How To Find Tranquility, Meaningful Productivity and Healthy Relationships - Lana Blakely
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Oh, by the way, in case you have not yet heard, my book is about to come out. It's called Feel Good Productivity, How to Do More of What Matters to You. And it's a book that I've been working on for the last three years. And it's being published at the end of December, 2023, but pre-orders are actually available. And I know people don't like pre-ordering the book,

But if you do pre-order the book and you email me your receipt, you will get completely free access to a live exclusive event that I'm hosting in the first weekend of January of 2024. And this is a live online workshop all about annual planning, goal setting, and reflection.

And so I'm gonna be facilitating a group with hopefully hundreds of people from all around the world. And we're gonna be going through how to figure out what to do with our life and how to turn that into goals for the year and how to build systems and how to be consistent with stuff and how to make sure that we are enjoying the journey along the way. That is purely exclusively available for people who pre-order the book as a thank you for our little community. So if you wanna check it out, you can check out the book. You can maybe consider pre-ordering it. The link will be down in the video description.

Somehow my philosophy in life goes back to Ru, which essentially means that I always want to feel like I'm coming back to a place where I feel like I can rest and relax and feel calm on the inside. Lana is a fellow YouTuber with over a million subscribers, and her channel is all about a little bit more of a chill approach to life and a mindful approach to productivity.

In the episode, we talk about a bunch of stuff, including how she grew her audience while still working a full-time job. We talk about Lana's take on the concept of productivity and what it means to work towards your goals, but in a way that's actually mindful and enjoyable, not just hustle culture vibes. Somehow we feel like if we have more of a calm approach to things, we're not as productive.

You know, it's not as efficient. I can at least feel sometimes like, okay, why am I not feeling too stressed about this? Does that mean that I'm slacking? Even if I'm getting as much done and getting it done better than I would have had otherwise, there's something in me and maybe in you and other people where you kind of feel like being productive means that you need to feel like you're running around. And we talk a little bit about the challenges and the ups and downs of online dating. I don't really buy this whole thing of it has to be a hell yes from the beginning.

Does that happen? I have a hard time believing people are like, oh yeah, from like the moment I saw this person, it was just perfect. And I knew, I think most people land somewhere in between. Lana, you have just hit a million subscribers. So congratulations on that front. And my understanding is that you started YouTube in 2018. So that would have been when you were like 22 years old? Yes. What did your life look like before then? And how did we get to the point where you decided I'm going to film myself and upload a video to YouTube? Mm-hmm.

So I was working in finance, had a nine to five regular sort of job. And I always liked photography and I've taken photos just for fun. And I've been pretty creative. I've liked writing and things like that.

And so I was living in the US for two years, working in finance and some other things. And I was actually posting vlogs from there, but they're not on my channel anymore, thankfully. Because I was trying to try and see what I could create out of nothing. I had no idea what I was interested in doing or talking about, or if I wanted to be a vlogger or someone who sits down and talks to the camera. And then...

I was like, okay, when I move back home to Sweden, I'm going to give this thing more of a try. Like I'm going to try and actually put some effort into the videos. And I think even in Sweden, my first couple of videos, which also don't exist anymore, were vlogs. And then I made a video. It's like a little short film-ish on my channel, which is like the first video that is up there now.

And I had a lot of fun. And I think he got 200 views or something and like five comments. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. 200 people watch this video. And then that motivated me to keep creating more videos. And

I did. And here we are at a million, which is crazy. So when you made that video that got 200 views, did you still have the day job then? Yeah. So you were working in finance as well in Sweden? Yeah, not in finance, more like in marketing-ish. And then I quit my job. Well, first I told myself, I was like, when I hit like 30K, that's like reasonable to quit my job. And then I was like, that's too far. And then I was like, when I hit 20K and 10K, and then I just made it less and less and less.

And then I think I quit when I was at like 7,000. So you had 7,000 subscribers and you quit your job? Yes. Surely you weren't making enough money to sustain that. What was the thought process? I was very lucky at the time I was living at home and I had been saving all my money to just be able to sustain for myself for as long as possible. And then very luckily, shortly after, how long after? Maybe a

couple months, I had a video blow up, gaining like a million views to start with, and then even more. And that's what just took everything off. And so the time from quitting to that point was very short. Okay. So that was, I had the algorithm gods on my side for sure. How many videos did you make before? Like, I guess, roughly how many videos had you made before that video blew up?

Not that many, maybe 10. Oh, including all the vlogs and stuff? Oh, with the vlogs that are no longer up? Yeah. Maybe 20. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm kind of guessing here. I'm not sure, but roughly. So after a couple of dozen videos, you had one that blew up? Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah, it's really good. So...

I've got a lot of friends who also live with their parents and don't have many expenses and who work in jobs that they don't like. But they still feel the sense of, oh, I can't leave my job because I need to earn money. I need to have enough. Even though their expenses are zero because they're living with their parents. What was it about? It's pretty unusual to, even if you are living with your parents and you have a job, to just suddenly decide, you know what?

I'm making basically no money off of YouTube, but I'm going to quit the job anyway. So what were the dots that connected for you to decide to, I guess, take that leap? I think in one way, it was a very hard decision because, I mean, it felt kind of dumb quitting, having... I mean, YouTube paid me maybe a dollar a month or not even that at that point. And so on one hand, I felt like this is a very...

I'm taking a big risk here. But I felt kind of safe because I had my degrees and I was like, if things don't work out, I can just still get a job. So I had something safe to kind of fall back on if things were to not turn out well. So that definitely helped having that safety net.

And then there was just, it sounds kind of cliche, but something in me was like, you have to do this because if you're not going to do it, you're just going to keep thinking about it and thinking about it and you're not going to let it go. And I was very unfulfilled at that job that I had. Not that the job was necessarily even a bad job. I just couldn't stop thinking about YouTube and I became obsessed. I would read about it and...

watch videos of people talking about YouTube and becoming a YouTuber and what gear you should have and how you should speak and what you should think about and I just became obsessed like every lunch break that I had I would consume how to YouTube content and um I think I just felt like if I continue being this obsessed and wanting to try this thing so much and if I stay consistent I

how is it not going to work out? I think I kind of had that mentality. Nice. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing. I think it's so true. Like if you, if you feel like you enjoy the thing and you are consistent with it and produce videos that are sort of vaguely getting better over time, like I, it's, it's hard to imagine a world in which it doesn't at least work out in some kind of way. Yeah. That's what I was, I think, thinking and

If you, my idea is if you feel like you're not really into it, like let's say you want to be a YouTuber, but you're kind of like, yeah, it looks kind of fun, but I don't know, I'm not very into it. Maybe that's going to be difficult because you're not going to, likely not going to see any growth or numbers and you're going to feel silly for putting in all this time when no one is watching you or caring about you. So you think, I think you need to really

feel like regardless of how many people are watching or engaging in the beginning, I'm so obsessed with this thing that I'm just going to keep going and going. Yeah. It's about enjoying the journey and not just being fixated on a particular outcome. Oh, absolutely. Okay. So...

At the time you quit the job, did you tell yourself, "I'm going to try this for a year or two years or six months"? Or did you say, "I'm a Mr. Beast of like, I'm going to be a YouTuber or I'm going to die"? What was your approach to this? I think that's what I was feeling. But I told my mom because she was like, "Okay, well, how long?" I mean, obviously, you can still live at home, but how long are you going to be jobless, basically? Because I think no parent wants to see their child jobless.

And I think I told her, like, I'm going to give this a year or six months, something like that, not too long. And she was like, okay, sounds pretty reasonable. So I think it's good to give yourself some sort of a timeline because it also motivates you in a way to really work at it and stay consistent and give it your all. Did you have like a time when you started? I didn't quit my job until like three years into the YouTube thing.

Oh, right. So like I was very much overlapping. Yeah. And then the reason I quit was because I was always going to take a break anyway. And then so it all worked out fairly trivially almost. But I always feel like I'm very risk averse. And so the thought of quitting my job, I'd have been like, like, even in like, especially in a non-medical job, I would have thought about, oh, but there's going to be a gap on my resume and like.

people are going to be like oh you left your job and then it's going to be harder for me to find another job how did you think about the whole gap in the cv situation i think that was the scariest thing and that was the main thing some people tried discouraging me saying well there's going to be a gap in your resume and how is that going to look for future employers and i was like i'm not going to need a future employer i tried having that sort of mindset because yeah i mean you want to think of the risks and what like having a plan b is important but you also don't want to

Make that your reality. You want your reality to be, no, but this is going to work out and it's going to go great. And I'm not going to need any of that, even though you should be aware of that, I think. So, yeah, I mean, it was a big risk, but...

I also feel like, again, having a safety net and feeling like someone is going to hire me, even if I haven't worked for a few months. I don't think no one is going to want me ever. So it's not that serious. Yeah, I think there's a lot of fear mongering in the sort of job finding space where...

I guess a lot of the narratives that we hear are that, oh, it's so hard to find a job in the current market and like, it's so hard to get a job anywhere.

But I don't know, maybe I'm just so out of touch with how hard it is to get a job. But basically everyone I know found it reasonably easy to get a job. And maybe they might struggle to find another one that pays more money, but it's definitely fairly easy enough to get a job and take a bit of a pay cut. And so really the risk in inverted commas is literally just the delta between the job that you're able to get easily and the job you currently have.

Whereas I think a lot of people think of it as like, oh my God, I'm going to be homeless and broke. And it's sort of, there's a lot of, it's easy to catastrophize the situation. And maybe, I mean, it depends on your situation. If you're someone who, you know, maybe you don't have any safety net at all and quitting a job that you struggled very hard to get. And maybe for some reason, you know, your job opportunities is quite narrow, then you're going to have a lot more to lose as opposed to if you have more. So I think it depends on your situation, but yeah.

It's also thinking, okay, what would I rather do? Do I want to stay safe and continue doing this job that I'm doing and be quite unhappy and unfulfilled, but safe? Or can I take this risk without ruining my life if things don't work out, but the outcome could be something very positive. I might end up very fulfilled and happy and doing something that I deeply care about and I'm good at. So it's all the risk in return.

Absolutely. It's like weighing it all up. Yeah. Just a quick announcement from one of our sponsors and we'll get right back to the episode. And this episode is brought to you by Heights. Heights is a brain care smart supplement that I've been taking every morning for the last 12 months. I love it so much that I actually became friends with the founder, Dan, who we actually had on season one of the Deep Dive podcast.

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It's a lot easier to take just two little capsules with water than it is to try and drown green sludge or whatever else other companies have in the market that kind of does the same thing. So anyway, thank you so much, Heitz, for sponsoring this episode. And let's get right back to the podcast. At the time, in those early days, like sort of 2017, 2018, if someone asked you, right, Lana, what is your channel about? Or what do you do on YouTube? What would you have said? So I still don't know the answer to that question.

Still, when people ask me, what do you do on YouTube? I'm like, I don't know. I talk about things that I care about. That's kind of my response, which, I mean, I guess it is, but it's very vague. What does that mean? It doesn't really give an answer to the question. And some may say that it's self-help, but I don't know. Is it self-help? Maybe, because it's helping some people. So is that self-help? Maybe. I think I don't really...

I think people can define it as what they want. Some people come and saying it's their safe place. And some people say they're learning things. And some people say, you know, it's different for... So I think my channel is what others think it is. And that just differs from person to person. Back then, it was just...

I mean, I talked about a variety of things. I talked about hookup culture and I talked about self-improvement and I talked about productivity and a variety of things. And I still do to an extent. So I don't really know. What do you think my channel is about? I also don't really, like, I feel like I struggled to answer that question for myself as well. Because I guess we both are sort of in that personal development-y space. Yeah.

But within that, we're both fairly broad in the sorts of topics we talk about. Yeah. And our audiences overlap a lot. Yeah. Your thing often comes up as like, you know, your audience also watched that. Yeah, me too. So I think maybe it's just people, our audiences are just people interested in bettering themselves. Or maybe they just think, even if they don't want to better themselves, I just think listening to topics about those things is important or interesting. I don't know.

This might be a difficult one, but what do you think is it about your channel that made it get so popular? Loads of people want to become personal development YouTubers, it seems these days. Whenever I run my YouTuber Academy, half the people who join want to become personal development YouTubers because they're all interested in personal development. And it's like, "Oh, I could become the next Ali Abdaal. I could become the next Lana Blinkley. I can talk about personal development with my own twist."

I don't know, like, it strikes me that realistically, very few of them are going to get to the million subscriber mark. So what do you think it is that sort of was it about your channel that has touched a chord with people? Great question. I'm like, why do I have million subscribers? I don't know. But I think at the time when I was starting, a lot of the YouTube that I was watching was quite loud, I think, and quite out there and a little bit, not aggressive, but very like,

You know, the "Hi everyone!" That sort of intro and it was very extroverted maybe. I don't really know how to define it. And I think that wasn't because that's not me as a person. And in the beginning, because when I was studying how to become a YouTuber, I came across a video saying you need to talk louder and be more engaging because people are not going to watch. And yeah, that's true for some people to an extent.

And I try that and I just watch the videos back and I was like, that's not me at all. It feels very...

manufactured and strained and so i toned it back and started talking more like myself a bit slower and you know some people really cannot watch my videos without speeding it up i mean you probably you probably cannot i think i'll watch you in about 3x speed or something yeah um but some people well clearly more than some people were drawn to that and enjoy the more

kind of quiet, slow down pace and style. So maybe that's part of it, I think. I don't think that's as common as the more outgoing, louder. Yeah. I think. But it's pretty hard knowing why people are watching you, really. Why do you think you've been so successful? Feeling of luck, right place at the right time. I think also just... Yeah. It is hard to kind of connect the dots. I think that...

At the time, so around 2017, 2018, I guess both of us sort of got into this space around the same time. So I started my channel in 2017, but only really started making, I guess, productivity type stuff, 2018, 2019. Around that time, it was still a somewhat untapped market. Like there were people who were big like Matt and Tom and Nathaniel and Joey, but beyond those four, there were not many people in the space. And so...

I think there was space for more voices to just sort of do the same thing, personal development from a different sort of twist. And I think I had the unfair advantage of sort of trading off the doctor thing. Like, hey, I'm a doctor and I do shit on the side and therefore you should listen to me. Yeah. Was I hope the implication of some of the stuff. Now, if I were to start a YouTube channel, I don't think I'd try and go straight for personal development because it's just too broad. I'd probably go for like finance or crypto or something and really just try and have deep expertise in one particular area. Why?

because I think it's a lot easier to stand out when you have deep expertise in one area. I think if I were a YouTuber, if I were just starting out, there's no unfair advantage that I have. There's nothing that helps me stand out from the crowd.

Whereas if I just got really good at explaining crypto, for example, then I can do that for like a year or two and then branch slowly out into the rest of finance. And I really like that sort of stuff. But do you think that would be as fun being more like, because now you can kind of make content about anything you want. I know we've talked about this book about relationships that you talked about and you talk about tech stuff and productivity and finance. And don't you think that's what keeps it interesting as well that you can just kind of talk about

what you want? I think so. But I think the way I see it is that that is a privilege that you get to have once you're already successful. Like, for example, Amazon started out just selling books. If Jeff had tried to sell everything from day one, it's not going to work. So he just starts off with books and then slowly expands out. And now Amazon sells everything. Similarly, I think my approach to YouTube would be to start off super niche and then slowly expand. And I

Because if I were a new YouTuber and I made a video of like 10 productivity hacks, no one's watching it. But if I made a video like something really niche, like how to program an altcoin on the Solana blockchain, now there's potentially some search traffic and I could potentially get some views that way. Yeah, because sometimes when I have an issue with like Premiere Pro or something very specific, and I'll look up that issue on YouTube, and I'll find a video of someone having like a million views about something very, very specific that I thought I'm not even going to find. So yeah, I think there's something...

to it but i don't know i think i mean i enjoy being able to talk about multiple things but also sometimes i think it would be a lot easier if i just had like let's say i was just talking about relationships because then like the right audience is really going to find me and they're going to watch all of my videos probably most of them because they're all on the same topic and that's why they're there i think when you're talking about multiple things some people are like oh i like his tech stuff but not his finance stuff so it's your views can kind of fluctuate

too. So I think it's pros and cons. Yeah. How do you feel about the view fluctuation with your channel?

I think there's always a balance between finding or creating videos that you really enjoy, where you're like, I really want to talk about this thing and it's going to be very interesting to create and the right people are going to appreciate it a lot. But maybe it's not something that's going to get a lot of attention because it's just not that type of video. And then you have ideas that are more, okay,

this is gonna go pretty well like i'm pretty sure this is going to perform well but it's not something very personal or super exciting like i enjoy making it but it's not as like it doesn't fuel me the way something else might feel me so i think finding that balance is difficult sometimes like do i want to get more views or do i want this to be like touch the core of my heart you know what do you feel about oh i have it yeah 100 the same no the same dilemma

And like I was watching a great video that Mark Manson put out the other day where he talked about the price of success. And so and so he wrote these like these two books, which did like ridiculously well. Like I think he's probably one of the best selling authors in this space, like in the last generation. But he said that because his books were so successful, he started playing it safe on his blog and only writing stuff he knew would resonate with people. But the reason he was successful in the first place is because he wrote stuff that was a bit out there, like the subtle art of not giving a fuck and all that kind of thing.

And then he was like playing it safe. And so he made a YouTube video basically being like, right, I'm now going to become a YouTuber and I'm going to talk about whatever I want. And it seems like a lot of, like almost every creator that I speak to who has this dilemma between do I pander to the audience or do I do the stuff that I want to do? And like the middle ground between those two things. And ideally...

When you have the right sort of audience and the right sort of content, there's a lot of overlap between those things. Yeah. Like I know I recently bought this like just random typewriter, a smart typewriter, which connects to Wi-Fi and it's just a type. All you can do on it is write. This is something I'm really excited about.

And there is like a small segment of my audience who will be as well, but it's a bit niche. Like most people are not going to care about that. And I have to kind of be okay with that. So how do you decide if you're going to make the video or not? My model is always that, or always a strong word, but like the model I aspire to have is if I think this will be helpful to at least one person, then I make the video and I don't care about the views. Nice. And I find that the less I look at the numbers,

the happier I am. Like for my last two videos, I know they're not doing amazingly. And I actually specifically have not looked at YouTube studio. And whenever I find myself like itching to open it, I'm like, you know what? I don't need to know. Because whether or not the video does well,

I'm glad I put it out. If you know that this video is not performing well, how does that affect you mentally? Do you still feel like you're the worst person in the world? Or how do you feel about that? I feel like this is the beginning of the end. I'm fading into irrelevancy. No one's going to watch my videos. I'm going to become homeless and broken alone. What's it like for you? I'm the exact same way. Sometimes when a video is performing really bad, I'll call my mom and I'll be like, mom, I'm just going to start applying for it.

jobs. This is not working out. No one cares anymore. And I just kind of spiral. And then I try again next week because I post one video a week. And if two videos in a row are not performing well, that's when I'm like, okay, my CV is like getting ready to be sent out because this is not working anymore. And there's been so many times like that, but then you have a video where it's going well again. And so just not quitting and being consistent

is so important because you're going to want to quit. Quit, I think, a lot of times if you do this long enough, but just keep going. Yeah. I think the way I think of it is after loads of journaling, definitely want to talk to you about journaling because you've just reached a Skillshare class about journaling, a bit more journaling. But I often journal, whether it's by hand or on computer, and after several thousand words, I arrive at the conclusion of, you know what? I can just make videos about what I want.

And it's fine. And right now it's working. And if it ever stops working, then I'll just get a job. I'll figure something out. Yeah. The worst case scenario is not catastrophic. So I think just reminding yourself of that. Because I think you get so comfortable. I think you can relate to this doing this job because you have all the freedom and it's so enjoyable and it's a dream. Sometimes I can't believe that I get to

do this. Like, I can't believe I'm just able to be here. And this is part of my job is chatting with you. It doesn't feel like that should be a part of a job because it's too enjoyable. And so I think there's always a fear of what if I lose that? And what if I go back to having to do something that I don't enjoy? And that's scary, but yeah.

Then again, you can only do your best and hope that people continue to resonate and find you interesting and valuable or what you have to say interesting and valuable. Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it.

Just a quick message from one of our sponsors and we'll get right back to the episode. And this episode is very kindly brought to you by Shortform. Shortform is the world's best service that summarizes books, but it's way more than just book summaries. They almost have a whole study guide for every book that they've got on the platform where they've got a one-page summary and then they also have chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. And it's not just chapter-by-chapter breakdowns, also in between the chapter breakdowns they have interactive exercises where you can engage more readily with the ideas in the book.

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Like the story is good the first time around. Anyway, thanks to Shortform, I was able to revisit the five key lessons from that book in the space of about a minute, rather than having to reread the thing, which would have taken several hours. Anyway, if any of that sounds up your street and you would like to sign up to the world's best service that summarizes books, then head over to shortform.com forward slash deep dive, and that will give you a completely free five-day trial and you can try out the service to your heart's content. That link will also be in the video description and in the show notes. And thank you so much, Shortform, for sponsoring this episode.

Just a quick little break and we'll get right back to the podcast shortly. But this is to let you know that this podcast is very kindly brought to you by Paperlike. Paperlike is by far the best screen protector for the iPad that is on the market. I've been using the Paperlike screen protector since like 2018 when I first got the iPad Pro and they've had various evolutions and stuff since then. But the most recent version is the Paperlike 2.1, otherwise known as the Swiss Paperlike, and it's

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paperlike.com forward slash deep dive or by hitting the link in the video description or in the show notes. So thank you so much Paperlike for sponsoring this episode and let's get right back to the show. You talk a lot about, so your video that went viral was I think a day in the life of an introvert. Yeah. To what extent do you identify as an introvert? Like what does introvert mean to you? So introvert

I've kind of tried to not identify too much with any term recently, just because I feel like

it boxes you in somehow. So I know that I would talk a lot about being introverted and, you know, having these traits and whatnot. And it will get to a point where if I were to post like a story on Instagram, having dinner with friends, I would get DMs from people being like, I thought you were an introvert who doesn't like going out. So why are you out with friends? And it got me thinking like, this is

Like it's getting to a point where not only am I boxing myself in, but other are boxing me in as well. And I think that can be the danger of self-labeling. You feel like, okay, I have this label, I am this or that, so I should act in this way. And I just don't really want to have that in my life. I want to feel like, even if I feel, yeah, I'm introverted because I like my alone time and I don't need to be with people as much as some other people might need to be with people. And

But that does not mean that I don't enjoy other people or that I don't want to go out and do this and that. So I just try to stay clear of boxing myself in as much as possible. But I still do make some content about introversion because I know that

Learning about it helped me so much and just being like, oh, I'm not this weird person because I can spend the entire day at home and just doing my own stuff. It's just because that's how I enjoy being and that's completely fine. And it is very helpful to so many people just learning about it and talking about it. So I still do it, but...

I don't say I am an introvert. I'm like, I'm introverted because like it's spectrum and no one is only that or only that. We're all somewhere in the middle of these terms and definitions, I think. What do you think? I feel like you're extroverted, aren't you?

I would say I'm more introverted. Assuming the definition is around sort of getting your energy by recharging with your own company versus with other people. So like, for example, often if I'm on holiday with friends, I will enjoy taking out a few hours in the morning to just sit on my laptop and do some work. Maybe that's just the workaholic part of me. I was going to ask, is that because you just enjoy watching? Yeah.

I feel like a lot of social contact is a bit much and I like just having time on my laptop or with the journal where I can just do my own thing. Last week I interviewed someone called Francesca Spector, who's a journalist who's written a book called "Alonement", which is about this sort of spending time by yourself and using that to recharge and like being okay with that. I really like that term. It's like a nice

So the day I interviewed her that evening, I went to a restaurant by myself and just did some journaling. Nice. Went on a date with myself and it was like, oh, this is so nice. Do you ever do that normally? Going out eating by yourself? Not usually. I think I've done it like twice in the last year. And one time was last week. So I wanted to do more. It was great. I want to do more of that. And even like, well, one of her tips was to block it out in the calendar because then you can look forward to it.

Whereas normally if I have a random spare evening, I'll just sort of non-intentionally do something. But in this case, it's like, oh, today is going to be an alignment evening. I'm going to spend time by myself and it's going to be great. And I think it's important because you get to be alone with, because when you're around people, I mean, sure, you can be yourself, but it's inevitable that you're getting influenced by other people's moods and thoughts and experiences and what they're saying and what they're thinking and all of that.

Whereas when you're by yourself, you get to kind of fully and truly listen to your own thoughts and be like, what do I think about this thing? And how do I enjoy this food or this place or whatever it is that you're doing? And I think it's valuable and kind of getting to know yourself in a way. But how do you feel working with a big team and meeting them every day? Because I feel like now that I'm doing everything by myself and imagining having a team of a lot of people that I

not have to spend every day with, but that I will spend every day with, it feels a little bit draining. How do you feel about that? Do you feel energized when you're around? Generally, yeah, generally I do. So usually my setup is that my mornings are for book writing. So like this morning I had breakfast with my agent and then sort of nine till 12 was book time sitting in a coffee shop and just doing book stuff.

And then I came here and now we're having this chat. And I had a team meeting just a little while ago and doing like a working dinner tonight as well with Tommy.

And I find that that balance where it's like, I've got some of the day to do my own deep work. And the rest of the time, I can just sort of have good vibes with the team. I really enjoy that. And I like working with people around because I get a bit depressed when it's just me and I'm sitting on my laptop all day. Do you find that or do you enjoy sitting on your laptop? I enjoy it. Yeah. But I mean, I thought because I haven't, I don't know what the opposite would be like either. So I don't know if I were to have a team.

being around people working. I don't know if I would do it. Maybe I would. I think you would. I haven't tried it. I can imagine how sick it would be if you had like one or two people that you worked with maybe like a couple of days a week. You would go to the same coffee shop or the same co-working space. I think so. I think if it's the right people where you have good chemistry and which I think is so important. I mean, I've tried having people on my team, like an editor or like the very basic thing that YouTubers typically need help with. But I think it's so hard just...

I don't know, like going from doing everything by yourself, you know, all the different roles that being a YouTuber entails to bringing someone in. It feels like such a scary thing. I don't know how you've successfully found so many people and they all seem great. Yeah. How do you...

just that process seems so yeah i mean it sort of happened slowly over a long period of so it's been i sort of um started working with christian our editor three years ago now okay and so in the early days he was like sending me the final cut sending me the project files and i was doing the final cut of editing myself and then after a while i was like oh he's actually better than i am cool and then now we just do it via frame io where he just i'll

uploads a file and then I can leave comments on it and then and then it goes to the channel and it's just like I remember in the early days the feeling I had when I'd be because I'd be filming a video in the evening after work and then I'd go to work the next day and then I'd come home and the video's ready and I'm just like mind blown like I didn't have to spend 18 hours editing this video and that just completely changed my life and as soon as Christian came on board suddenly everything started going well in the business because I had way more time to spend on I

actually writing the videos and writing courses, which is the thing I enjoy doing, rather than cutting out my ums and ahs. Do you do any editing now? No. Nice. I sometimes think, you know what, I should get back into editing. I mean, it's fun, but it's a very time-consuming. And then I remember how long it takes. Yeah. And then I think, huh, this is like...

Would I choose to do this just for fun? Right. And if the answer is no, then it's like, okay, then I shouldn't be doing this. Oh, okay. Whereas I would choose to write just for fun or to read just for fun, but I wouldn't choose to edit just for fun. You have written and talked a lot about the concept of ro. Yeah. What is ro? So pronounced ro in Swedish, it's just another word. I don't think anyone really thinks about it more than any other word, but it's a word that doesn't have...

direct translation to any other language that I know of, at least not English. Basically what it means, ro, is just like calm, tranquility, peace. So if you've had like a long day, you might say in Swedish, jag vill bara ha lite lugn och ro. I just want some peace and calm. Or I want to find a place to have some ro. And I started because a lot of

Somehow my philosophy in life goes back to Ru, which essentially means that even at the end of a day, if I've had a long day or a stressful day, I always want to feel like I'm coming back to a place where I feel like I can rest and relax and feel calm on the inside. And I try to create those habits

in my everyday life. I want my home to be that place. I want to have that feeling with my close relationships where I can feel like this person gives me some "roo" as opposed to the opposite of giving me stress or anxiety or... Yeah, so I think that's just where it started. I was like, this is a great word and more people should know of this word or concept.

And I started my newsletter, named it Monday Ru, I think. I haven't been writing a lot there. But basically just writing stories of Ru or tips on Ru and things like that. And a lot of people enjoyed it and resonated with the concept of just wanting more Ru in their lives. And that's how that was born. I could do with some more Ru in my life. Yeah.

How does one go about finding Ru? Good, good pronunciation. I think it means different things to different people. So like having Ru in the morning to me is just not feeling stressed in the morning and waking up early enough to where I can have a coffee and sit on my couch and cuddle my dog and not have to hurry anywhere or feel like I'm...

stressed out and that I'm well rested. So that's just a way of finding it. Or I love taking long walks and not listening to anything and just enjoying the walk with no sounds. And to me, that's true. So I think it means different things to different people. But I think the feeling is just simply, it's a bit meditative where it's like,

It's like the feeling where you're taking a long walk in the forest or something and you don't have any distractions other than bird sounds or, you know, the sound of bushes or whatever. Something that is just very peaceful and calming. And yeah, I think it's going to be different things for different people. But you're going to know if you start paying attention to your day, like, where do I feel like I'm...

at ease where do I feel like no one is bothering me there's like a calm feeling throughout my body and I'm just being and what is that to you can you identify anything like that in your life yeah yeah very much so I was just thinking as you were saying that that like your whole vibe is very like oh nice very like kind of zen kind of like calm and tranquil and

it's just sort of just like sitting here talking to you is making me just feel a bit more calm. And I'm just like, yeah, this is a nice conversation. I feel like I'm relaxed. I feel like I'm, I'm energized. And it was sort of like, uh,

Being energized through being relaxed. Yeah. Rather than being energized through being like frantic. Yeah. So it's not necessarily, to me, it's not like feeling sleepy or, you know, taking a nap. It is feeling energized, but through something very simple and calming. So journaling can be pretty much that as well, depending on what you're writing about. If you're ranting about a recent heartbreak, maybe it's not very real, but...

Can you find anything specific in your area? Yeah. So I've been thinking about this sort of concept a lot recently because with the book that I'm working on, the core thesis, I guess, is that, you know, for me, productivity has always been about trying to get energy from my work so that I can give energy to the things that I want to do outside of work. And I find that the way I get energy from my work is by approaching it in this sort of

with lightness and ease and tranquility and remembering to have fun with it and remembering that I don't need to be stressed out. And I think it's easy to, and even had this when I wasn't working for myself. So when I was working as a doctor, it's very easy to sort of approach it with a frantic energy of like, oh shit, all this shit needs to be done and stuff. And I found that on days where I would have that attitude towards it, I would just feel completely drained and it wasn't fun.

But on days where I had exactly the same to-do list, well, I approached it with a sense of, hmm,

I've got a lot of things to do today. This is going to be fun. There's a quote from Grey's Anatomy where Patrick Dempsey, the neurosurgeon, he always starts his operations with, it's a beautiful day to save lives. Let's have some fun. And I sometimes think about that as being like, that is actually a way of approaching anything. It's a beautiful day to save lives. Let's have some fun, regardless of what's actually happening in the thing. And so I try and remind myself to do that with work stuff or whenever I feel

frantic or harried in any kind of way. Just taking that breath and being like, no, it's all good. And I can choose to approach this with, I guess, rue rather than, yeah. Totally. I think attitude is like, I know some people get annoyed when you talk about just have a positive attitude or a good attitude, but I really think that it does so much to how you approach things and how you see things. Like if I think to myself, okay, I have to create this video this week and I have to do this and that. And I kind of stress myself up

of all the things that I have to do and accomplish and the time that I have doing it and deadlines. I'm just going to be stressed out. I'm not going to enjoy the process as much. And it's probably not going to turn out as well either because it's going to start feeling like this thing that I just have to do rather than this thing that I want to do. If I instead try to be like, okay, I have to write the script. I'm going to grab my coffee. I'm going to sit on the couch. I'm going to put my dog in my lap and we're

Somehow we feel like if we have more of a calm approach to things, we're not as productive. It's not as efficient. I can at least feel sometimes like, okay, why am I not feeling too stressed about this? Does that mean that I'm slacking? Even if I'm getting as much done and getting it done better than I would have had otherwise, there's something...

in me and maybe in you and other people where you kind of feel like being productive means that you need to feel like you're running around and you're doing this and that and you're switching between tasks and you're like, you want to feel a little bit stressed. That can sometimes make you feel like you're being more productive. Whereas if you're drinking coffee and you're just kind of having this calm vibe, you might feel like you're not being as productive, even if you are. So I'm just trying to lean into the fact that I can actually approach things being more

chill with that grace anatomy quote attitude and i can still heal the same results and enjoy the process a lot more yeah have you come across uh derek sievers i don't think so he's like this uh you know used to be an entrepreneur sold his money sold his company for a lot of money and then decided to live the chill life of kind of doing what he wants and he's he's written a couple of really good books about like intentional living and stuff

But there's a really good story that he talks about of how, you know, I think he used to live in like Australia or something and he used to sort of cycle the length of

some cycle path and he would always try and like go as fast as possible. And he'd be like, okay, need to beat 42 minutes. Need to be 42 minutes. And 42 minutes was his number. Um, and then one day he decided, you know what? I'm just going to take a chill. Like I'm actually good. I'm not going to huff and puff. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to enjoy the cycle ride as I'm going along. And, you know, he was like, I'm not going to time myself. I'm just going to go around the cycle. You know, I might like wave at some people along the way, listen to the birds. I really enjoy myself. And he gets back home and he looks at his clock and it's 44 minutes.

And he's like, shit, for the last six months, have I just been huffing and puffing for the sake of two minutes? Like, what the fuck? And now I think there's a wider message in that, that huffing and puffing actually does not necessarily lead to the outcome that you think it's going to get to. Exactly. I think that's exactly what I mean, or what I'm trying to say. Huffing and puffing. Exactly. I haven't heard of that. But yeah, I guess that's what I'm trying to say, where I think that example is great. And that's...

I'm just trying to embrace more of that. Nice. So someone listening to this might be like, well, Lana and Ali, it's easy for you guys to say. You guys are YouTubers. You make videos about what you want. Like, screw you. Like, I've got a real job. Yeah. Given that you've written a lot about this, how, let's say someone has a real job, maybe potentially has like family obligations, plus or minus kids at home. Any tips on finding Ruth in the...

midst of a hectic life. Right. So I'm not even going to try and put myself in the position of someone having kids and a family and all of that. I know that when I started YouTube and I was working as well and I was doing both, the thing that gave me room, which I was doing every single morning before going to work, was actually working out at a quiet gym where no one was because it was very early. So...

somehow was a sacrifice because I was getting up very early and maybe not getting enough sleep. But that was a way for me back then to have some time to myself where I wasn't working on anything and I was just doing something that was good for me. And I felt energized, but it wasn't frantic. It was just me alone at the gym working out. And so I think you can

find little things that you can do, but maybe there's another sacrifice that has to be done. Like maybe you have to set your alarm a little bit earlier, or maybe at your lunch break, go to your car and eat it there if you want to get away from some people. I know that I would do that sometimes and just not to my car, but just leave everyone and go have lunch by myself. Just any opportunity that you can find or you can spend that time

away from the crowd and away from the noise, whether that is when you're having lunch or your coffee or waking up earlier and working out or journaling a little bit before you go to bed. I think

We can find those moments. They don't have to be long moments. They can be a couple minutes. Like go to your balcony if you have one and stand there with no devices for a couple minutes and just take a few breaths. Like something as simple as that, I think, can do more than we think. And most people probably have two minutes sometime throughout the day to just go away from the crowd and take a breather. Yeah. I would hope. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I was interviewing someone last week who's a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, and we were talking about a similar concept as well. From a sort of science-y perspective, it's kind of resetting the nervous system, where you've got the sympathetic nervous system, which is your fight or flight response, the anxiety, the stress, the sort of, this is useful if you're running away from a lion.

And then you have the parasympathetic nervous system, which is where you're chilled, sort of rest, digest, recharge, that kind of vibe. And how, you know, she cited some study that showed that like 75% of workers in the US are in sort of sympathetic overdrive mode, where they're like in this state of mild anxiety and stress in their workday. And how...

This is really bad for your health, drives up your cortisol level, increases your blood pressure, all these bad things. Something as simple as looking into the distance, into the horizon, and taking some deep breaths for 30 seconds. Just take

tells your body, no, it's chill. I don't have a tiger that's chasing me right now. It's just my boss being a bit of a dick. Like I don't need to let this affect my tranquility. And even just 30 seconds can profoundly recharge someone's energy levels. And there's a bunch of stuff that shows that, you know, taking a break every 45 minutes and even just like getting off your desk and just taking a few deep breaths, just lets your body relax. And the more relaxed, the more parasympathetically you can kind of activate yourself, the more

likely you are to recharge your energy and to feel more of that sense of peace and stillness and tranquility, this idea of Ru, I guess. Yeah. I think just not forcing yourself to be in a situation if you feel like you need a couple minutes. Like,

I know in the beginning when I was working my nine to five, I thought it was very weird like going away during lunch just to have a couple minutes to myself because are people going to think like, where's Lana? Why is she leaving? And something is off, but no one really cares. I don't think no one is going to question you or think you're a weirdo if you just go away for a few minutes or decide to have a lunch by yourself. Or if you're having a break and someone's like, hey, do you want to take a walk together? If you want to go alone once in a while, that

That's fine. And I think we should just embrace those moments and no one's actually going to care that much. And it's important to grab those moments when we need them and when we have the opportunity. I love that. So again, when I was working as a doctor, in the early days,

Me and most of my friends who started around that time, it was super, super stressful. They were like, oh, there's too much to do. And there's so much to do that we can't take a lunch break because there's just literally too much to do. And you can't stop for coffee. You just have to keep going because all these things are urgent. All these things are happening.

And then very quickly, our seniors told us that, no, you need to take a lunch break. You need to take coffee breaks. Nothing bad will happen. Don't worry about it. And we started doing that and realized that actually taking a coffee break like two or three times is going down to the local Costa, waiting in line for five minutes, getting a latte and going back up. It just takes away five or ten minutes. And

There's very unlikely to be a life or death emergency in that five or 10 minutes. And if it is, the crash buzzer is going to ring and someone else will be there. But you can take that time. Totally. And if that five or 10 minutes returns so much ROI because it just helps you avoid burnout and feel more confident and tranquil and comfortable at work and stuff. And that has so many more benefits compared to thinking that you have to, I guess, burn the afterburners.

And skip lunch just for the sake of writing an extra discharge letter a little bit earlier. Totally. And I think, let's say there was an emergency, you're probably going to be in a better mind space if you've taken a couple minutes off where you've kind of recharged a little bit, as opposed to if you've just been going and going and going all day, you're probably going to be more tired and exhausted. So I think...

that applies for work as well. If you're just going and going and going without breaks because you feel like you can't or you feel guilty or you need to be super productive and breaks are for lazy people or whatever you're telling yourself, I think you're just doing the opposite. You're

burning yourself out and you're not going to be as effective and maybe most importantly you're not going to enjoy yourself as much you're just going to feel exhausted and if you're not enjoying what you're doing the results are probably not going to be as good as if you were enjoying what you're doing yeah yeah and there's a lot like i think there's a book the happiness advantage that talks about how people who feel happy at work also perform way better and it's not the other way around it's not that performance leads to happiness it's that happiness leads to performance

And so if we can find ways to feel happier, feel more content with the work that we're doing, inevitably that's going to lead to performance improvements. But also we're having a better life. Why wouldn't you try it? Because you're spending so much time and work. So much of your life is working. And so finding any loophole or tactic or anything to make it a bit easier and more enjoyable, I think it's at least worth exploring.

What kind of stuff do you find disturbs your tranquility on a day-to-day basis? I think mainly if something is off in any of my relationships. Like if I've had a fight with someone or someone is mad at me or anything like that. I think that's the biggest thing. Nothing else really gets me as much as things not going well or smoothly in my relationships. I think that's the thing.

What do you do about it when you find that that's the case? Well, I try for it to not get to the extent where there's an argument. I try to solve things as quickly as possible. That's something I've learned throughout the years instead of kind of leaving things be. And I think it's better to talk about things and try to be on a...

Try to have peace in your relationships. If something is bothering me or bothering them, I always try to solve it as quickly as possible. And if it's unsolvable, I'm still working on trying to still go about my day and not. I just get very affected by things being off with the people around me. Do you experience that at all? If you've had a fight with...

your brother or someone. Do you feel like it's affecting your work or how you're feeling about your day? Not really. I tend not to have that many fights, except with my mom. Well, let's say you've had a fight with your mom. Do you feel like your day is not ruined, but you're not going to be as excited? I don't know, really. I feel like I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing and also

I think the stoicism Kool-Aid I've been drinking for decades tells me that is this within my control? No. Okay. I can just choose to think to be okay with it then. Well, how do you get to a point where you actually believe that? I think I got to that point by telling myself that repeatedly over many years and to the point where it's now like, because I strongly think, I strongly feel that we can control our feelings. Maybe we can't control that initial, you know, that initial gut level reaction.

But, you know, there's a bunch of stuff about how emotions are renewed every 90 seconds. And if you feel anger, anger will only last for 90 seconds. And then if it lasts for longer than that, it's because you're choosing to tell yourself a story that's causing the anger to be renewed. Yeah, I can't remember what the book is, but there's some compelling kind of stats on this.

And similarly, you know, a book like The Courage to be Disliked or any of the books on stoicism talk about this idea of, you know, you've got stimulus and response. And in between those two, there's a gap and you can choose your response. And so if I have had a fight with my mom or if, I don't know, something has not worked out with another relationship,

I can choose the way I respond to that to an extent. Like I've been lucky in that I haven't had like a major, like absolutely catastrophic thing happen. But I think over time with the little things in particular, I've become good at being like, yep, this is a thing. My initial response is anger or frustration or upsetness or whatever. Cool. That's fine. I can choose to tell myself a different story. That means that I can...

you know, that the quote, which is, um, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Yeah. So I've experienced the pain of the initial emotion, but I can choose to not suffer. And how seamless is that for you? Is it always obvious that you can just think that and believe it or is it harder sometimes? Yeah. It's harder sometimes. Um, yeah, like yesterday, you know, I had a bit of a disagreement with my girlfriend about some something and, um,

I was feeling a bit like, I was feeling a bit frustrated and a bit annoyed. And I was like, okay, now, you know, take a few deep breaths, figure out how I feel about this. And then we had, we had a conversation about it. And after about 20 minutes of conversation, turns out it was a misunderstanding where we both like, we're on a different page about the same thing. And it's like, okay, now we resolve the misunderstanding. And we kind of talked about it. And I was like, great, this is awesome. And so, but, but I did feel that initial sense of like annoyance and frustration. And I was like, okay,

Deep breath. It's fine. Let's have a rational conversation. Yeah. But I think that's the key, having a conversation about it. I think if you were to go to bed annoyed or if you were not with her at the time, let's say you were not able to see her or talk to her.

then do you feel like that could affect your, like if that was unresolved until right now? Yeah. Do you feel like your workday would have been, like would you have thought about it or can you just put it to the side and get to work? I would have thought about it. I would tell myself I can put it to the side and forget about it and deal with it later. But it would sort of be in the back of my mind.

um until we have our regular relationship review where we kind of go through some questions and what is that oh it's great this is a thing i've been yeah i've been recommending this to all my friends i'm like can we switch gears because i need to hear about this um so this is an idea from logan ury's book how to not die alone she's you know behavioral scientist turned relationship coach um which is over there actually uh and yeah she says basically that

anyone in a relationship should have like a weekly-ish review. We do ours like every three weeks or so because we don't see each other that often, maybe like once or twice a week. So every three weeks or so we'll do a review where there's like a Notion page with like 10 questions and we just go through the questions. That's very Ali having that on Notion. Yeah, although it was her who actually made the Notion page initially. So it was like, yeah, that's when I knew she was the one. And we just go through the questions and, you know, the first half are like, um,

You know, how's this week been for our relationship? What's something, you know, how are you feeling? What's something I did that made you feel loved or appreciated or supported? What's something you'd like to do more of together? And then it's like,

you know, what's one way, what's one thing I did that made you feel bad or sad or annoyed in any kind of way? How can I make it better? What can I do differently? And usually, you know, through answering these questions, it's just a good chance to ask meta level questions about the relationship that wouldn't otherwise come up in day-to-day life. And so generally, if she or I have like a thing, because I feel like the problem in relationships from

A bit of experience and from what I've read is that the little things can become big things over time. Yeah. And a little thing is often too little to bring up in the moment, especially when you're apart, like when they're at work. It's like, I'm not going to message to be like, hey, you know, that little thing that you said that it would just be a bit weird to do that because it just interrupts things.

And so the review gives a chance for like every couple of weeks, at least a chance to review and touch base on those things. And the benefit is that usually a week is elapsed between the event happening and the review. So then you can approach it with less of an emotional kind of spin and more like, hey, so when you did X, it made me feel Y. And, you know, just to let you know. And then usually like, oh my God, I had no idea. Like, you know, let's change that. And does it usually feel...

Because it sounds a little bit like a, not a venting session, but a little bit like you're kind of venting on things that maybe you've thought of or things that you want to get out there. Do you feel like, do the both of you feel better and like at ease after you've had your... Oh yeah, definitely. Like we often say afterwards, like, oh, I'm glad we did this review. Or like, sometimes we'll say, but like, oh, it feels like it's been a while since we've done a review. We should probably do one.

Where it's like, maybe there's like one or two small things that have sort of, sort of like are in the background and are too small to bring up. And so the review brings them to light. And yeah, I think it's been one of the, one of the things that's taught me the most over the last year of being in the relationship that, oh damn, I didn't realize that.

people have emotions. I didn't realize that like you would think of things in this way, but it makes sense now that you've explained it. And so I can weave that into my mental model of the world. Okay. And do you feel like since you're having this review with her, do you feel like you're kind of saving things that you might be like things that might be bothering you or that you're thinking about, or do you still bring those things up as well? Or do you guys save it to the review? How do you go about that? That's a good question. So sometimes they're like, if we're there in the moment, then I'll bring it up.

But I generally prefer to have the conversation in person rather than on the phone. So if, for example, we're not seeing each other for a week or two, then to me, I'd be thinking, okay, is this something worth bringing up over the phone or over WhatsApp? Probably not. I'll just save it to the review. But if it's something big, then we'll bring it up over the phone if necessary. Yeah.

Nice. Yeah. It's almost like having a one-on-one when you have employees and stuff, a one-on-one with the manager, where a lot of things you can just say for the one-on-one because you don't have to interrupt them and send them a message on Slack to be like, hey, let's talk about this thing. It's a thing that we can talk about in the next one-on-one, unless it's sufficiently big to want an immediate discussion. Okay. Yes, I remember a friend's colleague told me that

boss and his boss's wife would do something similar where every week or every two weeks they would sit down and I don't know if it was from this book or if it was like a set of questions, but they would just talk openly about how have you felt about the relationship this week? And is something on your mind? Do you want to talk about anything in particular and how have you felt appreciated and how can we make things better? And having that conversation. Yeah. I would recommend. Okay, cool.

Cool. I'll carry that with me. Yeah. So you've put out a couple of videos recently talking about like your experiences of dating, your experience of relationships. I guess let's start with dating. What have you learned from kind of dating life over the last however number of years? Wow.

And I guess if you were giving advice to your younger self, who's like, let's say someone's listening to this and they're recently single, they've been in a relationship for a while, but now they're like single and they're on the market again, as it were. And they've got the, they're like, oh, hinge Tinder, but like, oh God, it feels like a real faff. Like, I guess from your perspective as a girl, presumably you'll get loads of matches and loads of people are weird. Like what's, what's, what's that like? Getting a lot of matches.

Just like being a girl on a dating app, which by definition means getting a lot of matches from every other girl's dating apps that I've ever seen. I think, well, there is definitely something to it. I mean, everyone knows, I think, that women tend to get more matches than men. But I think it gets confused with, you know, a lot does not mean, you know, good, right? So you could be, let's give an example, like,

you could be getting a lot of cookies but maybe half of them are too old to eat and yeah moldy and they're breaking and there's a warm in one and you don't want to have that one so it doesn't matter that you're getting a lot of cookies if none of them are worth eating do you know what i mean so i think it's something i think quantity and quality is like quantity is getting

for quality. Let's say you're getting, I don't know, a throughout number. You're getting 20 matches this week, which may be a lot or a little depending on how you see it. I don't know. Sounds like a lot. That does not mean that all 20 are

eligible for you or that that's something that you could see yourself being with or spending your life with or whatever you're looking for. But I guess it does mean you have more options. Yeah. So of those 20, even if like 10% are reasonable. Definitely. Yeah. I think in that way, but I think, I mean, I don't know what it's like, obviously being a guy on a dating app. I've talked to some guys on dating apps. That also depends. I mean, women are pickier. Yeah. That's just the fact. Yeah. Yeah.

And, I mean, both women and men, I think, have the right to be picky. I don't think that's a problem. As long as it's realistic and you don't have your standards come from like a rom-com or anything like that. But yeah, what is it like dating? I think dating in today's climate is difficult for everyone because...

A lot of it is online. I don't think we meet as often as maybe we used to people in person, unless you're in school or maybe through work. And now so many people are working from home. And so I think naturally a lot of people are drawn to online.

dating apps, which is kind of unnatural because normally when you meet someone, it's, you know, it's obviously the looks and how you feel about the person, but it's also like how their energy is feeling and their voice and their eye contact. And

Their scent and all of these things play a role in how we feel about someone when we meet them organically in person. And you have none of that when you meet someone online. So it's tough. And so you just go based on pictures and some information on their profile and an exchange of conversation.

that you have. Or a call. I always recommend having a call before meeting someone. Oh. Yeah. Do you normally suggest that? Yeah, always. Really? Video call. Video call? Damn. How do people respond? They're like, yeah, sure. Yeah. No one's been resistant. Yeah. Have you never done that? I did it like over the kind of lockdown period. I went on a few Zoom dates and I didn't particularly enjoy any of them. But yeah, someone else did tell me that like if you have

Too many options. Like if you're, if it's not a supply problem that you're dealing with, then a call is a really helpful way of just like eliminating just a very easy and quick and painless way to eliminate people from the list. Yeah. Because you can just immediately check, do you vibe over FaceTime? Exactly. Because if you don't, or if they don't have an iPhone, then they're just like cut from the list. Immediately. I think it's two things. So I think firstly, what you said, like, okay, are we clicking at all? Or is this just

Like, do I know right from the bat that this is not going anywhere? And also I think maybe particularly as a woman, just making sure it's someone who isn't like weird or that feels, you know, I don't know, dangerous or anything like that. And for men as well, something can be like a catfish. But yeah, I think it's always good to have a video call with someone. Okay. Yeah. What are some other, I guess,

Things that you've learned over the years, the kind of tips that you share with people. So I guess one of them is have a video call. Yeah, have a video call. Anything else? Giving people a chance. I think we're very quick sometimes when we go on a date with someone. Being like, oh, they're wearing the wrong shoes. Or they said something that didn't fully align with something that I believe in. And we might eliminate them for these reasons that may be something that is not right.

shouldn't be a determining factor if you want to have a serious relationship with someone. If you're just looking for something casual, maybe you're more shallow because, I don't know, something like that. But if you're looking for something long-term, I think not overlooking someone completely just because something does not fully resonate with you or...

because they seem to be different from you in some way. Like most things, it could probably work despite them being... Weird in some way. Yeah. Because we all have things that are... Like someone's going to be like, oh, you do that? That's kind of strange. I don't do that. Yeah. And just being more... Like if you're a YouTuber, for example, and people are just like, what the hell? That's a bit weird. It is a bit weird to some people. And some people get scared. They're like, oh, that's... What does that mean? So I think just giving people more of a chance, but not...

Not to the extent where you see someone for a month and you're not feeling it, right? Because then it's like, okay, you've been seeing this person for a month. You've gone on, I don't know, eight dates and there is...

nothing happening in your body, you're not excited, you look into their eyes and there's nothing drawing you in, then it's probably not your person. So somewhere between one date and eight dates. Yeah. Well, eight dates is kind of a lot. In How to Not Die Alone, her rule is the two-date rule, which is that always go on the second date unless there is like a major red flag on the first and then you can decide after the second date. Because normally people are a bit weird on the first date anyway. It's a bit unusual and uncomfortable. And the second date gives another shot.

Again, assuming there's no massive red flags. Yeah, I think so. I think that's reasonable. Unless you meet them and you just really are not interested at all. You don't even want to listen to them talk because there's no chemistry, then maybe not a second date. But I think that's generally good advice. If it's a maybe, I think that's good enough.

I don't really buy this whole thing of it has to be a hell yes from the beginning. Because does that happen a lot to people? I have a hard time believing the majority of people are like, oh yeah, from the moment I saw this person, it was just perfect and I knew. I think most people land somewhere in between

Yeah, it was okay. I was willing to see this person again. I think it's okay to expect that and not expect fireworks and having a jungle jumping up and down on your stomach the first time you see them. I don't think that has to be necessary. Nice. What do you think? Yeah, no, I agree. I'm very aligned with that. Do you think you need to feel all the butterflies and everything the first time you...

see someone yeah no probably not um i'm thinking yeah this is the this is the thing i've always kind of had had in my mind as a question mark of like how long do you give it because if i think of people who i like who i had a crush on at like university if it wasn't someone i was immediately attracted to from day one then it took like months to years of getting to know them to be like oh hang on like we get on really well like wow she's kind of cool you know that kind of vibe and i

it wouldn't have happened within like one, two or three dates in that case. And so at one point I had a three date rule in my mind of like, look, maybe my standards are too high. Maybe I'm just like, I'm just doing this wrong. I'm going to always go on at least three dates, assuming the other person is down for it. And then I did this once or twice and I was like, no, I liked it two or three times. I was like, I mean, I kind of knew from date number one that we weren't going to get on, but I just forced myself to go on the rest, which seemed a bit unfair in hindsight. And so it's like, I was always a bit unsure as to

How do you know whether it's just like dead in the water completely or if it's like a maybe? And I think that was sort of where I landed on of like, if I'm at least a maybe, then it's worth going on the second date. With my current girlfriend, it was fortunate that it was a hell yeah from day one. And so I didn't have that issue to deal with. And it was really the first time that I dated someone in a long time where I was looking forward to the second date.

Because previously what I always had was like, damn, it's in the calendar. That's a good sign. I should probably go on second date because the books say so. But yeah. Okay. Well, so you had that hell yeah. I had the hell yeah, yeah. Nice. Which makes me a bit suspicious because I'm like, oh.

I wish like a rule had come to fruition and then I could have been like the rules really good. Yeah, exactly. Alrighty. So we were talking about dating. What advice would you have for guys who are dating? Like do's and don'ts. What, yeah. What do guys need to know in your view when it comes to dating? Well, I feel like it's not a lot of guys' favorite thing when a woman gives dating advice.

Somehow when I do this and I like try to give advice to men some people get upset saying I don't know. How dare you? Yeah, like how dare I? Okay, so in that case from from your perspective What have been some things that guys have done that have like turned you off or like that have been particularly good? Okay, so from my perspective. We're not speaking for all guys here, but it's purely for you. Exactly, it's purely from my perspective.

Honestly, things like basic hygiene. What does basic hygiene look like? It's true. Brushed teeth, smelling nice, clothes that look like you cared at all to come on this date. Because some people will think it's happened that someone comes and

I don't know. It doesn't look like they care. Because usually, like, if I go on a date, I will, you know, I'll care and I'll just up and I'll fix my hair. And so you kind of want to feel like the other person is meeting your effort. Okay. So if they rock up in just like tracksuit bottoms with like, as if looking as if they've just come from the gym, then... Unless you're into it. Maybe like some people are. So that's why it's so hard speaking in general terms. But personally, I want to feel like, I mean, you don't have to wear a suit. That's not what I'm talking about. You can wear jeans and a t-shirt, but have it look...

Okay. So not like a crumpley t-shirt, at least maybe trying to own it. Exactly. Like you want to feel like this person put some effort in. Okay. Because it makes you feel like,

Because it's kind of like the halo effect, right? Where you feel like, okay, they put effort into this, so there's someone who cares and they put effort into other things. Whereas if someone shows up and they haven't cared at all, at least it doesn't look like they cared at all, you kind of start thinking, oh, there's someone who is just careless and they, you know, you start applying it to so many other areas, which may not even be true, but you don't know. You can only go off of your first impression. So I think basic hygiene. Okay. Anything else? Ooh, um...

Being interested, I think, is important. It's definitely... I've had the experience where someone... Where you get the impression they just wanted someone to rant to. Kind of. And that's not very pleasant. I mean, you want it to be a mutual exchange of getting to know each other where you're asking questions and they're asking questions. And I know a lot of people struggle with this, but I think eye contact is important. Because I think the eyes, when you're going on a date with someone, is...

They say so much to partly what you're feeling about the person. Does it feel like there could be, you know, a romance there or does this feel very platonic? So I think if you're struggling with eye contact, try to practice eye contact. Not like you don't have to stare at someone's eyes, but giving them the chance to see what it feels like to look inside your eyes. And I think it just creates more of a connection.

So that's why I think if you're going on a walk, even just looking over at the person instead of just walking straight ahead without looking at them at all, it makes you appear less engaging in my experience with the person and you want them to feel engaged with you.

And then I think as cliche as it sounds, being yourself, you know, not trying to present, obviously put your best foot forward, but also don't try to present a perfect version of yourself that doesn't exist. Because if you guys keep dating, you know, your true self is going to

come out eventually. And then they're going to be like, wait, I thought you were this super clean, you know, organized, sporty person. And here you are. All you want to do is do this and that all day. And so not pretending because you don't want someone to like you when you're not being you. That's kind of pointless. You want them to like you when you're being you. So

I feel like I can go on and on about this topic. Yeah, I mean, okay, so personal hygiene, being interested, being yourself, eye contact, anything else? I mean, those are the very basics. And then I think also accepting the fact that this may or may not be something that is going to

Like there may or may not be a second date. So not putting too much pressure on, okay, this has to go well and they have to like me. And what can I say to make them want to see me again? And rather kind of seeing it as...

Like, do you like them? Do you guys have chemistry? Like, is this, do you feel like you could be friends too? Instead of putting all this pressure on, is this going to be my next girlfriend? Am I going to marry this person? Like, sure. If that's what you're looking for, you might have those questions in the back of your mind, but giving you more of a chance of like, okay, this is just someone I'm meeting and we're just going to see if we're vibing and if there is something there that we want to keep building on or not.

And trying not to put too much weight on it, I think. Because then you're going to be nervous and stressed. And that may make you behave in a way that isn't actually you. And that may ruin things. So try to keep the nerves in check. Which is hard. Especially if you're interested. Because you're going to be more nervous if you see someone and you're like, oh wow. This is someone that I feel I could be interested in. That's going to make you more nervous. But...

find a mantra maybe or something that you keep telling to yourself like i'm just seeing this person another human being and we're going to take it as it goes do you have any advice for a woman good question yeah i've been on very few like bad dates okay what's the bad date yeah that's the thing i don't really know um i've had like a few where we just haven't really clicked yeah but that's like really useful to know like and there's nothing that

I or them could have done to force that connection. I feel like most of the women I know have had a lot worse experiences of being on a bad date. Because I guess for a guy, worst case scenario, the date's kind of boring. For a girl, worst case scenario is really bad. So I think most women I know have had a lot more, yeah, their share of bad experiences. Yeah. And I think not making the first date too extravagant

because you don't want to put that pressure on either of you. So some people, let's say the guy in this example, may think that it's impressive asking a girl on a three-meal course or like a, I don't know, something that's kind of over the top to somehow impress her. And again, some women might enjoy that. Personally, for me and my girlfriends and what we talked about,

We're all, we all agree on the fact that the first date should be very simple, like a walk and a coffee or something like that. Like maybe like a small picnic, not more than that, because you also don't want to put the pressure on her to like stay throughout a three course meal, let's say, if none of you are feeling it. And I think the best way of getting to know someone

Like getting an idea of who someone is is through doing something very simple together, such as taking a walk or a coffee or like a small lunch at most, I think. What do you think? Do you think first extravagant dates are... Not fun. I like doing something on the first date. Okay. Some people say... So...

One of the classic examples of dating advice for guys that other guys would say is never do lunch or coffee because that creates a sort of platonic friends kind of vibe. Whereas going for drinks or dinner creates a little like at nighttime, there's just a little bit more of a less of a we're just friends kind of vibe. I've always kind of ignored that advice because I really like doing lunches and breakfasts and brunches and coffees. I'm not a huge fan of dinner on the first date. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I don't think that either. I mean, I think lunch or coffee is great. I don't think it has to be at nighttime. Sure, nighttime inevitably kind of feels a little bit more intimate, a bit more romantic maybe. But I think there's something very wholesome about taking a morning walk with someone or meeting at noon and grabbing a coffee. Yeah, I much prefer that approach because I feel like

For me anyway, most interactions with the person are not going to be intimate nighttime romantic setting. They're going to be like the day-to-day, what's it like grabbing a coffee with you? What's it like having lunch? Exactly. And I think setting that out on the first day and just seeing what that vibe is like is quite nice. I agree. You put out a video recently called something like self-care is killing you or something like that. Yeah. I changed the title so many times. Oh, you did? Okay. Yeah. What is self-care and why?

What are your broadly, broadly your thoughts on the concept of self-care? I think with the self-care trend, my definition of self-care also became like doing a face mask and, you know, relaxing and watching an episode of something without feeling guilty and making a green juice or, you know, reading a book just for fun. Kind of the opposite of working and the opposite of hustling and all of that.

And to some extent, you know, I bought into it, but I think I bought into it too much where I started feeling like doing all these things weren't actually making me feel good in the long run. So there are some things that make me feel good in the long run. Like I actually feel good when I work hard on a video and I actually feel good when I have something in my life go well that I've been working on.

That makes me feel good in the long run, even if in the moment I might feel resistant. Like I feel good when I've been working out consistently for a long time and eating well and all of that. And in the moment that might feel like, oh, well, it's not self-care because you're not actually wanting to do the thing. You would rather relax and you deserve to relax. And I think it's been very emphasized that we should just relax and we should, you know, we shouldn't work too hard and we should take care of ourselves and,

yes, to some extent, yes. But also I think it's easy to let those things become a distraction and an escape, like an excuse for not doing what you should be doing in the name of self-care. And I think I fell into that. And so now self-care to me is thinking, is this serving future me or am I escaping something right now? Like, am I putting on

a face mask when I should be working on the script just because I deserve some self-care. So yeah, I think in a nutshell, self-care to me right now is just serving my future self. So sometimes that might be the face mask, but sometimes it might be actually cranking out the video. Yeah. Like it's not not self-care just because it feels a bit difficult or because I feel resistant because a lot of the good things or things that

are going to be good for us in the long run are things that are a bit uncomfortable or where there is resistance in the moment. So I think that's okay. And we can lean into that and know that it's going to give us... Like the benefits may come in the long run rather than...

rather than using self-care as a way to escape from responsibility, which I think is easy to kind of fall into. Like, oh, well, I deserve this four-hour break. And kind of, I think it's easy falling into that mindset. And it's like, where do you draw the line between I'm taking care of myself and relaxing and I'm procrastinating and escaping what I should be doing? How do you find that balance? I don't know. So I like to... I...

I don't like the phrase should be doing because usually that implies someone else's priority rather than my own. Sometimes it's a should be doing because it's my own thing. Like I shouldn't go through the McDonald's drive-thru at midnight because generally eating that would be an unhealthy choice and I want to be the sort of person who eats healthy. But when it's the context of, oh, I should film this video right now.

I always have a bit of an allergic reaction to that because I think back in the day when the channel was just starting out, you know, that consistency was very important. But I feel like over time, I don't know, just sort of thinking aloud here, but I sort of feel like I already have enough. And when I say I should film this video, like who's the should behind that?

Is it me thinking I should film the video because even though I don't want to, or I don't feel like it right now, is it, I should film this video because this is going to be a good video. It's going to cause growth, which is going to increase the revenue. But it's like, why am I trying to grow? Why am I trying to raise revenue? Like I already have enough. Like, and I get into this weird thing where it's almost like,

Have you come across the midwit meme? No. Okay, so I'm going to try and describe it for people. So imagine like a bell curve, and it's like an IQ bell curve, where you've got 100 IQ in the middle, you have like 60 IQ on one end, and you have like 150 IQ on the other end, and you have like a normal distribution. And the meme is basically that like, the person who's like got an IQ of 60 would say, I just use Apple Notes.

The person of an IQ 150 also says, "I just use Apple Notes." But the person in the middle is like, "I use Notion and Roam and Evernote and this and that. I have my PKM system. I have my Zettelkasten, et cetera." It's all that shit. On the other end of mastery, there is simplicity and it's full circle vibes. I often think of it as there is a version of the midwit meme whereby

The person with IQ 60, with all of the caveats aside that this is problematic, I'm just trying to describe a meme for God's sake. With all those caveats aside, the person who is IQ 60 says, I just do what I feel like. The person with IQ 150 says, I just do what I feel like. And the person in the middle is like, I manage my to-do list, I use my thing, I've set up my most important task every day, I do my getting things done method, capture, clarify, organize, reflect, engage, blah, blah, blah. But actually, on the other side of that, there's like...

I just do what I feel like doing. And actually that works out. And so I'm trying to be more of that guy. I'm trying to be more like, instead of coercing myself to do things I don't want to do in the moment, let me just actually do what I feel like. Because I think I've gotten to the point where generally, even if I just do what I feel like, things are broadly okay. But I don't know if I'm, yeah. Well, so how's that with things like working out? Yeah. So this is where this starts to become a problem because- Like eating healthy or things like that. Yeah. So the way I think of it is that

Okay, so rewinding me. There is a strategy that sociologists use to run studies on whether life is worth living broadly. So if you ask people, is your life worth living? Most people would say yes.

But you can't really take the word for it because they're just being asked in the moment. It's just a single sample of things. So one strategy that some people use is they would give someone like a pager or ring them like maybe 20 times in the day. And they would ask the question of like, hey, so you're taking part in this study. What are you doing right now? And they might be like, I'm making a cup of tea or I'm writing a script for a video or I'm doing some video editing or I'm working out. And then they would ask them,

If you could press a button, would you fast forward to the end of this experience? And you still get the benefit of the experience, but you don't have to experience the experience. And they see what percentage of people, like what proportion of your day would you choose to fast forward? And I can't remember the exact stat, but it's a remarkably large percentage of most people's workday they would choose to fast forward. Like even though I enjoyed working as a doctor, unless I was teaching medical students, which I would not fast forward because it was fun.

I couldn't wait to get to the end of the workday. I'd be like looking at the clock, like, "Oh, it's 5:00 PM. Yes, I can go home now." So I would choose to fast forward the workday. And actually, if you would choose to fast forward 10 hours of your life every day, that's pretty bad. And so I use this as a bit of a model to guide, am I living the sort of life I want to be living? Oh, I love that. And I would choose to fast forward working out with my personal trainer. And I recognized this a few weeks ago to be like, "This is bad.

I should find a way to stay healthy and exercise that I wouldn't choose to fast forward, like playing squash or tennis or badminton rather than trying to bench press. Because I'm like, why am I trying to get hench? Because I think I'm kind of trying to get six pack abs. I don't know. I already have a girlfriend. So yeah, I think the working out thing is a bit of a problem. Okay. Well, do you tell yourself then that you should be working out? Or how do you tell yourself that?

Because you don't want to tell yourself you should be working, right? But what do you tell yourself when it comes to working out or staying healthy? Like, how do you still do the thing without getting the allergic reaction that you talked about? This doesn't work 100% of the time. But broadly, I try and find a way to make it more energizing or make it more enjoyable in some way. Or I choose, I tell myself a story that actually, this is the person I want to be. And I want to do this. Like this morning, I was like,

When I was getting lunch, it was a choice between kind of the fried salmon or the grilled mackerel. And I was like, I want to be the sort of person that goes for the grilled mackerel because I want to live to 180 years old and I want to take care of my health. Therefore, I'm going to go for the grilled mackerel rather than I should go for the grilled mackerel. And so, again, it's just a little bit of an attitude change. Yeah. But I find that the word should implies a lack of autonomy. Yeah. And just removing the word should.

or even the phrase like i don't have enough time or i'm too busy like all of these are phrases that remove the the onus on us that we control our lives and even just changing the phrasing with that or i'm choosing not to make this a priority like i don't have time to learn language x i'm choosing to not make it a priority right now yeah it just feels way better even though it's exactly the same thing yeah no i agree i also try to change my phrasing sometimes but so with the graph they were talking about like the people on the

On each side of the graph are people who say, I don't need to do this thing or. Yeah, I just do what I feel like. I just do what I feel like. So who do you think are the people in the middle? Because I feel like the people at the very end are those who are in a position where, let's say like you, like they're already successful and they can choose. Right. So who do you think are the people in the middle? Oh, yeah. I was very much in the middle for most of my life.

where like I sometimes didn't feel like doing a video but I cranked it out anyway because consistency is important and because I knew I had this goal I was working towards of financial independence but now that I've arrived at that okay the temptation is to be more growth growth growth but I have to like what I tell myself is actually no this is fine

Okay. I have enough. So getting to that point, was that the financial independence that got you to a point where you could be like, I do what I feel like? Was that the... That was always the goal. Like ever since I read The 4-Hour Workweek back when I was like 17, I was like, you know, this is the future that I want where I can choose to work if I feel like it, but I don't have to. So besides enjoying what you're doing, how do you keep staying motivated when you already have what was your biggest goal with all of this?

which was financial independence. How do you continue finding meaning in doing this? Because you're doing a lot too. It's not just videos. I mean, it's a podcast and stuff. Yeah, so many things, courses and all of that. So what continues to drive you? So let's put the courses aside because the thing that drives the courses is I want to make more money so that I can sustain the business, et cetera, et cetera. The thing that drives me now, honestly, is that I want to be helpful to people. And I

The way I discovered this was I asked myself, what would I want written on my gravestone? And the answer was three things. Good father, good husband, and like inspirational teacher or something like that. And then I asked myself, okay, what do I want people to say at my funeral? Like different sorts of people, close friends, family, someone who's come across my work. And I'd want people to say that like,

I was watching Ali's YouTube channel or I read Ali's book or I listened to Ali's podcast and he taught me something or he introduced me to an idea that then changed my life. And so that's the thing that drives me now of like, I get to be a teacher to people and I can learn cool shit and share stuff with people and some of it helps and some of it doesn't help. And like, I'm trying to not allow money to be the motivator, but I think that's a thing I have to constantly reaffirm to myself.

because by default society and actually really on this podcast i often interview people who are like kind of decamillionaires from selling their business and stuff and it starts to become it's it's easy to be like oh i wish i had 10 million plus in the bank and then you speak to them and they're like i i often ask you know like are you any happier i'm like it was fun and so it seems like even the people who are stupidly successful enjoy the process focused on the journey and the result was almost inevitable um so i try and keep that in mind okay

Yeah. How about you? How do you motivate yourself to do something when you don't feel like it necessarily? I think it's mainly two things. And I think it's both of the things that you mentioned. So the first thing is just sustaining what I'm doing and being able to continue doing it financially and yeah, sustaining the whole thing and potentially getting some other people on board and building more out of it. And then with that being said, none of it would mean anything if what I was doing wasn't actually helping anyone.

there would be no point and no motivation. So I think it's those two things mainly. And even on bad days, just reading a comment from someone, like if there's a day where I'm like, I just really don't feel like doing the same right now or writing or editing or whatever it is,

And then I'll, cause I have a folder with comments that I've saved. Oh, same. Really? Yeah. From like comments that really were like, oh, that's so nice that I've saved. And sometimes I'll look at that and be like, wow, like someone wrote that after watching something that I put out there. And so sometimes that's enough to just fuel me and want to continue. So, um, yeah, so much of it is just a community and the people.

Yes. You talk a lot about journaling. I do. You've got a new Skillshare class about memoir journaling. Yeah. What is journaling? What is memoir journaling? Why is it good? So I've been journaling forever. I mean, since I was eight or nine. Well, at the time, it was keeping a diary. Okay.

writing about my day or who was going to invite to my birthday party or things like that. But also some pretty surprisingly sort of insightful things, like when I look back about what I felt about my friends or things like that. But I've been journaling for so long and I know for sure that I would not have a YouTube channel had I not been journaling because that's where I do so much of my thinking and so much of that is what

creates the videos is things that I've been writing about and thinking about by writing about it. And so memoir journaling is just a concept that I made up, which is basically writing about a moment in time, or it can be a present moment, it can be a past moment, and writing about it in a way like you're telling a story about that moment. And you want that story to be as detailed as

as possible. And it's a way to not only remember parts of your life through, instead of being like, let's say you go on a first date with someone and you want to write a memoir journaling entry about it. Instead of being like, yeah, we grabbed a cup of coffee. It was fun.

you go into more detail of like, okay, what was the atmosphere? Were you sitting at a cafe? And what was the feeling there? And what could you see? And was there music playing? And do you think that music affected the mood? And kind of going into too much detail just to really bring that moment to life. And what it's helped me do is, well, partly it's, I think, a beautiful thing, keeping an archive of having so many moments so carefully documented.

And also just helps me pay more attention, I think, in everyday life and notice things a bit more and appreciate things more instead of just rushing through life and kind of be oblivious to. It's kind of like a stop and smell the roses kind of thing in a nutshell. And I know you journal too. Yeah, I've been doubling. I've done it on and off for the last several years.

But I really started taking it seriously about like three or four months ago. What do you think are the benefits of journaling? Oh, it's so good. It's like personal therapy. Yeah. I find like I ask myself, how am I feeling right now? And then try and identify my feelings. And usually if there's something negative, I'm like, huh, why do I feel a bit weird? Oh, yeah, it's because the YouTube video I recently put out didn't do very well. Huh, why do I feel weird about that? Oh, it's because I'm kind of worried that blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's sort of...

The spiral of I'm worried I'm going to end up broken, homeless and alone. When it's on paper, I'm just like, okay, obviously this is dumb. And like, I can choose not to feel like that. And then that helps kind of reaffirm this thing around. I can just make videos about what I want and I don't need to worry about sponsors or about this or about that. And so journaling is like almost that daily like meditation to reaffirm a particular like affirmation or something. Yeah. Like it gives you perspective.

Yeah. That you wouldn't have otherwise. Yeah. I think that's super helpful. Yeah. Have you got any tips for people who might be listening to this and think, oh, journaling sounds fun? Yeah. I think it's a little bit like the starting a YouTube channel thing where I get questions like, what should I journal on? And do you recommend the specific notebook? Or, you know, all these things that just kind of make you not do the thing because you're so worried about all the things surrounding the thing that you actually want to be doing. So I think just not putting too much

energy and thought into what pen should I write with and should I write on my computer or just like open up your notes app and write five sentences or what or what you're feeling like or what's on your mind and don't overthink it um

I journal everywhere. I have my notebook. I have Google Docs. I have a notes app on my phone, which probably has most of my journal entries at this moment. Because it's very in the moment and you don't want to think about it too much. So just getting started. And it's a bit of cringe as well. Some people are like, oh, that's so cringy. I can't write about what I'm feeling and

And it's kind of embarrassing sometimes just viewing your own thoughts because sometimes they don't make sense or sometimes you don't want to feel that way. And so I think just putting that aside and being a bit nicer to yourself and being like, it's totally fine to feel this way, even if it's not something that I'm proud of or that I would want to share because you don't want to have to share it. You can just keep it to yourself. And that's what most people do with their journaling entries. Yeah.

So getting over the cringe and the overthinking and just start writing and see where it takes you. And also don't worry about your handwriting or like using the right words or not making it look messy or, you know, I think the perfectionism is something that can delay a lot of things in life, such as journaling or starting a channel or whatever it is that you want to do. So just letting some of that go and...

going for it because there's not going to be a negative outcome like nothing's going to happen because you wrote down a few sentences in your notes up you'll be fine yeah i think there's a lot of value in actually identifying our own feelings about the things which we might not be admitting to ourselves but when it's on paper then it's just like oh yeah i understand myself a bit better now

And I found that like, it also makes life slow down a bit in that one thing I do with the bullet journal these days is every day at the end in the evening, almost every day, I write down a few things I'm grateful for. And I write down based on Matthew Dix's book, Storyworthy, what is one story worthy moment that happened today? And I have this little log and I've been doing this for the last like two weeks, last four weeks and sort of dabbled with it on and off in different periods as well. And whenever I have that practice of,

nightly journaling what happened today it feels like time slows down because now I'm like oh I actually am reflecting on my day and thinking about what happened and actively thinking about it and then I can look back through the list and be like yeah it feels like this month flew by but actually it didn't because all this stuff happened and that's really cool yeah so that's a nice nice experience and what do you what have you experienced have been the benefits of gratitude journaling like writing down the things you're grateful for

Honestly, none yet. What are supposed to be the benefits? Some people really swear by it. There was a Huberman Lab episode where he looked into the science behind this. He said that it doesn't really hold up. Oh, okay. But I mean, enough people do it that anecdotally, they always say that, oh, it helps you just be more appreciative. And it's that smell the roses moment in like a nice easy way. So I do try and focus on like the small things that are nice.

But I think I'm broadly good at being grateful for stuff. Not like outwardly, but inwardly. Okay. How do you know that? So there's that quote, I think, from Viktor Frankl, which is where, you know, whenever you're feeling particularly content, remind yourself that, you know, if this isn't nice, I don't know what is.

And I will often remind myself of that or I'll just remember that thought when something particularly fun is happening. Like this morning, I was sitting in a coffee shop working on my book introduction with a little flat white. I was like, oh, if this is a nice idea, I can't believe this is my job. Like, this is sick. This is really good.

When I do podcast interviews, sometimes that thought comes into my mind. Like when you said earlier that this is our job. Yeah. I was like, oh, this is sick. And just those moments of like, oh, this is actually really cool. Like this is the life that I've been aspiring to. And now I have that life. So I should enjoy it while it's here. Yeah. How do you think people can stay grateful even when they're not actually living the life that they want? Like when they're not living the dream? Yeah.

I mean, I can't pretend to offer advice on this, but I will cite Mo Gowdat, who's done loads of research into happiness, who said that.

uh the key is to compare down rather than compare up okay because it's very easy to compare yourself to someone who is quote made it and be like oh i don't i don't have that lifestyle yeah but really there's a lot of benefits you get from comparing down and being like i'm so glad i have a roof over my head i'm so glad i'm not living in poverty right now like i'm so glad like and and in a way

being grateful for the fact that you are alive and in good health and have a job in or like whatever that thing might be yeah and there's always people out there who have it worse than you and so as crass as it sounds like comparing yourself to them is way easier to be grateful than comparing yourself to the influencer on instagram who's got five million followers yeah

Yeah. Yeah, totally. How do you think about that? I think I just remind myself kind of the way that you described, like what I said about sitting here or if I'm spending time with someone who's making me very happy, I'll be like, wow, I can't believe I have this person in my life or just, yeah, those reminders. And I think when you do it enough, they're kind of automatic. You don't really even have to think about, oh, wait, I should remind myself at the end of the day what I'm grateful for because you've kind of trained your brain into understanding

and appreciating things throughout the day. And yeah, those reminders kind of come automatically, especially when things aren't going well and you're happy. It's a bit harder when you feel like things aren't going well and you aren't feeling that well. It's a bit more difficult finding things to be grateful for, even if there's always something to be grateful for. But it's a bit more challenging. But yeah, I think just the small moments and being like, wow, I can't believe

I get to be in London today and I can't believe, you know, just appreciating that and not taking things for granted. Nice. Any, so changing gears a bit, are there any books that you've read that have had a big impact on your life to date? Yeah. So I always say my favorite book is Stoner by John Williams. It's a novel. I'll check it out.

which might be surprising. You might think that a self-help book or a nonfiction at least would have the biggest impact on your life. I'm getting audible right now. It's a great book. I wish I could read it again, like for the first time. And I don't even really know why because it's not a book where a lot is happening or where it's this dramatic thing where you're going to find out what's going to happen later. And it's a very simple book with very beautiful writing.

And I think it changed my life in a way that it just made me see the beauty in simplicity in a way that I hadn't really seen it before. And it made me think about how fascinating people's lives are, even if they're not living a life.

extravagant lifestyle. Like everyone's story is interesting somehow. Like there's so much happening in everyone's lives all the time. Even those who think that their lives are boring or that they're not experiencing enough things. Like just being alive and going about your day. There are always things that I think are fascinating to learn about anyone. Even if on paper they're not like a...

business owner or they're not someone who was achieved xyz and you know i think that's what the book kind of made me realize because the main character stoner he's uh he's living a very average life yet it's filled with so much emotion and so many lessons so i think that's what

drew me into it. Nice. I'll start listening to it on Audible today. Thank you very much. Let me know what you thought. Lana, thank you so much. This has been absolutely wonderful. Any final message for people who might have listened to the three hours of this? Is it? Yeah. It's like five o'clock now. We started recording at like two. That's crazy. Yeah. Any final parting words of wisdom? Words of wisdom. That sounds like I'm a philosopher or something. You're a philosopher, yeah. Seneca and all that. I think just...

Some final words of wisdom. I just don't like seeing people waste their potential. That's one of my pet peeves. And I just want people to try the thing that they're thinking about. If that's starting a channel or changing your major or moving out, whatever it is that's this itch that you have in your body and in your mind where you're like, I can't get this thing out of my mind. This is your sign to try it and go for it and see what happens. Brilliant.

Well, thank you very much. We'll put links to all your stuff in the show notes and in the video description. And thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. All right. So that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are going to be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other

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