Reclaiming Life from Digital Overload Through Knowledge Stacking

Are your digital devices controlling your life? It’s time to discover the power of knowledge stacking, self-forgiveness, and setting digital boundaries to regain control. Our candid conversation delves into the concept of knowledge stacking, drawing from two insightful books, ‘Think Like a Monk’ by Jay Shetty and ‘Mantra on the Map’ from a yoga meditation event. As entrepreneurs, we know the challenge of balancing digital demands with the need for rejuvenation. Let's explore how you can create a healthier balance.

As we navigate through digital overload, we find solace in yoga, meditation, and self-reflection. Learn from our recent workshop experience, where we discovered the art of uninterrupted thought, the value of love, and the power of self-forgiveness. We delve into the spiritual and scientific aspects of forgiveness, highlighting how being kind to ourselves can boost our resilience against digital stress. 

Finally, we underline the significance of setting digital boundaries and forming consistent routines. Let’s explore simple yet profound daily practices, such as meditation, reflection, and conscious consumption, to give you more command over your digital life. We’ll also emphasize the fundamental role of sleep and exercise, often overlooked in our screen-dominated lives. So, plug in your headphones, and let's unlock the secrets of a healthier, balanced digital life.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

There is a ton of concepts that we have come across in the 140 plus books that we have read. Even more.

Speaker 2: 0:06

And many of those concepts overlap and complement one another, providing a whole new perspective.

Speaker 1: 0:11

So what Mark and I are going to be doing for the next few episodes, if not forever, is to provide you with a unique perspective, and we're going to coin the term knowledge stacking. That's where we use multiple concepts to create a more powerful one.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Without further ado, let's get right into it.

Speaker 1: 0:26

This is the Needle Movers podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Don't forget to follow us.

Speaker 1: 0:34

I had a sheet couple of weeks to be quite frankly honest with you, and I'm not sure what I'm using this episode as a little bit of therapy or not. But, mark, I'm not going to pay you, I'm just going to give you that. What the fuck.

Speaker 2: 0:47

Why am I snacking on this?

Speaker 1: 0:50

But there's been a fair bit playing on my mind right, like I've had this concept of wanting a little bit more, feeling a bit stagnant. I've been comparing myself and there's been a lot of contributing factor, one of them being that I spent a lot more time on social media recently. The reason why I spend more time on social media is because I've been on LinkedIn, instagram, tiktok, because I've been posting a lot more for the Needle Movers, and so I view to be honest, and it's been a lot more frequent and instead of doing the scheduling which I used to do, I've been doing it every day and because I spend more time there, I get to see more things, which is not great, and it got me thinking that, as an aspiring entrepreneur, where we do a lot of everything we do content creation, we do editing, we do posting, we do engagement it's really difficult to take a break from the digital world, and it doesn't help that this week I've had a bit of an interesting week in some way. So, as I've mentioned before in the podcast, my wife recently quit her job and she's become a full-time baker, so she's got her own business doing bakes and she's also been helping me with some of my fundraising by doing the cakes on my behalf. So I've been able to sell them and raise money for some ginormous et cetera. But at the end of last week perhaps by the time that this comes out is actually two weeks ago my wife received the birthday cake order from a group of people. They happened to be friends with Josh Hattie, so what a great thing to do. My wife picked up the order, she gets paid and she starts the whole process. Now she only had 24 hours to get this cake together, but she's really good at it. She goes through the iteration process of planning, making the cake, decorating it and eventually she even delivers it. So this was a 70-plus mile delivery away. So she steps away after making the cake because she had to get ready before actually going out. And she asks me to take some pictures, and I typically do this. I'll take out the DSLR camera and I'll do some detailed shots and make all the elements in that invisible, because they go on our Instagram and they go on our website. So I'm there taking pictures and I noticed that my wife did a really excellent job of highlighting the many achievements that Jay has had in the past year. So that's the latest book that he published being on the Forbes magazine cover, the drink that we released, the podcast being number one. And I'm there taking pictures and thinking, wow, this guy has had a really good couple of years and also he's only a couple of years older than me. He's achieved so much more than I have. I don't even need to go on social media anymore. I just need to open the fridge at my house and I'm there comparing, I forget social media for a second and I'm just feeling sorry for myself. And of course, you know, she takes the cake, she goes away. We don't really have a chance to speak about this at all and I'm just left in the house thinking and it was this really funny moment, actually, where you know, with every cake that she makes, there's a bit of scrap that is left over. So my wife leaves them in a plate for me so that I can have them wherever I want. And there is that, me thinking really sorry for myself Having the scraps of a Jay Shetty's cake. Oh my God, I'm such a failure, but the cake is so good.

Speaker 2: 4:27

That's so much worse than your eating Jay Shetty's scrap.

Speaker 1: 4:31

Oh, my God.

Speaker 2: 4:33

And that part you could have stopped yourself at any point. You're like, oh man, what have I become? Oh, my days.

Speaker 1: 4:42

You know it's hilarious because I've started this with the digital. I guess the digital detox that I don't really have a chance to do, but I don't even. The problem is not even digital. The problem is opening the fridge and finding Jay Shetty's cake in there and then reminded her he's got a better podcast than we do, but anyway, oh whoa whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 2: 5:03

That's so much easier compared to audience levels. That really okay. Yeah, I think that that really leads us into the theme right, which is all about digital detox. But, like we mentioned in our last episode, it's not just about digital detox. It's how can we knowledge stack two different key books and I guess in the heart of you, eating the scraps of Jay Shetty's cakes, we're definitely going to do think like a monk from Jay Shetty, inception, inception. But the other book that we're going to bring to this table and stack that knowledge with in, on top of a maybe a bonus book later on. But the one that's at the forefront is going to be from my weekend a couple weekends ago, and that is when I went to a yoga meditation workshop event which was called man them on the map and sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 1: 5:56

You've told me about this workshop about six times already. I still have not caught the name. What's it called again?

Speaker 2: 6:01

I'm sorry, slang, man them on the mat. You don't know what man them means. Which part is the confusing? You don't know what man them means, oh my God. Well, man them, the man them. You need to watch top way. Man them are like the man. Okay, let me, let me, let me make it. Man them, man them, turn to them, man them. And it's just my brethren, my friends, my man them all, just brother.

Speaker 1: 6:32

Oh, and on the mat because you're doing yoga.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Yeah, it's just the guys on the mat.

Speaker 1: 6:37

So I didn't thank you for doing that, because I don't realize where my like the first time I thought you said mad men on the mat and I was like all right man, we come from two different lifestyles, but for sure, yeah, man them on.

Speaker 2: 6:52

I've never had to explain it. There's so much slang. Watch top way, you'll learn a lot what.

Speaker 1: 6:57

I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Do I know? Am I not an ex international consultant? I just know how to speak your language. Learn mine. Anyway, man them on the mat, we went. So the reason like it was called man them was literally because it was for people of black origin. So it didn't matter if yours mixed race, whatever, but just have some form of black somewhere around you. That sounds wrong. It was like, um, yeah, and it was just men. So that's why man them on the mat. Um, a number of just black men, uh, people of black origin, who were going to do um, yoga, meditate and a workshop. Now I'm telling you what I looked into because I saw it. It was on event Right, I think I looked it up. It was free. I'd been told about it. I told some friends. No one wanted to do it. They were like I don't mind doing yoga or I'd rather just do the workshop, but I'm not going to do this. And it was just free. All it cost was time and for me it was worth it. They were like I think I had to be the guinea pig for them to decide is this worth going to? I'll go and give the reviews, so, um, but for me I was just curious because I always wanted to do some yoga and it seemed like a decent space. Because a session that is just for black men of various sizes, whatever, it's kind of cool, you know it's. It's interesting being a ethnic uh, any ethnicity, I guess that's not, that's considered a minority, because then it's like you're safe in that space and you know in that space, especially with the fact that if I go to a typical yoga class, I expect eyes. If I go to something called mandem on the mat, I don't expect anyone to be watching me. You know what I mean. I can go and do my thing. So I go and I do the um. The yoga class and this is a Saturday is the bank holiday weekend. Now, what happens in the UK on a bank holiday weekend is the Sunday, and the Monday is typically carnival, which is just a whole urban festival in the.

Speaker 1: 8:51

That's not all the bank holiday weekends in England, that's just the ones in August, the only ones that matter.

Speaker 2: 8:57

But, um, uh, I go there and so I do 60 to 90 minutes of African yoga, which was a different version of yoga, but it was still very, very uh, intense and and and new to me, I guess, because I've done some yogas but never this and never the full like a whole session just dedicated to that fact. And in that it was a lot about just releasing your body, making sure that you're aware of your body, and like it wasn't like they do it without intention, it wasn't just raise your arms, it was like release your spirit, like things like that was much, very much more spiritual in the way that they even framed it. Then they, at the end of that, where I'm glazed um, laying on this yoga mat that they've given me for free, including drinking from this water bottle that they gave me for free Like I'm not speaking for you. Honestly, though, I've got the bottle here.

Speaker 1: 9:47

I should have money.

Speaker 2: 9:50

It's a Lulu lemon bottle. I don't know If you can't see this episode, you should have paid us. But, um, yeah, and I go, so I'm there, and at the end of it they have us lay down and then it becomes meditation and that's for like. Honestly, I feel like it was 30 minutes, probably could be a 20, but we don't have a count for time at this point, like, from the moment I go in for the yoga, my phone is actually in the locker room. It's locked away. I'm just focused on doing these activities. So I'm there in there and the meditation comes along and there's, you know, when I think about it, because when it comes to meditation, it's a lot about like self awareness, or not even being self aware, being spiritual, being above I, being above yourself, like being on another level. And in doing this I, um, I realized that I'm like in my own zone, I'm thinking. It's weird to say you're thinking my thoughts, which means there's no other people getting in your brain. You get to feel everything, from your toes to your, to your neck, to your elbows, to wherever. And I could hear some people who had gotten so relaxed. They just passed out and I was quite jealous. They just yeah, literally they were snoring away, just fully knocked out, but they'd like fully hit the level that I wished I reached. But, um, yeah, so I'm laying there for like however long the time is, and I'm just like having an experience that is absent of interruption. When I say, like, have your own thoughts, it's not social medias, it's not anything else, it's literally just being with yourself and in that moment, in that space, in that area, then that happens and that sounds blissful. Honestly, it very much was. It was very much peaceful. By that time I had already decided it was good and I may come back to another one. I feel like I got what I wanted from it and I'm ready to leave, but I'm not convinced I'm going because I've already signed up for the whole day. They gave me the option, or gave everyone the option, that you could go for half the day, you could do the yoga and meditation or you could do the workshop, but you could do both. I signed up because both of them cost the same amount of money, which is nothing. So then I you still think like a student. Hey, man, my time is valuable and free is a lot of money, but I go. The weird thing is, once that session finishes, I go down to the locker and grab my phone. It's like the first thing I do. I don't need it for anything, I just go down and grab it and then I go back upstairs to where everyone is and I sit down to wait, because they've basically said you can go away for like 30 minutes, go get lunch, go get something to eat and come back if you're coming back for the session. And I asked the question to the people around me. Now, I'd gone to this place alone, I didn't know anyone, and so having an out, I'm not an extra I know it seems like I'm an extravert. I'm not that extraverted where. I'm like let's just do this, although doing this activity by myself sounds very Shut up, anyways. But I asked them the question on what is the rest of the day, like, what is the workshop, even in tell and at this point, like four different people who'd been before or tell me their experience, without like relating to each other, because some of them knew each other, others didn't, but they're saying hey, last time I was here it was super valuable. We spoke about unconditional love and what it means to us, and it was like a nice free space for men to discuss, like their feelings or you know whatever, without an outside perspective or whatever. Like, yeah, like I said, it's like a safe zone to discuss and understand yourself. And I was like, fine, I'll stay, I go to. I literally walk out, I'm not hungry, everyone's gonna go get food. I could have socialized more. I just took myself away from it, sat down for half an hour playing like games on my phone, which just to me was like a time eating activity. Honestly, it was literally for the sake of time eating. And then I go back, put my phone away and get into this workshop and then in this workshop, the question this time was about our relationships with love and what we believe in like when was the first time we experienced like love and what we think of love and then how we put like related to important people in our lives and we could choose love to free. And for me, just a off-tendent moment, a big understanding was that with relationships, I personally would always try and make well, no, not always, I learned to do this, but I try and like direct a. This is what I expect from you, this is what you expect from me. Let's always try and work towards this goal, like you'd make the relationship goal, you'd make sure you have the clarity I'm saying you wording is super important. I'd make sure that the and the what was we want from each other is stated and that way there's no it's less this confusion right In expectation. There's some apps on this and there's some relationship advice on this and there's all these things, but it was always done with the relationships I'm in. However, when it came to my actual other important relationships, be it my parents, be it my friends, be it my siblings, be it my niece and nephews, I didn't do the same. I didn't do the same practice and instead I live on like assumptions or expectations or things. So then I'm more likely to be frustrated or hurt or I'm more likely to mess up because I have expectations that aren't really true. And it was like enlightening and good and we all got to if we wanted to voluntarily share. And in that space, while I was there, it was very safe. People were it like defied, let's say, stereotypes. It was super, I'd say, worthwhile. I'll definitely repeat, because it was like a lovely, safe space to talk, think about yourself, be one with yourself, hear that there's a whole different group of people who have come to learn and grow and, yeah, participate. But one thing I was saying, which kind of leans in towards the not, but sorry, that word's powerful, let's go back and say, and something that it really resonated with me was that everyone there was there to learn. Everyone there was there to grow, to do so. It wasn't about us all being on our phones to do so. Our words had to be intentional to do so. We had to address emotional pain, like re-face, some dark places we've been to. Maybe there was grief, maybe there had been self-doubt and all of these things that I'm saying. All are literally chapters, if anything, let alone topics, within the book that we're going to Knowledge Stack, think Like a Monk with which is why has no one, why has nobody told me this before? And that's what. When I left, it came to mind where I felt like I was privileged in a sense, because I'd already had that in my head, which was like a nice guiding light on what I can do to make myself better. But I was aware that it's such a pivotal book and that workshop is such a pivotal workshop, so I'm about to stack these two things together and make the most out of it, and so here we're able to take it where you get Vowel story of, of course, eating Jayshia E scraps.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Really, that's what you're going to remember.

Speaker 2: 16:57

It's all that really matters. And mine, where I'm like going through a, I guess, mental stimulation or something and seeing where can we take both of these and both learn, grow and knowledge stack together, I guess.

Speaker 1: 17:13

I think I dare to correct you, it's not even like the mental stimulation is probably the lack of mental stimulation and being able to step away and think. Right, because it sounds like you've had the opportunity not to be stimulated and to think a little bit deeper, which is great, and perhaps I've not been able to do that in a while. Maybe that's, you know, that's part of my issue, and I think what I want to take the opportunity here is to just remind, I guess, myself and yourself what are the effects of digital noise, because in my mind it's this almost self feeding negative loop. Right, because we go from having constant stimulation and destruction, which makes it really difficult to relax and distress, and then because we are in a place where we're using our phone more often, we're using our devices more often. That means that we're getting more exposure to blue light, and the blue light disrupts the melatonin, which disrupts the ability of us getting sleepy and to fall asleep at this and ours, and as a consequence of that, we then get into spaces where we are finding ourselves more in a more difficult space to concentrate. But not only that, we also have the ability to switch between different applications, to access to phone or have a million tabs open, which adds on to our destruction, making it really difficult to concentrate, and, as a consequence of that, we end up having that affect our relationships, because you know, we're wearing an eye watch or we're wearing a smartphone, or we have a phone in our pocket or we are checking or social media and, as a consequence of that, we're not listening to other people when they're speaking to us. And this self feeding negative loop that gets us in a space where we are enjoying our life less and less and we end up in a space where we're eating just shatty kick scraps, honestly Wondering what we're doing with our life and feeling a little bit. I'm feeling a bit shit with myself, to be honest, like if I can be quite to frank and open, one day It'll be on his podcast talking about you in his scraps and he'll oh my god, I would actually. I don't know what we would think of that, but I find that a console quite hilarious. A quick question though.

Speaker 2: 19:39

What have you tried in terms of avoiding or trying to stop the feeding, this negative loop?

Speaker 1: 19:44

I've not done a lot recently. I don't know if it's because there has been an interaction on multiple things that happened. Maybe my anxiety is a bit higher. I'm not falling asleep to the normal sleep partner. I'm not able to go exercise when I'm wanted because of the puppy. Yeah, let's, let's blame the puppy. I've had difficulty concentrating because I have not been very good at setting boundaries with my phone, because again, I'm going back to the original premise, that I've been spending more time on social media to be able to make use of it and, as a consequence of that, taking all these factors into account, perhaps I've been enjoying that for a little bit less because I've been so stuck into the digital world as a consequence of it all. But I'm going to use today and this very podcast just to remind myself of things that I can do, and I think that's that's when I go back to what you mentioned earlier. So we got those two books which are great. One of them is very spiritual, which is think like a monk. The other one is very scientific, which is why has nobody told me this before and looking at the spiritual aspect of it and looking at the scientific aspect, there is one thing that comes out, which is the concept of forgiveness. And If I look at just Shetty's aversion of it, it basically writes that forgiveness is the practice of letting go of anger, resentment towards someone that asserts you. Why am I even mentioning this? Perhaps because I am a little bit mad at myself for not having done more or not having pursued things differently, or perhaps having made the wrong steps in the past 12 to 24 months, and I am resentful towards me and angry, and because of that I get annoyed and because of that I'm eating the cake. But also what I want to take away from Dr Julie Smith's book, it's something that tells me what to do with it and I need to perhaps take the perspective of what would I tell a friend of mine. So what would I tell you, mark, if you felt that way? Perhaps what I would tell you is that I need to be a little bit more compassionate and I need to be a little bit more forgiving, and the way that I do that is perhaps by taking circumstances into account, not to give myself an excuse, but to give myself an understanding. And if I do this, then perhaps I can get myself to a different page or to a different perspective when I can look at my circumstances under a different light. I know this all sounds a little bit theoretical, but I guess what I'm getting to the point to is that I want to achieve forgiveness the forgiveness towards myself, because I'm feeling a little bit mad about what I haven't done, not what I've done and to do that I need to speak to myself as if I was speaking to a friend.

Speaker 2: 22:49

I see it's tricky because I want to go in two parts of this and I'm like. The one part, of course, is to say I fully understood that and literally in the workshop, that was one of the things about love where I was going to be like be your own friend, be your own support, be your own cheerleader. And I heard something recently where they say the difference between you and your friend is that you carry the baggage with the circumstances. So if you're in the relationship or something, they don't have the baggage, they can be very I think it's objective, right when it's like oh, actually, this makes sense, you've got all the baggage. Therefore, you can't see it and that's why you usually are the worst bully to yourself, more than others will be. But the other aspect I want to go into is the fact that it's very subtle but it's so powerful. Whereas in Think Like a Monk, you're saying Jay Shetty says you know what forgiveness is? It's the practice of letting go of anger and resentments towards someone who has hurt you, and what you've done is take that and say well, actually the person who's hurt me is myself. And then you're like well, okay, and why has nobody told me this? It's the well self-compassion. There's ways to tackle yourself and if you do both of these where it's being kind, understanding for ourselves, like all of those combined, you can do both principles in one go. And I think that's super key. And this forgiveness kind of stems from comparing yourself, which is just a standard editor of social media or like a standard byproduct of social media, and to combat this, in fact, just to combat digital overloading as a whole, that's where routines are really important. So Jay Shetty talks about the significance of having daily routines and maintaining mental health, which fully aligns with why has nobody told me this on the foundational elements like sleep and exercise, these basic but super crucial things, and these are all contributing factors in building up a routine that can help combat just digital overloading and alleviate the likelihood of comparing yourself. I will say people compare themselves in person and on social media. However, you're more likely to on social media because you don't walk past Richard Branson every day.

Speaker 1: 24:57

But also, okay, sorry, can I add on to that. The thing about social media is that when you are in person, right, it happens to you, you may think about it, but you might forget Social media. You swipe, refresh and that same news or that same bit of story still die. I can remind you. Hey man, I'm here, read me.

Speaker 2: 25:13

And the pages only get updated and they stay there in history. You can always go back and see them. So it is really like mental health in the digital era is kind of so fragile, is so much more in danger. If we just try and unpack the effects of the constant digital engagement on people's mental health and if we think about the fact that comparing is one aspect of it, but just in terms of addiction, where you can find yourself mind disease, scrolling and losing time, it's just so dangerous so there needs to be something to protect you, and this is where the protective roles of routines comes into play. So I think like, amongst, j Shady emphasizes on the power of routines to basically kind of shield yourself from the digital spheres like the overwhelming digital spheres, and it's things that you put in place is pretty much the equivalent of having strong, significant habits that can at least block things off, that avoid it for you. For me, that equated to like literally deleting social media. Years ago, and just by that I mean I didn't have Instagram, I didn't have Facebook, I still don't, but now I have a more, I guess alive on the needle movers one. And then, in addition to this, this is where he advocates exploring daily practices like meditation, reflection and conscious consumption. Conscious, which is super key, because then you can have more power over how much anything digital media let alone your social media or just any black mirror that you consume. And then you couple this together with the fact of what Dr Julie Smith talk discusses, which is about the basics of just sleep and exercise. It's so funny to like reduce into the basics, but they are like the fundamentals to make sure that you are one improving your health but also giving yourself that protection, because if you prioritize them, you've deprioritized the alternative, which is tends to be you know, people stay up, blue light scrolling social media, compromising their sleep. Maybe you're doing it for work, maybe you're doing it for whatever, maybe you're on your laptop, maybe you're watching TV, it doesn't matter, there's always something. And she emphasizes the role in combating the challenges posed by excessive screen time and digital overload.

Speaker 1: 27:32

And I'm going to add one more here, right? Because if you know this stuff again against why we sleep, which is a book by the Harvard researcher that studied sleep for a number of years he's highlighted that having a lack of sleep, or chronic lack of sleep, is the equivalent of a drink driving in the sense of attention and you see that thinking, you know you wouldn't drink every day because you know it's negatively affecting your health, but at the same time we are happily willing to sacrifice or sleep just because we can't see the negative effect right away, which is astonishing in a way. And you know I should be probably ashamed myself, because I know that I'm guilty of that at times, but because it's not so apparent to you, it's not something that I take care of right away.

Speaker 2: 28:26

It's the speeding ticket of your body. It's kind of funny because, like you know, a speeding ticket, you can drive. You might get flashed. Maybe you didn't, maybe you got away with it. And then after a while, oh you got a fine, I'll pay it. It's divided by two, it's half the price. But then your body does the same thing. So you stay up. I didn't sleep all night. I think I got away with it. And then lay it down the line. You're like why am I so broken? And it's like you've been compromising your actual health this whole time. You've been paying a debt that's been accruing and you thought they didn't have your address. But it's your whole body. It knows where you live and I recall when I was younger how much I used to like that was such a bartering tool like oh, I just don't have to sleep. Oh, I've got a flight today, I just won't sleep. All these things that would just be detrimental to me in a what larger scale. That I found out after the fact. And that's where even another way of like emboldening yourself and protecting yourself could be just setting digital boundaries when you're like actually, I will make sure this is where you can have app limits on your phone, or you could just have self-control or where you say I will spend x amount of time doing y at maximum and then beyond that I will not touch it. That way you can have the have made it very apparent the importance of, like delineating clear boundaries for online engagement, for any online influence or digital influence, and both tips on the books advise on this as like adhering to this digital detox routine.

Speaker 1: 29:52

And I think, probably thinking back to, I guess, my original conundrum, which was, as an aspiring entrepreneur doing all the A to Z of the business, how do I set myself some boundaries? I think here what I probably need to be doing is just set a time in the day, and Perhaps two, three days a week, where I touch the social media, because you know you do half of it. I do the other half, but at least if I limit myself to, let's say, I don't know 10 pm, I'll probably that's too late. 7 pm To 8 30 pm, I do the posting of the of the episode of the social media for the next day. Whatever, at least that's a set time in a day, I know about it, and beyond that, then I can just close off the app or I can block it with one of those or one of those fancy applications that allows to do that on on the phone.

Speaker 2: 30:39

The sign I could say about the social media that I do as well, but honestly it's. There's an episode and then there's a background workshop and I wanted to friendship the two. I will say that, though I do have a way as well where I'm because I don't I do want to limit my contact with it I've managed to make sure, like you'd message me on Monday like, hey, you're gonna be ready on Tuesday, I'm like I'll do it on Tuesday, I'm not touching it beforehand, I'll get it done on Tuesday and I'll get it done for everything, so that by Thursday I don't need to touch it besides pressing post. That's my whole. You know what I mean. I give myself the, the boundaries. And then the main thing here and this is the last part when it comes to routine, which is both Highlighted in both books which is consistency. The hardest part of any Formula is consistency. If you're Baker, if you're chef, if you're a teacher, consistency is key because it's the hardest thing to do. You could have a great lesson, but if you could have great lessons, that's the hardest piece and it's really so key in sustaining mental health. So there's a number of challenges that need to be addressed for these routines to be fully not just automated but implemented, and in the digitally dominated world, there are so many opportunities for them to, for you to be impacted, and it's just finding a way to Firstly build it up but then to maintain it as well, and that's where you have to see. Firstly, don't shoot yourself down if you have one day off Everyone has a bad day but just find a way to make sure that these resolutions, where you're like sleep and exercise, are basic but important. I am going to protect myself with routines. I'm going to set digital boundaries and then stay at it. You don't compromise that, because then you're compromising yourself.

Speaker 1: 32:17

So obviously I've been the one struggling a bit more. I'm not sure if you've been struggling. I forgot to ask you, mark, how you're doing, but the I Struggle. You struggle, see me eat cake at the corner crying. Shut the fuck up. Anyway, I think I think this, this was for my benefit, right, and I think what I'm gonna be taking away is a. I've reminded myself of the Detriment of not coven effect of digital noise. I have kind of reminded myself of the Fat that I need to forgive myself in a way, because I will enter that comparison game and that's not on the on Instagram, actually, probably LinkedIn is even worse whereby I see people, colleagues that perhaps have been promoting moving company Etc, which makes me think I've not done an awful lot in my in my life in the past couple years and that that's got a detrimental effect. But also I need to remind myself that I need to forgive myself, and Three the 13 want to take away is the routines because, as you rightly say, there is things that I can do, put in place to prevent myself going through that digital overloading, and I think the one thing that I should be doing is setting the digital boundary more clearly by setting myself dates on what I'm actually gonna be doing, this social media targeting, and Also Setting myself boundaries on my day, perhaps using the Zen mode on my, on my phone, because I do have it. I press Zen mode and it will actually block off any social media for a number of minutes or hours. Yeah, I think I kind of want to thank you, but not really because you kept Taking a piece out of me.

Speaker 2: 34:10

Honestly, I had one thing to contribute in a way that I think would help you, and I'm gonna personally DM Jay Shai and ask him if he has any scraps left. You can send it back to you.

Speaker 1: 34:25

I tell you what, like I'm glad I'm running a marathon because that forces me to do training. Otherwise, I think the journey of my wife becoming a baker would make me Totally fat, not just fat, totally fat.

Speaker 2: 34:41

So you run for cake.

Speaker 1: 34:42

Is what you're saying? I run for cake. I should change my marathon slogan to Valerio runs for cake.

Speaker 2: 34:49

To be fair, I haven't had the cake in a while, so I will. I'll be somewhere. Oh, what birthdays coming up, or anniversary of our hundredth episode? Don't worry, we'll see what we do special for that. Hopefully, valerio will consider asking his wife to make a cake for the needle weathers sponsored by Jay Shai. We take scraps, is all I'm saying. We take scraps, clearly.

Speaker 1: 35:17

Man, I had leftovers.

Speaker 2: 35:22

That brings us to the end of our episode. We hope you've enjoyed. We hope you apply some of these knowledge stacking tricks To your personal lives. If you liked it, we may come back and re-explore, revisit or find more avenues that could be stacked from these two books, let alone with others.

Speaker 1: 35:38

I've been your host, mark Jason's and I'll be your co-host, valerio Tomasso. And, as always, till next time.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Adios.