← The Mello Millionaire with Tommy Mello
The Mello Millionaire with Tommy Mello
The Truth About Loneliness and Burnout with Dr. Guy Winch
00:46:30
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Unless we understand how stress is impacting us not just at work, but at home in all the different ways that it does. And there are many of them and unless we take care of it everywhere, it's just going to keep multiplying.
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Guy Winch is a renowned psychologist, bestselling author and leading voice in the science of emotional health. His three TED talks have been viewed over 35 million times, helping to bring mental health into mainstream conversation.
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Get him of a Heartbreak is not a journey, it's a fight.
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Guy is best known for translating psychological science into practical, actionable tools that people can use in everyday life.
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Ruminating always feels like we're doing something important when in fact we're doing something harmful.
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He specializes in the field of overcoming rejection, failure, burnout, loneliness and work related stress. His best selling book the Squeaky Wheel teaches us about healthy ways to cope with stress to improve relationships and improve self esteem. Get ready. This conversation will reshape the way you think about mental and emotional health. Welcome to the Mellow Millionaire. Today I got Guy Winch with me. This guy is amazing. We're going to talk about the brain. He's a psychologist. Over 35 million views on Ted Talk Mr. Guy Winch is a renowned psychologist, bestselling author and leading voice on mental health. Guy is best known for creating practical, actionable tools that people can use in everyday life, especially around rejection, failure, burnout, loneliness and work stress. Guy, it's a pleasure to have you on. I know you're super busy.
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A
I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
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B
Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into this profession, what you're excited about.
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A
I was interested in psychology since I was a teenager. It's very fortunate when you actually know what you want to be when you're a young person because then you don't have to spent 20 years figuring it out. So I kind of beelined straight toward that. Came to the US, got a PhD and when I was getting my PhD I realized I'm not that interested in the, you know, schizophrenia and bipolar and depression. I'm much more interested in regular people and how they can be healthy in the day to day as opposed to when they get really have mental disorders. So that was something I kind of gravitated toward from the get go.
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B
You said I was reading a bunch of stuff and we spend more time making our teeth healthy than our brains. So you've also said that we need to treat emotional injuries with the same urgency as we treat physical injuries. Can you elaborate on why this is so important.
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A
Well, we are about 100 years behind in our sophistication of psychology and how it impacts our daily lives than we are in terms of physical health. You know, like if you get a cut on your arm, you can tell. Pretty much most people can tell. Does that require just, you know, like to wash it? Do I need to put a bandage on it? Does it need a stitch? Do I need to rush to the ER because it's gushing, you have a sprain, you know what to do. We get psychological injuries all the time, like rejection and failure, loneliness, stress and burnout. And most people don't even classify that as a psychological injury. They certainly don't think, oh, wow, they're actually treatments that are science based that I can apply here to feel better quickly, to soothe so it doesn't get worse. And there are all those things, but just no one's bringing them to the fore. No one's discussing them. So people's ignorance about it is really holding them back and costing them. And my mission, as it were, is to try and like, let's, let's catch up here. We know a lot, let's use some of that.
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B
And you coined the terms emotional hygiene and psychological first aid. What does that mean exactly?
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A
Well, look, as I said, like you said, like you brush your teeth, you floss, take vitamins, you. There's daily actions we do to maintain our physical health, our dental hygiene. We don't have anything like that in terms of psychology that everyone, everyone brushes their teeth. Right? Everyone checks the weather so they're dressed appropriately. Everyone, if they're not feeling well, will kind of rest a little bit or have, you know, like some soup if their throat is bothering them. Like, there's nothing that everyone does for psychological injuries when we get rejected, for example, it hurts, it stings, it hurts everyone. No one knows what to do. And there's stuff you can actually do. You know, burnout is at, is at really high proportions, at epidemic proportions. It's highest than it's ever been over these past years. People know it. No one knows what to do about it. You know, people, oh, I'll add an hour of yoga. And I'm like, bravo, not gonna do much. So, you know, there's just tons of stuff we need to do. So emotional hygiene is about what are the daily practices that we can have that will keep us healthy emotionally?
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B
Yeah. You know, I've heard a lot of people talk about burnout. I've just never experienced it. I think people pride themselves on five hours of Sleep, not eating healthy, sacrificing time with family to work. And high achievers often pride themselves toughness and not showing weakness. When does that mindset actually become a liability there?
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A
Everything you said, in other words, all those people, I think it's a liability for them because look, we have an engine, right? And look, you're athletic. You know that when you're working out, you can't just do it all the time. Muscles have to rest. Muscles grow in the resting, not in the working out, right? I mean that's how muscles grow like they grow when you rest. You have to actually take care of your body for it to be healthy. You can't just drive it 24, 7. Do it for a week if you have to do it for a week, if you do it for continual periods, you're going to get sick and you're going to get really sick and you will get burnt out. If people do that and not just that in the day to day, you know, like our engine, our cognitive, our mental abilities diminish with fatigue. So you're actually not going to be that productive by working 14 hours a day. Hours 10 to 14 are going to be shit. And so you really kind of need to like give it rest, take breaks to recharge, to actually get your mental capacities, the creativity, the drive, the thinking, decision making to make them at peak. You can't just keep like going and going and going. It's a real fallacy, it's a real misunderstanding of how our mind works to think that.
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B
So I want to dive into this because we all face rejection, failure, burnout, loneliness, work stress, family stress, this AI world we're going into. What's the best way to. What should we be doing?
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A
Look, so, so this, this new book that I wrote was about the fact that what I noticed about burnout and stress is that as it's peaking in the workplace, you know what else is peaking in the workplace? Our awareness of why that's a problem. Our awareness of the importance of work life balance also peaking in the workplace. So how come we're so much more aware and yet we're doing so poorly? And the reason is the problem is not what happens at work, it's part of the problem. The problem is that we then take all of that home with us and we do things at home and we mismanage the stress at work. That makes it in ways that make it worse and then we take it home. So that stress keeps ping ponging back from our personal lives to our work life. There's Research that shows, for example, when you get home really, really stressed, and by you, I mean anyone gets home really, really stressed, they're likely to have conflict with their partner and they're likely to infect their partner with that stress. So much so that their partner can start developing symptoms of burnout just from the what they're taking in from what you're doing. And so then you're stressed at home, then you're actually more susceptible to stress and at work, which will then make you more susceptible to stress at home. Bang, bang, bang, bang, that will keep going on. And unless we understand how stress is impacting us not just at work, but at home in all the different ways that it does, and there are many of them, and unless we take care of it everywhere, it's just going to keep multiplying.
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B
Do we just have tough conversations or do we meditate? Do we breathe a certain way, certain timeouts per day? What's the easiest, best strategy?
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A
Look, there's no easy way to physical health. You actually have to work out. You have to invest time and effort and dedication in it. It's kind of the same thing, number one. Number two, there are many different strategies. In this book, I talk about a lot of different approaches. I'll give you one example. Here's something that stresses people out, and that is the after work emails, people put whatever hours they put in in the office. Then they get home and they're looking at their phone and every five minutes because a work email might come in and they might have to respond, but they don't know if they have to respond. They have to see who it's from. So keep checking the phone. Keep checking the phone. You know when, when you're in a difficult workplace, you're like in fight or flight mode all day because you're activated. You're waiting for this tension and for that conflict and for this pressure. Your body is, you know, has cortisol going through it. You're literally activated in that way. And you're doing it throughout the evening until you go to bed. You just put in four, four hours of unpaid overtime. That was completely unproductive by glancing at your phone. Because if you're at home and you're thinking about work, you're at work. So what's the solution? You have to decide on like 15, 20 minutes in the evening when you get home and at that time on your decision, when it's good for you, when it's good for you, your family, whatever you're doing. You'll check emails, then and until then, you don't look at your phone. So you do it in 20 minutes. And that way when you, you are thinking about your evening as what the evening is about. It's about hanging out with my family, it's about binging this show with my partner, it's about any of those things. And then you take an intermission from that evening to do work emails. And your brain, the way it works is your brain registers the intermission as, oh, that's just a break, that's not the main thing. And so it comes down from the stress. And it doesn't even go into that much stress when you take the intermission to do work emails. Cause you're just kind of dipping in. So there are ways we need to kind of trick our brain into doing things that are much more adaptive, much more productive and allow us to then calm down and set and reset and recharge so we're not that depleted and much less likely to have burnout.
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B
You know, I meet a lot of people that don't really know much about time management. They don't know how to protect their calendar. I got this thing called Jesse Itzer's big ass calendar where it shows the whole year and I time block the most important things in my life, which are family, friends, faith, working out this stuff that's just non negotiable. How important is time management?
- [10:39]
A
Look, what you're doing is actually something. I'm so glad to hear that. I'm so glad. It is something I recommend in the book and I cannot tell you how few people do it. The family time, time for faith, time for family, time for partnership, time for friends. That's what life is about in the work life balance. Right, the life part. So when you block it out on your calendar, it's protected. It means you can't put another appointment there without having to move something. It's an it's obvious conflict. Everyone should actually look at their evenings and not just keep it blank. But. Right, what's my purpose here? You're doing something that seems simple, but it's actually really important. Your brain registers that those are important times and it makes you more likely to protect them. You said you haven't been burnt out, Tommy. That's why. That's one of the reasons you haven't been burnt out. You had this natural instinct to protect what's important. And many people don't.
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B
I have an interesting one for you. I've got a buddy of mine, he just came on the podcast, he exited the company, exited for 2.5 billion. He was the co founder and he had all this money and he's on this private plane and he's flying about three hours away and he goes, I just started writing what makes me happy. What are the things that I just love to do. And he wrote down 162 things. Now here's the catch. 142 of them are free. They didn't cost a dime. It's just interesting to me because in the United States, and I'm the same way, I, I'm a, I'm a hunter, you know, I, I go and I. Money's become a priority. The problem is with a hunter mentality, enough is never enough. And so now I'm really working on saying, man, there's so many great things, you can't buy time. You can buy time if you get a great assistant and you know how to delegate, but for the most part you're not going to get it back. You know, what do you say? Most people that listen to this podcast are overachievers. They're a type personality. They're looking to win. But you know, what do you say to hunters out there?
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A
So by the way, type A personalities, that concept, I mean, it's a little bit out of favor at this point, but that concept began because type A personalities were found to be prone to get heart attacks. That's how it became a thing. It's like because you're so driven, you're so motivated, you're so neglectful of the other areas of your life, of your self care, of your health, of those things that you are going to get a heart attack or you are at much higher risk for doing that. And I am also quite an ambitious person and I'm very, very driven and I'm very, very motivated. I've made all the mistakes, but I've learned to balance it. I've learned to do it in a healthy way. And it turns out the healthier way is the most successful way. Because you won't burn out, because you'll be much more productive in the hours that you are dedicating. Because the time that you have away from work, with your family, with your kids, reading a story to your daughter, whatever else was on 162 items on that guy's list, you will actually get much more out of it because you're present for it. You know, it's important. As opposed to sitting there with your daughter when your mind's at work and you're constantly thinking about the next thing that's where most people go wrong. The thing that people are trying to optimize all the time is how much they can get done is success, is. Is moving forward. But again, what's the goal there? Like, you're moving forward. What matters? I'm sure you said the 142 items were free. None of them were about work. They were all stuff that happens outside of work. We lose sight of that. It takes the exit and the $2.5 billion to actually then sit on a private plane and take the time to actually. Let me actually think this through now, because now I can.
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B
No, no, you're right, you know, because we. I've talked to, you know, Gino Wickman's been on the podcast. I think we try to build these great big businesses and then we saw it for lots of money, and then we feel empty. Like everything we wanted, we accomplished. And then we're like, I met another guy, he sold several years ago for $3 billion. He told me I'd give back the 3 billion. I give it back to give my company back. Because he tied his worth into it. He loved going into work. I mean, it gave him purpose. There's a great book, Viktor Frankl, A Man's Search for Meaning. And we still need meaning. And I think sometimes when you retire. I don't know how to retire. I don't even know what that even means. But certain people, they go golfing and they get out on the beach, they're three weeks in and they're like, okay, this was fun. Now let me get back to. To purpose. What are your thoughts on that mentality?
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A
Look, you're totally right, because motivated, driven people, you know, they need a goal to work toward. And the problems with big goals, like when you start a company, when you have an exit, is that the minute you reach the goal. And by the way, you know what the research says about where joy is, where life satisfaction is in the pursuit of the goal. Reaching it is such a momentary thing. And then there's a whopping crash because now what now I don't have another goal. Now, if all along you had more balance. If all along it was about. But also my family, but also these other things I do, these other interests, these other passions, the friends, whatever. The thing is, then you have less of a fall. But in general, retirement. I'm just going to comment on retirement. It's a huge problem for people who are driven. Like, I'm very honest with myself. Do you know when I'm going to retire? When I'm dead? Because I will be depressed if I retire. I'm used to, you know, like, I like what I do. I'm used to, you know, I will do less of it. I will do it at a slower pace. I will integrate more of those 162 items or 142 of them, whatever, into my life. But I really like what I do. Why would I want to? This is what, you know. So I am by no means saying, hey, stop working or don't strive, don't set goals, don't be ambitious. The opposite. I'm saying do all of that, but do it at a pace that is balanced. Do it in a way that your emotional health, that your physical health is not compromised. Because that's where people tend to go wrong. And this guy that retired, you know what people do when they retire? They put zero thought, you know, like, I'm going to retire and it's going to be great, I'll golf. And then they stop and then they ah, now what? And like, yeah, you didn't make any plans. You don't know what that life is going to look like. You are going to get depressed. Now the answer is don't go back to work full time, but find the next goal. Maybe it's a little bit of a less intense one so that you don't have to like work that hard. But yes, plan ahead. If you're the type that's really ambitious, if you're the type that wants to be a millionaire and a billionaire, you won't. You're not switching that off when you retire. There's no magic age where you go, oh, my drive is now disappeared. That just doesn't happen.
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How important is it the self talk, the changing your identity, manifestation, daily statements of gratitude? You know, I just decided to tell myself because I'm going to be doing 15,000 steps and I want to live that way. So I got to change who I am. And I'm describing myself as a long distance walker. Like I am becoming a long distance brisk walker. But how important is that to just stay optimistic and I am statements and manifestation and what to be thankful for.
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A
You have some really, really good instincts because I'm going to tell you some. The research, the research is that when somebody wants to shift their steps so that they're doing 15,000 steps, if they say to themselves, I am someone who will do 15,000 steps, they're going to be much less motivated. Then I am a long distance walker because I am a long distance walker. What that statement does is it folds the goal into Your identity, it's part now of who you are. And so if you don't walk now, you're in conflict with who you are. It'll bother you that you didn't reach 15,000 steps. But if you're just somebody who does 15,000 steps, you can do, sometimes you don't do. It's much less, you know, at conflict with who you are. So that instinct to kind of define yourself by the terms you want to live by is great. It's very powerful. It's very motivating. So, you know, good on that. Gratitude. You mentioned gratitude. Gratitude. Also, tons of science behind gratitude. It's important for this reason. It really gives us a balance. Gratitude reminds us what it's about because it depends, you know, like, the thing people, when I ask them to do a gratitude exercise, they often get it wrong. What that means. They'll sit and they'll, you know, like, my clients will come to me and they go, okay, today I was grateful for the sun. And I'm like. And they're like, that's it. The sun. I'm like, no, it's not how gratitude works. Gratitude is not listing things. You have to actually articulate. What about the sun are you grateful for? Oh, because when the sun is bright, my mood is improving, and I love the feeling of warmth on my skin. And it reminds me of, you know, of when I was young and we would have spring, and that was such a great time of year. Like, you have to actually elaborate why you're grateful. The exercise isn't name the gratitude. It's articulate. Explain it. Because that's when you're actually activating parts of your brain that you're. That's when you're doing something emotional. Naming it doesn't do it. Gratitude, you have to feel it, you know, so. Or it can be toward a person. You know, like, I like the person gratitude. Like, think of somebody in your, you know, in your life that. That did something small or big, whatever, that was very meaningful. Maybe never really fully expressed to them how meaningful it was. It's an exercise I've done numerous times. And then you write them a letter, or you call them up and you say, hey, this happened 20 years ago, 15 years ago. Thank you for what you did. It was really meaningful in my life. I remember that to this day. That will get you feeling stuff. So gratitude is a feeling exercise, not an intellectual one. You actually have to get to generate the emotion when you're doing it.
- [20:52]
B
Well, there was a lot. But, you know, what I realized is I've got ADHD like many entrepreneurs. But when I have somebody that helps me focus and they keep me systematized and they help me time manage, I could get way more done than most people. And I could think harder and I could go into complex problems and I could whiteboard solutions. And, you know, I had this epiphany the other day. Cause I send out messages, I send handwritten letters, birthday cards. We've got 1300 that I work with, and I'm the CEO and founder. And then I realized I should be doing this to my family. And then I've got a Dream 100 list of a hundred people that will change my life by getting the right people around me and just staying top of mind. But I'm systematizing it. I'm building like this, this pretty sophisticated system software. And the whole point is, next time I'm in Italy, I'm gonna send out to all the people that I care about. I'll call it a coaster at an Italian restaurant. And it's gonna have a drink on it. It's gonna say, next time you're in Italy, you gotta check out this place. Cause I'm thinking about you and I wish you were here. But the more I do those things, the better off. It's just staying top of mind. It's a different way I think of saying thank you. But I like the idea of calling people and saying, you know, you don't know this, but a long time ago, you changed everything for me.
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A
We don't. We barely do it. But, but it's. Look, here's the thing. When, when you're in Italy and you are sending somebody that, that text or whatever the thing would be of, here's the coaster, here's a drink. You should check out this place. I'm thinking of you. What you're doing is you're not just expressing gratitude. You. You're actually connecting to that person. You feel. You actually will feel in that moment a closeness to them. You generated that yourself, internally, psychologically, by thinking of them in that moment and doing that kind of that, that gesture and writing that thing, they'll feel it as well when they receive it. So you're actually fostering, you're deepening a connection. But there are people in our life who we appreciate, who appreciate us, who we're connected to, who we're close to, makes us fundamentally feel good. And so that's a very, very powerful thing. Can I say something about adhd? ADHD I consider a superpower, but it's like light that needs to be harnessed into a laser, right? So like, and look. So people with ADHD are known to like, hyper focus. When it's something they're interested in, they get lost in it. They can completely go into flow, they can hyper focus. That's when everyone around them is, hey, hey, I'm talking to you. Hey, I'm talking to. But you're like so absorbed, you know, in what you're doing. So it's all about being able to harness it. It's being able to kind of know where it's tripping you up because it trips you up in plenty of places, especially stuff that's not that interesting to you. Time management is one of those places. There are a lot of blind spots that come with it. You need to get on top of the blind spots. In this book, Mind Over Grind, I have a whole chapter about typical blind spots, including time management blind spots and how and what you need to set up so that you don't fall into them. Now, what you need to do with adhd, you need to create the external structures for things that you're not great at. So externally it harnesses you. So you have people and you have systems and you have calendars and you have different things that help focus that light. So it can be a laser. And that's what we all need to do. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with evglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four month or longer dosing phase. About four in ten people taking EPGLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks.
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B
And most of those people maintained skin
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A
that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
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- [25:13]
A
Tell your doctor if you Have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about eglis and visit eglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-LilyRx or 1-800-545.
- [25:23]
B
I'm going to ask you some repeat questions I asked during every podcast and I want to jump into some other cool stuff. So what's one piece of game changing advice you wish you knew in your 20s?
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A
For me, I mean, this is personal to me, right? This is personal to me. Look, I write about this in the book. I came to this country as a immigrant, as somebody who got a scholarship for school. I had nothing when I came and I set my goals really high. And my high goals were become a psychologist. That was it. Because to me that seemed like, okay, now, now I've what, I didn't set them high enough, it turns out, you know, and, and maybe you need to set them one at a time, which, which is okay. But I, when I was younger, I was undershooting. I was like, if I do that, that will be fine. And it's only into being fine about a year where I realize, okay, now where am I? What am I? I got that. Now what kind of thing? Having constant goals and setting them high enough that you're constantly challenged is something that I wish I would have. Somebody would have smacked some sense into me back when I was younger.
- [26:27]
B
You know what's interesting about that is I was talking, I was doing an orientation with 42 guys yesterday and I said, if you dream bigger and then reverse engineer those dreams, and they said, how do you reverse engineer them? I said, give me your goal, give me your dream. And I showed him how I would do it. I put the dream on the top, right? And I said, what would need to happen?
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A
You work backwards, right?
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B
You know, happiness is a weird phrase because I'm happy and sad throughout the day. I'm not generally over. I'm a happy guy. But it's just work backwards and say, this would have to be true, this would have to be true. This is what I need to do. And it's like, it's almost like unlocking a superpower.
- [27:09]
A
Working backwards is key to almost most problem solving. Here's a really, really silly one, but very, very common one. Somebody is having a problem at work with a coworker, with a co founder, with a report, with a client, with whatever it is. And they come like, I'm going to talk to them about this issue. And I ask them a question that befuddles most people. And it's such a simple question. What is the outcome you're trying to get in that conversation, what is the goal? You want to walk away from that conversation having achieved what. And they look at me like, I haven't thought about it that way. And I'm like, first of all, that's the only way to think about it. Because otherwise you're just going into what to air your grievance to like, like, if you don't know where you're going, you can't work backwards to figure out the best way to get there. And so every time you have an issue that you're trying to solve, you got to figure out what does the solution look like for me? And then reverse engineer work backwards to figure out what's the simplest way to get there. Because it's not about airing your thoughts or telling them this or telling them that. If the goal is make the work relationship better, it might not be about airing your thoughts. It might be about coming with something very, very simple and just suggesting, hey, how about going forward, we do this, maybe less satisfying emotionally, much more effective. So unless you know what you want to get out of a situation, any situation, certainly your, your long term goals and your, and, and, and your big dreams, then you can't work backwards to figure out the simplest way to do it.
- [28:37]
B
I love it. Let me ask you this one. This is always interesting. So let's pretend tomorrow you wake up, you got 10 million in the bank, you got, you got $10 million. What are you going to do with it?
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A
I'll probably do several things with it. I'd probably like, use some of it. So to, to give to some people, to help some people out, family members, maybe some friends, that would be one thing I would do. And because giving is a, is, you know, that kind of thing is actually very rewarding. And I might use some of it to kind of buy myself a year off so I can work on a passion project, say, without having to like, you know, like, no, I'm actually, I'm devoting money to it. So like, I don't have to worry about making money that year or using money that year. This is, you know, earmarked for that. And then I would maybe pursue a passion project. But in general, I, I'm in this fortunate situation of I love what I do, so I, I don't need to reinvent stuff or to like, oh, If I had $10 million, you know, like, you know, just fall on me, then I would be able to do something different. I pretty much want to continue doing what I do.
- [29:48]
B
What is your Biggest professional dream at
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the moment for me. Well, look, I have this book that just is coming out, Mind Over Grind. And I think it could be a real game changer for people in the workplace because I think it could really help them improve their product at work and their quality of life outside of work. And so for me, my biggest professional dream at the moment is for more people to know about the book and to actually use the tools in it. And so that's one of my missions right now, for people to hear about these techniques and people to realize I can be, you know, I can do better here.
- [30:24]
B
I've bought a lot of books recently on feedback. I've only respected people that gave me true feedback. I don't need to hear the good stuff, but I know I'm different. And if you're going to give feedback, it needs to be more positive than negative. But what's your best advice for giving feedback in this fragile world we live in?
- [30:42]
A
So for most people, it is helpful if you start with the good, because if you start with the bad and they don't know if good is coming, then they're going to get kind of defensive, et cetera. So saying like, here's where I think you're doing well. And then I think it's A, the way you need to give the constructive part of the feedback is you need to say, here's what I think you need to work on. This is how it's holding you back. And give real examples of this is how it is or will hold you back. And B, this is where you could go if you fixed this, like, there's a way you're seeing, like. And some people are very defensive and they in general do not do well with feedback. If you're telling them they're not doing something well, they'll get defensive. Well, that's not about me, that's about this. Or you feel, you know, you're biased or like, some people will just reject feedback no matter how nicely you try and give it. And so how people respond to feedback is super important. And when anyone's telling you something, assume that if one person thinks it, maybe other person thinks it. Pay attention.
- [31:50]
B
I want to just touch upon. I'm kind of nervous. I'm cautiously optimistic about artificial intelligence. You know, we went through the Industrial Revolution and one machine could handle 20 workers. Those workers got displaced, found something new. And a lot of the guys I hang out with, they're optimistic. They're like, the human being will always find something. And I'm like, yeah, but this time's different because they could upload into a robot which next year the humanoid Tesla's 25 trillion dollar market cap. It's going to be a lot of displacement. And I'm just curious from your point of view for purpose. I mean, I think about like, we're probably going to live in utopia, things are going to get commoditized, things will become cheaper, we'll live longer. There's a lot of things we're going to solve for. I don't know how much you've studied on this subject, but what are your thoughts here? I mean, we're not talking. Elon Musk said, In 10 years there'll be 10 to 1 robots to each human.
- [32:50]
A
Here's the thing about AI in human history. This is what tends to happen. The Industrial Revolution, yes, it eliminated a lot of jobs for a lot of people and then it created a lot of jobs because all those robots needed technicians. So now a whole army of technicians and a whole army of programmers need to be created to manage them with AI. AI might eliminate a lot of jobs, but then there will be agents that, you know, we're using for certain things and that will create another kind of job because you'll need to have people who will help one agent, you know, deal with this or with that. Like every time something gets taken away, new opportunities arise. I can't predict what those will be it, but what I believe will happen a lot in the next 10 years is retraining. As that evolves, as AI becomes more and more dominant, new needs will arise and we'll have to retrain people whose jobs got eliminated because of AI to do the new thing, number one. And number two, there's always a backlash with people. People are, you know, there's a whole segment of the population who is just against the popular thing, just if it's popular, I don't like it kind of mentality. And so there's going to be a whole segment of the population and not a small one that's going to be like, I only want to talk to a human. I refuse to talk to you, Mr. Robot. I refuse to talk to some customer service, automation, AI thing. I want to talk to a human. There'll be a premium on talking to humans in certain capacities because of, you know, that sizable segment of the population that's like, I am, you know, AI. You know, I'm a no to AI. I only want to talk to. So it's very difficult to predict exactly how it'll shake out. But I'm I'm more on the optimistic than the pessimistic side. There might be some slides until we actually figure out the way forward, but we always figure out a way forward.
- [34:40]
B
Great answer. I'm going to add a couple more subjects and we could close it out. So about 21% of Americans report feeling lonely. 16% they feel lonely all or most of the time. What's the root cause of that?
- [34:57]
A
First of all, it's a very dangerous condition, loneliness. The research shows that chronic loneliness presents as much risk for your long term health and longevity as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, almost a pack of cigarettes a day. We know cigarettes will kill you, will sow loneliness. When it's chronic. It's also problematic loneliness because what it does psychologically to you. Why do people get trapped in loneliness? Is because it changes your perception. You become so raw and you know, in terms of the pain that you feel. And you become so cynical, you start to devalue the relationships you do have. You feel like, well, if they really cared about me, they would be reaching out. Well, you haven't reached out to them either. And so there's a certain trap in which people who are lonely actually withdraw from people rather than go after them. What I think, you know, made it way worse and in epidemic proportions, which it is, it's epidemic. You know, it's global. Is social media. Certainly. Look, the pandemic did not help you, but social media substituted, especially for younger people, so many in person interactions into virtual ones. And virtual ones are just less satisfying, they're less connective. And especially when people are talking to one friend while texting another about the conversation they're having with the first friend. And so, you know, there's, there's a lot of FaceTime that we've lost with social media, with our phones being with us. You know, you used to, even just in terms of dating, you used to have to go to a bar or a meetup or an event. You actually used to have to be around people. You don't have to leave your house now until you have a guaranteed person to meet, which might not happen for a month. So, you know, there's been a lot going on that's created the loneliness. And the other thing, loneliness is relative. It's depends solely on whether you feel disconnected. If you were on a desert island with one other person, you wouldn't feel lonely. But when you see all your friends out all the time on social media, because that's what people post, they post the good stuff then and you're sitting at Home, it makes you feel more lonely because apparently everyone is having a great time all the time except me. Even if you know that not to be true, it's what it feels like. So that's why we're having this as so much of a problem. And that's why psychologically people get deeper and deeper into it. And those are the risks physically and longevity wise that they assume when they do.
- [37:20]
B
I want to just go last few things here. Let's go over some actionable advice. I'm going to go through some scenarios and I want to hear your advice for navigating them in an emotionally healthy way. Give me some steps. So number one, you get rejected from your dream job with no backup offers.
- [37:39]
A
Okay, so you're going to hurt. And here's what you. Here's two pieces of advice. One, something to not do. The most typical thing somebody will do in that scenario is they will start to become very self critical. They'll start to reviewing. Well, you know, here's how I screwed up in the interview. Here's what's not okay with my resume. Here's why I'm not good enough. Here's why they actually didn't want me. You don't know if they didn't want you because the boss's nephew came in and they gave the boss, you know, like and if not you would have had that job. So people, you know, when we get rejected or when we fail at something, we become very self critical. And what we do then is our self esteem is hurting and we go and we beat it into a pulp. It's fight club, you know, for some stupid reason. So A, don't do that. B because your self esteem is hurting as is your confidence. The task you should do is to revive your self esteem and confidence. So if that's happened to someone in the job and there are no other options, sit and make a list of all the things that you do bring to the table. What makes you a good employee, what would make you a great candidate for that kind of job? What would make you a success in that kind of job. Write all those things down, make the very exhaustive list, choose one of them and actually write some. You know, based on your experience. This is what I bring to the table and this is why I've been such a great employee in the past. To take the steps, in other words, to make yourself, to remind yourself of everything that you do have that will make you great, that will help soothe the disappointment, it'll revive your self esteem and it'll boost Your confidence, because that's what you need at that time.
- [39:07]
B
Brilliant. The person you thought was the love of your life tells you they don't love you anymore.
- [39:12]
A
All right, so heartbreak is extraordinarily painful, right? I mean, it's one of the painful. You know, it's one of those things that you can take somebody with no psychiatric history and within a text message of a breakup, you know, make them act completely out of their minds in desperation in, like, you know, heartbroken people do desperate, desperate things. Why? Because we know that what happens in the brain, the withdrawal of romantic love in the brain, activates very similar pathways that get activated when an opioid addict is withdrawing from, like, heroin. And if you see a heroin addict withdrawing, you're like, well, of course they're desperate, the heroin addicts. Well, so are love addicts in that way. It's very, very similar. That's why they do desperate things. So, first of all, understand what's happening in your brain is your brain's going absolutely bonkers at this moment, and that's why you're going to feel desperate. Two things you need to keep in mind. Number one, the no contact rule. Your goal is to get over the person. That means think about them less and less and less. Don't stalk them on social media if it's truly over, don't have contact with them. Try and get them out of your mind as much as possible. And number two, getting over heartbreak is actually a rebuilding process because if you lost that relationship, you might have lost some of your social circle. You lost your activities on the weekend. You lost part of yourself because you used to be a we, and now you're an I again. So figure out how you need to rebuild your life and try and focus on rebuilding now. The first few days or weeks, depending on how serious a relationship was, you're just going to be miserable. And it's difficult to start rebuilding then. But as soon as you can get to the moving forward, then start to rebuild, because that's how the healing happens.
- [40:52]
B
This one's not on my list. This will be the last one before we close out here. There's a couple closeout questions, but, you know, I'm really not looking for. I don't think anybody does, but I'm pretty close to my mom and dad. They're in their 70s now, and, you know, I don't think anybody wants to lose their parents. I mean, they were great to me. So, I guess time heals all. And I think they're going to a better place because I believe in Jesus, but, you know, it's a tough one. What do you do in that scenario? I guess just remember the best in them.
- [41:22]
A
And look, grief is first of all. Yes. I mean, when people's parents get to a certain age, then we start to. We have something called anticipatory grief. We start thinking about, you know, the days in which they won't be here. And we start a kind of a grieving process in advance because we're starting to think about that. But grief is very difficult. You can't cheat the sadness of it. They're going to be a loss when you lose them because they're part of your daily life, weekly life, however frequency, whatever frequency you're in touch with them, it is going to be. And you had a good relationship, it's going to hurt. It's going to be very, very sad. And you just have to go through that sadness. It's not something you go. You try and get over. It's something you just have to go through. Through. It's a gauntlet. But there's no other way. What that going through means is that you have to adapt to the idea that they're no longer around. That's why people say the first year is most difficult, because the first year is when all the reminders happen and for the first time they're not here for this holiday, for this birthday, for this celebration, for this moment. And so it's the first time you're going through all those milestones without them, it will be very painful. So just anticipate that and then find ways to remember them, to keep them in your heart in some kind of active way, because that can, that can help some people like, you know, like, speak to their deceased loved ones. Some people, you know, carry them around in some symbolic way. But, but there's, but unfortunately, no shortcuts here with grief.
- [42:52]
B
You know, One final question. I just thought of going back to my psychology days in college is we talked a lot about nature versus nurture. And I think people are born with a lot of great things. I mean, but nurture is such a big piece of it. You know, you could have two of the exact same biological babies that are raised in a different home and be fascinatingly different. What are your thoughts?
- [43:19]
A
I'm an identical twin. I have a bias in that regard. I am genetically identical to my brother. We were raised in the same home, and in some ways we're similar. In some ways we're different. We're much more similar than we are different. He's also a psychologist, so you can imagine. But it is interesting being an identical twin because you do see someone who's almost exactly like you. But nurture really does have an impact, and it's not just in a different home. Kids who are raised in the same home have different roles and different experiences within their family. My brother and I in certain ways had different experiences within our family in the same home with identical genetics. And so, you know, it, it's. Nurture is very powerful and, and it will. And that's why we say it's like a 50% thing, 60% thing. It's like, you know, like, it's, it's, it's. Each of those contributes significantly.
- [44:15]
B
Tell us a little bit about some key lessons in the book.
- [44:19]
A
So the book is called mind over grind, how to break free when work hijacks your life. The key lessons of the book are that there are many, many ways that when we are very driven and very passionate, we tend to go on autopilot and just kind of like barrel forward without actually being much more deliberate about how we manage ourselves both in work and outside of work. And we could actually be much more effective and get there in a much healthier way, maybe even get there faster if we actually take care of the machinery up here in ways that we typically don't. So the book is very science based. It talks about the science of what there's a lot of science about how we manage ourselves in the workplace and outside of it and what the problems that arise are, how work does hijack, our thoughts after work and our relationships and all these other things. And then it's full of. Somebody listened today. I gave some specific little exercises. It's full of exercises and tools you can use to improve. They're very practical, approachable, like you can, you can implement them right away. So that's the book Mind over grind, how to break free when work hijacks your life. My website is guy winch.com on social media. It's Guy Winch on LinkedIn or Instagram or YouTube. And I have a substack newsletter so people can follow me and find out more about what I'm doing. And I really enjoy talking to people about, you know, what's going on in their lives via shows like yours or speaking to companies doing whatever. But, but it's, it's always a treat.
- [45:54]
B
Well, Guy, I had a blast. Listen to what I do to close this out is just give you an opportunity to finish us out on any thought you want the audience to listen to.
- [46:02]
A
Okay? What I want the audience to listen to is like, self improvement psychologically is an ongoing thing. You don't just do the one thing like, I'm good. You're constantly asking yourself, how can I get better? What is working for me? What's not working for me? How am I feeling? Like, take your temperature at least once a week, sit, have 10 minutes to ask yourself, how am I feeling? What am I okay with? What am I not okay with? What upset me, what distressed me, what excites me? And be on top of your psychological baggage because when you know what's there and what's working and what isn't, you could start to work with what you need to fix.
- [46:37]
B
So thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate you. Thanks so much for listening to this episode like always. We're going to close it out with the Tommy Truth, which is a little slice of wisdom from me to you that can help guide you in whatever you're striving towards right now. You know, if I were a young lad and I wanted to start a business, I think the most important thing is finding out something I really enjoy doing. And it's not Amazon and TikTok fulfillment and it's not being a influencer like, but what do you love to do if you could find a passion, Find something you absolutely don't mind getting up for, where you're like, you wake up, your alarm goes off and you're like, dude, I get to go to work. I get to. I get to go to my business. I would say just do something you absolutely love and chase it. Don't let anybody tell you you can't. And that's it, guys. We'll talk to you next week.