← Travis Makes Money
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Travis
You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis what's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's a mission to help you all make a little bit more money. Today on the show, I have a new friend of mine, Dr. Guy Winch. Guy is an internationally renowned psychologist and best selling author author who advocates for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His three TED talks now have garnered over 35 million views and his science based self help books have been translated into over 30 languages. His newest book is mind over grind, how to break free when work hijacks your life which is being published by Simon Schuster. And he's also the co host of the ambie nominated Dear therapists podcast. Guy, what's up man? Welcome to the show.
- [01:25]
Dr. Guy Winch
Thank you very much for having me. I'm glad to be with you.
- [01:28]
Travis
So what percentage, guy, of the things that you're doing now are things that you wanted to do when you were 15, if any?
- [01:38]
Dr. Guy Winch
Oh, wow, okay. But you know, look, I actually, at 15, I was one of those annoying people that knew what I wanted to do at 15 and didn't change it. You know, like there are a few of us, but it's, and it's annoying to most people. Like, well, how'd you know? But I did at 15, I wanted to be a psychologist. I am a psychologist. Everything I do is in that domain mostly. But I envisioned it then as, you know, therapy, coaching, that kind of thing. That is a chunk of what I do. It's a part of what I do only, but it's a substantial part of what I do. So I would say a decent amount.
- [02:10]
Travis
In fact, at 15, why was that something that was even in your awareness to imagine?
- [02:17]
Dr. Guy Winch
I don't know. I was what? First of all, I'm an identical twin. It kind of, you know, it's an interesting phenomena when you're an identical twin. And you grow up with an identical twin because everywhere you go, you're like an attraction to people. People are like, you know, and to this day we're older, you know, and we can't, if we're together, we can't walk into a bodega without the person behind the counter going, oh, are you twins? Like, it's so annoying.
- [02:45]
Travis
But nope, not twins.
- [02:48]
Dr. Guy Winch
Yeah, but we look terribly alike. It's really difficult to say. But here's the thing. So it makes you kind of really interested in human behavior because. Because just how we were treated so differently than other people. How kind of, you know, like people will literally just like stare at us a lot, you know, and some reason I just was interested in human behavior and how people were reacting, why they were reacting in those ways. It just started very early.
- [03:14]
Travis
And so when you went to undergrad, that was like the only thing that you were thinking about?
- [03:20]
Dr. Guy Winch
No, my undergrad was split major between psychology and film and television, which I also had a serious interest in.
- [03:30]
Travis
Okay, all right, interesting. Was that, was that from a different, unique perspective, like something that happened in, in your childhood, you think?
- [03:38]
Dr. Guy Winch
I just really enjoyed films. I like Hollywood films. Yeah. And, and Hollywood films and, you know, and Steven Spielberg and all of that stuff and.
- [03:47]
Travis
Yeah.
- [03:48]
Dr. Guy Winch
And, and I wanted to, to explore that.
- [03:51]
Travis
All right, so quick selfish question that has nothing to do with the rest of this conversation, but give me a couple like three to five of your favorite all time films.
- [04:03]
Dr. Guy Winch
Okay. This is not necessarily highbrow stuff, what I'm about to say. I'm just.
- [04:08]
Travis
No caveats.
- [04:08]
Dr. Guy Winch
If everyone's like, no, there's not a European film in it. Not that there's anything bad there. But look, films are like how they touch you at a certain moment in your life. So it's very context specific. It's very specific for me when I saw the first Indiana Jones movie, and I know this about as original as you can get, but I was just blown away. I was just blown away. It was one of the reasons I wanted to go into films. I was like, wow, it was just such a spectacle. It was so exciting. I really, really loved that movie. Here's another one that's not gonna put me on any highly intellectual lists, but this one you're asking, I'm sharing, you know, Total Recall, the original with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- [04:53]
Travis
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [04:54]
Dr. Guy Winch
There was something there about implanting memories. This idea of if you can implant a memory, how do you know? How are you defined? How do you define who you Are, is it based on what you've done or based on what you do? Is it based on your memories or based on how you conduct yourself going forward? I know that's a little. That's basically what the film was about. Yes, it was on Mars and it had special effects. It was very exciting. But, but, but to me, that, that idea was really kind of interesting, you know, and I like futurism, so that idea of, you know, space colonization and those kinds of things. So, you know, those, those are a couple that were always. Oh, and you know, if I'm, I mean, I can just like complete the nerdom. If you want me to complete the nerdum, I will.
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Travis
Let's do it.
- [05:35]
Dr. Guy Winch
Okay, fine, then Lord of the Rings. Yes. And I'll tell you why. Because, look, I, I didn't see it when it came out. I'm like, I, I like sci fi. I don't like fantasy, so. Oh, you know, there's a goblins and whatever, and. Not for me. But then I saw the opening shot, that opening long shot of the movie that goes along that cliff and then swoops down into the battle. That shot alone. I was like, oh, this is very cinematic. This is well directed, well shot. And so then I, I just, you know, anyway, to this day, man, to
- [06:03]
Travis
this day, those movies hold up. Even with all, you know what I mean? Like the, that those early Peter Jackson films are just so, so good.
- [06:09]
Dr. Guy Winch
Watch Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The special effects hold up. It's 30 something.
- [06:13]
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- [06:43]
Travis
Yeah, yeah. And there's something to those. Well, I think there's something to that. The second one you mentioned as well, like that psychological thriller that is feeding into what some of your other interests were. And it's interesting how sometimes art can affect those, those desires, those thought processes. They can force you into a style of thinking that you would not have had earlier. Not to get too sidetracked on this for too long, but have you seen the show Severance?
- [07:08]
Dr. Guy Winch
I watched one episode and I, I just, it was very, very unpleasant, so I kind of stopped. But I've seen one episode. I know the show.
- [07:16]
Travis
Yes, it's slow getting, it's slow getting into the plot, but in terms of like psychological thrillers, that was one of those ones that makes you go start questioning like, ah, that I mean, like it is the same person, but if you don't have the memories of the other person, are you the same person? Are you a different person? Because what, like you said, are we, like what are we, you know what I mean? If not the total collection of the memories that we have, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's pretty wild to think that the same person could live two lives just given a reset of their, their, of their memory bank.
- [07:46]
Dr. Guy Winch
Right.
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Travis
But anyway, so, and so that, that all that all being said, you do TV and film, you do psychology, right? Right after this, do you get, do, do you get to fulfill the dream of being a therapist? And I have to go, I have
- [07:59]
Dr. Guy Winch
to go get a PhD.
- [08:01]
Travis
Okay.
- [08:01]
Dr. Guy Winch
So I decide that I want to do it, you know, in New York. I was born in England, so I decided I wanted to do it in New York. And so I come over and I apply one year, actually I don't get in anywhere into any school. And then I tweak my application to improve it, you know, and I get some research experience and then I decide, oh, you know, now it's going to work. So even before I sent in the applications the second year I just moved, just came on a tourist visa. I'm like, then if I get in, I'll change it to a student thing, which I did, but that was the thing. I came, you know, I slept on people's couches and then applied and then got in. And that's how that happened.
- [08:42]
Travis
How did you find your time in school?
- [08:45]
Dr. Guy Winch
Look, it was brutally difficult because, you know, I had no money. I was, you know, they paid my tuition, they gave me a small stipend, but I had to work a lot of, you know, couple of other jobs in addition to doing everything. And my visa was for five years. The average it took the people in my program was seven to eight years to finish. I had to do it in five.
- [09:07]
Travis
Wow.
- [09:07]
Dr. Guy Winch
So it was brutal. And I start actually my book by talking about how difficult. And throughout the book I use myself as one of the five people I follow throughout the book, but I'm the sixth. And I talk about how grueling it is when you come here as an immigrant and you are working your ass off and it's just existential survival all the time.
- [09:29]
Travis
Yeah. Yeah, no kidding.
- [09:30]
Dr. Guy Winch
What.
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Travis
What were some of the first couple of jobs that you had?
- [09:33]
Dr. Guy Winch
Oh, I mean, well, they, they gave me. I had to be a teaching assistant as part of being doing. But. But that wasn't sufficient. So I, I walked. I worked in auction house. I taking bids from people on the phone. I was bidding on items. I had no idea what these items were, why they were valuable. I was just taking bids and, you know, doing that. I worked, I did like over my life I've done some pretty crappy jobs. The worst one was working in a bank. And it was to, you know, they would, when currency would go out of, you know, they would, you know, they would replace it, they would put it, the machine would put it in piles of a hundred and then they would burn it. But they had verifiers so you had to verify. And they would take notes out of a couple of your stacks a day to catch you if you're not doing it. So you actually had to do it. So you were spending your entire day. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
- [10:24]
Travis
Dang.
- [10:25]
Dr. Guy Winch
100 every day now. You can't stop that. When you go home, you're walking home, you're counting people in the street, you're counting bricks on the building. It's just the most mind numbing, monotonous task.
- [10:38]
Travis
Yeah.
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Dr. Guy Winch
Horrific thing.
- [10:42]
Travis
What were some of the lessons that you took away from like a lot of the odd jobs that you had to work in pursuit of your dream?
- [10:48]
Dr. Guy Winch
Look, my thing was like, if you have a dream, do whatever you need to do to get there. That was my philosophy. Like, you know, just go wherever you need to go, do whatever you need to do. Just, you know, like, don't let, oh, that's too difficult, or that's too boring, or that, don't let that stop you. If that's what you really want, you have one life, go for it, you know, so it was mostly about just get through this horrific job or get through that. You know, I waited tables, I did all kinds of things, you know, I. You do what you kind of need to do.
- [11:20]
Travis
Yeah, yeah, it's. It's fascinating talking to people on the show all the time. And because that, that's one of the core common denominators, it's just like, it's not necessarily confidence in what you do yet because you don't have any reason to be confident in the path that you're in.
- [11:37]
Dr. Guy Winch
That's correct.
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Travis
There is like this, this delusional confidence that you can just. That you're going to be able to figure it out. Even like what you were just saying about how I didn't get in the first year, but then the second year I just kind of expected to get in because I learned all these other things in the meantime. And then I just redid the thing. Like, it wasn't a closed door. It just meant that I had to go learn something else. And let's try that door one more time. You know, maybe I was absolutely right, you know.
- [12:02]
Dr. Guy Winch
Yeah, but. But you're absolutely right. It was delusional confidence. That's a great way to describe what that thinking was. You know, I was young, I was in my early 20s, but it was a great way to describe what that thinking was like. You know, these are very difficult programs to get into. I had to get in and get fully sponsored. It was highly, highly unlikely. But I was like, oh, that's gonna work. You know, it was. You're absolutely right. That's what it was. Delusional confidence. You gotta have that in some way.
- [12:27]
Travis
Yeah, in some. In some way.
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Dr. Guy Winch
Yeah.
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Travis
Because, you know, you can. You can start diluting yourself in a negative way at some point if you're. If you're just optimist, if you're too optimistic and that optimism prevents you from doing the work that's required to make it come to fruition still. Right. Like, there's a. There's a version of it where it's like, oh, we're getting a little bit too optimistic here. Like, you actually have to still do stuff. You can't just believe it's going to happen and then have it happen. You know what I mean? Where have you kind of found that sweet spot? Is there a sweet spot there in terms of, like, your optimism, your confidence that you're going to be able to get in and figure this thing out?
- [13:05]
Dr. Guy Winch
Look, there is a strand of realism in all those things, right? I mean, I found out that first year that was deficient in my application was research experience. And so I went and I spent a year doing research. And by the end of that year, I had several publications that haven't. Didn't come out yet, but they were in academic journals and I had my name as third or fourth author on them. And I thought that was unusual, that I'd have, like, as an undergrad, three or four publications that should be enough. It turned out to be enough, but it wasn't. But look, they were like, they had 500 applicants that took 10 people. I could have been the 15th. You know what I mean? It's like that, that, that was the delusional part and actually applied to eight schools. I only got into one.
- [13:44]
Travis
Wow.
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Dr. Guy Winch
Wow. I got waitlisted and two others, but I got into one and I got happily rejected from plenty. So, you know, it wasn't a slam dunk.
- [13:51]
Travis
So. So now obviously, you have your new book now. Mind Over Grind. It seems to me anyway, that of all the authors that I talked to on the show, it seems to me that there's a few reasons that people write a book or why something's in the forefront of their mind. And this one's. This one seems like a personal thing to me. Guy, is that. Is that. Is that a correct assumption? Was this something that you experienced yourself and wanted to figure out a path out of it for your. For you?
- [14:16]
Dr. Guy Winch
First, if you're suggesting that I had tendency to kind of overwork and ruminate and have problems with setting boundaries with my work, why yes, Travis, that indeed was the case.
- [14:30]
Travis
So in. In researching this book, this is what I love about books that are r by psychologists. Is this the volume of data that comes into the writing process. It's not just like sort of. Not to say that. Not to say that anecdotal experience or memoir type books are not useful or helpful, but sometimes I like to be steeped in the data behind the idea. Was there any research that came up while you're writing this book that was surprising to you or shocking to you?
- [14:58]
Dr. Guy Winch
Yeah, there was a bunch. Actually. One of the things that really surprised me most, which, I mean, I saw that in the work that I did with people, but just to see the research behind it, were studies that, for example, show that if one person in a couple is very pressured and stressed at work, over time the other member of the couple can start to develop symptoms of burnout, that it really, really transfers. Or that if one member of a couple is very stressed at work, the other member of the couple will start to lose their sex drive as well. You know, those kinds of things. I was like, oh, I thought there was an impact, But I'm like, wow, that's quite significant, that impact. So things like that were quite surprising to me. The research that showed how our emotional intelligence takes a dive when we are under stress at work. Because there are two kinds of emotional intelligence. There's the emotional intelligence you have and what we measure today are two things. What you have and how well you use it, which is the more important part. And so these people who are actually emotionally intelligent but, like, was just on so much of an autopilot, they were just trying to get through the grind that they were not using it, they were not lifting their heads up and going, wait a minute, what's happening with me here? And I saw that happening all over the place. But, you know, so things like that were verifying, but surprising to the extent that they were really found in the literature.
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Travis
So what is your take on the idea of balance of work life balance?
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Dr. Guy Winch
Yes, it's two things. First of all, I tend to think of it a little bit in the terms of your professional identity versus your personal identity. And your personal identity is everything that's not that. It can be your personal identity, your identity as a spouse, your identity as a family person, as a parent, whatever. The thing is, how much oxygen are those other parts, the non professional parts of your identity getting? And I was saying over and over again that again, when people are in this hustle culture and grind culture, slowly but surely they would amputate parts of their identity, lock them off one by one, because there's no time for this and there's no time for that, and there's no time to do this thing that I used to love. And all those things actually very different than what people are doing at work. It's a big part of themselves that, you know, they put aside. They're gonna die. And so the work life balance to me is two things. It's not about adding the hour of yoga during people. Oh, yeah, I added an hour of yoga and I'm like, all right, that's one hour. I'm not sure what that does to the scales. Not too much. It's about two things. It's about a being present in the life that you have. In other words, it's about when you're getting home and you're putting your kids to sleep or doing the homework with them or spending an evening with your partner or with your friends. Are you present enough in that? Are you actually enjoying that? Are you present? Are you valuing that time and appreciating the fact that that is life? So are you living that part, which is kind of the basics on the one hand? And then are you giving, like I said, are you giving other aspects of your identity, your personality, getting expression, or is it just work drawn you? That's doing that? If you're a funny person, if you're a goofy person, are you allowing yourself to do that? Are you still seeing friends who bring that out of you, or is that really to the side?
- [18:14]
Travis
Yeah, is there? I. I feel like more and more I've been. I've been fascinated with the idea of seasons, as in sometimes I feel. I feel like there's just gonna be a. There's gonna be a phase, like two months, three months, four months, whatever it is, that it's like, hey, dad has gotta go bring home the bacon right now. You know what I mean? And I. I may not be able to be as present as I am normally. And then I find myself sometimes in seasons where it's like my work kind of seat and I'm more focused fully on being present with my kids and my family. Is there something to the idea of seasons, I guess, is what I'm really asking.
- [18:53]
Dr. Guy Winch
Yes, but it really requires you to make sure that it's indeed seasonal and not annual or worst. You know what I mean? The problem is people always say, like, until I get that promotion, until we get that round of funding, until this, until that. But then there's a next goal. And so the seasonality doesn't stop. It's just the goal switches or the target switches. But it just. It's kicking the can down the road. It's actually not actually a full season of being more present and being home and having it, you know, in a lighter way. A lot of people feel uncomfortable with that. They'll do it for a day or two, and then they're like, okay, but what's next? You know, like, kind of thing. So it's. As long as it's indeed seasons and you have all of the seasons, not just the grind ones, that's fine for a lot of people that. That balance and those boundaries are quite hard to have in place.
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Travis
Sure, guy. I'm curious how the TED talks kind of helped launch the writing part of your career. Did those things have anything to do with each other? Are they completely separate?
- [19:59]
Dr. Guy Winch
My first TED Talk came about where I had my second book out, and I had hired a PR company, and the PR company went under. They went bankrupt, like, three weeks before my book came out. So they ended up correct, and so they ended up doing nothing. And so I had to, like, do some kind of resuscitation work. And I thought, you know, let's get a TED Talk. Now, there's. TED itself has one big conference, annual conference a year. But TedX is a licensed format. So, you know, and I knew, okay, try and get a TedX. Because Ted will sometimes put TedXs on Ted.com, it's Ted's social media power that makes TED talks explode. They don't usually do it if they're just on the YouTube channel. For TedX very rarely. So I wrote a talk based on that book with the idea of if people see that at Ted, they would want to put it on Ted.com I spent three months on every syllable. I road tested it over and over and over. And I applied for all these TEDxs. And at some point the book was coming out in Sweden in Swedish. So they flew me over to Sweden and I found a TedX in Sweden and I did it there in some university in the middle of nowhere, literally in woods in an area called Smalland, which just, I mean, really, it's where horror movies begin anyway. But in November, it was bleak, but I did that. And then indeed TED did see it and they put it on Ted.com and it went viral.
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Travis
Wow.
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Dr. Guy Winch
Wide away. The day it went out on Ted.com, the book sold out everywhere.
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Travis
No kidding.
- [21:26]
Dr. Guy Winch
Within 24 hours or less. I don't know. But just by the next day, it wasn't available anywhere. And it just completely launched it. And then that week, things started happening that were just highly unusual. I started getting a lot of speaking gigs all over the world. I started getting songwriters tell me they're using samples of the actual talk with my voice in their music. And then I said, I'm not sure you're licensed to do that. And they checked and they said, oh, we're not. Could you record that for us? And so I started recording samples for people to use in songs, for DJs to use. It's just really interesting. I ended up, the book got translated to Japanese. They ended up flying me to Japan to do a primetime TV show about the book in Japanese where I had translation. It was a very bizarre experience. But the book became a bestseller in Japan. The book, like just all these things happened from it that were just unbelievable to me.
- [22:32]
Travis
Yeah, no kidding. So now, obviously the business has evolved since then. Your TED talks have been viewed over 35 million times. You've done three of them. Now you've written another book. Tell me a little bit about the back end of the business if you can. Just like the monetization points, what your core focus is these days.
- [22:48]
Dr. Guy Winch
Okay, so first of all, TED is a nonprofit. You don't get any money from doing a TED Talk. But boy, do you get compensated for doing a TED Talk in all these other ways. Again, especially if it's an actual TED Talk, not a TEDx, if it lives on Ted.com and certainly if you speak at their annual conference, which I did. My third book was based on a talk I gave at the annual and it was about romantic heartbreak. And so you might not get any money from the actual talks, the 35 million views. I don't get a penny for them. But your books become, you know, very successful. And you know, and you know, my. We own the foreign rights to a lot of these books, so, you know, they get sold all over the world. You know, I was flown to Thailand, you know, last year or the year before because they, you know, two of the books were coming out in Thai and they wanted me to do publicity there. And you know, like, so I just, you know, it. And then it became a bestseller in Thailand and then you get a lot of royalties. And so, you know, the book marketing machine really benefits from the TED Talk presence, you know, and the social media power of TED is one thing. And the other thing that TED Talks do is when you're at these conferences, when you add the annual TED conference, you meet a lot of the people who go there are big names. You meet a lot of other big names. Collaborations come up. You know, you get to know the host of this podcast and that podcast and, and those kinds of things happen. So it really pays off in all kinds of other ancillary ways.
- [24:25]
Travis
Who are some of the authors that you read a lot Guy?
- [24:28]
Dr. Guy Winch
So I have a lot of friends with books. I try and read their books. So that's, you know, like, you know, so I. Some of those books I really enjoy, some of them are like, not necessarily what I would have picked up in the bookstore myself. I like, I like reading two kinds of things. I like nonfiction, science, that it's well written and, you know, give me a book about a subject I know nothing about and have it interest me and tell me and let me learn about it in a way that's very engaging and entertaining. You know, for example, I love those. All kinds of, you know, topics, you know, like that will be like, oh, and again, if it's well written, I'll be like, oh, I had no idea that was a thing. Interesting. And I also still like reading science fiction. Okay. Certain science fiction I enjoy reading. The futurism isn't interested by it. So it's like always interesting to see what people posit as a potential future.
- [25:20]
Travis
Guy, I appreciate you taking the time to share a little bit with us on the show today. If you're listening right now and you've been struggling at all with your own version of work life balance, then I highly recommend picking up a copy of Mind Over Grind, how to break free when work hijacks your life, which is Guy's most recent book on the topic. Guy, thanks so much for taking the time. I appreciate you. Where else can people go to get more from you?
- [25:42]
Dr. Guy Winch
You? They can go to my website, guy winch.com, g u y w I n c h.com There you'll find links to TED talks, books, articles, and my social media. I have a newsletter on on Substack, and I really appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much for having me
- [25:58]
Travis
on, guy winch.com go check out some of the stuff that Guy's working on over there. Everybody else, thanks so much for tuning in. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's usually easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got some money in the bank. So let's start there. Here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in everybody. We'll catch you next time. Peace.