PodVisio Demo
Host: Steven Bartlett · Guest: Dr Sahar Yousef
Transcribed episodes · DE / EN / FR / IT / ES
The key content from every demo episode in five languages, together in one Markdown file. AI bots and crawlers can read it easily. Download it here and take a look yourself.
Download Markdown fileRaw, human conversations with the world’s most fascinating experts, storytellers, thinkers and business leaders. Hosted by Steven Bartlett — entrepreneur, investor, author and founder of Flight Fund — the show was created with a simple mission: to share personal lessons that help you live a better, more fulfilling life.
Independent demo, not a verified owner profile. Original profile in the directory
Dr Christopher Kerr
The Deathbed Doctor: What Matters at the End of Life? | Dr Christopher Kerr
2026-10-19 · 1:25:22
Dr Sahar Yousef
The Diary Of A CEO: Dr. Sahar Yousef on Phone Addiction, Focus and Productivity
2026-10-15 · 2:14:04
2026-10-152:14:04Original: EN
Not medical advice. The full original transcript remains in English. Voice identities are unconfirmed. No audio playback.
In this episode of The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett, host Steven Bartlett speaks with guest Dr. Sahar Yousef, a cognitive neuroscientist and founder and managing director of the Becoming Superhuman Lab. Yousef’s central aim is to teach people how their brains and bodies work so they can focus, manage energy and get meaningful work done with less stress. She describes attention as a limited resource: switching tasks carries a cost, and distraction can undermine memory and learning. She argues that many apps and communication tools are built to maximize engagement, so people may need to change default settings and add friction rather than rely on willpower alone.
Yousef recommends prioritizing adequate sleep, using VIP notifications for genuinely urgent contacts, putting phones in grayscale, choosing more long-form content, and parking devices away during focused work. She compares feeds to highly stimulating food and slot machines, describing how color, short clips, infinite scroll and intermittent rewards can keep people engaged without necessarily satisfying their needs for learning or connection. She also stresses meeting those needs through real-world social contact.
The conversation develops into a practical account of focus sprints: schedule a work block, define a specific output, break it into steps, reduce distractions, use a timer, and take a genuine brain break. Yousef introduces MITs—most important tasks—and recommends aligning them with longer-term goals, or an “Everest,” rather than letting easy tasks dominate the day. She discusses chronotypes and says people’s best focus periods differ. She also recommends taking breaks that reduce information processing, such as spending time in nature or doing nothing, and explains how stepping away from a problem can support creative insight. Near the end, she raises concerns about digital dependence and AI displacing independent thought, while advocating assessment, agency and intentional technology use.
01
Dr. Sahar Yousef says that switching attention consumes time and energy. In a demonstration, the host alternates between writing letters and numbers and experiences the task as slower and more difficult than completing each line separately.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
02
Dr. Sahar Yousef says her mission is to make science accessible so people can work in ways that fit how their brains and bodies function. She argues that people often set goals without learning how to approach the work effectively.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
03
Dr. Sahar Yousef says she hears people describe brain fog and recalls a CEO saying, “I can hear my own thoughts again.” She connects constant consumption and filling every gap with technology to having fewer opportunities to listen to one’s own thoughts.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
04
Dr. Sahar Yousef identifies sleep as the foundational starting point for improving performance. She says insufficient sleep affects cognitive performance and emotional regulation, and describes seven hours a night as a minimum.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
05
Dr. Sahar Yousef explains that attention is necessary for memory and learning: people cannot remember what they do not attend to. She cautions that interruptions and continuously available notifications can interfere with the sustained attention required for deep thought.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
06
Dr. Sahar Yousef argues that apps, email and workplace communication tools commonly default to maximizing engagement, not the user’s productivity. She says people should not assume that a tool’s business incentives align with their own need to focus.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
07
Dr. Sahar Yousef recommends setting up a small list of VIP contacts and keywords so genuinely important messages can get through while routine messages do not interrupt focus. She distinguishes urgent alerts from messages that can wait in an inbox.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
08
Dr. Sahar Yousef compares social feeds with slot machines, describing vivid stimulation, endless scrolling and unpredictable rewarding content. She says the uncertainty of when the appealing content will appear can encourage continued scrolling.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
09
Dr. Sahar Yousef reports that in her lab study, working professionals used their phones in grayscale for three weeks and spent an average of one hour less per day on them. She presents grayscale as a practical way to reduce a phone’s visual stimulation.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
10
Dr. Sahar Yousef says that people have a fundamental need for social connection and belonging. She recommends spending time with friends and family in person rather than expecting social media to satisfy that need.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
11
Dr. Sahar Yousef describes a focus sprint as a structured work method. She recommends choosing a specific task, breaking it into manageable steps and writing an execution list so the next action is clear during the sprint.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
12
Dr. Sahar Yousef calls the one to three tasks that would make a day successful “MITs,” or most important tasks. She contrasts them with small, quick tasks that can create a feeling of progress but may not move longer-term goals forward.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
13
Dr. Sahar Yousef says people do not share one circadian rhythm and describes AM-shifted, PM-shifted and biphasic chronotypes. She recommends learning one’s own pattern because it can inform when to schedule focus work.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
01
Dr. Sahar Yousef recommends changing the environment rather than relying only on willpower: put the phone out of sight, turn off nonessential notifications, or park devices elsewhere. Her point is to make habitual checking less immediate.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
02
Dr. Sahar Yousef says a brain break is a short period when a person is not processing information. She describes a study comparing breaks that included scrolling, nature, doing nothing, or no break, and says nature was best for recovery while scrolling was worst.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
01
Dr. Sahar Yousef says schools do not sufficiently teach children how their brains work, including how this knowledge might help with studying, flow and physiological stress. She also says people are rarely taught the fundamentals of sleep.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
02
Dr. Sahar Yousef identifies herself as founder and managing director of the Becoming Superhuman Lab, which focuses on productivity and human performance. She says her academic career was at UC Berkeley and describes her expertise as cognitive neuroplasticity.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
03
Dr. Sahar Yousef describes observing executives’ routines, including what they eat and drink, their breaks and how they work. She says she then intervenes with changes to their working setup.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
04
Dr. Sahar Yousef recounts observing an executive trying to prepare a board presentation while surrounded by screens, phones, a smartwatch, notifications and people passing by. She contrasts the importance of the work with how difficult the environment made sustained focus.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
05
Dr. Sahar Yousef says technology enables communication and collaboration at an unprecedented scale and clarifies that she is not a Luddite. Her recommendation is to question defaults and use technology intentionally rather than treating all technology as harmful.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
06
Dr. Sahar Yousef says human attention is highly alert to sights and sounds, describing a substantial portion of the brain’s cortical area as devoted to looking and listening. She uses this to explain why busy offices and visible movement can distract people.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
07
Dr. Sahar Yousef describes the brain as a problem-solving system and says people may reach for distractions to avoid uncomfortable feelings such as overwhelm, anxiety or confusion. She calls a phone a fast exit from reality.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
08
Dr. Sahar Yousef compares technology’s engagement strategies with food products designed for stimulation and convenience. She describes three parallels: increase stimulation, reduce friction and reduce satiation.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
09
Dr. Sahar Yousef says recommendation systems can present appealing content unpredictably, which she relates to intermittent variable rewards. She argues that predictable, consistently rewarding content would not create the same uncertainty that encourages continued checking.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
10
Dr. Sahar Yousef points to reduced social activities and greater time spent alone as reasons people may feel hungry for connection. She argues that platforms can keep people in a cycle without satisfying that need.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
11
Dr. Sahar Yousef says people differ in whether music helps or distracts them. For people who benefit from sound, she suggests music without understandable lyrics or a dedicated playlist associated with focus.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
12
Dr. Sahar Yousef suggests choosing one to three most important tasks based on the time available and asking what would make the day successful. She also offers the prompt, “What will your future self thank you for?”
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
13
Dr. Sahar Yousef says that if someone cannot identify a priority, they may need to clarify where they want to be in five years. She uses the metaphor of an Everest to represent a longer-term direction.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
14
Dr. Sahar Yousef compares a major goal with a long journey and recommends making it a sequence of manageable steps. She relates the approach to the phrase “slowly, slowly,” which her husband heard from guides while climbing Kilimanjaro.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
15
Dr. Sahar Yousef recommends using practical systems that make it harder to scroll during a break, such as preparing a snack or making a drink with both hands. She also suggests natural light, fresh air and a short walk.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
16
Dr. Sahar Yousef distinguishes acknowledging feelings from repeatedly rehearsing the same worry or trauma narrative. She recommends noticing rumination and redirecting attention toward another activity or a different narrative.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
17
Dr. Sahar Yousef describes strategic automaticity as a behavior becoming habitual enough to happen without deliberation, using brushing teeth as an example. She says she has been approached by technology companies interested in applying her expertise to increase product engagement.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
18
Dr. Sahar Yousef advocates collecting data about attention and technology use, comparing it with routine physical health checks. She says scientific assessments should be made accessible to the public and directs listeners to the Mind, Machine, and Meaning Institute.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
19
Dr. Sahar Yousef asks the host first to write a phrase and a number sequence separately, then to alternate between letters and numbers. The host reports the alternating task was slower and harder, and Yousef identifies the carryover from one task to the next as attentional residue.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
01
Dr. Sahar Yousef warns that overconsuming short-form content can be associated with worse attention and mood, while also acknowledging that some research has shown short-form content increasing attention span in some cases. The discussion presents a qualified concern, not a claim that every short video has the same effect.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
02
Dr. Sahar Yousef cautions that repeatedly rehearsing a trauma narrative may strengthen associated thought patterns and recommends redirecting attention when rumination begins. She distinguishes this from acknowledging feelings; the transcript does not present a full clinical account or replace individualized mental-health care.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
03
Dr. Sahar Yousef warns that AI may take thinking away from people if they let it, and presents a possible future divided between a small thinking class and everyone else. This is her stated concern about a potential social outcome, not a confirmed prediction.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
Dr. Sahar Yousef recommends creating VIP notification lists for key people and important keywords, while leaving routine messages to be checked later. This is intended to let genuine urgencies through without exposing the user to every message.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
Dr. Sahar Yousef defines a focus sprint as a method of working in a scheduled block, with a specific goal broken into manageable steps. She says her research found that the method can help people do up to twice as much while reducing mistakes.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
Dr. Sahar Yousef recommends identifying one to a maximum of three MITs—most important tasks—that would make the day feel successful. She says to choose them in light of the time actually available.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
Dr. Sahar Yousef says a good brain break involves not processing more information. She recommends nature or doing nothing rather than scrolling, and also suggests practical options such as getting fresh air or taking a short walk.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
Dr. Sahar Yousef says the best time depends partly on a person’s chronotype, which she describes as an individual biological pattern of energy and hormones across the day. She recommends learning whether one is AM-shifted, PM-shifted or biphasic before choosing focus-sprint times.
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
“Every single time you switch your attention, you pay for it.”
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
“I deserve better than the default settings. I am better than the default settings.”
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
“I think science should be for people, not profits.”
Dr Sahar Yousef· Guest
EN · 617 segments · original
0:00Dr Sahar Yousef
Every single time you switch your attention, you pay for it.
0:02Speaker B
So multitasking is a myth.
0:03Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. So what we are going to do is get a sense of the amount of time and energy that you essentially waste every single time you switch your attention.
0:10Speaker B
Okay, let's do this. All right.
0:12Dr Sahar Yousef
Are you ready?
0:12Speaker B
Yeah.
0:13Dr Sahar Yousef
Get ready. Go.
0:14Speaker B
Oh my gosh, this is a shit show. Done.
0:16Dr Sahar Yousef
Done?
0:17Speaker B
So on a daily basis, theoretically, I'm losing 60% of my productivity just by switching between 2 different types of tasks at once.
0:23Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. And over 2 hours a day is the average now of how much time is being wasted bouncing between screens and different tasks. If we stay this Distracted, we will live a life that we don't like living.
0:35Speaker B
So what is in this box?
0:37Dr Sahar Yousef
We're gonna go through the box. I'm gonna teach you all the science for productivity and human performance because I know that the default settings of all of our technology are designed by people like me to maximize engagement. For example, the infinite scroll is like going to a buffet and just opening your mouth and there's just an assembly line of food and candy just going straight in. There's no backstop, but we can use reverse neuroscience To reverse this entire thing.
1:00Speaker B
Where's the first place to start?
1:02Dr Sahar Yousef
First, put your phone in gray. Research from my lab shows grayscale makes the phone less neurologically stimulating, and we saw on average people spent 1 hour less on their phones every single day. That's 7 hours a week. Next is choosing long-form over short-form content. If we have too much short-form, your attention span is shot, you literally feel shittier, and your brain operates at a lower level.
1:23Speaker B
I can see in your productivity toolkit there is a clock.
1:26Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah, this is a huge, huge game changer in terms of productivity, but also there is a focus timer. To help people to do up to 2 times as much as they would otherwise do. And we can talk about biological chronotypes that dictate the ideal time you should be doing your focus sprints. But also, I have another amazing thing to strengthen your mind and make you better at focusing. So I'm gonna teach you all this stuff.
1:48Speaker B
Okay, so let's get into it.
1:49Dr Sahar Yousef
So the first thing we ought to really focus in on is—
1:52Speaker B
Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes, the best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes. I would love you to know, and the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better.
2:14Speaker B
And I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much. Dr. Sahar Yousef. What is the mission that you are on if you had to try and capture it in a couple of sentences? And why does it matter to the people that are tuning in and listening right now?
2:39Dr Sahar Yousef
The mission I am on is to first and foremost bring science education to the world in a way that allows people to work more in line with how their brains and their bodies actually work best. This is my philosophy, that there are fundamental laws of how the brain and the body actually work. And I always liken these things to the laws of physics. There are laws of physics. We don't question the laws.
3:11Speaker B
Hmm.
3:12Dr Sahar Yousef
Gravity. I don't ever wake up one morning and go, you know what? I wanna do away with it. And I know that there are fundamental laws of biology, but we blissfully ignore these laws of biology. We don't teach kids when they're in school at an early age how their brains work so that they might be able to study a little bit easier, you know, find flow, actually be able to manage things like stress, physiological stress.
3:37Dr Sahar Yousef
We don't teach people the fundamentals of sleep. And my area of expertise is productivity. We focus so much on what, what's the deliverable, what's the long-term goal, what's the annual goal, what's the quarterly goal, what are, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, but not the how.
3:50Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
3:51Dr Sahar Yousef
How should we go about getting these things done? What is the best way, in fact, that a human being might sit down and have an innovative thought? Like truly, like what's like, let's, for example, the neuroscience of innovation. We're all obsessed. I'm from Silicon Valley. We're obsessed with sort of innovation, but we're doing that with this.
4:10Speaker B
With our brains.
4:11Dr Sahar Yousef
With our brains. This is a biological system. Isn't it a good idea to take a step back and learn how the system actually works? I just feel like there's so much friction with how we're working and living today. And I would say the number one thing that seems to be getting in the way of all of this is at the moment, technology, which is such a shame because it's also the most amazing piece of, I would say, modern human invention.
4:36Speaker B
You said innovation there. One of the things that innovators often think about is working backwards from the customer, i.e., understanding the customer problem and then reverse engineering a solution from there. So, I present you with the same challenge with my audience today. Having been out there as a public communicator, you've received a lot of feedback from people as it relates to productivity on what they're really struggling with and how they describe it in their own words. How can they relate to everything you've just said? Like, what are the words that in their head they're using to describe the problem that your work solves?
5:06Dr Sahar Yousef
I hear a lot about brain fog.
5:08Speaker B
Okay.
5:10Dr Sahar Yousef
That's a big one. I remember working with this female CEO. She said something that's always stuck with me, and she's like, I can hear my own thoughts again. That's always stayed with me. I'm like, where were your thoughts before? And That's the heartbreaking truth. I think people aren't, we're not listening. We don't hear the inside of ourselves anymore. I think there's some sort of global discomfort with being with ourselves, and we've been distracted completely, 24/7.
5:42Dr Sahar Yousef
Like every little second and minute in between all of our tasks and to-dos and meetings and calls and this and that is filled in. With technology and scrolling, we're just constantly consuming. And if you put yourself into that sort of setup and state, when is it that you, your mind is supposed to say, hey, what about this? I can't cure cancer. That's not my area. I can't do some of the amazing things that people right now are working on, the problems that they're working on to make the world a better place.
6:19Dr Sahar Yousef
But in some small part, if I can help unblock people to go do the amazing things that they wanna do in the world, if I can just bring the science of productivity and performance, of focus, energy management, attention, all of these things back into our lives, then this is my small part that I can help people do all of the amazing things that they wanna do. And still be happy.
6:47Speaker B
What is the experience and the reference points that you draw from? Where did you study? What is it you run now? What studies have you done?
6:56Dr Sahar Yousef
I'm the founder and managing director of the Becoming Superhuman Lab, which is a lab focused and obsessed with productivity and human performance. Our goal is to help people get the most done in the least amount of time with the least amount of stress. I've done my entire academic career At UC Berkeley. My area of expertise is cognitive neuroplasticity, so how the brain actually changes and evolves. Keyword there, sort of that root plastic, plasticity.
7:23Dr Sahar Yousef
So the brain is constantly changing and evolving and adapting, and I'd like to tap into that. If the brain is constantly changing, evolving, and adapting, that means it could be getting better, which is why my lab has colloquially been called the Becoming Superhuman Lab, because my area of interest is increasing Things like your attention span, your memory, your general fluid intelligence. So these cognitive traits that we have and these cognitive skills, I want to increase the volume on all of those things.
7:54Dr Sahar Yousef
I want to make people better, faster, stronger. So that's what I've always been obsessed with.
7:57Speaker B
Wait, you can make me superhuman?
7:59Dr Sahar Yousef
I mean, yes. Really? We have to define it, though. Of course, yes.
8:03Speaker B
Okay.
8:03Dr Sahar Yousef
I think you're probably already a fair bit there.
8:06Speaker B
No, no, no, no, no. There's room for improvement.
8:08Dr Sahar Yousef
Trust me. Always, always. For myself as well, always. But I do practice quite a bit of what I preach. But we are human at the end But I
8:15Speaker B
would like to be superhuman.
8:16Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay.
8:17Speaker B
So, hopefully we can do that today. You mentioned working with a female CEO there. What is the broad spectrum of people that you've worked with?
8:26Dr Sahar Yousef
I've worked with a lot of executives. One of the first execs I worked with, and of course I can't say who, but it's a Fortune— it would be a Fortune 10 company. And I used to do these observations. So, I would, let's say if I did this for you, by the way, You'd say, okay, for the next couple of days, I'm going to have this weird doctor lady, this neuroscientist, follow me around and she's just observing me. I would notice everything from what you're eating and drinking throughout the course of the day, if you take breaks, how you work.
8:55Dr Sahar Yousef
I'd follow you to a bunch of your meetings. I'm just with you for a bit, observing, taking notes, and then we would do an overhaul. And then I would intervene and then be like, all right, we got it. This is going to get changed out. And I have this very distinct memory because this was a huge point of transition for my work. I'm sitting there in his office and it's a modern, as you might have, glass everywhere. So, he's sitting in a glass box in the middle of a busy floor.
9:22Dr Sahar Yousef
This is a Fortune 10 and he's the boss. So, everybody can, it's like, he can see everyone, everyone can see him. So, you've now put this human being, this extremely intelligent human being that controls billions of dollars, And you've put him in a glass box. Now he also has in, in mind, he's working on a deck for a board meeting. It's extremely important. He's pulling together data that different teams have sent him and he's looking at things.
9:47Dr Sahar Yousef
He's making pretty big decisions and he's like, yeah, that's what I'm doing. And I'm like, that's fine. You do you. I'll be back here. And I see him, he's on his computer, but he has a second monitor and the second monitor has his email open. And then he has two phones, personal and professional, and they're both face up right next to him. And he had an Apple Watch on. So as he's sitting down to focus, it's just like bzzz, bong, ping, boop, bop.
10:10Dr Sahar Yousef
And then all of this is happening, and then there's people walking by. And then at some point, his chief of staff like comes in, and he's just like, "Excuse me, you know, don't forget this." And he's like, "Uh huh." So he's sitting there. I swear, Stephen, he probably got thirty seconds. You know, the average— there was a study done, 47 seconds is the average amount of time a knowledge worker stays focused on one screen before another one distracts them.
10:38Dr Sahar Yousef
If I told you I want to give you $1 billion, and I'm here to support you, you know, and advise in any way that I can, but your goal is in fact, let's say, to cure cancer, and it's you, so hopefully you can galvanize the best minds. From all around the world. How would you want them to go about trying to solve this global issue of such importance? Would you strap them up with an Apple Watch, a bunch of notifications, a Slack, and then litter their day with a bunch of meetings and calls, and then hope that in the next few years they cure this thing?
11:13Dr Sahar Yousef
Ideally, you want them to be in an environment with a setup that is Not distracting, and like doesn't waste their best thinking. They don't like wake up in the morning and it's like, "Oh hey, by the way, instead of thinking about that whole cancer bit, you need to jump onto this call and we need to talk about this thing." And we do do do do do do do do do. And it's just constant ping ponging like this all day. What is this?
11:32Dr Sahar Yousef
Just sit down for twenty minutes and just focus. So it's it's almost it's what's hysterical is I studied far more complex things than I find myself talking to people about, which is hysterical. We just need to focus on cleaning the shed. up. That's why I call it digital hygiene. There are obstacles in the way of productivity and performance and focus. Forget becoming superhuman, we just need to become human. Do we all understand collectively here how this human system works so that we can accept again those laws of biology?
12:11Dr Sahar Yousef
As you see, we come back to this.
12:15Speaker B
I can relate so much to everything you just said. In part because I'm an executive, but actually it doesn't really matter if you're an executive in this context because we all live in this very, very noisy world. I want to now go through all of the solutions. You called it getting all this shit out of our way, cleaning up our digital and physical environments. There is a box here. This is— you didn't want to make it an app, but there is some of the stuff you talk about is in this box.
12:42Speaker B
Yes. I guess as someone that wants to be able to do the best work of my life, think clearly, interview well, build businesses, innovate, be creative, all of those things that you were pointing at through your explanations. I want to know, where's the first place to start? What's the first domino? If I fuck up my sleep, is that the first? Do I have to meditate? What is the—
13:01Dr Sahar Yousef
There's one that I have to begin with, the foundational, which you already mentioned yourself, is sleep. That's true. The way that I, by the way, talk about sleep, and I hope this visual stays in your mind and maybe the mind of the listeners here, And I've had the interesting and distinct pleasure of having many a CEO and an executive who is haggard, tired, especially the founders that are grinding, come to me and ask, okay, I wanna become 1% better.
13:30Dr Sahar Yousef
And I find out that they're averaging 5 hours of sleep a night. Like, okay, can I paint a picture for you of what this feels like? It feels like you've taken your car to the mechanic, and as a mechanic, I'm looking at it and the thing is on fire. Like, it's literally like it's on fire. The flames are, and then you're sitting there like unaware of the fact that it's on fire and you're like, can we soup up the engine?
13:50Dr Sahar Yousef
I'm like, dude, let's put the fire out first. I don't even know where to begin to assess your baseline performance. So that's the thing. When you don't get enough sleep, and mind you, that's a minimum of 7 hours a night, if you're not getting enough sleep, it's impacting your cognitive performance, your emotional regulation. So you'll be irascible, you know, in the office and with other people. Like the, the, the system is messed up.
14:13Dr Sahar Yousef
So sleep is For sure, the foundation.
14:15Speaker B
Okay.
14:15Dr Sahar Yousef
We gotta check that box. I would say next biggest thing that I will tell you right now, this is a global issue. It is impacting everyone from senior citizens to children. It's your relationship with technology.
14:30Speaker B
What is that?
14:34Dr Sahar Yousef
This is a phone lockbox. So we would theoretically put your technology inside and then lock it away from you. You wanna do it?
14:42Speaker B
Yeah.
14:42Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah, go for it.
14:43Speaker B
Okay, let me just make sure it's off.
14:45Dr Sahar Yousef
I feel like, let me just get rid of some of the things that are on screen.
14:48Speaker B
Okay, turn that upside down.
14:49Dr Sahar Yousef
There we go. You don't necessarily need to get a lockbox, but the point of something like this is for you as a human being and your brain as a focus machine, as a monotasking machine, to actually be able to focus. Focus and attention are so fundamental to all things, personal and professional, mind you. That means any kind of distraction that is diminishing your focus is impacting your memory. Another word for memory is learning, right?
15:31Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
15:32Dr Sahar Yousef
Attention and memory, by the way, they're It's impossible to divorce those concepts from one another. They're connected in the most connected way that they can be. The way that they're connected is you cannot remember anything that you do not attend to. If you think about that, it is only things that come into your aperture of attention that you're aware of in the first place. So we cannot learn anything, we cannot remember anything unless we're paying attention.
16:03Dr Sahar Yousef
And attention spans, our ability to sustain attention, has been linearly decreasing since the advent of this thing. And I don't want people to think it's just phones necessarily. It's this, it's notifications in general. And if you're monitoring the, your inbox all day and it's constantly available to you, what's your plan for having deep thoughts?
16:27Speaker B
The rebuttal that comes to mind, although I don't even believe it, but this is the rebuttal that I think a lot of, you know, me and my listeners will be thinking right now. Yes, but what if something happens? I have my email open because maybe a big email comes in, or I have my WhatsApp right there because maybe my fiancée's gonna tell me I need to let her in the house or something, you know, something's gonna happen.
16:48Dr Sahar Yousef
Totally. Fires, that's what we call them, right? Fires, urgencies. I get it. I'm a caretaker for both of my, you know, parents. I get it. I call these, by the way, VIPs. These are VIP notifications and messages. Can I paint a picture for you for a second? We've figured this out for mail. If you have an extremely important package coming to your house, how do we deal with this in the mail system? Somebody knocks. It needs a signature. Like, we're not leaving this outside. Somebody needs to be home. Knock, knock, knock. I'm gonna come and get your attention. To me, that knock, knock, knock, you need to sign for this is a notification. That's the fire, right?
17:26Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
17:27Dr Sahar Yousef
And everything else, by the way, just gets shoved in the mailbox. Or left by the door. This is what I advocate for. We are all, by the way, smart enough. We should respect ourselves enough, truly, to demand better than the default settings that our apps, our email, our phones come with. The default settings of all of our technology are designed, by the way, by people like me. These are cognitive neuroscientists, behavioral neuroscientists that work at these companies to get you hooked.
18:05Dr Sahar Yousef
Because if you think about this, by the way, what's the bottom line for even Microsoft Outlook? Forget like TikTok and like all of that. Just leave that aside for a second. Like the boring stuff that runs the world: email. For those of us adults, right? What do you think the bottom line is when you have a company? That has an annual contract with another company that installs things like Slack, things like just communication software.
18:30Dr Sahar Yousef
How do you make sure that you re-up that contract? You show engagement. At the end of the year, you go, look, look at these engagement numbers. Everyone is using, everyone's constantly talking to each other 24/7. So, you can't do what you do without us. So, that means the way that these softwares and products are designed is for them to be as engaging as humanly possible. So, the default setting that your phone comes with, the default setting that every single app that you download on that phone of yours, the default setting of email, of any messaging software that all of our teams use, the default setting is there to maximize engagement, not to make your company more productive.
19:06Dr Sahar Yousef
These companies don't give a shit about your productivity. That's not their problem. That's your problem. You need to figure that part out. I'm a big advocate for thinking about this in the sense of default settings because it is in fact I have a sweet tooth, so think of a chocolate company, a candy company. What is their bottom line? What do they want out of me as a customer?
19:29Speaker B
And when you say bottom line, for those that don't know, you mean profit incentive, right?
19:34Dr Sahar Yousef
Yes.
19:35Speaker B
Yeah.
19:35Dr Sahar Yousef
Their goal is to sell as much of their product as humanly possible. Is it their business or responsibility to think about whether or not I get diabetes or if I'm having trouble? With overconsumption, not really. Well, the same is true for email. The same is true for any kind of platform. It's engagement is the currency. So everything from the little, the sound that your email client makes when you send an email off, that's been tested, tested of what will feel the best and sound the best to the human.
20:09Dr Sahar Yousef
Everything from the vibrate functionality that you feel in your phone has been highly optimized by people like me to keep you obsessed with the thing. and addicted to the thing to increase your engagement on the platform. And so my big push is in the goal of, again, productivity, the first thing we ought to really focus in on is getting rid of the drains of our productivity first.
20:36Speaker B
It sounds obvious, but it's totally not obvious that a productivity tool's incentive actually isn't your own productivity. It is your engagement with the tool. Because you're totally right. When these companies report to investors or whatever, they have to show how much engagement, how much you used it. And it's almost like antithetical to the mission of the tool for them to be removing your distraction in that regard, because engagement and distraction are like opposites in the way that you describe them. Like Slack is distracting me under the premise that it's making me better at my work.
21:13Dr Sahar Yousef
Absolutely, which is why I sort of scoff when I, when I hear some of these products and tools call themselves productivity software, because I'm like, well, and I'm not suggesting, right, we don't need to communicate with each other. I have team members in different time zones. Like, we obviously need— we've never as a human species been able to communicate and collaborate at this scale. Technology is amazing. I'm not a Luddite. What I advocate for is people telling themselves this mantra of, I deserve better than the default settings. I am better than the default settings. The default settings are not there to help you.
21:49Speaker B
So, what do you suggest then for someone like me who, you know, I probably spend 10 hours a day on my phone according to my screen time, what shall I do?
21:56Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay. My number one suggestion is, especially because you yourself brought up the fear around missing important things, right? Again, I called, you know, the fires, the urgency, so on and so forth, is I would recommend setting up what I call VIP notifications. In both your phone, your inbox, every single different communication software. And what that means is you come up with your VIP list. This is your partner, your, your, if you have a boss, your boss's boss, if you're client-facing or customer-facing, your top 15 clients.
22:25Dr Sahar Yousef
Like these are your VIPs. And it's if, for example, these numbers call me or text me, it pushes through the filter. There are no defenses. I need to get that immediately. I have 3 keywords, by the way, set up in my email inbox, my first name. I'm a little lucky. I have a more rare first name. So, if somebody says Sahar, I'm like, okay, you've got me. What is it? You know? Because otherwise, what's our reality, Steven?
22:48Dr Sahar Yousef
Like, we are CC'd on email chains with like 7 other people sometimes, and they're just talking to each other. I do not need to get a ping every single time Stacy and Steven are chatting with each other about something. They're solving their own problem. Like, I need to focus on leading. I don't need to be get— like, you're all figuring this out. And I'm not saying— I do kind of want to be CC'd sometimes. I need to be kept abreast of what's going on, but I don't need to be interrupted.
23:11Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. My train of thought doesn't need to be interrupted when I'm finally sitting down to focus.
23:15Speaker B
A lot of people don't want to be rude, and there's so much social pressure to respond quickly, to say yes, to take the meeting, to do the thing, go to the whatever. So the question I was going to ask you is, who is the most focused person you've ever met in this regard? And then my sort of sub-question was, I bet they're often seen as rude.
23:34Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
23:36Speaker B
Or I bet they have to develop a muscle against people pleasing.
23:41Dr Sahar Yousef
Indeed. Yeah. I honestly, probably the first person that came to my mind is honestly my husband. Yeah. Who's a faculty, he's here.
23:50Speaker B
No, he's in there, isn't he?
23:51Dr Sahar Yousef
Besides to me—
23:53Speaker B
You'll get a right to reply.
23:54Dr Sahar Yousef
I'm like, besides to me, he mostly, he's like, his default is no. I have a sense everyone has a default. I'm a default yes person, you know, and he's a default no person. And we run a company together, which by the way, 2 people at the helm that's default no, default yes, I think makes a really good balance. Because we debate it out. Everything becomes a discussion. I'm like, oh, this is what a great opportunity! We should totally do this.
24:16Dr Sahar Yousef
And he's like, this is not the objective. Stay on the object. I'm like, well, but it's a shiny new object and this thing and blah blah blah. And it's like, oh, impact and all of the things. He protects his resources, and his most precious resource is his time, his time and his attention. I'll channel him. He'll say, yeah, maybe it's disappointing to some that I did not make it to that meeting, but I think people will find over time that my unique contribution.
24:42Dr Sahar Yousef
contribution to that meeting would've not been relevant. They were just fine without me. And the fact that I did not attend that meeting allowed me to sit down and finish this and do this thing and come up with this idea, which is helping the entire ecosystem of work.
24:57Speaker B
I sat and interviewed Kevin O'Leary, and he said something to me which has stayed with me ever since, but I know it's also stayed with my listeners because they say it back to me out in the world. He talked about his experience working with Steve Jobs and also Elon Musk, and he talked about this concept of signal versus noise.
25:13Dr Sahar Yousef
Yes.
25:15Speaker B
And he said Steve Jobs had the most remarkable ability to focus on the signal versus the noise. He described it as 80/20. And for anyone that doesn't understand the analogy, signal is like the most important thing I should be doing today. Noise is everything else. He says, the thing about Steve Jobs is it was always like, why are we talking about this? This is the most important thing. And then I saw, Jony Ive being interviewed.
25:38Speaker B
And Jony Ive was describing Steve Jobs. And Jony Ive said, the most remarkable thing about Steve is his focus. And he said, focus isn't doing one thing instead of another. Focus is waking up in the morning and thinking something is a brilliant idea. And with every bone in your body, you know that that thing is brilliant and you wanna do it and you say no to it anyway. He said, Steve was the most remarkably focused person I have ever met.
26:07Speaker B
And he would often go up to Jony Ives and ask him what he had said no to. And Jony said he would have these sacrificial things that he wasn't remotely interested in in any way. And Steve would know that and push him even harder. Like, what have you said no to that with every bone in your body you knew was a brilliant idea, but you said no to it because we are focused on this? And the last part of that story is Kevin O'Leary said that Elon is the only person he's ever encountered that is more focused than Steve Jobs.
26:30Dr Sahar Yousef
Wow.
26:32Speaker B
And this is part of the reason why I'm so excited to speak to you, because I want to be more like that. I want to get to 80/20.
26:38Dr Sahar Yousef
You're well on your way because you've already given me your phone.
26:42Speaker B
I know. That's something I'm quite anxious about. I'm not even kidding.
26:45Dr Sahar Yousef
I'm not even kidding though. This is the noise. You can either increase the signal or you can decrease the noise. What do you think is easier?
26:54Speaker B
Decreasing the noise.
26:57Dr Sahar Yousef
For sure. As a first step, as a first step, of course.
27:00Speaker B
I think that's actually what they do. And again, I don't know a ton about this, but I actually think that's what they did when they discovered the radio was the job was to reduce the noise. They never mentioned increasing the signal.
27:13Dr Sahar Yousef
Because it's rather difficult. It's possible.
27:15Speaker B
But it's there.
27:15Dr Sahar Yousef
It's there.
27:16Speaker B
It's there.
27:17Dr Sahar Yousef
It literally get the shit out of your life.
27:20Speaker B
We now think that multitasking or context switching is a skill. And we think, you mentioned a term earlier on, which I've never heard, mono—
27:29Dr Sahar Yousef
Monotasking.
27:30Speaker B
You said the brain is a monotasker.
27:32Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah, it's a monotasking machine.
27:33Speaker B
Prove that to me. This thing here, this is a monotasking machine?
27:38Dr Sahar Yousef
It is. Yes, it is. So this entire system is designed for survival. Human beings are, I always kind of joke and say, we're not quite competitive in the animal kingdom. I mean, I work out, but I can't fight off an actual predator. You know, like my nails aren't teeth, my teeth aren't that sharp. It's, we are kind of puny, but where we're not puny is this. So it is in my ability to strategize, think, and focus where I can outsmart predators. That's how human beings have survived. That's how we're running the world. Do you know about a third of the human brain, like I, and I say it the cortical real estate, so real estate across this human cortex, is dedicated just to looking and listening.
28:27Speaker B
Hmm.
28:29Dr Sahar Yousef
That's a lot. Just eavesdropping, loud sounds, anything that might come into view. So, we're designed to be hypervigilant to anything that might come in our environment, which, I mean, think of an open office, think of a typical setup where people are working, like the example I gave of that executive literally sitting in a glass box with all the people that he works with, walking by constantly and all this noise, and he's trying to find the signal and he's trying to tap into the signal.
28:57Dr Sahar Yousef
And I'm like, no, I want our species to keep advancing and I want us to advance as fast as humanly possible. And I know we can, but all the brilliance of humanity is currently being sucked away by these distractions.
29:10Speaker B
There seems to be, as I was thinking about that, there seems to be 2 ways that distractions find us. The first is the notification comes to us. Or the thing pings or whatever, the Apple Watch vibrates. The other is we're in the middle of work and we stumble across something which is a little bit difficult or tricky or a little bit uncomfortable, and we go seeking out the distraction. So we might be in the middle of an essay, it's a little bit tricky, and so we could reach for our WhatsApp and we're chatting in the group chat about the weekend. Is that a true sort of accurate reflection of how humans behave?
29:41Dr Sahar Yousef
Yes.
29:42Speaker B
It is. Because I was just thinking about my own behavior. Sometimes, yes, ping. I don't have notifications on. Well, I don't have most notifications on, but I still find myself reaching for the phone every minute.
29:51Dr Sahar Yousef
So the human brain is a problem-solving machine. It's important to keep this in mind. So I'll stack a few, again, biological laws here that brings us to understanding why we all, all have a tendency towards what I would consider to be avoidance of discomfort. Now, discomfort. Let's list out some uncomfortable feelings. Overwhelm, stress, anxiety, confusion. What are some other ones? You feeling a little depressed, a little FOMO, lonely? What are some other ones?
30:27Speaker B
I think you nailed it.
30:28Dr Sahar Yousef
Those are all the ones? Yeah. Anger, frustration. Your brain also, by the way, is your friend. It doesn't— if you don't want to feel them, your brain is you and doesn't want to feel them either. Your brain is designed to help you and probably So it goes, well, we're overwhelmed. Fuck this. How do I avoid this? So it's going to try to solve the problem. Now, there's 2 ways to solve what you're overwhelmed about, right? You could either deal with it head-on, which sounds like a heck of a lot of work, or you could avoid it. No? Emotional avoidance. Now, what's the fastest and easiest way in the modern world we can avoid what's going on inside of us?
31:09Speaker B
TikTok, Shake Shack, pornography.
31:11Dr Sahar Yousef
So we immediately go numb. And I think normalizing that is the first step because what our phones have done for us is created an exit, a very fast, cheap exit to reality.
31:27Speaker B
I know you would've heard about those studies where they put people in a room and give them the opportunity to electrocute themselves. So essentially the study is, people get electrocuted before the study starts,
31:38Dr Sahar Yousef
and
31:38Speaker B
then they're put in a room on their own with a button that would electrocute them again. They describe, before the study starts, on average, being willing to pay to not be electrocuted again.
31:48Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
31:48Speaker B
But once they're put alone with this electrocution button, many people continue to shock themselves over and over again. And in the study, men shock themselves more than women. One particular guy in the study electrocuted himself hundreds of times, When left alone and being asked to sit and do nothing. And the conclusion from the study is that we'd rather electrocute ourselves than sit alone in silence these days. And do you know what?
32:15Speaker B
It sounds crazy, but in a way, that's kind of what we're doing with our phones. In a way, when my phone dies, and I'm just going to be honest because I don't think there's any point in me trying to fucking pretend I'm something I'm not. When my phone dies, it's like a mild feeling of anxiety when my phone dies. And I'm most certainly addicted to my phone. I spend an unbelievable amount of hours with that thing. I probably pick it up 200 times a day just to check.
32:41Speaker B
So we're going to remove the phone when we're doing deep work. We're going to turn off notifications. As it relates to the phone, anything else?
32:47Dr Sahar Yousef
Yes. There's plenty. I liken what the tech, big tech essentially, what technology has done To really honestly hijack the brain and make it addicted, I find that it is eerily similar to how the food industry got us addicted to sugar and processed food. My humble belief is that it's the exact same 3-part framework, and it's the playbook was copied nearly identically. We have obviously a fundamental need to eat. Now, if you look at the food industry, how might we hijack Biology and the brain. Yeah, I know, evil fingers.
33:29Speaker B
Yeah, post hoc.
33:30Dr Sahar Yousef
How might we hijack the brain to actually get it addicted to sugar and to processed food if we know there's a fundamental need there? Well, how you do that is you increase the stimulation of the food, and you do that by actually just injecting sugar wherever you can. I'm not sure how it is in the UK, but if you, in the, here in the United States, look on the back label of, of pretty much any loaf of bread, that you wanna buy and there's sugar in it. I can bake bread. You don't need sugar necessarily to make a loaf of bread.
34:05Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
34:05Dr Sahar Yousef
Right? It doesn't have to be a sweet loaf, but lo and behold, there it is. So, we're injecting all of this sugar and increasing the stimulation of the food, right? And that's how you can get somebody hooked. Now, why would humans be already sort of naturally addicted to sugar? Because food used to be scarce. It's hard to find. So, we're naturally gonna be inclined to these things that are indicators of jackpots. Salt, fat, sugar, yummy, yummy, yummy.
34:29Dr Sahar Yousef
It's how you make food really delicious, right? And we're all naturally inclined to desire those things and covet those things and be really, really stimulated by them. So, what you do is you inject those yummy, yummy things, so you're increasing the stimulation of your food. Oh, it's so amazing. Then you decrease the friction. Let's make it easier for people to get this stuff. You make everything adorably packaged and portioned out so that— and you make it easy and easy, fast, Like fast food, fast, easily accessible, and available all of the time.
34:55Dr Sahar Yousef
So you're decreasing the friction. You no longer need to make yourself something. You don't need to make a meal. We have fast food. It's right there, right available. Open up a bar, good to go. Then you decrease the satiation. You decrease the satiation by removing the parts of food that make food satiating. Because remember, this is a fundamental need. I'm hungry. I want to eat something.
35:16Speaker B
Satiating being? Full.
35:18Dr Sahar Yousef
Being full. Yeah. Yes. My body needs things that would make me full. And what makes us full in food? Protein, fiber. Candy? Nope. There's no protein, there's no fiber. So, the food industry has figured this out. Technology's done the same thing. They've done the exact same thing. They followed the exact same playbook. They increase the stimulation by increasing this color saturation of the icons and the light that's emitted from the screen so that your actual technology looks more visually And that visual stimulation, as we were talking about before, huge part of your cortex is your visual cortex, your occipital lobe.
35:57Dr Sahar Yousef
So, it's super, super stimulated by all of that color saturation. So, it's like, oh my gosh, think of like a casino. You've never been to a casino and you're like, oh, they've went with neutrals.
36:05Speaker B
Yeah.
36:06Dr Sahar Yousef
You know what I mean? It's all the colors all the time, all the lights. It's all the things. So, it's stimulating, and then you keep looking at it. The other way that we've increased the stimulation with technology is short-form reels. Short-form content, super, super fast TikTok style, so that it's uber stimulating and you can't look away. And by the way, there's an entire field intermittent variable rewards. You get these jackpots once in a while, right?
36:33Dr Sahar Yousef
What's fascinating about the algorithm, by the way, and your algorithm I'm sure is exactly the same. Your algorithm knows you really, really well, and it knows what content. You're gonna love that day. So it's got all this like saved up content for you. So it's got like, ooh, Steven's gonna love this. Oh, he's really gonna love this because he even liked this thing like a week ago, like something like this. Okay. Okay.
36:55Dr Sahar Yousef
And it's got this treasure trove of stuff that it's holding for you. You get onto one of these apps and you start scrolling. It's not gonna show you the stuff it knows you're gonna love. Not in the beginning. That's bad business. Don't you think? You just came into the store. You have all the energy in the world. You obviously have nothing better to do. So you've now sat down and in the beginning, I can show you meh content.
37:16Dr Sahar Yousef
I can just show you like, mm, in the beginning because I have your attention and it knows how long it has your attention. Every person is a little bit different. So it knows how long it can just serve you up medium to like low entertaining content and interesting content before you say, to yourself, I'm done. This is boring. I'm gonna get off and I'm gonna do, go do something else. It knows the moment you're about to do that.
37:42Dr Sahar Yousef
And right before you do that, hits you with the jackpot.
37:45Speaker B
Diary of a CEO clip. Exactly. Like that.
37:47Dr Sahar Yousef
Fine. Bang. Exactly. It's like, there he is. It's that Bartlett again. And I can't look away.
37:52Speaker B
And I— People are watching this reel right now. Right now. And they're thinking, this was the one I was just about to bounce.
37:57Dr Sahar Yousef
This is the one. You love this, right? You love this.
38:00Speaker B
But there's science behind this. I remember being 16 years old in psychology class and reading about the pigeons and variable rewards. Totally. What is this variable rewards phenomenon?
38:11Dr Sahar Yousef
Oh my gosh, it's so— humans are fascinating. I find humans to be the coolest thing in the known universe. We're so ridiculous. Human beings, believe it or not, do not love consistent reward. We become more addicted when it's in fact Intermittent and somewhat variable.
38:34Speaker B
So when we don't know when it's coming, but we know it's coming.
38:38Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. This is, I have a whole theory on like people who are in toxic relationships. Like seriously, think about like love bombing. This is the science of love bombing. Like, I'm an asshole, I'm an asshole. I'm like ghosting you and then bam, oh, I hit you with a bunch of love and people are like, oh my. And then they become addicted to these toxic fucking relationships. Similar concept. So the algorithm works exactly the same way.
38:56Dr Sahar Yousef
If it showed you every single thing that you wanted to see, By the way, only Diary Of A CEO clips. That's it. The whole feed. Yeah. For like 5 hours straight. It's just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Believe it or not, you'd be less likely to get addicted. We're addicted to like the, you know, just mess with me. I don't know when the good stuff's coming. I don't know when it's coming. This is how casinos work. This is how slot machines work.
39:18Dr Sahar Yousef
You lose. You, dude, you know that slot machines are programmed. It's a computer program. It's all math. They want you to lose a bunch of money, be in the red, and then have you make up $1.50 and then be like, oh, Oh, I'm back in. And it's just, this is the game. This is the human game. So, the algorithm works exactly the same. That's how they increase the stimulation. So then, they also decreased the friction, just like food.
39:44Dr Sahar Yousef
Here you have the infinite scroll. We've literally removed the backstops. Do you remember the early days of YouTube and Instagram? You had to, you only, by the way, saw the things that you followed, that you subscribed to. Mm-hmm. By the way, subscribe. But like, this is the point, is actually the subscription model allows you to curate your feed a little bit more and say, this is what I want to see, not the rest of this bullshit, right?
40:07Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
40:07Dr Sahar Yousef
When people don't, and so the algorithm will just be like, this, this, how about this? How about this other thing? How about this other thing? It's just getting you to shop around. But most importantly, it's, we've removed the backstop. Now we have something called the infinite scroll. And the infinite scroll is like going to a buffet and just opening your mouth, and there's just an assembly line of food and candy just going straight in. Right? There's no backstop. It's in a sense, it just keeps going.
40:31Speaker B
It used to be pagination. It used to be like page 1, page 2, page 3.
40:35Dr Sahar Yousef
Totally.
40:35Speaker B
In the early internet. Now it's just infinite.
40:37Dr Sahar Yousef
There's no end. You're not gonna reach the end of TikTok. It's not gonna happen. I don't know if you remember this or if people remember this. There was an end. I remember when Instagram first came out, you would literally like run out of things to see and then it'd just be like, that's it. That's all for today. Come back tomorrow for maybe, maybe your friend posted another picture of their sandwich. Like that you'd reach the end. There's no longer an end. So, that's decreasing the friction. There's no friction anymore. It's just the never-ending scroll.
41:01Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
41:02Dr Sahar Yousef
Then, they also decrease the satiation. This is extremely important, Steven, going back to that fundamental need for human connection. We have a fundamental need, like the same need we have for food, to be connected to one another, to be social, to feel a sense of belonging. What social media has done, is it's created the illusion of social connection because we have the data to support the longer you spend on these apps and on these platforms, the lonelier you are.
41:33Dr Sahar Yousef
So, you're lonely. I'm disconnected. I'm at home. I have a sense of loneliness and FOMO, and I want— I'm seeking connection. I want to go meet this need. I have this fundamental need for connection and belonging, and I want to then go meet this need. So, what do I do? I go on social media. Well, the fastest, cheapest, and easiest way to do that is grab my phone. You get on and you think that you're meeting that need.
41:55Dr Sahar Yousef
It's like candy. So you have, let's say you're hungry for dinner. Your body is craving things that actually make you full, nutrients that you need. But the thing is, if I gave you a bag of Skittles or something, then you might be thinking, well, Sahar, it's calories. Aren't calories calories? It's food, right? It tastes good. It's calories, and it's gonna meet that need. I'm hungry. It's gonna meet that need. Well, darling, what's going to happen when you eat candy when you're hungry?
42:19Dr Sahar Yousef
You've— I'm sure you've done this before. At least I've done it. And if you say no, then you're the healthiest human and I must study you.
42:23Speaker B
Of course I have. Okay. But I want to eat more Skittles later.
42:26Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay, there we go.
42:27Speaker B
That's the problem. If I have these junk calories, then in 6 hours' time, I'm back looking for more junk calories.
42:33Dr Sahar Yousef
Exactly. Shoots up, then everything crashes down. Another law of biology, what goes up must come down. And so what does this look like when we're scrolling? I seek a sense of belonging. I'm seeking also, by the way, stimulation. We have a fundamental need for novelty and Which, by the way, I think is— podcasts do this beautifully. Think about the difference between some 30-second reel that someone has made, and then they inject 2 quick facts versus sitting down and actually sinking into a multi-hour show.
43:04Speaker B
Hmm.
43:06Dr Sahar Yousef
You're attracted to both. One is a lot harder to sit through than the other. But what I'm telling you is this is what's actually going to satiate you. You have, we all do, have a natural fundamental need for learning and novelty because again, survival. Because this new piece of information might be a huge unlock for me to thrive even more in this world. This is the hijack of social media and short-form content is you think you're getting that, but I promise you, just like with the Skittles, you end up getting off and you don't remember anything that you, by the way, you just watched.
43:40Dr Sahar Yousef
Just test it. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Do the quick short form for a while. And in the moment you're like, oh my gosh, I just learned a fun fact about this. And this is it. You think you're learning. It's an illusion. What I believe we're, by the way, Steven, up for right now is I think the world is waking up to this now. And this is gonna be the new big reverse UNO, as I call it. They use neuroscience to get us hooked.
44:07Dr Sahar Yousef
Hmm. And I think we can use reverse neuroscience to reverse this entire thing. If they increase the stimulation, as we talked about before, you reduce it. And the ways in which you reduce the stimulation, one, if you keep your phone in gray. So literally going into something like grayscale makes the phone less neurologically stimulating. So it's a heck of a lot easier for you to actually get off your phone. You do this in settings.
44:31Dr Sahar Yousef
And again, this is, by the way, a beautiful example of the default settings are not here to help you. The default settings are here to help them. Make money off of your attention and your time. So, you are better than the default settings, Steven. I am better than the default settings. Everyone who's listening, you are better than the default settings. Push back against the default settings and put your phone in gray.
44:52Dr Sahar Yousef
When you do that, your phone is immediately— it looks dead to you. It's way easier to not go from app to app to app to app and then do that thing where we mindlessly scroll, especially late at night when our willpower is low. And then you're like, I'm just gonna check for a second. Just for a second. And then you find yourself just gorging essentially on this and binging on content.
45:10Speaker B
Have they ever tested that engagement with devices when they are in grayscale or in a different color saturation? Or is it just generally what the neuroscience points to?
45:19Dr Sahar Yousef
I've tested it.
45:20Speaker B
Oh, okay.
45:20Dr Sahar Yousef
So in my lab, we took a large sample of healthy working professionals, and all I did was turn their phones into gray and ask them to stay in gray for 3 weeks. That's it. And we saw on average, people spent 1 hour less on their phones every single day.
45:35Speaker B
Wow.
45:36Dr Sahar Yousef
That's 7 hours a week. The way I always talk about, that's the difference between you getting that workout in.
45:41Speaker B
Yeah, that's crazy.
45:43Dr Sahar Yousef
Do you know what I mean?
45:43Speaker B
That's crazy.
45:44Dr Sahar Yousef
When you go around and you talk to these busy people, they're like, oh yeah, I'm trying to do this. I wanna read that book. I wanna listen to your podcast, Steven, but I just don't have the time. Well, darling, just making this one tiny change will give you an hour back a day. That's 7 hours a week. Think about what you could do with that time. Next is choosing long-form over short-form.
46:01Speaker B
Thank you. Did you hear that? She's from Berkeley. That's an amazing university. She's a doctor.
46:07Dr Sahar Yousef
Long— no, it's true though.
46:10Speaker B
She also said subscribe if you didn't. If you didn't catch that.
46:14Dr Sahar Yousef
No, but honestly, it's true. It's really, it's not like made up. Short-form content has even been shown, by the way, in some cases to increase attention span.
46:24Speaker B
Completely agree.
46:25Dr Sahar Yousef
Of course you do. Yeah, yeah. It's like no one's paying me to say this. But no, long-form content, like a film, like a good film, has been shown to increase empathy in young people. Just think about that. So like, again, the message is not, oh my God, technology is bad, all screen time is evil, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, no, no. I'm a huge fan of your content diet. Like, make sure, like, whatever— if you want to sit down and watch a movie, sit down and watch a movie.
46:51Dr Sahar Yousef
Like, get into your pajamas. Make a bowl of popcorn, like romanticize it, turn the lights down. You'll put Netflix on. Everyone's also got the phone out, so they're doing 2 things at once. This has just become like, we've accepted this apparently, that you no longer have people's undivided attention. So the way in which we're making content now is assuming that someone is looking at something else as well. This is so sad.
47:18Dr Sahar Yousef
And please tell me how, if this is how bad our attention spans have gotten, How are, first of all, kids supposed to learn in school? You told me that you have this interest in becoming superhuman, to experiencing the full potential of your own mind. How are you supposed to do that if you can't even pay attention to a fucking movie anymore?
47:36Speaker B
Do you know what's funny? I was watching a complicated old movie last night.
47:43Dr Sahar Yousef
Complicated?
47:44Speaker B
It's one of those ones where if you miss a word, the next 3 hours is, you're lost. Because they've named a planet Kolobulublu. And if you don't understand what Kolobulublu is, you're fucked. And I was having to pay so much attention to this movie. And I remember this from my childhood. I used to just sit there on the sofa with my family and just look at the screen. But it was like I was resisting an urge now in 2026 when watching this very complicated old movie, as if there's now a mismatch between the media that I'm used to versus the way that And many of us live our lives.
48:19Speaker B
And it was just super front of mind because I just remember trying to, like, the effort I was putting in to stay focused on this movie last night, and trying to make sure I understood every single word. But I never did that when I was younger. You would just sit there and watch.
48:32Dr Sahar Yousef
You just sit there and watch.
48:34Speaker B
There might be some people at some level thinking, yeah, but I love short form, Sahar. I love it.
48:40Dr Sahar Yousef
I love Candy too. If we have too much short form, we already know this, you're more depressed, You're more anxious. Your attention span is shot. Like, why would you want that? You literally feel shittier and your brain operates at a lower level, cognitively speaking, if you overconsume this stuff. And it's your choice, by the way. I'm not here to tell people how to live their lives, but I want people to wake up to realize, one, the fundamental needs are there.
49:07Dr Sahar Yousef
So my goal is for you to meet those needs. And the way that you do that to increase the satiation is you actually go learn something new. You actually spend time IRL, in real life with real human beings. Hold people, touch people, talk to people, have dinner parties, have conversations, hang out with your friends, your family, actually meet that fundamental need for social connection. And if you do that, you'll notice that you're full and you will magically actually like short form less.
49:36Dr Sahar Yousef
You are far less likely to lose yourself scrolling until 2 o'clock in the morning and then feeling like shit the next day 'cause you didn't get enough sleep.
49:44Speaker B
I think that feeling like shit the next day is a good way to navigate life, which I heard Jack Dorsey back in the couple of years ago when he was still at Twitter talk about one of their new metrics was reducing regrettable minutes. And this idea of regrettable minutes, I think, is because with Skittles, honestly, they would feel good in the moment, but I'd probably regret if I had a massive bag of Skittles, probably regret it in a couple of hours, probably the next day, because, you know, send you on a bit of a roller coaster.
50:11Speaker B
And platforms like TikTok, when you look at the data, they found that 60% of active TikTok users experience negative welfare and would rather live in a world where it didn't exist, where the platform didn't exist. It ranks as number one in terms of regret in this regard because people report that their time was distorted. They opened the app and lost an hour or 2 hours and they walk away from it without clarity on what they gained.
50:40Speaker B
So this idea of regret, like, okay, Skittles taste nice. It was cool to scroll for a second, but how did I feel thereafter is something that I guess in the food analogy is pertinent.
50:51Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. I'm telling you, we're waking up.
50:54Speaker B
People are waking up.
50:55Dr Sahar Yousef
Young people are waking up. That's the coolest thing.
50:58Speaker B
I saw the graphs from the Financial Times, which showed time spent online had started to plateau since 2022 for young people first.
51:05Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. Thank God. I mean, but listen, it's still a push.
51:10Speaker B
Yeah.
51:11Dr Sahar Yousef
So the stats are less than half of graduating high school seniors have ever been on a date compared to what was, I believe, something like 80 or 90% in, I would say, our generation.
51:26Speaker B
That's crazy.
51:28Dr Sahar Yousef
That's crazy. I think something like, what is it, a third of UK nightclubs are also now, like engagement in the nightclub scene has gone down to a third. Dinner parties. There's this recent piece in The Atlantic that just came out about the sort of the death of dinner parties. So, people are spending increasingly more time alone and not with others. So, they're hungry. Unfortunately, these platforms are taking advantage of that perpetual hunger and keeping us locked into this cycle of distraction.
51:58Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
51:59Dr Sahar Yousef
And now, by the way, it's socially appropriate for us to always hold our phones. It's always in our pocket. So, one of the best things that you can do is actually to, in It is to introduce portion control back into how you are consuming content. Portion control. So you increase the friction. You do things like that phone parking lot bit, like put your phone outta sight, outta mind, turn the notifications off. Turning the notifications off would be decreasing the stimulation, but increasing the friction is, listen, if I'm telling you this stuff is addictive and you want to do less of it, But don't have it right there.
52:36Dr Sahar Yousef
That's like, it's like, it's like sitting down with someone who is freshly trying to become sober as an alcoholic and just being like, you don't mind if I just put this beer down in front of you, do I? Or do you? Just as you're working and going about your day.
52:48Speaker B
No, I think the Skittles analogy is pretty good. Like, I wouldn't walk around with Skittles in my pocket because if I did, I'd eat them every time I was stressed or bored.
52:55Dr Sahar Yousef
Totally.
52:56Speaker B
So
52:56Dr Sahar Yousef
this process is what I advocate. I think every young person in the entire world should learn this and know this. I speak mostly to older adults, so parents, and they're tired of being bad cop at home. They're constantly like, oh, get off your phone, get off this, get off that. So I think this ought to be taught in schools.
53:17Speaker C
This has had probably the single biggest impact on my office. Of all the products that I've tried that have given me productivity gains or cognitive boosts, I would say that exogenous ketones are in the top 3 most pivotal things that have given me massive productivity gain. It's some Stanford graduates that have been able to basically bottle up the effect you get from being in a ketogenic diet in a small shot that you can take that makes you feel incredibly focused and gives your brain an incredible source of energy.
53:48Speaker C
And the clinical studies that have been done on exogenous ketones have absolutely blown my mind. I reached out to them, I became a co-owner in the company, I became an investor in the company, and so it's with great pride that I tell you that this exists. If you haven't tried these shots, go to ketone.com/Steven for 30% off your subscription order, and you'll also get a free gift with your second shipment. I still buy my ketone shots predominantly online, but thankfully I can now grab them at Target whenever I drive past them here in the United States as well, because we're now stocked in Target where your first shot is completely free.
54:19Speaker C
Whenever I talk to new founders, they all carry the same belief that the biggest threat to their small business is having a bad product. It's not. The biggest threat they face is hiring the wrong person for their small team, because bad hires put the handbrake on growth and rapidly infect company culture. And I get it. When you're starting out, you need A players to grow your company, but you don't have 40 spare hours to spend sifting through interviews.
54:41Speaker C
So you hire fast to fill the seat, but this ends up costing you even more in the long term. What any small business actually needs is a reliable and efficient way to find the right talent without stalling momentum. That's where our long-term sponsor LinkedIn and LinkedIn Hiring Pro can help you. It streamlines the entire hiring process from Drafting a job description to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings.
55:02Speaker C
Nearly 60% of hirers who've used this tool have found a candidate to interview within a week. Hire right the first time around and get started by posting your first job for free at linkedin.com/doac. That's linkedin.com/doac. And terms and conditions apply.
55:18Speaker B
What I really want, um, quite selfishly, is like advice on how to deep work better?
55:25Speaker C
Because deep work is something that, I mean, all of my team have to do deep work. They have to edit code, could be write. We're doing a lot more writing than ever before, in part because of AI. So we're trying to push against that.
55:36Speaker B
But in a world that is so distracted where my phone is there, what advice would you give me for doing deep work predictably well?
55:42Dr Sahar Yousef
What we call in our lab and in our work, deep work is a focus sprint. Now, a focus sprint is a method of working. It's a method of working that according to research, our research, has allowed people to do up to 2 times as much as they would otherwise do while also reducing the number of mistakes. And you feel better because again, you're working in line with your brain and your body. You don't have that sense of friction where it's like, oh my gosh, I'm exhausted, you know, after doing one of these sprints, right? It feels good to do that kind of deep work. So, Focus Sprint is the method. First step—
56:16Speaker B
How many steps are there in a Focus Sprint?
56:19Dr Sahar Yousef
5.
56:19Speaker B
There are 5 steps.
56:20Dr Sahar Yousef
There are 5 steps.
56:21Speaker B
So these 5 steps will make me 200% more productive.
56:26Dr Sahar Yousef
First, set aside time in your calendar in advance, so block the time off. You benefit from essentially anticipatory networks in the brain and body. So if you know, for example, that you have a speech that you need to give, a presentation, what's the feeling that you get before some big event or a big speech that you need to give? Like some butterflies. You get this increase in cortisol and adrenaline, right? I mean, think about how Just amazing our biology is.
56:52Dr Sahar Yousef
I am sitting at rest, and even though I am sitting at rest, because I am anticipating that I'm about to get up and maybe do some public speaking, my brain is going to help me by giving me an extra boost in cortisol and adrenaline and all these amazing things so that I'm a little bit more focused and high energy and I can deal with the thing.
57:14Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
57:15Dr Sahar Yousef
Because it's a bit of a stressor. So, you know, especially if someone has a fear of public speaking, they might be sitting there and they're like, you know, heart rate goes up, their hands start to get clammy. Those are all the markers of physiological arousal as we know them to be. So, we know that if you can, you know, a focus sprint is coming, you're gonna get a little boost.
57:31Speaker B
Hmm.
57:31Dr Sahar Yousef
So, I'm a huge fan of set it up, know it's coming. Like, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna do a 1-hour focus sprint. Okay?
57:36Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
57:37Dr Sahar Yousef
The other beautiful thing about this from a team perspective is if your team can see your calendar, they can all see that you're sitting down to do a focus sprint. 'Cause your calendar's public. So, it also deals a little bit with that social guilt people feel and that feeling that they need to stay, I need to be responsive to all the things. Right. And now that you've done that, you go to step 2, which is you gotta identify what the heck you're gonna do, and you need to define it.
57:59Dr Sahar Yousef
You need to break it down in clear, simple terms. So, instead of saying, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna work on X, unless you're gonna finish X, that's not gonna feel good. This has everything to do with dopamine, by the way. Dopamine is the brain's primary, you can consider it a motivation molecule. So, it's gonna get us not only excited and motivated to do a task, but it's also going to reward us a bit if we really do more than we even expected, especially.
58:26Dr Sahar Yousef
Which brings me to a few pieces of advice. One, you've got your massive to-do list, yes? You're gonna shop from that to-do list and you're gonna say, in this focus sprint, I'm gonna take out this one piece, this one. So, you have your massive to-do list and you're like, that's the one thing I'm gonna focus on. Right? Just this one. And then you're going to take that one, and then you're going to break it down into small manageable pieces.
58:46Dr Sahar Yousef
You're going to break it down, and you're going to time block every piece. You're going to say instead of saying, "Oh, I'm going to work on this deck." I'm not going to finish it, but I'm going to work on it. You're going to say, "I'm going to work on slide three for about." I think it'll take me about seven minutes to finish that slide. Then I actually need to probably send a follow-up email to John for the data that I need for slide seventeen.
59:03Dr Sahar Yousef
Then I'm going to work on this table that I want to put here, and then blah blah blah. So I wanna see in granular detail what the execution list is. And this, by the way, increases your dopamine for getting this work done. If you're not gonna finish it, how is that motivating?
59:20Speaker B
So the goal becomes an output, not the input?
59:23Dr Sahar Yousef
100%.
59:25Speaker B
Okay, that's an interesting one, 'cause I think a lot of us do create a goal, which is an input. Like, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna work on this thing, or I'm gonna, I'm gonna think about this, or I'm gonna, strategize this, not like the output, which is the thing that's gonna be measurable and come out of this work.
59:40Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
59:41Speaker B
Okay. That's, that's really interesting.
59:42Dr Sahar Yousef
It's the outcome with a breakdown. Like, I wanna see an execution list.
59:46Speaker B
That feels like a lot of work.
59:47Dr Sahar Yousef
I'm not kidding. Give me a minute and a half.
59:51Speaker B
Okay.
59:52Dr Sahar Yousef
Here's the problem. People start something, and I'm sure you've experienced this too, then the moment they get done with, let's say, step 1B, And they don't immediately know what step 1C is or what step 2 is, and it's not clearly outlined, and it's not just, hey, execution mode, like a machine. They go, what's the next step? What should I do next? People, that's when you lose people. That's when you lose your focus.
1:00:18Speaker B
Yeah.
1:00:18Dr Sahar Yousef
In deciding what the next step is, this is a sprint. I don't want you to figure out how to play the game when you're in the middle of the game. We need to outline what the heck the game is, and then you're gonna go into it and be like, I'm like, let's go sprint. And we go, go, go, go, go. So, you've blocked the time, you've communicated to the people on your team, they know what's happening. You're benefiting from all those amazing hormones and those anticipatory networks. Then—
1:00:40Speaker B
Step 2.
1:00:41Dr Sahar Yousef
Step 2, you set the goal.
1:00:43Speaker C
And the goal is an output and it's specific and it's broken down into sub-goals.
1:00:47Dr Sahar Yousef
Yes. And by the way, you've got in here a diary. So, if you've got a daily planner of sorts, Something like this. I want you to treat your to-do list, your massive task list, and I know you've got one, we all have one, like your refrigerator. Do you have urgent items on your to-do list? Like, what is the thing? Did you defrost chicken? Because that's a ticking time bomb that needs to get used. So, every single day you wake up in the morning and you're about to choose, what are my— I call these, by the way, in our lab, MITs, your most important tasks.
1:01:23Dr Sahar Yousef
Your MITs, or your most important tasks, are the 1 to maximum 3 things on any given day that you would want to accomplish if you want your day to be a success.
1:01:32Speaker B
So, we've got a little chart there, I think, of the MITs, right?
1:01:35Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah, we do. Every single day, I want you to, in a way, open up the refrigerator, open up the pantry, open up the freezer, and I want you to ask yourself first, first, how much time do I have available today?
1:01:49Speaker B
3 hours.
1:01:51Dr Sahar Yousef
That's a good day. That's a good day. Like uninterrupted focus time?
1:01:55Speaker B
Not uninterrupted, but I can make it uninterrupted.
1:01:58Dr Sahar Yousef
Beautiful. We'll take it. 3 hours is beautiful. Now you open up the fridge, the pantry, and the freezer, and you ask yourself, with this 3 hours, what are my MITs? What are the most important tasks that if I were to do them today would make my day a success? Another phrasing for this that we've done research on is, What will your future self thank you for?
1:02:20Speaker B
It's an interesting question because we often reach for the easiest things. And there's the thing that we're not quite ready to do yet because we don't have the information and maybe it's a little bit out of our area of competence.
1:02:33Speaker C
We don't like finance, we don't like investing, we don't like operations. So we avoid that and we kind of, it's like opening the fridge, as you say. And we reach for the thing that we know we love. And we do that.
1:02:44Dr Sahar Yousef
Those are LITs. LITs, like an email, a DocuSign, right? I always say like toilet paper from Amazon or something, like whatever. Like the little tiny things that will take five minutes, a couple minutes, but it makes me feel like I can cross something off. And it's like I've done the thing, I've done the thing, I've done the thing. These are the easy things to do that make me feel a sense of progress. We consider these, by the way, these LITs, fast dopamine.
1:03:15Dr Sahar Yousef
And my humble opinion is most of the things that push our businesses forward, the things that push our lives forward are typically here to the right. They're the slow dopamine bits. And I'm not suggesting, by the way, that you don't do LITs. My suggestion is you identify 1, 2, or a maximum of 3 MITs that are actually gonna push you towards your goals, your long-term goals, the things that actually matter. And I assure you, the LITs will fill in all of the other nooks and crannies for your day.
1:03:46Dr Sahar Yousef
Like, if you've got an uninterrupted hour, that's when you attack one of these MITs. And then if you've got 15 minutes between some meetings and calls, you shove the LITs in there.
1:03:54Speaker B
So, MITs are most important goals, LITs are least important goals.
1:03:58Dr Sahar Yousef
Mm-hmm.
1:03:58Speaker B
Okay.
1:03:59Dr Sahar Yousef
So, going back to the focus sprint, when we said step 2 is set the goal, what you would ideally do, and this is, by the way, you could do one of 2 different kinds Sprints. You could do a sprint on one MIT, and what you would do is you take that MIT and then you would actually break it down into small manageable chunks. Okay, okay. In order for me to do that big MIT today in this one hour of time, I'm going to spend twenty minutes on this, fifteen minutes on this, five minutes on this, three minutes on this. Da da da da. So you make an execution list, or you could do an LIT sprint. You could do like fifteen LITs.
1:04:29Speaker B
Are we assuming that people will know what the MIT is? Like. I look at this list of 69 things on my to-do list. How do I, is there a way for me to know which one is the most important?
1:04:41Dr Sahar Yousef
If you don't know, then I would, that would urge us to take an even further step back and sort of do a bit of awareness training on what your long-term goals are. Where do you want to be both personally and professionally, let's say, in 5 years?
1:04:58Speaker B
What is your Everest?
1:05:00Dr Sahar Yousef
What is your Everest? If you have a sense of what your Everest is, you then ought to have a sense of what your next step is. If Everest is that way, you're not going to go this way. That way is also quite dangerous. And I will say this, this is— I'm a huge fan of talking about death because I find that it puts everything into perspective. My humble opinion is that the best framing is to really think about yourself on your deathbed, is if you take yourself onto your deathbed and you think to yourself, And truly, by the way, you can visualize this right now, even with me.
1:05:33Dr Sahar Yousef
Let's say you're the tender age of 110, with all of the modern technology and longevity medicine that's gonna come out. What, looking back on your life, do you need to have experienced, accomplished, done in order for you to leave with a smile on your face? And to just say, it's been real. I did good. I had an amazing life. I did what I wanted to do here, and I'm ready to go see what's next.
1:06:07Speaker B
What's your answer to that?
1:06:10Dr Sahar Yousef
I want to have loved deeply. I want to, and this is my own, and I don't know where this comes from. We probably need a therapist on with us to unpack this one, but I'm a firm believer in servant leadership. I think I've been put on the planet to help in whatever ways that I can. So, my job is to serve and to make this world a better place with what I do and what I can bring to the table. And that's my obsession. And it's come at a great cost of not doing a lot of other things and not having a lot of what maybe other people see as fun or Personal sacrifices, but it seems to be the flavor of my mind is that I'm squarely focused on building better systems for humanity.
1:07:04Speaker B
It was very clarifying when you asked me to do that as well, because when I closed my eyes and started thinking about my deathbed, I was in a room and what I noticed was first and foremost, who was there? That was the first thing. And then my second thing was, what do they think of So I imagined my romantic interest being here, and then I imagined all of my kids being around the bed, and I imagined what they thought of their dying father.
1:07:34Speaker C
And there was really 3 things that I wanted them to think. I wanted them to think that I had achieved things so that they can too, and to be evidence of that. The second one was around that I'd made the world a better place. So they were clear on the philanthropic impact that their father had had. So that was really clarifying because it basically gave me 3 clear priorities, which are family and having a big family, being a good role model to them, and then them having evidence that me being here was net positive to planet.
1:08:03Speaker B
But it was really clarifying because I thought, oh, there's really 3 things that matter.
1:08:06Dr Sahar Yousef
So that gives you your direction.
1:08:08Speaker B
Yeah, it does.
1:08:09Dr Sahar Yousef
So if you wake up every single morning now with that level of clarity,
1:08:14Speaker B
I can go, the Skittles are not going to bring me closer.
1:08:17Dr Sahar Yousef
Fuck the Skittles.
1:08:18Speaker B
Yeah, fuck the Skittles.
1:08:19Dr Sahar Yousef
Like, what is that? Like, in what way? Like, who on their deathbed is sitting around and going, damn, I wished I watched more Netflix? Netflix, please don't come after me. Who's sitting around going, damn, I wish I spent more time scrolling and less time with my kids or less time on my mission? On my obsessive mission. Like nobody. Bronnie Ware is a hospice nurse, and she sat with many, many dying individuals. What an honor to do such a thing.
1:08:54Dr Sahar Yousef
Something that I hope to do in my lifetime is to sort of be, you know, exercise my death doula skills and to be with folks who are passing on. And what an honor it is to sit with them because, oh boy, you get some clarity. So she asked these people, what are your regrets? And she would keep a log of the answers they gave. And the number one regret across all of the people that she asked this question to who were dying was, I wish I lived a life More true to myself, cared less about what others thought.
1:09:36Dr Sahar Yousef
So for you, Steven, it sounds like all that matters to you at the end of the day is what your family thought of your accomplishments and how you spent your time. Right. Is how you think. And it's, by the way, it's not even them because you'll never really know what the other person thinks. We come into this world alone and we do die alone, no matter how much we love each other. This is one of the paradoxes I find of love and human connection is that From that first cry that a newborn screams out when they're born, they're crying out for connection.
1:10:07Dr Sahar Yousef
They're scared and they're saying, wait, I feel disconnection in this moment. I was connected before and now I feel disconnected, and they're seeking connection. I think humans, we are seeking this connection and this belonging for the rest of our lives. But the paradox of it, the mindfuck of it, if I may, Is we'll never get it. We die alone. Like, I will never understand your mind. This is the fascinating thing about consciousness.
1:10:36Dr Sahar Yousef
You have your consciousness, I have mine. And even moment to moment, my consciousness now in this moment is different than it was the last moment. I've changed. Things continue to change and evolve. The same moment never repeats itself, which means the same self never repeats itself. Every second that's going by, I am in fact Sahar, V, one hundred million da da da da da da da. And then the next moment it's another, and the next moment it's another.
1:11:02Dr Sahar Yousef
Like we continue to be dynamic, but that's its own little rabbit hole.
1:11:05Speaker B
But on that own little rabbit hole, there's there's moments I completely agree and accept what you're saying. There are these moments when you just feel like your consciousness has is doing the tango with someone else's. It is intertwined, and you can we as I say everyone can think of those moments when you look at someone and you go, "I don't know what it is." But at some deep level, me and this person are— our consciousness is dancing. It's connected. And that's a very real thing. I experience it a lot on this podcast because I sit here with someone for 3 hours, talk about their childhood, their trauma, whatever.
1:11:38Speaker C
You feel a deep, deep sense of connection to this other human being sometimes. It can be a spiritual experience in a weird but enjoyable way.
1:11:45Dr Sahar Yousef
I think you hit the nail on the head there. I think it's spiritual. I think it's energetic. I think when we feel that experience of what, by the way, feels like flow. I don't know if it feels that way to you.
1:11:58Speaker C
Oh, yeah.
1:11:58Dr Sahar Yousef
But you feel in flow with the other. Like, if you and I can connect in that plane, and I felt it, by the way, even when we were just doing that bit about the deathbed and talking about consciousness, and I felt your eyes just all of a sudden zoomed in. And I even was, I wasn't really focused on you necessarily in that moment. There was something about me expressing I think what is necessary for 2 humans to have that flow together, that energetic dance together, is a loss of the sense of self.
1:12:36Dr Sahar Yousef
I think the self must die in those moments, and it does when we completely lose ourselves in this we. I think when we are stuck in our own self and identity, then I am aware of another. I am aware of your perception of me, and you will be aware of my perception of you. But I think those moments where it feels just magic and we've completely blended, that I'm not— no longer thinking about you as an other and I as I. I and you have become this energetic we.
1:13:15Dr Sahar Yousef
But again, that bit more spiritual.
1:13:16Speaker B
No, but it perfectly dovetails into work because we can all think of flow states where we dropped into work and 3 hours passed and we had no idea that time was passing. We were so in. And it, to some degree, feels the same as those moments. When I'm really into my work, time does stop and I'm so glad it did.
1:13:34Speaker C
I didn't even notice time was a thing. And that's actually the same as being a podcaster. When you have really great conversations, you walk out and you go, what, 4 hours? What the fuck happened?
1:13:44Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay. So you've set your goal, you have your execution list. Yeah. You've taken your MIT, you've broken it down, you've made it as easy and simple as like a list of LITs. Another way, by the way, to describe this is an MIT, slow dopamine, is like a rat going through a maze and there's a big hunk of cheese at the end of the maze, but that's a lot of work. That is a long, arduous journey to get to that hunk of cheese.
1:14:05Dr Sahar Yousef
Whereas fast dopamine and LITs are like little bits of cheese that you're like, can you just eat that crumb? And it's a like, sure, that seems easy enough. Eat right there, right? So, the goal is to make your MITs as easy as your list of LITs. And how you do that is you take that big hunk of cheese and you sprinkle it throughout the maze. So, you make your big Everest seem like a series of one step to the next step to the next step.
1:14:31Dr Sahar Yousef
Lao Tzu said it best, a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. My husband just climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
1:14:40Speaker B
Oh, wow.
1:14:41Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah, amazing things that I do not choose to do.
1:14:44Speaker B
You said no to that.
1:14:46Dr Sahar Yousef
I said no to that. That's exactly— there is, I do know how to say no. It's typically with really difficult physical feats. I have my own, but I prefer the mental ones. But yeah, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and when he came back, he said that the mantra of these amazing Sherpas, that take you up and down, that come with you. By the way, they're superhuman, like literally running up and down this mountain, even with all of the elevation, as if it's nothing.
1:15:15Dr Sahar Yousef
It's like drinking water to them. It's amazing. And carrying a bunch of shit with them. It's amazing. Magic. Magic. But he came back and he said what really stuck with him, and it's become a thing that we say to each other sometimes. And all of these amazing guides would keep telling everybody, hey, Pole, pole, pole. Slowly, slowly. Pole, pole.
1:15:36Speaker B
Pole, pole.
1:15:37Dr Sahar Yousef
Slowly, slowly. It's the only way up to the top. If all you focus on is the Everest, you will not get there if you don't focus on taking the step every day, a little closer, a little closer, a little closer. You speak to Olympic athletes, they do the exact same thing.
1:15:55Speaker B
That's what I was thinking of. I was thinking of sitting here with Sir David Brailsford, who's the guy quoted in the first chapter of Atomic Habits. turning the British cycling team around, Marginal Gains.
1:16:04Dr Sahar Yousef
Beautiful.
1:16:05Speaker B
He's a good friend of mine on and off camera. And everyone knows about the Marginal Gains idea, focus on the smallest things. He said to me on air, he said he banned his team from thinking about the podium, which is very much what you're saying as well. And he really got them focused on today's work. So this phrase emerged that I say to my team, I've said it 3 times this week, pedals over podiums. And what that means is really focus on the pedals today, because he said that when he Christopher Hoy, you know, again, he took the British cycling team from being down and out to the greatest of all time.
1:16:35Speaker B
When Christopher Hoy was thinking about the world record or the podium or whatever, his time would get worse. And when he got Christopher Hoy, if he got him to sort of drop into a meditative state and ban him thinking about that, not only would his time get better around the velodrome, but Christopher Hoy would get off the bike and say he couldn't remember the cycle.
1:16:53Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
1:16:54Speaker B
Which I think is this flow state. And the—
1:16:56Dr Sahar Yousef
It is.
1:16:57Speaker B
Other remarkable thing that he said to me off camera was, he went, Steven, when we started focusing on the small things and broke goals down into really, really small goals, people stopped leaving at 5:00 PM and started staying till 1:00 AM in the morning because we felt like we were going somewhere. And this is what I referred to as, from that conversation, as the progress principle, which is like the feeling of progress.
1:17:19Dr Sahar Yousef
Yes.
1:17:20Speaker B
And there's this incredible Harvard Business Review study where they ask people what their favorite day in work was, and it was when they had a small feeling of progress.
1:17:27Dr Sahar Yousef
So
1:17:27Speaker B
it really resonated with me when said, turn the MITs into these LITs. Because the reason I like the LITs is because I get the progress principle. I get the, like, oh, I'm making— I feel like I am going somewhere. The MITs, it's hard to get that feeling unless you do what you just said, which is breaking them down.
1:17:45Dr Sahar Yousef
Which brings us to step 3 beautifully. A best way to increase the signal or to get to X, whatever it may be, Is to remove obstacles as opposed to adding. Remove the obstacles. Turn down fucking noise, and you turn down the noise by cutting distractions. So you now you've got your Everest. Pole pole. You know the next step.
1:18:10Speaker B
Pole pole. I love that phrase.
1:18:11Dr Sahar Yousef
Slowly, slowly. The next step, and it's the same thing. It's the pedal, not the podium. Cut out the distractions. Hygiene, hygiene, hygiene. So phone out of sight, out of mind. Notifications off. If you're in a noisy environment or if you benefit from listening to music. What is
1:18:26Speaker B
your opinion on listening to music to do work and putting headphones on? What does the science say?
1:18:31Dr Sahar Yousef
People are different, of course. So some people seem to be distracted by it and they prefer silence. And if you cannot be in a silent environment, you may benefit from noise canceling, right? I don't recommend listening to noise canceling or having noise canceling headphones on for more than 3, 4 hours a day because you start to become overstimulated by the real sounds of the world around you because it changes your baseline of what you hear.
1:18:53Dr Sahar Yousef
what the world ought to sound like. And your brain starts to adjust and it starts to think, wow, this is the world. You could hear a pin drop. No, darling, the world is much noisier than that. So then the moment you don't have the noise canceling on, you become, you're like, oh my God. And you start getting anxious and you start becoming overstimulated. And also your auditory system starts to actually adapt to the noise canceling.
1:19:15Dr Sahar Yousef
So noise canceling, I would say use it for focus sprints only. So if you told me you got 3 hours a day that hits your 3 hours. So, you can use the noise-canceling only for when maybe you wanna do focus sprints, if you benefit from the silence. If you're gonna listen to music, ideally music with no lyrics at all or lyrics in a language that you don't understand. You can also benefit from having one particular playlist that you invest in that your brain will, over time, if you invest in it, slowly associate with focus.
1:19:44Speaker B
Hmm.
1:19:44Dr Sahar Yousef
So, you can have like a focus mode playlist, you can have an email sprint You know, playlist, and then very very different from what you might listen to to wind down after work or to sleep. You should have different playlists for different brain states. Okay, so you've set yourself up in that way for success. Then set a timer. Set a timer. Human beings, and fun fact, most mammals are highly influenced by what are called markers of progress, which means if we see time ticking by, we will just.
1:20:21Speaker B
Do you mean, is it time ticking down or time ticking up? So, is it going from 60 minutes down or is it going from 0 to 60?
1:20:28Dr Sahar Yousef
We're keenly interested in any sense of progress. So, progress bars.
1:20:31Speaker B
Okay.
1:20:32Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. Having said that, where I find from a productivity standpoint, you will get a lot of interesting benefits is like just to hustle and to stay focused is seeing the time ticking down.
1:20:44Speaker B
Okay.
1:20:45Dr Sahar Yousef
Using a very childlike example of cleanup songs. Little kids are highly distractible creatures. Now, if you ask them to—they've like strung about all of their toys, let's say in a classroom—and you ask them to put their toys away, like put all the toys in the bins and da da da and clean up, they're gonna by the third thing they pick up, but guess best of luck, right? They're they're off; they're looking at something else, and they they're distracted and playing.
1:21:09Dr Sahar Yousef
Here comes the science of cleanup songs. You teach all these kids, and this is true, by the way, across the world. When they're little, teachers will teach them to have a cleanup song in class. Now there is a clear beginning and a clear end to what they're trying to do, and it keeps them focused. It keeps them on task, and they know the song is going to end. And because the time is ticking by and the song is going to end, they all of a sudden start getting very goal-oriented and focused, and they start putting the toys away, especially near the end of the song.
1:21:38Speaker B
Parkinson's Law.
1:21:39Dr Sahar Yousef
Parkinson's Law states that work will expand to fit the time. that you give it. So, if you give yourself an hour to get the damn deck done, it'll probably take an hour. If you give yourself 5, it'll take 5. Yeah. So, time yourself. By the way, time yourself with everything. You need to clean your house, you have some errands to run, time yourself. You will just work faster.
1:22:03Speaker B
This idea got stuck in my head about 5 years ago, so I'd like to stick it in some other people's heads. I read this thing and it said, the center point of your influence on this planet is the allocation of your time. And I really tried to interrogate that. I was like, is that really it? Is the game of my life really first and foremost how I allocate my time? Of course, then it's like, well, I show up or the things I allocate it to.
1:22:24Speaker B
But at the essence here, everything I described on my deathbed, having great relationships with my fiancée, having great relationships with my family, achievement, the age that I get to the deathbed, my health, all of it really is downstream from the allocation of my time. What do I put my time on? Going to the gym? Or do I put it on something else? And I just think that's a really important point, because when we talk about saving time and treating time in such a precious way, one of the rebuttals is, oh, this is stressful.
1:22:57Speaker B
This is a lot.
1:22:59Speaker C
It feels like a lot of pressure to set a timer. But time really is the currency. For me, I just think it is for all of us.
1:23:08Speaker B
And I think as well, what I hear from your work is it's not about there being a good and bad way to live one's life. It's just about being intentional with the time.
1:23:23Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
1:23:24Speaker B
Think about how unintentional the average day is these days, because you are just pulled around like a plastic bag in the wind by fucking L-I-Ts. Anyway, sorry.
1:23:34Dr Sahar Yousef
I think you were very close, dangerously close to quoting Katy Perry there for a second.
1:23:38Speaker B
Oh, really? Was I?
1:23:39Dr Sahar Yousef
I think so, isn't it? It's like, I'm a plastic bag floating in the wind.
1:23:43Speaker B
That's how it can feel in the modern world.
1:23:45Dr Sahar Yousef
It is true. No, it's true though. And all of this, by the way, is in pursuit of just giving people more of their own time back. By the way, The way in which we're working with all of these distractions around us, one, according to the progress principle, makes people feel like shit, right? They're not happy. They're not happy. People want to get good, high-quality work done. People want to make an impact. They want those things because you're hiring amazing people.
1:24:13Dr Sahar Yousef
And from when we were all little, we were told, good job, you got an A. Right. We love that progress. We want to get the gold star. So, if we've trained an entire generation of human beings to want to get the gold star, and now you're surrounded by all these people and you're like, hey, by the way, I know you have this massive to-do list, but you're not going Instead, you just have to like answer all these messages and go to all these meetings and calls and then feel like shit at the end of the day 'cause your to-do list is still there and you didn't make progress on anything.
1:24:38Dr Sahar Yousef
Doesn't feel good. So, people don't feel good about it. And then, all that work is still left and then they end up working evenings and weekends to catch up. And that takes time away from your family. And then, your deathbed self is like, this is terrible. So, we're— I'm— the timer will help you condense the damn work. So, you gamify it, you make use of the dopamine, you make use of all those amazing hormones that get you all excited to get the work done so that you can actually get it done.
1:25:02Dr Sahar Yousef
take a break and do other things.
1:25:03Speaker B
Oh, okay. So on this break, take a break.
1:25:06Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
1:25:06Speaker B
At the very start, you were talking about innovation and creativity.
1:25:09Speaker C
And I, Rick Rubin was sat here a couple of weeks ago, and I've done a lot of research around Steve Jobs to figure out how he was able to like see the future. Because I look back at his decision-making and it was always so unexpected. And at the time, like really contrarian. There's a great video of him sitting stood at a developer conference and the developer stands up and basically berates him and says, like, why are you doing this again? You're like removing this particular software that every developer needs. This was Steve Jobs, like removed, I think it was Flash. Was it Flash from our devices so that we could stream
1:25:41Speaker B
video better? Removed the stylus from phones, the keyboard. And he was right in hindsight. But my question is like, how did he see the future so clearly? Rick Rubin and him, seem to share a practice, which is boredom. So, you know, as productivity people, we're always like, work, work, work, work. But then I study these greats, these visionaries, and I go, oh, they had like a boredom practice where they just like stood away from the picture. And so when you said brain break, I was thinking, ah, maybe is this what you're talking about or is it something else?
1:26:15Dr Sahar Yousef
This is tactical.
1:26:17Speaker B
Okay.
1:26:18Dr Sahar Yousef
Brain break is just defined as a short period of time where you're not processing information. And this brings me to really attacking how most humans seem to be taking breaks these days. People will take a break from work and they'll be like, oh, I was just doing all these things and I'm going to take a break. And what is the most common way to take a break?
1:26:39Speaker B
TikTok or something, some other distraction.
1:26:42Dr Sahar Yousef
Exactly. Some other By the way, there was a 2024 Nature paper that just came out that actually measured everybody's fatigue levels, okay, before they started working. Then they would have them work. So essentially, like, let's imagine, like, do a focus sprint. So you're focused and doing all this work, and then they measure their fatigue levels after they're working. And then they're like, okay, now we're gonna pause now that you've worked and you're gonna take a break. They put them into 4 different groups. One of those groups was no break at all. So you just keep going.
1:27:08Speaker C
Uh-huh.
1:27:08Dr Sahar Yousef
And then you measured fatigue levels again. And lo and behold, of course, no break. is not great, right? You're not gonna really rebound from being fatigued. But the other options were TikTok-style scrolling, looking at nature, or just staring ahead of yourself. It turns out the best kind of break is in fact, no surprise there, being exposed to nature. Humans come from nature. I have a sense we might have an affinity for it.
1:27:34Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
1:27:34Dr Sahar Yousef
Even if it feels like sometimes we don't and we're city folk, there is a visceral calm that comes when humans spend time in nature. So that's the best kind of break. But shortly thereafter, it's just doing nothing at all. And the worst break was TikTok-style scrolling. You were just consuming more information. That's not a brain break. Your brain is not in fact taking a break at all. Do you weightlift?
1:27:59Speaker B
Sometimes, yeah.
1:28:00Dr Sahar Yousef
Sometimes. Okay. So if you're lifting a weight, Here, I'm going to pick up this block for a second. Let's say this is heavy, and I'm picking up this weight, okay? And I'm doing this, and my muscles are working very hard. And then what do we do after we've done a set of weightlifting?
1:28:16Speaker B
Rest.
1:28:16Dr Sahar Yousef
You rest. What would you say if in between, instead of actually resting, I start lifting low-grade weights? I'm still— this is not a rest. So that's what scrolling is. And it's not even just scrolling, by the way. I don't want people thinking like, oh, I was reading the news. You're reading. That's not resting this muscle. You're still using this thing, reading, writing, arithmetic. Like, the point is to rest this thing.
1:28:38Speaker B
How?
1:28:39Dr Sahar Yousef
Do nothing at all.
1:28:41Speaker B
I almost don't know how to do nothing. I'm like, what does that look like? Everything I thought of was a thing.
1:28:45Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. It's hard in the beginning, but I will say this. I have an idea for you.
1:28:50Speaker B
Okay.
1:28:50Dr Sahar Yousef
And that is to do something that is cognitively challenging enough such that you can't think of all of your other worries and things. This is my barometer for a good, like a really high quality break.
1:29:04Speaker B
My DJing. What about my DJing? I'm learning to DJ.
1:29:07Dr Sahar Yousef
Are you really?
1:29:08Speaker B
That's why all the decks are out there. There's like 4 decks out there.
1:29:10Dr Sahar Yousef
I didn't notice.
1:29:11Speaker B
I've been learning for 4 years. So it's, you know, that's my break.
1:29:14Dr Sahar Yousef
Awesome skill. Awesome skill. And it's, you're learning, so it's immersive.
1:29:17Speaker B
I'm totally focused because the song's about to end and I have to mix it. And it's the most locked in I am all day other than this.
1:29:24Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
1:29:24Speaker B
So that's perfect.
1:29:25Dr Sahar Yousef
Great. Even for like a simple brain break though, my humble recommendation to get yourself to not Like scroll, check the news, get on LinkedIn, like whatever else it may be, do something with your hands. So, I'm a big, I'm a firm believer in systems. We just need systems. I don't like willpower, like, oh, I should really do that. I ought to do that. Like, it's really difficult. If you create systems for, and what I mean by that is don't have grab-and-go snacks anymore. Force yourself to make things like—
1:29:52Speaker B
Cooking stuff.
1:29:53Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't even have to be cooking. Like, again, you're in the middle of the workday. My point is instead of Like one of those tiny little cheeses that come prepackaged, like get the big hunk and take it out of the Ziploc and like cut it and like, oh, I've cut myself a piece of cheese. Instead of having the pods and that, you know, like for example, like boil some water, put the kettle on, like then do the thing.
1:30:13Dr Sahar Yousef
Like romantic, like use, do put yourself in a system where you are, you are forced to use both of your hands in order to get yourself hydrated, caffeinated, or get yourself a snack so that you can't— scroll and do the thing at the same time. So, that's it. Like, an easy way to take a brain break is just rehydrate, have another snack, ideally, honestly, go expose yourself to some natural light, get some fresh air, move, go on a little walk.
1:30:39Dr Sahar Yousef
But I know those are easier said than done often. So, at the very least, I assume people are maybe even at least 50% as hungry as I am. So, I love lots of snacks.
1:30:49Speaker C
Is there anything else on this point of, you know, when you're thinking about how to have your gray innovative, most creative ideas.
1:30:56Speaker B
If I wanted to solve a very complex problem and come up with my best ideas, is there anything else you'd recommend?
1:31:04Dr Sahar Yousef
The science behind innovation and creative insight is the process of truly understanding and thinking about the problem. So loading up all of the data related to the problem that you're trying to solve. It should be top of mind, meaning those neural networks that are related to, yeah, the neural networks related to thinking about the problem. Okay? Whatever problem it is that you're trying to solve, you want those activated and top of mind.
1:31:37Dr Sahar Yousef
Now, this is one of my favorite quotes attributed, I think, to Albert Einstein. Who knows if he actually said it though? So many quotes are attributed to him. Nobody was— who's fact-checking this shit, right? But no problem can be solved by the same level of consciousness or the same mindset that created it. So, when you're sitting there and you're thinking about a problem, I kind of think about this like it's like a traffic gridlock like this, right?
1:32:03Dr Sahar Yousef
You're sitting there and you're going, well, okay, this, this, and this. And it's like, and you don't know. And by that, I mean, by gridlock, I mean, you don't know the solution immediately. In fact, you're thinking about the problem. There lies the brain state of the problem defined as this, defined as X. X brain state is the brain state where you, Steven, are thinking about the problem. Are you gonna— is this the solution state?
1:32:26Dr Sahar Yousef
No, by definition, this is the problem state. So, there you are in a gridlock of certain neural networks where you're thinking about the problem. Ah, the next step, walk away. Walk away and go do something else. Walk the damn dog. Go do something else. Wash the dishes. You're introducing another stimulus here, right? Shower, new stimulus, new environment. These neural networks begin to loosen. New neural networks are becoming activated, new electrical, they're all electrical, neural networks are getting activated.
1:32:56Dr Sahar Yousef
And all of a sudden, that might allow one idea to all of a— ideas are like 2 neural networks that are crossing paths and you go, Mm-hmm.
1:33:02Speaker B
Instantly.
1:33:04Dr Sahar Yousef
insight, the light bulb that we're all searching for. And then you get that magic and you go, wait a minute, that's— there it was right in front of me the whole time, right under my nose. So you have those amazing insights typically when you loosen and you walk away.
1:33:16Speaker B
Does this apply to negative thinking?
1:33:19Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
1:33:20Speaker B
And rumination?
1:33:21Dr Sahar Yousef
Negative thinking and rumination, I have loads and loads of opinions about.
1:33:27Speaker B
Why did you roll your eyes then?
1:33:28Dr Sahar Yousef
I rolled my eyes because—
1:33:30Speaker B
People don't
1:33:31Dr Sahar Yousef
No, it's not that. It's, um, I find that in the modern world, we've gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle where we've made it okay to continue to rehash and exhaustively talk about and think about our traumas. Well, when you do that, you're just deepening the damn neural networks.
1:33:51Speaker B
Really?
1:33:53Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. I mean, think about it. You're like, if I'm sad about something, I'm not saying don't acknowledge your feelings, but after— feel your feelings. But if the goal is, let's say for example, you've gotten into yourself into a rut of rumination about something or worry. Rumination is sort of the same thought over and over and over again. The only way out is to break the cycle. You do not make your feelings and the thoughts that you end up ruminating on go away by talking about them over and over and over again.
1:34:29Dr Sahar Yousef
Over again in the exact same way. If you keep doing that, you're just deepening and deepening that neural network so it's even more robust and strong. If you repeatedly, I mean, you mentioned Atomic Habits. I mean, think about how habits are formed, right? It's that repetition. So if you keep telling yourself, oh, this trauma happened for me, this occurred, and I was a victim, and then I was a victim, and then I was this trauma, this trauma, and then that's why I am this way that I am.
1:34:55Dr Sahar Yousef
I am this way that I am. I am this way At
1:34:58Speaker B
some point, it might become your identity.
1:35:00Dr Sahar Yousef
Pretty quickly, huh? So, the only way out is to stop that. You have to redirect your attention. So, my solve for things like rumination is acknowledge why it's happening in the first place, and then quite quickly after that, redirect your attention when it's happening. It's sort of a, anytime you're in that, oh, it's starting again, redirect, and then put your attention somewhere else. What's your Everest? What's a different version of the story?
1:35:27Dr Sahar Yousef
What's the narrative that you want to feed? Because again, this electrical system is, it's, think of yourself as the gardener or the architect of this thing. You're designing it. It's a muscle like anything else. It's like someone sitting around and going, well, I don't love the fact that my right bicep is slightly larger than my— then do something about it. You know, you can atrophy this one a little bit and increase the weight that you hold, the load on this one.
1:35:51Dr Sahar Yousef
And lo and behold, you're You'll get a different outcome. So if you think of the mind and truly the brain from a neural perspective as different neural networks that you're either deepening, strengthening, and feeding, feeding with your thoughts, your time, your attention, be careful which ones you feed because whichever one you feed will in fact become stronger and louder.
1:36:19Speaker C
This is something that I've made for you. I realize that the Diary Of A CEO audience are strivers, whether it's in business or health. We all have big goals that we wanna accomplish. And one of the things I've learned is that when you aim at the big, big, big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable because it's kind of like being stood at the foot of Mount Everest and looking upwards. The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking them down into tiny, small steps.
1:36:45Speaker C
And we call this in our team the 1%. And actually, this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success here. So what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that you have is we've made these 1% diaries, and we released these last year and they all sold out. So I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back, but also to introduce some new colors and to make some minor tweaks to the diary.
1:37:07Speaker C
So now we have a better range for you. So if you have a big goal in mind and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries before They all sell out once again, and you can get yours at thediary.com. And if you want the link, the link is in the description below. I can see in your productivity toolkit there is a clock. Why is there a clock?
1:37:34Dr Sahar Yousef
Ah, the clock represents the power and the science of when. Let me explain. If we said that the MITs and the LITs that we talked about before—that represents the what. I have my Everest, I have my MITs now. What am I doing today to move incrementally closer to meeting my Everest goal? That's the what. What am I doing today with the 3 hours of uninterrupted focus time that you said that you had, right? Mm-hmm. What focus sprints are the how.
1:38:09Dr Sahar Yousef
How am I gonna then go attack that one MIT or that litter of LITs? How am I gonna go do it? You're gonna do it in the methodology of a focus sprint if you want to 2x your time and minimize the number of mistakes made. That's the how. The science of chronotypes will tell you the science of when. When should you go about doing all of these different things? Human beings do not share one circadian rhythm.
1:38:35Speaker B
What does that mean?
1:38:36Dr Sahar Yousef
Well, have you heard of a circadian rhythm before?
1:38:38Speaker B
I have.
1:38:39Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay. So, we all, we have circadian rhythms. Animals do as well, but we don't share one as a human species. Meaning we don't all go to sleep around the same time. We're not all creatures. We are creatures of light, but we don't all share one rhythm of exactly the ideal time that we would go to sleep and wake up.
1:38:59Speaker B
Hmm.
1:38:59Dr Sahar Yousef
These different circadian rhythms are in fact called chronotypes. So, your chronotype is your genetic biological ideal time. It's essentially a profile of the hormones And your inner energy levels throughout the course of the day. And there are 3 chronotypes. There's AM-shifted individuals. These are essentially, this is like the science behind morning birds.
1:39:24Speaker B
Okay, so people that like doing stuff early.
1:39:26Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
1:39:26Speaker C
Okay.
1:39:27Dr Sahar Yousef
And it's, again, it's genetic and it's hormonal. These individuals naturally, their cortisol levels spike really, really early in the morning. And some people are like the 4 o'clock in the morning people, they're the 5 o'clock in the morning people, 6 o'clock in the morning people. They're naturally AM-shifted. Like, it's not their fault necessarily. And by the way, how do you know that you're truly AM shifted? How you know you're truly AM shifted is if you go to bed, even if I keep you up at 2 o'clock in the morning until 2 o'clock in the morning, and let's say I'm controlling, you no longer have young children that are gonna wake you up.
1:40:00Dr Sahar Yousef
You no longer have any meetings, nothing at all. I've put you in this, the best hotel in the world with the most comfortable bed, fully blackout. Not, you can't, you can hear a pin drop. There's nothing that would otherwise wake you, and you can sleep as long as you want, and I kept you up until 2 o'clock in the morning. Oh, don't you worry, that pituitary gland is very strong. Your body knows when it's 5 o'clock in the morning.
1:40:23Dr Sahar Yousef
It doesn't even need to see light. It naturally will wake you up. So now you're sleep deprived, but you have no choice. So it's those people that naturally wake up at early hours of the day regardless of when they went to bed the night before. Those are AM-shifted individuals, and it's all about their cortisol levels first thing in the morning. That is about, by the way, 25% of the human population. It's not the majority.
1:40:42Dr Sahar Yousef
My humble opinion is the world seems to be oriented around these people, right? Early bird gets the worm.
1:40:49Speaker B
Yeah. I mean, everything starts— school started at 9:00 AM, so you had to be up at 7:00. That's why I— part of the reason, many reasons, but that's part of the reason I hated school so much.
1:40:57Dr Sahar Yousef
Oh, totally.
1:40:58Speaker B
I liked staying up really late. Same. Yeah.
1:41:01Dr Sahar Yousef
Then you are likely the minority of the human population, like me, PM shifted. PM shifted people, anthropologically, by the way, the only reason we imagine why people like you and me exist, because otherwise, by the way, it's somewhat dysfunctional, no?
1:41:16Speaker C
Otherwise, yeah, it would be strange to have different sleep schedules and stuff like that.
1:41:22Dr Sahar Yousef
But we're not, I'm not a tiger. I can't see in the dark. It's somewhat dysfunctional that we're awake all night. But think about it this way. If you and I were in the same tribe along with my team and your team, and we're all like, okay, we're a village now together, and everybody went to bed at 10:00 PM and woke up at 6:00 AM, what would happen in the middle of the night when a competing tribe comes to slaughter all of us?
1:41:44Speaker C
Yeah, the night is the most dangerous time, isn't it, for anybody? So you need some people that are awake, and then even in the morning, you need some people that are.
1:41:52Dr Sahar Yousef
So
1:41:53Speaker C
you do need to stagger in a tribe, stagger the time in which people are highly functional, which makes evolutionary sense.
1:41:59Dr Sahar Yousef
You need a 24/7 team. You need to make sure someone's always awake. So, you and I belong to a tiny subset of the human population. According to research from my lab, we're at about 16% from what we've gathered around the world. So, 16% of the human population is PM shifted, meaning genetically, we tend to be able to stay up quite late, and we can sleep And our energy levels rise as opposed to shoot up early in the morning and then linearly decrease as the day progresses.
1:42:32Dr Sahar Yousef
AM-shifted people usually are the best. They do their best focus, their best thinking straight away early in the day, and they just seem to lose steam as the day progresses. Like there's no like second wind for them really. Interesting.
1:42:44Speaker B
Yeah.
1:42:44Dr Sahar Yousef
I mean, there's a little bit of a bump, but their ideal time, like when would you take a standardized test? If I wanted to test your intelligence, I said, come to my lab. lab, the Becoming Superhuman lab, like, let's test your intelligence, your attention span, memory, all of it. When would you schedule that test? For AM-shifted people, they're like, are you free at 7?
1:43:01Speaker B
Yeah.
1:43:02Dr Sahar Yousef
Right? Because they're the best in the morning. For PM-shifted people like you and I, honestly, the afternoon.
1:43:07Speaker B
Yeah.
1:43:08Dr Sahar Yousef
In my younger years, oh my gosh, the evening. I do my best work like 9:00 PM on. It's my clearest thinking, the most energized, the most clearheaded, you know, up until the wee hours in the morning. But it's not super functional, but it's genetic and you can make use of it. PM-shifted people also have a tendency to be the most artistic and creative.
1:43:29Speaker B
There you go. Say that again. Look at the camera and say that again.
1:43:33Dr Sahar Yousef
Most artistic and creative. I didn't— I seem to get those genes, whatever. Then you have the vast majority of the human population, and those are people who are biphasic. Biphasic stands for the Latin 2 phases or 2 peaks. And these individuals, Wake up a little groggy, but within about 45 minutes to an hour, they're ramped, off to the races. They're feeling great. Biphasic, 2 phases or 2 peaks. So, they peak once in the morning, they come down for the biggest afternoon dip comparatively to all those 3 types, and then they will then come back up for a second wind if they play their cards right.
1:44:10Dr Sahar Yousef
So, those are the 3 chronotypes. My humble opinion is you should know which one you are because it will dictate the ideal time You should be doing your focus sprints. When? When is the ideal time? I am a big bag of blood, guts, and chemicals. I'm not a machine, right? I there are biological laws. Like I'm not the same at 8 a.m. versus 2 p.m. versus 8 p.m. I am a different version of self with different abilities and skills, and my attention span is not a constant.
1:44:42Dr Sahar Yousef
That's another a law that I would love people to know a bit more and accept. I should say to know and accept. Our cognitive abilities are different throughout the course of the day, which means when we do certain things does matter, at least in some small part. And I'm not suggesting we can architect our days because you—I mean—you and I are actually prime examples of this. As PM shifted people, you know the world doesn't give a shit about us.
1:45:12Dr Sahar Yousef
The world doesn't care. Like as in the world is more AM shifted. We have to do a great deal of adjustment. It's not like I can schedule meetings with people like brazenly, like hey, what do you do? You're doing a 10 tonight, right?
1:45:22Speaker B
It's so true. Actually, no, I woke up this morning and did a 7:00 AM meeting because it was very important. And obviously I'm in LA, so I'm working to other people's schedules. And I was shit. I don't know how else to say it. I was like, gosh, that's a terrible version of me that I've just portrayed.
1:45:38Speaker C
Such an important meeting. So I bent my schedule to do it. But actually, because it was important, I should have pushed it as late as I possibly could have in hindsight. Because I really, I look back on my performance at that meeting, I go, that was terrible. Even with the podcast, one of the things we set as a rule where I never ever do podcasts before 11:00 AM. So this is why this starts at 11:00 AM today. Because I tried it and the brain wasn't on. It's important. I think people are looking for big steps forward in life, but some of these things that seem to be small and marginal can have such a profound compounding impact over the long term.
1:46:11Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah.
1:46:11Speaker C
What is the most important thing we haven't talked about that we should have talked about for the people that are at home home and they're struggling with all the— they've got the customer problems we've described, they're brain fogged, they've got these priorities, they're distracted all the time, and they feel a sense of guilt around that distraction. They know they could be doing more, but the noisy external tempting world is constantly winning. What else can we give them as a tool?
1:46:37Dr Sahar Yousef
It's about the way the world is going. I'm at risk of sounding a bit doom and gloom for a second, but I do hope that there's a light at the end of this tunnel that I hope will give people more agency and will inspire them. Because of my job and because of where I live, I have access to sitting and being invited into meetings and rooms with a lot of amazing human beings that are creating the future.
1:47:19Speaker C
I mean, there is an email there, isn't there, that we didn't touch on, but maybe this is a good time to reference that. You don't like referencing
1:47:27Dr Sahar Yousef
it. It's a bit depressing.
1:47:29Speaker C
But I think it's important because you live in San Francisco, And you did make the case that those big companies are coming to people like you to figure out how to hijack attention.
1:47:41Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. My area of expertise is how the brain changes and evolves, how you train it. An area of this that I know quite well, because it's extremely important in the pursuit of actual cognitive training, is something that we call strategic automatism. Strategic automaticity is just getting people to do stuff without meaning to do stuff. So, when a habit, right? This is also James Clear's Atomic Habits, phenomenal book, obviously, on habit formation, touches on these kinds of concepts.
1:48:14Dr Sahar Yousef
You want, ideally, you have a behavior or a habit happen without thinking, right? Automatic. Think about something that you do without a great deal of Or deliberation is a beautiful word for this. No deliberation. For me, it's like brushing my teeth at night. I could be passed out. I could literally fall asleep somewhere on the couch while I'm doing something. And lo and behold, at some point I will stir awake and be like, oh no.
1:48:39Dr Sahar Yousef
And then still before I get to bed, I will brush my teeth. Children don't do this naturally. They're, they're, we're forced into brushing our teeth at an early age, but it becomes a habit over time. And it becomes a habit that I do without deliberation. I don't deliberate whether I'm going to make my coffee typically in the morning. It just quite automatic, right? So, that habit has achieved strategic automaticity. We have removed the deliberation out of it, and now it happens quite automatically.
1:49:06Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay? That's the goal for any habit. Again, I have studied addiction, I study habit formation, and I do cognitive training research, which means I'm trying to get people to do stuff automatically. That's my goal. I don't want to have to send them a text message and ping them every time I want them to do the thing. Right. People like me have been hired hand over foot by tech companies around the world, and this is historical.
1:49:28Dr Sahar Yousef
This isn't even a now thing. This was 2010, '11, '12, '13, '14. I myself have been attempted to be recruited more times than I can count to bring everything that I know and I've studied and I've done research on into certain tech companies that I've been legally told I'm not allowed to name by name.
1:49:49Speaker B
Just slide me this little thing here.
1:49:52Dr Sahar Yousef
Go ahead.
1:49:54Speaker B
An email you received, just to paraphrase, just says, hi, Sahar, we came across your work on strategic automaticity at UC Berkeley, and we'd love to connect. We're looking to increase engagement and make our product more sticky. Would you be open to a quick call?
1:50:09Speaker C
Research collaboration opportunity. Lots of people, I guess, in your field get these invitations? Because if they can retain people on their platforms more, it's billion-dollar outcomes.
1:50:23Dr Sahar Yousef
What I will say is that, first of all, I don't think anyone is inherently evil or bad. It's just opportunities. These are work opportunities, right? And the promise, by the way, for scientists like myself is you can keep doing what you're doing. We love what you're doing, in fact. Love it. We love what you're doing. We just want you to do it in-house so that we can also implement a lot of these things. So, mind you, I am allowed to say this.
1:50:49Dr Sahar Yousef
I'm not allowed to name the companies, but I am allowed to say that that particular email came with an attachment of what the job was, the description, and of course, the compensation. The compensation for that particular role was 4 times my annual salary doing public research at that time.
1:51:07Speaker C
It's tempting.
1:51:09Dr Sahar Yousef
Game-changing for somebody, for their life, for their life trajectory. trajectory, right? So these were tempting offers. These are tempting offers modern day.
1:51:19Speaker C
Yeah.
1:51:20Dr Sahar Yousef
I would say that digital dependence is going to be the Everest for our species. And I really mean that. It has the potential If leveraged properly to give us amazing advances in everything from medicine to economics, it's game-changing. Technology is amazing, especially artificial intelligence. However, comes with a great number of downsides if used improperly. Our relationship with technology is fundamentally critical for, in my humble opinion, whether or not our species continues to thrive on this planet.
1:52:12Speaker C
What's your fear?
1:52:14Dr Sahar Yousef
My fear is actually, in fact, something that I have maybe somewhat disturbingly heard about. This is a real story from real meetings that I have sat in with leaders in the AI space. Mm-hmm. What we are currently up against is what is likely to happen at this point, unless we truly, honestly, unless we turn the wheels and try to do something differently. What we are creating is a future where there will be a thinking class.
1:52:53Dr Sahar Yousef
There will be a very small subset of the human population That is educated, that has the attention span and the ability to focus such that they can think critically on their own. They can question things, they can come up with ideas. And this small subset of the human population, in a creepy way, again, I've heard it called the thinking class, they will run the world. World, and the rest of the world will not be expected to think.
1:53:29Dr Sahar Yousef
Instead, their job will be to just do as they're told. And it is far easier to control a populace when they are distracted and not thinking. They're not awake. And this is my fear. And this is in fact what has— what is motivating me on a daily basis. This is my Everest at this point, is to illuminate what is a healthy relationship, an intentional relationship between minds and machines such that we don't lose our meaning.
1:54:13Dr Sahar Yousef
And this is what I'm obsessed with on a daily basis at the moment is giving agency back to people and trying to wake them up and get them to realize that if we stay this distracted, we will live a life unintentionally that we don't like living. You will end up on your deathbed with more regrets than you can count. And at a social and global level, we are going to have a drastic change from this last century. This last century, by the way, has been absolutely amazing as it relates to education for people.
1:54:59Dr Sahar Yousef
We have been educating more human beings. Think of girls and how much progress we've made in the pursuit of equity and equality for women. How many women are now extremely highly educated and doing amazing things where we would not have had that luxury a few generations ago, one generation ago, in fact. We've made such amazing strides, in fact, to expand the thinking class. The thinking class used to be small, and I'm telling you now that it is shrinking again.
1:55:31Speaker B
Because of algorithms
1:55:34Dr Sahar Yousef
And AI. AI is taking a lot of the thinking away from us. And I'm using my words quite carefully there. It's taking it away from us because we're also, we're letting it.
1:55:45Speaker C
Earlier on, I said we're writing more than ever. And the reason I said that was because I'm actively trying to resist the temptation of allowing AI to think for me. And I had a conversation actually yesterday with one of my colleagues who reports to me. And the feedback was, I no longer can hear your thinking. Thinking. I can't hear your voice, but actually, I said to this person, in real life, your reasoning is so much stronger than when you send me things that are written.
1:56:10Speaker C
And that is because that's not you. You're actually better than the AI because you have more context. You have more real-world context. And I think it's a really interesting moment for people to resist the temptation to let ChatGPT or an LLM think for them. But gosh, it's going to be so bloody tempting.
1:56:27Dr Sahar Yousef
It's tempting. Oh, Steven.
1:56:29Speaker C
What's wrong?
1:56:29Dr Sahar Yousef
It goes back— what's wrong? What's wrong and what's right at the same time, it's another paradox, it's another paradox, is those damn biological laws. The human brain is wired for shortcuts, meaning if there is a shortcut to food and calories we're gonna take it.
1:56:55Speaker C
Yeah.
1:56:56Dr Sahar Yousef
We're supposed to because food used to be scarce. We'd be idiotic not to. Remember, survival. This whole system is there for survival. We are designed to take shortcuts. Now, I will give some props to Daniel Kahneman. Danny Kahneman, go Bears, UC Berkeley professor, may he rest in peace. Also the first psychologist, first and only, if I'm not mistaken, psychologist to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. Now, Dan Kahneman is quite famous for not only writing the world-famous book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, but as a researcher, my humble opinion, more famous in my world of illuminating cognitive biases.
1:57:41Dr Sahar Yousef
And these are not necessarily, I don't want people to think like, oh no, they're bad. It's not like a disease model here. These are the shortcuts we're talking about. The human brain is trying to figure out very, very quickly, can I trust you? Do I like you? Do I like what's happening? What do I wanna do? Like, what am I attracted to? What am I motivated to actually go get? It's just trying to decrease the amount of energy that it takes to make all of the decisions.
1:58:06Dr Sahar Yousef
Otherwise, the world is far too stimulating and full of way too much data and information. It would overwhelm us. So, the brain is designed to make all of these parses, parses all this information, and it's designed for shortcuts. Daniel Kahneman is famous. One of my favorite quotes of his Thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats. They can do it, but they would prefer not to. Okay, cats can swim. They don't like it.
1:58:40Dr Sahar Yousef
So thinking is the same way.
1:58:41Speaker B
It's against our survival instincts of energy conservation, relaxing, preserving, especially in the world you talked about earlier about where calories weren't abundant. Like, even doing this conversation now requires a lot of thinking. It's burning a lot of calories.
1:58:55Dr Sahar Yousef
I think we need Skittles.
1:58:57Speaker B
Exactly. The more calories I burn, they're like, my days are numbered, right? Like, from an evolutionary perspective. So that's an interesting thing that we don't actually want to think. Hmm.
1:59:06Dr Sahar Yousef
It's important not to have shame around it. This is also connected, by the way, to the scrolling and our relationship with our technology. There's no shame if you find yourself dependent on scrolling, addicted somewhat, and you're not happy with your relationship with technology. It's okay. Please don't feel shame or guilt around it. It's natural. Congratulations. You have literally hundreds of experts that have designed these tools to be as addictive as they are.
1:59:31Dr Sahar Yousef
Lo and behold, you have a brain that we understand and your brain became addicted. So there's no shame in it. It's just what do we do next? And my humble opinion is first assess, get like a blood test essentially, like get data on how bad the situation is, where are the bleeds and where is it worse and where is it okay? And then go implement some of the tactics that we talked about.
1:59:52Speaker B
One of the things I'm terrible at is, I think I mentioned this earlier, is I think multitasking is, I've always believed it is a thing. It is a more productive solution. And I consider myself to be a very proud context switcher. But then I heard about this exercise that you do to prove to people that multitasking is a myth.
2:00:10Speaker C
I have my iPad here and it's recording the screen.
2:00:12Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay.
2:00:13Speaker C
So I can show the audience my iPad. What is this thought experiment or task that highlights the myth?
2:00:19Dr Sahar Yousef
It's so simple too, by the way. So what you're going to do for me, Steven, and draw 2 lines on that piece And what is this going to prove from a high level? What we are going to attempt to do is using the most, I would say, ridiculously oversimplified quote-unquote task. This is insanely easy for you, but what we're attempting to do is get a sense of what we call your switch cost. Your switch cost is the amount of time and energy that you essentially waste every single time you switch your attention from A to B, B to C, so on and so forth. Biological law, another one. There's no free lunch. Every single time you do something with your biological being, you pay for it.
2:01:03Speaker B
We shall see.
2:01:05Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay, let's do this. We shall see. Okay. Whenever you're ready, you're gonna go ahead and draw 2 lines for me, and I'm gonna time you, so don't start yet. But what you're gonna write on the top line is you're gonna write, I'm a great multitasker. And on the bottom line, 'cause you are, right? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I'm a great multitasker.
2:01:20Speaker B
Okay.
2:01:20Dr Sahar Yousef
And then at the bottom line, you're gonna write the numbers 1 through 20. And you will do this as fast as you possibly can, and I will time you, okay? And I will read out the times out loud. All right.
2:01:30Speaker B
Perfect.
2:01:30Dr Sahar Yousef
Are you ready?
2:01:31Speaker B
Yeah.
2:01:31Dr Sahar Yousef
Get ready.
2:01:31Speaker B
Yep.
2:01:32Dr Sahar Yousef
Get set. Go. From 0 to 20? Mm-hmm. Expletives are natural.
2:02:02Speaker B
Okay, there you go. Done.
2:02:04Dr Sahar Yousef
Done.
2:02:05Speaker B
Yeah.
2:02:05Dr Sahar Yousef
Thirty-one seconds.
2:02:06Speaker B
Okay.
2:02:06Dr Sahar Yousef
Beautiful. I want you to do this one more time.
2:02:09Speaker B
Okay.
2:02:10Dr Sahar Yousef
This time, the way in which you will arrive will be a little different.
2:02:15Speaker B
Okay.
2:02:15Dr Sahar Yousef
You're going to alternate. So, you're going to start at the top line and you're going to write the letter I. You're going to drop down to the bottom. Don't start yet. I'm going to time you. Yeah, down to the bottom line, number 1, back up to the top line, letter A, down to the bottom line, number 2, back up to the top line, letter M, down to the bottom line, number 3, so on and so forth until you finish both lines.
2:02:29Speaker B
Okay.
2:02:29Dr Sahar Yousef
I'm going to give you one other option because if you're thinking, Sahar, this hand is a NASCAR, like I'm going to lose time going back and forth between these 2 lines, fine. You can do it all on one line, but you still have to alternate. So, it still needs to be I, 1, you know, 2, A, so on and so forth. So, it needs to like alternate all in one line. So, it's going to look like a garbled mess. So, it's a little harder to track in my opinion, but some people prefer it.
2:02:51Speaker C
Do you know what? If I get to 31 seconds, just tell me and I'll stop.
2:02:55Speaker B
Okay?
2:02:55Dr Sahar Yousef
Because it's that you're already anticipating it's going to be that painful?
2:02:58Speaker B
Yeah.
2:02:59Dr Sahar Yousef
Okay. All right. Get ready.
2:03:00Speaker B
Yeah.
2:03:01Dr Sahar Yousef
Get set. Go.
2:03:12Speaker B
Fuck, I forgot how to count. That's weird. Oh my gosh, this is a shit show. Where was I? There. I think I cheated. I just feel like I've cheated.
2:03:30Dr Sahar Yousef
I'm sorry. We're at 30. How far did you get? I
2:03:36Speaker B
got to number 8. So that was, my maths isn't great, but that is 40% of the speed as when I just focused.
2:03:47Speaker C
Said differently, 60% slower when I was multitasking between numbers and letters. So on a daily basis, theoretically, I'm losing potentially 60% of my productivity, theoretically, just by switching between 2 different types of tasks at once.
2:04:03Dr Sahar Yousef
Yeah. So you're not only getting less done, Energetically, one is more expensive than the other.
2:04:10Speaker C
Do you know what?
2:04:12Speaker B
It was way less enjoyable. It was painful. Do you know the other thing?
2:04:16Dr Sahar Yousef
Oh yeah.
2:04:17Speaker B
It really did remind me of how I've been working because every time I went from one line to the other, I went from the letters to the number, I had to remind myself again of where I was with the numbers.
2:04:31Dr Sahar Yousef
Yes. Does that make sense?
2:04:32Speaker B
And then when I went back to the letters, I was like, where are we again with the letters?
2:04:35Dr Sahar Yousef
Totally.
2:04:36Speaker B
So there was a little bit of a gap there in me trying to figure out what came after the letter I, for example.
2:04:42Speaker C
It's really fascinating because it, yeah, so illuminating.
2:04:45Dr Sahar Yousef
By the way, there's a name for that concept that you were just, you were feeling it. It's palpable. It's called attentional residue. I know it sounds gross, right?
2:04:55Speaker B
Yeah. Attention. Yeah.
2:04:56Dr Sahar Yousef
I call it attentional baggage because I find the visual that that creates Better, meaning you carry into the next task all the shit, the baggage from the previous task. Unless you close out, I say get cognitive closure. Close out the tab, so to speak, on your computer and just be like, "All right, this I'm going to do." But clean up shop, get cognitive closure, close the box, and don't carry one bag into you know box or a bag.
2:05:26Dr Sahar Yousef
Don't carry it from one thing into the next thing. Try to as much as possible get cognitive closure. When you multitask, one, you're barely onboarding to the next task. You're carrying shit from the last one. It's taking you longer to actually finish anything. Up to, by the way, over 2 hours a day is the estimated average now for the average knowledge worker just bouncing between screens and different tasks, which I think is absolutely wild.
2:05:52Speaker C
Sahar, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left for you, very good question left for you, very good question. I love when this happens. How can the audience become more lucky?
2:06:07Dr Sahar Yousef
Oh, I love this question. And I have an answer, which is nice. Yes. It's nice when that happens. Luck. The way to become more lucky The key is to prime the mind, to train it, I would say, to look for luck, your luck. Because lucky for you, I'm assuming, would be— it's very different than my luck and the next person's luck. Mm-hmm. You have to know what your Everest is again. You need to go to that deathbed, figure out what a good life for you is, figure out what your intentions And your goals. Like, what is it that you're looking for? Because if you don't know, then there's nothing for you to look for. We have— we don't even know what you want to get lucky at, right?
2:07:03Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
2:07:04Dr Sahar Yousef
So one, you have to get crystal clear on what it is that you want, right? Once you're crystal clear on what you want, you need to ask yourself and remind yourself on a daily basis what that Everest is. And then you need to— it's, it's the— you said it beautifully. Is it pedal versus podium? Right? What is the one thing I can do today that is gonna make me incrementally closer to that long-term goal? If you prime the mind with what is your goal, what is your Everest, what are your objectives, what you're looking for, what you're hoping to get lucky about, what you're hoping to get lucky in, then if it's on your mind instead of all the bullshit that we fill the This is turning the signal up.
2:07:51Speaker B
Mm-hmm.
2:07:52Dr Sahar Yousef
We've talked— all of this conversation has been about turning the noise down. And parts, we talk about the signal when we talk about your ultimate why, your Everest, your long-term goals, that deathbed self. And then we talk about the MITs, which is the pedal. How can I drive my day? What can I do today that's going to make me incrementally closer to that long-term goal? goal, right? That's the what, so to speak. In order to get more lucky, the mind— a bit spooky— it will look for data and evidence to support its beliefs.
2:08:33Speaker C
Either way?
2:08:34Dr Sahar Yousef
Either way. So if you ruminate, if you stay in that victim mindset, if you stay in that, oh, look at my shortcomings, I'm never going to make it, I'm so far away from that, Everest is all the away of them. Guess what you will notice? What you will notice are closed doors because apparently you are a victim and they're not for you. You will notice all of your shortcomings and you'll focus on them. This is a focus machine, as we said.
2:09:03Dr Sahar Yousef
This thing is designed to look for the evidence and find the evidence that confirms its beliefs. It's constantly scanning. So if you prime this thing, oh, you'll find your luck because your luck is right there. The opportunities are there. The world is not full of brick walls the way that it may seem. Those brick walls are doors. They have handles.
2:09:32Speaker B
I'm a lucky person. I'm a lucky person. I'm a lucky person. I'm a lucky person. I'm a lucky person.
2:09:37Dr Sahar Yousef
I feel like that's manifestation. I want to push you further.
2:09:40Speaker B
Okay.
2:09:41Dr Sahar Yousef
And if people are into that, I think, great. Positive thinking, that's all— it's all lovely and beautiful. I mean, what are you trying to achieve here? What are you trying to achieve is, like, do you have a guest that you're trying to bring on that you've not been able to find? And you're just obsessed. Like, I want you to wake up every single day and just be like, I will find my way to you.
2:10:01Speaker B
You will find— Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Barack Obama.
2:10:04Dr Sahar Yousef
Let's get Barack Obama on this podcast. Let's do it. No, no, if you keep saying it, it will happen. But it's not just about saying it. You will be thinking about, like, that is one of my goals. You, I promise you, you're gonna see opportunities. You're gonna end up meeting one of his former chiefs of staff at a random— it's just gonna happen because it's top of mind for you. And your brain is designed to look for the evidence and the data to support its beliefs. So, if you truly believe Barack will be on this podcast, he'll find his way to you. Now he has to, right? We've spoken it into the universe. He's got to. He's got to.
2:10:44Speaker C
I mean, I just love your work for so many reasons.
2:10:45Speaker B
I think sometimes the complicated can stay complicated until it finds someone like you who has the ability to simplify and have the empathy to understand those that they're simplifying it for. And I was super excited to see you've just started a YouTube channel.
2:10:59Dr Sahar Yousef
I did.
2:11:00Speaker C
And I would highly recommend people go and subscribe to your YouTube channel. I'll link it below, but it should be, if we collab, you should be able to see the little icon there. Highly recommend you go and subscribe to Dr. Sahar because she's continuing to do great work. She's continuing to learn and share that knowledge with all of us. And it saves us having to build these superhuman labs that she's built. We can just go follow her and have the— you don't want the algorithm to be serving up your content. You want the subscription button. So go ahead and follow Dr. Sahar over on her channel as well.
2:11:29Dr Sahar Yousef
Is there anywhere else people should go to get your work or to understand more about you or I want to help people, one, gain control over their lives and live a life of intention of their choosing, whatever it is that they want to do. So, my humble recommendation is to gain some data on you, to actually assess your digital dependence, assess your attention span. Have you ever taken a test of your attention?
2:11:59Speaker B
No.
2:11:59Dr Sahar Yousef
Like, do you know where it falls? Like, maybe it's not so bad. Maybe you're off the charts amazing. We don't need to worry about it, right? I'm a firm believer the way that, and I would love the world to change in this way. And I know, and I hope in some small part we can help make this more of a common thing that people do. But the same way that we go to the doctor once a year and we have this like annual physical, usually, you know, like, how am I doing?
2:12:23Dr Sahar Yousef
I get a blood test, you check all the things. Why is it that we're not checking our minds? We don't do that. We just wait for it to go to shit. shit. And then we do something about it. Like, we wait for the car to be on fire and then we're like, oh, oops. No, we should have things that we're doing along the way. But how do we know what to do? The data. If we collect data and we actually have assessments available to people.
2:12:47Dr Sahar Yousef
So I'm extremely passionate about making scientific assessments available to the general public. I think science should be for people, not profits.
2:12:56Speaker B
Where do I find the assessment?
2:12:58Dr Sahar Yousef
Go to MMMinstitute.org.
2:13:01Speaker B
MMM.
2:13:02Dr Sahar Yousef
Mind, Machine, and Meaning.
2:13:05Speaker B
Institute.org. Okay. I'll link that below and I'll put it really big on the screen here. MMMinstitute.org. Free assessments. Thank you so much for being here. Such an honor.
2:13:16Speaker C
And please keep doing the work that you're doing. You're a star. And sometimes once in a while I meet stars and you're certainly a star. So I'm excited to watch your career unfold from here on outwards. Thank you, Dr. Sahar. We're done.
2:13:27Dr Sahar Yousef
Thank you.
Mit einem Abo bei PodVisio werden deine Podcast-Episoden transkribiert und für die KI-Suche aufbereitet: mit Kernaussagen, spannenden Diskussionen und einer klaren Zuordnung zu bestätigten Hosts und Gästen. So wird ihre Expertise sichtbar. Die GEO-Inhalte stehen auf Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, Italienisch und Spanisch zur Verfügung. Das vollständige Transkript bleibt in der Originalsprache. Automatische Verarbeitung und Veröffentlichung erfolgen nach deiner Freigabe und im Rahmen deines Tarifs und Audioguthabens.
Meinen Podcast aktivieren