Interview - Create Zen Habits with Leo Babauta

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, guys, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living 101 interview series. Today I'm going to be chatting with Leo Babouta. Just learned how to say Leo's last name from the incredibly cool and popular site Zen Habits. If you, if you're one of the few people who haven't heard of Leo at this point, cruise on over to zenhabits.net and get your wisdom on with Leo's great blend of super practical, inspiring and grounded insights. Leo, thanks for taking the time to chat.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Well, I'd love to kick it off with Habits, your Zen habits. Such an extraordinary website. Tell us about Zen habits. Why are habits important? Then we'll talk about some good tips on how to go about building habits.

Sure. Well, Zen Habits really was a way for me to share some of the things I've been learning about changing my habits. I was in a place about seven years ago where I was just kind of stuck and I couldn't make changes. I felt helpless to do any of the things that I wanted to do. I felt like I had no discipline. I felt guilt about failing all the time. And so I learned a lot about how to change habits. And when I finally figured out how to do it, it just kind of clicked. And it was kind of amazing that like a certain small set of principles could be repeated to form basically any habit that I wanted to form. And so I learned that the key to changing my life was changing my habits. And that really just changed everything. My life is completely different now, seven years later. And I'm so happy that I've learned these things. I'm just really happy to be able to share them with people.

Yeah, that's amazing. And I know you've shared them with so many people. What are some of the top distinctions that you made in terms of how to effectively set habits and create new habits?

Yeah, well, there's a small set of things that I've learned. One thing that's really important is just doing one change at a time. So many people do a lot at a time or try to do too many at a time, and it's a good recipe for failure. So that's been a big change for me. Focus on one at a time, start small and progress really gradually. And that sounds really obvious, but a lot of people don't do it. They try and go out and exercise at the gym for half an hour to 45 minutes when they haven't been exercised. They don't have the habit down yet. So get the habit down first by doing just like five to ten minutes each time. And then once the habit is kind of set, then you can kind of expand from there. I learned a lot about triggers, how to tie your habit to a trigger. I learned about building positive reinforcement into the habit and just really learning to enjoy the habit. And a lot about social accountability and how that really helps you to stick to the habit for longer, for long enough for it to become a habit.

Hmm, very cool. So I'd love to unpack those a little bit more. So doing one change at a time. Get it. And again, we all get so excited, especially around the new years when we're recording this. We want to change everything, but let's pick one thing kind of that keystone habit. Focus on that starting small. We didn't say that, but I'll kind of throw that in. Starting small and progressing, you know, from those small, gradual changes. And then you kind of went through quickly the last three of those top five tying habits to triggers. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah. So I think a lot of people don't really understand how the mechanism of how habits work, but it's. For example, when I was quitting smoking, I had to make a list of the triggers. And this is based on a lot of research on habits that I didn't know about, but I learned about at that time was that each time I smoked, it was because there was something that triggered it, a cue that told me, this is time to smoke. And then the inner urge came up once that trigger went off. Stress is a big one. And stress can be a trigger for smoking, but also for lots of other bad habits, like shopping or going to your procrastinating or overeating.

Checking email.

Yeah. Chewing your nails. There are all kinds of things that we do as a response to the trigger of stress. And so if you want to quit the bad habit, you have to find a good habit to replace the same need for the bad habit when the trigger comes up. And so you have to kind of make a list of all your triggers. And when you're forming a good habit just from scratch, not replacing a bad habit, it's a good idea to find something that's already in your routine that you do on a daily basis. For example, I wake up, and I might drink a cup of coffee. That cup of coffee, since it's already in my routine, can be a trigger for a new good habit, let's say meditation. So I would basically do the trigger first, which is drinking a cup of coffee, and then right after, like immediately after, do the meditation. Now, in the beginning, there's no urge to do the meditation after the coffee. So it has to be a real conscious thing. You have to have, like a reminder out there. Just really put a lot of focus and energy into doing the habit right after the trigger. But after a certain number of repetitions, and there's a lot of variability depending on different factors of how many repetitions that takes. But after a certain number of repetitions, you start to feel an urge to do the habit after the trigger happens. And so it becomes more and more automatic. You don't even need to remind yourself that, you know, like, okay, I had the coffee, time to go do the meditation. So in the beginning, you have to be real conscious about that. But it's really not that hard. If you, like you said, start small and let's say the meditation is only two minutes a day. It's not that hard to do the meditation right after the coffee. But once you've built that urge in, like that urge has developed after a certain number of repetitions, then you can start to. It's automatic to go sit on the cushion. So you can extend that 2 minutes to 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, and so on.

Yep, that's cool. And then, so when you are setting the new habit and we're going to talk about goals, too, and just kind of how we set goals in the context of how you're approaching things these days. But how would you frame that in your mind if you want to change your behavior? Do you set a goal about that or you just make a commitment to do something? How do you approach that or how do you recommend we approach that?

Yeah. Well, I love the idea of doing habits instead of goals. So if you want to, you know, if your goal is to run a marathon, then what are the habits that it takes to get to that goal? The daily running training could be the habit. And so you start building that up and the goal can be met just from implementing that habit.

That's awesome.

Yeah. Figure out what the actions are that's going to take the habit that it's going to take to get to the goal that you want to get to.

Well, let's take that tangent, because when I asked my community some questions they'd like me to ask you, goals was kind of at the top of the list. So I'm going to jump ahead a little bit and go into that. So, you know my joke that I had in my Notes here was what do you have against goals? And kind of talking about that. But let's kind of step back and just hear, I'd love to hear your high level philosophy on goals. And then we can kind of go back and look at changing our lives, optimizing our lives via habit creation as it relates to it. Can you kind of share with me that?

Well, when I started Habits as an example, I was really goal oriented. In fact, I had been for a long time. Like goals and setting the tasks to get to those goals and daily and weekly reminders or checklists to get to those goals was a big part of my life. So I had these big goals for 2007 when I started Zen Habits. And at the beginning of the year, I had this picture in my mind of how this year was going to turn out. And at the end of that year, none of that had happened. It was completely different. My idea of what was going to happen at the beginning of the year was completely different than what actually happened. Now, let's take 2012 as an example. The year that just passed in the beginning of the year, I had no idea and I had no set expectations of what was going to happen. And at the end of the year, I also. The same thing turned out was that what actually happened was completely different than. Than what I could have imagined at the beginning of the year. In both cases, the year was unpredictable. I had no real control over it other than do my best each day and see what happens. Events will happen, things will come up, opportunities will open themselves to you as you go, and you can't predict any of that. This illusion of control that we have when we set goals is completely an illusion. We don't really control our lives to the degree that we think we do. I learned in the first couple of years of Zen Habits that setting goals was a waste of time because it turned out the way that I wanted it to. And it also took up a lot of maintenance, a lot of management time to manage those goals, and a lot of stress about not meeting them. A lot of guilt if I failed one week and didn't make the goals for that week. And what I learned is when I let go of them, I could still accomplish the same amount of things, but without all the stress and time that it took to manage those goals.

Yep. So then one of the ways that I was trying to frame kind of how we can help understand how you approach it now was to imagine rewinding 10 years when you talk a lot about so candidly and transparently you were in debt, you were overweight, you were smoking, you weren't exercising. How would you approach those challenges with your current insight today from that vantage point 10 years ago?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. One of the things that I've learned is that you can focus on the actual activity rather than where you want to end up. That's the most important thing. So if your goal is to get out of debt, that's a great goal. It's obviously not accomplishable today. I can't do that goal today, but what I can do is focus on the financial habits that will make my financial life better. So if I want to shop less and spend less, then I can focus on that activity and instead replace it with free stuff that I can enjoy more. We've talked about meditation and exercise, spending time with my family, reading, writing, all those things I can do without spending money. The goal is not something I can do today, but today I can do free stuff instead of shopping. I can start paying down my debt today. I can't pay the entire thing today. That's a goal that I cannot accomplish today. But I can start paying things on time. I can start making a list of all the debts that I have, all the bills that I have, maybe put the debts and bills on autopay, maybe start saving a small emergency fund. Those actual actions I can start putting into action today. And the goal, I mean, where I end up as a result of those actions isn't as important as really putting myself into the actions that make me feel good, that make me feel healthier, that make me happier.

Yep. So then it's kind of like letting the. So we have the intention. We can call it a goal or not to get out of debt, but either way, the most important thing is to focus, as you said, on the activities rather than the outcome, and to really focus on those day in and day out. Let's do our best each day and kind of let the goal or the outcome be a byproduct of that behavior. Is that a fair paraphrasing? Yeah.

The thing is too, is we. We don't really know what the outcome is going to be. We might think we want to be debt, but as a result of these activities that we're putting into place, we might be debt free in five years or in two years, or in one year. We might have $1,000 in savings, or we might have $100,000. We have no idea at this point. So the outcome is completely unpredictable. And so just letting go of worrying about what that outcome is. Instead, worry about, you know, the things that we're going to do right now that either are going to be helpful to us or not helpful.

Yep. So then, just to go into a little bit more granular on this, let's say I am in debt. And I do have the aspiration goal to not be in debt and using. Would you. Is that okay in your model? I know you're totally cool with everyone needs to approach it the way that they need to approach it, but would you say, okay, that's great to have that goal of being out of debt. As you said, it's a good goal. Or would you reframe that even?

Well, I mean, I think that's fine to have that goal, but I think what you want to really look at, because these goals that we have, they're just basically fantasies, and they aren't really tied to reality. I want to have this beautiful house and a wonderful job in five years or whatever it is that my goals are. That's a fantasy. It's not a real thing that's going to happen. But what you can do is look at what you're doing right now. You can have that goal. That's fine. But just realize that that's not something that it doesn't motivate your actions right now, because you can't get to that goal right now. And so what really motivates your actions are. Is the spending that I'm doing right now, the going out and shopping to relieve my stress, is that really giving me the satisfaction that I want? Is it making me happy? Is it putting me in a better place in life? And so really examine the current activities that you've been doing recently and the ones that you're going to do right now, today, and take a look at what the effects they're having on you. So you kind of pay closer attention to that sometimes. You might think this is going to give me a reward for my hard work. And so you go out and shop, or you go out and eat a lot of junk food, but look at how you feel after that. Do you really feel satisfied, or is that just an empty feeling that you get and a temporary pleasure from those activities? And if so, maybe you can drop those activities and do things that are more fulfilling that can also give you the relief of stress.

Yep, that's great. I guess I'm trying to hold it in my mind of is it really either or. Or is it more just a kind of a refocusing of where the energy goes? Because so often we get so obsessed with the goals I know I have. And as you're describing your experience, kind of the disappointment when we don't hit them inevitably and it's always going to be different, but kind of holding it lightly of okay, yeah, that's the general direction I want to go. And I know it's not going to be precisely that. And then what do I need to do today such that an outcome like that will be the natural byproduct of the habits that I'm showing up and doing joyfully day in and day out?

Yeah, and I think that's fine. I think one, I don't think there's any problem with having goals. I think the problem that we have is we really believe in their power. And so sure, you want to be out of debt and there's nothing wrong with that, with wanting that. But the thing is, take a look at whether that desire for this certain outcome is really giving you the things that you think it's giving you and maybe try going without it. What happens when I let go of it? And then again, focus on what you're doing right now and today instead.

Right on. So then just to come back one more time. So then if you were going to get in shape, right. You were overweight and you weren't exercising and you were smoking. Tell me your version again, just to give that specific example, how you would approach it. Yeah.

Well, you can't get in shape today, right?

Yep.

So what you can do is do the things that make you healthier. And so you can go out for a walk with a friend and go for a nice walk and get some movement. Rather than sitting all day and watching TV or eating junk food, you can replace that junk food that you might have been eating with something healthier that tastes delicious and enjoy that activity. And so you can repeat those actions and, and notice the feelings that you get after and during the eating and the walking or going for a run or doing a few push ups. How does that make you feel? And really focus on repeating the activities that truly give you satisfaction and make you feel healthier and put you in a better place and make you happier rather than doing the things that give you temporary pleasure but really make you feel bad afterward. If you can do that, that includes, like I said, some kind of activity, exercise and some kind of eating. The problem is if you do it because you think it's going to get you six pack abs or lose a lot of weight and you do it, what happens afterward, after you're done, do you have those six pack abs.

No.

You look at your stomach and it's still flabby. You say, well, I did this and it didn't work. Well, of course you know that it's not going to work right away. So you do it the next day and two weeks later, and six weeks later, maybe you still don't have those six pack abs. And so if your motivation is to hit a certain outcome and you don't get to that outcome in six weeks, then your motivation starts to flag because you don't. I mean, the thing that you're hoping for, this positive reward is way off in the future and you never know if it's actually going to come. You might not hit that goal. And so what you want to do is be motivated by the actual positive reinforcement of the activity. And so if you go out and go for a walk and you feel good about that, that's an immediate thing that you can get right now. And there's no waiting for 10 months for that. It's right now as you're doing it. Yep, that's really a much better motivator for sticking to something. And that's what I found, is that when I have this long term goal, it's hard to stay motivated for long enough to make it a habit. But if I enjoy the habit each and every time that I do it and I focus on that rather than the outcome that I want, then you're going to stay motivated for long enough for it to stick right on.

And that's the fourth of your five ideas we led this off with of the positive reinforcement. So that's where we get the positive reinforcement is not the rat racing. Someday in the future we're going to get this reward. But look, I feel great right now doing this. Is that fair?

Yes, absolutely. And you should do that every single time, get that positive reinforcement. Every single time you do the habit, you do it because you think this is a necessary chore that you need to get through to get to this goal. You're going to hate it. And you can't stick to something that you hate for very long.

That's awesome. When you set. So then the goal, if you will, to use the word, becomes enjoy the habits.

Essentially you can call it a goal, I call it a principle.

Got it. The intention, whatever word we want to.

Use, akin to that, it's something that works. That's basically how I think of it.

That's great. That's fantastic. Well, thanks for helping me unpack that.

It's a tough thing because I Think it's ingrained in us to want to have goals. So it's tough for me to explain this concept to people.

Well, I think, and again, in the context of a 30 minute chat, it's challenging. We can talk about this for a long time. Obviously, when I teach goals, first thing I do is I separate extrinsic versus intrinsic goals. So if your goal is a six pack of abs and the house on the beach and you on the bestseller list, well, those are extrinsic goals. We know scientifically you're going to be less psychologically stable than people who are committed to intrinsic goals that, to your point, give us joy now, which is deepening our relationships, growing as a human being and making a contribution and doing so autonomously. So that's kind of how I started. And then I go into. I love the way you frame it. I call them creative production goals. But habits is a much better way to describe it. The things you're going to do in the process, such that the outcome is a natural byproduct and then holding that tension. One other question that I had on that, on this theme was, do you think that your kind of being a goals ninja is what allowed you to kind of let it go? And do you think that people may need to actually reach a certain level of expertise in managing themselves and setting goals before they kind of let go into the freedom of no goals? Or do you think you can just jump straight into the no goal scenario?

I, I get that a lot where people think, well, because you're so great at goals, then you can let it go. So you have to get to a certain point. And I think I can see the thinking behind that, the wanting to believe that. But what I would encourage you to do is just try it. Go a week or two weeks. Two weeks. You can do two weeks without a goal and instead focus on the activities and how they make you feel and do those activities that are enjoyable, not for the short term pleasure, but for the full satisfaction that they give you and then see what happens. And I've challenged other people to do this, people who are not goals ninjas, and they've loved it and actually have thrived in that kind of environment. So the reason why I know that, at first I had the same question. Maybe it was just good for me at that point to let go of goals, but I couldn't have done it, you know, seven years ago. But seeing other people give it a try, who are not great at goals and really thrive in it, I know now that it's possible. I don't know if it's going to work for every single person, but I know that other people can do it. Whether you're good at goals or not.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think that we all need to find our approach that works for us. Personally, I kind of like the idea of yes and where goals are still fun for me when I let go of the attachment to any particular outcome. And, you know, we've not achieved our explicit goals so many times that after a while you just have to embrace the reality that it's never going to turn out the way you think. But I still have fun kind of imagining that perspective and then also enjoying this moment in the process and having that freedom and dynamic. But I think ultimately what goes through your work is test it out, try it, experiment with it, see what works. Right.

And I think we're largely talking about the same things, me and you, who just have maybe different words for them sometimes. But one thing that's interesting is like, if you. If you use the goal kind of mindset that you're using, which is fine, I think it's great. Hold lightly to those goals. Use them maybe to give you a direction and be willing to let go of them if things don't turn out the way that you thought they were going to turn out or a door opens up that you couldn't have foreseen, so you're not going to go the same direction. Maybe change directions mid course, but you still have fun and the outcome is still great either way.

My intuition is that. My intuition is, and you've thought about this longer than I have, that that's actually kind of beyond the, okay, let's only set goals and be attached to them and fail. Let's not set goals and just kind of be in the moment. Then let's set goals but not be attached to them and be in the moment. That kind of seems to be that again, intuitively, just personally, where I kind of feel that sense of rightness. The middle path, well, kind of beyond the beyond path. So it's kind of this, then that. Then there's the integration of both, which kind of transcends and includes both perspectives in a way.

What I found too, though, and maybe this is going a little deeper than most people are going to do right away. But what I found now is I do find myself, you know, just kind of unconsciously setting goals. And I have to kind of pay attention to that. And I say, well, okay, I have this goal of, again, let's say Six pack abs. And that's great, but why do I have it? What is kind of motivating that why do I have this kind of, again, a fantasy of achieving this outcome When I realize that it's a fantasy and I realize I don't really need it to do the things that make me feel good and make me healthy, I can let go of it. It's kind of a process of, okay, I set the goal, but then I kind of examine it, what's going on behind it and allow myself to let go of it and just see what happens without it.

Yeah, that's awesome. And then for me, I would come back and frame that as an intention to move out of the extrinsic six pack into the well, you know what? I want to have more optimal energy so I can show up more fully in my relationships, my creative work, etc. And I'm going to enjoy walking with my family or whatever other activity I engage in on a daily basis and focus on those habits that you're so passionate about. And I'm obviously so concurrent with. So fun stuff. This is where I wish we had. I like to joke, a good weekend to talk about things. But it's funny too, because I'm interviewing a woman named Heidi Gran Halvorsen tomorrow who is all about the science of goal setting. So what goes into human motivation. So I'm excited to kind of be able to hold all of this and really appreciate your perspective and the experimentation you've done and how you're leading the path in this regard. So great stuff. Well, we've got a bit more time. We've actually a fair amount of time. Would love to hear. So let's kind of pivot to. We talked about habits, we talked about goals. Tell me about minimalism. Talk to me about the idea of simplifying our lives, why it's so important and why it's so challenging for most of us.

Yeah, it's another big topic. But to me it's similar to what we were just talking about, about being able to examine why we have things, why we're holding onto things and experiment with letting them go. But the big picture is that I started to experiment with minimalism when I realized I just had too much stuff and all of that stuff. I got them because of fantasy. They thought they were going to make my life better or make me feel better, but really they were weighing me down. So just kind of watching that process of acquiring them, not getting the satisfaction that I wanted out of them, and then just watching them Weigh me down and clutter up my life and give me some visual stress and all kinds of maintenance that I had to do to keep them in my life. I realized that letting go of them was actually much more beneficial. Letting go of stuff just was a huge relief. And I would just go through and just start clearing out a closet in a room, have almost nothing in it, and realizing that none of that stuff made me happy and I didn't need any of it. And you think you do. Maybe you think it gives you security, or maybe it has some kind of sentimental value, but letting go of it leaves you with just the things that are essential in life, and those are very few. It's an experiment of kind of looking at something and saying, do I really need this? Does it bring happiness to my life? Can I let go of it? And what would life be like without it? And you can just kind of repeat that experiment over and over. And that's not just with possessions, but with the things that we do in our lives. The online stuff, the email, the Facebook, the. All the blogs we might read, the news we watch, all the tasks that we find ourselves doing each day. Just watch all that stuff and see, can I let this go? And what we're left with is very little. But they're the essential things, the things that are really valuable to us, and we can now have space to give those the attention that they deserve, the time that they deserve. So for me, it's about not only the physical clutter, but mental clutter and time clutter, and just kind of getting rid of that and giving yourself some space.

Yeah, that's awesome. I know you teach a whole class on clutter free living, which people can learn more about. I know they can go to Zen habits, but where else can they go for that?

That one is called clutterfreecourse.com and we also have an E book, if you want to just read a book about it. And then I have. If you go to zenhabits.net, you can pretty much find everything. And my books and courses page, so got different books and a couple different courses.

Awesome. And then we're going to have to have a whole other conversation about this. I know you started the chat with Alexandra, my wife, about your unschooling and natural learning. Can you give me a quick just kind of minute or two on that?

It's basically the minimalist version of learning for kids mostly. But I think as adults, too, if you look at you and I as adults, we basically learn things on our own because they were interesting to us, and we really wanted to learn about them. And so we're motivated to learn, and this is how people really learn. But in school, it's an unnatural way of learning. For most schools, I'm generalizing, of course, but you're basically put into a classroom and told this is what you need to learn. Of course, you don't know why you need to learn it. But these guys, this authority, tells you you need to learn it. They give you the information, you have to digest it and spit it back out on a test or a paper, and you repeat that over and over until you get to the end of your schooling, and you basically didn't care about any of it. You just went through the motions, which I think is the absolute worst way to learn. And it's the worst message that you can teach kids the worst lesson you can teach them about learning. Because learning is fantastic, it's fun, it's exciting, it's enriching. And they're taught that it's boring. And it's something you have to do to get through it and get through the day until you can do what you really want to do, which is not learning, which is not true, because they're learning when they're not in school, too. But they're not told that. They're told that that stuff is play, and you shouldn't do that. You should focus on the learning stuff that you hate doing. So unschooling, basically all of that out the door and learning, like you and I learn as adults and as entrepreneurs, learn as people who are creating their own lives learn. People who are changing their habits learn, which is find stuff that you give a crap about and learn how to learn it on your own. And you don't need some authority figure to teach you how to do that. You can do it on your own, and you're empowered to do that. And you know how to figure stuff out for yourself. You know how to make decisions for yourself. You know how to teach yourself what to do, schedule your time, motivate yourself. That's something that kids do not learn in most schools. And by the time they get to be adults, they're basically trained to only do what they're told and not figure stuff out for themselves or motivate themselves in any way other than to get through the end of the day so they can go home and relax and not work. As you and I know, work can be just as much fun. Work is learning. It's not something you just need to get through to get A paycheck. But it can be so much fun and you can motivate yourself and you can set your schedule and all kinds of great stuff, but that's not what you're taught in school. So unschooling is really teaching us how to be like you and I are.

So great. Well, again, I look forward to continuing that conversation. I know you have six kids and one of the other questions someone had was how in the world does he create everything he creates when I only have two kids? He's got six kids. That you and your wife are unschooling as well.

They go hand in hand. I don't know if we're out of.

Time here, but I've got as much time as you've got, so I want to respect your time.

Sure, yeah. Well, I love talking about this stuff. I could probably talk all weekend too, but yeah, I mean, if you can teach the kids to learn on their own and teach themselves, I mean, that's a difficult process because you have to kind of walk through it with them. And you can also set an example for them again, like you and I are doing. And you set the example of how fun it is to learn and how to learn on your own and teach yourself stuff. And then the kids start doing it on their own and you can kind of let them do it and you just kind of check in with them and help them through sticky points and do stuff with them when you have time. But a lot of times you teach them to be self sufficient learners and then you can go and do your work while they're doing their learning. And that doesn't happen right away, of course, it's some work, but that's what we try and do. And we try and do that with them like in all areas of their life, not just school stuff, but like, you know, teaching themselves to cook and dress themselves and bathe themselves and all that stuff. And of course, you know, you're a new dad now.

Yeah, just a three month old.

Okay. So that three month old is not going to be carrying himself or herself right away. But you know, that's eventually that's what happens. So it's a lot more time intensive at this age. But later on each kid becomes self sufficient and so you focus more on teaching the younger ones how to do it. And then the older ones also teach the younger ones and can help take care of the younger ones. So it becomes a lot less time intensive. And then the real answer, the honest answer, is that my wife helps me tremendously right now. She's taking care of the kids while I do this interview. And I couldn't do what I do without her, so I don't want to make it seem like I'm Superman with six kids.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, amen to that. Having amazing women in our lives is certainly the cornerstone of it all, in many ways.

Yeah, we're a team. But I definitely think she makes what I do possible.

That's awesome. Well, I'd love to wrap it up with just a quick look at two things. One, your fundamentals. And I'll come back to kind of your number one tip. But do you. And you may not even. Well, you do have your habits. Do you have a core set of habits that you look at as your fundamentals?

Yeah, I don't have a list. It's kind of something I'm still trying to figure out myself, actually. But I know there are a few things that really make the most difference, and one is mindfulness. And I think you're a big one on that. Is that right?

Yeah. Attention training, I call it. Yeah.

Okay, great. Yeah, attention training. Mindfulness meditation is a practice for that. But, yeah, meditation is a great habit to start with because it trains you for the rest of the habits. It's like kind of one of the key fundamental habits for learning how to do all the other habits. And I could go a whole day about why that is, but it's super important because you can't really change other habits without that learning to focus your attention or pay attention or be mindful. So that's one key one. And I think the other ones are all kind of just. They spring from that. So I love to exercise and run and stuff like that, but those are kind of active mindfulness training. Eating healthy is another one that's huge. It's changed my entire life. But that's also a way to pay attention to the food that I'm taking in, what I'm putting into my body, how it makes me feel, and all of that. So eating healthy would be the third one. Really paying attention as I spend time with other people is another one. And then another key one. Again, this is going back to mindfulness, but it's really about being alone in a room with nothing to do. I think most people are so uncomfortable with that that they'll do anything other than that. They'll check their email, check their phone, check Facebook, all these other things, because they're avoiding the uncomfortableness of just sitting there, being alone and being with yourself and not necessarily doing something for a purpose like mindfulness but just what's it like to be there and sit there and do nothing and be there with your thoughts and what are you like inside and how do you feel about yourself, this person that you're alone with and do you accept that person? And so all of that is maybe a series of habits, but I think that's a key thing, is learning to accept yourself. All of it kind of stems from that. Mindfulness training.

Right on. That's just amazing. Thanks for sharing that. And then really quickly on your meditation, I know again, we can talk about that for a weekend, but how do you practice? Do you mind sharing?

Yeah. I'm not a meditation teacher and I'm not experienced enough to be able to give advice on that. But I practice as simply as possible. And so I'll just sit on some pillows on the floor, either facing the wall or with my back to the wall if I don't feel too flexible. And I try and sit cross legged, but I'm the world's most inflexible man in Guinness for that. I'm pretty. And I sit with my eyes open, looking down at the floor, hands on my lap, and basically just pay attention to my breath. And that's it. I just try and notice when my thoughts drift away and I start to think about things and just kind of gently return to the breath. And when I'm really good, I don't even need to pay attention to the breath. I'm just kind of fully there, fully experiencing the moment. But that doesn't happen as often as you might think.

That's great. And do you have a certain, I hate to say, goal for amount of minutes, or do you just sit there for however long you feel good? Like, what's your approach?

And I learned this from a wonderful guy named Mark Lesser, who's a Zen teacher and a writer. He's got a great book called Less L E S S. Look it up on Amazon. I met with him and he told me about this Zen monk he met in Japan. And this monk had a vow to sit every day in meditation, but the minimum of his vow was three minutes. And so I said, that's great. You don't need to worry about 45 minutes or 30 minutes or 20. Those are great times to sit. But if you could just sit for three minutes, that's all you gotta do. And so my goal, if you want to call it that, all I tell myself is get your butt on the cushion. And if you can do that, you could probably stay for around three minutes. And if you Sit for three minutes, then we'll see what happens after that. So just get your butt on the cushion. That's really all it is, I think as my so called goal for running. I never know where I'm going to go or how long it's going to be or how fast I'll go. But I know that I'm going to get my shoes laced up and get out the door. And so that's really it. Just start. And that's true for any habit, really.

That's fantastic. Absolutely love that. To wrap it up then, do you have a number one tip for us, those of us who want to optimize our lives at whatever stage we're at?

Yeah. I actually wrote a post on it today. So if you go to Zen habits today, which you probably won't do, if you're listening to this, go to a post called Savor. And to me, this kind of encapsulates everything that we've been talking about, which is about learning to savor everything that we do. But it could start with some tea. Tea is so light compared to coffee or wine or whatever. It's just water with a little bit of essence of leaves. Right. So you kind of sit there with that cup of tea and you really pay attention to it. If you really pay attention, you can taste all kinds of things in it, but you have to really notice it and kind of give yourself some space and allow yourself to let go of everything else that you might do later and next or everything else that might be calling for your attention and just really give yourself the space to sit there with that cup of tea and really pay attention, savor it, enjoy it, relax with it. And if you do that, and you can do that with berries or a small square of chocolate or really anything, a raisin, you can really learn to savor that tiny little thing. You can savor anything. And you can take that to sitting there with a book, sitting there with a good friend writing something that you might procrastinate on, clear away a space for what you want to do and not procrastinate on and just allow yourself to savor the moment of doing whatever you want to do. And that can work with habits, it can work with exercise, it can work with healthy eating, really anything that you want to do in life, really allow yourself to give yourself space, pay attention to it and fully savor it. And when you do that, you can savor life itself. And it's one of the most wonderful discoveries I've made.

Beautiful. Well, Leo, thank you so much. I appreciate you and your wisdom and your humility and your playfulness and your overall awesomeness. So thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you for having me. I love you giving me the opportunity to talk about this stuff, share this with people, and talk with someone smart who can give me some good questions.

Right on man.

Thank you.

Look forward to more Hi, this is Brian.

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