143: Transmogrify with Neil Pasricha

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. I am overjoyed to be here today with my dear friend Neil Passericha. Neil and I met back in February 2010. February 21st to be exact. He was doing a blog called A Thousand Awesome Things and he reached out to say, hey Jenny. Wow, what a great site. I was doing life after college at the time. He said, I'm really, truly amazingly impressed. I just started following you on Twitter and you know what's funny about that email that he sent in 2010? I about fell out of my chair because I knew about Neil and his work at A Thousand Awesome Things. He has such a delightful writing style and incredible mind. He's the best selling author of five books including the Book of Awesome, the Happiness Equation. Both of them have together spent over 200 weeks on the bestseller list and have sold over a million copies. Now he's hosting the award winning podcast three books where he's on a mission, a 15 year long quest to uncover the thousand most formative books in the world. And Pivot listeners, you're gonna love this. He releases new episodes on the new and full moon each month, so I just think that's such such a great idea. Today we were going to talk about his latest book, you are awesome 9 secrets to getting Stronger and Living an Intentional Life. But hilariously, before we hit record, Neil said, you know what, can we just not talk about the book at all? So all my prepared questions might just chuck em out the window. Neil, welcome back to the show.

Thanks so much for having me, Jenny. And I can tell I forgot that it was February 21, 2010 or whatever, but I could tell we've been friends a long time because you're the only person in this Entire media junket I'm doing for. You are awesome. Who has not asked me how to pronounce my last name? You're literally the first person who has not asked me how to pronounce my last name or mispronounced it just without asking. That's like a crown for you. That's like a gold star.

I mean, you're my pal. You know what's. You know what else that means, Neil, is that February 21, 2020 is our 10 year friendiversary.

I like that word, friendiversary. I don't think I heard that.

We should celebrate friendiversaries. It's a big deal.

Yeah, and, well, not everybody's as good as you at, like, looking up the actual friend, date, origin, you know, like some of my oldest friends in the world. If you asked me what's my friend anniversary, I'd be like, I have no idea. That person just, like, slowly transmogrified into my life at some point in like, between like, seventh and ninth grades.

Transmogrified. Okay, you win the crown. That's the best word I maybe I've ever heard on the Pivot podcast.

I. I don't know if I used it properly, but I borrowed it from Bill Waterson, who uses that word in Calvin and Hobbes a lot.

Okay. Wow, that's amazing.

Well, I should have probably said, like, diffuses into my life.

No, it sounds more Griffin.

Okay.

Listeners, it's your homework to use that word one time in a sentence this week and you'll do it with like an inner smile, knowing that Neil and Jenny challenged you to do it.

Neil, I forgot to mention too, that.

You do, like these word of the day. Do you ever do these, like, word of the day emails? Are you like a word of the day person?

Listen, I have the dictionary app and word of the day, it never sticks. I never remember it. Yeah, I do this thing when I'm reading on Kindle, I will highlight in a different color a word I don't know. So that ostensibly, if my Kindle highlights came back to me through an app, like read wise, I. I would at least know what words I needed to look up. What about you? Do you actually use the word of the day?

Well, the reason I'm asking you is because you just complimented my word transmogrify. And I realized somebody sent me the best ever word of the day a couple days ago. And I just looked it up as we're talking, and it is. Tell me if you've heard this before.

Delphinestrian. The definition is a dolphin rider.

What?

Yeah.

Del Finestrio, if you got a job.

At, like, you know, SeaWorld.

Oh, my gosh.

And you wrote a dolphin, you would be a Delphinestrian. Now try using that in a sentence. Delphinestrian.

That's the black clown.

A dolphin rider.

I wonder how many Delphinestrians are in the world.

They could have a club.

I'd say at least. You know, there's gotta be at least three. Three or four, I'd say.

Should I. Should I just call this podcast a Transmogrification with Neil Vestrija?

That's a good way to do. And just so you know, the word origin is from the Latin delphinus, which means dolphin, in the pattern of the word equestrian. So equestrian, of course, rides a horse. A Delphinestrian rides a dolphin.

Well, I just released it podcast.

Now, of course, we are way off topic. We're only two minutes in.

You would be surprised. Actually, one of the most recent episodes is what horse whispering and entrepreneurship have in common. So why not pivot over to dolphin riding?

I love it.

Can you also give us the official definition of transmogrify? Just like. And the word origins, since I'm already hanging out at the dictionary while you pull that up. Neil was also an early guest on this Pivot podcast, episode 44. It was. I'll tell you right now, the episode's called Want nothing, have Everything, the Happiness Equation. It was one of our most popular episodes. Neil still gets emails from listeners because he gave his email address at the end of the show. So if you want to listen to that one, it's pivot method.com 44. And you can listen to my embarrassing audio quality, probably my awkward interviewing style. Neil and I, although we've been friends 10 years, we only. We mainly catch up by doing Pivot podcasts, so. Or four episodes for him too. But it's catch up.

But yeah. And transmogrify.

Let's hear.

Mean. It's a verb. It means. Here you go. I'll play it for you. It means transform in a surprising or magical manner. I love that the example is the cucumbers were transmogrified into pickles.

Can you read that definition again? Because I love that the cucumbers were.

Ultimately transmogrified into pickles.

The part about magic. Transformation.

Oh, transform. So transmogrify means It's a verb. It means transform in a surprising or magical manner.

Is that not a freaking great word or what that's like? That sounds really like a cool theme for 20. 20.

Well, we've hammered it into everyone's heads because I think you're supposed to say a word like 12 times or remember, we've accomplished that already.

Oh, my gosh, Neil, when you give your email at the end of this episode, let's hear back from people in six months if you ever forget the definition of the word transmogrify ever again. I don't even know if I'm saying it correctly.

You were saying it perfectly, but there's just no R, I think. So it's a transmot.

Okay.

Transmogrify.

Transmogrify.

Yeah. There's one R, but not two R's.

Transmogrify has kind of like a Lord of the Rings slant to it.

Yeah.

And I'm pretty sure it says it's from the 17th century of unknown origins. Transmogrify.

Okay, sorry, everyone, that I. I said it wrong.

So, Neil, I think it's really funny, but also very interesting how you told me before you record listen, and you even said to another mutual, mutual friend we have about his podcast that you're happy to go on as long as you don't talk about the book. And in contrast to. I asked Hal Elrod, author of the Miracle Morning. He was at this inside author event that Amazon was putting on a couple years ago, and I actually raised my hand in that room and I asked him, hal, do you ever get tired of talking about your book? He had been on like 350 or 400 podcasts, and he told me, no. Every podcast interview is fresh. I love my book like, I love my kids, and I'm happy to talk about it 400, 500 times. And at that point, I had probably done, in the span of three months, maybe 50 interviews for Pivot when it was launching in 2016. And I was kind of maxed out. Like, I just did not want to explain the Pivot method even one more time. And I remember taking a break a couple months off of being interviewed. And so what do you think it is that creates that split where some people are happy to talk for the next 30 years? And then you and I will be like, really? Can we just jam? Can we just riff?

Yeah, Well, I think it depends how you think of yourself, Right? So I'm trying to, like, lean into sort of my artist identity. And that means that I have quit my full time job since last time we spoke on Pivot. I am now, you know, my hair is a lot longer and wilder. I'm like, just literally trying to put my mind in a place Where I get to spend time with thoughts, I get to play with thoughts, I get to read whatever I want. I get to walk. Like yesterday, I wandered around Toronto all day. I just wandered around all day. I do that one day a week. I call it an untouchable day. Yes, it is a chapter in the new book. But more importantly, it's just a way to kind of. Just kind of keep my thinking fresh. So here's the thing. I think of it like my thinking is where my brain is at today. My books, okay, are where my thinking was at literally a year or two ago. Because by definition, I was writing the book then, right? And then my speeches, my speaking is kind of where I think he was at maybe three or four years ago. Because the books have to congeal into a presentation that can be funny. And I always say three E's entertaining, educational, and empowering. And it has to then be presentable. So if you were to come watch me speak, actually, that's a function of my thinking four years ago. If you'd read my book, that's a function of my thinking two years ago. And if you're to hear me talk like we are right now, I said, don't talk about the book, because I just know you and I've known you forever. So it's kind of like whatever we end up talking about ends up becoming, I think, more fresh.

We get to play with thoughts and ideas in a way that isn't me spouting off talking points from a book. Am I thrilled the book's out? Absolutely. It's all about resilience. It's called you are awesome. We actually changed the subtitle, hilariously, since the one you just read. So now it's called how to navigate, wrestle with failure and live an intentional life. Yes. I'm spending all my time right now talking about the book, but because it was you and you said mutual friend, it's like, with people I super, you know, know super well. I'm just like, let's just talk about whatever you want.

You said two things in there, Play and fresh. Actually, one of my company values, as we've expanded the team a little bit this year, is truth. While it's fresh and radical transparency and delightful specificity. And so what those things mean to us is sharing. And this mostly relates to the private momentum, but sharing our truth while it's fresh in delightful specificity. Like where you almost can't believe someone's sharing that level of detail with you. Like, oh, what you've always wanted to know from A certain mentor. And so. You're so right. And I remember thinking, if only these podcasters who were interviewing me. And I'm guilty of it, man. People told me in the beginning that my podcast was like a book report because I would just dive so deeply into the book. And some people like that. And I did like that, too. But I realized that there's something so fresh for that author because books really are an artifact of a couple years ago, of our thinking and our experience and our stories. And then there is so much freshness that's happening right in the moment that people just don't yet know, or they don't know how to ask about it, or they don't know what to ask, but it's right there. And those authors are actually so much more excited about those new things, at least to you and I. We can speak for ourselves.

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. And it's no slam on books, because if I still, to this day, my favorite thing to do is spend time in bookstores. I have a pocketbook of books. I have a book club. I literally spend all my time reading. I'm obsessed with books.

It's a long story, but I ended up talking to Malcolm Gladwell's assistant recently, and I was nervous because I was about to interview him for my podcast, and I was like, what's he like? I'm all stressed and stuff like that. She's like, no, no, don't worry. He's preaching. He just mostly sits around reading all day. And I was like, what? She's like, yeah, he just, like, he just sits around reading all day. That's all he does. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, that's it. She's figured it out that that's the dream, right? And then. And then I talked about it, and it's like, his career goal is to. I don't know how you articulate your career goal, Jenny, but, like, his career goal is to be left alone.

Oh, I can relate so much. I mean, I must read for two or three hours a day. Honestly, one of the reasons I'm Scared to have kids is that I'll lose my reading time.

You could tell me I'm. I'm crazy, but, like, there's a podcast.

Called Moms who Don't have Time to Read Books.

Oh, there is?

Yeah. Based in New York. Zibby Owens runs it. It's a great podcast. And it's, like, about. So what I'm trying to say is I'm trying to, like, calm your Fears. Because clearly the podcast is for moms who don't have time to read books. And they do make time. My wife Leslie is a mom.

She reads.

Say it again. Sorry.

My mom was from my mom. My wife Leslie is The mom of three boys, 5 and under, and still before bed every night, she'll read a little bit. She might read your two hours, but she gets her reading in.

Okay. I just. I can relate so much to Malcolm. I'm just gonna put myself on a first name basis.

Yeah, sure.

Big Al.

That's great.

I'm sorry. Malcolm Gladwell. I actually have looked up to him for so long as someone I wanted to model my career after. You know, I don't need the mega bestsellers. In fact, I told my husband Michael last night, no, it wasn't Michael. I told Dory Clark, another dear friend tour. I told Dory, I just want to be well known among nerds. That's like, that would be the true success of my thought leadership is just to be known among nerds. That's cool.

You know what? Well, that's. You make up a great point, which is like, how do we measure success? And there's a really famous speech by Clay Christensen at Harvard Business School, which turned into a small article that went viral that turned into a book. It's called how will you measure your life? And in that speech, he talks about how some of the things that you really measure highly at the end of your life, for example, raising incredible children, in his perspective, they're just much more difficult to measure. They don't have an output, they don't have a metric. They don't have something you can quantify, like, for example, getting tenure at a university or how many books or articles you publish, yet they're worth more to potentially at the end. So he's like, how do you measure them at the beginning? And it brings up this great question because for me, when I launched three books, my podcast.

I made the specific intention where I gave my assistant, I said, make up the password to the stats page of my podcast. And I said, never tell it to me ever. Like, I don't ever want to know it.

I literally cannot look up my downloads, my trends, all that stuff, because if I did have the ability to check in, I know I would get obsessed with it, and I would probably only want to have, like, celebrity guests versus, like, the Korean grocer who lives down my street who I had on last episode, you know, so whereas it was incredible conversation. But it's just like, I wouldn't. I wouldn't target that because I would be changed by the metrics. And instead on my show, what I say is, I will the way I will measure success on three Bucks. My podcast is. I'm looking for an email.

That I'm going to get sometime over the 15 year run that the show goes on from someone who tells me something like, this book made me. This podcast about books made me fall in love with reading. That's it. That's the only metric I want. I want people to tell me that the podcast helped them fall in love with reading. They read more because of it. They maybe used it in their classroom. That's the kind of stuff I want. I want to measure it based on the qualitative, not the quantitative. I don't currently have a mechanism to capture that anywhere, but that's kind of how I want to measure it.

I love that. I love that. And I'm so with you. I never really read my reviews or my ratings until I just checked in one time, maybe the first time in a few years. And there were such beautiful, wonderful, nice things in there. And I was very grateful. I almost felt guilty that I hadn't read them sooner because I'm not even one where I'm not going to measure the success of my show either by ratings, reviews or metrics. Because it just. I don't know, I'm the same as you. It kind of shifts my focus in a way that I don't. Is not how I measure success. And I know you also did an interview early on with one of the greatest Uber drivers in the world.

Yes, exactly.

And I interviewed. I found Dr. Thomas Andrew in the New York Times who is pivoting from the morgue to the ministry. And it was just this profile tucked away in the newspaper. He was 20 years as a forensic pathologist in the morgue. He saw so many opioid deaths that he decided, I've got to do something while people are still alive. And so he is currently in seminary school. It's one of my favorite pivot interviews that I've ever done. I'll link to it in the show notes. And he and I are now still in touch and still friend tours.

See? And you know what? See, that's a beautiful story and it was an impactful conversation also. It was therefore by definition unique. So the listeners who are listening to that episode, like they're never going to hear that story anywhere else. For me, Vishwas Agarwal, who quick update for the listeners, literally got picked up at a bar one night by this Uber driver who had a 4.99 rating in over 5,000 rides, literally his algorithm. I have a screenshot on the blog post. It's like the last 500 ratings are all five stars. So I exchanged personal information with him. I of course hail him, you know, like from the front of my house. We do the interview in his Uber. It goes viral. It gets picked up on Fast Company and Uber, it's, you know, the company itself starts tweeting and mentioning it. Then Seth Godin, mutual friend of ours, he says we should do a book and call it 4.99 Secrets to Success from the World's Greatest Uber Driver. My literary agent calls me up and independently he says we should do a book. And now we're in the progress of putting together. We've already had calls. So me and Vishwas Agarwal, I don't know if I'll write the forward or like it'll be him. And you know, I just want to support him to do it. And then this book potentially is going to come out called 4.99. And his name, Jenny, his name, which you may or may not notice is a blurb on my current book. Like, you know, there's a blurb from Vishwas Eggo. Yeah, it says, okay, it says this is like the funniest blurb ever. I give this book 5 stars actually stars rating be so inefficient when it comes to Neil Pastricha. I give him the universe for being the sun, the light, the hope, the happiness for so many of us in life with his extraordinary efforts in writing this book. What a book seems a bible of happiness. A Google map of revisiting life. Thanks for yet another wonder, Neil. And yes, that's all one sentence. It's this epic run on sentence. But I was like I said to my publisher, do not change the voice on that. It sounds so much like him. And it's turned into a great conversation and a great relationship because I'm not measuring how many downloads it would have. And it turned into of course a great show. But the thing about this stuff that I want to also just throw in here is we can always get better at this because the world is constantly going to the magnetism of the world right now is constantly going to force feed you data. How many likes on your photos? How many friends do you have? How many connections do you have on LinkedIn? How many friends do you have on Facebook? The way we are best monetized for our tech overlords is by constantly comparing ourselves to others and trying to scrappily get bigger and better. Unfortunately, it leaves us in a constant state of anxiety. But we have to be smart enough to just see that world that we're being pushed into that echo chamber and move out of it. I'll give you an example. I used to finish my podcast by saying, and here's my iTunes review of the week, okay. Or whatever, review of the lunar calendar. But then I realized, no, that's artificially incentivizing iTunes reviews. So now I say the letter of the chapter. And the letter can be anything. People mail me letters. I've got an analog only fan club that just exchanges stuff through the mail for my podcast. I've got a phone number, so you can leave me a voicemail 1-833-read a lot. I bought the phone number. Of course people can send me personal emails. I will read those. They're often more critical and they say, can you keep my name off? But here's one thing I didn't like and I read those. So because I changed just the way I said it from itunes review to letter, it's totally broadened. You know, again, Demetri, what if that's even a word? I'm trying to take the metrics out and focus on more qualitative stuff.

Demetri is such a great word. I think it should be from here forward. And listen, we're inventing new words all the time as technology evolves, but I've never heard somebody put it exactly as you just did, which is that the world is force feeding us data and metrics. Omg. Especially as creators. You're right. You're right. It is being handed to us whether we like it or not. And we actually need to then take the proactive stance not to consume that force fed data unless it's genuinely helpful and it resonates. Some people love data crunching. And it's so funny you mentioned reading reviews because just before this conversation, I recorded a listener Q and A. So it will, it will actually come out right after our episode. But I ranted, I was saying that I rant to friends that I think reading one's own podcast reviews aloud is very silly and self serving. Honestly, it's like, who benefits? Everyone just gets to hear how great you are. And then the reason that a lot of podcasters are doing that is so that other people will go leave a rating and review, which also. Who does it serve? The podcast host. So while you could make an argument that, oh, in the long term, more ratings on reviews and more Ranking in itunes makes the show more successful and they can keep going and then you can keep listening. I just think it's a very self serving way to start a show. Not into it.

Yeah, I totally hear you. And the other thing that that is you're kind of hinted at is that people are typically reading good reviews. Whereas like I'll, I'll. When I get a letter I say, okay, this one comes from like you know.

Bob and Boise. 1 out of 5 stars or you know, I hate your podcast. Your voice is so screechy and annoying. You know nothing about books and I can't believe you had so and so like literally I'll read but I like to read those ones because they a help me make, help me get better. But also I think they encourage more constructive feedback, which is actually what I want. So if you just read good reviews just to kind of like, you know, go a little deeper on your point. If you just read good reviews, then you're only incentivizing good reviews. If you reconstruct reviews or negative reviews, you're incentivizing constructive or negative stuff. And isn't that what you really want? Like you actually I'm not like, I don't think you're saying we don't want feedback. I think we do or maybe we disagree on that. I'm like, I want feedback but I want to make sure people give me construct how do I get better? That's really the magic stuff I want.

Of course I love feedback. I built in. I'm going to do an episode at some point on built in listening strategies because I build in listening strategies everywhere. Like mini surveys, the pivot survey, it's@pivot method.com survey if you want to see. I made it. It's like a bot is embedded into the page. So you could just chat with a bot and give me your feedback. Like I have fun with this. But why? Okay, I like your strategy. If you're going to read the Good, the Bad and the ugly, that's cool. But my question is why do I need to read my feedback out loud to all of you who are listening as the first thing you're going to hear or even the last. It's for me, like if someone gives me feedback, I'm gonna, I'm gonna listen, take it in, respond to that person, maybe make some changes over time, depending if more people feel the same. But I feel that the notion of reading it at the front is. I don't know.

Yeah, and you've said a few times at the front, which I think is a great point. I didn't, I didn't realize a lot of people were doing that. I, I actually make three kind of three sort of tier system on listeners. So I think that the majority of people listen to three books. My podcast are like, they're just pressing a button and maybe listening to five minutes or 20 minutes or whatever. They're just surfing around or someone sent them a link or whatever. That's the majority. So then when I'm done the whole interview and I do my clothes or whatever and people have. My whole podcast is looking for the 1000 most formative books in the world. So then I summarize which the three books were added from this guest. It's over. But then I leave a purposeful 5 second pause right there. And then I say, and now for those who made it this far in the podcast, welcome back to the end of the podcast club. So that's like the second tier. Those are people that have called. Phone number. I play a voicemail, I read a letter. I talk about the. You'd love this because you're obsessed with words like I am. I play the word of the chapter, which we use a clip and like a word that I didn't understand that my guest used or whatever. Like I interviewed David Sedaris and he's like, yeah, I was referred to as Lilliputian before. So now of course, in the end of the Pockets club, it's like David Sarris is like, yeah, I was referred to Lilliputian. And then I define the word, I talk about the history, the etymology, the origin, blah, blah, blah. And then it's closed. But here's the other thing. If you call that phone number 1-833-Read-Alight, you're given a special password that you have to enter into a secret website that you then get an address and you can mail me $20 in the mail, like cash. And then you get, then you get invited and I won't say too much more about this, but then you get, then get invited through to an analog only fan club related to my podcast, which the only way we can communicate. I don't have people's email addresses, it's just through the mail. I send people like stickers and books and bookmarks and all this stuff, but it's like a third. So what I'm doing is, yes, it's a bit self serving, but it's also, you keep opting in the more you listen or if you call and you can keep going deeper and deeper into, like, this sort of crazy fandom I have for finding the world's most formative books. You can go as deep as you want with me.

I mean, that's just so you. And it's so fun. It's such a little adventure with Easter eggs. It's almost bringing to mind a Rube Goldberg machine. Like, you push this, and then it goes here, Then this happens. It's just so delightful. It's so playful.

And you know why I did it? Because I used to be in the Weezer fan club, like, when I was. I won't say a kid, but I'm. I'm 40 now, so I was probably, like, in my 20s or something. And I remember, like, the girls that ran the Weezer fan club, and they, like, you know, they put together these, like, cutout things, and they, like, sent me special messages. And I loved being in this, like, exclusive fan club for, like, rock band. And I was like, no one does that anymore. So that's why I wanted to do it. I love it because I want to think of myself as a rock band.

Well, you are. You are a rock band.

You are the rock band. No, I'm just being like, I want to bring back analog.

Yeah, I'm with you. It's funny, whenever I do a pivot keynote, it's actually interactive. I don't want to just talk at the audience for an hour. Half of it is really giving them the space to reflect on their year ahead and what's working. And lately, I have to say. I have to say to the organizers, can you please have extra pens? And so I joke in the speech, like, everybody get out one of those old analog devices called a pen. And, like, because no one has them anymore, assumed that everyone would have a pen on them even five years ago. And that's not true anymore.

So. Side rant. When I give speeches, I often say, you have to. So I have a big thing about. You know, my whole speech is about how to be happy in 20 minutes a day or less. And one of the things I say is read 20 pages of fiction from a real book, and people start laughing because, A, hardly anyone reads fiction, sadly, especially when I'm talking to a corporate audience. And B, they don't read it from a real book. And then they say, well, why does that have to be a real book? And I say, a couple reasons. Number one, the research shows that if you can do anything else on your device, you will. Single tasking is the new multitasking. You will be too tempted. I thought it was no offense to Oprah, but when she goes around talking about how she reads on her iPad before bed, I'm like, really? Because an iPad can send you messages, alerts, notifications. It can distract you with other apps and games again. You then become monetized again. And a bright screen. This is the other research. I don't know if you know this, it's from Australia. If you look at a bright screen within an hour before bedtime, the melatonin production in your brain goes down. So you are getting less of the sleep hormone that you need to have deep restful sleep. So yes, it has to be a real book on real paper. We already have 11 hours of screen time a day. We don't need more. And it has to be on a theme you can single task on, which is again, back to a real book. So I'm pretty hardcore on that. I of course, understand people that are like, well, I need audiobook and I need. My Kindle has this special setting and I really don't do anything else. Okay, I get it. But I'm just saying.

I'm still hardcore. 100% real books only.

Oh, I love real books. And I do read many. I will say the settings on my Kindle, I have the lowest brightness all day long and then I always have my. My iPad in airplane mode. So actually, I have made my entire iPad in airplane mode. It's like, basically is just a reading device. Yeah, it's a reading device. No messages. I didn't even set up text messaging on the iPad. I don't have any notice nothing. It's in airplane mode all day. Okay, so you're like, that's the only way I'll read a Kindle.

I'm going to use you as the example. People say, well, how do I do it? I'm like, okay, this is how. The other thing though, about reading is I'm often trying to convince people to read over watching TV or watching movies. Like, my argument is kind of towards reading as a thing. Oh yeah. And I don't know if you know. This research is from Emory University.

The results were published in the Annual Review of psychology back in 2011. They did MRI scans on people. Turns out when you read read fiction, especially literary fiction like this, all the mirror neurons in the brain and parts of your brain responsible for empathy, compassion, understanding, they light up. And when they do MRIs, it turns out that language centers and parts of their brain that they didn't even know you used when you were reading are lit up even the next day. It turns Out. Like, even your smell centers are lit up. Like, if you read the word cinnamon or you read the word leather, your brain lights up. Whereas if you watch TV or watch a movie, somebody else is the director of that. Somebody else is choosing the characters, what they're wearing, what it looks like, what the set looks like, what it sounds like. So you don't have to use as much of your brain. It makes so much sense. It's super obvious. We all know reading is good for you, but that study, I thought was quite impactful. Like, when you look at brain scans, way more of your brain is being used after you read.

But does it have to be fiction?

Well, it doesn't. So here's the thing. They've only done this study on fiction, and especially fiction, is because a reader lives a thousand lives before he or she dies. A man or woman who never reads lives only one. I don't know if you've heard that quote. It's from Game of Thrones. The idea is that what we're really doing when we're reading is slipping into another consciousness, Right? You're a different gender in a different part of the world in a different time period. And so when it comes to nonfiction, I think. And I don't have research to back this up, Jenny, but I think if you're reading a really immersive biography, like, say you're reading, like, Shoe Dog by Phil Knight or Open by Andre Agassizzi or something like that, you probably still do slip into another life. But if you're reading, like, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, you may not be. And so I don't know how to delineate between those two, but I just think that there's less nonfiction available that is as immersive as there is fiction.

I will say I just. My. One of my guilty pleasure reading categories is, like, tech thrillers, true business stories. See, anyway, I did just live the life of the Mark Zuckerberg of the criminal underworld. That was very fascinating.

Yeah. See, that's the thing. It's just like putting you somewhere that you're not right? And then you grow, of course, you grow empathy and compassion, understanding, because you're now typically reading. But someone whose life is either worse than yours or has struggled through something that's more difficult than you've gone through.

Yeah, you make a great case, I have to say, not so much empathy for this kingpin I was reading about. But. But the other thing I want to say, sometimes the reason I read Kindle, like, in the morning, my brain is Very active. And I like underlining and highlighting. If I wake up before sunrise, I'll read a little on my Kindle. And then if I'm in bed and the lights are out and I don't want to have a book in my hand. And that's the other time.

Yeah. This is interesting because for a long time, Leslie, my wife, would lie beside me at night and I would put on like, a red reading light to read. Like a camping light, but on red, because the infrared setting is supposed to be a little bit better than the bright light.

Having said that, I have now been able to successfully convince her to sleep with an eye mask. And that has done two things. One, her sleeping is much deeper and I can read with an actual lamp on, which makes me a little bit happier.

This is going back to the Uber driver, which I didn't even get to comment. I just absolutely love how his story is unfolding. And after connecting with you and Seth and omg, like the agent, I wonder how long has he been at it? Has it been 10 years yet?

Has Uber even been around 10 years? Yeah.

No, I don't think so. He. So this guy, Vishwas Agarwal, he. He was an executive in India. Like, he was at the top of a number of different companies when he emigrated to Canada. Like many immigran to Canada or the U.S. or anywhere, if you're an immigrant, you start where you can get a job. And so while he would knock on doors and say, hey, I used to run a hospitality company over in India, he wasn't successful in landing a career. So he got a job driving an Uber to start out with here. And he, I think, only been doing it a year at the time I met him. But interestingly, and this is comes out in the conversation I had with him, he says, like, either I do the thing or I don't do the thing, but if I do it, I do it the best. So even though from his perspective, in some people's perspective, it was a job that was far below him, in the conversation I had with him on three books, he talks about how he cleans his mats every night. How he doesn't eat in the car other than any food that doesn't smell. How he always starts with no radio on so that the person can decide the sound for themselves. How he always confirms the address and the number of time, confirming that it will be good for them. How he always says their name when they walk in the car. He's not supposed to. The Uber algorithm says he's Supposed to say, who are you? Or what's your name? He says, is it Neil? Is it Neil? And I was like, so I'm excited. I get in the car, I'm like, it is Neil. It is Neil. You know, I tell and he's like, I'm breaking the algorithm. But I think it's just a little bit more connective to use someone's first name. So my point is, he's put so much thought into all the little tiny systems he's designed in the Uber system. Uber's actually invited him into their head office to, like, give, like, training sessions now because of the podcast. And. And it's amazing. And so, yeah, he hasn't been working at Uber 10 years. He's been working at Uber one year. I don't know how if he's gonna work there forever. But he had this idea that you set your own standards, which I really, really love.

I love that. And look at the pivot there. He came from hospitality, so he has actually that whole background that he. And I love his mindset that if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna give it everything I have. And so the reason I brought up 10 years there is one part in the book, the new book, you are awesome. Awesome that I just wanted to talk to you about. It was the advice via Todd Hanson, former head writer of the Onion, who said, do it for free for 10 years. I think a lot about this and I'm often. It's almost a reassuring phrase to myself that it take it's 10 years to an overnight success. You know what I mean? And I just wonder how this advice resonates for you, how you apply it.

Sure. Well, basically, just to give the listeners a tiny bit of context, Todd Hanson was one of the first editors of the comedy newspaper the Onion.

A lot of people want jobs like that because you're getting to write jokes for a living. He was interviewed by a guy named Mike Sachs in a book called and here's the Kicker, a series of interviews with comedy writers. He said he's often on panels or whatever, and somebody puts up their hand and they're like, well, how do I get paid to write jokes for a living? Because people's presumption when they see someone successful is typically that they're seeing someone who just got lucky.

I've talked to Frank Warren about this a lot, and he runs the blog postsecret.com, and people are always like, well, great idea. You're so lucky you thought of that idea. To collect anonymous postcards confessions. Great idea. Even when a thousand awesomethings. Com took off, people are always like, well, good idea. Writing down awesome things. You really nailed it. Good idea. No, it's not a good idea. It's what Todd Hanson says on the pan. Do it for free for 10 years. Do you know how many jobs and blogs Frank Warren started that were not successful before postsecret.com and in the book and you are awesome, I actually outlined all the blogs I started before 1000Awesome Things.com that were just terrible. They didn't work, but I learned something tiny and small from each one. And so when people said good idea, I was laughing in my head. I'm like, no, actually, this is the dumb. Literally, look at the title of my blog, 1000Awesome Things. Do you think that's a good idea? Writing down a list of things you like? Do you think that's. That's clearly, that's the simplest idea ever. But because I had done 10 other blogs before, I knew a consistent posting schedule is important. I will write one every day at 12:01am I knew a countdown was more powerful than a count up because it always. It creates crescendo and momentum towards the finish line. I knew. So there was things I had learned through all the other blogs that did not work. And then as a result, 100soothings.com, got something like 100 million hits, won the award for best blog two years in a row, turned into my first book, the Book of Awesome, and is the reason we're even talking today, 10 years later. So what did I do? Did it for free for 10 years. Or actually a lot more than 10 years because I was writing and posting stuff even as a kid that was even more sort of.

Primal than the stuff that I'm talking about in the book.

I also have to add that you have a very unique writing style and voice that's particularly delightful. I know I use that word a lot and I said it in the intro, but it is. Your writing is just so playful, descriptive, alliterative, fun, engaging. So we can't. There is a special sauce I think, that you bring. It's. It's not just that experience and time, it's that you do sprinkle in a very unique, childlike joy as you talk about things.

You are super, super sweet. And you know what? How you said you want to appeal to nerds. I couldn't have been a bigger nerd. As a child. I had thick coke bottle glasses. I mean, seriously, I was the only one in my school with glasses. As the only brown kid in my old school, by the way, I grew up in the suburbs, an hour east of Toronto. Very, very white community. Everyone was super nice to me, but I was like, one of these things does not look like the other. There was no Internet. So when my mom and dad and sister would all go to bed at like 8pm, I would literally toss and turn in my bed every night till like midnight because I just was fidgety kid. You probably still hear it in my voice today. This is the 40 year old for me. Imagine what I was like when I was 8.

So then my mom started taking me to the library every Saturday morning. I would get a pile of books. Encyclopedia Brown, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Babysitter's Club, whatever. And I would read a book a night. Now they're short kind of kids books, but that is what kept me going. And so voice style, this is all just again, another do it for free for 10 years. Like how many books did I read? How many things did I write? I was the editor of my grade six newspaper, my ninth grade newspaper, my twelfth grade newspaper, my college newspaper. And those things, to become the editor of them, of course require years of work to not, you know, not being the editor before you become the editor. So by my last year in college, I was spending 20 hours a week in class. I was in business and business people, business students for some reason had like 20 hours of class. But I was spending like 40 to 50 hours a week on the school newspaper. And it was a comedy newspaper with a playful voice. So it's still baked into that history.

I did not know that about you. That is a very. Wow, you're right. That is so much experience over time. And even a comedy newspaper. Fun fact. I was also the editor of my high school paper and I also started a newspaper for my family, an extended family, when I was 11 years old.

What was it called?

The Monthly Dig Up.

Why is it called Dig Up?

I was just digging up all the good nuggets. Like.

I thought that was like an acronym or like it was like the monthly Dig Up. That's great. So you published monthly, right?

I did.

And for how long did you do?

I worked so hard and I started the Sunday Scoop back when I had an Apple iic. So it was. There was no page layout software. It was just these little like stars and symbols to make the Sunday Scoop a two column sheet of paper. And then the Monthly Dig Up. I actually used Microsoft Publisher, taught myself desktop publishing and layout, published that till my senior Year of high school. So 11 years old to my senior year. By the end, it was like four page, full color spread, stapled like a magazine. I was the editor of the high school paper. It was, it was epic. I have every copy.

This is the thing is that what the question to the listeners is, what are you doing in your life right now? Now that you aren't getting a ton of rewards for you potentially, or maybe you know, you aren't getting paid for, you can't see what is leading towards, like, what is that for you? Because whatever that is, we all have things like that. Then could you potentially allow your mind to decide that that is serving some future you and some future scenario that you can't even imagine yet? One of the best studies I uncovered while researching the new book, Jenny, was something called the End of History Illusion. I don't know if you have read the study. It's by Daniel Gilbert.

Oh, I love Gilbert.

Yeah. So the author of Stumbling on Happiness. And he went through a rough patch in his life like I did, and like everyone has, he got divorced and he lost a friend and he thought, am I going to feel as horrible as I do now in a year from now? Well, because he's a really famous Harvard psychologist and researcher, he actually decided to study this. The end output is a research paper called the End of History Illusion. Him and his team interviewed 19,000 people and they asked all of them across every demographic, culture, background, gender, age range, what were the last 10 years of your life like and what do you think the next 10 years of your life will be? When people were asked about the last 10 years of their life, if they painted a tempestuous portrait of highs and lows, ups and downs, marriages and breakups, you know, getting a job and getting fired like it was like life is. If you ask yourself about your last 10 years, you would paint a tempestuous portrait as well. Like highs and lows, ups and downs, things, everything went topsy turvy. And you could have imagined this would happen, Right? But then, interestingly, and this is a brain problem that we all share, when everybody was asked, what do you think the next 10 years will look like, People almost universally said, oh, I'll still be at the same company. I'll definitely still be married to Todd. Of course we'll still be living in New Jersey or wherever it was they were. Today our brains have something in them where we think history is over. Now we call it the End of History Illusion. We are terrible, all of us, at picturing what the stuff we're doing now will lead to in the future. We can't predict it. So the end of history. Illusion is something to keep your mind open to. If, for example, you're listening to this and you're struggling on something that isn't paying you, or you're in a relationship, you don't know where it's going, or you had some bad news and you don't like. So for me, in my you are awesome. I talk about my divorce, my wife left me and I thought, I'll never date anyone again. I am ugly, I am undateable. I am not attractive.

My life is over. I will never I'm gonna die al and sad. That's how I pictured it because I thought history ended. And after my divorce, that was a terrible thing to think. So the lesson since the book's all about resilience, the lesson there is See it as a step. How can you see what you're going through today as a step towards a future you and a future life that you can't even picture?

Oh, I'm so glad we're ending on that note, Neil. That's so beautiful. And you said see it as a step. It brings us to the 500-year-old invention that you so awesomely write about in the book. And in fact, maybe I'll just read a quick passage for everybody. You want to say what that 500 year old invention is?

The ellipses.

The ellipses. So here's a sample of Neil's writing. He says yes, the first time the famous appears is way back in the Middle Ages when The Roman dramatist Terence's play Andrea was written in 166 BC and performed for the first time in 1476. Use the first discovered printed ellipses ever to mark incomplete utterances. Let's pause for a moment to stare at a bit of blurry calligraphy from half a millennium ago. The first ever ellipses. Yes, fellow history or trivia nerds, it truly is an amber encapsulated marvel. Love it. The dot, dot, dot. And that's so much of what you Are awesome is about is adding a dot, dot, dot, adding a seeing it as a step and cultivating resilience. So Neil, I could of course talk to you all day. One of us needs to write yet another book so we can do yet another podcast conversation. This has been such a delight. I just love the way you showed up today, even before we hit record and just said can we just talk about whatever you want.

I think it makes it more fun to have a conversation. I'm like you. I always prepare like 100 questions and then like afterwards I'm like, oh, I wonder what they would have said if I didn't follow my script. So now you know. This is an unscripted conversation.

This is what came out 100%. And can you please let listeners know where they can find you? Keep in touch and enter the Neil Passricha fandom.

Every single thing is available at my website, www.neil.blog. so just n e I l.b l o g and because you teased it at the front of the podcast and because we did it last time, if you made it this far in the podC, then drop me a line at neillobalhappiness.org that's my personal email address. Nobody can see those emails except for me. N E I L at G L O B A L H A p p I N-E-S.org neallobalhappiness.org Just let me know what you thought of the show. CCJenny on there. Jenny, you're going to get some of these. Cc Jenny on there and then let us know. Piece of thought, piece of feedback.

Anything you want you can ccme jennyvivittmethod.com and I love Neil, that you call it the end of the podcast club because I feel the same. Like if any of you listening, if you made it here to the end of the podcast, you are a special person and we are grateful. So thank you. Thank you Neil. And I'm just so happy. Also, just a full circle on the story you shared about getting divorced and how tough that was and the resilience you developed. We were talking before we hit record and I hope it's okay that I say, but Neil has a beautiful wife, Leslie, and three beautiful boys at home. So they're out. One's asleep, the others are out today and it's really cool to see your family continue to unfold.

Exactly. Thank you so much Jenny for having me on.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always?