Transcript 0:00 For years, a voice in my head asked me one question. For a long time, I thought it was my superpower, but it was at every hour of every day, no matter where I was. The question was, "Is this the best use of your time?" 0:14 [upbeat music] Hey, this is Jared. This is How to Flourish. I am honored to share some things I'm learning with you, and I'm grateful you're taking the time to do what it takes to learn how to flourish. 0:26 Okay, let's dig in. Okay, so before we start, I wanna tell you about a change. Up to now, this podcast has mostly been me reading a version I put together of my newsletter out loud. 0:38 Starting today, I'm gonna go veer further from that. Uh, some more stories, more of what I'm learning and living. 0:45 If you want the science and the details, they are in the newsletter, and every study is linked in the show notes. Uh, each week I'm gonna do my best to touch on all three parts of health. Body... 0:57 And I think this is the order of importance, honestly. Body, mind, and spirit. 1:02 Because that's what I truly believe, and when those three are working in harmony, we are healthier in all of them, and I believe that's when we experience real flourishing. So today's a little different. 1:12 I wanna tell you a story first, and then I wanna walk you through, uh, the future, the part of your life you can't see yet, and the voice in your head that won't stop talking about it. 1:24 [gentle music] Okay, so a while back, we bought a piece of land in gorgeous, beautiful Arizona. It was, uh, a box canyon. So imagine mountains around the desert floor. 1:38 You got the beautiful walls of rocks, the boulder piles all around. The dre- air is so dry. It's absolutely beautiful. 1:47 And the first day I stood on this property, I spent the morning walking the canyon floor, getting up on the boulder piles with a few people and a few friends. And at some point, 2:02 it was time to peel off and start climbing. I'm not a huge hiker, but I love to get up on me some rocks. So when I got to the top of, uh, kind of a mountainous boulder pile, I sat down on a rock, 2:19 and I was actually with a friend of mine. And we didn't take our phones out. We didn't take any pictures. We just sat there and didn't say a word for what felt like about an hour. 2:29 And then something strange started to happen. It was like the world around me got loud. Not loud like a city, but you know that loud like a cathedral when there's nobody in it but you, or a quiet place. 2:43 It's been interesting lately to learn from friends how uncomfortable they feel in silence. So there I am sitting in total silence, and a bird flies by, so we're up where the birds are flying. 2:56 I mean really close, and I hear the flap of its wings. I had never before in my life heard that. 40, I don't know, about to be 45 years on the planet. I've seen thousands of birds. I've fed birds. 3:12 I've photographed birds. I have swerved my car for birds. But I had never been close enough to hear the sound of a bird's wings, uh, and, and what it's making as, in the air as it pushes those wings downward to fly. 3:27 Pretty amazing moment. And I sat there w- with my mouth open thinking, "This is different. What is this?" And so the sun is starting to go down the other side of the canyon. 3:38 And if you've never stood in an Arizona sky at sunset and just stared at it, it, it is wild. There are pinks. There are purples. There are oranges. There are colors that make... They look made up. 3:51 The light hits the boulders, and it turns them these beautiful tans and sometimes reds and all these different colors, and the whole sky shifts through, like, 15 versions of itself in maybe less than 20 minutes. 4:07 I can't say I cried in that moment, but it was this feeling of awe. And you know when you're in nature, you can get those moments of, "This is... Something bigger is here, and, and what is this?" 4:21 And I'd realize this is something I'd been hungering for without even knowing I was hungry for it for a long time. And that was just this silence, like a place where the noise of the world is just turned down. 4:35 And I would say most of my adult life, I'd been carrying some noise. There's noise all over. It's the hum of the house. I love music, so wherever I'm going, I'm playing music as loud as I probably can. 4:46 Uh, you got the phone in my pocket. Uh, you got the radio in the car. You got your favorite podcast. Whatever it may be, if it was a time to be quiet, I usually, "Eh, I'd rather hear something." 4:58 So there's this soundtrack, if you will, running in my head. Behind all that noise and music, when I turned all that off, there was still a soundtrack running. 5:07 And on that rock, when the outside noise was stopped and no music was playing, I could hear this soundtrack. 5:17 And it's this one question that I've heard many times before, and even in the moment I didn't really recognize it. And here, here it is: "Is this the best use of your time?" 5:24 [gentle music] So this voice would come to me when I was on a trampoline with my little girl. It would come to me when I was on a date with my smoke show wife. 5:36 It would come in the middle of a good meal, while I was volunteering, speaking in front of people, all the time. This feeling of like, "You know, I probably should be doing something more important than this. 5:50 Is this really the best use of your time?" And I just thought it was this personal accountability thing. And so I kinda liked the voice. I'm like, "This is my superpower. This keeps me going. This is discipline. 6:00 This is drive." And I'm gonna come back to that in a minute, so hold that thought. 6:11 Because I don't think I'm the only one who has a voice that we believe is our motivating, fueling source and force. I think a lot of voices are loud, especially maybe this time of year. 6:25 So, you know, here in the States, we just came through the midterms. No matter how you voted, a lot of people spent their eyes and, and ears tuned into what's gonna happen tomorrow with the economy, with our jobs? 6:39 What about my kids' future? So a couple weeks ago, I sat down and I ran some super swanky softwares all at once, where I could 6:52 gather and scrape 100,000 comments from the biggest YouTube podcasts, health shows. 7:00 So I'm using this sorting tool to see what people are really struggling with and what they're passionate about, what they're commenting about in all these podcasts. 7:09 And the number one thing wasn't people's weight, it wasn't sleep, it was anxiety. Overthinking and always being on alert. 7:18 One of the comments said, "What if you've been hypervigilant towards responsibility, not danger, so long that it is paralyzing and you can't get yourself to take any action?" So that's a voice. 7:32 And it isn't necessarily bad news that gets us the most. It's often not knowing. So in a study out of London, people played a guessing game where a wrong guess could bring an electric, a small electric shock. 7:46 And they were most stressed when it was a coin flip, 50/50. Their stress tracked the uncertainty. It did not track whether there was going to be pain or not, because they didn't really know. It was the uncertainty. 7:58 And I think that explains a lot of us in our day-to-day life if we get real and raw. We can handle bad news and hard news. What usually wears us out is waiting. 8:08 Uh, the idea of, you know, the refreshing of the page, the latest headline, the latest tweet, the latest post. Running all these what ifs, especially for some of us, at 2:00 in the morning. 8:22 Okay, so here's what I want you to walk away with today. You cannot make tomorrow certain. And good news, or maybe bad news, nobody can. But you don't have to let tomorrow shout at you all day today. 8:36 And you won't even hear how loud it's gotten until you turn the noise down in your life. All right, so how do you live with the unknown without it running your life? 8:48 I think there's three things, and the good news is, none of them cost a thing. Here's number one: You gotta give your mind something. So researchers at Baylor had people write for five minutes before bed. 8:59 Half of them listed what they'd done that day, so just a recount of the day, and half wrote a to-do list for what's tomorrow. The to-do list group fell asleep about nine minutes faster. So writing tomorrow down, 9:13 boy, that voice can finally let go. It's like telling a guard dog, "I've got it. You can lay down and rest now." So while you've got that pen out, you can draw a line down the page. 9:22 And what you can do is something about this week on one side, and what you can't do on the other. Uh, the election results can go on the second side. Calling your neighbor, that goes on the first side. 9:34 We can't determine, often in our minds, in the midst of the stressful moment, of, "Well, what's what? What can I control and not?" But slowing down and asking, "Okay, what can I actually control?" 9:42 Okay, number two: Check your worries against what's actually happening. So in a small study out of Penn State, people with anxiety wrote down their worries for 10 days and then went back later and checked. 9:55 And about 9 out of 10 never happened. So your worry voice is a terrible fortune teller. It's confident, it's loud, and it's usually wrong. 10:07 So write the worry down, put a date on it, and check back in about a month from now. Okay, number three: You gotta get your body back. What that means is anxiety lives in the body. 10:18 Your heart rate, your breathing, your shoulders up around your ears. A big review out of Australia pulled together about 1,000 trials. Exercise gave a real medium-sized drop in anxiety. 10:35 And in a Georgetown trial of about 276 adults, an eight-week mindfulness class worked about as well as one of the most common anxiety medications. So I'm not here to tell you to stop a medication you're on. 10:48 Talk to whoever you prescribed it, who prescribed it to you. But there's something about slowing down, stillness. Uh, it's a strong medicine, especially if it's outside, if it's walking, if it's in nature. 11:01 And yes, sometimes you need a person. I'm... I never was before, but boy, in the last few years I've realized the power of expression and connection. This idea of talk therapy. This helps people. 11:12 And I believe it helps people pretty fast. So you're not gonna get a prize for carrying things alone or burying things deep down, but writing things down in a journal, expressing them to someone else. 11:22 I even think prayer can satisfy this, of, of expression. That you need to get something literally off your chest. 11:32 Okay, so long before anybody ran a trial on any of this, and we had all the data and the research and the studies, there's a story about 3,000 years ago of a man named Elijah. 11:42 So people believe that he had this direct line of communication to God. Uh, God is my word for it. You might say the divine, the sacred, the supernatural, or just whatever's bigger than us. 11:53 And for me, I have to say it makes a lot of sense when I picture that source as someone, not something. Okay, so in his day, there was a word for people like Elijah. They were known as prophets. 12:06 Someone believed to be connected to the supernatural, who often spoke truth to power. And Elijah wasn't on the king's payroll. The prophets were never on the payroll. 12:17 So his job was to tell the king the truth, especially when the king didn't wanna hear it. Which made him one of the least popular men in the country. 12:27 And Elijah lived in ancient Israel under a king named Ahab and his wife, Queen Jezebel. She's this foreign princess who brought her own gods with her, and she had her own prophets, and, 12:41 uh, they were for her and not for prophets like Elijah, so it creates some wonderful drama in the story. So Elijah had just had the biggest day of his life. The country has gone more than three years without rain. 12:55 Elijah c- is called the n- whole nation to a mountain near the coast called Mount Carmel, and he sets up this big showdown, the ultimate UFC-type event, and there are four hundred and fifty of the queen's prophets on one side. 13:10 They are speaking for, for her god, and Elijah by himself on the other side. Each side builds an altar. Each side begins to say, "Whoever's god or supernatural deity answers with fire, that is the real one." 13:27 So the other side prays from morning until evening. That's Jezebel's prophets' side. Nothing happens. Then Elijah has his altar soaked with water. It's the ultimate form of trash-talking, it seems. 13:38 Three times, just drench it, and then he prays one time. [fire whooshes] And the record says fire falls from the sky. It burns up everything. It burns up the water. It burns up the rocks, 13:53 and then the rains come back at the end of the day. So picture this scene. This is arguably the most public win a person could ask for, calling fire down from the sky. 14:02 And then towards the end of the day, after the rain, after what feels like a victory, he gets a message from the queen, and she says, "By this time tomorrow, you're a dead man." 14:13 So remember, he's been coming off this victory, but he's now threatened about something that could happen in the future, and he starts running. He runs all the way to the southern edge of the country. 14:26 He leaves his partner behind. He walks a whole day into the desert alone. He sits down under what's called a broom tree, or this scrubby desert bush. 14:37 Uh, it's about the only shade he can find, and he says, "Okay, it's enough." He starts praying that God will take away his life. He's ready to die. And I love it. I think it's one of the most honest lines ever. 14:49 After this mountaintop experience, right after this win, he has this message about tomorrow that frightens him, and here's the good part. Here's what happens next. There's no lecture to him. 15:01 Elijah falls asleep under the tree. This being, an angel, this supernatural messenger, is told to be sent to him, touches him, and says, "Wake up. Time to eat." 15:18 There's bread baking there on a hot little coal of a fire. There's some water. He eats. He goes back to sleep. This being, this entity, comes back a second time, the story says, "Wake up. Time to eat. 15:31 There's a big journey ahead of you." So sleep, food, rest, and then more sleep and more food be- before anybody's talking about his future. 15:40 And then this guy walks 40 days to a mountain called Horeb, and it's a whole adventure there in itself. There's wind that breaks the rocks. There's an earthquake. There's fire, a wildfire. And he's told 15:53 the sacred force that he calls God is not in any of them. And after the fire, there's this voice, this really quiet voice that he hears, and the voice is saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 16:08 So notice, this is not a speech. It's a question. And Elijah finally tells the truth about how he feels. And, and the story goes on where he's sent a friend to encourage him. He doesn't have to go about this alone. 16:22 There's a story. You can read the whole story in the Hebrew scriptures in 1 Kings. 16:27 So 900 years later, in one of the earliest accounts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, written by a guy named Matthew, Jesus is talking on this hillside, and He says, "Look, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself." 16:44 And I don't believe that's a plan of don't plan, but tomorrow has, has a lot of stuff coming that we don't need for today. We don't even have time for today, let alone the mental capacity to handle that stress of today. 16:59 So there's, there's these stories that we can learn for, wr- learn from that teach us to loosen our grip on the unknown. We don't have to figure it all out. [gentle music] All right, well, back to my story. 17:14 So my story's also in the desert, right? So I told you I thought that voice of, "Is this the best use of your time?" was my superpower. 17:23 Well, then not long after that, I had some blood work come back, and my C-reactive protein was pretty high. 17:29 So as much as I thought my life was pretty chill and pretty fine, my inflammation markers showed it was not, and it was extremely high. Uh, they say over three is pretty high. Mine was at a four. And I... 17:41 Interestingly enough, I felt pretty fine. I, I ate well. I exercised. Every story I told myself, like, I'm the healthiest guy in the room. But now a blood test, boy, it started to give me some edumacation, right? 17:54 So there are a lot of things that can push that number up, but it made me look a lot harder into my own life and started to go to a... 18:05 Went to a Life App event that literally changed my life, and I had somebody ask me, "Do you have a voice that you say to yourself in your darkest moments?" And I was like, "No, not at all. I have a superpower voice." 18:16 And what came out was, "Well, I have this thing, but I really never feel like I'm using my time wisely because I'm always asking myself, 'Is this the best use of your time?'" 18:25 And so I guess if I'm never thinking it's the best use of my time, wow, this is... I mean, I guess that's some type of... I'm, I'm feeling anxious. I'm, I'm doubting. I'm wondering And it just feels natural. 18:39 You can start to just settle into this, well, this is my motivating force. But I think it was stress. And I think my biomarkers showed that's exactly what it was. So I have a new perspective now. 18:52 This voice in many of us is asking questions about a tomorrow that we cannot control. And when I started to realize all this, it really transformed my life. 19:04 So some days I still think it's my superpower, but I have to understand it and check because it can become totally out of control. 19:13 And something that started to help me was realizing that I can be, and I actually think I'm a pretty intentional individual. So now I plan my life. My life is not random. I execute on my plan. 19:27 I live and die by my calendar because I try and pack it full of the life I want to live. I settle tomorrow's questions ahead of time if I can so that in the moment of the day, I got here because I wanted to be here. 19:38 This is not some random surprise. I am using my time just like I wanted to use my time. So at the beginning of every week, I map out my week. I fill up my calendar. My health is first, which includes body, mind, spirit. 19:53 My family is on there. My creative outlet like this podcast is on here. This gives me creative energy just making stuff like this. And then pursuing what I think is my purpose and doing things that matter. 20:07 And obviously work. Don't worry. Work will find its way into your life. So and I would tell you that question is losing its grip. And I don't think it's because I won the argument. I've changed some things. 20:17 You know, I was more intentional about my diet, more intentional about my supplements, learning about what my body actually absorbs, getting more intentional about movement and types of food I eat and food timing. 20:29 And good news, those markers came down almost to a non-existent marker near zero, which was pretty encouraging as I did more follow-up blood work. The voice that you have in your head, you should ask yourself about. 20:46 What is it saying to you when you're happy? What is it saying to you when you're in a dark place? But for me on a rock in Arizona with a sunset all around with a bird flying by, I heard that small voice 21:00 and started to get my attention of what is this and what have I been missing? And has the noise in my life been up just too much? And sometimes you need the quiet 21:10 to figure that out, to figure out what is driving you and why. Okay, so here's one thing for this week and just one. Tomorrow morning before you pick up your phone, before the news 21:20 and all the things that tomorrow will bring, take some deep breaths. I'm a big fan of James Nestor's book Breath and the idea of breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth very slowly. 21:33 Do it for 30, 60 seconds. And in the midst of that space, see if you can count some of your blessings. 21:40 See if you can just bask in the gratitude of the moment, of the day and say, what am I going to do today that I can take care of and not worry about tomorrow? Because they're so amazing. 21:51 All these studies we can see that breathing practices like this one when you start your day can really make an impact in your day. And just a few breaths to slow down. I really think it's a slowing down mechanism. 22:04 And then listening, listening to what is that voice saying to me as I wake up and start this day? And is it cheering me on or is it negative? And then finding a way to address it. 22:16 Some of us it's been loud and you got to figure out what's going on. Okay, every study I mentioned is linked in the show notes. The full article is at 1upyourlife.com with the number one to start it off with. I'm Jared. 22:29 Thank you so much for listening.
