Diagnosed with ADHD as an Adult—How Greg Bennick Turned It Into a Superpower

Today's special guest is Greg Bennik, and we're going to talk about adhd, chaos and creative discipline. Enjoy the show. The Lead On Purpose podcast is sponsored by NZ Mortgages. Learn more at nzmortgages.co nz. Greg, a huge welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Look, I'm so happy to have you here. We are in a very interesting time in the world where we've got a lot at our fingertips. We've got a lot of information. We've got millions of podcasts. We've got news articles left, right, and center. We've got demands at work. People want to hear from us by email within seconds of sending it. So, distraction, we are distracted. Some people feel like it's lost cause, but you've committed a great deal of your time to understanding the psychology of focus and what it looks like to be distracted. So before we look at those things and talk about your incredible book, what set you in this direction?

Yeah. So, you know, I'm happy to be here. When I say that, I just want to say first and foremost that I really mean it. Meaning this is exciting. Across half a world, talking about things that matter to us. It's remarkable. So, you know, I want to say also something to what you just said, which is that we have so many things distracting us. And one of the people that I've been really inspired and intrigued by over the years, a guy named Otto Ronk. Otto Ronk was a psychoanalyst in the early 1900s in Austria. He wrote a to a friend in the 1930s and said that the world suffers from an overabundance of truth and that he was going to take some time away from writing because there was just too many distractions. He just couldn't. He couldn't absorb all of the information that was out there. Okay, think about that. That's a hundred years ago. What was he talking about? He was talking about books. There were too many books distracting him. Books today aren't hardly a distraction. I mean, they're just on shelves, right? The distractions are in our hands, on our wrist, in front of us all the time. What's the net result? Well, I got to tell you, Otto Ronk would have passed out cold if he heard of TikTok, Instagram Reels and so on, if books were overwhelming him. So for me, it's a function of asking, what's the net result? What do we get from all the distractions? We get stressed. We feel as though we don't matter. In a world where everyone else seems to matter, we feel less than. We feel overwhelmed. We feel undermined. Why is that a good idea? And I'm not against social media. I love social media and have fun with it as a tool. But in addition to the social media, like you said, the calls, the phone, the watch, which tells me that you just texted me reminding me that we're on a podcast right now. All of these things that put us in a position to have to respond and have to act immediately are not really based on where we want to be right now. We want to feel as though we matter and that we have significance. We want to feel as though we at least have some semblance of control over our lives, and oftentimes we don't. So that's what drew me to thinking about these things, and that's what drew me to thinking about distraction. I mean, aside from the fact that on a personal level, we can get into this. I have ADHD as a diagnosis. I don't, you know, stand on that as my platform. But, you know, in a world that is distracting for people who are easily distracted, where does that leave us? It leaves us wanting more. So that's really what I like to think about. And that's what the book's really about, ultimately, is creating space for more.

I love that. Greg, thank you. And thanks for also sharing about your diagnosis. I would love to chat about that. I've got a close friend who's recently been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult in their early 40s, and certainly it's came of as a sense of relief to this person. So.

Absolutely.

How did you know you had it? How did you get diagnosed?

So what's funny is that I didn't know I had it, and I just thought my brain went like a combination of a lawnmower, a washing machine, and a tornado all the time. And I was talking to a therapist years ago, post breakup, and we were talking about breakups. We were talking about my dad, parents, life, everything. And at one point the therapist said to me, so how long have you known that you have adhd? And I said, what are you talking about? And she said, how long have you known that you have adhd? I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. I actually hung up after. This was a virtual call. I hung up after the call. I called one of my best friends and I said, you're not going to believe this. This therapist just said that I have adhd. And there was this pause at the other end of the phone. And my friend said, you mean you didn't know? And I said, no, what are you talking about? So that's how I found out. I found out ultimately from my friend, but then went back for an official diagnosis. And your friend's reaction is a good one to think of it as a relief. And people will call it at times a superpower. Well, it actually helps me a great deal and it comes into play when I'm on stage or if I'm doing a virtual event because I do keynotes for the corporate association audience worldwide. And if I'm talking to you and I'm on stage and I'm speaking to you in the audience and there's 600 people in the audience and somebody else says something, I need to be aware of what they said. Leave it be for a moment while I'm with you and then go after that comment and then go back to the comment I wanted to make. Having those multiple channels in my brain going at once when I'm on stage or on a virtual event is massively helpful. And I actually tried getting medicated for ADHD and it almost ruined, almost ruined my career because it worked. All I could think about was one thing at a time. That doesn't help me when I'm on stage, not at all. I need to be thinking about the audience, what they're getting, where we're going, what the point is. So when I could only think about one thing at a time, it was a big challenge. It was a really big challenge. So, yeah, it's a superpower and it's a relief. That's a couple different ways to think about it. And I am happily unmedicated for it. And all the better. So that's where we're.

It's incredible, Greg. And for the person that's going, hmm, might I be adhd? What are some of the things that they might look out for?

Well, I mean, if you're watching this, having a shaved head, black button down shirt, that's a sure sign. No, I think that, I think if your brain feels frantic and you can't possibly keep up with all your thoughts and sometimes your mind is racing and that happens again and again and again. That's something I think to think about, or rather that's something I'd advise thinking about as maybe evidence of something more going on. Meaning my brain is always racing. And while I'm talking to you, I'm not, you know, cooking tofu scramble in the back of my mind. I'm focused and I'm with You. But left to my own devices, my brain goes pretty quickly in a lot of directions at once. So if people are finding that that's true, couldn't hurt to talk to somebody about it and get a, you know, get a diagnosis either way. And you could do whatever you want with that diagnosis. I choose, I chose to go okay and just work with it. But it was nice to know that somebody else saw that in me and I thought, okay, I can work with that and have that as just a, an arrow in the quiver, so to speak, as I go through life. So, yeah, I'd recommend people get, get it checked out at the very least, because then they'll know, you know, it might be relief and it might be just information, of course.

Incredible. And going back to focus, we focus in on focus. What's the psychology piece around focus? What is it? How do we get it? How do we lose it?

Yeah, I'm entirely convinced that our focus is dependent on creating.

Like a direction in a world of misdirection, because that direction is directly connected to our self esteem. So I'll explain this a little bit easier. I am entirely convinced that in a world that pulls us in constant different directions, we crave having direction. We crave feeling as though we are doing work that matters. We are doing work that has importance. We are doing work that has meaning. And whether that is being a good parent, being a good co worker, being a good author, being a good podcaster, we want to be able to dial in something that matters, something that gives us a sense of meaning in a world where, which is inherently chaotic, there's no way around it. From the second we're born, we're on a trajectory to eventually, you know, not to be morbid, but eventually dying. What reality is that for a creature as complex as we are, we want to be able to be grounded. So in the midst of wanting that to then have all around us things pulling us in countless different directions makes us feel fractured. And ultimately the psychology behind all of this is about having a sense of self esteem, that we are significant creatures on a trajectory that matters, that we exist in a meaningful way amidst a world that is chaotic. And when the chaos wins over, we lose a sense of self. And you can translate that at us, we lose our sense of self esteem and then we are literally spinning off into the ethereum, psychologically speaking, without our feet on the ground, that doesn't sound appealing in the slightest. So when we're scattered, when we're trying to satisfy the boss and the kid and the dog, next door and the ice cream guy driving down the street. It's not even a function of adhd. We are all over the map and we lose sight of what's most important to us. So having a sense of that most important feeds into our sense, our identity and our sense of self esteem and makes us feel significant in the world, which for a fragile human animal, is exactly what we need. A sense of feeling significant and meaningful.

It's so interesting you say that. And I was reading Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah. They kind of cooperated on or collaborated on a book called Build the Life youe Want. And Arthur C. Brooks is a researcher around happiness. And he said, you know, happiness isn't a destination, it's a direction. And as I read further, to achieve happiness and experience it, it's when you're in the pursuit of enjoyment, satisfaction, or meaning, when you're in the pursuit of one of those things, you feel a sense of happiness. And it's so interesting that you've kind of said that in your very own terms. But same thing. We've got to be in a direction. There's got to be a focus on a place that we're headed towards that has a sense of meaning.

I mean, this is great. Right now you and I are speaking. We just met a few minutes ago. For the first time in our lives, we have a kinship and a connection. We are having a conversation that matters. I'm excited already for my mom, my girlfriend, my brother, and my bestie down the street to listen to this because I think it's good stuff, right? And I'm sure that you're thinking the same thing. And the reason I'm thinking that is because the conversation feels substantial. It feels meaningful. It feels like this is of worth to listeners. So if I sit here and instead start thinking about who manufactured this pen, where did the ink come from? How do they make permanent ink? I'm off the deep end. That times a thousand sounds like what we go through every day with the phones and the distractions and whatnot we would lose in this moment were my brain to go there. The significance of this conversation, and the bonafide sense of meaning that we're getting out of it. If we allowed ourselves to be distracted by all of the possible things that could be distracting us. Thank God my phone is on silent, lest the 10 text messages that I just got probably in the last 10 minutes would have careened our conversation off course and undermined us psychologically. That doesn't sound fun.

Not at all. And what I hear There, and I want to explore this a bit with you, is you've got to participate in your own rescue to a certain degree, around putting up boundaries with people, with devices, with places. I mean, I have a watch that could tell me notifications, I've got emails I refuse to let. It's never had that functionality for me. I have a phone that could tell me a million different things, but I've got it on do not disturb almost 24 7, and people still send me a text and I get back to them when I choose to dip into that. Now, that's not always easy, but I try. I want to talk about the book and I imagine that will show up in terms of boundary setting and being clear with what your most important priorities are. But what are the pillars or the strategies within the book? How do we reclaim the moment?

Sure, there's. There's seven different chapters, ultimately, that are represented by each. Each by a strategy in the book. And I'll explain them in order. I'm happy to explain them all. And that isn't, you know, a substitute of buying the book, but rather it just. It'll give people a sense of where I'm headed with this stuff. I'll give you a sort of paraphrase version of each chapter and then we can dive in as you like. So what I did was I thought about things we can do in the chapter of each title, something we can do and what it does when we do it right. So the first chapter, Believe in the possibility of kindness to escape the trap of pessimism. I often feel pessimistic. The news is overwhelming, politics is overwhelming. Communication sometimes can be overwhelming and you start to believe, or one could start to believe, that the world is a cruel and uncaring place. Now, I mentioned before that eventually we all die. That sounds pretty cruel and uncaring. People get sick, we fall down the stairs, a bird crashes into our head. Whatever it might be. The world can be cruel. It's easy with the distractions of the world that pile up. To feel like it actually is, it doesn't have to be. When we believe in the possibility of kindness, in the fact that people aren't out to screw us over. Inherently, when we believe in the goodness and the potential of other people, all of a sudden it opens up our minds and arguably our hearts to potential for connection with others. And we'll get into connection in a bit. But believing in the possibility of kindness is something I've been talking about to groups of literally all ages for the past few years. And when you start talking about kindness, people just feel better. And when people feel better and they interact more freely, all of a sudden possibility gets open for connection, communication, potential, teamwork, all the things that we're all striving for all the time. So believing in the possibility of kindness and exploring why that's important is the first chapter. And put there intentionally to say, let's be a bit more. Let's be a bit more kind. This moment feels better when we are. So the second chapter is a juggling metaphor. And before listeners think, well, I can't juggle. What's this guy talking about? I have spent my life incorporating juggling into keynote presentations as a metaphor for life lessons, not as a means of doing tricks like, I'm in a circus. I'm not a clown, but rather as a metaphor. So keep your eyes on the knife to resist the allure of distraction. We love distraction. We love it. I mean, this conversation's great, but if this conversation was boring, I gotta tell you, my mind would probably go to pizza or, you know, watching episodes of Breaking Bad or whatever is coming up next in my life. Not because of adhd, but just because distraction sounds better than something which isn't exciting. So let's say we're engaged with something important and exciting. Let's hope that we are more often than not. Keep your eyes on the knife's a juggling metaphor for those moments. It's about imagining. If you were juggling a knife and two beanbags, where would you keep your focus? I would hope it would be on the knife spinning in front of your face, not on the beanbags. So keep your eyes on the knife to resist the allure of distraction. What is the knife that is before you spinning? What is the thing that is of the utmost importance to you, the principal and primary importance? Maybe it's feeding your kids. Maybe it is making sure you get your TPS report in on time at work, whatever it might be. The thing, the knife, the primary important thing that's before you keep your eyes on that, because you get moments back once you focus on that thing that is so important ahead of you. So those are the first two chapters. Any thoughts, any questions?

A couple of things. I want to do them all, but let's unpack a couple of things there. I love it. So, number one, this idea of kindness. There's an amazing lady called.

She has three amazing daughters, and you'll know one of them. So Wajiki is the surname, and she used to be the CEO of YouTube. Susan Wasicki the mother, Esther Wasicki, wrote this book called how to Raise Successful People. And I was reading it because I was a new dad and I had no clue what I was doing and thought, any help is good help. And as I'm reading it, I come across this thing in the book called the trick Principle. So what's this? And as I read it, I thought, God, this would be great in, like, a management consultancy kind of standpoint, or in a cultural standpoint. Trust, respect, independence, collaboration, followed by kindness, the trick principle. And as I started thinking about it, it's probably the one thing that is often missing. Our negativity bias takes over. Our world revolves around me, kicks in, and so kindness often gets dropped off. I kind of tested this about five years ago, sat down with former All Blacks rugby coach or rugby captain for those that are in North America. All Blacks is our national rugby team here in New Zealand, and they're pretty good at what they do. So I sat down with him. He's very competitive. He's won a couple of World Cups. And I said to him, hey, you're a new dad like me. What's the one value that you want to instill in your child by the time they leave the nest? And his wife is also a very competitive athlete. And I thought it was going to be like, relentlessness, execution, you know, perseverance. He said, the only one thing that my wife and I really want to instill is kindness. And if we can do that, our kid will succeed. And I just loved it coming from a guy that was, you know, taking people down and tackling them and thought it was really cool. So, Greg, in your experience, how do we embrace kindness on a daily basis?

I think it's a great question. I think it starts with us reminding ourselves that it's possible. Right. And that's not just me championing my own chapter title from my book. But it's easy to default to the opposite of kindness. It's easy to default to pessimism. So I think that reminding ourselves about kindness is a start. Reminding ourselves that it's possible, but then also saying yes to the possibility of it and remembering that it's up to you to bring that in the world. It's up to me to bring that in the world. It's not up to the guy who's across the street or the woman who I encounter at the post office. It's up to me to bring that into the world, to add more of it to the world. So we get to embrace kindness when we add more of it into the world. I started thinking about this relentlessly during the pandemic, just thinking about how doomed we all felt at times, whether you, you know, depending on where you were. For example, in the United States, you felt doomed for all of about two weeks or two years. But still we all felt that around the world. There was definitely a time where we all felt, oh, my gosh, we are off the rails. What is happening here? And I started thinking, what would bring me back into this moment? And I started realizing, okay, well, you know, putting kindness out there really actually matters and being kind to other people. And when the pandemic started to draw, I don't want to say draw to a close, but came into a different mode, I guess you'd say. I started speaking. I started out with young people, started out with kids speaking to kids about kindness. I spoke to tens of thousands of kids about kindness in schools, about believing the possibility of kindness. It was transformative. An entire generation of kids, like 10,000 kids. Like, I mean, there have been revolutions which have started with like 1/100th of that many people. And all of a sudden we got like, say, 10,000 kids speaking about kindness. And I'm watching it happen before my eyes, like kids are believing it, accepting it. And then I had parents taking me aside, school administrators taking me aside, saying, hey, do you talk about this to adults? I was like, well, yeah, I could. Yeah, we need it too. And then I started talking to other people and realizing, wow, okay, in the. In the corporate and association market, people need reminders of kindness too. It has to be an active process. And if. If kids can do it, we can do it. It just has to be an active process that if somebody is encroaching upon you that instead of responding with a harsh word or a closed fist, that you make a different choice. And we all have that capacity. We are uniquely in the animal kingdom, rational reasoning creatures who can envision something that doesn't yet exist and then bring it into reality. We. We can do that in a very special way that other animals and creatures can't. Right? A bird can make a nest, but it's not making a nest next to the road where the new development is coming in, because they know that that next nest is going to be worth More in 10 years that not the way they're thinking. We can do that. I can think to myself, if I'm kind to you and kind to the listener, and I'm kind to my. My cousin, there's a net. Net that comes from that. There's a Positive result. So let's use that rationality towards the good that it has the potential to fulfill.

I love it. I really, truly do. And it's interesting, your second chapter around. I talk about WMI a lot. Like, what's most important. What's. What's the most important thing that you need to focus on? And I find that most humans struggle to identify what their priority is in a day, in a moment, in a week. And it's not their fault, but it's because they're highly distracted by so many things. This idea of keeping an eye on the knife so that we don't get hurt is really, really great. How do you do that? Well, on a daily basis or a weekly basis, you know, how can someone get really focused on what's most important?

Yeah, Well, I mean, I'll tell you this to start is that the keep your eyes on the knife was not just a frivolous choice. There's a story in the book about my first public jug show when I was a juggler when I was a kid, and how I slashed through my finger accidentally with a knife while attempting to show the audience how sharp it was. I was trying to cut a carrot and show them how sharp it was. I got carried away in the moment. And rather than do what I should have done, which is to swing that knife through that carrot once and the whole audience would have gone, ooh, you know, and that's a sharp knife. It just cut a carrot. Instead of doing that, I just kept slicing through the carrot. Ladies and gentlemen, these knives are sharp. Every single word. Had a slice through this carrot, the last slice being through my finger. Okay, so here I am, 12, 13 years old, I've just sliced my finger in front of an audience full of people. And I had to later ask myself, why is that the case? Well, in that moment, rather than keeping my mind on the audience, keeping my mind on their experience, keeping my mind on what I had practiced and the task before me, I got all excited up in my head about my own ego and how cool I was for performing and, wow, I bet I'll get new friends out of this experience, whatever it might have been. Translate that to today. What do I need to be thinking about in this moment? Well, I think our conversation is the priority. I mean, there's a pretty good chance that somebody who I have to meet later on tonight is wondering, am I going to make it on time? That's fine. I'm sure I'll make it on time. But the priority is this conversation. And I make Definitive choices and moments all throughout the day about where my focus should be. And I do that not because I want to throw my cell phone in the ocean because it's distracting me in every single second, but rather that I have chosen to have a cell phone and chosen to have a watch, which tells me notifications, and chosen to have email accounts of various kinds, and chosen to have. You get the point. Given those choices, I have to be responsible. I have responsibility amidst all that because at the end of the day, Siri isn't going to make choices for me. I have to make choices continually throughout the day. I On what is the thing that is most important if it were to fail or fall, and if I make a choice away from that, I deal with the ramifications of that. So I have to continually make choices that bring me back to center amidst a sea of distractions that I've invited into the world. It's like when people are like, I can't believe Facebook has a right to use my phone. It's like, yes, you signed up for that. The second you signed up, you made a choice that you were engaging with this reality. So deal with the. We deal with what comes of it. Same with all the distractions.

I really resonate with that strongly. Yesterday morning, I was chatting with Aryna Sabalenka's coach, and obviously she's just got off winning US Open tennis. She's a very consistent player. But I always say to him, how do you do that? How do you help her? Because she wasn't always that way. And he said, james, number one. Number one thing, you'd never lie to yourself. Be honest with yourself, get clear. Am I doing the right thing that I know I should be doing when I should be doing it? And if you're not, it's your responsibility to make a change. And when you tell me about chapter two and keep your eyes on the knife, that's what I think about. It's like, hey, that's your responsibility to manage where your focus goes.

I absolutely agree. I absolutely agree. It's up. It is up to you. It's up to you and up to me and up to all of us to do that. We've invited a wild world into the party. So, I mean, imagine it like a dinner party. You and I have invited this absolutely spinning tornado, this maelstrom of chaos into the dinner party, and we have to deal with that. The ability for anyone to come contact us at any time with anything they want or to like or comment or lack thereof. Not like or Comment on something that is meaningful to us is psychologically potentially devastating. I mean, if I post that, I had this great conversation with my friend James and within 30 seconds 400 people like it. Well, I am the king of the world, quite obviously. And if I post it and after four weeks my mom likes it and you like it, then maybe I'm a complete and total loser. It's very easy to start thinking that way. But what's most important is the quality of this conversation and the net impact on a potential listener. Regardless of the likes and the notifications and all the other things that come of it. That decision making process throughout the day, that taking responsibility for what's most important, that's, that's how we keep our eyes on the knife and focus. We are constantly decision making creatures and returning back to what is most valuable and meaningful to us and gives us a sense of meaning and mattering in the world.

Really, really powerful. Thank you, Greg. And let's look at chapters three and four. Let's take the next next couple of chapters.

Take the next two. Yeah. So cultivate a revolutionary mindset to overcome the deception of defeat. It's very easy to feel defeated in moments. Something doesn't go right, life is over. We don't get the likes on the post. Life is over. It might very well be something tangible. Terrible things happen to us in our lives and it feels like total defeat. Well, cultivating a revolutionary mindset in, in the book, I, I tell the story of people who were kicked out of a dance and they were kicked out of a dance in, in Pennsylvania when they were just teenagers and they were both kicked out of a dance. They expected to be in this dance with all of their friends. They were the only two people out of almost 800 people who were in this dance and they were kicked out. And they had no ability to call home. They had no ability to do anything other than stand under an awning in the rain outside this dance. And they decided to talk to one another. Congratulations to David and Diane, my parents, who are married for 60 some years at this point, because when they got kicked out of the dance, I'm literally getting goosebumps talking about it. They could have had a defeat mindset and they made a different choice. They cultivated a revolutionary mindset thinking what could come from this? Instead of total defeat, instead of having to walk home in the rain, maybe we could have a conversation. And here they are. They've been married still to this day. Okay, we're closing in on October 2024. As of this Recording. And my parents have been married for 60. I don't even know. 60. 60 years or something like that. Yeah, so. So the deception of defeat kills possibility. If we say yes to defeat and we say, oh, man, I tried this and failed, and as a result, I'm nowhere, I give up. You're right. Game over. Game over. But if we cultivate a revolutionary mindset, which is what my parents did, they thought, let's go in a completely different direction, then all of a sudden, possibilities open up to us. We get to reclaim this moment. We get to build a better now. I'm sure I sound like I'm being trite with my own book title, Reclaim the Moment, seven Strategies to Build a Better now.

But I mean it.

We get to reclaim the moment in this moment, because the moment would have been lost if we just said, oh, okay, well, I lose, it's over. So there you go. So cultivate a revolutionary mindset is chapter is chapter three, and then chapter four is leap into the dark to embrace the possibility of success. It's kind of a counterbalance to that other one, that success is always a possibility. It's always open to us. And that's not just me waxing positive and hoping for the best in a moment, but rather, we oftentimes are intimidated or afraid by success in the same way that we are of failure. I mean, if I succeed in this podcast, I don't mess up my lines too much. We don't have memorized lines. But if I get through this podcast with any modicum of sounding like I make sense, well, now it happens. Maybe we'll get 5,000 listeners. People will be in touch with us, wanting to carry us around town on their shoulders because they're so happy with what we had to say. What is that going to look like in my life? How am I going to explain that to my friends? You know, so success can be intimidating sometimes, but when we leap into the dark and we try something new, imagine it like a tunnel that you're stepping into step by step. If you can't even see light at the other end, and you just keep going step after step after step, and leap into the dark. You never know where that might lead. And it might lead to somebody. To somebody. Well, it could lead to somebody. It could lead to something really positive and really amazing. You know, it could be lead to something really remarkable. So leap into the dark to embrace the possibility of success. That's the. The fourth of the strategies.

That's amazing. Look, I really. When I'm thinking about that I think of this idea that problems present possibilities and often problems present obstacles, road roadblocks. We can't see a way through it. And to me, that's just a perception piece. And our perception always shapes our reality. And what you're challenging the reader to do there is go, hey, like, this is a choice. Like, you can look at this as a horrific. You've been kicked out of the dance, in the pouring rain, life is over. It's a horrific night you never want to think back on. Or, hey, where might this lead? And to me, that's that learned optimism. And of course, Greg, there's this idea of toxic positivity. And to me, when you speak, you're not doing that. You are realistic that there are sad times, bad times, scary times, horrific times, but most moments in a day that aren't ideal, those things. We can approach those with learned optimism and look for the possibilities. Yeah, for someone that struggles, how do. Where can they start to actually develop more of that possibilitarian mindset?

Oh, that's. That's great. And I was just going to bring up, when you're speaking, the number of times that you know and I don't see myself. I talk about this in the book. I don't see myself as a guru. I'm not a master, I'm not a shaman. Right. These strategies were written to remind me to do these things. So there are many times where, you know, say a client writes back and they say, you know what? We're really excited to have you at our keynote. It's not going to be this fall. We're actually going to do it in a year instead. And I think to myself, oh, man, I really wanted to go to wherever that keynote was going to be, and I can't believe it's going to be next year. Sure, there's that inclination to think to myself, I should just go back to bed for the rest of the day. I should just call the call of the day. I'm done. You know, but again, it's up to us to make. Make different choices. We have the ability to do that. And again, this isn't just toxic positivity. Right. Terrible things do happen to us, but when terr things are happening to us, we have a choice to make. And that choice keeps us in the game. And I'm not trying to be coy. As I'm describing staying alive or being dead, I mean, quite literally keeps us in the game. Choices keep us in relationships. They keep us honest. They keep us true to one another, they keep Us motivated or inspired or if we don't have motivation, they keep us moving forward into the next breath. You know, friends who are in recovery for alcohol or drug abuse will talk about taking things one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. What are they doing? Are they just sitting around watching a clock? Absolutely not. They're making continual choices to return back to themselves or, you know, we won't go into that, you know, because I'm not in recovery rights, I won't speak on behalf of them. But they're making choices, continual choices. And I think that we can make continual choices to stay in the game and if we feel momentarily defeated, to the. To try as hard as we can to even. Even if we have to lie to ourselves, to make a different choice, to make it through the next minute, to make it through the next 5 minutes, 10 minutes, the next hour, that's going to keep us going. And then when we keep going, possibilities pan out before us. And it might be another roadblock. It might be you get knocked down, and then 45 minutes later, you get knocked down again. Well, there's a choice to make. Is it game over or is it game on? And I. I do my very best to remember that it's game on. And I'm telling you, I don't always succeed. I didn't write this book, and I talk about it in there. I'm not your guru. I wrote this book as a realistic reminder to myself about things that absolutely work for me. And mindset shifts, perspective shifts that absolutely work for me. So hopefully they'll work for you and for listeners as well.

Greg, thank you. I love your humility, and I love the fact that the greatest authors I've sat with, they often say, hey, I actually wrote this book for myself.

I'm glad because I was just being honest when I did that. There was a point in the book where I thought, am I coming across like I'm a, you know, some, you know, wizard or shaman or something? Like, I don't want that. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, the entire book is filled with stories of failures and missteps. So I think that. I think it's. It's. It's all about making a choice to remind ourselves of these things continually. That's what I definitely did in the book and for readers.

So really, it's a really great trait. I love it. It's. With Daniel Pink on the show a few weeks ago, and he wrote. His recent book was the Power of Regret, and I was like, okay, so tell me some of your regrets. And it was great going back through some of his life regrets. That's why he wrote the book. Right. So I love that you're really like, that's what you're driving it from. And writing it for the previous version of you or for the tomorrow's version to try and align yourself with.

Absolutely, yeah. My partner Stephanie will often. This is going to sound like a ridiculous example. She will often make soup, say, and put it in the freezer. Why? Because it's a gift to her future self. So that when future Stephanie pulls soup out of the refrigerator, future Stephanie goes, oh, wow, thank you, past Stephanie. That was, that was really nice of you to make the soup for me and put in the freezer. So I love that because, you know, we're setting ourselves up with these strategies. Hopefully for future Greg. Future Greg is going to encounter something not as fun as talking to you, not as intriguing as getting messages from your listeners. Future Greg is going to have something happen which isn't great. And I hope that thinking about these strategies. Note to future Greg leads me to a place where I encounter that moment and reclaim it in a different way. Rather than thinking in terms of defeat and in terms of pessimism, I hope that I make it through that moment. Game on into the next with some of these ideas in mind.

Really, really powerful. I love it. And let's look at number five and number six.

Sure. So. So number five is it was a lighthearted and fun one. Engage with laughter. And that is to connect. Am the weight of the world. The world is a heavy. Is a heavy place. It's undeniable psychologically. The human animal has a problem. And the problem is, is that we can imagine things that don't yet exist. Like I mentioned before. But one of those things is the fact that you and I aren't going to exist in 100 years. Right. 375 years from now, you and I aren't sitting here like this. Hopefully we'll be remembered. That would be amazing. Dear listeners, I love you and I hope that you live to be a thousand years old. But just in case we don't make it, you know, okay, this is a heavy reality. What do we do with that situation? We need to be engaging with laughter, engaging ourselves with a sense of lightheartedness, engaging life as much as we can with a sense of lightheartedness. I describe in the book, you know, ways and approaches that we can take to thinking about ourselves not as comedians, but as people who need to be engaging With a sense of laughter, a sense of lightheartedness amidst a world which doesn't make sense. I mean, we are insecure, frightened, and terrified creatures hurtling towards an uncertain. Rock on. Now that we've got that said, and it's true, in my opinion, what can we do with that? I think what we can do is be in it together. And one thing that brings people together is laughter. So the more we can laugh together and connect with a sense of lightheartedness, the better off we'll be. So that's beautiful. Yeah, that's number. Number five. Number six is develop relationships that matter to outsmart the dread of isolation. It's very easy to feel isolated. We are more connected than we'd we've ever been. I mean, I'm sitting here on a podcast with a new friend from halfway around the world. All it took was clicking connect and we're connected. That's unbelievable. And at the same time, I'm standing by myself in my loft in Seattle, Washington. Realistically, I'm surrounded by lights and cameras and audio gear and computers and all sorts of buttons and things. I am literally standing by myself in a studio.

It's madness.

Yeah, it's madness. We are isolated and at the same time connected. And being isolated for a human animal who's an insecure, frightened, terrified creature is dreadful. It's dreadful to be hurdling through space and time, not sure if you're connected with other people. So when we develop relationships that matter and relationships with other people, a couple things happen. One, it feels good, right? So let's go back to engage with laughter. It feels good to connect with other people, share a laugh, share a connection. We also learn more about ourselves psychologically. We come into being through connection. I am more, Greg, in the midst of the sentence shared with you than I was half a minute ago before I started speaking. You are. You are more you. As a result of this connection, we see ourselves reflected through the eyes and responses of another. We become as we relate to one another. So I think it's really important to engage with. With. With others through relationships that, that. That matter to us or at least feel like they matter. It gives us a sense we can outsmart the dread of that isolation.

I think that's so important, It's. It's interesting, Greg. I was in LA about a month and a half ago, and on the way home, I got a message and rule of thumb, don't use the WI fi on an airplane. Just don't. But I did. I broke that rule and I found out that a dear friend had died and landed in New Zealand and realized and found out that he'd taken his own Life.

Oh, no.

24 hours later, I found out that a former student who had just turned 18 had also taken his own life. So within, you know, 36 hours. And it makes me think about the importance of connection not only to other humans, but to a purpose, to a meaning, to something bigger than ourselves. And some people might call that God. For those that don't believe in God, they might call that a mission that they're on. It might be that they help someone, that they've got a pet, they help. But I think the work that you're doing on your book about reclaiming the moment, I think it's a never ending thing. It's not a, hey, I've read the book. Book done. It's read the book. It's going to equip me with some skills so that when I need to reclaim the moment and things aren't maybe the way they should be or the way, I hope you've got an actual toolkit to reclaim those moments because we've got to stay in the fight. I believe that life's worth living for. We've got to stay in the fight. And your book really screams at me to go, hey, this is actually a real shining light for millions of people to read and go, this is how we can stay. Here's actual, tangible tools. The one I needed to hear from you was the laughter and the joy one. I needed to hear that. And my partner tells me all the time, Caroline's like, james, you are so freaking funny. But nobody gets to see it because you're interviewing these incredible people and you're pretty serious and you're focused and you want to get the best out of them. But I wish we could do another podcast or somebody could see me behind the scenes like, you're ridiculously funny. And I was like, yeah, that's nice, thank you. But I've got a job to do, you know, so my mission is how can we laugh more and, like, be cheeky and still get the job done, right?

Absolutely. You know, I'm working on a book, and I have been for quite a few years on a cultural anthropologist. I mentioned him in my book, a guy named Ernest Becker. And Becker wrote about human fear of death on a subconscious level. He wrote about why is it that we behave the way we do in terms of violence towards one another. He was drawing on religion and history and psychology and philosophy and anthropology, sociology, to come up with These ideas, none of it is, is laugh a minute, comedy festival type stuff. So when I start talking about Becker's work, I need to inject humor in it lest it feel like a ton of bricks. I mean, this is heavy material at times. Becker was the same way in person. He was very, very funny as an individual. He had to be. Because if you're talking to authors about serious subjects and we're talking about serious things like Becker, we have to at least add some light heartedness to it. And especially amidst life and the way it presents things to us, like what you learned on the airplane and when you landed about your former student, which is horribly upsetting. Of course. We have to then figure out what happens next. And it we've made a choice to go on, right? We've made a choice to go on. And in moments where I've lost people in my life, you know, we have to make a choice to go on. And what gets us through is connection with other people is that sense of joy, that pursuit of joy, that pursuit of laughter. I think that gets us through. So in the midst of the heaviness and the weight of the world, engaging with laughter is certainly a way to reclaim the moment.

I'm with you on that. And hey, final chapter.

Yeah, yeah, it's start a reverberation effect to build a better now. And I've often thought about a ripple effect as being an ineffective way to describe someone's influence. It's easy to talk about a ripple effect. You know, the stone gets thrown in a pond, the ripples spread outward from there. You are the stone, the ripples are your influence. Well, the problem is that the ripples fade by the time they get to the edge of the pond. So I started thinking, okay, what about reverberation? And what if I could use that term in a different sort of way than audio engineers use it, that what if. What if I'm ready? Meaning what if I've, you know, thought about these ideas about, about relationships and kindness and thinking from a revolutionary mindset and leaping into the dark and, you know, embracing the unknown. What if I'm ready in this moment for an idea from you? And I hear that idea instead of just going, oh, wow, you had a cool idea, okay, then I go off and do whatever I was going to do. What if I reverberate? What if I share that idea back to you with else? And they're ready because they, maybe they read the book or maybe they have these ideas in mind and we start sharing ideas back and forth and we start to reverberate off one another again. Goosebumps. Because I get excited by the idea that someone's idea doesn't have to or someone's influence doesn't have to just ripple and fade away towards the edge of the pond, but instead can reverberate and grow. Maybe your idea comes to me at work and I share it with somebody in a different department and they bounce that idea off somebody else and somebody else now reverberating back to you. And all of a sudden your idea is different than when it started, but maybe it's better. Well, if you're ready and you're a good listener and you're a good teammate, you are ready for action in that moment. That's certainly a way to build a better now is to. Is to reverberate. So that's the last chapter in the book. And ultimately all of the chapters come together in a way where I say the point of this book is not to reclaim more moments. It's not to build more better nows. It's about creating space for possibility. That when we do these things, when we reclaim this moment, as you said, this is continual work. When we do that again and again and again, we are creating space for possibility. And when we do that, life gets a lot more interesting and a lot more enriching and fulfilling.

I agree. I love that whole new approach to going away from the ripple effect, which I believe, you know, think about a pond. And I do see, well, the ripples disappeared. It doesn't make sense. The whole idea of it doesn't make sense. Right. To reverberate makes a of lot, lot more sense. And one of the things I was thinking about this yesterday was doing the dishes and just thinking and yeah, I'm still one of those old school Irish guys that actually washes the dishes by hand. Yes, I am.

I do the same thing I do. I wash dishes by hand. I love high five on that.

So I'm thinking about this. I'm like, what do I get a kick out of the most? And the thing I get a kick out of the most is like introducing two people and knowing that they will do something together, they'll collaborate, they'll work together, and it'll be world class and familiar, phenomenal. And knowing that I might never get to find out about it, I might never get any kickbacks, royalties, credit, who cares? I get so much joy. And the next best thing to that to me is like recommending a book or buying someone. So any new dad, I try and get them a copy of Ryan Holiday's the Daily Dad. And it's just amazing stoicism for dads, right?

Phenomenal.

And I get such a kick. And I think that's reverberation. That's passing on a book or an idea or connecting people, but I'd never had any words for it. So thanks for giving me some words to kind of think about.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Happy to. Yeah, I like that a lot. There's a. There's a poem which comes to mind, and I'm not going to recite it because I'll do it. A total injustice, but an American poet named Gary Snyder wrote a poem called Axe Handles. And the poem is about fashioning the handle of an axe by using another ax. Right. You're using an ax to fashion the handle of the next axe. And it's a metaphor for his relationship with his son. And nothing ever in my life put parenthood in perspective the way that, that, that. That poem did. You know, you're. You're passing along, you're. You're sharing. And reverberation works in the same way. You're passing along, you're sharing in a way which is nurturing and uplifting, hopefully. And you're a good listener, good teammate. You're ready. You're ready for action, and. And you're passing this along. So, yeah, Axe Handles by Gary. Gary Snyder is quite a wonderful piece of work along the lines of what we're talking about.

Thanks for sharing that. I'll make sure that the team put that in our weekly newsletter and a link to that so that people can go and actually read the poem.

Oh, yeah, it's tremendous.

I want to ask every listener and viewer right now to look in the show notes and go and order a copy of the book. Please go and get Reclaim the Moment today. And if you're thinking about others and you want to reverberate, get two copies so you can pass one on to someone else.

That's great. Thank you.

No. Pleasure. And I'll put all of your social handles so that they can follow you and engage with your incredible work. But just before we wrap up, I've got one last question. So I want you to imagine for a moment that we fast forward many years into the future. You're highly aware that it's your very last day here on Earth. Someone very young, who you love dearly, walks into the room, says, greg, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say to them?

I would tell them, as we spoke about earlier, to be kind. Let's go get. Let's. I'll just say that and throw that out there to them to, to be kind. But I would also tell them to constantly, relentlessly listen to their heart and constantly and relentlessly be true to themselves. And in moments where they thought that they should do something because somebody else thinks it's the best idea for them to stay true to themselves and ask them, is this right for me? Because when you're true to yourself, even if you end up off track, even if you end up completely out of line, even if you end up in a place where you never intended, if you're true to yourself along the way, you at least have that to hold on to. And in that moment when you feel completely thrown off course, you'll at least be able to say, I did this. I put myself here. I made this happen through my choices because I genuinely thought this was right. Now I'm going to make different choices based on what I truly believe and get myself back on track again. Again. And I think that reclaiming the moment is, is. Is in essence that process of saying, okay, what do I want in this moment? What do I truly believe? Where am I headed? What means the most to me? And then moving forward accordingly. So that's what I would offer that young person, is to stay, to stay true to yourself. I think that that's very important, Greg.

That's amazing. And I just know that there'll be someone listening right now that goes, you know what, I needed to hear that and that's fantastic. That'll land for them. It's beautiful. So thank you so much. And I want to say thanks for sharing your work with the world. I think as an author, someone that puts it out there, there's so much courage and vulnerability with that because as soon as you put it out there that you're open to everyone's feedback and so I thank you for that. I hope you continue to speak on stages all around the world. I'll make sure that people can check out your website in the show notes. If they want to hire you to come and speak, they can do that. In fact, I should add in that you're the speaker coach for TEDx Perth in Australia, is that right?

I am, yeah. There's a coaching team of a small, very small handful of people. I'm the first international speaking coach for TEDxPerth that they've ever had. So from halfway around the world, I'm coaching speakers who are on the TEDx stage in Perth. And it's pretty exciting. I get to. I get to talk to some fascinating folks.

That's incredible. Well, folks, if you go back and listen to this recording, I'm pretty sure you'll find there was no ums and as from Greg.

Well done.

Hey, Greg.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. This has been great. I appreciate it. And thanks for listening, everybody.

Pleasure. The Lead on Purpose podcast is sponsored by NZ Mortgages.

Learn more at nzmortgages.co nz that's unbelievable. And at the same time, I'm standing by myself in my loft in Seattle, Washington. Realistically, I'm surrounded by lights and cameras and audio gear and computers and all sorts of buttons and things. I am literally standing, standing by myself in a studio.

So it's madness.

Yeah, it's madness. We are isolated and at the same time connected. And being isolated, for a human animal who's an insecure, frightened, terrified creature, is dreadful. It's dreadful to be hurtling through space and time not sure if you're connected with other people. So when we develop relationships that matter and relationships with other people, a couple things happen. One, it feels good, right? So let's go back to engage with laughter. It feels good to connect with other people. Share a laugh, share a connection. Connection. We also learn more about ourselves psychologically. We come into being through connection. I am more Greg, in the midst of this sentence shared with you than I was half a minute ago before I started speaking. You are. You are more you. As a result of this connection, we see ourselves reflected through the eyes and responses. The of.