Heroic Chat with Michelle Segar: Cultivating Sustainable Change

Hey Heroes. Today's episode features a mastery level chat with one of our friends and world class experts sharing how they show up as the best version of themselves. This heroic chat with Brian was recorded live in front of a virtual audience of heroic community members and coaches. To learn more about this series as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to practice to mastery and express the best, most heroic version of yourself. Head to Heroic Us today and if you like this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. Now here's your host, Brian Johnson.

Heroes, it is 1:01pm +1 +1 Central Time. Working through some tech difficulties on the back end of this, but I am so excited today to have Michelle and Seeger join us. Michelle is one of my all time favorite teachers. She is a behavioral scientist who studies how to integrate healthy behaviors into our life. Her work is, you know, all over my work and our work we have. If you search Seeger in the app you will find seven plus ones in which I reference Michelle and her work, 14 philosopher's notes in which I reference Michelle and her work, including the notes on her great book. Her first book, no Sweat. Check out her second book, the Joy Choice. I need to do a note on it. I'm really excited about that. But check that out. The Joy Choice. For now we have no Sweat, which is huge. We're going to talk about some of the distinctions that she helped me make. And then Michelle, we talk about you as well. In again, so many other things. But let us take me off of my little shared screen here and get straight to work. There's a lot I want to cover, but first I'll just officially say welcome, thank you for taking the time and thank you for dedicating your life to helping us understand how to become better versions of ourselves.

It's so wonderful to be here. I love connecting with you and your team.

Well, the feeling is mutual, Michelle. I like to in these chats talk about, you know, our heroic masters and their paths and just learn more about your hero's journey and kind of what led you to be where you are, which I do want to talk about today. And I'm so excited to talk about some of your research that is so practical and so powerful that I imagine we'll spend most of our time doing that. But can you just give us the broad arc on how you got to where you are. And perhaps any difficult decisions you need to make, you had to make in the process of kind of creating the life you have.

Oh my gosh. Okay, I'm going to try to do this really fast. Something really pivotal happened when I was getting my first master's degree that completely established the path I've been on for almost 30 years, which I can't believe it. I was doing my first, you know, real research study with cancer survivors. We randomized one group to get exercising. The other group didn't get it. And we were looking to see if exercise could reduce psychological distress, like anxiety, that sort of thing. And we found that it did, you know, and that was really what our study was designed to find. And part of our study design was to call everyone back three, about three months later to give them the measures again, see how they're doing, and do qualitative research via focus groups. And this is 30 years ago. So I'm kind of naive and talking to people and we're doing the groups and people were smiling and talking about exercise. So I made an assumption that everyone was still doing it. But I discovered that I was completely wrong about that. And what we learned when we asked, well, why did you stop exercising? People were like, I'm busy, I work and I have kids and I have aging parents and this, that and the other. And so I thought if, well, these people had felt comfortable committing to us to exercise, but not committing to themselves for exercise. And I thought if people who faced a life threatening illness have trouble committing to exercise, then we have a real problem in society and it's my problem and I'm going to solve it. So that was this pivotal moment that set me on this path that I have kind of never deviated from.

Wow. So much there. And again, 30 years, we were joking before we came on of here we go. Radiant exemplar, practicing her philosophy. Let's go. Hard to believe you've been doing anything for 30 years as an adult there, Michelle, but good work. Well, let's go into that. So now we'll just jump straight into one of your ideas from no Sweat. That changed my life and changed the way that I teach. So one of the things that I understand that you kind of discovered was there's a right why in a less than optimal why in terms of the motivation we have for healthy behaviors. And the study that I'm thinking of when I say that is the one in which you ask people why they choose. I think the study was to exercise. And some gave abstract reasons and Some gave concrete reasons. Can you walk us through that basic idea of the motivation that we can choose to have and that data and any other data that you've discovered since?

So that study that I think you're referring to is where we asked people why they exercised and we coded their answers. Again, this was qualitative research too. And we came up with four. The, the data suggested there were four primary reasons that people exercised. The first one was a combination of two reasons, which was appearance and weight loss. The other was people's current health or yes, current health concerns. A third reason was future health concerns, you know, like avoiding a dreaded disease. And the fourth reason had to do with some positive experience, like feeling centered or grounded or energetic that we call daily quality of life. And what we found, you know, again, this was this day. These data really shook me up. They went against our hypotheses that help would be a really great reason, like, what is more important than our health? Like, of course, health is considered an intrinsic motivator, you know, often within theories like self determination theory and by society. But our data suggested that the positive immediate effects of physical activity was the driver for increased physical for participation over a year. And I'm actually, I'm putting together a keynote right now for the Society of Behavioral Medicine where I talk about this. We could just stop with our data. We could just say, oh, huh, that goes against my hypothesis. Write it up, send it out, and move on to the next study. But this finding was kind of so jarring to me that I wanted to stop and really understand it. Because think about it. Why isn't health, our own health, fostering it, cultivating it for now, in the future? Why isn't that one of the most driving forces for a behavior like physical activity? So I'm going to stop there because I think you know the answer, but I'm just going to pause to see what your thoughts are.

We'll continue because your thoughts have influenced my thoughts. And of course, you know, reflecting on different wisdom from different sources of research and just common sense. But the idea that when we make the direct connection between, in another frame that I want you to explore more after you come back to that punchline, is the gift versus the chore that when we're giving ourselves the gift of feeling better right now and tomorrow morning by the choices we're making today, then we're much more likely to engage in those behaviors when we can make that connection. And it's what we do with our kids, you know, 10 years old and 6 years old. We're constantly goosebumps saying make the connection. If this, then that, whether it's a little bit too much sugar or you know, this or that, like then this tends to happen. But please continue wherever you want to go. Knowing I just said a lot.

Well, no, you know, so during the pause to try to understand what was going on, you know, looking to literatures outside of what I studied. Right. Like behavioral economics. Well, there was a really solid answer. You know, this was a long time ago where I, you know, read this, this work and found out that, you know, research shows that human beings are more motivated by immediate positive experiences than rewards or positive experience. They have to wait in time for. That's one of the reasons. But also health, better health, it's abstract, you can't grab onto it. Like when you feel really good, you know what that is. But do you know what better health is? So that's just an, I mean that was, you know, abstract, not concrete in the future. And there's, there's other things. And you know, the other really interesting thing that I, you know, another body of research I came across was the idea that health gets intertwined with the, the psychological, the negative psychological experiences that are associated with trying to lose weight. The shame, the weight ism, the stigma. And so for many people, health is really a code word for weight loss. And we know that there's just tremendous. That's just, I mean, this is a wonderful pun. It's a lose, lose for everyone. When you're trying to exercise for weight loss. Number one, exercise barely touches weight loss. Now it is important for weight loss maintenance. I don't want to get too in the weeds, but there are very important reasons why if your purpose for exercising or being active is to lose weight, it's misguiding you.

So what is the. What is the right why? Just, just to state it. If we wanted to maintain motivation, what should we be thinking and telling ourselves?

The right wise reflect. Really the first thing they reflect is positive experience. You know, whether it's connecting with other people, whether it's feeling charged and energetic or relaxed and centered. I mean, you know, really there's a whole palette of positive experiences and depending on the color we want to paint any day, that's the physical activity we choose. If we're stressed out, we might really benefit from just engaging in a high intensity exercise like running or we might benefit from doing something really calming like yoga and what in general. And those are the right whys. The right whys. And it's not just my research that supports the idea that immediate positivity activity. It's, that's, I would say a pretty big finding in, in the literature that positive experiences, now this is key during your activity, not afterwards, but during, is what predicts future participation. And you know, that's the, that is the motivational formula, what I call the successful cycle of motivation. But of course, you know, just because you're motivated to do it doesn't mean you're going to do it every day. So we've got to go beyond motivation to prioritization. And that is really a different question.

Let's go there. Michelle, bring us there. So you know, the right way we got this. Talk to us about prioritization.

So a great example how this works is, you know, who doesn't love going to the movie theater like, or who does love going to? Raise your hand if you love going to movie theater. I, yeah, I don't go because it's not a priority. So I love going to the theater, but it's not a priority for me. So we need to make the same, it's the same formula for a behavior like exercise. It could be, you know, preparing for healthier eating or it could be making sure that you get your meditation. Whatever the activity is that you're trying to fit in, you got to be motivated to do it. But then you have to prioritize it too. So the way we shift the bridge we build is that when we experience positivity from an activity, those, you know, you know this. I'm tapping into Barbara Fredrickson's broaden and build theory of positive emotions. When you have momentary experiences of positivity, that builds into better and bigger resources. And in my world, how that translates is when you experience positivity again, whether it's eating healthy foods or exercising, we'll focus on exercise. Then you have more energetic resources, you know, to be the parent you want to be or to have the creativity for your work. So it's that these momentary experiences of positivity from the, you know, what are traditionally called health behaviors, I call them self, self, self care behaviors, is you are better at who you are. And so there's the identity piece that we were talking about.

Let's go there. So then Michelle, then I had an email exchange in which I invited her to join us and we reconnected and she shared with me a journal article that she recently published in which she challenges some of the thinking around the rigid habit formation ideas that we can kind of be seduced by and suggest that in fact we want to consider identity as a really important ingredient in the formation of healthy behaviors. And I may have just not properly summarized that. So reflect back what would be a better reflection? But we just had a really quick fun back and forth that I was eager to continue in this discussion. So if you can talk to us about what you see as the challenges currently with how we look at habits and how they're created and the role that identities may play in helping us shape our behaviors, that'd be wonderful.

Sure. So before I thank you first of all for the opportunity to talk about this. You know, this is kind of a new phase of thinking that I've been exploring. But before I dive into the details of that, I want to just take a step back and say that I think what happens is that a lot of concepts that are might be powerful and simple and easy to understand and might serve us in some areas our lives and there might be research in areas of living that they get popularized by books and all sorts of things. And we the simple powerful techniques like habit formation, it makes sense. Well, gosh, we should be forming habits for behaviors like exercise because then we offload the effort and willpower and all this stuff. But the problem is that it's been over generalized. So I'm just getting more and more, I guess, biased in my thinking. I'm always open to being wrong like I was with my other research with health motives for exercise. But you know, to some extent I think we do have to develop perspectives on the concepts that we think are going to be helpful if we're going to actually help people. Right. We've got to feel comfortable advocating for them. And so kind of that, that's where I am right now. I think something has been happening in society, across society where there are all these concepts that make sense and they're being generalized across all behaviors when in fact they serve us well in certain areas. It serves us well that we might feed our dogs in the morning without having effort or willpower. But when it comes to physical activity, it's not just a one step process. And so that's the big picture is that I think that's the problem is that a lot of these books that have been written treat all behaviors as if they were equal in terms of how in the value of these things. So the, this, you know the title of this or part of the title of this paper which is called Unhabit, is that, you know, we've over generalized the value of habit formation with complex behaviors like exercise and healthy eating. So I'm going to dive in now, if that's okay, to go into the detail more about habit formation. Is that okay?

Please? That's more than okay. Thank you. And thank you for the. I want to so the very respectful frame, by the way. I appreciate that. I know. Yeah.

I think it's why I want to make sure that I'm not going too long without pausing. So. Okay, let's think about the habit. We use that word all the time. It's a habit to do this, it's a habit to do that. And it means. What that means is we do something without thinking. Now, more formally, there's habit formation. And habit formation is really what I'm talking about. But because these terms get used, habits mean just doing something with regularity or doing something unconsciously, automatically, without thought or effort. They get mixed up. So let's be very clear that we're talking about habit formation and whether that process of making our exercise or automatic is actually possible for most people. So habit formation generally is talked about creating an association between a cue and a response. And it's. In the popular world, it's talked about having three parts, three steps. One, what's. There's a cue. Two, there's the behavior. And three, there's a reward. So let's focus on flossing, which is a really great example. One, let's just say you floss after you brush. The cue would be putting your toothbrush down. Then you pick up the floss, step two, and you floss. And then three is some reward you feel, whether it's a sense of accomplishment, a clean mouth, whatever. And that the more you do those through that process, the more your brain automatically learns those cues. And then you don't have to think about it. I mean, I have a flossing habit. I don't have to think about it. And it's beautiful. I love it. I depend on it. And there are other areas, but let's consider the context that flossing happens in bathroom. Not a lot of distractions, not, you know, there aren't most of the time kids running around or dogs that, you know. And so in that context, a simple behavior like flossing, habit of formation is beautiful and elegant. But let's step outside of the bathroom into the rest of our daily lives where we're juggling all kinds of roles, where there's all kinds of unanticipated things. Most of us either don't have the requisite organization. Well, we can't count on life not changing. Right. And so in that Circumstance. And exercise isn't just a simple behavior. You might have to go somewhere, you might have to change clothes. You know, there are so many different things that you might have to do. Habit formation is based on a cue, a stimulus response. So yet it's, it's been, it's, we're being told that it's, it's a gold standard, it's a way to make sure you do it right. But my experience coaching people, which is very different than academic research. Right. I mean I work with people and I see the unexpected challenges that arise to their plans. And so as someone who cares about helping as many people as possible. And by the way, there are people who have formed exercise habits and I call them habiters and I'm an unhabiter. But my husband is a habiter and, and it works for him. But guess what? He is a habiter in like every area of his life. He is disciplined and organized and you know, he sleeps in his exercise clothes so there is no friction for him to get onto his exercise in the morning. And he, by the way, I have his permission to talk about this.

So his number one self care habit too, if I recall correctly. What, it's his number one self care as well.

Yeah, it's his foundational self care behavior. So there's no, the only right and wrong is if we're teaching people concepts that are actually going to misguide them. And I think habit formation is one of the concepts that really could misguide more people that it can help because I don't think most people have the lifestyle or daily context that can support habit formation for complex behaviors.

So then we get to what are things that we can consider that would help us navigate it with more consistent execution of the things that we say we want to do.

Sure. So, and by the way, for all of you wonderful people who are on in this space with us today, I hope that we have time for questions and I hope that you feel comfortable disagreeing with me and pushing back because you know, that is totally fine. We all have different experiences and the way we can discover the best truth is by chewing over things together. So. So I just wanted to say that it again, people are different. But I believe for more people it's kind of the exact opposite of the habit formation technique that's going to cultivate sustainable change, which is what the topic that I have been studying and care about. And that would be very conscious decision making, not the unconscious automatic. And that's because in life we often have to make decisions in the moment. Enduring when unexpected things get thrown our way. And the only way we can choose to make the healthy choices consciously when we're struggling with do I, don't I. And there's a conflict. What, what tends to happen in those conflictual states is that people often are. The way our brains work is we're kind of going to go the easier path because it's kind of. It's a stress state. And that's. Our brains tend to go with, you know, either approach the things we want or avoid the things we don't want. So the only way we can overcome that automatic response, a different. It's. It. It is a. It is an automatic response is to become very aware of what's the moment.

Oh, gee.

And you know, in the joy choice, I call this the choice point, right? The, the, the point at which there's a challenge to our plans. And so we. The way to do it is we have to be aware. I mean, we don't have to be aware. It could be unconscious too. But what we would want is for people to on some very deep level and hopefully consciously and unconsciously get that when they make the choice to move their bodies or to eat the foods that are going to truly nourish them and give them energy, that. That is A, going to make them feel better then, and B, it's. It helps them do the things they care most about. I mean, this is getting back to identity, right? And when we are conscious of that, when we say, oh shoot, I can't do the 60 minutes that I had hoped to, whatever exercise, whether it was at the gym or down in your basement or outside. But you can name it. You can say, and you know, this is a phrase name entertainment that I have lovingly borrowed and respectfully borrowed from Dan Siegel. When we name the thing that's in our way, and we also, we are aware that we at that what we. One of our choices can actually help us be our best selves. Well, that's a pretty compelling driver, right? And so that's getting back to both identity but also being conscious of it because once you're aware that a certain choice really helps you be your best self, you can't forget that. It's like you really can't put your head back in the sand after that. So you might decide to ignore that and go with the momentary hedonic impulse. And sometimes we do that and you know, that's okay because life isn't perfect. So anyway, that's. That's what I'm suggesting.

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There's so much there, Michelle. So then we juxtapose in our work the hedonic and the eudaimonic. So every single thing we do goes back to Aristotle. Then comes up to Martin Seligman and we ask him playfully, hey, ancient wisdom, modern science, what's the ultimate purpose of life? And then I playfully answered, as you know, Aristotle sang the summum bonum. The greatest good is eudaimonia, to have a good soul, to experience that sense of deep joy when you know you're being your best self, which of course we translate into English loosely as happiness, but has a deeper meaning, something closer to what Seligman named one of his recent books on which is to flourish. And then we break it down from that to, well, how do you go about doing that? Aristotle and Seligman. Aristotle says in a single word arete, which is a Greek word we translate as virtue or excellence, but basically means making the right choice, moment to moment to moment. So in any given choice, in any given moment, you have a choice. Can you step up and be your best self and do what you know is best for you or not? And to the extent you get seduced by the hedonic society you may choose to do, the vicious behaviors you know aren't really what you want to do. And to the extent you can be mindfully aware of and committed to being your best self, living that eudaimonic life, then you have a better shot of feeling great right now. And I briefly want to highlight, then come back to some thoughts on motivation and discipline. The way you described the concrete felt sense of joy in the moment versus the abstract. But what does it mean to be healthier, to be whatever Joseph Campbell came to mind. And he says that when he was studying Hinduism and Sanskrit philosophy, or philosophy in Sanskrit, he said, look, I have no idea what right beingness is or consciousness. What does that even mean? Sat and chit, two jumping off points into enlightenment. But he said, my bliss that I understand when I feel alive, when I feel good and joy, as you would say in the joy choice. Goosebumps. I can follow that. And that's in fact a jumping off point into enlightenment from the ancient scriptures. So that idea of knowing what helps us feel great, great right now, and then more and more consistently choosing to do it Feels to me like the ultimate game. We feel super aligned on that. And I love your. To me, you haven't said anything controversial. I think it's yes. And I think that there's a, you know, cue behavior award, which works to an extent and will always have elements that can be useful, certainly for simpler behaviors. Although I think I might be doing my flossing wrong. I floss first, then I brush my teeth.

Oh, no, no. There's no.

That's a separate, very long convers. But then we have the. Okay, yeah, but what about more complex behaviors? And Phil Studs, who's back there, who's my coach and spiritual father that I talk about a lot. Who I talk about a lot. He says there's a few different types of discipline. One is structural, which is how you organize your days, however imperfectly. That's really helpful for using your willpower wisely to install habits that can run on autopilot with asterisks on the complexity. And then he talks about reactive discipline, which is in the moment in which you're faced with the choice, as you would say, can you practice the discipline to be your best self, live with arte, as I just said, et cetera. So I thought that was an interesting parallel between how you framed it and how we've been framing it in our work here. But I want to bring all of that back to identity and how you think identities and getting clarity on who you aspire to be can help in the formation of sustainable, healthy behaviors and anything else you want to talk about in there, knowing I just said a dozen things we could talk about for a very long time.

So before I answer that question, I want to just go back to illuminate or shine a light on something that I think often gets lost, and that is that a behavior like exercise or eating nourishing foods is. We consider it to be a healthy behavior and like a kind of a duh. But when it's associated with the wrong why, the wrong whys contaminate the behavioral meaning for people. So that's why when someone comes to a choice and they might know that exercise makes them feel their best, but on another level, it means I'm not good enough. My doctor, my partner is trying to control me, and we have. Or I have to do it perfectly. And these things in. In the joy choice, I call these the four decision disruptors. The. The four things that in the moment of choice, at that choice point, are going to derail our decisions. And that's why if we name them, we can tame Their impact on us. But if we don't acknowledge the kind of the societal meanings around exercise and eating, those things are. They're inextricably connected and they will take down the behavior. So I just want to point that out.

That's so cool. I have goosebumps. I really appreciate you doing that and excited to see you continue to emphasize the in that. But just to go there, and you may be going there just to make sure it's explicit in those moments. What do we do in.

So, I mean, that is what actually the whole joy choice is about. It's about what do we do in those moments of challenge and conflict? Well, we pop our plans. We can't do our plans, and so we pop it, which means we take charge. We don't let life burst our bubble. We pop it. It's our plan and we're in charge. And so we undo it by popping it. But popping is also an acronym, which is the steps for what we should do the first thing. And you of all people in the world, Brian, are appreciate the wisdom of the pause. Like, you can't have an unreactive choice unless you pause so that you have at least a moment to ground yourself in what is going on right now. Right? So you have to pause. And then, you know, the. The pop decision tool asks people to, oh, open up their options. What else could I do? But this is where perfection can get in the way. Because if we think we have to do it perfectly, that's all or nothing thinking. When you can't do it all, the only option is none. So we do the opposite. We cultivate for flexible thinking, cognitive flexibility, which is one of our core executive functions, explicitly through the O. And then we p. Pop. We pick the joy choice. And I didn't mean to bring us so explicitly into the content, but let me finish that. And then, because it really does have to do with answering your question, what is the joy choice? And again, this is about moments of conflict, right? This isn't about a perfect world where we schedule this in our calendar and we just la dee da da da. Every day. We. Everything happens according to plan because that isn't what usually happens for many people. So the joy choice is the perfect imperfect option that lets us do something instead of nothing. So it's about reframing what a successful choice is. It's not the plan. We popped it because it was unworkable. So we have an option of doing nothing, which doesn't get us anywhere or something. And so. And why do we do something and this is, this is the culmination of getting to your question. Why do we do something? Why is it worth doing something? Well, for a few reasons. Number one, it means we feel successful. And that is a way to feel competent and to reinforce making a choice, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, which is really what sustainable change is, number one. Number two, and this is really like linking to identity. Any, any something is, is a step of self care. It's tending to our, our physiological and psychological needs, whether it's this small or this big. And when we tend to our own self care, then we have that much more energy and enthusiasm and intention to cultivate the things that make life meaningful for us. And so that's why this moment of choice is so much more than just, oh, it's a conflict or we need an if then plan. I mean, if then plans. That was kind of how I thought about things when I wrote no sweat. I'm thinking about them in a little more nuanced way now because I think that instead of teaching people just to make plans, what we really need to teach people is how to make choices in a dynamic environment to how to make adaptive choices in a circumstance where life is changing.

Well, then I would say, and this is what we teach our coaches then the if then plan is if your plans get blown up, then you work. In your case, the pop cycle.

Yes.

Look at it. We name entertainment. Oh, wow, my wife just got out of control. I said I wanted to do that. It's not happening. Right. And then to go back through it, we've got a pause. And to emphasize for everyone, this is Viktor Frankl's. In between a stimulus and a response, there is a gap. And in that gap, in that pause is your freedom. So can you cultivate the ability to step in between that stimulus and choose a better response that is reactive discipline. And my emphasis with our crew, Michelle, is the more you practice your structural discipline by at least trying your best to reduce the variability of certain behaviors in your meditation. Happens after you wake up before you turn on your phone. Like that's, that's a helpful thing, you know. So again, using the best of the three step habit formation process with mindfulness to know that it will never go perfectly, but then the if then becomes a. In itself, the plan, when the plan breaks down is I don't go off the rails. And to highlight the oh, screw it, I won't do anything. The opposite is oh, screw it, I made a little mistake, so now I might as well just binge on everything. Because it goes both ways. Whatever.

That's right. I mean, that's why if we teach people to feel successful with a of lot. Little something. Now, there's. There's something that you're gonna love that I. I just want to. I haven't said this in a while, so I just have to gather my thoughts. And I feel so bad that I don't have the theorist name in front of me. I. Sometimes I remember it, sometimes I don't. And right now is a moment where.

I'm not remembering is, we're gonna pop that, Michelle. We'll name it, we tamed it. We're good. Let's go.

Joy, a joy theorist who has a fairly new, or at least published fairly new theory on joy, says that one of the things he says is that joy is the moment when you feel a match between who you are. A match between the moment and who you are.

Oh, gearspons. Yeah.

When you make a choice that supports your, you know, your. Grady. I'm for my. The topic of the Deutsches, your greater eating or exercise goals. And it's not just supporting them, because what you're doing is you're fueling yourself and actualizing who you are. And so once you're aware of that. Right. Once you're aware of the significance. Because that's what you were talking about. We're talking about how do we. Our choices have significance if we understand what they are. And that is so empowering when we know that.

So I want to connect this. Everything we just. We just discussed, and let me make sure that this is actually showing up properly. Yeah, you can see the app now. So, Michelle, as we briefly discussed via email, this is how we architected the entire app. So the basic idea is eudaimonia, which is joy. Right. And the number one virtue I want to experience in my life is Eudaimonic joy. When do I experience that? Essentially, when I'm living in integrity with my best self, when that which I just chose to do is in alignment with that which I aspire to be. I feel a deep sense of joy is how I would reframe what you just described. And I'm really excited to go into the research, so let's trade some notes on that. But then what we've done with the app is we encourage our community to commit to. To remind themselves of who they are at their best. We split up a good life into what we call the big three. Energy, work, and love. And I jokingly say this each time I frame it, but I Don't agree with Freud on a whole lot, but I do think he got it right when he said a good life comes down to work and love. If you can get those two things right, you're. You're 80%, 85, even 90% there. I say yes. And if you don't have the energy to show up in your work and your love, very difficult. Which is why I'm so grateful to you for spending 30 years to help us understand how to do that. Anyway, we help people create identities in their energy. Identities in their energy, their work, and their love. In each morning, they spend a minute or two, we spend a minute or two committing. We go tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. I want to be this version of me. I want to embody, and I have certain virtues I want to embody. I aspire to be disciplined and calm and confident and energized and tranquil and poised. I remind myself of that one second, a split second at a time, and then I articulate, well, what things do I want to do today? So my number one self care habit, Michelle, that you helped concretize is sleep. I'm in bed for nine to ten hours, usually closer to like nine, nine and a half, to make sure that I get my eight hours of sleep. Me. And less than eight hours of sleep, less than seven hours of sleep. Different person. Seven and a half, 7:45. Eight.

Cool.

8, 8:15, 8:30. I'm really feeling it. Anyway, we have these targets, and then throughout the day, as you hit these targets, like, I'm one of the few human beings in the world that gets joy from doing burpees, right? So each time I do a set of burpees, I'm doing them and I'm feeling the energy in that moment. And then I say, that's like me. I said I would do it and I'm doing it. And we architected this with the same company that did Slack and Tinder and Uber Eats. And the idea was, could we make it engaging dopamine fulfilling to do that which you say you want to do, so we can connect that activity to the joy you feel in the moment. And while you hit what we call a target. Anyway, wanted to share that and then tell us a little bit more about identity and the role that that specifically plays in sustaining healthy behaviors, if you can. And then I do want to open it up for questions, knowing that we've got a hard stop coming up in about 17 minutes.

So I have a few things I want to say. You know, what sustains Us, we sustain, right? That's a phrase that what sustains us as individuals, we sustain. That's the formula. And what sustains us has to do with the things that help us feel our best and that help us live our best, right? And so that, that is like, in a nutshell, that's what leads to sustainability. And it has, it has to do with identity and feeling our best. So energy. And then I would say, you know, energy is fuel and you know, feeling our best and doing meaningful work and living like work and love, like it's the same, it's the same thing in different, a different package, right? And so identity, ah, let's think of another word, self regulation, like that is a very jargony academic clinical term when people self regulate. And by the way, you know, you can self regulate in school, you can self regulate in your work, you can self regulate with exercise. It means you're regulating yourself, right? So who is the self? What are, why are you. Right, so this term self regulation just means that you are doing what you hope to do and plan to do. And so you're regulating yourself, but it's your self that you're acting on. So that is who we are. You know, I mean, it's this psychosocial, you know, I mean, spiritual identity. And so, you know, are we conscious of our identity? Are we going to start talking about consciousness? I mean, another topic I'm saying, super interested in, like that's a whole nother thing, right? When you read things from a Buddhist perspective, who is this I that is noticing that I'm talking right now or that I'm looking at you on the screen? So I don't, Sorry, I don't mean to get too esoteric on you, but I mean, I think the reason why identity is so potent is because it's who we are. You know, in a way it's, it seems so simple, yet it's so profound. And you know something, there's a really wonderful researcher, Emily Falk, who does research on identity. And do you know her work? Emily Falk?

We don't, but you just gave me a deep hit on it, but continue.

So, you know, she studies both the role of purpose and health, but also how helping people be purpose driven can help. And purpose driven, you know, is another word for getting at what we're talking about, right? I mean, there's so many different frames on the same thing, right? Which is about being aligned. And you know, the more conscious we are, I think, of what our values are, the more aligned we can be because we can have both inner inputs that gut checked that we may not even be conscious of, but we have conscious inputs that are like, oh, gee, I'm really not going to feel good if I do that, or oh, this goes against what I really believe. This might be the easy choice, but I wouldn't, I can't live with myself after this, whatever it is. So I think the more conscious. I think there's both conscious and unconscious inputs into the sense of identity that we have. So I mean, your question that you just asked is so big, it's so simple and big at the same time that I think I probably said enough and want to hear your reactions or the floor.

Yeah, well, it's just so inspiring. And again, the challenge that I've wrestled with for 20 years now is how do you concretize this? So how do you operationalize all of this ancient wisdom, the modern science, a lot of common sense? I mean, these aren't particularly. Who's going to debate about what we're talking about right now, really? I feel better when I'm acting like my best self. Well, of course. But then the question is, well, how do I more consistently actually do that? And again, this is what I've dedicated my life to trying to figure out how to simplify into a repeatable way. One thing that just really struck me that you said as you were exploring the different ways we can approach identity is it's who we are. And then to connect it back to the research on joy, when we are being who we are, we feel connected, that we're in integrity and we feel this ineffable sense of joy. And then the way that I frame how I describe arete is in any given moment you're capable of being this. And if you are being this, and there's a gap between who you're capable of being and who you're actually being in the moment, not who you think you should have been after 20 years of whatever, but in the moment there's that joy. Joy choice, literally the eudaimonic choice. And if you're not choosing that, and there's a gap in that gap is where. Again, I'm oversimplifying, but regret, anxiety, disillusionment, et cetera exist. If we can close the gap, even if it's just for a moment in which we don't erupt at our kids or we do go do the workout and we don't go to the liquor store, in that moment we've closed the gap. And in that moment we're practicing arte and we're feeling joy. Then the ultimate game becomes. Can we repeat that moment with more and more consistency? Can we bring more intentionality, more consciousness, to a more deliberate life in which we know the game we're playing and how to play it well? With friends, we all move from theory to practice to mastery better when we're together with friends, people that share our values, etc.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. And I think even part of our sense of self, you know, is expansive. Our. Who we are isn't just me and I. It's we. So I think that's also new. I think that even is supported with neuroscience.

This is Dan Siegel again. So Dan Siegel is a dear friend. You know, name it. But interpersonal neurobiology, he's been talking about forever.

You know, it's like, thank you for making that connection. I am. Yes, yes. But I think, you know, hit. I love Dan Siegel's work, and I haven't read his. Oh, sorry. This is not supposed to be happening. You know, people are doing mri FMRI research that looks at this communal self, I think. And so actually, I. I need to read his new book about that. But, yes, I mean, it. It's so. I mean, when you start talking about these simple ideas, they are so profound because they're so grounding. Right?

Yep. And then you get to go up and back and expand and contract and find that again. For us, it's the operationalization of it. Ideas are great practices. I offer. You need both. But let's end in the work and the practice. But let's. We got 10 minutes left. If anyone has a question for Michelle, now's the time to raise your hand. Perfect. I see two quick hands up. Let's start with Angelina. And then Christy, really excited to hear your thoughts as well. And then Arturo, Alicia, we'll see if we can get all the way through. I know that. To confirm, Michelle, nine minutes. We've got to get you out of here, right?

Yes.

Okay. So if we can do our job here, as we tend to try to do Angelina, just frame it up real quick, and then we'll get Michelle's quick thoughts and see if we can get a few reps in now.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking my question. Amazing work. Your passion and enthusiasm is contagious. Appreciate it. My question is around specifically teen population. And all of this, I almost feel, would be even extra challenging for them developmentally in the context of just, you know, the peers are more important. Their Rebelliousness, hormones, they're finding themselves, all of that. And what would be, what are your thoughts and advice on supporting and encouraging teens, specifically that age group in the healthy habit formation and just choosing the joy choice and forming that sustainable change in the context, especially in the modern world, when they're bombarded, the challenges are huge, especially for them.

So yes, that's my first answer that teens are this unique population. And I want to be very clear, my work has not been on teens, it's been with adults. You know, I, I actually have a son who just turned 15 yesterday. And so I am in the midst of this stuff. A couple things, a couple things we know from research. Individuals, when they feel that their freedom is being taken away or threatened, we are innately wired to rebel. So anytime a teenage, if they think their parents are trying to trick them or cajole them or pressure them, that is probably not going to work. You know, so I think we just have to recognize that. The other thing I think, and again, I'm not an expert on teens either as a parent or as a practitioner or researcher, but I think there's an, I think where our true opportunity lies because my understanding is you can't control what friends your teens have. You can't, you know, there's, and there's so many distractions away from healthy choices. And you know, clearly you have to have boundaries. That's important. But I, here's where I stand today and maybe some, maybe I'll learn something different in the future. I think the biggest opportunity we might have with teens is by modeling this stuff explicitly and overtly ourselves. So not just by picking the joy choice and popping our plan, but by talking about it and just really briefly. I, in the middle of my book writing, I didn't have time. It was just a very hectic time. And my ideal walk is an hour and I didn't have time to do it. So at dinner I said to my family, you know, could we take a walk outside after dinner? And we're walking outside a couple houses and my, you know, astute teen son looks at me and says, mom, is this a joy choice for you? He knew that I couldn't do my hour planned walk, so I was making the perfect imperfect choice. He had internalized that idea. Now I can't predict whether he's going to use that in his life, but I'm certainly modeling it to him. And again, it's not enough to do it. You need to verbalize it so they understand the thought process and you can teach them that.

And then I'm going to interject here too, because I want to highlight some of the things that we've been talking a lot about here. Angelina. It's making the connection. So one of the things we do with our 10 and 6 year old is we're constantly making the connection. If this, then that, if you choose to do that, then you experience this. We're constantly telling them it's your life. We're just trying to help you create an understanding and the wisdom and the self mastery, et cetera, in order to make choices in the future. And this is why we would encourage you to consider that this is perhaps not the best food for you to eat or whatever. And then briefly, Emerson's My son is into chess. He's 10 years old, right. He's got, he won the state championships for his division here in Texas. He's got national championships coming up. So here I am. Mr. Hey, what set targets, how many puzzles should you do, how many games, et cetera. And he started to chafe. There was too much structure for him and there was that loss of intrinsic joy to it. He watches a documentary on Magnus Carlsen, whose dad said, no, no, no, just do what you enjoy to do. Which is why he had gotten so good so fast, is he just trusted himself. He'd watch a lot of videos, he'd play a lot of games. And then we just took all the pressure off and said, have fun, dude, just do what you enjoy doing and we're going to go have fun on the weekend. But it was a beautiful demonstration that no one wants to be coerced to do anything. And one of the challenges with our app is you can't feel like you're being coerced by yourself. If you want to consistently engage in behavior, it can't be a chore. It needs to maintain that sense of gift by making the connection not to the abstract but to the real. Yeah, when I choose to do this, I feel great. I'm not doing it because I have to or because Brian said I have to or because whatever. So beautiful stuff on intrinsic motivation, etc. Angelina, I know we could talk about this for so long. I want to make sure I hear Christie before we go though. So give us the quick reflection back.

This is perfect. This is perfect. And thank you, Brian, for that. That. What do you just said? Because it ties with my follow up. All of that considered, I was saying specifically for teens. I just. Because all of that, what Brian was saying I've been doing for years, that really worked well. When they were younger. I have three kids, three teenagers and now it's much harder. And I'm trying to figure out are they going to come back to what they've grown around or and is this like more temporary or is the influence of our sick society, you know, bigger at this, are they more vulnerable? I think that's kind of the, the immediate environment. What is the influence, especially when you said communal self, how important it is to their identity and their formation of data identity.

We're gonna have to save that one for another time. I think Michelle communicated clearly that we're both on the. You're at 15, I'm at 10, you're at where you're at Longer Nuance chat. Bless you. Love you. Christy, can you frame it up real quick and we'll get Michelle's quick insights before we say thank you and send her off.

Well, Michelle, this okay, feminine energy 101 soul force. Brian, you need, you needed. Alexandra here, number two, Angelina. I think this is about creating a family love language. A language so that when your kids are here they feel so much joy in the experience of being a family. I, I, I, I've lived this, I grew up with this. My in laws had this. But the trick is finding the similar love language and what I have found, it's about appreciating the interests of, of every member of your family, seeing them for who they are. They bring their soul force to your family, it takes it to another level and they'll always want to be with you. And I, you know, my kids have gone, done their thing, but they've come back. My son lives down the street with my daughter in law with three daughters. My other daughter lives with her husband. She, they, everybody travels. In fact they're all on these trips but they always come back to the nest. And I think it's because we've, my husband and I have tried to play, create a space, a safe, loving, encouraging, not perfect by any means, but a safe space. And I think Michelle, you are so right on because, and you, Brian, Christy.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to frame this up and at the risk of being rude, I just want to make sure we honor Michelle's time constraint.

You are awesome.

Bless you. You're amazing. Michelle, thank you so much. I appreciate you and your 30 years of hard work and both in the academic side and in the coaching side and in your own humble practicing of this wisdom, really appreciate your intellectual rigor, your humility and your wisdom and thank you for Taking the time to be with us today. I look forward to having you back. Continuing the chat and talking more about the Joy choice.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Pleasure.

All right, Michelle. All right, See you. Well, there we go. Sorry about that. Kirsty wanted to make sure that we are doing our job of preserving the integrity of the time that Michelle had dedicated. Time flies when you're having fun with friends. She is great. We did not talk about whatever we want to talk about on the other side of that. But how about we come back tomorrow if anyone wants to come back and frame a question up for me to. To reflect on, we will do that for now. Nat, are you here or am I by myself? Oh, there you are. Okay, cool. Let's enjoy a breath. And I also want to. It was very exciting for me, obviously, to reflect on her thinking and to see the joy. And I cannot wait to get into that research on joy and to make the connection even more, more deeply to the eudaimonic joy which I just moved up in my. I don't think I shared this the other day, but when I was replaying with my virtues, I moved. And we'll go to edit virtues so you can see them. I moved eudaimonically Joyful to the top. It was in there, but it was near the bottom and I put it up at the top. So to have our conversation today be so focused on joy in the research on joy, showing that it is when we are closing the gap and living with arte and being our best selves. Goosebumps. I see you do a little happy dance there, Andreeta. That's it. And so I'm even more confident right now than I was an hour ago at 1:01pm on what we're doing. This is it. Spend 30, 60, 90 seconds. For me, it's two minutes, maybe two and change. Recommitting, setting that intention, getting our consciousness, which is so complex and so vast and so abstract, focused on what's important, which is us showing up as our best in our energy, our work and our love. What virtues does that best version of us embody? What specific things will we do? And then the algorithms when things don't go well, perfect. We've got structural and reactive and expansive discipline to say bring it onto it all getting a little bit better. Remembering too that it's a lot more fun and a lot more effective with friends. So when I look forward to continuing to deepen our relationship here with social online, with social offline in 2024, 2025. I can feel the ripples of what we're doing and I'm going to go back to one more thing here before we take a breath and connect. If you want to. I was telling Alexandra how cool it is. Oops. Not the micro moment I want to go to appreciate. So I'll appreciate Michelle, right? I appreciate Michelle. She's amazing. Thank you for your work. Our community has hit that target 313,000 times. That's so inspiring to me again, to imagine something as simple as that, making a conscious intended commitment to do something as simple as that and then doing it together 313,000 times. And that little data point, when I look forward a year, two years, three years, I see millions. And then I look forward a little bit longer and I see our community expanding and the ripples of our community going out and seeing how many other people we can bring into this party that becoming millions and tens of millions and billions across each of these different virtuous behaviors. And again, this is it. This is how we operationalize the wisdom, put the virtue into action so we can be the change we want to see, so we can literally change the world one person and more specifically, one virtuous act that we joyfully celebrate one moment at a time. And again, it's an honor to do it with you. And with that, let's take a breath. Flip the switch. We didn't do it. I was so excited to jump in with Michelle. I knew we had so much to cover that I just assumed we came in flipped. But let's flip that switch. Mindfully having that switch ready at hand. Right there. It's in our hand. Boom. Flip it. The best, most heroic version of ourselves is here. We feel energized in the moment in which we take a deep breath, chest up, chin down, whatever it is for you, releasing tension, smiling, sitting, standing just a little bit taller, knowing that you are already your best self. We just need to get rid of the things that are in the way. Allow that to come through more and more consistently. Never perfectly, not someday, but today, together. All right. That was fun. Day one tomorrow 1:01pm.

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