Episode Transcript
Gary (00:00): My name is Gary LeBlanc, life engineer and CEO of ZeroDB. Today's episode, we're going to talk about the art of living, embracing mindfulness in a world of distraction. It is a loaded episode. We're going to give some context around mindfulness. We're going to look at the impact that this digital world has on us, both physically, emotionally, and mentally. We'll get into some practices on how to incorporate more mindfulness into our day-to-day. And, you know, we're going to leave people with almost a blueprint on how to move forward. So from today forward, how does mindfulness integrate into the rest of our lives? And again, this is a...
You know, we often look at mindfulness as this very complicated esoteric term. You know, all mindfulness really is, is noticing. We want to be mindful of the moment. You know, if we look at Buddhism, you know, there's a tenant in Buddhism where they look at emotions and emotions arise, right? But before arising, we actually sense the emotion. Right? So we're sensing almost subconsciously. So we sense the emotions arise, which is typically what we notice. And then we respond, but you know, we'd like to think we respond, but most often we react. So the key to this is to incorporate pauses between each of these moments. And when you're mindful, you can incorporate these pauses. So if we start from the right, if we start at reacting, okay, well, between arising and reacting, if we paused, right, if we created a pause, maybe instead of reacting, we'd respond. Well, that mindfulness, right, that noticing that we should be pausing is the key, right? And then we create the space.
Okay, so now we look at the emotions arising. And what if there was space between sensing and emotions arising? So when you saw things, you actually had different emotional responses to them. What if when you sense something, there was that pause where you could see things differently, where you could incorporate all of those sub minds to really judge that differently. And ideally, we wouldn't judge, but often we do. So again, that pause is about being mindful. So we're kind of going down the path of mindfulness at its most basic level, but all mindfulness is really noticing. In the mind illuminated, I love this metaphor of they liken your mind as a Senate, right? And you have the big bullies who are always getting their word in. We call it our limbic brain, our more primitive centers of our brain. They have a very strong compulsion to influence us. So those are the big boisterous senators. And then we have the other senators who are more quiet. And what we want to do is we want them all to participate. And unfortunately, the bullies are immediate. And to get those other senators to participate, we're talking hundreds of milliseconds, if not seconds, before our prefrontal cortex. Those other more quiet senators can even participate.
Gary (03:34): So now we have all those centers participating. We're getting all those aspects of our brain engaged in these decisions. We're mindful. So what happens is we end up making better decisions. You know, it's all about allowing ourselves to make the most reasoned decisions. And again, intuition is great, but you don't need to only rely on intuition. There's no downside to having more information. Now again, It's all about how you qualify this, right? You can reason, you can have different reasons, but often those reasons might be holding you back. But those are decisions you can make. I really do think that creating that space and having time for decision will almost always benefit us. You know, those more primitive fear-based compulsions typically lead us down the same road we've always gone down. So again, Mindfulness is all about this noticing. It's all about us reasoning things out, creating space, right? And when we look at our digital world right now, you know, we look at more distraction, we look at more chances to have the intention to be mindful, and I guess that's really the crux of it.
Now more than ever, we have to be intentional about our mindfulness. And that's why it's such a big topic of conversation. Besides the fact that it's a big topic of conversation because we have very little needs that aren't being met. We have the luxury of talking about this, but it's been talked about for thousands of years. Now I would argue it's almost imperative that we become very acquainted with it. All right, so.
If we look at how things are different now, the context of things being different now, okay, so what's the, what's the impact of this constant connection? You know, when we look at our iPhones, our email, everything, this constant connection, what's the impact? Like what's the true impact? So we kind of know what our emotional impact is, right? We have this pent-up feeling of anxiety all the time. Um, we kind of know the mental impact. So just as a little refresher, we're not really great at multi-focusing. Multi-tasking is fine when you're doing something that's somewhat brainless, maybe it's ironing or something very repetitive. And then you're reading or listening to a book, but multi-focusing is almost impossible.
So, the switching costs are typically in the order of 20 to 25% of lost efficiency, lost effectiveness when we try to multifocus. So again, you're not gonna focus on one thing all day, but you're not gonna focus on 2,000 either. It's somewhere in between. So when we look at the emotional and mental, we kind of know that already. But when we look at the physical, it's a bit more nefarious. So when we're not mindful and we're always revving a little hot.
Right? So we're always connected. And for me personally, if I just have my phone next to me, just the fact that I can see it, I'm positive, just the fact that it's in my peripheral vision, it's evoking a very physical response, let alone, you know, the beeps and the lights, you know, just it being there. So what's happening? What's happening when I'm anxious? Well, since I always have my phone with me, I could infer from that, that I'm always at a heightened state of readiness, right? I always have this surge of cortisol in my system. Again, we call it chronic anxiety. It's essentially, I'm chronically oscillating between a higher level of cortisol because of that iPhone near me or because of the beeps and the buzzers and the email and that anticipation. So what does cortisol do? So cortisol is a very important hormone. You know, it spikes in the morning, it gets us ready, it helps to lock in our circadian rhythm. All of our cells have a circadian rhythm. So cortisol is a really critical hormone in regulating, you know, our day to day. It also gives us bursts of energy. When we're in dire need, now this is less and less in today's world. But what it specifically does is it helps to inject more sugar into our system as well so we have that energy. So we have this high level of blood sugar and then what cortisol also does is it makes it harder for insulin to actually drive sugar into the cells because it wants that sugar to be readily available. So over time you could create insulin resistance and it's a you know it's a cascade when you look at blood sugar it's a cascade of negative consequences.
So that's cortisol. And then you have your catecholamines, which are your adrenaline, norepinephrine, you could consider dopamine. And these are what gets you alert, right? So you all know what adrenaline does to you. But when you look at that, if you're constantly at a level of heightened adrenaline, you know, you could have adrenal fatigue, and over time, you could develop heart disease. So all this to say is that us not, noticing us allowing these things to control us or to be in our periphery are having dire consequences emotionally, mentally and physically. So we got to be really mindful that it is there and we need practices to counteract that because that is a new aspect of our day-to-day that we didn't necessarily have 30 years ago. You know, when I was, when I was younger, I was offered a role. back in my old life. I worked for an alcohol company and I was offered a role overseas. And this is an example of kind of how mindfulness affected how I saw it from a macro perspective. So a good friend of mine is very deliberate and this was an important decision. So again, it was easy to create a pause because I had a lot of time. So I broke it down, I broke it down into different aspects, different categories of value for me. And I took the time to really assess my life before and after that for me is all an exercise in being mindful, right? I wasn't rushed into decision. I noticed what was important to me and I went through the process.
So that's an example of what I consider mindfulness at a macro level. Now you look at mindfulness from a micro level, the day in and day out, you know, me and for those who know Keysi, me and Keysi, We might have a disagreement now and then, but I know Keysi's character. So I'm mindful of that. And I won't always behave knowing that, right? I'll behave very defensively. It's almost like I don't know who I'm talking to. Like I have this blanket reaction, but I know Keysi. I know her character. So there's no winning or losing something. it's approaching something mindfully and noticing how you are noticing where the judgment is, and really being able to take a pause and dial it down and stop making it about survival. So that's the macro and micro in my day to day. That's how I see mindfulness really affecting my fulfillment and my quality of life. You know, and look, this is an ongoing process.
This isn't something that happens overnight. And I think that's why the mindfulness, I don't know, the world of mindfulness instruction, mindfulness books, this whole industry around mindfulness, I feel we don't put enough emphasis on this process being about us progressively noticing when we're not being mindful. And I know that sounds basic, but it's basically reducing the time it takes us to be mindful. That's really, for me, the point of it all. So how do you train yourself? I believe over time, if you're aware of this, it'll change. So over time, I'm aware that being more mindful is going to select for a better outcome. So I get that, right? But maybe I don't want to take 80 years to get a little more mindful. So what are some practices that could help you? accelerate that and just incorporate into your day to day. So, you know, meditation, we talked about meditation, meditation is like going to the gym, right? We want to flex that muscle to notice quicker, right? So, you know, I do a 10-minute meditation in the morning. I want to do a 10-minute meditation in the evening, but more importantly, I want to be noticing throughout the day. But really the main meditation, and again, I don't necessarily feel that this is adequate. but it's 10 minutes in the morning. It's a time where you can be training literally to notice when you get lost in thought. And the point is for you to notice and to hopefully not go through the entire 10 minutes without noticing.
So I do that every day. That's one practice. I actually have alerts on my phone to breathe. So breathing is another form of being mindful. It's... some would argue the most primitive form. And essentially three times a day, I just focus on slowing my breathing down on the eccentric. So breathing out, I tend to try to slow that down four times a day, typically it's a four, seven, eight breath. And I try to do that again, 10:30 in the morning, 2:30 and then five. And these are moments to be mindful. I do four breaths, it probably takes around a minute and a half to two minutes if you're. really taking your time and going slow. You can really drag that out. So I do that a few times. It's really making me more mindful, but it's also kind of getting me into a more parasympathetic mode. Those times of day, I probably have a heightened level of stress and anxiety. So that helps me keep that regular. And then, you know, ideally you would create cues to notice.
So, you know, in Buddhism, we call it the eightfold path. We call it the eightfold path. It's the eightfold path. And one of the eight, it's called right mindfulness. And it's, it's sati in the native language. And essentially Thich Nhat Hanh talks about this a lot. He was a Vietnamese monk, but it's essentially these cues throughout the day to incorporate mindfulness into your day to day life. You know, it could be walking through a door. It could be when you wake up in the morning. It could be after you brush your teeth. It could be when you go to the kitchen, when you open the fridge door, any of these are opportunities to be mindful. You know, John Cabot Zinn also talks about these everyday activities to incorporate mindfulness. And John Cabot Zinn is, you know, the modern, you could say, Yogi when it comes to mindfulness, he created MBSR, mindfulness-based stress reduction. So it's again, it's incorporating these things into your day to day to give you more opportunities to flex that muscle and more opportunities to kind of switch from that automatic unconscious way of living. So those are some tactics, some practices that I incorporate.
But then, you know, once you get beyond that and we start railing on digital, and we start reeling on the fact that we have these devices and we bemoan these devices and we look at social media and how divisive it is. I believe there's another way to look at it. And if we look at the optimal balancing of our digital world and the slow movement, I think Cal Newport has a great... has a great approach to this. He calls it digital minimalism. Now, Cal's wrote a few books, but he's really the guru in how to manage that digital world. And I guess the premise of everything they talks about is to be intentional about tech. And one of the tactics he does is he does a 30-day declutter. So this 30-day declutter is essentially, it's almost like an elimination diet for food. So eliminate everything non-essential. So you could keep your email that's considered essential, but eliminate as much as possible and then reintroduce based on value. Now, when we do elimination diets in nutrition, it's quite similar, but you're reintroducing until you have an intolerance to something. So this intolerance is when you reintroduce something that doesn't have value. That should make you uncomfortable. So that's his 30-day declutter. That's part of his digital minimalism. mantra.
You know, he also talks about scheduling deep work. So, you know, you've heard of the Pomodoro method potentially, but there's these belts of work where we're more efficient. I believe there was a research study out of Harvard that I think the number was 47 minutes and 17 minutes of break. So 47 minutes working 17 minutes of break. You know, the Pomodoro method I believe is 25 minutes, five-minute break. Do that again. And then the third time you do it, you take, I believe it's a 20-minute break, but all of these are essentially around scheduling deep work. So try to carve out 45 minutes, put everything on silent, essentially eliminate everything digital during that time. And that's a way that you can kind of at least optimize your effectiveness and things that are important to you. And lastly, in balancing digital, you know, we want to really leverage our tech. for the non-tech activities, right? We just don't want to be using tech for tech's sake. And that doesn't go to say that you can't enjoy tech, right? We have video games, we have maybe some people enjoy certain aspects of social media, maybe there's learning.
So again, it's all about how we're using our tech, the meaning behind why we're using our tech, are we using it consciously? So then it becomes more of an audit of, okay, What am I using technologically? What am I using digitally? And what am I using to really improve the rest of my life? So it could be planning activities outdoors, it could be learning new skills, learning new languages, but there are certain ways we can befriend tech. So again, the 30-day clutter, the digital minimalism, the scheduling of deep work, and then really when we looked at that. 30-day declutter and that elimination diet, what we're left with is using tech to actually work for us. So those are some ways that we can balance the digital world. It's not all about judging it as bad. It's really how we can maintain a certain level of noticing of mindfulness within this world. Okay, so, you know, all that being said, a lot of people still have a hard time, right? They still struggle to incorporate mindfulness into their life, you know. be it due to schedule or they're skeptical. And again, this is a nuanced word, right? They might have been exposed to mindfulness in a way that really didn't sit well. But in the end, I don't think anybody could argue that noticing more is a bad thing. And I would have a hard time arguing with someone about the point of them not having time to notice more. So everything I've... really mentioned up to now, it's about 10 minutes, right? And then throughout your day, just noticing that really doesn't take any time. It's just, again, being mindful. So when you look at schedule, it really is about essentialism.
You know, we spoke to Greg McKeown and he wrote the book Essentialism. And, you know, we went through a little process. We had him on a podcast and... I was, uh, I was taken through a practice and, you know, be it a problem, you know, so we went through the situation and the complication and kind of my resolution. Every time I had, I had an answer. He said, well, think smaller, right? Okay. Well, I would do this. Well, no, think smaller. And he broke everything down. So if it was to work out 45 minutes. three days a week, he said, well, think smaller. Okay, well, let's work out 20 minutes three days a week. Well, okay, let's work out 20 minutes twice a week. Okay, let's start with one workout of 10 minutes. Okay, you know what, let's just do 30 pushups and let's get regular about that. And it really is about these nudges. And I talk about these all the time, these intentional opportunities. for us to nudge ourselves in the right direction. I talked about it in one of our episodes where we're either leveling up or eliminating the noise in our lives. So it's all about really getting down to the most empirical, smallest unit of measurement that can get us forward. So that's, you know, when we talk about scheduling, I think that pretty much nullifies any logical argument behind being more mindful. And then the other one is skepticism. So, You know, I would ask, where does that skepticism come from? You know, does it come from the fact that it was introduced to you as something very unattainable, very difficult, you know, only for the yogis, right? Maybe that's where the skepticism comes from. You know, I found I always let myself off the hook by almost not participating or having an excuse. So, You know, when I was in engineering, I used to, not just in engineering, basically, throughout high school, well, probably elementary school, ever since I was going to school, I would want to do the exam as fast as possible.
Gary (22:54): Every time I wrote an exam, I would try to leave early. I would try to leave as fast as possible. If I was the first one to leave, that was perfect. And at first glance, you would say, okay, well, I was done with the exam, and that's true, but I didn't proofread it. Oftentimes, I wouldn't go over answers. Oftentimes, a compulsion was to leave that room first. So when you look at why, and there's a point to the story, when you look at why, well, it absolved me somewhat of being on the same playing field as everybody. So by doing that, I could always have an excuse. I could have an excuse if I didn't get a 95 versus an 85. Oh, well, that person beat me. Well, I left the exam room first. So, you know, I flew through it. I just made some dumb mistakes. It was always a situation where I would have an excuse. So it almost feels like a lot of times when I'm talking to people about mindfulness, they feel skeptical because they almost see it as, well, that's my excuse to not do better. You know, like, well, I'm not being mindful, so I can't be held account. Oh, I just didn't do X, Y, and Z because I was just absent-minded or I was distracted. So God forbid we have all our faculties when we're making decisions and we're held accountable for what we've created in our lives. And I find it's a very, I don't know, it's, it's an easy excuse. It's a very convenient excuse to have when we're skeptical about mindfulness and incorporating that into our lives. Look, you don't have to incorporate it into your lives, but being skeptical as to its value, in your life is hard to understand. I would have a hard time understanding how that could help anybody. So look, this isn't about judgment. I talk about it all the time. This is just about perspective. It's actually just about my perspective. But, you know, I try to base this on a lot of different, call it educators, philosophers, whatever you want to call it. It's an amalgamation of everything I've been exposed to, obviously.
And I try to, you know, I try to deliver this such that you can implement it. So how do we implement it? Right. How can we do this? How can we make a change tomorrow? Um, I think one thing is, you know, everything is about motivation, friction, right? Life is a series of decisions. So when you look at the motivation, the friction, you could see quite high friction to incorporating mindfulness into your life in the form of meditation, you know, and you might not be that motivated. So you gotta work on one of those. You gotta make it easier, which we talked about, about the nudges. But the other, more importantly, is the motivation, right? We can't continue, we can't continue to evolve. get older to age driven solely by our primitive compulsions. Like we can't. That doesn't end well. It just ends more like the same. That doesn't mean the same is bad. There's no qualification here. It just means we should be beyond that. We should be beyond just acting on our compulsions. And there are some compulsions we don't act on. You know, for a lot of people, they'd be in jail if they acted on everything.
So we already do it. So why don't we be a bit more intentional about it? Why don't we just make it almost like something we want to master, you know, being more mindful in general? Why isn't that the skill that we're really doubling down on? Because it's going to supercharge every other skill in our life. It just will. We'll notice everything. We'll notice our emotional behavior. We'll notice things mentally it's going to help us. Physically, we'll notice somatic sensations in our body. So there's no downside. Um, and you know what? Compulsions in general, they often don't serve us because they're steeped so much in fear and scarcity. And I think that's, that's the nefarious nature of them. If you had compulsions that were based on a growth mindset that were based on, um, let's call it, uh, self-mastery and being more curious and more brave. If these were the compulsions. Well, that wouldn't be a horrible thing. It just means you have a more strong motivation to do something. But often it's steeped in fear and scarcity. For me, it's deeply steeped in fear and scarcity. So it's kind of funny when you look at my life, some people would say I'm quite intentional. You know, you could say some people would say I'm almost obsessed with certain aspects of my emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical health. Um, But I would say it really is the counterpoint to a lot of deep-seated fear and scarcity. These are things I can control. And the things I can control, I want to get right. Because those deeper ones, the fear and scarcity, sorry, those are slow-moving objects. So it's funny, I believe the more we're kind of railing against those compulsions we don't want to have, those compulsions we want to get over, the more we try to create systems and tactics into our lives. And for me, it's a massive source of noise. So when we look at mindfulness and what to do now, it really is about having that deeper conversation about where your motivation lies and where the friction is. Do you really understand what mindfulness is? You know, that could really affect how much friction there is when we talk about nudges again, and on the motivation side to really internalize how important this is. to every aspect of your life, because it really is. And that's why I wanted to hit on the quote-unquote art of living and mindfulness early because really this is going to set the stage for quieting the noise in all aspects of our life. Because again, you can't quiet something you're not aware of. So the key is to be mindful to notice, to become aware of the noise. And once we become aware of the noise, then we can really weaponize. our tactics, our systems, you know, we can start to create a priority of which ones we want to eliminate. But again, if we're blind to it, if we're not seeing the noise, then it's all going to be futile. So this was incredibly important to hit early on and it'll set the stage for all our discussions going forward. So I hope you get a chance if you want to share some of your mindfulness techniques. some of your hacks on what you do to make sure you're more mindful throughout the day. I think it'd be super cool if we could kind of crowdsource a lot of different ideas and it would help my perspective. And again, I'm gonna have show notes, incredibly detailed show notes on all of these things. So you can feel free and rest assured that all of this will be easy to digest and carry going forward.
So with that said, have a great rest of your day, week, wherever you are, and see you next time on Quiet the Noise.
