[00:00:00] Adam: Solitude is great. Loneliness is not. Solitude is something we choose. Loneliness is something that is the byproduct of us being alone, and we are far more likely to experience loneliness.
[00:00:11] If we've scorched earth or there's another version, but it's a whole other chapter unto itself. And that is sometimes being with the wrong person incurs more loneliness than being alone.
[00:00:21] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
[00:00:55] Welcome back to Live The Width of Your Life podcast. My guest today was Dr. Adam Dorsay. He's a licensed psychologist and executive coach in Silicon Valley. And he works with high achieving adults, including professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, and professional athletes. Adam is the host of Super Psyched, an award winning podcast with over 200 episodes.
[00:01:18] It's available on all platforms, and he's also given two highly regarded TEDx talks, one about men and their emotions, and the other about friendship in adulthood. And we spent our time talking a lot about his new bestselling book, Super Psyched, Unleash the Power of the Four Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love.
[00:01:40] I loved our conversation. I think you will notice from the moment that we hit record, we just really were connecting in so many ways. I read this book in one sitting and I loved so much of the details that Adam includes in the book, really about moving from a life of autopilot. And one in which we wake up every day and just love the life that we are living.
[00:02:05] He talked about the four types of connection. We talked a lot about cultivating self compassion, comparison bias, how technology has really created some loneliness and some distractions that are really impacting our ability to live life fully. We could have talked for hours. I loved our time together and I think you will as well. Take a listen.
[00:02:26] Dr. Adam Dorsey, and you gave me permission before we hit record to call you Adam. So I will say, I am going to call you Adam. I welcome that. I am so grateful that you are here.
[00:02:37] Adam: Aneta, just our brief green room chat told me you are really cool. It's not just a green room. Wow. You actually literally have plants behind you for the green room, but I'm telling you your listeners are so fortunate. Your clients are as well. I can just tell that you're the real deal. So nice to meet you.
[00:02:53] Aneta: It's so nice to meet you. I'm so excited. There's so much goodness that comes even before we hit record. I just finished your book, last night, Super Psyched: Unleash The Power of The Four Types of Connection and Live The Life You Love, which so aligns to the mission of this podcast and something I believe so strongly. And why did you write this book?
[00:03:16] Adam: Well, Very similar to your word width. There are widths within us. There are so many portions of who we are that cause us to become alive. Now, let's just contrast this. You've been to a party, you've met somebody for the first time and you start with a handshake, perhaps, you know the difference between a vital handshake and a limp handshake. A vital handshake, as Olivia Cobain Fox says, she wrote The Charisma Myth, is worth more than the most expensive Swiss watch. And a limp handshake, it just, can you feel it viscerally? What do you feel when I even say that? It's ew. Many of us are living this dash between our birth date and our death date like limp handshakes. And, rather than these vital handshakes.
[00:04:03] And the question is, what brings us alive after doing 20, 000 hours of psychotherapy with individuals and couples after interviewing some of the most brilliant people in the world on my podcast, this world connection just keeps coming up. And the problem with connection is, if you look up the word in the dictionary, it says connecting two things. This is not what we're talking about when we're talking about connection. And everybody's talking about connection and connection. No one's written a book on connection in and of itself. There have been books on connecting with your spouse, connecting with your children, connecting with your clients.
[00:04:38] But what about exploring connection as a topic and defining it in the way that it's probably meant? Even the American Psychological Association did not have a definition for connection. So when I realized what I needed to write, it was a book on connection. It hadn't been written. It seized me. It was like a pit bull taking, its teeth into me and saying, I'm not going to let go of you until you've written this book. And I'm so glad I did.
[00:05:06] Aneta: I love this idea of you talking about the limp handshake or the really vital, strong handshake. And that is that zest, it's that desire for life. It's just really choosing to seize all these moments. And do you think that it's the English language that doesn't have a good definition for connection or I don't know if in your research, you found that in other cultures, there are multiple words for this idea of connection, especially the way you've defined it with the four different types of connection within your book.
[00:05:38] Adam: I speak a few languages. I speak fairly fluent Japanese and Spanish and can mess around in a few others. I'm trying to think of, within the lexicon, in those languages, is there a word that really hits it? Not to my knowledge. To my knowledge, the only universe that has that word is maybe in the Star Wars universe, maybe the force.
[00:05:58] Might be the closest thing that I can come up with, but I actually took some time to come up with a working definition even the American Psychological Association, didn't have a connection definition. It was just it's not in dictionary for the American Psychological. Psych Central had one. That was pretty good. It was quite rudimentary. I, amongst 10 other, approximately 10 other mental health professionals, came up with a working definition. I consulted them, and vitality, what makes you come alive, life force, these are within the definition.
[00:06:30] That took a little bit over a page for me to define. And I believe that's what we're looking for, whether it's within ourselves, between two people, within our work, or with our travel, or nature or within something greater in, whether it's religion for some people, that's what's something greater for other people.
[00:06:49] The most orthodox atheist would go to, let's say I don't know Croatia and experience awe and be like, wow, this is where Game of Thrones was filmed and this is so beautiful. And there's rich history. Grand Canyon astronomy these things incur awe, which is a connection with something greater than ourselves. So try to explore those four dimensions of connection, self, other, the world and something greater.
[00:07:14] Aneta: Yeah. And do you feel like we have to have that strong connection with ourself first in to just have that connection with self and just looking at my own clients and thinking back to moments in my life where I was struggling or maybe was not living authentically to who I was. It's really hard to make a connection with other humans when you are barely surviving and you can't even listen to that voice within. So how do we begin first with the self connection and then be able to take that life force or to take that certainty of knowing and extending it to other humans as well?
[00:07:57] Adam: So let's talk about its absence first. Let's imagine you and I made it a seminar. We finally get to meet each other and it's a break and we both have to go pee really badly. And it's hey Aneta, and it's like Adam and we want to talk. And yet how well will we connect with each other when we can't connect with ourselves because we both have to go to the bathroom real bad.
[00:08:16] Or if we had a head cold or if there was like a massive rock in our shoe that was pointy and hurtful, we do this all the time in life. Another example would be, let's say you and I pretended that we were really into this musician. We go to the concert with our friend, but we really hate this musician. Like it's almost like aversive. Many of us go through life pretending we're into something or trying to suppress the pains that we're feeling. Now, we have to do that, of course, to get through the day, but we want less of that because that impedes connection. In as much as when we are impaired or when we're deceiving ourselves saying we're into something when we're not Let's go to the opposite. Let's imagine you and I just met after just a long run and we're just like so alive like I left it all I feel just so alive and we meet in that state maybe a little sweaty, but feeling really good about life.
[00:09:10] And it's Aneta and you're like, yes, Adam, I just I just worked out. That caused you to come alive. Imagine that versus having to appear, pretending that you're into something that you're not. We can't be that way throughout life all the time, but Super Psyched is a term that I used. Not to just convey that we're super psyched to see each other.
[00:09:29] Nobody can be super psyched and super happy all the time in the way it's used in our current vernacular. I also mean it to mean super connected to our psyches. It means that we are connected to our feelings. So let's say we're really excited.
[00:09:40] We engage that excitement, but let's say something really sad happened. Maybe we lost a pet. And we connect with the grief and we're super connected to our psyches in that moment because one thing I know for sure is that when we don't grieve well, It haunts us. We need to be connected to our psyche. So the goal of this book is to look at connection in as much as we are connected to our psyches, our thoughts, our feelings, our behaviors, that we're more intentional, that we're more aware.
[00:10:10] We can't be aware all the time. Anywhere between ten to sixty thousand thoughts a day. We can't be aware of all of them, but we want to be a little bit more intentional, particularly about how we use our time. Asking ourselves, does this, activity feed me or bleed me. Sometimes to get through the day, of course, we have to do things that suck.
[00:10:25] We're not going to be stoked all the time, but maybe we can even reinterpret the sucky things to realize, wait, this is just the cost of doing business, this is a situation. This is something that allows me to get from here to there. And maybe there's some way I can make it a little bit better. Maybe I can listen to a podcast or maybe I can listen to some really pumped movies.
[00:10:43] Maybe I could actually engage Aneta and say, hey, you know what? I have to do something, you're not kind of sucky on Sunday. Would you join me in something sucky and let's make it less sucky together.
[00:10:52] Aneta: Yeah. And I love that because you actually have a section in the book where you list different activities and the reader can either say, yes, this is something that does make me come alive or doesn't. You can have those activities. I love that you did that. So where did you come with the list of everything?
[00:11:09] Are these things that you enjoy or were they things that you've done with your clients and you realize that it's been helpful for them as well?
[00:11:15] Adam: Yeah, I wanted an empirically validated list. So I actually hit up a psychologist. His name is Dr Matthew McKay. He's a dialectical behavioral therapy specialist. It's an empirically validated therapy for various problems, including borderline personality disorder and even bipolar. It's been very helpful in terms of regulating emotions, but he came up with a list of activities.
[00:11:37] It's the most comprehensive list I could find. I could try to summon up one of my own, but I thought I would use something that has been used in a prominent textbook and he very kindly gave me permission to use that list. It's by no means an exhaustive list. There's some activities on that list that would be aversive to you.
[00:11:55] And there's some that would give you life. And then there are some that you would add to that list. So one of the things that happens is you and I both work perhaps during the work week. Let's imagine back in the banking days when you were back there, Saturday comes along, no need to go to work.
[00:12:10] Oftentimes we wake up in the morning, we brew up some coffee, we
[00:12:14] turn on some Netflix, streaming in the background, you're folding some laundry, answering email, you're looking at social media, you're responding to texts. You're doing a whole bunch of stuff because it's easy, but is it actually rejuvenating. Is it actually something that gives you life? Is it something that increases the width to your life? I'm guessing probably not. And many of them say I'm so busy, but if we actually looked at a pie chart and how we are. Intentionally allocating our time, our one non renewable resource would be appalled.
[00:12:48] So oftentimes the things that will give you and me that really big ROI, that big return on investment for the cool stuff, that takes a little bit more activation energy. It Is pumping up the tires of our bike, putting on the bike rack, figuring out where we're going to go, strapping on the bike and driving to a great location and then exerting energy for a bit, having some lactic acid pulled up in our thighs, asking ourselves that perhaps certain moments, wouldn't it have been better just to be chilling at home, watching some Netflix?
[00:13:21] It certainly would be easier. But I fully guarantee you when you get back in the car. You're going to feel like, wow, that was a good use of my time. I did something. And one of the things that I've been telling people, and I'm fairly certain on this idea, even Martha Beck has been talking about it lately, is that we need to consume less and create more and consume less would mean.
[00:13:45] Maybe less time on social media and just, doom scrolling and maybe more time creating. Now, creating does not just mean, like putting together a collage or painting. It means maybe even creating musculature while biking. Creating a stronger connection to nature while biking and photons is a big benefit, we get sunlight.
[00:14:04] Social connection is creation. Just having a cup of coffee with a good friend is creating. But certainly some of the other creative activities include woodworking, writing, redesigning your home, doing the Marie Kondo thing of simplifying your life and getting rid of stuff that doesn't work.
[00:14:22] So by getting rid of we create more room. Anyway, there's so many ways that we can create and we tend to feel more vital when we create and you're doing a podcast and I'm going take a big guess here, Aneta. I'm going to guess that on the other side of most, if not all of your podcasts, you say, that was a good use of time.
[00:14:42] Aneta: Oh, yeah. Of course. And all of those things that you talked about, and even like this podcast interview, there's an intentionality. There is an intentionality, like when we move from autopilot, which is where sometimes we spend so much of that time numbing ourselves, Or tapping into these seductive distractions and we convince ourselves we should be doing.
[00:15:05] But when we're moving from that and choosing to do something differently, we are the creators. We are co creating this life, whether you believe it's with a higher power, but when we do the other things where we just allow time to just, evaporate. That's not truly living, but I do know why we do it.
[00:15:24] We do it because we're tired. We're doing so many activities sometimes that don't give us the energy, especially if you're in a life or a career or relationship that's not aligned to your values, that's a lot of work that exerts a lot of energy, then sometimes there's nothing left.
[00:15:42] Adam: Absolutely. And we numb out and you know the expression, let's go kill some time.
[00:15:47] Aneta: Right?
[00:15:49] Adam: Were born, it's a miracle that we were born. Statistically so unlikely. The likelihood of winning any lottery or any game in Vegas is infinitely higher than being born. And infinitely. The likelihood of us being born is roughly equivalent to zero.
[00:16:03] The best, most erudite, approximation was something like 1 in 10 to the 7. 29 millionth power. I don't know how truly that is, but it seems right. Given if you think about the biology and the statistics around it, but let's get into that for a second, when we kill time, when we numb out, we are dissociating and that's fine to do once in a while.
[00:16:23] But if it becomes our go to in our automatic response to everything, we will be numbing out through life. We want vitality while we're living. It could even include just sitting outside and reading a book. That could be vital, and revitalizing, and entering a new world while doing so. If you look up the definition of any mental health disorder in the DSM, it involves the opposite of connection involves disconnection. Depression is dep, is disconnecting from the present because we may, one of the features of depression is ruminating on the past. A feature of anxiety is future tripping, is worrying about the future, perhaps catastrophizing. A feature of trauma is dissociation and a feature, a major feature of psychosis is a break from reality itself.
[00:17:15] So if at the heart of everything that we don't want is disconnection, it makes so much sense that at the heart of everything we do want is connection. It just makes sense, no one has disagreed with that idea. And of course we need dissociations from time to time. Whether it's taking a nap, whether it's watching something mindlessly. I love streaming, but if it's the only thing we will have a limp handshake life.
[00:17:40] Aneta: Nobody wants that. One of the things I love that you talk about too, because we know that people are suffering, that it's really hard, is this idea of self compassion and making sure that we are providing ourselves self compassion. So can you talk a little bit about that?
[00:17:55] And I always think of grace too, like the word grace is just one of those beautiful words, like self compassion, that sometimes we just don't give ourselves.
[00:18:04] Adam: I don't know if you grew up this way, but I remember that the opposite of self compassion was what was lionized when I was a child. Be rough on yourself! I'm so demanding, and there's no one harder than I am on me. That is fine, except it won't give you the best results. The best results, and even the Navy SEALs are using it, come from a gentle, firm, and loving voice in our head.
[00:18:29] If you can imagine a Yoda, a Ben Kenobi, a Steve Kerr, if we want to go the coaching route, cause Steve Kerr actually appeared on my podcast saying that compassion is one of the four values that he imbues on one of the winningest basketball teams we've ever seen in the Golden State Warriors.
[00:18:44] And he's got, I believe like nine rings. If you include his coaching and his playing rings, he's amazing. But self compassion is we get better long term results and faster when we are speaking to ourselves in a manner that is gentle. I'm doing something and I'm failing. And I say to myself, wow, you're an idiot. Get it together, Adam. I'm actually going to have results too. I'm struggling and I say to myself, Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. Ted Lasso here, speaking in your head. You got this. Hang in there. Tenacity. You will figure this out. You haven't figured this out yet. It's a puzzle. Go for it. You can do this.
[00:19:27] Does it work every time? No. Does anything work every time? No, and does it sometimes work to being hard on yourself? Yes, but over the long haul, if you want to stack the cards in your favor, self compassion has been demonstrated through multiple studies. Chris Germer, who's at Harvard right now, teaching about this topic alongside his colleague, who Kristen Neff, they've been the two big proponents, but Chris Germer said on my podcast, listen, if you want to correlate two things and you're a graduate student in psychology, try to find a good outcome and try to correlate it with self compassion because the likelihood is you'll get good results. That's just how central self compassion is to our well being.
[00:20:09] Aneta: Yeah. And also when we release the judgments for ourselves, do you find then that people are able to do that for others as well?
[00:20:18] Adam: Definitely. Have you ever heard the expression, hurt people?
[00:20:21] Aneta: Oh, of course.
[00:20:22] Adam: I love that expression. When we're hurting, we're more likely to be judgmental. We're more likely to be critical of others and certainly critical of ourselves. And many of us will, again, lionize it. I'm super critical because I have high standards.
[00:20:33] Yeah. And you go through life with a sour taste in your mouth, the entire time. I'm so grateful to Mel Robbins who came up with this other book, Let Them which is all about, let people do what they're gonna do. Of course, let me, speak up from time to time in a manner that might be serving self and other.
[00:20:53] But one of the things that we know about self compassion is that we are far more likely to be forgiving of others. And as you said, grace, give the others grace, say, you know what? Maybe they came by that honestly. Maybe there's a backstory here that I don't understand, but regardless not my life, not my thing to solve.
[00:21:14] My thing to solve is me and how I'm investing my time and If I'm in a relationship with this individual, of course there are moves that we can make, there are moves that may feel really good in the first second, but bad in the second and moving forward. It's like that one second that you get of ah, it felt so good to flip them off.
[00:21:36] But afterwards there are repercussions and to quote many a theologian, once you let the feathers outside of the feather pillow, you can't put them back in, so we need to be thoughtful about how we interact with people. And one of the ways to change the immediacy of the stimulus versus the response, Victor Frankel talks about between the stimulus and the response, there's a space and within that space, there is choice.
[00:22:03] People say I couldn't help it. I had to flip them off. Would you have flipped that person off if mother Teresa was sitting next to you? Would you have flipped that person off if your favorite president was sitting next to you assuming the president is a thoughtful kind person. So I guess that's what i'm getting at.
[00:22:18] Would you have done that if somebody like a child whose life you really wanted to imprint on was sitting next to you would have more space between the stimulus and the response and we need to be thoughtful. We need to expand that space between the stimulus and the response because eventually our life becomes the sum of our decisions.
[00:22:37] We're going to screw up from time to time. I'm not thrilled to admit, I have flipped somebody off when I was driving. One time in my late twenties, it nearly turned into something violent from the other party. So I'm here to say, maybe don't unleash the middle finger because you just don't know the long term repercussions.
[00:22:58] I could be walking with a limp or not walking at all today if things had gone as badly as they could have. Yeah, the decisions we make we just have to choose wisely.
[00:23:08] Aneta: Yeah, it is a choice. And I think that many times people are walking around with dysregulated nervous systems. And then of course, we're not necessarily thinking or choosing based on logic or critical thinking. It's more of an emotional response which is impacting, I think sometimes these behaviors.
[00:23:29] Adam: 100%. I was talking to an anger expert. His name is Ryan Martin. He's at, I believe the University of Nebraska. He has an anger lab that he runs, and he basically said, Anger is the byproduct or the body's response to the perception or the reality of an injustice so we perceive an injustice some guy cuts me off and I become very angry.
[00:23:52] And I flip the person off I mean he even describes car as the incubator for anger research. It's like the perfect, it's the perfect storm for where anger can transpire, and it's an important emotion, and yet it's important that we learn how to regulate it. If you can imagine a little switch on our body that is not off and on, but rather it goes from zero to ten, and we can figure out how to regulate it. Asking ourselves, huh, what does it mean that I'm angry right now? And what am I needing? How can I get those needs met?
[00:24:28] What's the short term view? What's the long term view? We can't all sit down and analyze every little emotion we have. But when there's something big that could have big repercussions, we might want to take a moment, take a breath and figure out what would be the best thing to do now.
[00:24:42] Really, given my life agenda. My spouse says something that I don't like, is it really the best idea to turn it to 10 or maybe can I ask for something instead and say, what I'd really like right now is this, or that could even include, I just need to step away for a minute to cool down because no two people are carbon copies. The best relationships will have moments where things rub us the wrong way. If we do scorched earth all the time, we will be alone. And, we also do know that loneliness is detrimental to our health, some studies suggest as bad as 15 cigarettes a day.
[00:25:24] Some even connected to mortality measures that are even more predictive of us dying than our cholesterol, our blood sugar, and other cardiological measures. Solitude is great. Loneliness is not. Solitude is something we choose. Loneliness is something that is the byproduct of us being alone, and we are far more likely to experience loneliness.
[00:25:46] If we've scorched earth or there's another version, but it's a whole other chapter unto itself. And that is sometimes being with the wrong person incurs more loneliness than being alone. And I think a lot of people can relate to that idea. So that's a whole, that's a whole other episode.
[00:26:02] Aneta: I wrote down actually when I was reading the book last night that one third of 45 year olds and greater are lonely and half of the population I think is the U. S. numbers, right? If 65 year old or older also feel lonely or isolated. Those are really staggering stats.
[00:26:20] Adam: I've seen various statistics and all have been discouraging and it makes a lot of sense that the former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has really tried to make it a hot ticket agenda item. If we can cure for loneliness, if we can reduce our loneliness, how much more likely are we going to be generous to others, how much more likely are we to use our time and not join.
[00:26:47] Affiliations that cause us to other others but when we're lonely, we'll look for any affiliation we can get We know this look at children who are born in broken homes Who don't have a father figure and who are more likely to join gangs just to have an affiliation and that has ripple effects in all of our lives.
[00:27:05] Even if we're not going to join a gang, we're going to join a gang. It will be a different kind of gang. But we will want to point our finger at somebody and say, you guys suck. We're awesome. And if we're less lonely, we'll have more room inside ourselves to say, you know what, I don't agree with that other group all that much, there's still good people. We could still, enjoy a barbecue together.
[00:27:30] Aneta: In the book there's so many things in here. One, I loved how vulnerable you were sharing a lot about your childhood and just your search of connection from a young age. So do you mind just sharing maybe a little bit about how that influenced, as much or as little as you want, but Yeah.
[00:27:48] Adam: Of course, it was a moment of great vulnerability. I know Brene Brown talks about taking a vulnerability shame shower. When I was a boy, I came out really hungering to connect. My mom said that when she'd pushed me in the stroller, she'd never seen a child who was like that open and trying to connect with people.
[00:28:06] And yet I lacked the skills to do it when I got into grade school, I just was neurodivergent ADHD and other learning disabilities, including certain cues that I had trouble reading so bad that when I invited every boy in my second grade class over to play, I got zero yeses, like literally went through the entire list alphabetically, trying to get somebody to come over and play some soccer or something.
[00:28:31] So I learned over the years and. I also was very confused for a long period of time because in second grade when they tested me for my intelligence It seemed to indicate it was I had high intelligence based on the conventional measures and yet I was flailing in class. Flailing and failing in fact so badly they put me in the average and then the below average and then finally they put me in the truly, learning disabled LD class.
[00:28:59] So I was in special education everybody thought I was a little bit weird for that, and that was not a good feeling. I marinated in this idea, back in those days we were called mentally retarded. People, even though I wasn't diagnosed as, quote, developmentally disabled, or what were they called then, mentally retarded.
[00:29:15] Kids would point at me and say that I was. And so in sixth grade, I remember saying to my father, it's really hard to be mentally retarded. And my father was driving at the time. He pulled the car over and said, Adam, you're not. In fact, you're very smart. The school system has been failing you.
[00:29:31] And that was really a powerful moment. It didn't undo everything and not even close, but it opened the door a crack to say, hey maybe there's a world of intelligence I haven't yet explored. And what ensued was, many years of grappling with trying to find intelligent life between my brain sorry, let's try that between my ears, and various moments along the way of figuring certain things out, learning that I could learn four languages, learning that I could read books in college.
[00:30:01] I talk about my Tuesdays with Morrie like relationship with Dr. Alan Greenberger, who lived not far from where you are now who I miss every day to this day, but he was my Mr. Miyagi. He was the mentor I could have only dreamt. He took my brain from the opposition, the on position and showed me that I could really analyze complex information in our independent studies. And when I was 27 years old, I took my first dose of Ritalin after being diagnosed with ADHD of the inattentive type.
[00:30:33] I didn't have the type that it was, swinging from chandeliers. I was looking out the window causing nobody problems except myself. And I remember sitting in the car after having taken that first dose of prescribed Ritalin from the psychiatrist I was seeing and within about 30 minutes. I just stayed in my car.
[00:30:52] I noticed my brain felt different in a good way. Like it felt this is what normal feels like and for the next five years I put myself through a self created brain executive functioning program to try to unlearn or learn unlearn old activities, learn new ways to behave so I could become the husband and father I wanted. To become the employee I wanted to become to make my ADHD invisible to anyone.
[00:31:20] And to this day, no one would guess. The only people who would really see it would be my wife because she sees me all the time, so there might be moments, but in my professional life, in my friendship world it doesn't show up. And I'm so grateful that we have these tools and that it was identified, and a little sad that it wasn't identified sooner, but better late than never. I am a late bloomer.
[00:31:45] Aneta: I always say when we have these challenging situations, when we're fortunate to have someone or people in our lives, like your father, like your mentor, like your wife, like everyone else, when we're able to say, yes, those things happen to you, but none of it is wasted. You can use all of those experiences for good, align it to what you are here to do in the world.
[00:32:09] That's like a beautiful thing, but not everyone is as fortunate or as lucky. How wonderful that you had these amazing people in your life who were part of your journey, who said to you, no, you're really smart. You're able to write books and help tens of thousands of people and do two TEDx Talks and all the other amazing things that you've done in the world.
[00:32:30] Adam: So good of you to say that, and I agree wholly. And for anybody who's struggling or flailing, the resources have become quite sophisticated these days. If somebody tried therapy many years ago only once with one therapist, maybe knock on a few other doors. Get a good recommendation for what you're working on.
[00:32:48] Meet with them. Be willing to try a few. Go for an executive coach. See if there's somebody who makes sense to you, or an executive functioning coach, depending on what you're wanting to work on. Help is out there. We're not meant to do this alone. Our social brains are require the assistance of others. Barbara Streisand got it part right when she said people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.
[00:33:12] I would say the people who know they need people are the luckiest people in the world and the people who actually are willing to humble themselves and say, I need help are the luckiest people.
[00:33:23] Aneta: Adam, you wrote this beautiful book and it changed me reading it. And I was so excited for our conversation. What is your intention? What is your hope for this book? How do you want it to impact the world?
[00:33:36] Adam: As you can tell from my body and my response just to your asking that question, I love the question. I want people to be alive while they are living. That's the bottom line. Super psyched. My podcast is all about that. The book is all about that. My nickname, which you know is Enthusiadm, given to me. I realized I was born on the enthusiastic side of the bed.
[00:34:01] I want people to join in their authentic ways, their own enthusiasm, if it means quietly enjoying beekeeping, if it means becoming a watchmaking geek, no matter what it is, I want people to feel alive while they're living. They will be more present. There'll be more generous to others and to themselves, it's my hope that people are a vital handshake.
[00:34:30] I remember in college I was sitting across from a fellow student and she said I was describing something with great enthusiasm as I might. And she said, wow, you're so easily impressed. I said, no, I'm not easily impressed. I have a high capacity for appreciation. And I think that a lot of us dial our enthusiasm back.
[00:34:47] Larry David couldn't have said it better when he came up with a show called Curb Your Enthusiasm. That's something that smart people do, except for the fact that it's not smart. Maybe be willing to be enthusiastic. Maybe willing to laugh 10 percent harder when you see The Cowbell episode on or sketch on SNL, which I still think is the greatest of all time.
[00:35:07] Be willing to enjoy the food you're eating 10 percent more. I'm not saying full Meg Ryan and Harry met Sally. But am saying maybe let's dial back that inner critical voice that says, don't get so excited. Actually, maybe let's get a little more excited. Let's get a little bit more alive while we're living in the way that we express it in a genuine fashion.
[00:35:30] And nature does not create duplicates, each of us is unique, each of us needs to find our own definitions of connection, each of us needs to find our own formulas for it because your formula and mine probably have a lot of things in common, probably have a lot of things that are not in common and it's our job in that way to be true to ourselves while we're here.
[00:35:51] Aneta: Thank you. That was beautiful. And I ask everyone what it means to them to live the width of your life and everything we talked about today aligns with that. If you had to sum it up, what would your response be?
[00:36:04] Adam: Yeah. I would say this is going to sound a little, let's see if I can say it in a way that doesn't sound too metaphysical and a little bit more relatable but the first thing I'd come up with, like yoga for the spirit. Stretching our souls in a way stretching our self imposed definitions of who we are.
[00:36:21] I am a tall, hairy mediterranean male. And I lived in Japan for nearly three years. Why did I do that? I did it because I wanted to see who I was there and what that world was like. And to walk softly and with my eyes open, my ears open and see what I could learn about life from people who lived so differently.
[00:36:43] We don't have to go so extreme. And some people go more extreme, far more extreme. But, my father after he retired, began doing homestays in Spanish speaking countries because he wanted to see, he wanted to stretch his width. It's been my experience that when we stretch the width of who we are, by either reinvigorating old activities that we used to love, or trying new ones, and seeing what actually sticks we are more vital and we find new parts of ourselves that may cause us tremendous joy and may bring others tremendous joy similarly.
[00:37:21] Aneta: Well, you brought me joy today, thank you Adam. And I just encourage everybody who's listening to get this book It is life changing. It is so beautiful. It is so important for our personal relationship with others as well with our community with the world. We need connection We need so much connection in the world.
[00:37:39] And also for folks to check out your Ted X talks, The Psychology of Masculinity modern World. And How to Find and Cultivate joy, which I'm super passionate about that topic as well. Adam, thank you so much.
[00:37:51] Adam: Aneta, voila. I hope I said that correctly. In the language that you taught me in the green room, I have loved this conversation. You are really good at this.
[00:38:04] Aneta: Thank you. And we'll include all the links.
[00:38:07] Adam: Thanks so much.