224: Everything Awesome with Neil Pasricha
In this episode, we welcome Neil Pasricha. Creator of ‘The Book of Awesome’ Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and journalist. His work has spent over 200 weeks on bestseller lists and hit over 2,000,000 copies sold across dozens of languages worldwide. A proud Canadian, currently living in Toronto, Neil holds degrees from Queen’s University and Harvard Business School, his first TED talk gained notoriety as one of the 10 Most Inspiring of all time. Today Neil shares with us his journey toward happiness and bits of his past that inspired him to focus on mental health and well-being. He gives us incredible tips on how to start and end your day and how he continues to help people live healthy, purpose-led lives through intentional living.
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TRANSCRIPT
KK: We are on the brink of a mental health crisis. This is why I am so appreciative of the folks over at BetterHelp everybody the largest online counseling platform worldwide, they change the way people get help with facing life’s challenges by providing convenient, discreet, and affordable access to licensed therapists that are helped make professional counseling available anytime, anywhere through a computer, tablet, or smartphone. Sign up today go to betterhelp.com And use a promo code ‘solvinghealthcare’ and get 10% off signup fees.
SP: COVID has affected us all and with all the negativity surrounding it, it’s often hard to find the positive. One of the blessings that is given us is the opportunity to build an avenue for creating change. Starting right here in our community discussing topics that affect us most such as racism and health care, maintaining a positive mindset, creating change, the importance of advocacy, and the many lessons we have all learned from COVID. If you or your organization are interested in speaking engagements, send a message to [email protected], reach out on Facebook at kwadcast or online at drkwadwo.ca
KK: Welcome to ‘Solving Healthcare’ I’m Kwadwo Kyeremanteng. I’m an ICU and palliative care physician here in Ottawa and the founder of ‘Resource Optimization Network’ We are on a mission to transform healthcare in Canada. I’m going to talk with physicians, nurses, administrators, patients and their families because inefficiencies, overwork and overcrowding affects us all. I believe it’s time for a better health care system that’s more cost effective, dignified, and just for everyone involved.
KK: Kwadcast nation my goodness, we got Neil Pasricha show on the show man. I don’t know if you guys know how balling this is. He is a New York Times best seller, TEDx speaker, entrepreneur, podcaster, public speaker right now. His latest book, ‘Our Book of Awesome’ is out. It’s on my nightstand. In full effect. I am so excited to bring this episode to you folks because Neil encompasses the changes we need to make, the mindset changes to be happier, to live a more fulfilling life. Especially in a time where we’re struggling, a lot of people are struggling healthcare providers are looking for that sense of purpose. This episode is so much fun, we talk about how to start your day, how to end your day, how to how to be intentional and be purposeful throughout your day. And all these little things I think they just add up into living a more fulfilling life. He also talks a lot about not taking anything for granted, which I think is so important in terms of living a more fulfilled life. Talk about gratitude, all these things that we just need to appreciate and at the end of this episode, you will feel hope, you will feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I won’t lie to you man; this episode was strait up gangster. Before jumping into it make sure to jump on our kwadcast.substack.com Essentially, it is all things kwadcast, we got videos, blogs, all our podcasts on one platform, one stop shop, essentially for healthcare solutions. So, jump on kwadcast.substack.com. That’s where we’ll be changing the boogie. Alright, without any further ado, Neil Pasricha.
NP: Thanks so much for having me on. I really, really appreciate it. I love the work you’re doing and it’s a thrill to finally connect.
KK: Oh, man, this is thank you for that. This has been a long time coming. The reason Neil I wanted to get you on the show is because you are creating the change as so many of our youth so many of our health care providers need right now. How do we get well, how do we find fulfillment? How do we get happy again? How do we get awesome again? Honestly, I think the best place to start is just your story like this is this is not a typical story in terms of someone that ends up on the bestseller list. How did how did we get here?
NP: Well like it as you say, it’s not typical. My parents are Indian immigrants. My mom is from Nairobi, Kenya. My dad is from Amritsar, India, they had an arranged marriage in England, they came to Canada in the 1960s. I was born in a suburb of Toronto called Oshawa, Ontario, which I’m sure some of your listeners know and many of your listeners probably don’t. For those that don’t know, this is like a GM blue collar kind of town. I was born there in 79. My mum worked as an accountant at General Motors my dad was a high school physics teacher, the very first one in the in the region. You know, I didn’t come up into the world of arts being a thing that you could even do you know, at all. For me, it was about getting good grades in math, how’s the chemistry marks? you know, what did you get? and 92 on the paper, tell me about the questions you got wrong, you know, so my whole life philosophy was oriented towards, you know, academic achievement. For me, the wheels didn’t fall off until my late 20s. I’m happily married. I’m living in Mississauga, Ontario. I’ve got a steady job. I’m now working as a manager of leadership development, Walmart, Canada, I got the job, I got married, I got a house, I’ve got potentially going to have kids. Everything’s going according to plan. Then the span of a couple of days, the wheels fell off. Two things happened. Number one, my wife told me, she doesn’t want to be married anymore. She’s like, I’ve fallen in love with somebody else. I don’t know how to tell you this. I really don’t want to break your heart. But like, this isn’t working for me. We’d been together four years. We’ve been married for two, we just bought this house. We’re talking about having kids. It was like, you know, I’d say it was shock. But it was it was before that it was like I couldn’t even comprehend what she was saying, I was like kind of miffed, you know, I was like, what are you talking about? but at the same time, I didn’t have time to even start to process that shock. Kwadwo because three days later, my very best friend Chris, sadly took his own life. We need to talk about suicide more. You guys are on the front lines, your healthcare professionals, you know that the suicide numbers are off the charts. 18 per 100,000 murder rates are 6 per 100,000; meaning we are three times more dangerous to ourselves and anybody else is to us. I lost my best friend, I lost my wife, I lost my house, so we sold the house. I’m like losing, I lose weight. I even lose 40 pounds due to stress. Everybody at work at Walmart was like, ‘You look great. What’s your secret? What are you eating?’ You know, we have this preoccupation in our society you and I could probably go deep on this topic where like, we take anyone losing weight as like some sort of proxy for wellness, you know, which is totally unhealthy but we have this preoccupation. So, I’m like trying to answer questions about how I why I look so good, even though I just did literally not eating not sleeping, you know, that’s the recipe… don’t recommend. In the throes of this like overwhelm and anxious depressive place. I decided one night to start a blog. Why? Well, I had written when I was a kid, I was the, you know, elementary school newspaper editor, the high school newspaper editor. I even went to Queen’s University and helped edit the newspapers are called ‘Golden Words’ which is a weekly comedy newspaper there. For years after I graduated, I wasn’t doing anything like that. So, I was like, writing was a place for me. I looked for it again, I started a blog called ‘1000awesomethings.com’ with the goal of writing one awesome thing for every day for 1000 days. What’s an awesome thing? I don’t know, I didn’t even know I just said, like, I picked the blog title in like 10 seconds. I don’t know. I wrote my first post was called brocco flower, the strange mutant hybrid child of nature’s ugliest vegetables. No one liked that post, including me. You know, no one liked that thing. I was just like, put something up there. That’s a lesson by the way, just start just do something. The next day number 999. The last crummy triangle of potato chips in the corner of the bag and I talked about cutting the bag open pouring into your mouth and licking your fingers sticking it in. Again. Nobody liked it. Nobody read it. Number 998. The next day getting grass stains running around getting grass. Again. Nobody. Eventually my mom was very nice. One day I’ll tell you she sent it to my dad and my traffic double. It was unbelievable. I got like two hits. Then one day I started to get 10 and then I got a comment from someone I never heard of. Then I started getting 50 hits and then 100 hits and then a 1000s and I’m not kidding you it started hitting the front page of websites like ‘FARC’ and ‘Digg’ and ‘Reddit’ and I know we’re about the same vintage so you might remember these kind of like, you know, original kind of pre social media websites that were sort of building up link sharing as a thing right. I know Reddit is still around but digg.com and FARC.com , we’re also huge back then. So, I wrote a post number 980. Keep in mind this is 20 days after I started the thing, and it was called ‘Old dangerous playground equipment’ and I wax prophetic about burning your legs and hot slides, falling into cigarette butts and milk vessels getting a cast on your arm and have everybody sign it. It was like a, that was like saying, remember how good it was. That post got 50,000 hits in one day and for me, as somebody who’s getting 50 hits a day, I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ and then the people didn’t leave that 5000 stuck around and then 10,000 stuck around and then 50,000 stuck around and like I said, I started getting millions of hits. 1 million, 2 million, 5 million 10 million, I get a phone call. Yhe voice at the other end of the line tells me this is like nine months after I started the blog now. The voice says you just won the best blog in the World Award. Which no one’s heard of that before. It doesn’t even sound like a real award. It sounds like saying you won the Best Tiktok or award like was that even a thing? Is that even who’s making this up? Right? Turns out there’s an ‘International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences’ they fly me down to New York City a parade on stage accept an award for best blog in the world sounds like nothing but I get home to Toronto. Now I live in downtown and then by myself for the first time in a big city for the first time in a bachelor apartment for the first time lots of firsts here. I’m still like distraught depressed, I’m not dating. I’m not leaving my apartment. I’m just like hunched over my keyboard writing blogs at night, eating takeout. But you know, I didn’t even have salt and pepper shaker. I remember when I had somebody over and they were like, where’s your salt pepper. I don’t even have the salt and pepper. When you get takeout. They give you a little packets of salt and pepper. I didn’t even have bowls. I didn’t have oven trays. I had like one fork. You know, I was like living like a cave dweller. Then this blog, you know, won this award and then they turned that all these people came out of the woodwork to turn it into a book. Well, that book was probably how you know me in the first place came out in 2010. It’s called ‘The Book of Awesome’ and no one thought this thing would be a hit. They printed 6000 copies, but a kind and lovely woman named Heather Riesman who is the CEO and founder of Indigo Books are decided to make it a ‘Heather’s Pick’ She started a propulsive momentum swinging change that I’m still feeling 12 years later, the repercussions of the book ended up selling millions of copies. It became a number one best seller for like years, it wasn’t even weeks it was like it was the number one book in Canada for 2010, 2011. Up to that, like it kept going and all the sequels and spin offs started and then I’ll tell you what happened is I realized a few years later I’m like ‘The book of even more awesome’, ‘the book of holiday awesome’ in ‘the journal of awesome’, ‘the calendar of awesome’. I was like this is starting to feel like krusty the clown imitation gruel, you know the Simpsons joke like 9 out of 10 orphans can’t tell the difference. So, I thought and by the way, heads up I’m still working the job of Walmart despite all the I’m like this isn’t gonna last like East Indian immigrant parents. You can’t even quit your job to go write calendars about farting and elevators that’s not gonna work. I’m like, this is like a 15 second of fame and stuff. Okay. It’s a 15 minute of fame. Okay, it’s an hour of fame. Well, eventually, after eight years from starting my blog to the day I finally quit Walmart. Eight years later, I wrote five books in the middle. I finally quit that job. I realized I got to figure myself out. I started dating. I started meeting people, I fall in love with a wonderful woman in downtown Toronto. Her name is Leslie. She’s a teacher in the Toronto District School Board. We fall in love. A year later we move in together a year later, I get down on one knee I asked her to marry me. Well, you know what happens after that she plans the wedding. I planned the honeymoon, we ended up going to Southeast Asia. But on the flight home from that honeymoon, guess what she tells me I’m pregnant. She bought the pregnancy test and the six-hour layover in the Kuala Lumpur airport; she did the pregnancy test 30,000 feet above sea level in the tiny airplane bathroom in the front of the airplane. So now I got a new thing to think about. I’ll tell you what happened is for me, my wife, the muse and my ideas. I had this early success. So, I stopped chasing it. theoretically, I stopped chasing. Then I spent the last five years of my life writing about things that interest me. The books didn’t sell as well, but I think they’re better. I wrote the ‘Happiness Equation’ about finding happiness. I wrote ‘You are awesome’ about how to develop the muscle of resilience. Now I’m working on a book all about trust. So, I’m chewing on these big, gigantic themes. Why? Because I’m writing the books I want to read. I’m trying to figure out how to live this one tiny, short finite life that we all have a 30,000 days on this planet. That’s the end. That’s all you get. 115 billion people have lived on this earth. If you’re listening to this right now, you’re one of 8 billion people alive today. You already won the lottery. 14 Out of every 15 people will never see another sunset, have a bowl ice cream, or kiss the kids ‘good night’. So, there is one of the 15 lottery you want. If you are in Canada, Canada like you and I are Kwadwo, you know, that’s another lottery, right? Because there’s 35 million of us in this country and there’s a billion in the world that’s another lottery. That’s a one and 200 Lottery, we’re at the top of the happiness rankings, we trust our neighbors more, we have clean water out of our taps, we can marry who we want, we can live where we please, these freedoms are not common around the world, let’s say. So, we’ve won this other lottery. I’ll tell you, if you make more than $6,000 a year, you make more than the world average income. If you make more than $50,000 a year, you make more than 99.9% of people around the world. If you have a post secondary education of any kind, any size, shape, color, whatever, of any kind. Well guess what? 94% of people in the world do not have that. You’re the 6% of people that do and I could go on and on and on and on. I think of my life as having won the lottery. I think all of us need to feel that way. I think news media and social media punish us and tease our brains and cajole us into thinking the opposite is happening. I know I’m not on the frontlines of healthcare like you are. You can slap me silly right after I go on this finish this rant you can tell me I’m all wrong about this. But here’s what I’ll say. We got 30,000 days. That’s it, boom, we’re done. So how can we spend our lives as best we possibly can, living the deepest, richest, most intentional lives possible? I’ve dedicated now 10 books and journals to exploring this topic.
KK: Neil, my friend, number one, rant of the century, throwing that down – thank you for that. But I gotta say one thing that that really resonates with me. I truly believe is a reason why I feel kinship to you is that appreciation that we are not here forever. I see this every day, my friend, in the ICU, palliative care doc. I see patients in their last days. It is hard. In this day and age to appreciate how lucky we are. We truly are blessed. The ability for you to bring it out and others to say, ‘Hey, this is where the beauty is’ ‘This is where awesomeness is’ ‘This is where happiness is’ is truly a blessing. It really is.
NP: Dead people are quiet; they don’t say much. Well, we can’t hear the 110 billion voices of people that aren’t here. But if you could ask them one question, ‘what would you want? What would you want?’ I know that most of them would say just one more day, give me another couple of days.
KK: Doing stuff that meet that’s meaningful, the stuff that they want to do. Because if you think about it, what percentage of effort do we put into not improve our overall well being to please others to do things that we’re supposed to do? You got to Indian parents, I got West African parents’ man, the same same flow, you know, I mean, same flow, but I got two sisters that are dentists. You had to go into medicine son or something along those lines. The other point I was going to make his point I think is critical for a lot of folks, you leaned into that creative side when you were struggling that story about going through the loss of your best friend, which I’m sorry that happened and also having your wife leave. You leaned into that creative side and there’s something there’s something healing about that. I don’t know if you found that in the moment or could reflect on that or you just automatically do that. But there’s something healing about that.
NP: Yeah, absolutely. Well, there’s a few things here number one is I want to talk to you about regrets you probably heard of nurse ‘Bronnie Ware’ who wrote that she was with over 1000 people as they died, and she wrote a very famous book called ‘The Five Greatest Regrets of the Dying’ I cite it in my book ‘The Happiness Equation’ but the number one overall regret of people dying, according to this nurse who has been with 1000s of people as they’ve died ‘I wish I lived my life true to myself. Not the life others wanted me to live’ that’s the number one regret. So if you’re listening to this right now it’s the top regret people have when they die. I wish I lived the life more true to myself. So, if you’re listening to this, what is it? What’s what, who is that person you want to be with? What’s the city you want to live in? What’s that job you want to try? What’s the small business you want to start? What’s the person you want to tell you love them? What’s that food you want to eat? Just do it like you got you don’t how much time So it’s not like you can plan this whole bucket list concept. I don’t like that. I don’t like the bucket list. I’m against the bucket list. I’m against this idea of a future later, forever thing that you’re going to like, come on that is that’s capitalism. That’s what it wants us to do to delay gratification to move things, you will be the greatest version of yourself if you are purpose led today and purpose that I mean, ikigai, that’s what I’m talking about. When I say purpose. People might say stop me right now say ikigai. What are you talking about Neil? I’ll tell you this. The longest living people in the entire world those from Okinawa, Japan, studied by National Geographic researchers led by Dan Buettner, who lived healthy lifestyles over the age of 100. Higher than anyone else in and around the whole planet. And they don’t have a word for retirement. They don’t have a word for quitting stuff completely. Instead, they have a word called a ikigai that spelled I-K-I-G-A-I. I’m gonna write it down on a piece of paper.
KK: Let’s see it. Let’s see. Let’s do this.
NP: It’s ikigai. Roughly translates as the reason you get out of bed in the morning. So, what I say to people, the conversations I have with people are, what’s your ikigai? What’s the reason get a bed in the morning? If you can’t answer that, that’s good. Because now we get to have a conversation. Now we get to have a conversation about ‘what is your ikigai?’. I’ll give a great present to my wife Leslie, before we were married. I’m going to give the here anyone listen to this. It needs a good Christmas present. Here’s a good tip. On Christmas morning, I had her watch a video called ‘How to live to 100’. On TED talks by Dan Buettner, who I mentioned earlier, the National Geographic researcher. In that video, he gives all these examples of things he’s learned from studying Blue Zones, like, you know, people in Sardinia, Italy only drink Cannonau wine, right? It’s better for your heart. One of them is the use of small plates, not large dinner plates. Another one is, they all have an ikigai. Well, it’s the cheapest present because really what I’m buying my wife is a bottle of wine, a small plate, and these little cue cards, just like this, I got each of us one, I fold them into tents. I said ‘Okay, let’s spend some time on Christmas morning writing down what we think our ikigai is’. So, I wrote down ‘helping people live happy lives’. My wife wrote down, she wasn’t my wife at the time, she wrote down ‘building community empathy’, okay, as an inner city school teacher, and as somebody who does kind of community groups and stuff. It’s great, because what you do is you leave these little ikigai cards on your bedside table. That should be the first thing you wake up and see in the morning, not your cell phone. It should be your ikigai card, it just gives you a little bit of a Northern Star, an orientation. Why are we talking about this? Because we’re talking about purpose led lives. Why are we talking about that? Because purpose led lives are one of the ingredients to living an intentional life. Why are we talking about that, because life is tiny, short and finite and beautiful. It’s always always always fleeting. So come up, conjure up, an ikigai card that you can leave at your bedside table that you look at when you first wake up. By the way, I’ll tell you, you can change it, you know, your ikigai for a while could be ‘I really want to make it through this week’ It can be ‘taking care of my mom in her last days’ It can be you ‘showing up for my child, this summer the way I didn’t last summer’ because I was working all the time. You can see I now in a podcast, I’m starting to process my own issues. So, that is why I’m saying this just you write it down, then it’s you giving yourself a purpose lead day, right? When you open your eyes, get the phones out of the bedroom, I’m telling you,
KK: For real, the phones need to get out of the bedroom. The point about being more intentional, is something I think people could take away, almost like the number one thing to take away as far as I’m concerned. Having that ikigai because even I think about my health care professionals with the amount of burnout. What was it that got you to that job? What made you want to be that nurse? What made you want to be like that?
NP: Well, I just watched your video you just posted a few days. It was great.
KK: Thank you – because it’s real. I see it every day about you know our colleagues thinking about leaving the profession. How much in a time right now we need them the most. But it is that being more intentional. So let me ask you this. How do people become more intentional? Yes, you can write that ikigai card. Is it a matter of looking at that on a regular basis is about journaling about your ikigai like how do we create that for more people?
NP: Okay, so first thing I want to say at a high level is watch your inputs, watch your inputs. If you’re listening this conversation right now you’re already doing it you’ve choosing your inputs. Remember, we live in a capitalistic society the orientation of capitalism is to come constantly feed us advertisements to cajole and convince our behavior change to buy more stuff. That’s the purpose of all news media. That’s the purpose of all social media. I’m telling you all news media, all social media, the whole point is to keep us addicted so that we buy more stuff. Remember that that’s the world we live in. Now within that you can decide to sleep with my phone next to my bed or is it just going to show me like Apple news on add on the weather? How many times you woken up at 530 in the morning just to see if there’s going to snow and all of a sudden something’s blaring telling you to buy ‘Tide’. I mean, come on, get that crap out of the bedroom. Instead, inputs people start your day with something I call the two-minute morning practice. I even turned it into a journal there it is my best-selling book of all time has nothing in it. Seriously, it is just three points every single day I start my day with it every single day on a posted up here if you’re watching on the video, if you’re not I’ll say it out loud. ‘Number 1. I will let go of. Number 2. I am grateful for. Number 3. I will focus on.’ I’ll tell you a Kwadwo everybody’s awake for 1000 minutes a day. I didn’t make that number up. It’s an average, average time you’re awake per day is 1000 minutes you got 1000 minutes a day, you got 1000 Is tomorrow you got 1000 minutes the day after by the way, you only got 1000 month total surprise. That’s the that’s the length of life. 1000 months 30,000 days. So how do you start your day on the right foot you take two minutes to write down I will let go of you don’t there’s a reason why Catholics go to the Catholic confession chamber. Bless me father for I have sinned. But did you know it’s not just Catholicism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Judaism. Did you know almost every world religion has a form of confession or repentance in the in the religious practice. I’m saying religions all around the world for 1000s of years, all have the same idea that you should get to get stuff out here. Meanwhile, the fastest growing religion in the world right now by far is none. According to National Geographic, the fastest growing religion in the world is none. Don’t got one no religion. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater people. I do not ascribe to a particular faith, but I’m studying what we’ve learned for 1000s of years and realizing this is important. You can look at science magazine, too. There’s been wonderful reports published that shows if you can write down something you’re stressed about, you take it off your brain. You take it off your mind. I will let go of yelling at my kids to tie his shoes last night. I will let go of the fact that I haven’t seen the bottom of my kitchen sink in two years because there’s always dirty dishes in it. I will let go burning my kids brains on Paw Patrol. I will let go the nasty thing I said to my sister oh my gosh, I wish I didn’t say that. But you’re thinking of these things subconsciously, so you got to process what I’m telling you. The first way you start your day is I will let go of. You are wiping a wet Shami across the Blackboard of your mind. Then I am grateful for, the research from Emmons and McCullough shows if we write down five gratitudes a week. We’re not just happier. We’re physically healthier. Don’t buy an AB don’t buy a stomach shaker off the late night shopping channel. Just write down gratitude. Here’s the problem. Nobody knows how to do this. Everybody. Oh yeah. Oprah told me this and 98 Well, everyone, if you look at anyone’s gratitude journal, first of all, they got one page filled out, the rest is empty. I’m speaking from experience here. Then what they write on the gratitude list is, oh, yeah, my husband, my kid, my dog. That ain’t gonna do it. I’m telling you, you’re actually trying to get area 17 And your visual cortex to light up again, that’s an area in your brain that re-lights up when you experience something again, but your brain doesn’t know where it is. So, all the insight is that you got to be specific. Don’t write down my husband. Say when my husband Neil put the toilet seat down. Don’t say my kids and my five-year-old daughter Sonya learned how to write the letter s Don’t say my dog say when the rescue puppy. We’ve gotten the pandemic’s up peeing on the pillows. All I’m doing is taking an extra minute to come up with the detail required to actually conjure up an image that actually happened over the last point for hours of my life. Remember, the research says you only need five. By the way those researchers compare gratitude writers to people that wrote down hassles and people who wrote down events. So, the study is done. It’s legit, it’s works. You gotta write down five a week. You’re priming your brain for positivity. Why is this important? You know this, the neural pathways in your brain are oriented for negativity. You got an amygdala in there, secretes fight or flight hormones all day and it’s why we all rubberneck. It’s why we always look for the high cholesterol in the blood. That’s why we all look for the math question we got wrong. Our brains are oriented to look for problems and for 3 million years of evolution that’s been awesome. We don’t need it today. You can press a button on your phone and get a meal on your doorstep in 20 minutes. We got a good. So, what we need to do is remember how good we got it. I am grateful for and the last point on my list and I’ll shut up after this is I will focus on decision fatigue is leading to a nation of overwhelmed people. I will focus on, as a one item checklist that you do every day. I will focus on spending 10 minutes with my baby I will spoke I will focus on taking my car in for that oil change the lights been on for three months. I will focus on finally calling the dentist, finally donating blood. I’m going from here to donate Blood. Because I’ve been saying, I will focus on this for a year haven’t done it. So, I wrote it down, I will focus on making an appointment to donate blood. Guess what? They had an appointment available today, they need blood. I’m gonna go do it. Finally, I get across it off my list tomorrow morning to gather these three prompts provide a two-minute morning practice, I cell phone free way to wake up and control your inputs. You start your day off happy; your day is happier. What happens if you’re happier 31% more productive. 37% higher sales 300% more creative. Everything gets better.
KK: What I like about this, you’re priming yourself. You’re priming yourself for a quality successful, joyous day. It really is true when you think about how much input you’re getting throughout the day, like our brains aren’t meant to be stimulated this much. You know, like, why kids are never bored? Our three lads. Problem? You know what I mean? Like it is a problem. So, what do we what do we? What are we going to do to really allow them to create the space and over all of us collectively create the space in this way? I really, I like this, his way of approaching the day. This is my question might come out of left field for you. But is it working for you? Are you happy? Are you achieving your goals of being? Awesome? Joyful?
NP: Yeah. So two things, I’m much much much happier than I was – so absolutely, but two there is no such thing as perfectly happy. Happiness is a North Star. It is a journey, not a destination. The goal is not to be perfectly happier. Happy is just to be a little better than before. Every tool, every resource every tip I provide is meant to help someone take a step towards that Northstar. Am I ever going to be perfectly happy? No. Does anybody? No. The point is I am in a in a positive frame of mind, I am showing up as a better husband, as a better parent, as a better son, as a better brother than I was even just two, three years ago. Why? Because I’ve implemented a set of systems that get don’t get me wrong. Do I fall off the rails all the time? Absolutely. But I don’t beat myself up. I just get back on it. That’s it. That’s all I do. I just get back on it. That the two-minute morning practice is one of my core systems. That’s one of my crucial systems. I have a litany more we could talk about do you want to go through the day we can go through the day?
KK: Yeah, Let’s do it.
NP: By the way, on the boredom thing, I want to just echo that. I love when my kids say I’m bored. I say great. What are you going to do? I limit screen time. Okay, so I am one of these parents that limit screen time. What I do is we limit it to Sunday, because daddy also wants to watch football.
KK: What’s your team?
NP: I gotta go with the bills just because I live closest to them in Toronto. But really, I got into it through fantasy football with my college friends from 20 years ago. Yeah, so basically for me, though, I like when my kids are bored. How do you make your kids bored? You get them outside. Kids these days are spending 7% of their childhoods outside. 7% is the lowest level in recorded history. If you multiply 7% a day times seven days a week, it adds up to 49%. Seven times seven. Well, that means it takes a kid these days a whole week to spend half a day outside. This is the lowest level in history. There is so many ways the brain works that we don’t understand. One thing we know is you can’t learn it playing pinball. Okay, so you got to get aside break sticks, play with bugs, stare at the clouds, build things, let things fall, fall yourself like it’s just all that shrapnel that scaffolding that that that sort of like building up of yourself happens when you have less structure around you. So, I’m all in favor of that doesn’t mean I’m perfect. Doesn’t mean I’m great. It just means it’s another Northstar for me. Okay. Now, on the topic of daily routines, I gave you one to start the morning with let me go all the way to the end of the night. First off people listening you might have maybe you have a partner, maybe you’re married, maybe you’re not maybe you have a kid, maybe you don’t. But is there someone in your life that you could close off the day with? Here’s how you close it off. First off, you got to turn your phone off an hour before bedtime. When I say turn your phone off, I’ll tell you this. People don’t know how to do it. In fact, the new iPhone when you buy it doesn’t even the screen doesn’t even dim anymore. So, you know how you turn your phone off? Listen to this. Don’t ask Siri by the way, Siri has no idea. Hey Siri, how to turn her phone off. I do not know that she knows everything right? She doesn’t know how to turn herself off. So, what you must do just for people is I’m going to do a little education, your PSA. You got to hold both buttons on the side of your phone at the same time for longer than three seconds but shorter than five. If you hold it longer than three a sliding thing comes up that you can slide to the to the right if you hold it longer than five it your phone calls. 911. So you see it’s we’ve we have set the device manufacturers have created a device where it’s nearly you need like three hands to turn it off. So, but it’s the ultimate power move you want to take control your day, turn it off. I don’t care if you turn it back on five minutes later, just show yourself that you can do it. Now turn it off an hour before bedtime, why an hour before? Why not before? Truthfully, I’ll be honest with you. The research says it shouldn’t be two hours before because if you look at a brain screen within two hours of bedtime, your brain does not produce as much melatonin overnight. This is the sleep hormone secreted by your pineal gland. Research in Australia found that why? Well, because evolutionary biologists say you know what, what happened when the sun went down 3 million years ago, you got to run to the cave built. You got to get stuff set for bet like you gotta get a burst of energy they say now if you turn your phone off right before bed, which many people including me sometimes are guilty of, then you get a jolt of energy for anyone listening to this right now. If you ever lie in bed, you’re like why am I so awake? Why am I so wide awake right now? Well, did you just turn your phone off? If so, your brain thinks the sun just went down? It’s time to build your cave. This is a problem. So, turn it off at least one hour before bed off. I told you how to do it already. Now, what do you do that hour? Get to know your family. Hey, son, how long have you been living above the kitchen? You know? Get to know the people in your life and your family and your circumstances? Just reconnect with your family. Well, what am I going to do with my family play a board game? I got a game for you. It is called ‘Rose, rose, thorn, bud’ whether you do it on dinner table, whether you do it while you are brushing your teeth, while you do over Pillow Talk with your partners. What I do with sometimes when my wife is Hey, honey, what was your rose from the day? It always feels silly strange and awkward when you start, I’ve been playing this game for years. It still feels silly strange and awkward when you start. My rose… they got a new flavor of Timbit. What about you Neil? Oh, my rose I don’t know, my rose I met this amazing TikToker emergency room doctor he’s well you know one of the very few interviewers that has energy that makes me energetic. He was just a great guy. So, I tell her and then we do it again another rose, the game’s called ‘Rose, rose, thorn, bud’ you do roses twice. Well, the second Rose is inevitably easier by the time you get to you kind of want to go three and four because your brains now working your prime in the neural pathways or you’re taking the machete in hacking through the bushes and brambles for positive thinking right, then a thorn. What’s the thorn? Thought? You got to make space to vent. Got to make space to vent. Oh my gosh, I had a headache all afternoon. Oh, the bus went by, and I got slush all over my pants. Whatever. Right? You know, I called I you know, I emailed the boss two days ago, they haven’t emailed me back yet. Do you think they hate me? Do you think they want to fire me today? Like, you know, everyone’s brain does this kind of thing. So just say it out loud. The other person’s goal here is just to listen. ‘Ah, that sucks’ Remember those three phrases you guys ‘Ah, that sucks’. Don’t try this. Oh, you should email them. Don’t try to solve their problem. We don’t want any of that problem solving stuff. We just want you to listen. Then the finally the last thing is a bud. B-U-D ’Rose, rose, thorn, bud’. A bud is something you’re looking forward to. I can’t wait to have pancakes on Saturday, I want to I want to rent and ice and sauna hut and Finland when I’m 90, whatever it is something in the future. I’ll tell you this, it’s always awkward to play at the beginning at the end, everyone’s in a good mood, every single time, you want to guarantee a finish. I’ll tell you what it is. Everyone’s in a good mood every single time you play this game. Then if you want to kind of wrap it up before you go to bed. I’ll tell you what to do read a few pages of fiction from a real book. Why fiction? Well, because the annual review of psychology says only reading fiction opens up the mirror neurons in your brain responsible for empathy, compassion, understanding. My last job of Walmart was director of leadership development you know what skills you can never grow at work? empathy, compassion, understanding these you cannot ship people off to empathy class, doesn’t exist. There’s no there is no empathy class. When you read ‘Their eyes are watching God’ by Zora Neale Hurston. You are a slave in Alabama in the 1800s and you are there. You’re there. You’re in that gender, you’re in that heat. You are there. Our brains have evolved to feel like we’re there. When we read our reader lives 1000 lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. Yes, I stole that quote from Game of Thrones. Even despite this, this is the greatest form of compressed wisdom we still have ever invented. That’s why when you read the TED Talk transcripts, it takes three minutes but watching the movie takes eighteen. I’m just saying it’s still it’s you can still read faster than you can consume anything and fiction is a great place to go because you go into another world. You’re another gender you know, the time of the one, you know the place throw you another. You’re not just getting like tips, which is like, don’t get me wrong. I’m guilty of reading nonfiction a lot, right? Like, I’m a nonfiction junkie too. But fiction people, it’s fiction. It’s fiction that we need to get back into. It’s not just you. It’s not just me, it’s all of us. 57% of Americans read zero books last year.
KK: That is an incredible stat to be honest with you. If you think about even 20-30 years ago, pre phone that number would have to be minimal. Reflecting on that now. Neil, honestly this is gold. I think we need to be a little bit prescriptive in terms of guiding a lot of folks. Great way to start the day, great way to end the day. Is there any advice to keep yourself on track during the day, like in terms of well?
NP: People ask me, why did you write this book? Right? Like, why did you write another book? Awesome. I mean, I wrote, it’s called ‘Our Book of Awesome’ as the time of recording, it’s been a global bestseller all seven weeks, since it’s been out, it came out in December 2002. I don’t know when you’re going to hear this, but we’re recording this kind of like on the precipice of February 2023. Well, because I made this book as a tool to leave on the back of the toilet, to leave on your bedside table, to leave on the corner of your teacher’s desk. So, when you do feel uninspired, overwhelmed, anxious, negative, it’s going to happen to all of us every day, you just grab the book, you flip it open any page, and it says, the core of the cinnamon roll. Next page says, When the crosswalk changes to walk just as you approach it, the next page says, go into the movies by yourself. The next page has gone through a revolving door without having to push. But why do I keep making these books? I’ll tell you why. Because I need the I need the provocation myself. So, the books of awesome are, and there’s a new one, that’s the new one, ‘Our Book of Awesome’ is a way to keep us on track. It’s just meant to be like, this book doesn’t tell you how to do anything. I’m the one yelling at you today. But there’s none of me yelling at you. The book is just a pile of awesome things. As a reminder to reframe and retrain your brain. That’s one tool to keep on track. We can talk about more if you want.
KK: You’ve been on a roll, more tools I want to hear more.
NP: Yeah. Yeah, well, well, one big tool is no screens in the bedroom. I’ve already talked about I’ve already admonished people, including myself, if you ever bring a screen up, you know, your phone upstairs. People say ‘oh, yeah, well, you don’t know me. You know, I’m very, very important. I get a lot of calls at three in the morning’ Really? Do you really get a lot of calls when your morning? So, then people say, Well, you know, my sister’s really sick. Plus, I have a boss that, you know, they’re kind of all my case. I say, Oh, here’s what you do you get a landline don’t you call up your telecommunications providers say you want a landline. They’re like, hello, hello, like, know what they don’t expect anyone to ever ask for this product ever again. However, all our homes are outfitted for them. That’s why they’re only $10 a month. When I pay my $10, I don’t get call waiting. I just get the landline number you know, I get that landline number to my sister’s not well, the boss might my text me, the boss the urgent, I give that number to the five urgent calls. That prevents me from taking a screen into my bedroom. Now I know that when it is a true emergency, I can be reached by those people. Yet when I open up the app, I won’t get distracted and fall into an endless Twitter hole. You know, so that’s a really big kind of system for me right there. Here’s another system. I’ll give you lots of systems. Now this system is installed a bookshelf as close as possible to your front door. Billy bookshelf – 99 bucks. Okay, it’s that IKEA. It’s the cheapest, most effective bookshelf they ever made. Right? If you want to get fancy, go ahead and get fancy. But there you go. You put one at your front door what happens when every single day you got to walk by your bookshelf on your when on your way out? You stop for a minute you pick someone up you read the back of one now they’re settled Garfield cartoonists like wow pick that up. There is no book shame. There’s no book guilt. I don’t believe in reading the classics. I don’t even believe there are classics. I believe in reading what you love in order to love reading. I have a whole podcast about this. I call it three books. I’ve read a single chapter, which is every single new moon and full moon I asked people like just interviewed Daniels who did that movie everything everywhere all at once I interviewed Quentin Tarantino, Brene Brown, Malcolm Gladwell, Roxane Gay, Benji Thomas, David Sedaris. I asked him ‘Which three books most changed your life?’ and why do I do it this way? because I have found that the world again conspires not to give us good books, we end up picking up whatever’s in a pile at the airport, those books are all paying to be there. By the way, we ended up doing whatever’s on the Amazon recommendation engine. Those books are all paying to be there, by the way. So how are you? Good, we got to go back to the tribe. We got to go back to each other. We got to go back to community. You know, Dunbar’s number you trust 150 closest people to you. We gotta go back. Ask people. What’s one book you loved when you were a kid? Is it Charlotte’s Web? Read Charlotte’s Web. What’s one book you wrote when you were a teenager is a ‘Catcher in the Rye’ read Catcher in the Rye. This is a graphic novel. Are you really into dog man? Go ahead, get dog man. Like, there’s no book shame. There is no book, I can’t emphasize this enough the entire education system which was created, as you know, in the industrial revolution to create cogs for the economy. This system has essentially taught us how to read wrong. That’s why my friend kids love reading until they go to school. Every single kid that’s 2/3/4/5, they’re flipping around with books all over the place. They got flip books, card books, they love books, they love books, and you ask a grade nine kid you like books? I hate it. Because I had to read The Great Gatsby cover to cover followed by Hamlet. That’s a great way to make someone hate reading is to force them or it’s like saying ‘You like food?’ Here. Let me just shove a bunch of dry oatmeal down your throat. Read what you love, and tell you love to read.
KK: I love it. I love I love this hack. You brought up a point that we try to address often on our platform was community. Especially we lacked it for too long. Now I feel I do not know if you find this too. But I do feel people are still a bit injured. People are getting together again. But it’s not, personally I’m finding that it’s not the same energy. It’s not the same joie de vivre pre pandemic, but how do we, in your mind, create that community to really foster wellness
NP: I couldn’t agree with you more. Trust in all levels of society is down. We have lower than ever levels of trust in business, media, and in government and in each other. So what’s happening is, it’s creating a destabilization of reality effect. When you combine that with the increased use of AI, and the deep fakes, it’s starting to feel very hard to know what to trust. I’ve actually been fascinated by a business that opened up in Toronto a year ago and I want to tell people about it. It’s really, you know, and again, I’m in Toronto, so I’m going to talk about a particular business, but it’s really the spirit behind it. Okay, so this place is called ‘Othership’. It’s in Toronto, and you pay, like 50 bucks. So, it’s not cheap. You know, it’s like a really super crazy expensive yoga class, let’s call it and you go in and what ends up happening is everybody changes into their bathing suit. It is a gender neutral and co-ed change room, which again, is that’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. So, there’s little stalls where you can change in and out of your bathing suit. But otherwise, there’s a community that already happens in you’re not naked together, but you’re changing together. Then you go and you have a cup of tea by a fire. I’m not kidding. You have a cup of tea by a fire, which we’ve been doing for millions of years. People start to talk guides calm and they start to ask you questions. I went last night to you know, a couple’s class there they ask ‘what’s one thing you love about the person you’re with?’ So, they start to lead you into some thoughtful conversation. Keep in mind you can’t bring your phone in. Then they take it to a sauna. So now you’ve got this sauna, sit seats, 50 people in it. So, they have a big sauna, you spend time in the sauna. Again, it’s guided, there’s music, there’s meditative people purpose, and then you go to an ice bath, which was totally scary to me. But I did it. And because I’m doing it together with community, people are cheering you on and you feel totally, I don’t know, if you I don’t know if you’re an ice bath person?
KK: Cold shower at the most
NP: Then you feel totally rejuvenated and you’ve got a physiological reset and what’s happening in this place. Of course, you can’t take a phone into a sauna, you cant take a phone into an ice bath, so you have no phones. So now you’ve got eye contact. Now you’ve got people looking at each other and you’ve got guides who are navigating the space with you. It’s no wonder that this place that just launched less than a year ago is like you can’t get in now because it’s we are so in need of this type of community and connection. Could you find that a yoga studio? Could you find that in an independent bookstore? I personally think independent bookstores are like hidden gems in the world like this is annexing every single, every single person who’s ever lived to today in the little room right here. You can hear other voices. Like it’s unbelievable. It’s right there these independent but they’re right there, right and our streets like support your independent bookstore. Can you find that at a gym? Could you find that at a park? Could you find that, you know, there’s a Park in downtown Toronto where I went there like midnight on like a Monday and they’re playing like severe Ultimate Frisbee like hardcore. It’s like midnight on Monday and it’s ultimate, but that’s a tribe. There’s a community of people that jump in the lakes together in the frozen lakes, there’s a community of people that that goes bicycling together, if you go on a website, like meetup.com, or even OKCupid, you know, you can go on this on the kind of Platonic side, if it’s platonic, you’re looking for. You can find groups of people doing like minded things, get out of your house, put yourself in uncomfortable situations and reconnect with the people around you.
KK: Amen. Honestly, Neil, I feel like right now, what we need is healing and anything that is empowering people to get better, I think is so important. So honestly, I think the advice you thrown down the books, the podcast, the public speaking engagements, you’ve taken a significant dent into this, and it’s so appreciated. I have I have a selfish question for you. I don’t know if this applies so much to our listeners as much as it is to myself, but I’m going to ask anyway. When did you make the pivot to stop chasing? How did that happen? When you said, he said earlier in the interview that you stopped working at Walmart. When you said ‘stop chasing’ I took it as external pressure or validation. What you want to do? What makes you happy? How did you make that happen for yourself?
NP: There’s a few things. Some of the answers are healthy and polite and perfect. Some of them are just a little bit odd. But they’re all true, at least to me. One is making money. Okay, so I will just be open about that. When I was working the eight years at Walmart, and newly divorced, ie, no partner, no children, no minivan. You know, I had eight years where I was working at Walmart and writing books and starting to give speeches. So, I was able to feel financially comfortable to make this leap or to stop chasing things. The financial comfort is something, it is real. There has been a study by Daniel Kahneman at Princeton University that showed that, at the time they did the study, which was I think, 2007 it was at the time $70,000. So, you want to put that in today’s money, you might say it’s $100,000. They said that there is a certain amount of money that people get incrementally happy and more comfortable with, because they’re starting to meet their hygiene needs. Then above that, this was the big insight from the study. There is no better, there’s no benefit. Everybody’s numbers going to be a little bit different. It’s based on how you grew up; it’s based on your culture is based on your fears, it’s based on your traumas. My number was probably way higher than it needed to be. That’s why I was working two jobs right here. I’m literally coming home every night and then starting another eight hour job like blogging, writing books, answering emails, doing media interviews, you see them saying, so there is an aspect of that, and I don’t want to shy over as I have done in the past. I want to just call that out there and say for everybody, that number is different. But you need to have something. I’m not going to be one of the people that says just ‘Burn the boats move to move to Colombia, you’ll figure it out’ I understand the anxiety that comes in with financial security because I have lived with that my whole life. My dad’s an Indian emigrate came here with eight bucks. Like, of course, I got some of that trauma, right? Of course, I got some of that worrying to make sure I’m okay. That’s one. Second thing is there’s a model that’s backwards in society, that model is so glaringly obvious after you hear it. But we grew up think thinking and being taught that great work leads to big success, leads to being happy, right? You study hard, then you get good grades and you become a doctor, or you work hard, then you get promoted, then you’re happy. It’s not just parent parents saying this to our kids, we say it to our own kids, don’t we? Come on, we want you to get into good school. Come on, we want you to get a good job. People talk like this all the time. They have their history. Unfortunately, it’s backwards. Backwards. It was totally wrong. Because this model was backwards. It’s not great. We’re big success, be happy. It’s the opposite. You got to train your brain to be happy first. Thinking of happiness like a practice, like a habit like something you can invest in, everyone’s got a plastic card in their pocket, you got a gym membership who’s got the same for their mental health? The place I just told you about ‘othership’ that’s a mental health place, right? It’s bringing mental health to the forefront. You invest in your mental first then guess what happens? Then you do great work. So, University of California Davis together with King and Diener did a study that shows if you show up to work happy, everything’s better. We like working with happy bosses. We’d like happy peers, you’re 31% more productive, you have 37% higher sales, you’re 300% more creative. It goes on and on and on. The appendix on this study is like here is all the things that went up when you were happier, and it is all a lot. Then what happens the big success, it actually comes at the end, it actually comes at the end happy people live 10 years longer. University of Kentucky did a research study on nuns, if you’re happier in the common the 1930s and 40s. You live 10 years happy people live longer. They live longer, we go back to our very beginning conversation. Why should you invest in app? Why should you do the stuff? Why should you get your screens out of your bedroom? Why should you start your day with two-minute mornings? Why should you put your bookshelf at the front door? Why should you spend more time outside? What? Because it’s gonna get you 10 extra years of this. It’s worth it. Now I got 30,000 days, I told you could press a button and get 3000 Bonus days would you press it? Here’s the button. It’s called invest in your happiness. How do you do it? I just gave you a bunch, I can give you a bunch more. There’s lots of stuff about it. I wrote a whole book about it the Happiness Equation. That’s just one book. There’s lots of books, I can recommend many books about it. You can read the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin you can read The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. There’s wonderful, there’s lots of books out there, there’s watching your content, right? There’s lots of people out there trying to show you this, the hard part is doing them. It’s not knowing what to do, it’s doing them. The secret is to just start. That’s it. That’s the secret if you just start see we got another model backwards. We think motivation leads to action. You want to run a marathon you need good shoes, you want to write a book, you need a moleskin notebook, that ain’t true. Motivation doesn’t lead to action, action leads to motivation. You’re under the stop sign in your dress shoes. Tomorrow, you run a little further you write tonight on a pen and a sticky note to next day you write two sentences. Action leads to motivation. It’s the other way around. Now the hard part, then there’s an old Einstein quote, I won’t butcher it or paraphrase it. But it’s like the hard part of everything is just getting started. That’s it. Start, that’s it, you’ll suck, you’ll fail, you fall off. But if you can just start you can keep on these paths I’m talking about.
KK: Oh, man, Neil is straight up gold man, this really is straight up gold. This is what people get hung up on, they get caught up on how do I achieve these goals? They get stuck in their minds. Not enough of us are telling our preaching action. Just do it. It’s the love with the process, the fact that you got up and went to the gym even for three and a half minutes. Yeah, that’s a W. The fact that you wrote in that blog, a couple sentences and it was shitty. Don’t matter. You f*****g stepped up. That’s a W. You know, I’m saying like, this is what it’s gotta be all about. We got to be in love with the process. This is what’s going to help achieve happiness and wins. My friend, we covered a lot. Is there anything, especially for our healthcare providers, you think that we left out in terms of leading a more purposeful, intentional, joyous life?
NP: Well, I mean to healthcare providers specifically, like just thank you. It’s been unbelievable once in a century, you know, few years, and there’s just no way there’s any possible words to describe the level of tribal community based gratitude, we feel for those of you on the frontlines waging these battles for us, as our species has had to grapple with an entire new form of danger that we had never experienced before and hadn’t wrestled with it and has had, you know, seven different levels of incoherent government saying different things at different times. Remember the World Health Organization ‘hey, no thing, no big deal guys, nothing to see here’ Like you remember that, like we you have had to navigate that in the frontlines. The thing is that I love as at the frontlines when I’m in the frontlines of health healthcare as a patient or when I’m on the front. We’re just people. We’re all people. We’ve all got hearts. We see each other with their eyes. We hold each other as best we can. If you’re there and you’re on the frontlines of health care. Thank you. Hanging in there. Thank you. If you’re thinking about going into this profession, you’re wondering about it. Well, don’t worry, the salaries are all about to go up. Because we need these people more than they want to do it. That’s called supply and demand, you know, I just spoke to 5000 health care workers down in Louisiana, burnt out, overwhelmed, stressed, you know, large, large hospital system down there. Well, they can’t find people. Then so then they hire temps, and then the temps, you know, aren’t as good and they’re more expensive, and then they get clunky, you know, then there’s clunky processes. Well, there is only one solution, that markets gonna solve it, and it’s to pay them more, that’s just pay then more. Of course, you should pay them more. You should also pay teachers more, right, our society has over prioritize people that can wield technical financial instruments and made those people billionaires, whereas the people that are educating our children and taking care of our infirm are not compensated accordingly. So, when my dad became a teacher in India, he was born in 1944. So it’s like 50s, and 60s is decided to become a teacher. I said to him growing up, I’ll leave you with this. I said to him growing up 10 year old, like, ‘Dad, how come all our Indian friends in Oshawa in the 80s? How come? They’re all doctors?’ they’re all doctors, but you’re a teacher. And you know what he said? Because they got paid the same in India. He was like, when I had to pick it was like those jobs, they got paid the same. You know, it’s not just Neil going on a rant about just kind of, you can’t just fix everything by yelling about a lot of podcasts. We need to be healthy. We deserve that. We owe that to ourselves. And we have the medicine and the systems and the tools. We know that. So right now, we’re experiencing at a high level from a distance I’m not in the system. So, like if I say the wrong thing, like please don’t hold me to it. But from a distance. This is this is a big transition point where we’re recognizing and realizing just how crucial and important these roles are, and our pipelines and our education pipelines and our compensation, but they gotta they gotta catch up. They gotta catch up.
KK: This is it. This is it. Neil, thank you. Thank you for agreeing to do this. This was honestly, this is a lot of fun. I know somehow, whether it is in T dot, somewhere down the line, we got to connect. Brothers unite. I really appreciate you jumping on the show my friend.
NP: It’s a pleasure. Thanks for what you’re doing. It’s a gift to I’m an art of what you’re doing and that you’re doing that while you’re doing you know, you’re I know what it feels like to be doing two things at once. So thank you for putting out that’s great, great content and vibes and energy for the world is much, much, much appreciated.
KK: Oh feeling’s mutual my friend.
KK: Kwadcast, that was freaking awesome. So awesome. Feeling inspired folks. I hope you are too. If you enjoyed that, please leave us any comments at [email protected] Leave a five-star rating after that shows leave a six star rating. Dammit. That was so dynamic and juidy. Follow us on TikTok Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter at kwadcast. Jump on our newsletter upon our community. At kwadcast.substack.com, all things health care solutions all on one site. You’re gonna love it. All right, people hope you’re feeling local more jump in your step after that episode. Thanks for listening. Talk real soon.
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