🧠The Life Changing Practice of Paying Attention with Paul Angone 🙏

level up. My dream life design was always like in June, I will be in Bali, because I don't like the winter. And this year, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm taking my laptop, and I've booked somewhere next to like a gym, and it's got a sauna, and an ice bath and all of these really good like healthy gluten free cafes and stuff. And I'm

just so excited. And this month has just been huge, like April, I am still on a high from two weekends ago now, having the level up your life retreat where I finally got to like squeeze so many of the amazing women who were there and just have some really incredible life chats. And it was so good. Like it was one of those situations where you walk away from the day and it's like, oh, fuck, where's my phone, like, didn't even touch my phone. Nobody touched their phone, it was so intimate, so

connected. And it actually has instigated a lot of thought on my end, not just about my business and watch this space for a lot more in person events, but also how much it really filled my cup, having that real quality connection time. And it doesn't matter if these people were like that. And I don't want to use the word strangers, because I've obviously worked with them for the last three months. But for a lot of these women, it was the first time I

was meeting them. And it's like after at the end of the day, like I've known them forever. Like, it just felt like you can get so close. So connected, so intimate with people when we're not distracted. And it really did. Like I said it prompt prompted a lot of thought. And Paul and I and my husband, we've been really talking in the last week or so about how, like we're

already very good. I must say like, although always room for improvement, like we have a no phone, we our phones are down at 6pm I do not sleep with my phone in my room, like I'm very strict about our nighttimes and, and having phones away and never sleeping with them and, and all of that stuff. But we were saying how we've noticed there's been a little bit too much even throughout the day of like, just losing time to unproductive

phone time. And it's like, how dare we say we don't have time for things, or we feel overwhelmed when you look at your phone report. And you're like, Oh, that's not good. And you know, I give myself credit where credit's due like I have an online business. So I am on my phone quite a bit. But also it doesn't need to be as much as what it is. And I found I've really been experimenting, like it's one thing to put my phone

away during the night time. And I'm really conscious and aware of how much I really love that nighttime and our sacred sort of evenings together. Because we're just not distracted. I loved the level of retreat, and it was just hours of no distraction. No phones, no, I didn't say a single phone. Like I didn't say a phone until the very end, when a couple people took a photo. And we were reflecting on that and saying it's the phone that

gets in the way. And so even when I've been working throughout the week, I've been putting my phone in a different room in the office or in my laptop bag, and it just stays away. And the productivity and the clarity and the space that it creates mentally has been something that I'm really watching and really paying attention to. And so that's just your reminder, as you know, all of us can probably admit to feeling like sometimes the phone controls us rather than the

other way around. And you know, I do believe that it's a beautiful thing like I will never have like, I'll never be a victim. I'll never get into that victim mentality of like, Oh, our phones, and it's this and that. No, it's a beautiful thing. And we're the ones that have to take responsibility. But I've just been really taking ownership and accountability recently for how much I'm on it and how much I'm not and I'm

noticing a huge shift. So that is a beautiful segue into introducing today's guest who is Paul Ngoni. And I find Paul just to be a very inspirational man like not only has he written several books, including some very popular bestsellers that have been accessed by millions of people all over the world. He is also a very highly sought

after keynote speaker. He has a master's degree in organisational leadership, and he's a father for a loving husband and all of the things and in this particular interview, I have been interviewing him about his latest book, which is an absolute cracker. It's called listen to your day. and listen to your day is about living in a world of lots of hurry lots of distraction, and finding the ability to focus and truly pay attention and give our lives

meaning. It's a really, really thought provoking conversation. And in it, we talk about things like how to find clarity in a really noisy world. We talk about the importance of boring, awkward space and boring moments, we talk about how we distract ourselves from distraction, and we're losing ourselves and our clarity and our creativity, because of the

way that we're living. And he talks about honestly, just really simple, really practical and pragmatic tips that a lot of us probably have heard, and every now and then just need that gentle reminder to give ourselves an audit to be honest with ourselves to ask those tough questions like, am I actually spending my time and energy on things that matter? am I wasting my time is my phone taking away this precious

commodity called time. And I think it's just a really cool conversation just for us to bring some awareness to something that if we're not careful, can start to control us. So I'd love to hear your takeaways and see what landed as always, please tag me, I would love to know if this is helping you or what you're going to do differently after you've listened to this conversation. So enjoy this episode with Paul Ngoni. Listeners, I'm really, really, really excited to introduce to you, Paul, Tony

Ngoni. Thank you so much for being here, Paul. Oh, thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I was just sort of saying to off air. I've been in bed reading your manuscript today for your new book, listen to your day. And I'm like, this is a topic that I find so relevant in today's age. And I'm really, really interested before we dive in. Because I know you've written books before, what was it that prompted you to write this book?

And why did you decide to write a book about essentially paying attention? Yeah, yeah, thank you so much. I, you know, I think it's similar path to each book I've written is that it starts with my own feelings that I'm failing at something. And then I'm really struggling. And I'm starting to be aware of how much I'm struggling. And so my other books were for 20 Somethings right, it was 101 secret, your 20s. And that's because I was I felt like I was struggling in my

20s. It was a hard decade of my life. And now as I've grown up, so to speak, with four kids, I felt like man, I'm doing a really terrible job, at paying attention to what's important in my life, and spending way too much time on my phone. I feel like I'm missing out on what I say is the most important thing. And yet, if you look at my time spent, it's not, it's not adding

up. And so that's when I started researching and writing and really thinking about this topic and feeling like, Yeah, this is a huge topic right now that I don't feel like we're talking about enough. You know, I think we really need to be intentional about this conversation, and just be open and honest and vulnerable with each other and say, You know what, you know, maybe we're all addicted to our phone right now. Let's talk about it. Yeah, I think this is such an

important conversation. And I like reading your manuscript, you've clearly done so much research. And even I was thinking, as I was reading it far out, like you're a father, for your husband, you've got, you know, your writing career and so many incredible things going on, I know you do speaking, and I was thinking, you must have to be so aware of your time spent? Because it does seem like you juggle so many

different balls in the air. So how have you found in the research and application for this book, that you've been able to make changes in your life that have really helped your relationships and your productivity? Yeah, you know, I honestly can say that, I think my life has radically changed since I began writing this book, because this was a book that I really had to live it, you know, put it into practice. Because I was having, you know, I was having

difficulty writing books. I was having difficulty focusing, you know, and I was having difficulty doing good work. And whenever I would start writing, you know, in writing, it's hard for me, this is my fifth book. Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm sitting you know, on a typewriter with some sherry and a cigar and just laughing all the time. While I'm writing

books, it's still work. But I was finding myself whenever I would hit a little snag, you know, a little uncomfortable moment in my writing or I don't know what to write next. I would so quickly escape into whatever the most, you know, easily, readily, you know, attainable distraction that I could find. And so I really to write this book, I literally had to do Research and then try to live out what I was learning about how do I retrain my mind?

Really? How do I start building some new practices and habits, so that I can do good work again, so that I can write this book. And so I really began that process, you know, whether it was you know, and I write in the book, and it's maybe it's too much information, but I write a part of my book while in the bathtub. You know, that was part of this kind of experimental process for me, of let me find this quiet space, where I seem to get a lot of aha moments. Well, you know, you know, let me

write my book here. Let me take notes. Let me be an active participant in this moment and protect it. And so those that were there, that's a small example. But I really have built in a lot of new habits and practices, so that I could in fact, even write this book. Yeah, I can imagine I just, it's incredible how much you've been able to take home and in like, in part one of the book, you've really I love the way you set it

out. And I love the analogy you use of the moonwalking bear, which I'm sure you can go into, it's so good, that you talk about how our whole lives are influenced by what we pay attention to. And what I'm hearing is that you had to really develop really heightened levels of self awareness, so that you could even see yourself and your responses to that awkward moment or that moment of, you know, stillness, where you'd want to feel it and distract yourself. And so how the how does this all relate?

Like, how important is it that we first pay attention to what we are paying attention to? Yeah, we have to be intentional about it. Because as I as I lay out in the beginning of the book, like you, were you were mentioning, is that there's a lot of research around what psychologists call inattentional

blindness. So, so researchers and psychologists have actually been shocked about how little we actually perceive with stimulus has that come across our field of vision, they thought we would actually be much more aware and notice a lot more than we actually do. And so that's why I mentioned a video that I usually play at keynotes where I'm at, you know, with a big audience, a lot of CEOs, important people. And I play this video and I say, I want to see how smart the room

is. I want to see who's really paying attention here. You know, I know it's early, I know it's after lunch, or whatever it might be. And so I play this video, and it's a team in white and the team in black, and they're throwing the ball around. And the narrator says, How many passes does the team and white make? And so they start going around, and the teams are passing the ball, and everybody's counting the passes. And then the narrator stops? And, and he goes, the answer is

13. And I say, did anybody get the answer? Right, everybody shouts 13. And they're all excited. And then the narrator says, but did you see the moonwalking bear. And everybody's like, gasping and they're shocked, and then the video rewinds. And sure enough, as the teams are passing the ball around, a man in a bear costume, moonwalk slowly across the entire screen, but nobody sees him. Because we, that the question that was posed, is what has now focused their attention.

And now they're focused on one task. And so they actually don't perceive something as ludicrous as a moonwalking bear going right across their screen. So it is really something that we have to train for, that we have to build practices for. Because we only really see what we've chosen to see, ya know, paying

attention is not passive. It's actually an intentional choice, that our minds are training ourselves of every day of, hey, this is what we pay attention to, like, this is the game here, in our bodies, like this is what we focus on, and our mind and our bodies. We're constantly training ourselves. So if we feel like we're not paying attention to the right things, or wasting too much time, or we don't have a lot of clarity in our lives, what do what do I do next? Well, I feel just anxious

all the time. Why? Why is that? You know, these are these are signs that we need to start becoming intentional about where we're placing our attention where we're paying our attention. No, it's almost like a payment. You know, there's there's that even in the phrase pay attention. Yeah, we're making payments all the time. So where are we investing are into our attention? And also then on the flip side, where are we in

debt to with our attention? And do we want to be in debt to the things that we are spending and paying our attention to the most? Yeah, that's such a good way of looking at it. And what did you find? and quite surprising and all of your research and writing in terms of the debt, and I've got my own ideas of what I assume our debts would be. But what is it that really seems to be taking up our debt? Where are we giving our attention? Yeah, and I think for the most part, it, you know, obviously,

it's it's our smartphone. You know, if you look at the statistics, they're all it's only go only going up for the amount of time spent. Yeah, you know, I was looking at studies from 10, you know, 10, seven years ago, and it was maybe an hour and a half or two hours a day. And now, you know, depending on what study you look at, it could be four to five to six to seven hours a day. Yeah,

well, on average. And, you know, if you do the math, you know, that's, that's up, if you do five hours a day, from age 13, which, you know, if you're with young kids, you know, that they're on the phones and iPads all the time to at age three or four, you know, they're, they get used to it very quickly. But let's say age 13, age 83. For so for seven years, if you averaged about five hours a day, well, that's about 15 years of your

life. And if you just took waking hours, so if it was just the waking hours of your life, you're actually looking at about 22 years of your waking hours that you're spending on your phone. So I would say that is probably one of the biggest attention stealers. And I think that's really where the battle for our attention is taking place. Because it is getting so sophisticated. You know, we've probably seen some of the documentaries, like the social dilemma and all these different

things. There's, there's great documentaries out there. But basically, so many engineers who helped create these platforms, who helped create the apps who are now coming forward, because they're worried. You know, it's kind of like Frankenstein's creation, where now they're worried about what they've done. Yeah, you know, I mentioned one engineer that stands out to me

that was interviewed. And he helped work on the infinite scroll technology, which is basically you know, that technology on Instagram stories are lots of different platforms where you don't have to think to choose and press something. It just keeps scrolling infinitely, as long as you stay there. Yeah. And and he described it as behavioural cocaine, and is what they've purposefully created. Because all they really want is your time. Yeah. And they want things to be as addictive as

possible. Because that's how they get the most time as they can. So I do think that is, you know, obviously, there's other culprits. We live in such a noisy world. You know, we're getting more marketing and advertising images thrown at us than ever before. So there's a lot of culprits out there. But I definitely think that phone has become the reflex response for us. That work. It's like the

NFL, I describe it. A lot like the cigarettes these days, you know, but now you don't have to go outside to take a cigarette break. You can just sit on your couch, slowly pull out your phone and escape. Yeah, so true. And there was a part in the book where you just highlighted it so well, like you know, where we're distracting by watching TV, but we're being distracted by our distraction. So, watching TV, but actually

scrolling. And I guess that sort of leads into what you've extensively written about this obsessive comparison disorder and also obsessive connection disorder. So do you believe like, is it the phone? Or is it just an inability to focus really with? Like, first of all, let's start with what is obsessive comparison and obsessive connection disorder? And how are they really impacting our lives? Yeah, there's, these are terms that I came up with about 10 years ago.

Yeah, is when I started really discovering this in my own life and researching about it. And I don't mean to make light of obsessive compulsive disorder. But But I do feel like it's as strong. I mean, it's an addiction. That takes a serious term, I think, to showcase how

serious it is. And with obsessive comparison disorder, you know, what one lightwei that I might describe it is that, you know, you used to have to go to your, your 10 year or 20 year reunion to see who's doing better than whom, right and, and you just had to fake it for one night. Yeah, you know, rent a car, lose some weight, get it to pay, you know, try to get your best friend to act like your spouse or whatever it took. You just had to fake this image that your life was amazing to all

your old friends. Well, now, that's how I see us kind of living our lives every single day through social media, is that we're constantly trying to showcase this image to our connections, that we're doing amazing. And then we're obsessively comparing ourselves at every moment with every search With our network, and then we constantly feel like we're not measuring up in some capacity. And so we're, we keep obsessively doing this. And then we're obsessively connecting on

our phones. Because we just feel this, this again, that reflex motion that I got to keep jumping on my phone, whenever I feel a dull, awkward, uncomfortable, boring moment, whenever I feel a little overwhelmed in life, which I can tell you with four kids, those moments come quite often, I can definitely relate to that feeling. So we're but we're obsessively connecting on her phone, and then we're obsessively comparing. And, and this is not a healthy way, obviously, to go through life.

And you know, I ask everybody who goes on Instagram for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and then comes away from that experience and says, You know what, I feel so much better now. Like, that was a good use of my time I feel better about my life, I feel better about the way I look, my car, my job, my spouse, my kids, you know, whatever it is. Nobody can nobody really leaves that experience feeling that way. And so that's why I do think this obsessive comparison to sort of

obsessively connecting. It's a weird paradox that we are more connected than ever before. And yet we are more isolated and lonely than ever before. Wow. You know, Cigna did a study, a big insurance company in the States did a study, and they called loneliness, an epidemic. Yeah. And they said it was it was more unhealthy for you than smoking. I think it was, like 10 cigarettes a day, is how isolated and lonely we feel. So it's a strange, crazy paradox that definitely deserves our

attention. As far as why is this and what is it? What how is it affecting us? It's incredible. When you put it like that, it's quite alarming. And I think obviously, like, you know, and I know, you're probably in the same position, my whole business is online. And I know a lot of people that are listening, and a lot of people, even a bit younger, maybe grew

up with it. And I can see, I was at a high school educator, so I can actually really see the like, on one hand, I used to worry about these students who were seemingly quite attached to their phones, and to social media. But then on the other hand, I can see such opportunity for creativity and for opportunities that were never there before. And I think it's really important to that we highlight that it can be it can be used in a good way. If it's

done well. And I think still, it requires our awareness and our attention. And I'm sure that's something that you're probably also teaching your kids, but how would you say to come up come about this from a really empowered angle? Yeah, it's a great question. Because you're right. I mean, I've only been able to publish books, really, because of social media. And yeah, in the in the internet, you know, that's,

that's my story is Yeah. And it's a beautiful thing, because I, you know, I, I had the gatekeepers that publishing houses telling me no, or you know, that there's no audience there for your book, or, cuz I was writing trying to write to 20 Somethings, and they're like, why are you writing to 20 somethings just, there's young adults, and there's adults, there's no section for 20

Somethings. And so, you know, my long story short, is I started a website called all grown up, gr O A N, like groaning in pain, all grown up.com. And just to start reaching my audience to start speaking to them to try to show, you know, I think there's something big happening here. And, and fast forward. You know, this was a 10 year journey that I'm just quickly going through. But I had one article called 21. Secrets, your 20s that I wrote,

I threw up there. And and then a couple days later, my website was crashing, because I was getting so much traffic from from people sharing that on Pinterest, of all places. Yeah, so that was the social media platform that helped change my life. And, but but it was sharing, so everybody was sharing it with their friends. And it really sparked my career, it was the tipping point moment, where I was then able to prove to a publisher, hey, there's something there, we should do

this book. And then that led to my first book, 101 secrets, your 20s. So, so I definitely have that, that that, you know, weighing this. And trying to always proactively think, how do I do this in a healthy, profound, meaningful way? How do I use my phone and these platforms instead of them using me? And, and I think that takes individual questions that we each need to ask ourselves, based off our habits, how much time we're spending how we feel, when we're using certain

platforms. I think we have to be honest with ourselves and be open and maybe even ask for help, you know, maybe even have a community, a mentor, where these kinds of conversations are taking place, even with other you know, if you're a content creator, or you're an entrepreneur with other content creators, entrepreneurs, so it's like, how can we do this? Well, because for me, I wrote earlier in a book, I wrote about what I

call death by validation. And as a creator, it can be, it can be amazing, it can be quite difficult. Yeah, when you're posting work, and then you're waiting for that validation to hit, you know, you're waiting for that dopamine hit to come. And, and when it doesn't come as quickly as you hoped, or as large as you hoped, then it can be quite deflating, and it can lead to depression and anxiety. You know, so I had to really wrestle with that as a crater of, Okay, where is my worth

being placed here? As I'm thinking about what is social media worthy? Yeah. And maybe social media worthy is not always, Pauline. gonee worth, you know, you know, maybe those don't always correlate with each other. Yeah. Wow. That's such an interesting perspective. I love the way you put that. And I love my, I think my favourite chapter. In fact, in chapter five, you really talk about the importance of what you call awkward, boring and quiet

spaces. So would you mind just telling us like, Why do our minds need silence? Silence? Sorry, yeah. And how can we start to really practice this, this skill of becoming uncomfortable in those boring or awkward moments? Yeah, and, you know, and I write this as somebody that I don't want to be uncomfortable, like,

I don't want to be awkward. I don't like awkward moments, either, you know, so it's not, it's not like, I'm a glutton for awkwardness and pain, you know, as I'm writing this, but I was kind of I was seeing more and more, you know, I equate it to, you know, like that sponge in your sink that you've been using far too often. And, and it kind of smells. And you should have thrown it out a while ago, but yet, you're still like scrubbing

your dishes with it. Which is always baffles me like, how is this cleaning our dishes right now? Like is, so it's like, oh, this is like a Petri dish. This should be in a chemistry lab. And now I'm cleaning my pots with it. Like, what? It doesn't make sense, right? That's hilarious. My husband's gonna love this. You know, I just it always baffles me, but but I had that that image of, you know, I really feel like that's our minds now is that we never give our minds the time and space to

completely dry out. Thus, we're losing our effectiveness of the ways that our minds work. minds cannot be constantly berated with noise, with headlines with lights, distractions, like, that's not how our minds were made to work. And so I do think it's becoming overwhelming for us. So that's why I do say, you know, those awkward those uncomfortable, those boring moments are great times, not only just let your just let yourself be, to sit, to look around to be present in that

moment. You know, it's kind of functional mindfulness, where, you know, I really want to be, you know, I want to have functional mindfulness. I want to be really active and engaged with this. And so I can't I can't escape when I feel awkward or uncomfortable. So even on my phone right now, I mean, going back to my phone, I have a screen image on my phone that says, Do I need to jump on my phone right now? Oh, I like that. And, and people can get

this. whoever buys the book, they can get these images, I made about 15 of them. And it's been really helpful. It's just a little tool. Yeah, but something that helps catch me. Yeah, when I'm doing that, that reflex motion, I'm looking at my phone for no good reason, other than to escape. And it's almost like sober. Paul right. is asking as asking me a question. And saying, you know, do you really need this poll, you know, distracted? Paul, do you need

this right now. And it catches me about half the time where I don't feel like I need it. And, and really why I think this is important, is because I think we're missing so much beautiful moments of our life. We're missing so many ideas, so much revelation. We're missing relationships. You know, I call them not so chance encounters in

our life. You know, we say oh, there's a chance encounters I say, well, they're not so chance encounters, because the odds are quite incredible that you're sitting next to that person on the subway right now. Or you're you're next to each other in a grocery aisle, or whatever it might be like the odds that you're both there right now in this moment in time is a trillion to one, yeah. So why not pay attention to that moment? You know, maybe that's a relationship you're going to

need in your life. And neither of you know it. Maybe that's your future spouse. You know? Who knows? And I think so, so far, often We're escaping. Yeah. From all these beautiful moments in our life. Yeah. Probably looking for this looking for the spouse on the phone. Yeah. And they might have been right next to you, you know. And so I do think, you know, that's when we get those great ideas, you know, such I write in the book, if you don't feel like you're getting any breakthrough

ideas in your life? Well, maybe it's because you're not giving yourself any time or space to actually think about them. Yeah, and it happens in those boring, uncomfortable, awkward moments. And so we need to we need to protect those. We need to be diligent about, you know, I just need to sit here. I need to be awkward at this moment. You know, I tell you, especially young adults, to go do an awkward wander when you go to conferences, like, like, just

awkwardly wander around? Yes. And just be open to meeting people. Yeah. And that I mean, that right there is what led to my second book deal was me awkwardly wandering around at a conference, being drawn to a table talking to a lady who said, I gotta I gotta introduce you to the VP of Marketing at my publishing house, he's gonna love you. Oh, wow. And, and that led to my second book, deal, my book all grown up, you just never know, I think we have to be more open to these moments.

Yeah. And I think we'll be amazed what we find, and it'll we'll be rewarded from it. So then we'll want to do more. And I'll feel way more life giving, I think a break, where we just sit there and look around and see the birds see the trees talk to somebody is a more life giving break, then just jumping into our phone, which I really feel is breaking us, it's not a productive break.

So true. And I love the way you sort of do tie it back to like a lot of the way you connect it back to relationships and how you talk about the five love languages, which is I've talked about on the podcast before. But you do point out that, like, all love languages start with our ability or inability to actually pay attention. So what, why is it important that we have the ability to pay attention in relation to the quality of our relationships? Yeah, this was a really

important one for me. Because if we are listening to our day, so much of our day is the important people in our life. And, and I do think this is, you know, I almost visualise, you know, if you get a tiny crack on your windshield, and especially if you live somewhere cold, to get that tiny crack and the cold weather starts hitting, you know, that crack, that's just a tiny crack on your windshield of your car starts growing. And before you even realise it before you've been paid

attention or noticed it. In all sudden, it's like, halfway across your windshield. Like, oh, my gosh, how did this happen? I think that's happening in a lot of our relationships. We're getting these tiny cracks everywhere. But neither neither party, you know, you, let's say even in a case of marriage, or a dating relationship, we're not paying attention to each other anymore. You know, I think a travesty in marriage is you know, you stop looking at each

other in your face. Like, you're just so busy, and you're going and you have kids and you're just attention is everywhere. Like I just find that sometimes, my wife and I, we might not even look at each other in our eyes, or take a moment to sit down on the couch. And just look at each other and, and spend that time paying attention to each other. So I do think it is a hugely important thing that's dramatically affecting our relationships, because we were not paying attention. So how can

we love each other? Well, if we're not paying attention to each other. And then also in the in the case of networking or business relationships, you're gonna show importance to somebody by your ability to pay good attention to them. And and so I even talked about, you know, doing strategies or playing games, like the first five minutes, is what I call it, or first three minutes, or whatever it is. But when you meet somebody new, try to just ask them questions for the first

three minutes. See if you can do it, you know, maybe say your name, but just try to ask them really good questions. And if you do that, and let's say they leave the conversation and they don't even get a chance to hear much about you. They probably left that conversation, feeling like they really like you. Yeah. And they're really drawn to you and they're like, Man, I really want to connect with that person

more. And they might not even realise that you didn't say a word about yourself, but You just paid attention to them and gave them an opportunity to talk about themselves. And so it's really it's, it's really a strategic choice, but also a loving choice to build new strategies where, okay, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna make sure I'm not looking at my phone, I'm not looking at my watch, I'm gonna

look them in the eyes. And I even I even lay some of these simple body movement, body positioning, you know, some things that we're, I think we're losing a little bit, I even lay some of these things out to give us some practical steps, like, practically, here's what we can do, to really show somebody with our body, that we're paying attention to them. Yeah,

that's so interesting. And as you were talking, I think there's a quote comes to mind, I can't remember whose quote it is, but it says, the most interesting person in the room is the most interested person in them. So the person who's interested becomes the most engaging. And I think that's so true with it's been it's become, I find it really concerning the amount of social anxiety that's rising, especially in young

people. And it's like this real, I don't want to pick up the phone or look at anyone in the eye. Because there's no practice, there's a real lack of practice. So I think this work that you're doing is really, really important. And I'm so glad that you stuck to your guns. And you said, No, it needs to be with the 20 Somethings. And there obviously, is a need. Because, I mean, I've seen it myself, I ended up having a lot of ex students become clients.

And it was a lot of this social anxiety is stuff that was creeping in, and they're aware of it, but they don't know how to escape it all the time. And it does, it comes back to self awareness. And you can't be self aware if you're always distracted. So for people listening that are like, Oh, dear, oh, dear, I'm feeling a little bit attacked. I feel like this is something I need to pay

attention to. What would you say is one real practical action step that listeners can do after hearing this message? Yeah, I think one simple thing we can do, you know, and we've talked, I think we've talked about some of them, you know, some tools or strategies or when used to do this? You know, I think there's so many I lay some of these things out in the book.

And the book really, too. I mean, as you've seen Breanna, it's it's like a handbook, you know, it's there to be written in, in there for people to pay attention and find their answers to these questions. And so it's really meant to get messy, and to become a handbook and a guide, not just something to read and sit back and experience passively. You know, but one thing could be like I've done, you know, we talked about the beginning, what have I changed?

One thing I change is I built into my day, 45 minutes of taking a hike when I'm working. And I know that's not always, you know, we all can't do it. And there's different ways you can go about it. But it just trying to schedule a moment, five minutes, 45 minutes, where you're getting out, and you're walking around, preferably in nature. Yeah, it's a really helpful habit to get into. And for me, you know, not only is it it's healthy, it's helping my

physical activity. It's helping my spiritual, my emotional, my mental. You know, studies have shown if we go outside for 30 minutes, and just look around and walk, it does so much to ease anxiety levels, depression levels. It's amazing. It does more than any app could ever could ever do. But also, I find it's the most productive time in my day. Yeah, because I'm coming up with the most ideas, and I'm solving problems. And researchers call this the

incubation effect. Yeah, that that your mind is actually working through a lot of these problems, subconsciously, that you've been working on throughout the day at the computer or in your relationships or whatever. And it's trying to solve them. It's trying to give it new clarity, new ideas. And so it's actually a very productive so if you go to my Instagram account, you know, a lot of my videos are me while I'm hiking towards the end. So I am pulling out my

phone at some moment again. But it's just because I'm brimming with some idea or something I want to share. I'm brimming with excitement, because of this hike. So I'd say that's one practice. Can we build this into

our day? And I think we find it so incredibly helpful and it'd be a great habit to start forming that will become that we'll want to do no matter what you know, we're really now it's like something we got to do I really got to do this time, because I know how important it is to my day. Yeah, I agree with that so much I always joke with my clients about how I need a whiteboard in my shower. Because exactly the bath it's like just that moment it's like your whole mind just

eat it's it's coming up. Like I always say answers don't come in the hustle. They come in the silence and I think creating that time like you said whether it's a walk whether it's yeah, a bath, something where you just have no intention of forcing, forcing is just being I love that so much, Paul, your book, where can people go to get a copy to connect with your staff? Where's the best place for people to find you. Yeah, my website all grown up.com is still my home base.

And again, that's grown gr O ei N, like you're groaning in pain, all grown up. And and people can download free chapters from all five of my books through through my website if they want. And then and then the book is sold, anywhere books are sold pretty much Amazon bookstores. Hopefully it'll be far and wide available. So but But Amazon is probably the easiest place to jump on and get it. And then Paul and gonee is my social media handle. And go needs a

tough one a n g o ne. But they can connect with me online and social media. I'm still there. Even though I've been ragging against social media, it's still a powerful place to connect, to build relationships. It's just thinking through new practices and ways of how do we interact with this so that it's so that I'm controlling it, it's not controlling me. And I'm still working on that every day. So it's an active thing that we I think we all need to keep just it's an active practice.

Absolutely. I think awareness is always the first thing, right. And I think even this conversation, it's really great that some people listening might just have that awareness throughout the day that we can, you know, put into practice a little more often. So, Paul, thank you so much for the work you're doing. I think it's really incredible. I loved reading your manuscript. It's absolutely it's just such a nice, easy read. Really great, man. I just loved the way you

right. So again, thank you so much for being here and listeners. We will put all of the links in the show notes. Thank you for having me. You're on it was an honour to get to talk to you today.