46. Ignoring The Noise: How To Avoid Distractions & Succeed In Life

In this episode of Spiritually Hungry, Monica and Michael broach the concept of focus as it relates to our ability to grow and connect to our true purpose in life. Tune in as they share spiritual tools and tips for avoiding distractions, identifying the things that actually serve our purpose, and training our minds to be 100% present in the truly valuable moments of our lives.

Further readings:
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Transcript

There are people who have a strong ability to focus and people who have less of an ability,

But all of us,

And this is I think the awakening we want to have,

Need to increase our ability to focus.

Unless we are actively becoming more focused in all the areas of our lives,

From the most important to the least important,

We are not going to be able to become better and extract all the great experiences that we're meant to have,

All the growth that we're meant to have,

And all the manifestation of our own potential that we're meant to have.

So we get so connected to these concepts of what we strive for and what we think we love,

That we forget to put in the work of truly elevating ourselves.

You know,

It's like driving a car.

I'm in the driver's seat and sometimes people,

The kids sit shotgun,

Sometimes they sit in the backseat.

Sometimes the book I'm working on is the front or sometimes it's in the trunk,

Right?

And everything takes rotation,

But they all get time,

Energy,

And focus.

And I think that you really have to be that strategic about your life.

Welcome to the Spiritually Hungry Podcast,

Episode 46.

Yay.

Yay.

Still younger than you.

So we're going to talk about something that I think is interesting.

Kyle needed a minute to get on board.

No?

Not accurate?

So have you ever looked back on a week?

And I don't think this actually will pertain to you,

Michael,

But you're totally being distracted right now.

You're playing with your phone.

No,

I turned my phone off.

I understand that.

But that- So that I should not be distracted.

That looks like a distraction to me.

Yeah,

If only you did that on date night.

Flip the phone over and put it on silence.

No?

All right.

For our listeners and Michael too,

Have you ever looked back on a week and wondered where did it go?

It's Friday afternoon.

You're exhausted,

But you're not much further along in all the things you had planned for the week than you were at Monday.

You didn't get enough done.

You were excited about things you were finally going to manifest,

Put energy into,

Only to discover,

Oh,

You don't know.

Where did your time go exactly?

And where did you give it to?

And where is it that you placed it?

Where is it in things that were important to you?

Or was it that you were just called and pulled and distracted in different ways by different people and different situations?

There are so many distractions competing for our time.

And unfortunately,

We often sacrifice the things that are most important and purposeful to us.

So the question I think we all need to ask ourselves at the start of this podcast is,

Are the distractions helping you or hindering you?

Because and I'm going to get into that in a minute,

Not all distractions are bad,

In fact.

So we'll start with the bad ones,

Right?

They keep us from living our life and really being in the now.

They rob us of joy very often because we feel frustrated that we didn't get to do what we wanted.

And the other negative distractions,

Right?

So maybe a perfect example,

And this is I think specific for everybody,

But I think you're guilty of this.

Specific for everybody.

Yes,

It is.

Or it'd be general for everybody then or specific for one person.

General for everybody,

But specific to you.

You mostly do it.

How much time do you spend on your phone?

So what would you say your screen time is most days?

11 hours a day,

Nine hours a day.

Computers or an iPod?

Because I have an iPad and I'm reading books,

It's on my iPad.

I know,

I know.

Yes,

But also emails,

Texts,

And we look at the news.

But the thing is this,

And I've done that,

Right?

I've gone to my phone to look something up very purposefully.

And then all of a sudden a text message pops up and I get completely sidetracked.

And then I go there and then all of a sudden now I'm like this vortex of looking through all the texts that I never intended on reading in that hour because that hour is devoted for study,

Let's say.

And actually there is,

I think for most of us,

It's 70 times a day if you really use your phone.

70 times a day.

You pick it up just for anything.

And there's actually a setting in your phone that will tell you how many times a day you pick up your phone if you're curious.

The way that it is successful though,

That it does help us,

Is that there is a virtual reality game designed by scientists at the University of Washington,

Seattle that demonstrates the extraordinary power of distractions and fighting pain.

We took burn patients that are typically given large doses of medications to help them through excruciating pain of cleaning their wounds.

Patients who played the game during wound cleaning felt up to 50% less pain.

That's remarkable.

In fact,

Playing the virtual reality game was more effective at reducing pain than using medication.

So the point is this,

There are things that sometimes we need that will distract us.

But the danger here is that if it keeps us from living a purposeful life,

And there's a parable I want to share with you,

And then I'm inviting you to speak,

That it's about a king who rewards a member of his kingdom with an hour in the palace's room of treasures.

In this hour,

He's allowed to take as much as he desires.

However,

The king had a plan.

He knew how much this man was a lover of music.

So as the hour began,

The king brought in the very best musicians in all of the land to perform.

As the king suspected,

The man thought to himself,

I have an entire hour to collect treasures.

And he said,

I have a lot too.

Like,

Oh,

I have so much time and we tend to do a lot.

And then we're stressing and what we should have done in a whole hour,

We have 15 minutes left to do.

So he had that thought.

As a whole hour to collect treasure,

Surely I can stop for a few moments to listen to such beautiful music.

But before long,

The hour had passed.

And just when the man went to take his first treasure,

A hand grabbed his wrist and said,

Your time is up.

We come into this world,

Ultimately,

To fulfill our soul's purpose.

But we often veer off our course to pursue life's beautiful distractions.

Or not so beautiful.

Or not.

But we think they are,

Right?

There's something that is alluring to us.

And I think we'll also unpack later that sometimes we just don't believe in ourselves enough.

So we allow ourselves to be distracted or procrastinate because we're not sure how the outcome will actually be.

Some people live 70 years as if it was just one day.

But if we follow the spiritual path,

We really have to kind of take control of our time mostly and our thoughts.

Our attention.

Yes.

This is going to bother me.

There's this gnat here in front of us.

It's trying to distract you.

It is distracting me.

Oh my God,

That's true.

Let it go.

Don't let it distract you.

OK,

I'm just going to ignore it.

Exactly.

That is so funny.

Now it's going to bother you.

Let's see if you ignore it.

It's not.

It's on you.

That's great.

So this is a very important topic,

Actually.

Oh,

You like it?

The idea,

I do like it.

I do like it.

And it's very important for all of us all the time.

Because as you mentioned,

And I think we all know this intuitively and internally,

Each one of us has a unique purpose for which we came into this world.

And every moment of our lives,

Certainly every day of our lives,

Has its unique.

.

.

It's funny,

There's a fly in this room trying to distract us while we're talking.

And now it's buzzing in my ear.

Wow.

Each and every day that we live has its unique purpose.

But the reality is that not just because of technology,

But technology plays a large part,

But also responsibility as we create families,

Create work,

All very beautiful and important things,

They all tug at our attention.

And unfortunately,

What often happens is that we live a life that is not focused.

And what happens then is that we don't really accomplish.

We maybe even sometimes touch upon important things,

But don't see them to the end,

Don't see them completely.

Which brings to mind two very important teachings.

One of the great Kabbalists says that throughout our lives,

We call it the negative side or that other side,

Jumps in front of us and holds a closed hand,

Making us believe everything we want is in that closed hand.

And we spend life running after that closed hand.

And the second before we leave this world,

The hand opens up and we realized there was nothing in there.

Terrifying.

And I think that's really the fight between distraction and focus.

And we've mentioned this a few times in other podcasts,

It's not just simply I am fighting my own internal desire to be distracted.

But actually there's a force in this world inside of you,

Every one of us,

Whose purpose it is to try to distract us,

To try to get us off the task,

Be it the current task that I believe my soul needs to do today or my life's task.

A purposeful task.

Yes.

That's the first part.

And the second part,

Which is related to this,

Is a teaching from Rav Aslaug.

And he says that if you stand in front of a piece of wood for a thousand years and you hit it softly,

Chances are even after a thousand years,

You're never going to break it.

But if you put all of your effort,

I didn't do it right now,

Right?

But if you put all of your effort,

You can break it in a moment.

And when we understand that our important life's work in all levels,

Whether it is how we are as a parent,

Whether it is how we are at work,

Is meant to be done with that intensity and focus.

And that without intensity and focus,

We can be dancing around important work all the time,

But we never actually accomplish it.

And literally leads me to a third- Can I just pause right there for a sec?

So when you say intensity and focus,

I think that,

For sure that's true,

But I think that the issue for many people is that intensity and focus they have suddenly moves over into a different category of something that's not really important,

But it's shiny and it's something that's in front of them that they are fooled to believe.

It's like that close close.

We'll bring,

Right?

So for instance,

If somebody found something that they really felt was connected to their soul,

And it's hard and it's difficult and it's not always clear because you're like breaking through something every day,

Then something else comes and it looks a little bit easier,

But it also seems important.

Not as important if we're being honest,

Right?

But it's important to an aspect of ourselves,

Maybe not our soul.

I think then that is where the intensity and the focus now is moved over to the wrong box.

Right.

That's some situations,

Right?

So I think it's important to differentiate between actually probably three.

One is the fact that our lives are so busy with important things.

Like I said,

Everything I've meant,

You know,

Family,

Spouse,

That relationship,

Your work,

That's important.

Your spiritual work,

That's important.

Your personal wellness.

Health,

Right?

Health.

Sure.

So many important things and technology sometimes helps and sometimes distracts.

So it is easy in this context for most of us who have so much going,

So much important things going on in our lives to give 10% focus here,

15% focus here,

And to live a life that is maybe involved in important things but never truly focused on any one of them.

So for example,

Just to give an example,

Which I've given a few times,

But there's a very big difference between,

And I know that I've failed at this and I'm assuming that you have at times.

For instance,

You can be with your children,

But are you there at 100%?

Are you there at 90%?

Are you there at 10%?

You can be at your work.

You could be there at 100%,

90%,

At 10%.

So I think a big part of the understanding is that how do I bring myself to be at 100% of all the things that I am doing rather than saying,

Well,

I'm sitting with my family,

But I'm worrying about something that's going on at work,

Or I'm at work and I'm worrying something that's going on with my family.

You're feeling guilty and not with your family.

Exactly.

So that's one level,

Which is how do we get better?

And I think part of this is the training of the mind to be able to.

.

.

Because science tells us that in any given moment we are receiving,

Call it distractions,

But stimuli.

As I'm sitting here right now,

My mind sees that there's a cabinet there,

It sees that there's trees out there,

It hears the buzzing of the fly.

It also knows that I'm recording a podcast.

So out of the 1,

000 different stimuli,

I have to train myself to focus on the most important task at hand.

That is,

And as science also tells us,

Is a muscle,

The ability to focus and to what degree we are able to remove- Just associate from anything around you.

All the other stimuli,

Even if they are important,

But not as important as the task at hand.

The way I look at it is like if you have a surgeon operating on a brain,

Right?

It is so urgent,

Immediate,

Fragile,

Important,

And he can't mess up,

Right?

So he's not going to allow himself,

He's a good surgeon,

To think about the golf game tomorrow or dinner later.

He is- But I wonder what the science on that is.

I don't even,

I said if he's a good really.

.

.

But focus there.

Even if a woman's giving birth,

Right?

The only focus in that moment,

The immediate and urgent need is to get the baby out because you're in a lot of pain and it's for the health of the baby.

You're not going to be like,

Oh,

I think I'm going to take a detour over there for a minute.

It's just not an option.

We do that in terms of things that we feel are immediate and urgent and you cannot neglect.

But I think that that is the energy in which we need to put into all of the things that we actually want to accomplish,

Whether they are immediate or not.

Because if you don't see them that way,

Year after year,

It's going to go on a different to-do list and a different thing.

And maybe you'll still want to do it,

But you never get to it,

Or maybe you get distracted.

So much so that you don't even think it's important anymore.

Or even worse,

And this I think is probably more insidious and more dangerous,

Is that you're actually going to be doing all those important things,

But you're not really there.

You're not 100% present.

And therefore,

I think probably the first takeaway for me and for you,

Because I get inspired about this as we talk about this and I hope our listeners do as well,

The important things in our lives,

We're mostly doing distracted.

Think about that.

The most important things in life.

The time,

Again,

Two nights ago you were in Los Angeles and I went out for dinner with our daughter,

With Abigail.

And I was very conscious of the fact that I want to make sure that for this,

It was an hour and a half dinner,

However long it was,

That I am doing nothing except being present.

Listening to her.

Mostly listening to her,

Sharing or coming up.

The way that dinner came about,

As Monica knows,

Is that she said,

I don't really know you enough.

And she really wanted to get- But she was in a bit of pain about it.

And she's like,

I just know his favorite color and his birthday.

Which isn't exactly true,

But that was her- Of course not,

But she's very traumatic.

So when she feels something,

Of course it's going to be- So we said,

We'll go to dinner and you can ask me all the questions that I can share with you.

In reality,

She spent 45,

Most 95% of the dinner sharing with me,

Which is beautiful as well.

She just wanted to connect.

Yes.

But again,

But for me,

And I think it's important all of us think about this,

I could have been there at 100%.

I could have been there at 50%.

I could be there at 20%.

And I think the first awakening we should have is this consciousness,

Whatever I am doing.

And by the way,

If you're doing important,

What's important?

Well,

If you're going to the beach for the day,

Be there.

If you're spending time with your wife,

Be there.

If you're spending time with your child,

Be there.

If you're spending time at work,

Be there.

So wherever you are,

Be 100%.

I often,

There was this one moment I knew and she was always distracted and you could tell that she just,

She always felt like she was disappointing somebody.

It was her own thing,

Right?

So one day she'd come to a connection,

A spiritual connection,

And she had that face on again.

I didn't say anything.

Next thing I know,

She walks into a wall and I just pull her aside.

I said,

Listen,

You are here.

Do you want to be here right now?

She said,

Yes.

I said,

Then be here fully.

And you're going to go and be with your family or whatever she was feeling that divide about.

But I think,

I thought that that was such an appropriate example because she literally was like,

So just,

She just walked into a wall.

And again,

The problem with not,

And you have to actively pursue this.

This is like dieting.

This is like anything important.

This is not something that will happen just because you hear a podcast and say,

Oh,

I want to do dieting,

But it's about committing.

Well,

My point is committing.

It has to be an effort full process to get from where I and you are to get to from where any one of our listeners are at to a hundred,

A life filled with a hundred percent being present or a hundred percent focused.

That's going to take work that will not happen naturally.

As a matter of fact,

Left to our natural devices,

We will continue to live a life with distractions.

So basically,

And it's back to that word a lot of people use,

But being mindful about each and everything that you are actually being present and,

And,

And removing all the external stimuli,

Be they important or not important.

And this is the other side,

Which is,

Again,

You might've had a fight with your spouse and that's important.

It's going to be important when you get home,

Whenever you see each other again,

To really to fix that,

To talk through that.

But if you're having dinner with your kid right now,

Even that important thought,

Right?

How do you,

That's definitely a muscle though.

Definitely.

But science tells us it's a muscle and that,

And that it is either,

And there are people who have a strong ability to focus and people who have less of an ability,

But all of us,

And this is,

I think the,

The,

The,

The awakening we want to have need to increase our ability to focus.

As a matter of fact,

It's just not just focus cause it is,

But more than that,

You have to understand the bigger picture,

Which is the consciousness I think we're trying to give,

Right?

Meaning?

Because at the end of the day,

The fight that you have or don't have,

You're going to come to some solution or resolution one way or the other.

Right?

And so instead of with your spouse,

So the example you just gave,

So instead of feeling worrying about that,

Ruining now the dinner and not having connection with another person that's very important to emotionally your child,

Then you're going to feel badly about that later too.

Right?

So,

But if you have the understanding that big picture and the big scheme of things,

Yes,

That fight was horrible.

I'm really uncomfortable.

I really want to go back and repair,

Or maybe you're not feeling that positive,

Whatever it is,

But then to allow that to steal the now from you,

It's just,

You can go through life like that forever and then you're not going to make anything of any moment.

And I just want to underscore one thing you said,

Destroy the dinner.

I think the point is if somebody had a fight with their spouse,

Using this example,

And they went to dinner with a friend or with their child and they didn't destroy the dinner,

Right?

I think the more insidious and dangerous part is that they had a great dinner.

They were here,

They were distracted,

They were probably listening to 75% of what their kid was saying.

The kid couldn't tell really the difference.

I think kids can always tell.

But you robbed yourself of the opportunity to have an unbelievable dinner.

And I think that's the point because King Solomon,

One of the wise men said that the spirit of the person who does not accomplish is almost.

And I think that's such an important understanding because again,

When you come home,

If a person came home from that dinner and he or she destroyed and they felt really bad about it,

There's more chance you'll change.

But if it was an okay dinner,

Like I was there 75%,

Even 80%,

The problem is,

First of all,

You haven't grabbed the opportunity to grow your focus muscle,

But also you robbed yourself of the opportunity to receive so much more from that dinner.

I use this example a lot,

But I remember years ago I was walking with,

At the time,

Our older daughter Miriam.

She was probably six or seven years old at the time from our house in Los Angeles to an event at the center,

Which was five blocks away.

And she was skipping along and singing,

Being cute and happy.

And now my mind was somewhere else,

Somewhere maybe even important.

And I remember telling myself,

Right here,

You're with your daughter.

She's at this age,

At this day for a limited amount of time,

Be there.

And the amount of joy that I extracted from those few minutes of walk was much greater than it would have been had I kept on thinking about the really important thing that I was and just holding my daughter's hand and continuing to walk.

It's almost like missing every beautiful sunset that's right outside your window because you're too busy looking at your computer screen worrying about something that you probably have to deal with.

Bigger picture,

You know.

Absolutely,

Absolutely.

And that's why it says that one of my,

There's a story in the Bible,

One of my more favorite ones,

Where Jacob,

It says he's wrestling with an angel.

And he says to the angel,

Tell me your name.

And according to the Zohar,

The Kabbalistic text,

This story represents the constant battle that each one of us has with the negative forces within us.

And he says,

Tell me your name.

And the angel says,

Why do you ask my name?

And that's the end of the story,

Which seems to be a very uneventful and anticlimactic end to the story.

Jacob doesn't ask for his name again.

He just says,

Why do you ask my name?

And the Kabbalists say something really beautiful and profound,

Which is that he was actually telling him his name.

He was giving him the understanding of that force that distracts us.

He was saying,

Why do you ask?

Meaning why are you trying to pay attention and understand?

I never read it like that.

I love that.

Yes.

Why do you ask my name?

Because we go through life.

Oh my God,

I love that.

Not delving deeply into moments,

Thoughts,

Emotions.

And that focus or lack of focus is what keeps us distracted and what keeps us not living our potential.

There's a study that was done with athletes and they found that athletes that were distracted,

Either these are college level athletes,

Were distracted by either any type of fears or anxieties while they were training.

They could correlate those who were better athletes during the season with the ones who were less distracted in the preseason or in the training.

It's interesting.

It's preparation,

Really.

Well,

The point is that distraction leads to a lesser ability to be our best.

Yes,

Because if you're distracted while you're in the process of learning and doing to become your best,

Which is the sunset,

Which is the dinner with your child,

You're distracted through all of those moments,

Then when you need to really rely on yourself and say,

Okay,

How am I manifesting these big things?

You have more of a weaker foundation because in the practice of it,

You weren't fully engaged.

Absolutely.

And there's a really good book on this.

It's called,

I do recommend to our listeners,

If you're interested to learn a little bit more on the scientific side,

Daniel Goldman has a book called Focus,

Which delves more deeply into the scientific view on this,

But it really all again dovetails with the spiritual view.

And again,

For me,

The first maybe most important awakening is the fact that unless we are actively becoming more focused in all the areas of our lives,

From the most important to the least important,

We are not going to be able to become better and extract all the great experiences that we're meant to have,

All the growth that we're meant to have and all the manifestation of our own potential that we're meant to have.

Absolutely.

I don't want to bring this to a down kind of place,

But you know,

I've been thinking about death a lot.

It's been a month since.

I think we established,

I actually am very inspired by the concept of death.

Yes.

It's been a month since my father passed,

Actually exactly this past week.

So that makes sense on some level.

But I'm looking at it from a spiritual and psychological process.

So not really just about death,

But just everything that that process looks like from beginning to end.

So my thoughts veer to the unseen force that not only affects our physical body,

Right,

But is the death of or the demise of relationships,

Prosperity and happiness,

Right?

Because there's many kinds of deaths in a lifetime.

And I do think that this does lead or is connected to allowing yourself to be distracted through life.

So there's a quote from Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now,

Which I love his book,

But he said,

Death is the stripping away of all that is not you.

The secret of life is to die before you die and find that there is no death.

So I had to read that twice to really see what I felt about it.

And you know,

We get attached,

Right,

To things that make us feel good in life.

And it's normal on some level because we are physical beings.

And as we've talked a lot about this in our podcast,

It's about exercising our free will and making good choices for ourselves and where are we going to put energy and time into.

And that's part of our evolution.

But sometimes it can go too far and it can hamper us from living a spiritual existence.

So Tolle described a death that is useful,

But I think it should be more about the stripping away of what we're attached to and therefore allowing ourselves to be distracted by,

Right?

So I've talked about David Foster Wallace a lot.

This is one of my favorite quotes,

And it's from his commencement speech at Kenyon College.

And he elaborated on this idea.

So I just want to read it because again,

I just think it's so powerful and it says it so eloquently.

He says,

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life,

There's actually no such thing as atheism.

There's no such thing as not worshiping.

Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what to worship.

And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual type thing to worship be it J.

C.

Or Allah,

Be it Yawah or the Wiccan Mother Goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infinitable set of ethical principles is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things,

If they are where you tap real meaning in life,

Then you will never have enough,

Never feel you have enough.

It's the truth.

Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly.

And when time and age start showing,

You will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.

On one level,

We all know this stuff already.

It's been codified as myths,

Proverbs,

Cliches,

Brahmites,

Epigrams,

Parables,

The skeleton of every great story.

The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power,

You will feel weak and afraid and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay.

Worship your intellect,

Being seen as smart.

You will end up feeling stupid or fraud,

Always on the verge of being found out.

So we get so connected to these concepts of what we strive for and what we think we love,

Like you said at the beginning,

The hand that you're chasing,

That we forget to put in the work of truly elevating ourselves and we might run out of time while we're still on this earth.

And that's what motivates me about death,

Right?

It's exactly this concept.

So what you're saying,

And this is another level which is important to focus on,

That we spoke about being distracted by important things.

Now you're talking about being distracted by the unimportant things.

Because I tend to think this is where most of us live.

I think we fail at both.

We do,

But I don't think we're as- How many,

I mean,

Let's be honest.

Again,

I don't want to go back to,

How many of us are 100% present at all the important things?

We're not 100% present anymore.

Sorry about that.

But this is certainly a very important idea as well.

How much time do we spend worried about things that are not really important?

And this is- And not lasting.

Not lasting.

You cannot,

These things that he talked about,

You can chase.

It will never be enough,

As he said.

And again,

You and I often have this conversation,

Which is,

You're talking about somebody or somebody who behaved badly,

Right?

Or somebody who maybe we think isn't doing the right thing.

And for me,

It's always that balance between,

Do I want to spend,

How much time do I want to spend?

You can call it distracted or not distracted.

Talking about the person or helping them.

Talking or even dealing.

Of course,

There are times where you do need to deal,

It's the right thing.

But life- You're really good at that.

Life is just too short- And you've helped me become better at that.

Too important to really give any time and mind space to be distracted by that.

And by the way,

I was actually having a conversation with somebody the other day.

He's going through certain challenges at work.

He's building a business and there's all kinds of issues.

And he was sharing about how difficult it was for him because he's worrying about it all the time,

24 hours a day,

Working 18 hour days and so on and so forth.

Is it worth it?

Well,

What I said,

And I strongly believe this to be true,

Is that the reason he was so upset is not so much about whether the business is doing well or not doing well,

Whether he will succeed or won't succeed.

It's that he has internally created a correlation between his business success and whether he is successful.

So he has married those two.

And now any- He has to redefine what success means to him.

And I said to him,

And I believe this to be very true,

And he agreed when I said this,

Is that probably 5% of his worry is about the business.

The other 95% of the stress that he's feeling is because his ego is attached to the success or lack of success.

And if he was able to simply focus on the business and whatever worry or not worry has to be in the business,

He'd have 95% less stress.

Because the pain is really coming from his attachment to his ego.

And that is the ultimate distraction.

Exactly.

And that's why I think,

To your point,

Even things that we should be concerned about,

Even things that we should be dealing with,

How much of our ego is invested in that?

And one of the ways to know is how distracting is it for me?

Usually that level of distraction caused by even things we do have to deal with is because our ego is attached to it.

And therefore I think the second element of really two groups,

One of them are things that we really shouldn't be distracted with at all.

Okay,

I was at that party and this person really treated me badly.

Who cares?

Who cares?

Who cares?

Life's too short.

I'm busy.

I have so many important things to be putting my focus on.

And second,

Even if it is something I need to deal with and even if it is something that I need to care about,

But am I dealing with it because I need to deal with it?

How much of my own ego is involved in the stress and the upset?

Here's the trick,

Right?

As you were speaking,

I started thinking about Alice in Wonderland,

Right?

She gets curious,

She opens the bottle.

I never liked that.

I'm sorry,

But anyway,

I don't remember the details that accurately,

But she then gets stuck in a different reality.

It's one thing after the other because she was curious about something.

Maybe she got distracted by something.

That's the thing with distractions.

Once you go down that road,

Right?

So let's say you become obsessed with the thing the person said about you and how did they say that and why did they do that?

And that was a distraction.

You had a really busy day,

But now you're so upset about it.

You can't do that happened earlier.

Now then you're going to have to go talk to this person about it and they're going to teach them a lot.

Now you're spending the next day,

Two days,

Three days on something that never should have even taken a minute of your time.

And that is the danger of getting distracted by this.

Yeah,

It's funny.

I was laughing because Daniel Goldman uses the example of Larry David,

Who many of you probably know,

Who created Seinfeld and he has curvy enthusiasm,

Which I really like.

And so he tells the story that he went to Yankee Stadium one day.

He lives in LA.

Larry David did.

And,

You know,

Often when there's a celebrity,

They put their picture on the big screen.

So they put his picture on like all like 40,

000 people stood up and clapped for him and,

You know,

Were really supportive.

On his way out of the stadium,

One guy yells at him,

You stink or whatever,

Something negative,

Right?

And Larry David said,

I spent the whole next few hours just thinking about that one guy,

Right?

As if those 40,

000,

That wasn't 40,

000 people who,

And that's the point,

Right?

I hate to admit.

I mean,

You've made me so much better because you're actually training me without knowing it.

Like I'll say to you something and you're like,

I don't know.

I don't know.

Something like that.

And it's such a non-fulfilling conversation that I don't even now ask the question.

But by the way,

I don't even think we should talk about that,

Right?

But this did happen.

I gave a webinar last week back to back and like all of positive,

Right?

People's like,

One comment.

This isn't what I thought.

It wasn't even that negative.

It wasn't what I thought it would be.

I thought it'd be more of a seminar style.

This is more workshop.

The next nights was a two night thing.

All I heard was that sentence for the whole,

And I was just like,

This is so stupid.

You know better,

But it's,

Yeah.

It's a training for sure.

For sure.

And again,

I think that what we're saying is that we have to be training ourselves.

So actually I just read a short section if it's okay from Daniel Goldman's book because there's actually a part of our brain which not coincidentally is hidden behind the frontal cortex of the.

.

.

It's going to grow or not based on how you behave.

So listen.

So yes.

Yes.

I'm not saying I understand that.

It's called the insula and it's tucked behind the frontal lobes of the brain.

The insula maps our bodies insides via circuitry linking to our gut,

Our heart,

Liver,

Lungs and genitals.

Every organ has its specific spot in the insula.

This lets the insula act as a control center for organ functions,

Sending signals to the heart to slow its beat,

The lungs to take a deeper breath.

Attention turned inward toward any part of the body amps up the insula sensitivity to the particular area we're checking in on.

So how often like,

Oh,

I feel something in my heart or I feel something in my back,

Right?

When you're having that thought,

The insula then awakens more neurons in those areas of your body so it actually feels it more.

So for example,

He uses this example,

Tune into your heartbeat and the insula activates more neurons in that circuitry of the insula that is connected to the heart.

And that affects it in a negative way or positive?

No,

No.

It just allows you to feel your heart more than you did before that.

Interesting.

So the introspective part of the brain,

Even as it relates to the body,

Is the insula.

And this is really interesting.

How well people can sense their heartbeat,

In fact,

Has become a standard way to measure their self-awareness.

So there's a real correlation between how strong your insula is and feeling the physical parts of your body to your ability to be introspective and self-aware.

The better people are at this,

The bigger their insula.

So the insula actually grows or becomes smaller or weaker.

The insula attunes us to more than our organs.

Our very sense of how we are feeling depends on it.

And this we know,

Whether I'm happy now or not is not often usually not related to what's happening around me,

But how I feel about it.

And that is controlled by the insula.

People who are oblivious to their own emotions and also tellingly,

As we'll see,

To how other people feel,

Have sluggish insula activity compared with the high activation found in people highly attuned to their inner emotional life.

I just love the body and science and everything.

You cannot deny that there is something greater at power here.

It's just crazy.

And so just a few more sentences.

At the tuned out,

So we write,

All of us,

I think on some level need to be paying more attention to what is going on inside.

But there are the.

.

.

He talks about the extreme.

At the tuned out extreme are those with alexthymia,

Which I hope I pronounced it right,

Who just don't know what they feel.

That is so interesting.

But it's true.

Again,

All of us a certain degree.

And we often have the conversation where,

And you often come with these realizations where you're having a feeling,

But then you really have to take the time to look inside and where is it really coming from?

And there are people who are incapable and can't imagine what someone else might be feeling.

Our gut feelings,

Our messages from the insula and the other circuits that simplify life decisions by guiding our attention towards smarter options.

The better we are at reading these messages,

The better our intuition.

And maybe we'll save this for another podcast,

But this understanding that the insula,

Which is both obviously serves a physical function,

But it also serves an emotional and I would say a spiritual function.

The ability to become more in tune with our internal voice.

And this is,

I think,

One of the most important parts and probably deserves its own podcast,

But I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

But every one of us has all the wisdom that we need.

The answer to every question that we have inside.

But as the famous quote goes,

In order to hear,

You have to be silent.

And I think one of the greatest damages that our distracted lives lead to is that we do not pay enough attention to the great wisdom and direction that each one of us has within us.

And when you work the muscle of focus,

You're also working your ability to hear your inner voice more powerfully.

Because I think what happens in life,

I know this is what happens,

Is that because we are distracted by good things,

By bad things,

Everything we spoke about until now,

All that noise does not allow us to really listen to the internal voice that is coming from our soul that has all the answers,

That knows the right thing to do,

That knows where we should focus.

We talk about this a lot,

Especially when my father was passing and then different people would ask me like,

How so and so in your family feeling?

How is this person?

Is that.

.

.

And funnily enough,

Now that you're bringing up,

I would just say,

Well,

She's not really sure how she's feeling.

I mean,

Obviously,

There's a lot of feelings,

Right?

And I think that this is so accurate because if you don't take the time in life to really,

Not just connect to your soul,

But exactly to really be able to tap into such a level where your body is actually telling you things and you're telling your body and this work in this beautiful harmony.

And your soul.

Of course.

So all of it,

It's like in a circuitry,

Right?

Body,

Mind and spirit,

But that's really what it means and that's what it looks like.

And when you don't actually live like that,

Then when you're 70 or 60 or 80,

Everything's really confusing because you haven't lived that way for your entire life.

And then when things get a little bit more stagnant or scary or stuck or just uncertain later in life,

Then you're really kind of at a loss.

And your mother actually,

There's this quote from her and it really ties into this.

She was talking about meditation and how to connect to your inner light.

And she said,

When it comes to meditation,

Oftentimes we're asked to close our eyes and seek silence.

Isn't it funny that when we want to see more,

We close our eyes.

Isn't it interesting that when we want to hear more,

We need to seek silence?

This is because our answers are found within and not without.

The universe within is far greater than the universe on the outside.

Sometimes all we need to do to find it is to let go of all distractions.

So it's absolutely so perfect.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And two quotes related to this as well,

Anne Treisman says,

How we deploy our attention determines what we see.

And there's a Star Wars Yoda quote who says,

Your focus is your reality.

And that again leads us back to this understanding.

And I think it starts with this clarity.

Every single one of us has all the wisdom that we need.

It seems to somebody you were talking,

You see a man over there on the roof and right away my mind's like,

Oh,

I don't see anybody over there.

I wonder what's over there.

I'm like,

Oh my God,

What just happened?

Right?

When you start there,

When you know that everything,

Like the quote you just read from my mother,

Everything is inside.

But and they want to,

Can't stress this enough.

It takes time and effort.

If you're not working on this every day.

Practice,

Practice.

Practice,

Right?

Really,

Really fighting for focus,

Fighting for being present.

Then all the amazing intuition and wisdom that you have inside will not be heard by you.

And I think this is where time comes in because when we first got married,

I was,

This muscle for me was not very developed at all.

And especially at that time I was very much a people pleaser.

So it was like,

Oh,

You need something.

Let me say,

How can I help you?

And then at the end of the day,

I felt depleted,

Unhappy,

And I wasn't even inching my way anywhere near something that was fulfilling for me.

But I think it's about really being able to manage your time and understand time,

Right?

Because that,

Unless you are a timekeeper in that way,

And that means that you really value every second that you have and you're like,

Okay,

This is the bigger picture.

This is the biggest focus.

This is the number one goal.

And I have all these other aspects of my life that are important.

But in this moment right now,

For this hour,

Even if you have to break it down for these 10 minutes,

For those 40,

I am going to be 100% present in this space.

And then in an hour's time,

I'll go check on that other thing that's important to me.

I really learned how to do that.

People often ask me,

How do you manifest different things?

You seem to do this and you do that.

It seems like I'm successful in different areas.

I give a lot of time to my kids,

My husband.

There's many things that are important to me.

And it's not that I am great or stellar.

I've just learned,

I think,

To be able to do this.

I always say that it's like driving a car.

I'm in the driver's seat and sometimes people,

The kids sit shotgun,

Sometimes they sit in the backseat.

Sometimes the book I'm working on is the front or sometimes it's in the trunk.

And everything takes rotation,

But they all get time,

Energy,

And focus.

And I think that you really have to be that strategic about your life.

If you had a pie and you put,

Okay,

These are the three areas that are most important to me.

And then you look at how the percentages,

How much time goes to taking care of yourself.

How much is it for your career?

How much is your family?

And you can see how disproportionate it is,

Right?

There's many things that we can do that can actually get us to be able to practice being focused.

And I would say also ask yourself the question,

When was the last time you had time on your own to think about yourself?

Unless you're doing that- You have to define what think about yourself means because that's very broad to say it like that.

What is important to me?

What is my focus?

What is that I believe or I feel I should be doing today,

This week,

This month,

This year?

I think it's two questions.

That internal dialogue,

Whether some people do it with meditation,

Some people do it with prayer,

But that quiet time with yourself,

Unless you are consistently having that,

You're almost guaranteed to live a distracted life.

I think it's two questions.

The first is,

What is really important to me?

And then that question alone is going to make you have a laser focus of,

Oh,

Well,

Is gossiping where I spend most of my time?

Even though I think it's important,

Right?

Or is working on this project,

Just asking the question makes you stop and look at how you're actually spending your time.

And then once you've identified what's important,

Then the second question is,

How much time did I actually put there?

And if you ask yourself that at the beginning of every day and the end of every night,

That's how you get the muscle,

Right?

There is this tool that I do want to offer that I think is kind of amazing.

And I discovered it in writing,

I'm working on my next book,

Change Junkie.

And I don't think I fully understood this when I was writing Rethink Love,

But it's this idea of non-time.

Not non like the bread,

Non-time.

It's basically where you give yourself some time to actually zone out so you can be creative.

And this is going to sound counterintuitive to what we've been speaking about,

But actually it works quite well.

So if I asked you to do something or nothing rather for 15 minutes,

Could you do it?

To do nothing,

Literally nothing?

Well,

I'm going to define what nothing is,

Right?

Because I know right away,

Like,

Oh,

That's a waste of time.

What is nothing?

And by the way,

Your brain wouldn't even let you do that and start thinking about everything except nothing.

I'll give you an example to two great giants in terms of what they've revealed in the world.

Einstein's greatest ideas came to him while bobbing along the water in his 23 foot sailboat in a breeze this afternoon.

And you wouldn't necessarily think Einstein sailing,

Like he did so many things.

He revealed so creative.

And contrary to popular opinion,

Steve Jobs is an exceptional procrastinator.

Given to daydreaming and seemingly absent noodling and doodling on ideas that would revolutionize work and play,

They both excelled in the field of idea incubation.

Something researchers have come to call non-time.

And this is where I want to take a page from their book.

For me,

Non-time is dancing.

I've talked about this a lot.

My workout,

While for a lot of people exercise would not be considered non-time,

For me,

It's a time where my body's just moving like crazy.

My mind is just like,

Oh,

You know,

And lots of thoughts come in and out of there.

And I'm frantically running to my phone after to jot down notes that have come to me or ideas that have come in that process.

And actually they did,

The scientists that worked on this,

They said that that was absolutely one of the things.

They said exposure to nature,

Strenuous exercise,

Which was interesting,

And electronic abandonment.

These were the three things that were considered very useful non-time.

And they took a group of people,

Actually,

This is how they came to understand this.

His name is David Strayer and he's a cognitive neuroscientist specializing in multitasking.

And he did a study with outward bound students.

He gave half of a group of hikers the creativity quiz prior to sending them backpacking in the wilderness.

The other half were tested on their fourth day when they were cleansed of their screens and the pressures of the material world to post,

Comment,

And like.

The second group scored a whopping 50% better on remote associates tests,

Which asked people to identify word associations that are immediately obvious than the first cohort suggesting scientific proof to what many of us instinctively know.

We are better,

More creative,

And more in tune with the universe and our place in it when we allow ourselves the room to unplug.

So this idea of just going away from,

I think,

The routine,

The day to day,

All of those external things,

Sailing,

Right?

It's taking you out of the element,

The environment that you used to,

That you know,

Right?

All those things that you said,

Like the pot,

Like we're sitting in this room,

There's this,

There's that.

If I sit in this room,

Likely it's not really going to be non-time for me,

Right?

But if I go take myself outside of that,

Right,

For me,

The strenuous exercise,

Sailing,

Coloring for some people,

It creates a space where you are able to actually fully focus.

Yeah.

No,

Actually,

And it's a scientific fact that the brain does a lot of its sort of- Problem solving.

Yeah.

While you're driving and your mind is distracted,

But it's actually computing and working.

I do think there's a lot more to be said about,

And maybe we'll talk to Monica about this after the podcast,

But maybe I'll have a podcast in the next few weeks around really the tools to listen to our inner voice besides the removal of distraction.

Because the last thing I wanted to say- I like that for sure.

And this is the fact that why is it so important to go to nature?

And the capitalist would say it's very important because we spoke about the internal voice that we have,

But there's actually,

It's called the song of nature,

Right?

Is actually the tree is attached to a reality that is truer than the distractions of what we often go through in our world.

Well,

It's the world of truth,

Right?

It's a different realm ultimately.

Right.

It's more connected to it.

So that's why when you go to nature,

That's why when you disconnect from electronics,

That's why you are putting yourself in a place that is more able to be in tune with truth,

More in tune with your own internal truth and the truth that is actually going on all around you.

You can access that much more readily.

Exactly.

And again,

Just back to bringing this whole thing,

The whole concept all the way around,

Unless you are actively fighting for focus,

You want to hear your internal voice,

You want to hear the external voices of truth going on around you.

Yeah,

I was driving yesterday actually,

And you know I love hummingbirds.

They're very spiritual animals.

For me,

I feel very connected to them.

I feel like there's always a message.

So literally,

It came right in front of my windshield very loud.

It's just like going back and forth and fluttering,

Whatever.

So I stopped it and I'm looking up,

Okay,

What am I supposed to be aware of now?

It took me out of,

I was late,

Whatever,

Life,

And it just made me take pause and say,

Okay,

Is there something else I need to know right now?

Nice.

So,

It's a little bit late,

So we won't get to a letter today,

Hopefully next podcast.

But- Is it late?

It is late.

Well,

Later than we thought.

I'd like to ask all of our listeners again,

If you are inspired by what we share,

Make sure to share this podcast with all of your friends.

Oh,

I have a question for you though.

What is something that you think distracts you most?

Is there one thing that continually gets you?

Yeah,

I think for me,

It's the first category we spoke about,

Which is,

And I'm mindful of this,

But that there's so many important things that I'm responsible for,

Or important things that I want to accomplish,

That it's often that challenge of balance.

Okay,

Because literally you have to say,

I'm not going to take care of this really important thing,

Or I'm not going to focus on this really important thing,

Because I have to do this other important thing.

So,

I think a big part of my,

I don't want to say struggle,

Because it's not that much of a struggle,

But the decisions that I have to make is,

And literally every week I ask myself the question,

I look back at the week,

I look forward to the next week.

Okay,

I accomplished.

I don't want to accomplish is an interesting word.

I did this,

This,

And that.

Is it really moving towards what your life's purpose is?

And not that anything that I am involved in,

In the work side is not important,

But is it the most important?

Is it the place where my greatest focus should be?

And that's the constant struggle,

Right?

Because like I said,

Especially when you're involved in a lot of important things,

The question has to be what is,

And this a lot comes from the internal voice,

What is the most important?

And at least what is the most important for today?

What is the most important for this moment?

What is the most important for this week?

It's interesting because I think you kind of have to look at it this way,

And all the things that I achieved this week,

That I achieved this week or that I put energy into that was important,

What did I sacrifice?

And you might not even realize that you did,

Right?

It's just a loss of an opportunity to connect to other things that were important to you.

And so I think that it's,

Again,

Goes back to that self-awareness to really be in tune to all the things that matter to you.

Like after this podcast,

Abigail,

Our youngest,

Doesn't usually watch anything on a weeknight,

But because I was traveling all week and we have a thing where we watch Harry Potter,

As you know,

Every Sunday we're catching up on all of them.

And so we only,

This past Sundays of Mother's Day,

We're so busy,

We watched only half of it.

So we're going to go cuddle and watch an hour.

And by the way,

Not going to look at the phone,

Not going to work.

I have a ton of work to do,

But not because why?

And this week,

If I didn't connect with her in that way that I know she needs,

And by the way that I need,

It's going to be that what?

Was all the work I did worth it if I'm also not able to give to the other things that are so important?

Absolutely.

So thanks,

Monica.

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Monica and A-N-D,

Michaelatkabala.

Com.

Even if we don't get to share all of the stories that you share with us,

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I always learn so much from each episode. Striving to keep learning and applying the knowledge.