← Kreatures Of Habit Podcast 
Kreatures Of Habit Podcast
How Technology is Hijacking Our Minds with Mindless Labs | Kreatures of Habit
00:54:38
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- [00:00]
Entrepreneur Dad
The most distracting, painful, penetrating thing in our lives today that impact mental health is cell phones and technology.
- [00:12]
Mental Health Advocate
One of the things that I have definitely been aware of of my life is what I consume, and that goes from, like, food to content and all who I surround myself with. And I have a pretty hard boundary with social media. For myself personally, I can feel when it starts to be a negative thing. For me, it can be a really powerful thing to have social media at the, you know, in the palm of our hands. But if it's taking away from your kids, if it's something that you're stuck in and your kid's yelling at you and you're not paying attention, well, like, what's the bigger picture here? Like, is this helping you or is it hurting you in the long run?
- [00:47]
Chris
I think the problems we're dealing with is the human condition that we've been dealing with for thousands of years. And so I think it's just like, it's all part of the human experience. And each generation has something that they have to overcome that is tied to the human condition. And ours certainly has to do with technology. The same thing our grandparents went through, it's the same thing we've been going through through thousands of years is the human condition. It's like, it's, it's dealing with what's going on between your ears and, you know, in your heart. An entrepreneur straight out of New York City, Michael Chernow. What's cracking.
- [01:35]
Entrepreneur Dad
Mental health? Right? It's. I mean, you guys are, are fully engulfed in the world of mental health. And I have battled with mental health for a long, long time. And, you know, I, I, what I. What I do want to kick off the podcast in saying is there's mental health and then there's. There's like, mentally healthy and mentally unhealthy. And for some reason, we've categorized mental health as a someone struggling with something. How's your mental health? And I think people that battle with some sort of mental disorder in some way, shape or form, go through hills and valleys, whether, you know, with being mentally healthy and mentally unhealthy. You know, so what you guys are doing with mindless labs is super cool because you are offering resources for people free of charge to really navigate. And I would imagine that you have seen a massive explosion of people dealing with mentally unhealthy, you know, situations. The pandemic was a big one. But what I think the pandemic did was, was create behaviors with people that kept them from connecting with other human beings. And we were Just talking about this, right? Like, when. When did Mindless Labs kick off?
- [03:20]
Chris
So we actually launched the brand in 23, and then we launched product this year. So. So we've had the app and we've had an apparel line for four months now. So we're kind of just barely getting into that. But we've been kind of publishing content and partnering with mental health professionals for.
- [03:41]
Mental Health Advocate
About a year and a half.
- [03:42]
Chris
Yeah, a year and a half. Two years.
- [03:44]
Entrepreneur Dad
And. And the. The. You guys, essentially, the. The apparel is kind of like supporting the app, correct? Like supporting the. The.
- [03:51]
Chris
The.
- [03:51]
Entrepreneur Dad
The. The meat of the business.
- [03:54]
Mental Health Advocate
Yeah, that's the idea. I mean, one of the biggest barriers to getting mental health care for people is cost. So if we can push this apparel that brings awareness and branding to what we're doing, and it is able to support access and cost to a free app with the resources that people need, that. That's a little bit of a different take on mental health and helping us break down one of the barriers. We talk a lot about the three barriers to getting help, you know, our access, cost, and stigma. So if people are wearing the apparel, that's kind of breaking the stigma, talking about mental health on a lot of our items, that's with the purchase. Granting people free access to our app, and then cost is, you know, removing that barrier as well. We're kind of trying to, like, hit it from all sides and remove these barriers. So access, cost, all that isn't in the way from everyone having the care they need to not feel alone when they're struggling with all these things.
- [04:42]
Entrepreneur Dad
What have you guys seen since launching, Like. Like. Like what kind of consistencies or what sort of common threads have you seen?
- [04:53]
Chris
I have seen something very similar to what you started talking about, is that mental health is a spectrum we get. I don't know when this happened, but it's like the word mental health became synonymous with, like, illness, right? And we all have a level of health, and we're somewhere along this spectrum. And we were just in a presentation by a professor from University of Utah who specializes in reducing in research that reduces mental health stigma. And he said one of the. This was crazy. I didn't know this, but one of the best things that we can do to help reduce the stigma is recognize that we all have some level of mental health, and some people are temporarily on this kind of the low end of the spectrum, and some people are temporarily on the high end, and we kind of move back and forth, and some people maybe are more often on the high end. Or more often on the low end. But it's like we're all in this together. And so what I've seen since we launched is like a lot of different levels. Some people are dealing with depression where parts of their brain shut down that want to do anything besides hibernate, you know, and, and they're somewhere on that spectrum and that's difficult. And someone else is maybe in. In kind of a fight orf flight mode. And so they're feeling anxious and they are dealing with a lot of anxiety and. And someone else is maybe feeling better, but they're still like not self actualized or they want to be self actualized. And so they're working on like, what's the word I'm looking for their own performance in their life or optimizing their life. All three of those people are working on their mental health, so to speak. They're just at different, at different places and they need different things. Just like our physical body, you know.
- [06:38]
Entrepreneur Dad
Is there like a, is there like a certain resource that you guys offer on the app that you see people gravitating towards most?
- [06:46]
Mental Health Advocate
Oh, that's a good question. We do have a resource that we publish. I don't want to say what you call it, the Anxiety Survival Guide. And I mean, I think that we live in a world that is anxious, right? It's. I know I feel it quite frequently. And a lot of people we've discussed and had feedback on is like we are an anxious generation. There's so much going on in our world. And so I think that's a really well received resource that we've offered. We have a ton of stuff on there. So I mean you could probably speak to a little better in that world.
- [07:16]
Chris
Some of the things that people are most gravitating toward are different types of like calming breath. So we have a lot of different practitioners who do breath work. And so there's one that's my favorite called the crazy calm breath. And it's just a certain way of inhaling and exhaling and hold your. Holding your breath a little longer and also doing kind of a. Oh, what's it like toning with toning so that you initiate the vag or, or massage the vagus nerve a little bit and it really helps you calm down. So that, that seems to be one of our, our premier or not premier, but most used practices in the app.
- [07:56]
Mental Health Advocate
I saw you. Actually, I don't know where I saw this, but you were talking about you've done a lot of breath work coming out of Your mental health journey. I know that people think from time to time it's like a little bit woo woo. Do you feel like you tap into that world as well as the more traditional therapy world or what's the vein of mental health that you prefer?
- [08:14]
Entrepreneur Dad
Well, I mean, I would like to say that I've come out of my mental health journey, but we're always on it, right. I just feel like I'm just like, you know, I've got a reserved seat on, in the, you know, ideally I'd like to think the VIP bus on the mental health journey because I'm definitely taking action on it. You know, I've been in recovery for a long time. I've been sober. I celebrated 21 years sober in August.
- [08:39]
Chris
Congratulations.
- [08:40]
Entrepreneur Dad
Thank you. And that world. I feel blessed and grateful that I was able to, you know, at an early age be able to put a plug in the jug and really immerse myself in self love, self care practices. And what I learned is that I have a mental illness that is categorized as alcoholism. And alcohol is a like, sort of like a byproduct of my mental illness. But basically the illness tells me that I suck and that I'm not good enough. And I, and I think, you know, I had a, I had a, I had a double board certified neurologist and addictions specialist on the podcast about, mm, maybe about a year ago and he has spent the last decade of his career focusing on neurology and addiction. And is there actually a difference between an addict's brain and a non addict's brain? And he's concluded through human clinical studies that there is a difference and I actually have addiction. I'm not an addict, I have addiction. And that is like a real. For me having him on the podcast, that just, it's kind of silly, but it, it actually made me feel good to know that like, hey man, what you battle with, it's a real thing, you know, and you have found ways to treat it by abstaining from alcohol and drugs and connecting with as many people as possible. Because me alone, not the greatest situation, you know, like I could definitely find, you know, dig myself a hole. And so I have been very open to exploring all sorts of different alternative therapies to help me navigate this world. Because, you know, I mean, yes, I've experienced trauma and there's definitely, you know, but I don't think trauma is what I think trauma plays a role in some of the stuff that I've dealt with. But, but I do believe that I was kind of predisposed to this world of mental illness. It's actually in my family. It's in my family. So breathwork has been one of these tools that I have found to be incredibly effective in a very short term period and also in an extended long term period. The more in depth breath work that you've probably heard me talk about like the holotropic, I mean, is it holotropic or maybe it's holotropic breathwork. And the style of breathwork that I've done is called rebirthing, which is, it's unbelievable. I mean it's really, it's painful, it's hard. It's called breath work. It's definitely work. But it's taken me, it's opened up so many doors to make me understand and, and allow me to see things that have really, really, you know, helped pave the course for me. Like I've come face to face with my seven year old self. I saw my dead father who told me he loved me for the first time ever in a breath work.
- [12:17]
Chris
It's all during breath work.
- [12:19]
Entrepreneur Dad
All during.
- [12:19]
Chris
Probably not the same session, but different sessions. Amazing.
- [12:23]
Entrepreneur Dad
You know, like I have the, the very first breath work session I ever did, like in this style of breath work was one of the greatest moments of my life. Honestly. It was, it was, I felt and I had no idea what I was getting into. I was at an event and this guy who's now my breath work coach, Michael Gazzo, he had asked me if I'd done breath work before. And I said, oh yeah, like Wim Hof all day, you know. And he was like, it's a little different. He was like, just follow my lead. And there was like 15 other people there and we were under a tent in the middle of Georgia, like in the middle of nowhere. And like in this kind of breath work, it's a somatic experience as well. So like, you know, my hands will completely like cramp up and like my chest, it's like the lobster claws and you know, if you don't know to expect that, it's scary as hell. You think you're having a heart attack, you know, because it's really scary. Like it, it, it's, it's a just a very weird feeling. Anyway, I like jumped up and I was like, I'm dying. And he was like, no, no, just relax. Like it's okay. It's just oxygen. You've overdosed on oxygen. This is what we're trying to do. Like we're trying to give you Just an experience through the breath.
- [13:40]
Mental Health Advocate
It's a psychedelic experience. Anything but your own body doing it. I think it's more powerful than a lot of psychedelic drugs you could do.
- [13:50]
Entrepreneur Dad
I mean, I have not. I'm like, there are definitely people in recovery that go down the ayahuasca and the iboga and that whole thing. I have not gone down that path just because I know the kind of guy I am. And like, I would be the dude on a plane to Costa Rica every six weeks.
- [14:08]
Mental Health Advocate
You have the breath, like, right here every day.
- [14:10]
Chris
Psychedelics became or not be became, but it is kind of very in vogue. And I think, I think that's okay. I think there's a lot of good that is coming out of it. But that's the thing about breath work is you can have some of the exact same experiences from oxygen and from doing some work inside. And you will. You had an experience with your father who had passed. That's. That's incredible.
- [14:35]
Entrepreneur Dad
I mean, it was so real. And when I came out of that breath work, I obviously. I mean, almost every time I do breath work and I don't do it all the time, this kind of breath work, because it's. It's tough.
- [14:52]
Chris
It's work.
- [14:53]
Entrepreneur Dad
It's work, man. It's. You know, I do it probably once a month now. When I first started with Mike, we were doing it every two weeks and. But when I came out of that, I was. I told him what happened and I said, man, like, I just saw my father walk into the room, kneel down next to me, put his hands through my hair, whisper in my ear, I love you. And I wasn't looking for that. I wasn't. The intention wasn't to see my father. I just. He had always. He always asked me for an intention. I just said, I just want to peel back the onion further, you know, and he was like, you can chalk that up as, you know, of a. A vision or a manifestation or you can. Or that happened, you know, like, it's up to you, man, how you want to interpret that. So that's kind of the power of this stuff, right? Like, it has been. It has really helped me with my mental health. And. And I also want to just put in a little caveat to. To the psychedelics. I know how powerful that has been for people that struggle with addiction and, and also mental health and how, how. How much progress people have had with ayahuasca and ibogaine and MDMA and ketamine therapy. Like, I know that that has helped an enormous amount of people. So I don't want to, like, poo poo it in any way. I just know that when it comes to substance and me, I love it too much.
- [16:20]
Mental Health Advocate
Well, how cool. There's a way you can dip your toes. That's safe, right? I think that's what's cool, too. About the app. We talk about this a lot is like, one of the things is that, like, using an app to try out breath work or other therapy modalities, like, you're in the comfort of your own home, so you have to feel, you know, some of the breathwork sessions I've been to when I'm in a group of people, you're, like, screaming or crying, and, I mean, that's a little bit intimidating to be that vulnerable around a group of people. But if you can do it in the comfort of your own home and kind of like, test out the waters on what works for you for mental health, I feel like it's a little bit easier to ease into something that might seem a little bit scary.
- [16:54]
Entrepreneur Dad
Yeah.
- [16:54]
Mental Health Advocate
A group of people sharing your mental health journey with them.
- [16:58]
Chris
You know, I love what you're saying about, you know, what works for you. And the thing is, as I went through my own mental health journey and I. My mental health got really bad in 2017, I didn't know anything. All I knew was, go to therapy. I didn't know. There's all these different modalities of therapy. It's. It's like, you know, if you broke your leg and someone's like, you know, go to a doctor, but you end up at an ear, nose, and throat specialist, it's like, that's not where you want to go, you know, and so for us, we. We try to publish in the app, like, all the different modalities that exist, and then there's ways that you can kind of practice them and do some of some stuff on your own. And then if you like it, okay, now we'll go see a specialist who specializes in that. Like, one of the modalities that I really like is called inner family systems. And have you seen the Pixar movie Inside Out?
- [17:47]
Entrepreneur Dad
Yeah.
- [17:48]
Chris
And so the. The different parts of the self. Inside out is kind of based off of inner family systems. And so when you do therapy, that's. That's based on ifs in your family systems. Each part of you gets kind of its own personalization or its own character, so to speak, like the movie. And you kind of have a dialogue with that part of yourself. And so in the app, we have, like, a practice about ifs that you can. That a therapist walks you through how to do some of it on your own. Then if you like it, and it's like, oh, this. This could really help. This has helped. Well, then you can go find somebody who specializes in ifs, because there is a difference of, like, what you're describing, of. What was your breathwork coach's name? Max?
- [18:30]
Entrepreneur Dad
Mike? Gazo?
- [18:31]
Chris
Mike. There's a. There's a big difference of working with him one on one and doing, like, a breathwork practice in an app. That's going to be helpful. But it's. It's this human exchange that we talked about, like filming the podcast together. There is a human exchange with somebody who's a professional, and.
- [18:49]
Entrepreneur Dad
And.
- [18:50]
Chris
And you can't replicate it, but you can, like, get introduced to it, and you can start doing some of that stuff on your own to find what you like and then. And then go further down those paths.
- [18:58]
Entrepreneur Dad
Well, I think so. I also think, like, you know, so obviously we're talking about, like, intense breathwork, right? The Holotropic or the Rebirthing or, like, Dragon's Breath. You know, I haven't done that, but I've heard that that's pretty intense. There's. There's also the whole. A whole other world of breathwork that takes three minutes, right? Like, I'll give a. I'll give a story, an example of. So, like, you guys, I'm an entrepreneur, and that world only shuts off when you flip the switch down, right? Like, it could. You could be an entrepreneur 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without turning it off at all, right? And I've done that, too. And that's not a healthy way to leave live. Specifically in the world of mental stability. I've gotten way better at creating boundaries. There's. But about two years ago, I. Maybe a little longer than that. Three. Maybe three years ago, I was. I was. I didn't have this system that I had set up, this habit that I had set up where I was creating a buffer between work energy and. And. And home family energy. And I was just coming into my house, like, rushing in to be on time for dinner with this intensity of being an entrepreneur. And my kids don't care. They don't want. They don't want to see entrepreneur dad. Or maybe they do sometimes, but, like, not every day. You know, like, they want to see that dad's like a grinder, but. But not coming in with this intense energy, right? Like, they want their dad to, like, hug him and kiss him and love him and pay attention to him. And I was on my phone trying to finish up an email as I'm walking into the house. And my son was like, dad, dad, I want to tell you something about my day. And I like, ignored him. And he was like, dad, dad. And I was like, ignored him finishing up. And then he was like, dad. And I was like, dude, don't you see I'm working? And like, I just watched his face go from like, excited to see dad to like, what did I do wrong? I'm sorry. Like, what did I do? And it just crushed me. It crushed me. It crushed me. And that's when I realized, did you.
- [21:05]
Chris
Did you notice right in that moment or was it later that you reflected back on it right in that moment?
- [21:09]
Entrepreneur Dad
Because he turned around and he, he got sad and he turned around and walked. And I, and I like turn the volume up on my self awareness barometer immediately, which is something that I also, you know, have battled with. And I was just like, oh my God. Like, I just like that. What did I just do? I just destroyed that kid's day. All he wanted was for me to just pause, get down on a knee, get on his level, and listen to him tell me about the thing that happened in the, in the playground. And so that crushed me. Even just saying it out loud makes me sad to think about. So what I did was I said, okay, I need to figure out a system that is going to relieve this high intensity energy that I'm walking into the house with. And I don't know what I'm going to do, but I got to figure something out because I just can't do this anymore because it's just not fair. It's not fair for me. It's not fair for them. Specifically for them or my wife or anybody. Like, I gotta like shake this energy because it's intense. I'm trying to win at work all the time, you know, and it's not like I need to win with my family. I need to be me with the family. I don't need to compete with my family. I need to be me as a dad. And so I started doing breath work in the driveway and I, I pull my truck in, I turn the truck off, I take a deep breath, I put my hands on my, on my legs. And I do two different styles of breath work. I do box breathing for about five rounds and I'll open up my eyes after five rounds. And so just to everybody that's listening, box breathing is four breaths in four breath, four, four second breath. In four second breath hold. Four second breath out, four second breath hold. You just kind of go through that. And I would do that five times and I'd open my eyes and like, you can, it's crazy how fast that stuff, that stuff works is. You could really, if you do it with your eyes closed and then you open your eyes, you can feel like, have you calibrated? Have you sort of regulated your CNS at all? And I'll do that. And if I open my eyes and I'm like, nah, still pretty intense, I'll do this double inhale, long exhale breath. And I'll do that for five to 10 rounds. And it takes about three minutes. And I could honestly say that if I do both of those back to back, I am like baseline, if not better than baseline, like ready to just be a dad and a husband and whatever the hell is going on at work kind of stays on the other side of the driveway. And that's been super powerful. So, like, there's so many different styles of breathwork. You know, mental health is like, I think arguably the most distracting, painful, penetrating thing in our lives today that impact mental health is cell phones and technology.
- [24:13]
Mental Health Advocate
Absolutely.
- [24:14]
Entrepreneur Dad
How do you guys feel about that?
- [24:17]
Mental Health Advocate
I have pretty strong opinions about it.
- [24:19]
Chris
You go first.
- [24:20]
Mental Health Advocate
I can say just personally, one of the things that I have definitely been aware of of my life is what I consume and that goes from like food to content and all like what who I surround myself with. And I have a pretty hard boundary with social media. For myself personally, I can feel when it starts to be a negative thing for me. And I've just put some habits in place to make sure I know that I have regulations around it to me bring good things into me. So I only follow people that like, are uplifting and you know, if that's friends and I need to mute them, that's fine. I don't even put like a time boundary around it anymore because it's just gotten to the point where it's not something that I'm called to picking up. Like, you can bury the app on your phone. I've deleted it. So when I need to access it, you know, I have to redownload it or stuff like that. And those are things that I think when I've been in kind of a worse mental health space that I had to do to regulate it. But right now I can just feel like after all the work I've done to protect my energy, I can feel the shift when it starts to Come in and that noise starts to come in. I mean, I spent 15 years of my career working in television news as a broadcaster. And I would have to do a similar thing that you just shared about sitting in your driveway doing breathwork when I would come home from work. Because I'm sitting there all day looking at this horrible stuff that's happening in our world and consuming it, because I have to. So how do I kind of like shake that energy off and go back into like a more centered energy? So I had practices around that, but now, fortunately, having distance from that space and being able to regulate it more like I, I look at the news in order to be informed but not to be distracted in my life. And I kind of feel that way about social media. Like I want to see what's going on. I think it's a really powerful tool. And I mean, we have social media that we're putting resources out there for our business that I think would be a positive thing for someone to get in their feed. And there's a lot of that out there and there's a lot of good I get from my friends seeing their kids and people that live far away. But I am at a point where I can really feel when that shift happens. I'm sure you can. I'm sure everyone can. It's like we get in this, whether it's comparison or whether it's just negativity coming into our world. So I definitely think that it's a two sided coin, that it can be a really powerful thing to have social media at the, you know, in the palm of our hands. But if it's taking away from your kids, if it's something that you're stuck in and your kids yelling at you and you're not paying attention, well, like, what's the bigger picture here? Like, is this helping you or is it hurting you in the long run?
- [26:47]
Entrepreneur Dad
What do you think, Chris?
- [26:50]
Chris
I. I have to be delicate of how I say this because I do think those things can be very negative and they cause a lot of problems. I think the problems we're dealing with is the human condition that we've been dealing with for thousands of years. And like, for me going through my own journey, the thing I had to change in order to get to. How do I say this? The message my anxiety was trying to give to me was that I was holding beliefs that were not serving me, they were not in my best interest. I was believing these lies, so to speak. And what, like, that I wasn't good enough or that I was unsafe, that, that the world is an unsafe place. I learned that everything that I had to change my perception. Perception is my whole reality, is my whole experience. And the way I choose to perceive the world. And you have a choice over your perception. And if I, if I just let my perception go unchecked and just like, look at social media and think that that's reality, I will start to think like, I'm not good enough or, you know, I'm not doing enough. I'm not fit enough. I not handsome enough. But we've been dealing with that. Like, when I was a kid, they told us not to read fashion magazines because you will think that you're ugly. You know, it's like we've always had this. It's, it's a little exaggerated right now because we're so connected to so many things that are vying for our attention. But it's like, what. I just saw something this morning which was a quote from Senica that's like, we suffer more in imagination than in, in reality. And that quote is 2,000 years old. And that's the exact, like, definition of anxiety right now is we create these things in our mind that, that make us suffer. And so I think it's just like it's all part of the human experience. And each generation has something that they have to overcome that is tied to the human condition. And ours certainly has to do with technology. It's like we're going to see now AI coming in and it's. It's going to be hard to differentiate between what we see online if it's real or not. It's getting so good so fast. Like six months ago, I could tell what an AI generated video was. Now I'm seeing some bear crash into cabin chasing a deer while a guy's on a toilet. And I'm like, that looks 100 real, but I know it's not real. You know, but it's, it's bananas. Yeah, but technology is going quickly. But I think it's, it's ultimately the, the same thing our grandparents went through. It's the same thing we've been going through through thousands of years is the human condition. It's like, it's, it's dealing with what's going on between your ears and, and know in your heart.
- [29:48]
Entrepreneur Dad
I have made a decision that I am going off of a smartphone and I am going to be purchasing something called the Light Phone 3, which is a kind of like a. It kind of looks like a Kindle. It has a, A P, like A a originally I was like, oh, I'm.
- [30:09]
Mental Health Advocate
Going to the old thing that our parents had with us with the pen.
- [30:13]
Entrepreneur Dad
Oh yeah, that was called a Palm Pilot.
- [30:15]
Mental Health Advocate
That's what I'm picturing right now.
- [30:17]
Entrepreneur Dad
So it's, it's, it's, it's kind of like this matte black square and it has the ability to make phone calls, the ability to make tech, to get text messages, a calendar, gps and it does have a camera on it. And that's it. You cannot get on the Internet. You cannot obviously know social media apps. And I, because I know for me I am fully 100% addicted to my phone and I say that confidently and it still is hard to say because addiction is something that I just am squeamish about in general. I know that I'm addicted to my phone. And when, you know, when I'm like in New York City, I have also made a decision, like a conscious decision. If I'm on the train, I do not pull out my phone. If I'm waiting online for something, I do not pull out my phone. And because I've done that, I've been now able to observe other people and witnessing the mass blanket of addiction that we are all burdened with on this technology thing. We are living our lives way more through other people than in our own heads. And that is cannot be healthy. It just cannot be healthy.
- [31:42]
Chris
And it's hard to disagree with that. It's. That makes, I agree with that.
- [31:47]
Entrepreneur Dad
It's just, you know, like, just think about it like we are spending. Imagine. And this is the way I thought about it. Imagine. And by the way, not, it's not just social media, it's, it's emails, right? Like I have unfortunately set the expectation for the people that work with me and my vendors and partners, whatever, that I get back to emails and texts immediately, like immediately. Like right after this podcast, whether I like it or not, I am going to check my emails and my text messages and make sure that like I didn't miss anything.
- [32:22]
Mental Health Advocate
And there's also like an expectation that that's what makes you a great businessman. It's like, oh, they're so responsive. It's like people glorify that totally. You're on top of it, you're dependable, you'll get back to people.
- [32:32]
Entrepreneur Dad
But I am going to try to change that because I think it is unfair to expect people to live their lives in this unbelievably fast, hyper connected communication way. It's just business has been around for hundreds of years. If you wanted to get something done, it was either done on a conference call and prior to that it was done by written, letter or in person meetings. And by the way, some of the biggest deals of all time have happened prior to this technology boom, right? Like Rockefeller was made rich, not because he had a cell phone.
- [33:15]
Mental Health Advocate
So I have a question for you. Obviously it's more understandable for people perhaps to understand how addiction to drugs or alcohol can be a negative impact, but for you, why are you doing this? Like, for, is it a mental health negative impact that you're seeing when you're on your phone or is it affecting your relationships? Like, why are you switching to this other phone?
- [33:35]
Entrepreneur Dad
Because I asked myself this one question. What if I was able to take all of the time I spend on my phone and channel it towards my wife and children? Just think of that. How much time do I spend on my phone every day? Now let's take email and text messaging out of the equation, Social media, picking up the phone, habitually, looking through apps, checking this, checking that. If I was able to take all of that time and redirect it towards my wife and children, not saying that I'm not a present dad and husband, but if I was able to take all of that time, how much more time would I be spending with my wife and kids present and there available? And because I also asked myself the question, like we have been brought up, and I would imagine we're all roughly around the same age, we have been brought up to think that success is things in money. That is success, what kind of car you drive, what kind of clothes you wear, what kind of business you have or work within, what kind of vacations you take, what does your house look like, who your partner is or not? These are the things that have kind of defined success for us. And at the end of the day, in my opinion, success is how happy you are or unhappy you are is ultimately what is going to define in my, for me, success is, am I happy or am I unhappy? If I'm unhappy, I'm unsuccessful. If I'm happy, I'm successful. What makes me the most happiest in my life? Spending time with my wife and kids. That is when I'm the most happy, period. Done. It just is. And I know that that's not for everybody. Some people it's the opposite, right? But for me, it just so happens that that is when I am the most happy. And I battle in those times with my addiction to the phone. So let's figure out a way to be happy. More in life, how can I be happy more? Spending more time present and available for the people that I want to be with the most, which is my wife and kids. What steps can I take to actually make that a reality? Get rid of the fucking phone, dude. Like, just get rid of it. Because if I didn't have the phone, like, I'm not going to habitually pick up my phone. You know, it's like, it's a. It's. It's crazy. You know, like when you go to an event, you look around a room for people that are not there with a group of people, for people that are there kind of like by themselves or, you know, like a networking thing. Most people, the first thing they do is they walk in and they pull out their phone to hide behind.
- [36:34]
Mental Health Advocate
Absolutely. It's like a social lubricant.
- [36:36]
Chris
It's. They're uncomfortable, but also it's like, I've had to do those networking conferences, and it is so uncomfortable, you know, and you want to hide behind something, but you can't. If you want to be successful, you can't. And you can't hide behind something. But it's also what. I'm going back to the human condition. It's like, I love. I don't know exactly where this quote is from, but it was like, what makes a Buddhist a Buddhist? And it's. And they say, well, we. We eat, we go on walks and we sleep, or I don't know what the third one was. And they said, well, that's what everyone does. And they say, no, but when we eat, we know we're eating. When we walk, we know we're walking. When we sleep, we know we're sleeping. And it's having the being present in what you're doing. And so for you on the train, you know, maybe your wife and kids aren't even there, but it's so hard for us to be present in what we're doing. And that problem is a thousands of years old, you know, but now it's never been easier to not have to be present. It's like when I was a kid, it's like I would eat cereal and we'd read the back of the cereal box because there was nothing else to do, but we still didn't want to be present. So, like, you go to the bathroom and you're reading the back of the shampoo thing because it's like, I don't want to just sit there on the toilet, you know, but it's like, that's a human. That's the human condition. It's hard to be where your feet are. And that's also where happiness and joy is, is on the other side of that when you're just can sit on the train and be like, look, I'm around all these cool people. There's interesting people here. We're going through New York City, which is like, well, on the subway you're not going to see it. But each, each subway stop is different and it's got, it's decorated a different way. It's like be where your feet are and it's hard.
- [38:19]
Entrepreneur Dad
This time of year is one of my favorite times of the year. Not only because I love the fall and I love Halloween and Thanksgiving and leading into the holidays, I love that time of year. But it also happens to be hunting season. And I, when I moved out of New York City about six years ago with my wife and kids, we moved. We had a house upstate and we moved upstate. I had never hunted hunted before moving there full time. So I, I decided that I was going to teach myself how to hunt on YouTube because I have a big property and there's a lot of deer and no one hunts it. So I was like, man, like, if I can get my own venison, this would be awesome. I taught myself how to hunt and I am, I am obsessed with not killing animals. I am obsessed with being in the woods by myself from 4:45 in the morning till 8:15. Typically in the morning you cannot, if you want to be a successful hunter, you cannot look at your phone. You have to sit, you have to be as quiet as a mouse and you have to observe. You have. You are forced into being present. It is like one. I, I'm sitting here with you guys. I am present, but I am so goddamn excited to hunting on Friday morning because I am forced because I really want to be a great hunter because I love the sport of it and I love being in the woods by myself. When it's pitch dark out, it's scary and this. I get to watch the sun come up and I get to see the bird, like all the different birds. And I hear the squirrels and I listen to the squirrels like quarrel and it sounds like super whatever, but it's so therapeutic. And that's another reason that I have made this decision to just step away from the phone and look. I don't know if it's going to be a forever thing, but I am the kind of person thankfully now that will do what I say I am going to do. It's just If I say it out loud, I could think whatever I want. I could write down ideas all day long. But if I, if it passes my lips, I'm going to do it. And with the phone thing, I'm going to do it. And it's going to be a minimum of three months and I'm just going to see how I feel.
- [40:41]
Mental Health Advocate
It's going to be life changing.
- [40:42]
Entrepreneur Dad
I think so.
- [40:43]
Mental Health Advocate
I think it's going to change so much that you don't even understand.
- [40:47]
Entrepreneur Dad
I mean, I just like, imagine I can experiment with this and, you know, there's like 50,000 people that I write a newsletter to every Friday. And I share about everything in that newsletter. My life, I'm like an open book. I'm super vulnerable on it. And I, I said to the, to the community on last Friday, I'm gonna do this and, and I'm gonna share with you guys what it feels like, you know, as I'm going through it.
- [41:17]
Chris
Was there any response from.
- [41:18]
Entrepreneur Dad
Yeah, so I always get people responding. And, you know, I had a number of people that wrote back and said, hey, like I, I've done this and I'm just here to tell you there's going to be a massive withdrawal process for you, and it's gonna feel physical. Like physically, you're gonna go through a withdrawal. And I'm willing to experience whatever it is because I just know that life is not about. You know, our phones have the best life ever. They get the most attention. They get to experience things before we even do. Because you see something cool, you're like, boom, I'm gonna videotape this thing. And so the phones are actually getting that experience before we eat. It even hits our eyes. Like, it's crazy.
- [42:06]
Chris
That's one thing I stopped doing. I do not film at concerts or anywhere I'm at. It's like if I'm at a game anything, I'm experiencing this through my eyes.
- [42:15]
Entrepreneur Dad
You know, I want to share something that is really hard for me to share, but it is a truth. And I haven't said it out loud yet because I. So I made a promise and I broke my promise. I made a promise to myself that I would never be on the phone at my kids games. And I was really, really good about it. And last Saturday was the last week of both my son's soccer seasons. And I didn't tell my wife this yet. I certainly didn't tell my kids this yet. But I've been wanting, you know, both of my sons have been wanting to score a goal for they're both young. They want to score a goal. And on Saturday, the last game of the season, it was the end of the game, and I'm sitting there with Finn, who's sitting right next to me. And I was on my phone, and all of a sudden, Finn goes, dad, Dakota just scored a goal. And I missed him scoring the goal. And I was like. And it's so up because I lied to Finn. And I said, I know, buddy. I just saw that. That was crazy. And it just has been eating me. And I feel like I got to share about it, man, because this is what I'm talking about. Like, the phone is so intense. It is so, like, it just. It robs us of life. I really believe it does. And, like, I'm so happy that I was able to get that out just now, because I. And it may seem small, but it's fucking huge, right? Like, we are missing life. And if anybody were to say that that's not going to impact your mental health, they're lying to you. I want to go through this experiment and really, like, I just feel like there's. There's got to be a movement towards stepping away from this thing, because I think it is may. It is totally polarized. This mental health crisis that we're in.
- [44:25]
Chris
It makes it so easy to escape from life and not be present. And there's this. There's something inside of us. People say it's the ego, that the ego doesn't like the present moment. And it. And it doesn't like us being connected. It wants separation. It wants us to be different from someone else. Could be better, could be worse. But it's like the phone feeds. Like, all of this stuff that is one of the hardest parts of being human are one of the things that we have. Have been working on overcoming for thousands of years. So I think. I mean, that's. That's a real rough story about last weekend. I think as a parent, I certainly have stories like that. But anyway, thanks for sharing it.
- [45:18]
Entrepreneur Dad
Yeah. I mean, look, you know, I luckily. And I think I just got to be. I. I don't know how, like, if I need to tell them that, but, you know, I. I couldn't believe it. And it was. And it crushed me. I was lucky enough that Finn actually scored a goal in his last game, which was the game after Dakotas. So I was able to get a goal in there. But I just.
- [45:44]
Chris
Let me. I gotta. I gotta add something to this story, how on Halloween every year, my kids do, like, a parade at the school A lot of elementary schools do it. All my kids have done it at the same one. Next year will be our last one. Our youngest is in fifth grade. He'll be leaving elementary school. Well, he's dressed up as, like something from K Pop Demon Hunters this year. He's real excited. He wants us to go see it. And my wife thinks it's at 9:45. She sent me the calendar invite, but it actually starts at 9:25. So we get to the school at 9:45, and as we get there, we see, like, the fourth graders going into the school and they. And we missed it. And so the fifth graders are still out there. We, like, run to try to catch the fourth graders. We didn't get to see it, but luckily because some friends are there, we tell them what's going on. We dismissed it. There's like, my youngest, his name's Jude. Some of Jude's friends, we know their parents, they're like, oh, I recorded it on my phone. And so then I got to watch it on the phone. And as, and, and we saw him, like, doing this funny thing. He's showing his tag to everybody. And so we had missed this thing because we made a mistake. But because somebody had their phone and they recorded it, we got to see it. And so this is what I think is interesting about the phone, and I think it's interesting about almost every technology that we come across is it's going to have a shadow side and it's going to have this light. And so for me, it was like, I, I got to see my son do that, you know, for you, you know, you missed the goal. And I promise you, I've missed things at basketball games. My kids play basketball because I've been on my phone. So it's like, you're not the only one. And it, and it's a shitty thing, but it's, this is the nature of the human experience. It's like everything we have has, like, like some greatness and it has the shadow. And how do we, how do we mitigate the shadow? And how do we, you know, or integrate the two? I don't know the answers, but, but I think it's interesting.
- [47:46]
Entrepreneur Dad
Yeah. I mean, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I agree with that right there. There's no doubt that there are upsides to technology. And it's allowed for so many great things. Not at all comfortable connecting in person. It's given them an opportunity to connect online. Right. Like, there's no doubt about it. Like, that has absolutely been a benefit For a lot of people, I guess I'm just going through this moment in time where I am dealing with just like a lot of anxiety. And I just have this feeling that I could mitigate some of that, if not a lot of that by taking away the unnecessary stimulation that my brain and my ego is telling me I want slash need in order to feel okay, you know what kind of like, what have you guys seen in like habit, ritual, routine? Like how have you guys seen that being super positive for people that are dealing with mental illness, having structure and routine?
- [49:01]
Mental Health Advocate
I think absolutely I can speak obviously for myself. I mean, right now the most routine thing I have is that I wake up every two hours, all night to a newborn. But before that, I mean, we actually talked about it is like getting my mental health under control on no sleep and all these things has been challenging because the things that are normally there for me are not right. Sleep is like the bedrock of mental health for me. And then movement and when these things are taken from you, it's like a little bit spinning. So it's been an interesting reflection of like my normal routine and habits that keep me in check. When those are missing, then what's, what remains? And so in this transition for me at least it's like where, where do I fall back on and what routines are going to be in place. And I think that, you know, Chris, I will let you share some of the mindsets that you work through, but like sleep, movement, nutrition, I think like breath, work every morning, all of these things. Having structure and having the thing when you can feel yourself start to get derailed and come back to that one thing that you know, can regulate your system and keep you in line is like, I don't think, I don't think there's anything that is more powerful for me than the habits I've put into place that I know work for me.
- [50:12]
Entrepreneur Dad
Is there any one or two that have really stood out to you that you just are just non negotiable?
- [50:18]
Mental Health Advocate
Yeah, a non negotiable for me is movement. And that has looked very different right now from like intense movement of being a competitive athlete to just training to be fit to now being a mom and recovering. But it looks like getting outside and walking some days. But it's a non negotiable because I know what happens up here if I don't move my body. So for me, that's probably aside from sleep, which is a habit that I'm is no longer a habit right now. Movement is definitely number one. What about You.
- [50:50]
Chris
Well, I'm kind of looking at this from the perspective of some of the mental health professionals that we work with and then like what they recommend. And one of the things that is not going to just be surprising, you just touched on it is getting control of your sleep is really one of the number one things you can do to help your mental health. And like, there's some things we feature on the app about how to have better sleep hygiene. And so some of that is, is ritual. Same time going to bed every day, same time getting up every day. I struggle with that one. On the weekends, my, my schedule goes very different than in the weeks, but, but I struggle with my own sleep hygiene quite a. Or I have quite a bit. It's one of the things I've corrected in my life that really made a big impact on my mental health. But one of the things that they recommend that the mental health professionals that we work with is don't use your bed for anything other than like intimacy and sleep. So don't lay in bed to watch shows at night, you know, do that somewhere else or don't play on your phone in bed. It's like when you, before you go to bed, get rid of the electronics, get rid of the light that's in your room, you know, like, let the melody, let your natural melatonin sink in so that you can start going to sleep, you know, at your scheduled time. And so that, that kind of ritual and habit around sleep, I think is real important for me personally, one of the most important things I can do and some, and it's so crazy because I know it's the most important thing. And then sometimes I'll stop doing it because I'm like, I'm feeling healthy, so I'm going to stop doing the very thing that's made me healthy, which is so stupid, is meditation. Meditating every morning for me, it's the act of focusing on something that my brain doesn't really want to focus on. So it can be my breath. I'll like pay attention to how my breath feels on my nose and just focus on it. Or I'll breathe in, like in, out and I'll just say that. Or I really like mantra meditation. So I'll have like a Sanskrit meditation or Sanskrit, a mantra that I'll, I'll repeat like soham or sat chit. Ananda is when I really like. And I just say this over and over and, and if I ever catch my mind wandering to something else, you know, that's the moment of victory in meditation that you've realized the mind is wandering and bring it back to your mantra or your breath or whatever you're focusing on. And I try to do that for even just like 10 minutes. It really helps because what does it do? It helps you so that I can be present on the train. You know, if I'm training my brain to. To, like, be where it is and just focus on one thing, building discipline in the brain. It helps me be present. It also helps me be aware of. I have these spiraling thoughts. Like, sometimes I'll pick a fight with my wife in my brain. It's like, that doesn't do anyone any good. And I start having this fight with her, and I'm like, yeah, but then you did this, and then you do this. And it's like, now when I be. When I'm regularly practicing meditation, I don't do that because I become aware of my thoughts. And before I go spiraling down some weird fight or spiraling, spiraling down a false belief that doesn't serve me, I can just say, oh, you know, brain, thanks for trying to help me with this one, but I'm going to let this go. So for me, meditation in the. Every morning is just incredibly powerful.
- [54:12]
Entrepreneur Dad
We're going to split this one in half. We're going to do a part one, part two for sure. Just because I feel like, you know, this is a really. This is. This is stuff that people need to hear.
- [54:29]
Chris
Ra.