In this conversation, Mike and Jodi explore the multifaceted nature of death, touching on personal experiences, cultural attitudes, and the psychological implications of mortality. The conversation also delves into avoidance behaviors surrounding death, the desire for legacy, and personal wishes for funerals, culminating in a reflection on how awareness of mortality can enhance the quality of life.

TRANSCRIPT
Mike Steger 00:08
Okay. Well, in case this doesn't make it, and you're wondering why Jodi is laughing like a maniac, because you are now being subjected to the podcast. This could be it, where Jodi Wellman, a Catholic schoolgirl from Canada, nonstop harshes my nards. Jodi, do you think you're going to be harsh in my nards today? Yes, Jodi is going to be harsh in my nards today. Now this is a quickie. So in these, you know, we tackle little bite-sized chunks of how problematic the modern world is, and and in case you're watching this on YouTube, you get to see Jodi dabbing her eyes. It's such a problematic

Jodi Wellman 00:49
world.

Mike Steger 00:50
I don't know what happened there, but yeah. So, Jodi, we're going to dive right in because this is a very very serious podcast about very very serious issues where we only occasionally swear, make off-color jokes, and interrupt each other. But we're very, very serious because it's the most important topic of all. And to introduce us to the topic, Jodi, guess what I was reading this morning? Herodotus. Yes, Herodotus histories. We're back to that. This will come up a lot. I'm not. I'm not lying, people. I I have a habit of reading interesting ancient ass books, and here's a quote. I think you'll like this. Nothing comes of its own accord. People invariably get things as result of their own efforts. So, Jodi, how can I focus my efforts on maximizing productivity?

Jodi Wellman 01:42
Well, I like the idea of focusing your efforts, and I, I'm, I don't like the idea of you quoting Herodotus, even though I know that it's from the English Patient, which is where I enjoy listening to it. Herodotus is from the English

Mike Steger 01:56
Patient.

Jodi Wellman 01:57
Yeah, you did. You know what the English Patient?

Mike Steger 02:01
You know, I did see something with the same guy, and it called 28 Years Later the Bone Temple. It was like the same.

Jodi Wellman 02:07
That is not relevant in the slightest.

Mike Steger 02:09
Ray Fines,

Jodi Wellman 02:10
covered in blood. Okay, anyways, turning the subject back to the subject. Thank you. Which is, yeah, I like your point that we can live with productive intention, and I have a real bone to pick about the way in which I think we go about being productive, and that is to bust on habits.

Mike Steger 02:31
Okay, Jodi gives me a chance to quote from Herodotus again. Jodi, Herodotus in the form of Artabanus, who you know very well, in trying to advise Xerxes about whether to invade the Greeks, guess what? Probably shouldn't have said you. He was he's trying to make sure there were two sides to the argument. One one side, everyone knew that Xerxes was fired up to go attack those like irritating Greeks, and so they all sided with him and like, oh yeah, this great idea. And then Artabanus, who has been around for a while, all of the Persian emperors, in fact, says is trying to explain why he argued with Xerxes because Xerxes pretty much wanted to kill him. He wanted to know, like, yeah, going to war is always great. He says it wasn't so much that I was upset at being rebuked by you, but that the Persians were faced with two plans, one of which would increase our abusiveness, while the other would curb it by pointing out, and here's the part you like: how wrong it is to train the mind to constantly seeking more than it has at the moment. Jodi, I was just saying my backyard this morning, minding my own business out of the blue.

Jodi Wellman 03:39
What a! It's wrong

Mike Steger 03:40
to constantly chain the mind to seek more than it has right now. Discuss. Yeah.

Jodi Wellman 03:50
Okay. That is another scintillating quote. Very current. Very applicable. Thank you. And then back to the risk of being super productive.

Mike Steger 04:08
Okay.

Jodi Wellman 04:08
We think habits are the portal and the way to organize our lives. And I'm not a complete Martian. I do understand that having a habit can help us to be healthy and keeps you know the car on the road when we need to get stuff done, but I also am here to absolutely say that they're eroding the edges of your life. They dull the edges of existence, and they turn us into highly functioning zombies, and we become routine robots. And I feel just just a little bit entirely strongly about this, so you can quote all the ancient history you want, and whether they advocate or not for action and what leads to habit, I'm just here to tear it all down. And I know okay, I know

Mike Steger 04:54
we're we're lucky this is a quickie then because Herodotus is like hundreds of pages long,

Jodi Wellman 04:59
but yeah, we. We're lucky that this is a quick.

Mike Steger 05:02
So let's boil this down. So habits. What is the point of atomic habits, subatomic habits, muon habits, quantum habits? By the way, quantum habits trademark. That's my new book. My new book.

Jodi Wellman 05:16
Which what's the new book?

Mike Steger 05:18
Quantum habits. But I'm getting. I'm planting a flag in that so I can steal this this stuff later.

Jodi Wellman 05:22
Yeah, clearly. But your co-host is going to be attacking you at all edges because she's going to be saying, while I understand you want to be efficient, because this is all about the relentless pursuit of getting more done. I like getting more done too, but here's the risk: when you succumb to a habit.

Mike Steger 05:41
Thank God. Yes.

Jodi Wellman 05:44
When you become routinized, and you do the same thing, you have the same breakfast in the morning, and you then go into the same status meeting at work, or you sit and you do the same exact thing, and then you have the same type of dinner, and you do the same workout, and you have the same date night, and then you have the same Saturday morning routine, and you do the same thing that you do for the holidays. The sameness, the same, the sea of sameness. That's when our lives become unplugged. Why are you shaking your head? You're going to hurt yourself. What's happening?

Mike Steger 06:11
No, I'm I'm in favor. I'm like, oh,

Jodi Wellman 06:13
okay. Well, I was gearing up for a bit of a fight, but

Mike Steger 06:18
I'm going to fight you later about this. But I do agree with you know if the premise is that the habit industrial complex is relentlessly trying to convince us that productivity is the answer to a better life,

Jodi Wellman 06:33
yeah, then

Mike Steger 06:33
I'm shaking my head. That's bullshit.

Jodi Wellman 06:36
Okay, I like where you're taking it. I do think there is so much pressure about the what you end up. What are your outputs? What are you doing? And in some ways, like I don't even disagree because I am a production addict myself, which we could have an intervention at a different juncture. Like I do have self worth tied to how much I produce, etc. And so, you know, I'll

Mike Steger 07:03
well, Jodi, I'm here to tell you, you haven't done enough. So thank you for

Jodi Wellman 07:08
bolstering me. But if the way to get there, I think let's set aside for even just a quick sec how much we do as a measure.

Mike Steger 07:18
Yeah,

Jodi Wellman 07:18
I think it's the how we're doing it that can again dull the edges of our lives. So if our lives are just these giant series of 10 and 20 minutes or a bunch of days stitched together to make a week that makes a year that make life, are we going through the motions? Like even that, like is life happening to us? Because that's what happens when we take your brain off the thinking zone and go through, like you know, you're driving, you ever drive to work, and you're like, "Wow, I wouldn't even really pay attention. I mean, you obviously paid attention to some stop signs, but that's the glazing over, and I think that that is where it's appropriate in some instances. Like in the world of habit, they talk about habit utility can be good. I think that's like the middle zone, and then there's like habit domination, which is what I am trying to help us avoid. Which is that we are run our lives or rules the roost. It's just everything we do is so routinized that we don't actually experience the newness and novelty of life. Which is really ah the answer. Like that's the antidote is shaking it up a little bit every now and then, like taking your life in this little snow globe that it is. Now you don't have to shake the shit out of it so that all the snow goes everywhere because that might be scary for those of you who love a good habit. But it's like a gentle little. Let's let the flakes move. You know, try something different because that novelty is crucial for the experience of being alive. You know, according to research.

Mike Steger 08:40
Yeah, I like that we're going to take a couple parts of this and dole them out into maybe the whole podcast, right? So, number one, I do think we should tackle productivity pressure at some point.

Jodi Wellman 08:51
Yeah,

Mike Steger 08:51
like that's the quote that I was talking about. Like, why? Why are we supposed to constantly be imagining whatever we have now, whatever we do now is not enough. We should be hyper vigilant for our own inadequacy and treat it with doing more. You know, those people who have bought into that make my life hell because that's why my inbox is crowded with BS. Is because someone out there is like, oh yeah, I made the habit. Every time I think of something, I make sure I send an email to Doctor Steger about it. That might be personal. I don't know. But another thing is, you know, trying to figure out how to be in the moment is important too. But what, like, what should you form habits around, anyways, is a little bit crazy. Now, I do want to, I do want to push back on you a little bit here, Jodi. Number one, research does show that the things that people are saying in these books, probably in literally every single book, is maybe hitting on these bits that they are pretty effective for habit formation. So we can form habit. I can't, but other people can. I form habits. Accidentally, I can never make myself like I can literally I can do something every day for three weeks, and then I wake up the next day and it's like I it never occurred to me that that existed anymore, right? Like whatever it is, you know, vitamin C or I'm on medication for like whatever being sick, I'm not really sure if I can remember a time when I've ever done that correctly. So, I'm individual differences matter. I think they're underexplored. Like some of us are really good at forming habits. Some of us are too good at forming habits and need to be shaken like a snow globe, as you say. Or sidebar, my good friend and colleague Pineit Russonitzer did a paper on getting out of your comfort zone as a happiness intervention, and found it particularly worked for people who are low in life satisfaction. Right, so sometimes we need to we need to get out of habits.

Jodi Wellman 10:54
Yep,

Mike Steger 10:55
but we can form them, and actually, driving is a really good example, right? Because when we're learning to drive, it's all very frontal lobe. Like there's neurological research showing people getting better at little miniature habits that they can do in an fMRI tube, and it's very thinky. Where like I put my foot here, I turn the thingy this way, I look over there, I look over there. Oh, I don't remember I saw over there, so look back there, and I'm just looking all day long. And then you automate driving, right? You automate these tasks, and it moves into the sort of motor memory part of the brain, which is buried deep in the middle, basal ganglia and other parts. But driving is also a perfect example of what you're saying, right? Or you're not actually you haven't gotten quite to that part yet. Sorry, I'm about to sneeze and crush your nose like Scooby-Doo. Then it then it goes away. That's a science. Another science, though, is that what do so now that driving is easy for most people who are out on the road? I should say automatic, given what I see being usually the only decent driver on the road. What I see is a lot of really bad driving, but it's at least automatic. So, are people using that freed up cognitive power to think about the nature of justice, to think about whether they could be a better dad. What do they think doing? No, they're like trying to figure out how to text and drive at the same time, or they're just spacing out. We don't know what we're supposed to fill this extra time with, other than sending me emails, and so that's that's a critical problem with this field. I think, right?

Jodi Wellman 12:24
I'm sensing so many key takeaways already. One is you need to surround yourself with less ambitious people, so that people aren't so interested in producing and doing. So basically, all of us like let's dumb it down a little out there with our friend group and work group. Okay, that's obviously key. You're totally right. There is a time and a place, of course, when you want to establish healthy habits, when you want to establish a routine in your life that is going to, in some way, up your game, like going to the gym or eating better or being a better boss. If you need a habit to remind you to recognize people, like, of course, we need to do some things in order to enhance our experience, it's that like everything in life, there's then there's a tipping point. It's that when then we go to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. When then, yay, I'm having a great meeting with my team or whatever it is you're doing. Then are you slipping into the eyes glazed over, and so there is an opportunity to interrogate your existence and say, "Is there an area of my life where I might want to do a routine rumpler? Like maybe I do. I can't do it all at once, especially if you are the type that really likes structure, because of course, personality-wise, some of us are very clear. When I'm in a workshop and I ask people who here loves a good habit and structure and organization, and those people are like immediately clear, I'm not going to wreck your life. Like, of course not. This is about enhancing your life, not making it worse.

Mike Steger 13:53
I might. You're gonna no matter

Jodi Wellman 13:55
what, but I

Mike Steger 13:56
can't remember not to wreck your life. Sometimes, like I haven't made the habit of not being a wrecker of things.

Jodi Wellman 14:02
Well, you know the notion around like the psychologically rich life, right? So the idea that if you take the Venn diagram, you've got the I'll simplify it meaning and the fun, which is I think our camps, and then there's the the idea of more novelty, curiosity, exploring new things, interest-that is, I think, what we're looking at here, and just saying, where's our opportunity in the midst of your find? Run your life on autopilot if you want, but when you have that chance to look at it and say, could I feel even more alive? Could I make it more alive for the people around me? If you care about other people by doing it just a smidge different, that's where we have an opportunity to widen and deepen our lives and make them rich.

Mike Steger 14:50
Yeah, so I think we close with with with a very well known psychological phenomenon that exemplifies this. Right, it's not really in the happiness camp. It's not real. In the meaning camp, it's not really in the psychologically rich camp. It's flow, right? So when we experience flow in life, which is an optimal state where we lose track of time, we stop thinking of ourselves or scrutinizing ourselves as like a social actor. Like we don't have that spotlight effect. Like oh my gosh! Someone's judging how well I'm rock climbing or whatever it is right now. When we achieve flow, you can think about it like a channel, right? Like we've got our little our little diagram here, and on this end is how much skill we have, or our resources, or our abilities, and then on this going upwards is how challenging the task is, right? So when we are way maximized, like we have a super challenging task and no skills, we freak out. That's terrifying, right? That's like being a parent for the first 1718, years. And then on this end, if we're way down here, we're like we're so good at something, and we just are taking on too small of challenges. That's the habit zone, right? Like we're so good at getting to the gym, we're so good at like not putting cow milk or the secretions from a cow's udder into our coffee in the morning. We just drink it black, let's say, right? Right. So we're too good at things. The flow channel-I know I'm obscuring my face. Never do that if you're watching, right? The flow channel is an optimal balance of whatever our skill level is. We need to have some challenge in order to feel like something important is happening. If we're too overwhelmed, then we go get help, right? So that we can upskill to get back into that flow channel, the problem with habits is that it puts us in the easy triangle down here, where it just doesn't really take much from us. And if it is the case that every moment of every day, this could be it, we don't want to waste those moments, do we? Just mindlessly executing easy routines.

Jodi Wellman 17:07
This feels like a habit.

Mike Steger 17:09
Yeah, that's a good note to me.

Jodi Wellman 17:14
Cheers to flow. Love it.

Mike Steger 17:15
Okay. Boom. Solved habits.