(53:37):
misperception that people think.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Well, yeah, you know, it's very interesting because by the
one hand, if you ask somebody to describe mindfulness, they'll
come up with something like meditation. But you can't open
a magazine yeah, or listen to somebody on tell that
clearly has nothing to do with meditation, and it's dream

(54:01):
the other A few years ago, I was giving a
lecture in Chicago, and I went around the corner from
where I had been giving this talk, and I saw
a sign the mindful Burger. You know, so the uh,
it's hard to imagine how that burger was meditating or

(54:21):
what have you. It's it's important that people recognize the
difference because this is so easy. You know, it's something
that everybody thinks they're already doing, but they're not. You
know that when you're not there because you're mindless. You're
not there to know you're not there, and so people

(54:43):
libyas to their mindlessness and it's killing them literally and figuratively, right, right.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
And what's so interesting, I'm trying to remember growing up
and you hear so many variations of what you think
is what you become, but it's never really taught. It's
never really something that people really When I say people

(55:13):
there's no school at least elementary or junior or high
school or even most college classes aren't really doing a
deep dive in mind.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
I'm trying. I'm trying to change all of that. I've
had plans or you know, funding is an issue, but
to have mindful schools, I have a process of working
on mindful hospital. You know, everything can be changed, And
I mean hospitals are the oddest in some sense. If

(55:45):
I'm right, which clearly I believe without certainty, but strongly
that I'm right, that's everybody knows stress is not good
for you, right, So even if I'm wrong about it
being the worst thing for you, everybody will agree it's
not good for you. Yet who you know who's ever
gone to the hospital where you walk in and you're

(56:07):
stress is an increased immediately bizarre. You know. The first
thing that happens is you feel worse rather than better
to go help yourself. So we want to want to
change all that and create the mindful hospital. In mindful schools,
it's really very easy to teach people to be more mindful.
All you need to do, you know, we can do

(56:30):
this in very fancy ways, and I have lots of
designs for such. But the simplest is just teach conditionally.
It could be.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
When you say that conditionally, that's right.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
How much is one in one? Okay? So right now
when you say two, let's say no, you don't say two,
Let's say you say one. The teacher is going to
make you feel stupid and in subtly communicating nonverbally what
she thinks of you for not knowing the simplest of answers.
Everybody in the class is going to look down on you.

(57:05):
If the teacher were mindful, she'd say, oh, how did
you come to that? And then you'd explain one, what
of chewing dumplus one? What of chewing dumb? Eques? One want?
And everybody would have learned. So, but all the information
that's presented is presented conditionally, it would seem that it
could be perhaps one way of looking at it. When
we ask people for answers to questions, you don't ask

(57:26):
for a single answer. What else might it be? What
else might it be? And so on? And you know that,
and you encourage people to enjoy the process of finding
out where they don't have to be scared of not
getting the right answer because there is no one single
right answer right.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
And I could definitely see that happening, maybe as early
as high school.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Oh well before no, I thought.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
I'm just saying, with today's teaching environment, I think and
this is my opinion. I know I'm going to offend
some some teachers out there, but it seems like to
me that a lot of teachers are setting their ways,
they're not really wanting to change. I really thought that
one of the benefits from COVID is that is that
our teaching environment would have been shaken up enough to

(58:16):
maybe try new different to try different things other than
just learning online. But most teachers are so set in
their ways, and then the Teachers Association is setting their ways,
and it seems very difficult.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
And as you're describing it, it's all steeped and mindlessness,
which is not good for anybody. Right, So when the
teacher knows that the teacher can't be certain, and that's
good rather than bad. The teacher is more willing to change,
you know, because they don't have to be afraid of failure.

(58:50):
And so the teacher becomes more mindful by learning, Oh
maybe one in one isn't always two, and the learning
experience becomes more collaborative. You know. It's I did this
study that's going to see far afield, but I think
it's relevant and it also speaks to leadership. Although when

(59:13):
I did the study, I didn't know that until I
started to write it up. Okay, so we were taking
We took orchestras and we were going to have half
of them perform mindfully and half of them performed mindlessly.
When they were mindless, the orchestras were told, remember time
you played this piece of music where you were very
happy with it, and just play it that way again.

(59:35):
When they were mindful, they were told, make it new
in very subtle ways that only you would know. And
we do this sort of thing across lots of experiments,
always same old, same old, versus make it new. We
record the piece, we play it for people who know
nothing about the study, and they overwhelmingly prefer the mindfully

(59:55):
played piece. All right, and the musicians prefer playing it
that way. Now, so I start writing this up and
I realize, well, isn't that interesting? Essentially everybody doing it
their own way resulted in superior coordinated experience. No, no,
they're not playing jazz, they're playing classical music. And that

(01:00:16):
led me to think that the major job of the
leader should be to encourage other people's mindfulness. So leader
in industry, in front of a classroom or somebody in
the health field doesn't matter. Everybody prospers, and we have
some wild data that you'll have to read the book
to learn about. But as mindfulness is contagious, so if

(01:00:39):
you want to change an organization, you don't have to
change each and every stubborn person. That you change a
few in and of itself, it will change more. People
find people who are mindful much more appealing because you
have a sense so that you don't articulate it yourself.
But they're not going to be evaluative, they're going to
be supportive. You wouldn't that kind of an interaction.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
You know what's interesting about what you just said about
a leader should encourage people to be mindful and again
this idea of trying it again your way. I think
of all the different businesses that were started, one of
them being IBM, who at that point that the gentleman

(01:01:25):
who started IBM was working for the National cash Register Company,
I think whatever it was called. But why people why
most people leave a company and start a business that
ends up competing with the company they left, is because
they weren't allowed to do it their way. They weren't
allowed to try something different, and that causes that split.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
So it's like, wow, yeah, and how can you you know,
what does it mean to do it the same way?
Over and over? Things change and what was good before
is less good now, or even if it's still good now,
there are circumstances in which it's probably not going to
be good. You know, everything about business, well about any institution,
tends to be mindless. That what we do when you're

(01:02:09):
hiring let's say a CEO you're hiring for yesterday, because
as soon as the you know, something new comes about,
you need a whole different set of skills. Yes, this
person may or may not have you know, we are
held bent on trying to solve today's problems with yesterday's solutions,

(01:02:30):
and it's exhausting.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Well, yeah, what's that quote by Albert Einstein that yesterday's
problems or today's problems will not be solved by today's
thinking something along those lines. That we have to get
out of that that stuck mindset. And again, what's so
interesting how many people are afraid to put forth an

(01:02:57):
idea because they don't want to be made fun of
or I.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Ased to do this consulting for a major electricity company,
and they had a zero accident policy, you know, and
I told them that by having that, you're going to
have a maximum lying events, right, I mean, things happen,
but when those things happen, they should be immediately seized.

(01:03:26):
For how that's actually an advantage. You know. The old
study of very big company is producing a glue and
the glue fails to adhere, and oh my god, the
CEO suffered, what a terrible failure, All that money wasted
until somebody in that company thought to use the very

(01:03:46):
property failure to heal a.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Sick here, Yeah, very.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Affiliate to heal failure to add here. But if you
make that positive adhering for a short amount of time
then created the post it notes, right, And I'm sure
three AM made a lot more money with the post
it note than it would have made with just another glue.
So there's a hint there, which I also talk about

(01:04:15):
in The Mindful Body, about ways of becoming more innovative,
so that if they had said to themselves, you know,
the glue didn't work, some people would just end and
that's the end of the business. Some people would say,
who are a little better, would say, how can we
use this glue that doesn't adhere? A failed glue? But

(01:04:38):
the word failure and glue are calling to mind the
wrong things. So what you need to do is bring
it down to a level of property. And so you say,
as I said a moment before, what could you do
with a substance that adheres or heels, but it hears
for a short amount of time? And then maybe people
would come up with things like post it notes?

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Yes, And again, the the thing that I'm taking away
from our conversation today is this this first, this.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
New interpretation, this new uh definition of mindfulness and also
the definition of mindlessness. I love that, and also that
if you're really truly mindfulness in business or at home,
you're you're going to be open to allowing other people
to see things from different points of view, to to

(01:05:32):
do it their way, and just asking these questions of
what can we do with the situation or with these
properties or whatever is so different and really, as a parent,
it's going to cause you less stress as opposed to,
you know, as we want the kids to be, Hey,
clean the room this way or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Yeah, so if we if we say once you realize, stress, regret,
burn out, any kind of unhappiness are all because of
our mindlessness. There's motivation alone to change it. But you know,
I believe that virtually this is a very big statement
I'm going to make. And I say virtually only because

(01:06:15):
I'm saying it, but I you know, I really believe all. Okay,
so let me be afraid about this, that all of
our ills, whether personal, interpersonal, professional, or global, are the
direct or indirect consequence of our mindlessness, which to me
is very exciting, Right, It's very exciting because it speaks

(01:06:39):
to enormous possibilities. Yes, then we haven't you acknowledged we're
not aware of yet.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Well, one of the one of the one of the
things that I like to study for lack of better terms,
is this judgment that we make upon others, especially from
let's say the the Christian point of view. You know,
christ talks a lot about not judging others, but as
most Christians are very judging, and I include myself, and

(01:07:11):
that's one of the things that I've tried to work on.
But then you look at some of these extreme cultures
or these extreme religions, like let's say Isis where they
have judged us here in the Western world as unworthy
to live right, that that we should be completely eradicated.
And I'm thinking to make to make that judgment is

(01:07:32):
just so crazy to me. And then not to only
make that judgment, put to follow up violence to act
on it. Right, It's like, oh, we got to get
rid of these guys. They're they're they're making the world worse.
It is crazy. But to your point, is it's that
mindlessness that is creating this and they feed on it.
I want to ask you about this. I want to

(01:07:52):
drill down a little bit on on mindlessness. Regrets is mindlessness,
and I want to expand that give me some more
thought on how we are being mindless when you regret.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
Okay, So the first thing is, so you have a decision,
you have different alternatives, you choose one. It doesn't work
to experience. For the first of all, that's mindless right there,
because it doesn't work or not work. It depends on
how you work it. You know that if you're in
a hospital and you find out your surgery is going

(01:08:28):
to be delayed, you know, for me, that would be great.
It'd be more time where I'm being fed and I
don't have you know, certain responsibilities and loving people are
coming to visit me, you know. Or you can say,
damn it, I don't have the time, you know, to
give these extra three days before the surgery, and I'm
missing this product so on. So events again aren't causing
my stress. But so now you have this thing that

(01:08:52):
didn't work out. To assume the other alternative would have
been better, It could have been worse, it could have
been the same. There's no way of knowing. So, as
I was saying that you make a decision to take
in action. Once you take the action, you can't evaluate
the quality of the decision, but you see it. But
also it doesn't matter what you decide because you know

(01:09:17):
the fact that you can't decide means the options you're
considering are the same to you. If they weren't the same,
then you could decide, right, you know, if you ask me,
do I want Lima beans or oh, I don't know,
give me another vegelan or okay, I'm you know, I
don't have to think about it. I don't like one.

(01:09:38):
If I'm a lie. This is very funny, you know,
I have nothing against the line of beans. When I
was young and people would invite me to dinner, which
they still do, and they'd say, is there anything you
don't eat? And I thought, if I say no, I
eat everything, they're not going to believe me. So I
decided that I didn't eat Lima beans so I would
have something to say no. And I hologize now to

(01:10:01):
all those who love line of bees. But at any rate,
So if you can't decide, it's because the options are
psychologically the same. I love that you might as well
just flip a coin. I did the thing with my students.
I said, okay, I want you to spend the week
not making a decision. What I want you to do is,

(01:10:22):
as soon as you're faced with the decision, flip a coin.
You know, have some heuristically. The first thing that occurred
to the first alternative is the when you're going to choose,
but don't spend time making it. And they came back
the next week, you know, happy as clams, the clams
really happy, but that they came back the next week
stress free. It was a lovely week. You know that,

(01:10:46):
because whenever you're making decisions, the only way you can
make the decision is to make a prediction. Now we
said I told you already and argue it. And the
book that prediction is an illusion. You can predict for
the group but not the individual. So you know, should
I get the surgery or not? You know, it's a

(01:11:09):
very hard decision to make. But if you get the surgery,
there's no guarantee that the fact that it worked for
seventy percent of the people who've had it means it's
going to work for you, because it also didn't work
for some proportion andry and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Doctors will tell you that all the time that hey,
this is apparely safe. I've done a thousand of them,
but it's not one hundred percent safe exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
And you know, before he does us surgery, he might
have a fight with his wife he might have indigestion,
he might be eager to go play golf. I mean,
there's just no way of knowing. So our past success,
you know, the past is in some sense the best
prediction of the future. But I think that's a mistake
because I think that people rely on you do an experiment,

(01:12:03):
and if the results are significant, that means if you
were to do the exact same experiment, which you can
never do, you're likely to get the same results. So
those probabilities are given to us interatit. So something I've
said a million times recently as I keep doing all

(01:12:25):
of these podcasts, But it was mind blowing to me.
I'm at this horse event many years ago, and this
man asked me, can I watch his horse for him?
Because he's going to get his horse a hot dog.
I'm Harvard Yale all the way through. I'm the A
plus student you hate, He's crazy. Horses don't eat me.

(01:12:46):
He came back with the hot talk and the horse
ate it. Wow, And that's when I realized everything I
think I know wrong. But to me, you know that
might bother some people. To me, it was very exciting
because it opened up a world of possibilities that meant
all those things that people say can't be they can't
know that, right, right, all the things you think you
can do, you can't know that. And it's again, as

(01:13:08):
we've said before, it's the doing that's fun. So even
if you don't end up getting to that final outcome,
it doesn't matter because if you get to the final
outcome where you say now I know it, which is
of course always a mistake, then it becomes mindless. So
the people who do what they do best stay learners
for a lifetime.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
It's so funny because I'm knowing. I am reminded of
another saying about unconscious competence. Right, you're so good, you've
mastered this so well that you don't have to even
think about it. But based on your definition, if you're unconscious,

(01:13:52):
you're not out there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
And yeah, and I think you know. So we do
this with everything we teach. I mean sports for instance.
You're supposed to keep doing it whatever the it is,
until it becomes second nature. No, that means until it's
mindless and you don't need to think about it. Now,
we should never be mindless, all right, to be mind

(01:14:15):
we should only be mindless if two editions in the
one you found the very best way of doing something,
and two nothing changes. So clearly, by that definition, it's
not good to be mindless. And my feeling, in a
simpler way is, if you're going to do it, be there.

(01:14:36):
Why rathery're doing it otherwise, show up for it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
I'm just thinking of all the things that I do
where I'm being mindlessness about it or mindless about it,
and I'm not really fully being there and h And
then this idea of of no matter what decision you make,

(01:15:04):
don't get too up tight about it because you're never
really sure of the outcome anyway, this idea that yeah,
it's just.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Trying to it's just that what it's not just that
you can't know. It's that you can create your experience
to whatever happens. And that's all ultimately a care about. Yes, right,
things are neither good or bad of how we understand them.

(01:15:32):
The more mindful we are, the more ways we can
understand how whatever just happened, you know, is an advantage. Yes,
the people may mistakenly see that as as rationalizing. You know,
so the fox wants those grapes and can't reach the grapes,
and that says, oh, they're probably sour. Anyway, Rationalizing is

(01:15:56):
what you do afterwards. What I'm talking about is a
strategy of life going forward, is to know that those
grapes that could be good, they could be bad. Trying
to get them should be fun. If you begin on
a path, doesn't mean you have to complete it, you know, say,
all right, you know, I'm sure i could get those
grapes eventually, but now I'd rather go play.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Softball, right, all right, So I want to switch and
talk about positive psychology, talk about maybe the difference between
positive psychology and positive thinking, and also get your thoughts
on on maybe how you see positive psychology evolving in

(01:16:37):
the future as far as mental health.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
We were supposed to talk for twenty five minutes, right
an hour and a half later, Okay, I'll answer your question.
You get get it, all right. Positive psychology is not
so much about being positive, but it's looking for a
positi about outcomes. You know. In years past, we studied

(01:17:05):
how people were depressed, and we studied how people were conforming,
and we studied how people were helpless, you know. But
while all that was going on, I was giving choices
to people in nursing homes to find how that made
them feel in more control and living longer. So it's
really a function of the dependent measures to chose. As

(01:17:28):
an experimenter're just looking for how it's bad or you
turn it around, how it's going to change. I haven't
decided if I controlled the change. You know, I don't know.
I don't know how it's going to change. I think

(01:17:48):
that hopefully. I mean, the reason that I keep writing
these books and talking to people is because this mindfulness
is so powerful and so easy that the more people
become mindful, the whole society will change. And in ways

(01:18:10):
it's hard to predictably, it's hard to predict in ten
years where AI is going to take us, right. I
think that one of the things people need to understand.
You know, when I say we should be mindful all
the time, that's scarce people because, oh god, that's exhausting.
It's not exhausting. Turns out, mindfulness is energy begetting.

Speaker 1 (01:18:30):
It's mindfulness and energy be getting.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
Yes, that's right, because it's the essence of engagement. You know,
when you see some love us what they're doing, it's
just that they're totally there, noticing new things, enjoying themselves
without evaluating, without judging and so you know, you say,
could you be enjoying yourself all day long? Or is

(01:18:54):
that too exhausting? Clearly we see that it's not. You know,
it's interesting as somebody who said to me, well, okay,
you have a little kid in a park and let's
say a three year old and the three year old
walks into the street busy traffic. Isn't it best just
to mindlessly grab the chat? No. First of all, if

(01:19:14):
you were mindful, the child wouldn't have ended up in
the street in the first lay. Second, when you're pulling
the child out of the street, you have to figure
out which way that car is going. Right you pull
her out to the right to the let Well, it
depends on, you know, the way the driver is organized
in that car. And what people think is that doesn't

(01:19:35):
it take longer to be mindful? No? You know, I mean,
if so, milliseconds and when in life does milliseconds really matter?
So when you're enjoying yourself, you're mindful. You can't be
enjoying yourself if you're mindless. And if you want a
life that's relaxed where you're enjoying yourself, this is the

(01:19:56):
only way to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
So you have, uh, several books. One of them is
The mind is Mindful Body.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
That's the most recent, Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
The most recent one, Mindful Body, and they.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
In no way to chronic health, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
And the other one is Mindfulness.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
There the first one I wrote in the Mindfulness series
was Mindfulness. The next one was the Power of Mindful Learning,
and you know, all different experiments, different ideas, and it
was called mindful learning just because I couldn't call it
mindfulness since I had called the first one mindfulness. Then
I had on becoming an artist, reinventing yourself through mindful creativity.

(01:20:44):
That's really a bad interpersonal mindfulness. Then there was counter
to Clockwise, where it was the beginning of you know,
started with that Counterclockwise study and all about health to
finally the Mindful Body, which started as a memoir. So
there are lots of sexy stories in there, and then
it became you know what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
I love it. I love it, Okay. So first of all,
thank you for stopping by today. And I've been I've
enjoyed the conversation. I've really truly learned a lot. I've
written tons of notes and I would love to bring
you back at another time, and and be able to
talk some more about mindfulness and and and and how
mindfulness affects our health and and I'm going to check

(01:21:28):
out some of your other books. So I would love
to have you back.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
Sure, I'm happy to come back.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Thank you so much for stopping by today. Stay well
you too, All right, we're out. That was good.