How To Master the Magic of Mental Clarity - Dr. Edward "Ned" Hallowell

Our next presenter, Dr. Edward Hallowell. He has been on more talk shows than probably anyone that I know. He's been on OPRAH at least six times, Dr. Phil three times, good morning America, Dateline, the Today show, numerous times. He's worked with some very famous people, lots of kids, lots of adults. He is the top ADD ADHD psychiatrist in the world. He wrote many, many books, including Answers to Distraction, Delivered from Distraction, Married to Distraction. How many of you are married to distraction or your spouse is married to you? Okay. All right. And he wrote a fantastic book. When I first met Ned, I read his book Crazy Busy, and it was one of the best books I'd ever read. Overworked, Overstretched, and About to Snap. I think Strategies for Coping in a World Gone AD isn't like add Fantastic book. And I actually sent the book to Nightingale Conant, and they actually created an audio program with Ned out of that. And his latest book is called Hocus Focus, and it is not published yet. But because Ned is super cool and we're super cool, we're getting all of you a copy. So we're going to actually email you a link where you can immediately read it on your Kindle or read it on your iPad or whatever. So that being said, there's no better person I know that can basically speak to the subject of overwhelm, the fast paced society that we live in. Information, overwhelm, and just how to actually not have modern life control you, but you manage it. So My dear friend, Dr. Ned Hallowell, he likes being called Ned. So awesome. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Joe. And you know, you really are such an extraordinary man. You try to disown it, but I think the force that really propels pretty much everything positive in life is the force of connection. I think that's really at the heart of Peter's message. And you're the best connector I know. You're amazing. And you're also the most generous person I know. And I know you don't like to acknowledge that, but. We are all so very much in your debt. And you know, you're mentioning all the brain power in this room. It reminds me of President Kennedy's remark when he hosted a party of many Nobel Prize winners. And he said, this may be the greatest collection of brain power in the country, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone, but certainly there's a lot of amazing brain power in this room, but also dream power and hope power. I think we often overestimate brain power and underestimate these other forces that Peter so brilliantly alluded to. And I just want to react to what he was saying a little bit. You were searching for the tubercle bacillus. There you go, you know, memories for medical school, you know, searching for those red bugs. And the choice. Yogi Berra nailed it when he said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it. And finally, the notion of mindset, you know, is extremely well documented. Carol Dweck spent her career proving that what she calls a growth mindset becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The growth mindset says no matter what skills I need, I can get to achieve my dreams. And the fixed mindset says I'm limited by my iq, income, station in life, what have you. And it's like that old line, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. So just start thinking you can. And very hard evidence proves you'll do it. And the question is, how do you do that? How do you do that? Well, let me give you my answer before I get into talking about attention. You do it through connection. And that's why coming together here is so wonderful. Tell you a quick story because you know, it's okay to hope for the best when things are going well, but when they're not going well, that's when you need a method, when you need a recipe. And my nephew, one of the bravest people I know, is 37 years old. He went to medical school, fulfilled his dream of becoming an orthopedic surgeon, married the most beautiful woman, also a doctor, had the most adorable child, and got a dream job in Santa Barbara and was windsurfing every day and doing total hips and just on top of the world when he got diagnosed with als. And I just visited him a couple of weeks ago, he's now in a wheelchair. He will die before Christmas. He'll go to a hospice and they'll give him some extra morphine and he'll go to heaven unless we come up with a miracle before then. But what's amazing about him is how positive he feels. He says, and he can't talk much because of the als. Uncle Ned, don't worry about me. I've achieved all my dreams. How could I complain? And he means it. He means it. And I think, you know, you keep that in mind. You keep in mind someone like that who's dying a terrible, slow death. And every day he's talking about how great life is. And it's because of the force of connection, because he had all his friends, like 30 friends from Yale come visit him a few weeks ago, and they're all talking him up and his beautiful baby. And every day, you know, he's celebrating being alive. And I think you want to keep that in mind, that it is the power of touching each other that brings out our best. You know, it is in connection that we find pretty much everything that we need and in isolation that we wither. And the beauty of technology today, as Peter so brilliantly pointed out, is that it allows us to connect so much more powerfully than ever before in history. This really is the greatest time ever to be alive. It is not to say that bad things can't happen, my nephew Jake being just one example, but that as we work together, we will be able to solve problem after problem after problem, achieve victory after victory after victory. And we're only limited by our capacity to dream big. And, you know, I just. I couldn't agree with what Peter said more. And you all, you all are specialists in doing that. You all, the entrepreneurs, the. The dreamers. I know some of you so well, and others I wish I knew better. Someone like Dan Sullivan is just a dream maker. And all of you sort of have embodied the power to take whatever notion you have and turn it into something real that changes the world. How cool is that? And you keep doing that over and over again until you can't anymore. And what does it all mean? I don't know. But I know it's positive. And I know what drives the good is really at its most distilled, the power of love. That's what we all need and rely on. Well, with that as sort of an introduction and a frame, let me now talk about attention. Because it fits so well into what Peter was saying. The resource that is diminishing in this world, the most precious resource in many ways that any of us has, is attention. Every day you have to decide where to focus your mind and when you have minds, like you guys do. By the way, I gave you a handout. The mind of the entrepreneur. And it's short because you like short. It's just bullet points. And you can see. Don't read it now, please. But. I know, I know you guys, but exactly when you have the idea of foric minds that you all do, the big decision you have to make every minute, every day is where to focus your mind. And if you're not careful, what I think of is a tin can surrounded by a thousand magnets. And your brain is like the tin can. And you wake up in the morning and a thousand magnets come on. And what does the 1010 do? It just spins. Thousand magnets. It's attracted to every single one of them simultaneously. And you can spend a day, a week, a career spinning if you're not careful. So the skill now that we need to learn that really technology has brought us this opportunity. The great thing about modern life is you can do so much. The curse of modern life is you can do so much. So what you have to do is get really tough with yourself and prioritize, decide where do I want to focus, what do I want to put my precious mental energy into? And I'm not here to tell you where you should focus, but I am here to tell you it's one of the most important decisions you can ever make. And you know, you say, okay, I'll focus on my business. Well, what part of your business and where do you want to put your energy? And what do you need to delegate the magical letter C, D, E? Curtail, delegate, eliminate. What can I curtail? What can I delegate? What can I eliminate so that I will have sufficient focus to achieve my goals? You see, it's not infinite. Every day it gets depleted, really in cycles throughout the day. You cannot maintain a single level of focus throughout the day. And so one of the great skills for all of you to learn, for all of us to learn, is how to first of all choose what to focus on and next. Maintain focus, regulate focus, manage focus. And I'm basically a focus doctor. I've sort of invented a specialty when I got out of Medical School in 1978. I'd never heard anything about focus in medical school. And then I learned about this condition, so misleadingly named Attention Deficit disorder. It's a terrible term. It's not a deficit, it's not a disorder. It's a trait that many of you have. And it's associated with having lots of ideas, lots of energy, thinking outside the box. Being an inventor, a pioneer, it's really add people who colonized this country. If you think of it, who in the world would come over here in 1600 in a boat? You had to be some wacko, kind of risk taking, visionary, dreamer, pioneer. And that's our gene pool, and that's a lot of you. And the doctors, the medical establishment that likes order decided to call it a disease. So it gets called Attention deficit disorder. But quite the contrary, it's a tremendous asset if you manage it right. If you don't manage it right, it's the prison population. But if you do manage it, right. And the way I explain it, it's like having a Ferrari engine for a brain. You've got this incredibly powerful engine. You're a champion in the making. Ferrari engine for a brain, but with bicycle brakes. So you gotta learn how to control the power of your mind. Sounds simple. It's not simple. You need to learn to control the power of your mind and that Ferrari engine in order for you to win races. You need to learn how to strengthen your controls. Not to make you a normal corporate citizen. I quite agree with Joe. The life is sucked out of them, but to make you like Shakespeare and Mozart. Shakespeare and Mozart wrote within extremely confining structures, extremely iambic pentameter, Shakespeare, Mozart, very tight musical forms. And because of that structure, because of those breaks, those boundaries, they were able to create infinite variety. So make friends with the structure. Make friends with the controls. It will potentiate your creativity. It will take your business 10 times higher, as Dan is helping people do every day. Well, let me talk about two functions. One, how to get someone's attention. And hold it. And number two, how to manage yours. Now, getting attention. I summarize with the acronym search. You can get attention in these six ways. Peter already mentioned the S. Scare. This is what the media loves to do. You scare people, you get their attention. You go straight to the primitive brain. And oh, boy, we are so wired to feel fear more than any other emotion. E. Excite. We do that through sensory stimulation. Speed. If you present something fast, doesn't matter. It can be vapid. You can read the telephone. Telephone book. Fast. Someone will pay attention. We pay attention. We love speed. We crave speed. Speed is our drug of choice. So speed, sex. You all know about that. Sex sells. And anything that is highly sensorily stimulating excites us. Gets your attention. And another E word. Educate, if you're interested. So if you're a stockbroker, you want to hear how's the market doing? So if it's information you care about, you will pay attention. So E is for excite or educate. A got four A's. Attack. If you attack someone, they'll pay attention. Annoy. Remember the Aniston commercial? You're too young for that. Maybe. But years ago, this guy got rich in advertising because he really annoyed people, showing what it was like to have a headache. So attack. Annoy. It will gain your attention, but also amaze, amaze. And think of how Peter amazed you in his presentation. That's riveting. And that's what a lot of the great books these days from Malcolm Gladwell from Peter, from. Many of the folks who are bringing us insights from the brain sciences are amazing and that is riveting. So good news amaze also works. The third one, the fourth one are reassure. And we're actually at a place now, I think we're so saturated with bad news that actually reassurance is focusing. I love the company. Life is good, you know, and we are so starved for good news that when you hear reassurance like Peter gave, like others are giving, it's really wonderful because it's startling, it's amazing, and it's reassuring. So as you reassure, you can also grab someone's attention. And the other R is Reward. Offer someone $1,000, they'll pay attention. Offer them an X prize, they'll pay attention. But as Peter said, it's really not about the money, it's about the reward. It's about the goal. When you have a goal, you tend to respond to it if it's something you think is worthwhile. See, charm, charm, charm someone. Joe is a master of charm. Don Rickles. Insulting is charming. I mean, you can be charming without being cute and coquettish or you can be cute and coquettish, but charming is also a wonderful way. And then h. Help. When you offer someone help that they need, they'll pay attention. You may have to frame it in such a way that you grab their attention. But we all need help. And if it's packaged in such a way, okay, so. So that's how you grab the attention. Now how do you hold their attention? Well, you have to sin. You have to sin structure, interaction, novelty. This is critical. You need the structure and you need the novelty. Too much structure, the presentation is boring. Too much novelty, the presentation is confusing. And if there's no interaction, people will tune out. That's why I'm not going to talk very long, because we're not interacting enough. If I were doing this for a long time, I'd be asking you questions, I'd be polling the audience. I'd be doing stuff to make us interact. You go to Dan's workshops, it's all interaction. Best example, you don't have to be with other people. A crossword puzzle is interactive. That's why it holds your attention. You're interacting with the puzzle, the new clue. And it's very structured and it's full of novelty. Video games, also a lot of structure, lot of novelty. It's interactive. The interactive screen is unbelievably focusing. And that's its both great power and its great Danger. That's why people become addicted to it. The dopamine circuitry gets involved. I call it screen sucking. When you can't log off, you go on and you say, I'm just going to check my email. And an hour later you're still there sucking on this screen. It's a big time waste. Beware of screen sucking. But at the same time it can be a tremendous advantage because it's a way of really engaging the future of education. I want to submit for this xprize because the future of education depends upon using interaction. Depends upon the force of discovery, depends upon getting kids from the stupid Memorize and Forget curriculum into the Discover and Produce curriculum and all project based. And this is how to do it. Structure, novelty, interaction. You sustain attention until you need to take what my friend John Ratey calls a brain break. You can't do it indefinitely, so every hour. So you need to stand up and move around. Then you can go back and begin sinning again. Okay, now, how do you manage your own three variables? Emotion, energy and structure. Okay, this is how you manage your own attention. Ready, aim, fire. Ready, aim, fire. Ready is energy. Aim is emotion. Fire is structure. Energy. You see, a lot of managing your own attention has to do with prep work. It's not field work. It's not managing crises when you're spazzing out. It's getting ready for the project. So what goes into preparing your energy so you'll be maximally focused? What I call the Sensational six. And these really work. It's just that most people don't pay attention to them. Number one, sleep. Your brain needs to sleep. We don't know why, but we know it needs to. We don't know really what sleep does, but we know if you don't get enough sleep, you're irritable, you're distracted, and if you do it for a long time, it increases risk of obesity, depresses immune function, increases risk of cancer, high blood pressure. All bad stuff just due to lack of sleep. So you want to get enough sleep. How much sleep do you need? That varies. A good way to tell is you need as much sleep as it takes for you to wake up without an alarm clock. And that varies from person to person. Sleep, exercise. Exercise is huge. My friend John Ratey's book, the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise in the Brain. Exercise is the greatest tonic in the world for cognitive function. It's not only an antidepressant, an anti anxiety agent, a focuser, but it generates all kind of chemicals and peptides and hormones and oxygen that just make your brain blossom. It grows new nerve cells. John calls it miracle grow for the brain. So work out as much as you possibly can. And how do you do that? How do you make it happen? Make it fun. Make it fun. I have a squash game that I've been playing with the same man for 30 years. Make it fun so you don't dread it. If you dread it, it's only a matter of time before you'll give it up. But make it fun, incorporate it into your life. And just think, this is so good for my brain. Sleep, exercise, nutrition. Nutrition is the whole new world. I mean, talk about Google nutrition and you'll get more recipes than you know what to do with. And I keep trying all of them on me. And at one point I said, if nothing else, I have the most expensive urine in Boston. You know, but there's a lot to it. And I'm sure when Ray Kurzweil gets here, he'll tell you about his supplements. And there's a lot to it. There's real science behind it. It's just we don't quite know yet what the perfect recipe is. But take nutrition seriously and certainly try to eat a whole foods diet. And then there is a role for medication. If you happen to have attention deficit trait, as I like to think of it, medication can be a godsend. These other things often make medication unnecessary. But don't be afraid of stimulant medication. Use properly. It's way safer than aspirin. So nutrition, then meditation. Meditation and or prayer. So much evidence now that meditation is just a brain freshener, a brain enhancer, a brain booster. If you do the meditation every day, you will definitely increase your powers of concentration and focus. The fifth one is cognitive stimulation. Stretch your brain. Talk to people who know more than you do. Talk to people who disagree with you. Teach someone something that you find interesting. I'll never forget, I was at a party once in New York, one of these fancy parties, and sitting next to someone, he said he'd just written a book about de Kooning. And I said, who's de Kooning? Well, he looked at me like I was a poop on the floor, you know, he said, what? You don't know who de Kooning is? You call yourself an educated man. And I'd had enough wine where I said, you know, you're the kind of guy who gives intellectuals a bad name. If you think de Kooning is so cool, you should be thrilled. I don't know who he is, so you can share with me, your great knowledge. Instead, you try to humiliate me and make me feel small. And he apologized. It was a great, great moment of victory, you know, so. And by the way, de Kooning was an artist, you know, contemporary of Jackson Pollock. But anyway, teach other people what you know. That's also stimulating. In medical school, the rule was, see one, do one, teach one. And when you're able to teach something, it's really. It's an act of mastering it yourself. So cognitive stimulation is really good for your brain. Staves off Alzheimer's, keeps you young, keeps you excited, keeps you alive. And then finally, the sixth one is the one that I push that nobody else talks about. Positive human contact. Connection. Friends are really good for you. People, particularly men, fear it. It's the greatest drug in the world. It's free, it's infinite in supply. And psychiatrists are writing millions of prescriptions for Prozac and not prescribing connection. Lead a connected life. Have friends. Spend time with people you love spending. Spend time with people groups you care about. Get involved in causes you care about. That gives you the daily dose of what I call the other vitamin C Vitamin connect. It is hugely important for your mental health and your physical health. Do you know that social isolation is as dangerous a risk factor for early death as cigarette smoking? Most people don't know that for some reason. We don't advertise it. For some reason. Connection makes people nervous. Well, get over it. You know, reach out. Let yourself be a little vulnerable. You know, it's really good for you. It's not good for you to walk around through life being appropriate. One of my most unfavorite words, be inappropriate. You know, let loose. You know, what you going to lose. You know, you're just going to have some fun and give permission to other people to have some fun. And. And you will connect and you will remember the moment. Don't go through life being appropriate. On your deathbed, you'll say, why didn't I miss the chance to live? It's the most powerful drug we've got. It's free and it's infinite in supply. Use it. So those six for energy, then emotion, you want to work in what I call your sweet spot. Your sweet spot. I'll just give me two minutes and I'll finish up. Your sweet spot is where three circles overlap. What you love to do, what you're really good at, what Dan calls your unique ability and what advances your mission or someone will pay you to do. Where those three overlap, you should work There, because that's where your emotion will be highest and that's where that'll drive you to success. And then finally, fire is structure. Create boundaries. Create boundaries. Have a target. Don't do the stuff that brings you down. Don't be with the people who bring you down. Don't be with the naysayers and the skeptics and all that. Be with people who are rooting for you and you rooting for them. Have structure and then microstructure. Have a timetable, have a break time. Have the kind of structures that maybe aren't easy for you to set up. So get a coach to set them up for you, an assistant to set them up for you. Ready, aim, fire. You can manage your attention, you can manage your focus if you use these basic principles. Beware of getting carried away by the seductions, the interruptions, the heady feeling of being very busy. It's not good for you. You want to do what matters most to you every day. And in order to do that, you need to have a plan that allows for both focus and hocus. Hocus is my word for the state of mind when new ideas come swimming in. When you get surprised by new ideas, you're all good at that. So you don't want to be so rigid in your focus that you exclude those, but you don't want to be so loose that you don't have the structure. And you combine the two, hocus and focus in a rhythm through your day, allowing for downtime, brain breaks and rest time. You can positively be far more productive with the brain power you've got than if you let it diffuse, as too many people do these days. The message is extremely positive. The message is take back control of your mind, your brain power, so that you can use it to best advantage. The principles I've given you this morning truly work and allow you to be bold, as Peter was saying, in achieving your biggest dreams and even beyond. Thank you.

So what we're going to do is we're going to take, we'll do 10 minutes, Q& A. Okay. So if anyone has a couple questions for Ned, go up to the mic, please, and ask him anything, even deep seated weirdness that has existed because he is a psychiatrist. So go up to the mic. Yep.

So it appears that there's been over the last, I don't know how many years, an increase in the diagnosis of add, adhd, autism. What are your thoughts on that? Is it over diagnosed or maybe it doesn't matter?

Well, it's both over diagnosed and underdiagnosed. Some doctors don't believe in it, quote unquote, these Neanderthals. And so they never diagnose it. Then some doctors, every kid who walks in the office gets the diagnosis. So it's both over and under. Why there's an increase in the four A's. Autism, add, Asperger's and asthma is up for grabs. It's perfect. Probably some environmental issue, but I don't think that's the ADD issue. I think with add, when it's not really add, I think what you're seeing is pseudo add. These kids are overstimulated electronically and understimulated interpersonally. That's the modern paradox. People are over connected electronically and under. They don't get enough vitamin C, vitamin connect. And they don't get the family dinner, they don't get the friend, they don't get the walk in the park, they don't get the time with mom and dad. And that combined with too much electronics, makes you look like you have add. It's a very preventable problem, but people don't talk about it because they don't talk enough about connection. Robin.

Hey, Ned, how are you?

Good.

Question about the Internet. I think that the way we find information and research things today is akin to information snacking. You know, if the first things that come up and you click, click, click, and you go fast and you're trying to find things. And I can make an argument and say that in certain ways, that's a smart way of working. I'm just trying to find the tidbit. I'm not reading a novel and it's more efficient. But another part of me feels like that that's. I'm training my brain. It's rewiring my brain to where I can't pay attention. So how do you balance that? I mean, is there an exercise or a balance?

I think just to be conscious of it? Because if all you do is the snacking, you partake in what I call the great superficialization of life, where everybody can give you a tagline on de Kooning or whatever, but ask them a few probing questions and they suddenly go blank. So they sound like they're very learned, but in fact they're a half inch deep. So I think if you just want a bit of information, you find out who was de Kooning. Okay, now, but. But if you want to really learn about abstract painting, go deep. Give yourself some areas where you go deep. And it's not only about knowledge, it's about relationships. There are a lot of soundbite. Relationships, people who hook up. And that's it. There's no depth. And if you don't have depth of interpersonal connection, you are so vulnerable to adversity. That's who goes into despair when bad news hits. They collapse because they don't have the interpersonal connection that creates resilience. So it's not only depth of knowledge in certain areas, but depth of connection with people. It's worth the time. You know, it's not a frill. Your term snacking is a great one. Snack, fine. You find out lots of little tidbits. But what you make your living on, go deep. And then in relationships, have those several people or however many who you really know have your back. Very, very important.

Yeah. And I'll just say I had Ned speak at my conference and it's still even. I don't know. It was five years ago.

Five years ago. Yeah.

And people still comment on what a life changing presentation it was. So thank you for everything that you do.

Thank you, Robin. Thank you so. Much.

Great presentation. I'm obsessed with helping stay at home moms build deep, authentic relationships with other moms. I use exercise as that tool.

Great.

And I, you know, almost every day will get an email from a woman who is heart wrenching. She feels alone, isolated, depressed. Like, what do you say to her? Besides just, you got to get out there and, you know, do something and meet other people and, you know, what are some strategies I can give?

Oh, first of all, your audience is a much easier audience than if you're doing this with men. Cause women, they get it. They want to connect. So she's feeling sad that she's not connected. The man would be sitting there feeling grumpy that the world has gone to hell, listening to Rush Limbaugh and just being angry all day. You know, so man would say it's their fault. And you know, but the woman is saying, I feel bad. So you say, that's good. Your mind, body is telling you that you need to reach out. So then say reach out in a place where you feel, I feel ashamed. I feel embarrassed. I don't have a career. Career. So go to the marketplace, talk to the man behind the counter or go to the hairdresser. I mean, hairdressers are great places for women to connect. Gyms are great places. If you have religion in your life, go to church, synagogue, what have you. If you want to, if you have, if you can, if you can, start a group like put an ad in Craigslist or in your Local newspaper and you can be funny about it, you know, so lonely. Stay at home, Mom. Anyone else out there want to talk? You know, I want to start a coffee group. We used to have the backyard fence. We don't have it anymore. We used to have a neighborhood. We don't have it anymore. Let's recreate it. I'm telling you, the need out there is huge. It is the modern paradox that people are so connected electronically but interpersonally disconnected. And there's a lot of undiagnosed loneliness. It's not full blown depression, but it's people who are not throwing thriving in life because they're not getting enough of this other vitamin C. And if you can offer it as an organizer, I mean, it is phenomenally good for every. You win, your business wins, they win, everybody wins. It's just, you know, it's just love is a tough sell. So you don't call it love, you call it connection. And believe me, people feel so much better when they get it. Suddenly, you know, the things that are pressing them down, don't press so hard. It comes back to one of my fundamental rules, never worry alone. It's fine to worry. Just don't worry alone. When you worry with someone, suddenly you're problem solving. And you don't have to be. You can say to someone, life sucks. And they say, yeah, life sucks. And you both feel better. So you don't have to be sharing good news, you can just be sharing a problem. And you immediately say, yeah, how are we going to fix this economy? Or how are we going to fix this competition? When you connect, you feel better, even if the subject is dire and difficult.

I think we have time for maybe one, maybe two more questions. We'll see how quickly.

This is super short. So sitting in a restaurant, like everybody does, a couple dating, obviously on a very early date, looking at each other lovingly. The other night, at exactly the same moment when I thought something great was going to happen for those two, they both take out their handhelds and start texting. Then they go back to gazing at each other the way only newly kind of together people can look at each other. And I'm eating dinner with a friend of mine. We're watching this thing unfold and we're thinking, oh, okay, this guy. We're in a hotel, we're out of town. We're thinking, this is going to work out for them. Handhelds come out again.

Boom. They start doing it.

I'm thinking to myself, okay, I'm old and I'm connected. I Spend a lot of time doing connected stuff. This boy and this girl need some help. And I'm listening to you talk about there's no such thing as ADHD and connections. I'm thinking myself they were alone together.

Yes, yes.

So this is symptomatic of. This is a true story. But this is symptomatic of stuff I see in every single aspect of our behaviors and everyone's behaviors as we all become more electronically connected. Talk to me about adhd, ADD versus the right and wrong way our brains are able to interpret. Is there a medical reason we're all going insane?

It's the habituated if not addictive power of the technology. I love technology. But we have to learn to master it so it doesn't master us. If you allow it to master you, you become a screen sucker. And you want your little dopamine squirt that you get by checking your email. And you do it all the time and you're sitting there texting and. But good news, it's a very solvable problem if you identify it. So the wise elders should identify it, not chastise, but say, you know, it actually feels good to have a conversation that lasts face to face. What I call the human moment as opposed to the electronic moment. More than a few minutes. Well, I've never done that. Well, try it. It's really cool. You can actually sit and hold hands and say nothing for 10 minutes without checking your email. You know, you can get something non verbal going and you know it's. And I think it's a business opportunity. I wish I could. I had more of a businessman's mind. But there is a huge unmet need right now for human connection. Huge. You, you talked about it and you're. It is a huge unmet need and the old institutions aren't doing it. The clubs, the churches, the schools, the coffee klatches, they're not doing it. So we need to Starbucks, you know, it's not doing it. We need to reacquaint ourselves with each other and find the forums and it's a great business opportunity. Find the forums for doing that not only for our own health and happiness, but for what Peter's talking about. If we want to really tap into the phenomenal power that the group, the huge group can have, we really want to make sure we're in tip top emotional mental shape. And if you suffer from a deficiency of that other vitamin C, vitamin connect, you're just never going to put your full power behind anything. So it's a very telling moment. That you observed in that restaurant. And if. If I'd been there, I had enough wine, I would have gone over and said, why don't you put that away and try face to face, you know, and try it. You'll like it, you know?

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you, my friend. Thank you.

Just real quickly because I want to bring our next speaker up. What will someone get out of reading Hocus Pocus?

What.

What's the main takeaway?

How to manage attention, Both directing your own and helping other people do the same. So if people work for you, creating a culture where people can manage their attention, work within their sweet spot. A lot of what Dan teaches at Strategic Coach, learn how to use this most precious asset that a lot of people just squander every day. You know, you pay attention. We use the same verb that we use with money, and a lot of people just squander their attention. Read hocus Focus. You'll learn how to manage it and monetize it, so to speak.

And you really appreciate your hocus.

Yes. Your hocus side. Yes. Thank you, Babs.

Listen, you need to go to the mic, Babs.

No days.

All right, so, yeah, she's right. And what I will say is I did a two day event with Ned and we had Nathaniel Brandon speak and Marie Foglio and Ken Glickman. And it was called success with sanity, which. Which is a term I got from Ken Glickman. And it was a fantastic event. And if you guys want, like every time I've had Ned speak to groups, they love him. And like Robin was saying, I mean, many years later, there's huge takeaways. And I've always thought you were about 10 years ahead of your time in terms of understanding the insanity of modern life and how people are and the screen sucking. So we've got some goodies for you from Ned. Highly encourage you if you ever want someone that'll blow away your audience. And we. I've even ran an entire year long coaching group with Ned and it was incredible. So I would encourage you if you want to really deliver some incredible value. Do you know, talk with Ned about how you could work together with him because I think his stuff is awesome and you are awesome.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

And you'll be here today, right?

I can leave it to. Okay.

All right, so please get to meet him at lunch because he actually he flew down in the middle of I don't know what year.

Teaching on Cape Cod.

Teaching on Cape Cod. He flew down just to be here. Today and he has to leave after 2 o' clock today, so please meet him at lunch. Thank you, Ned.

Thank you, Joe.

Awesome.