Episode #45 Random Acts of Kindness - Dr. Trish Leigh

thank you brooke brooke jones is with me today on our podcast and we are going to dig into a totally awesome subject that is off of what i usually talk about which is why i'm extra excited to chat with you uh we are going to talk about random acts of kindness so uh brooke if you would just say hey and then if you could uh share your background and your organization and anything else that you think is important just so that everybody knows who you are and what you're about i appreciate it sounds good hi trish i'm happy to be here um like you said my name is brooke jones i am the vice president at the random acts of kindness foundation we are a non-profit that's been around now for over 20 years um located in colorado and we are kind of a unique foundation in that we don't fundraise and we don't fund others we are literally simply about uh spreading kindness and how we can help others incorporate more kindness into their lives so we focus on three areas one is schools one is the workplace and the other is uh your home and your surrounding community so we have all kinds of resources and fun ideas on the website and and various ways to sort of keep in contact with us yeah awesome thank you and it's it's so funny because i was telling jamie the reason i wanted to have you on jamie's my assistant so i was telling her the reason i wanted to have you on is i remember back in college where we would have like sponsored weeks of they call it rake random acts of kindness everywhere and i have actually practiced this across my life and as i as i prepared to talk to you i'm like man i don't know if i've been as intentional about being randomly kind but i have built it into my lifestyle i really have and and i'll tell you a couple funny stories about like how my children are attempting to incorporate into their lifestyle but it really i learned about it i'm sure from some organization that's similar to yours that came to my college and inspired me to think about you know giving to other people in just being kind and so i love that that you're in those organizations trying to make the difference i've started a non-profit that i call porn brain prevention and it's very similar is that i help people who are addicted to pornography or have a pornography consumption problem but trying to go upstream to kids and to be able to influence them early on so you know i know at the organizational level how important that can be um and your website's awesome because i i haven't gone on it in a little while but i remember thinking it is amazing to have ideas like that because we're going to dig into a few ideas here but that's a great resource for people if they don't know how to go out of their way to be kind there's a resource for them so not to put you on the spot but if you could kind of share with us what your conceptualization or your idea of random acts of kindness is that would be great yeah it's it's interesting because you know we both talk about intentional versus random acts of kindness and and the way i view it um is that random acts of kindness is ultimately the goal that if we are intentionally kind and we're really building that into who we are and our daily life that um the more intentional you can be the more random it becomes you don't even think about it and um so that's ultimately the goal like because really everything we do has some intention around it whether you let somebody into traffic you know you've made a choice to let them into traffic or held the door open for somebody or whatever it is that ultimately if it really is part of who you are you don't even think about it and it's random um and that and that's ultimately you know what our hope is that you can practice intentionally and there's all kinds of ideas like you said on the website for that everything from as simple as letting somebody into traffic to um one thing i'd love for people to do is writing a letter of gratitude like actually write with your with your hand a pen and paper to somebody who's changed your life for the better write that letter and then either send it to them or even better call them and read it to them even better than that actually go to them and read it out loud to them it's quite a powerful exercise and very very meaningful for both sides um that's obviously very intentional but uh but those are the kinds of things we're talking about yeah see yeah i saw that adele uh adele just had a a little while ago she had something on tv and i happened to see it where her teacher was there and because she had always said that this teacher from like third grade had made this major impression on her and at some aware award ceremony her teacher was there and imagine the impact for the both of them because adele was blown away she was crying and then she they her mom was crying and adele is trying to get the camera to pan to her mom but her mom doesn't want to be on film i guess but very very powerful um if it's okay i'm going to digress for a minute because actually as i was listening to you i was thinking about how important our partnership in this in this discussion is today and hopefully forever um more so than i realized when i invited you because when people consume pornography and the people who are consuming pornography are good people with good hearts and good minds and good lives but what porn does to them is it puts their brain in this cycle that it needs more and more dopamine and unfortunately what that does is it creates what's called a narcissistic bubble so over time with consistency in frequency and especially with increasing intensity and consumption they start to think more and more about themselves and less and less about other people and a big thing that happens for people is they perceive others as attacking them so they are annoyed and mad at humankind much more so what happens is the screen holds all the dopamine the world and all the people in it crea is created a dopamine deficit and so when you're talking about traffic a very a thing i hear all the time from men who are addicted to part and their partners is that they are ragey in traffic because everybody's against them there is a zero percent chance they're letting someone in because so so like something that is so simple for someone's brain when it's healed from porn or it's not impacted in the first place it's easy to go let someone in in traffic but if your brain is really sucked into this cycle that's not easy to do and that's why it's extra important that we're talking today because i want people to know if you take the action step and it is wounding your core to let someone in doing that thing that action step is what can shift your mind and then your brain out of this porn brain cycle so it's very very important when i let people into traffic or even when people cut me off and this is like you know really kind of being intentional but so kind of random i'll let anybody in ever and if anybody cuts me off i'll go oh sorry friend go ahead and my kids will go why do you call everybody friend and i call every friend in the world anyways but why do you call everybody friend even when they're cutting you off i'm like because clearly that person is in more of a rush than i am and if they're very upset about my existence on the road i'm happy to let them in and let them get where they are going but you know that can be really difficult for a person who perceives that other driver as going against them and those random acts of kindness are even more important something as simple as next time you want to yell at someone in traffic just let him in and call him friend do the opposite exactly and i think you know there's science behind all of what you're saying right there and that is that you know when you have even a momentary altruistic action like that letting somebody into traffic so many things happen um physically you you have that rush of dopamine oxytocin serotonin um but it's also this uh everybody benefits if you if you can do that and we've all been there where we're the person trying to sneak in somewhere because we didn't realize we were in turn lane or whatever it is and we got to get back in and when somebody lets us in it's like oh thank you that was really kind of you um we've all been there so why can't we be that person as well for somebody else and assume the best and know that it's not personal this person doesn't know who you are um it's don't take it personally they're just trying to get to where they're going yeah definitely and you know i and i think it too like in terms of you know i have some haters out there the haters are the ones who or the people who are the most angsty on the road are the ones who actually need that act of kindness the most and you know and i'm sure you've seen or you promote the idea of like you don't know what's going on in that person's life what happened four minutes before they cut you off like and you know so empathy is at the core and the reason i wanted to have this discussion empathy and service but figuring out how to make those actionable is at the core for people who want to back themselves out of a pornography habit or any other habit that's not serving them and especially one that's damaging those you know areas of their brain but so being able to have an action step on what to actually do to be empathetic so to understand that if another person is cutting you off they're in a hurry or something's just happened to them and what i try to tell people is like nobody wants to act that way to anybody all people want to act kindly and want to do things to be nice to people if they aren't doing those things it's because they don't have the capacity because of either the way they've learned from somebody else or because of whatever situation is going on and it's important empathy and then being able to service so like in terms of random acts of kind kindness what is there like something easy that you could share with people that would make it so that they can move forward or or some easy ways or your top five or something that would be easy to share yeah there are really simple ways it costs nothing um some of the simple things are uh we actually have a little worksheet that's like five five things you can do each day and when the idea is you take five things you normally do you brush your teeth you wake up you drive to work you you know get on your computer whatever it is those five things that always happen in your day and add some form of kindness so maybe when you wake up immediately send a text to somebody you care about just saying i hope you have a great day um that's a simple yeah it takes two seconds and you feel good doing that the other person gets it and also gets a rush um you know while you're brushing your teeth maybe think of three four things that you're grateful for um the fact that you have running water you know just simple simple things like that when you're driving to work let somebody into traffic um slow down a little bit more than you normally you know enjoy the sights as you go i try and do different routes to work uh regularly so that i'm seeing different things um so so simple things like that each day take five things that you that you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed with meal time uh grooming all of that and put some form of kindness into it and and make sure that some part of it is self-kindness something that you're doing for yourself yeah i just jotted that down because i love that that you know some of the things you just said are self-kindness and man it starts with yourself and don't get me wrong i'm just as guilty as most people who have challenges being kind to oneself and you know caring self-care um but it starts with and you know again to bring it back to what people are experiencing at the core of a problem with porn is self-worth and so and the need for external validation so if you can validate yourself and increase your internal worth through your acts of self-kindness and changing the way that you talk to yourself and changing the way that you think about yourself you can only give what you have and this is what i try to teach people so if someone's giving you a hard time they have a hard time that's right if they are giving you pain and they're attacking you they have pain so it becomes the best opportunity ever to be able to help someone with their pain or with their decreased self-worth or wit for yourself with your own self-esteem by taking the opportunities and i overextend the term opportunity but i mean it though because all these hard challenges or these difficult times can really become opportunities for people i totally agree and something i recommend for people is in the 90 day program that i offer i recommend that people make three goals each day not a million and not none three goals each day in that they anchor into the feeling that that goal would give them so it's on the same self kindness but then also to write down three gratitudes each day and if you accomplish through your three goals that gave you good feelings you immediately have three gratitudes from yesterday to create that cycle of gratitude another thing i wrote down and then i'll throw back to you is that i love the idea of coupling these habits to something else that you already do that's a habit there's so much neuroscience that shows that if you want to start a new habit couple it to something you already do and so that is a really great idea that when you get up and if you're about to make coffee shoot a text every day shoot a text to a friend and you connect yourself and you set it serotonin dopamine oxytocin right there love it like just you know throughout your day if if you pick three five times a day and you couple it with kindness you're very intentional about your kindness but then you know kind of also being um random so i really like that a lot yeah and it's um it's so easy i mean you really don't have to go out of your way and i think the other thing that's that's important for for people to know when um when they're either doing an act of kindness like we're talking about or when they're receiving one um they're getting the same uh physiological reaction that we talked about with the dopamine the serotonin lower lowering their cortisol blood pressure but the interesting part is that even if you witness it um you don't even have to be part of it you just saw somebody let somebody else into traffic or you um you saw somebody say something kind on social media you have the exact same physiological reaction so so when you are more in tune to it happening around you you get that helpers high you get that um that need to do more of it or be a part of it more and and that's where i think you can take people out of whatever destructive behavior um they're doing and and once they realize i can get this feeling somewhere else and it's productive and and positive they they love it yeah it's awesome and i'm gonna share an example if that's okay is that i do this with many people but one guy that i'm working with right now excuse me he is a really great example a lot of the young guys i work with are trying to find a healthy way to find a girl basically you know so once they stop going into the screen and they have some better behaviors they're trying to find a way to you know basically kind of meet or talk to you so one guy he well he built this actually very good idea of approaching women and complimenting women but it was always the women in the pool of women that he would want to be with so the next time i talk to him in coaching i'm like let's just extend that to all people so you can start seeing people as whole people and practice interacting with people socially because also with technology and i'm sure you're dealing with this with technology people's heads are in their tech all the time so when they're in the world they're no longer connecting and engaging with people and so he did that and it was funny because he had a couple funny stories about uh where he he complimented an older woman who like turned the tables on him and tried to pick him up

you know and then he complimented a man and but he said exactly what you're talking about he's like i never knew how good it was going to make me feel and i could see in the eyes of the people how good it made them feel and i thought that was so awesome and you know that's you know talking about building into my lifestyle i make eye contact with everybody and you know obviously not in a creepy way but i will make eye contact and say hi to just about everybody when i'm out in the world and we were traveling this past weekend i was waiting for my friends and my husband that were in the bathroom and i was just standing there smiling and an older gentleman came up and he's like your smile's contagious he goes i'm gonna smile more at people today and i was doing nothing besides waiting looking around and he you know we made we made eye contact i gave him a smile and he came over like two minutes later he obviously was thinking about it and trying to decide if he should approach and it's you know it's the energy that comes off of you when you smile and you deliberately connect with people through eye contact you're seeing them as whole people is amazing what that can do for you and for the people and for the entire room the whole other people are in the room who saw that happen and it becomes this major ripple effect so that was really cool just kind of you know of course when it happens to you too it validates i wasn't even trying to do that you know right and it validated the fact that i've built that into my lifestyle so that it it is um so powerful so that's very cool there's a there's a great way to practice that too because i do this regularly i try to smile more and one of the best times to do that is when you're in a restaurant and you're talking to your server right always smile and say thank you and appreciate and you see they change because you know they're kind of they're often just doing their job going through the motions and when you have somebody that smiles and and talks to you a little bit it changes their day and you know often you'll end up with like whatever a free dessert but there's some payoff but that they they feel seen and acknowledged and ultimately i think that's the most important thing that we're all looking for is is to feel part of the world around us and feel acknowledged yeah connected connected absolutely and when people use porn they isolate into porn as a way to attempt to connect it's like this reverse so the reverse action of actually connecting is the way out of that my friend chanel she always and i i said to her this weekend i said it's really cool how because she's like i do this because of you and i'm like i do this because of you and i'm like it's kind of cool how you take each other's hopefully positive habits on she always asks the server their name if they don't present it or if she hasn't caught it and so now i find myself going you know what's your name and then i'll go oh hey katie you know uh you know and then you immediately are connected because you've learned that person's name you've sent it back to them and you know chanel go way out of her way she'll know the whole person's life story which i don't have that in me unfortunately but i'll definitely like connect a bit and then i definitely appreciate good service um or appreciate i'll ask the server to tell the kitchen if the food's really good because the kitchen doesn't hear yeah that their food was good so i you know if the food's great i'll do that um let me ask you this so what's your thought on like this is this discussion that my husband and i were having earlier where you know we would pay it forward type of things where we still do this where you'll pay someone's toll behind you and then you pull up and that's happened to me my toes taken care of and it's like oh it's only like a dollar but it's just like oh that was so cool like it makes your day what's your thought on like those types of random acts of kindness i love them i think you know again it's that um everybody benefits you you may start that pay it forward right pay for the person behind you and i'll tell you you know most people will will agree it's kind of a scary thing to do and i don't know why right it is scary we you know you don't know i think there's a sense of like somehow there's some reject rejection if you're kind and sometimes yeah you don't want to freak them out yeah because i was going to say i don't want to freak people out by being too smiley which is like terrible that i have to like you know what i mean like i feel like i have to be perfectly smiley not overly smiley or overly friendly because i don't want to freak people out yeah and that's the thing right we're going outside of our comfort zone in some way when we're kind and uh in the sense of paying it forward there's something scary there i don't you know like the person taking your money is gonna go we don't do that here the person behind you is gonna not appreciate it whatever it is and um but you drive away from that with that your heart's beating faster and you're smiling and you're like i hope they enjoyed it you know that kind of thing and i hope it continued but you never really know and and i think that's that's it i've never had somebody on the receiving end of a pay it forward um not appreciate it i've never seen that happen um but i think there's there's so much happening in our brain and in our body when that when we do that that it makes us want to continue to do it it's contagious you want to keep doing it yeah that's all that's a that's a really cool point too that i never thought of also is that i call it the friction point when i talk about porn consumption is that people's are looking for the response in their brain that hits anxiety and exhilaration and that really hits the sweet spot for a lot of people that's what they're looking for and that's why intensity will increase when when like that anxiety piece kind of dies down they'll look for something that gives them a little bit more anxiety and i always tell people go find that in your own life like go parachute or go skiing like the thing that makes you feel exhilarated but a little anxious to do it and this is another great example that you could also keep ramping up or changing or morphing into different ways that make you feel a little nervous my kids call it nervous sighted because that's from my little pony and you know like it's a it's like you want to hit that sweet spot of nervous sighted and you're giving your brain what it's looking for in the screen but you're able to get it in your life and you retrain your brain like a puppy to look for those neurophysiological responses in the world no longer in the screen and this is an amazing way to be able to do that and i think you know one one of the other things that happens what you just made me think of something else is as people shift into doing whatever it is that brings them you know positive pleasure whether that's skydiving or what or doing acts of kindness that they did a study a few years ago with kids middle school kids where they had what they were calling sort of underachieving kids who they knew were quite intelligent um tutoring some of the younger kids they said you know let's see if this changes those that are under achieving by helping others and it did their grades went up dramatically because they were helping others it wasn't because they were studying more it wasn't there was nothing else except that they were tutoring um younger kids and they felt like okay you know i'm helping them to feel motivated feel um engaged in their school and something in them said i need to be more motivated and engaged in school it wasn't it wasn't obvious nobody's telling them if you do this then you're gonna get better grades and it's just things like that where i think as people switch their focus and realize this thing that brings me joy is also helping me um in my life and and so figuring out what is that for you and for me and for many many people it's kindness because it's so simple yeah and that's cool so what's your thought on like kindness that doesn't have a payoff for you or at least one you don't foresee in the moment because that's i actually i thought about this myself my husband just said it too earlier where like i'm constantly serving like my entire life i have six kids i don't know if you know that so like okay i you know i have my business where i'm i'm trying to serve the world and my clients youtube i'm just trying to serve the world for itself um i have five teenagers and my stepson's 30 so i'm constantly you know nurturing them but of course i'm their parent and of course that's my clients so like there's financial payoff for some there's you know the feeling of being a good mom for all of them you know even today i made my husband a smoothie put it in a cup you know and then he brought me a salad like you know and that's really important because some couples don't serve each other right but i i i see it in my kids eyes and i guess there's a couple points in here when i do things for my kids because i'll say you know would you like in my my son sheamus who he's the middle child you know he'll look at me like so what you're telling me is you are going to do something for me you don't need me to do something for you this time and i do it deliberately like would you like me to you know make your favorite snack i'll bring it up to you i'll call them because normally it's like come down here and do the dishwasher yeah you know so like uh so do you have a thought on like there's no there's no real payoff that's what the random is like i go out i was thinking have i done any random acts of kindness lately and i will do them especially as the opportunity presents like there was a woman at starbucks over the weekend she was wearing like scrubs but they were this pretty purpley color and i told her she looked beautiful in them you know and i could see immediately she loved the fact that you know kind of like oh this old color like and then someone dropped something and i picked it up and i ran way out of my way to return to them of course they look around like oh my gosh like you ran way after me to return this to me so those are kind of like the opportunity comes and i take the opportunity but then in the other cases i do get a path do you have a thought about path versus no path um so one's better or yeah you know if non-payoff is better for you well i think ultimately uh to answer your question people no matter what you do you're always getting a payoff because you're always getting that physiological reaction you're always getting that russia dopamine but i think also you know i think it's princess diana who said it um you know do an act of kindness with no expectation of anything in return and and that's the thing you know you're you're doing all of this to serve others but in many ways if you really sit down and think about it others are serving you as well now it may not be this reciprocal you did this for me and now i'll do this for you it pays off with karma or whatever you want to call it um because you surround yourself with people who appreciate you you know know who you are what you're doing and and they will pay it forward or pay it back to you in certain ways um i don't know that i've ever felt i mean there have been times that i've done something for somebody and there was no acknowledgement or appreciation and you get that sort of like ah maybe i shouldn't be doing this because they don't care but ultimately you you got to keep doing it because you're putting something out there in the world that um that you do get a payoff from it just may not be so explicit in the moment yeah and i actually think those are are the most important times because if a person can appreciate those are the people who need it the most that's like the point with with hater comments i'm always like i'm sorry you feel that way friend but like you know it's like just with love i always try to respond to everything with love and if i can't i wait yes unless i'm not in a good spot and then if i'm not in a good spot that's an acute sign i'm not in a good spot i need a break from life or something but like you know so if if someone doesn't appreciate it even my own kids like you know they don't say thank you of course i'm growing them up but at the same time i realize sometimes they're cranky i don't even need a thank you yeah i'm doing the thing because they are cranky so if now if i'm requiring praise or gratitude like it becomes loaded you know so yep um yeah so that's really great and i love what you said too you're always getting the payoff with the dopamine hit and serotonin and just to just to differentiate dopamine and serotonin then we can wrap up to keep it short and sweet um serotonin is the neurotransmitter of joy and and you already said this dopamine is the neurotransmitter of pleasure pleasure seeking actually because it always keeps you seeking more where serotonin doesn't uh dopamine is shorter lived it kind of spikes your good feeling serotonin is longer lived it makes you have meaning and makes you feel good across your life and oxytocin is a neurotransmitter of connection it makes you feel connected to other people so when you go out of your way just to share a kindness you get it they get it the people around get it and it's this massive ripple effect of change that's right and and i think it's the job of humanity like we all think the jobs we do is are the jobs we're supposed to do but if we just focused on this the whole world would be a better place exactly and i and i have even with everything going on in the world right now which just seems so dark i truly do have so much hope for humanity because i believe at our core as a species we are we are connected we have to be connected we will not survive without taking care of each other and i saw something recently that uh about darwin's theory of evolution and how this idea of survival of the fittest and they said you know it's been misinterpreted over the years that in fact it's not the individual survival it's that it as a group we can survive the only way we can survive is when we take care of each other as a group and i thought that was such a profound interpretation of his work and i thought of course that makes total sense definitely i love that that's great because even in my own life and my own journey it's difficult for me to ask for help from people i'm totally like i'll do everything myself type of person but and much less so these days and a thing that i tell people is and you know it's obvious it's not rocket science but that it takes a tribe or takes a village and when you when you subscribe to that it takes the pressure off you to make the world your world go around where because if we're going to let the actual world go around we have to get connected in this thing and we have to serve each other and allow ourselves to be served by other people and the way i grew up and this is the funny stories they're not that funny but i think they're kind of funny and just one more thing is that like with money you know because giving money is or charging for money money i've always been blocked around money and i continually do work because my parents couldn't share money even though now they have a lot of money they still can't even spend it on themselves my dad's gonna be 82 he's going to die with a lot of money and he's not living his best life because he won't spend any of his money so i've tried to teach myself to spend my money on myself and other people and to give money and i have to challenge myself to give money i donate a lot of money because of that teaching my children to do this and so like one example is giving big tips so i'll always give for good service a big tip and now my son my son who's 18 guys haircut which it was like outrageously too much for a haircut in the first place and then he gives a huge tip and he's like but it's cute but it's my money yeah yeah i'm like dude it doesn't work the same when it's my money and not yours because like you know he would never do that so it's interesting because i've taught him to do it with my money it'll be interesting to see if he can do it with his own money you know what i mean but i thought how cool you know i talk to people all the time about their gender multi-generational transmission of this stuff too because if you didn't learn to be kind from your parents which many people haven't right if you haven't learned to serve if you haven't learned to give and like i am a perfect example of that that's why you know like where we started when i learned about this in college like go out of your way to be kind go on your way to give go out away to serve i still have to work on it that was 30 years ago and it it doesn't come easy for me at all times i but i choose to do it every single time in these different ways especially when it comes to money because that's been such a block and so like being able to give to charities being able to give to people who need it and you know and not we joke that if anybody needs money from us they can have it you know it's a don't don't call me for money that's right but but it is and i was telling my friends this and they're like what are you talking about because they don't give money and so now they do now because they've been challenged to do it so it's pretty interesting because as a group like the collective that you're talking about we can all bring ourselves up that's right to serve and to give

and then if if you learn to do it yourself and you teach your children you can break the generational junk that came down to you of not being able to do it every time you move towards the give and the kindness especially when you feel anxious about it you're changing that and it's energy it's not even karma it's literally neurological energy because our brain is a tune so like you know i love that so yeah um so could you just please share with people where they can find out more information about your organization yeah we are at uh random acts of kindness.org everything is completely free and there's all kinds of resources and ideas on there and you can also i've been telling people um i actually have a direct um phone number that i send out a little bit of inspiration every day and i love doing this it's it's a it's just my phone number and i have about 7 500 people on here that i text with every day so the phone number if you want to join me i will not do anything with your information um it's

four nine 303-529-2494 and i just send out one little bit of information or a kindness idea every day and um and that's it i mean we we just awesome we just love having people join us and be kind it's really all our mission is and it's all the motive i know isn't it so awesome when that's just the motive i know i'm the best job best job in the world that's the only motive i love it well thank you so much for joining me it's been such a nice conversation i've really really enjoyed it and i hope people have found it fruitful the takeaway is give serve just be kind to yourself be kind to other people it doesn't have to be big you can start small and your brain will thank you you'll get that uh your brain will come into that mode of working better and you'll feel great and you'll do it for the people you're kind to and the people around you so it's a win-win-win right a no-brainer absolutely all right thanks so much for it thank you okay bye all right cool uh okay well have a great day and great you too we'll stay we'll stay in touch we'll stay connected that sounds great okay take care thanks bye