For the Burned Out, Overcommitted, and Perpetually Drained | Robin Arzón

27:49I've played with self-talk a ton. In the first person, I used to have a lot of mantras in the first person, like I am strong, I am capable. And that is pretty good for me pre-race. But when I'm physically uncomfortable, I actually find you works better. So actually just this morning, I was doing a rowing session that was pretty grueling. It's actually called death by row so uh intuit what you will there and towards the end it got pretty gnarly and i i didn't gravitate towards the i statements i gravitated towards the you statements and i imagined that it were that there were you know folks telling me that who i really respected who i've trained with before and that psychological distancing takes me out of the physical pain and back into like, what are you capable of in this moment?

28:44I find this stuff personally, just endlessly fascinating. Psychological distancing, I believe, was developed by Ethan Cross from the University of Michigan, who's been on the show a bunch of times, about to come on again, who I just think is awesome. And the idea that you can take this ability that we all have to be a good coach, a good mentor, a good parent, and apply it to yourself in moments when you need it. To me, that's just kind of revolutionary. Beyond. And I think it's so amazing that it once you start to practice it in real world environments for you, it is absolutely a transferable skill.

29:22Like I can take that same. Of course, I apply it often in athletic context, but you can take that same skill set and apply it when your kid's having a tantrum or you're about to have a tough argument with your spouse or, you know, it transfers. furs. You mentioned something earlier about mantras. How often do you use them? What are they? For me, they are pressure tested phrases that I have created rituals around, usually in training. For me, it's something that I have to repeat and do hundreds of times and really try to anchor it in the desired state. So I'll give you an example before I deadlift.

30:04There's like a physical trigger for me. I will actually, this is going to sound really, I've actually never told anybody this and it's going to sound so extreme to your audience, but I will like slap my thighs and stomp the ground and tell myself, be here. And that be here is like, be here, like focus on pulling this bar off the ground and the physical slapping and stomping, um, is literally contributing to me bracing my core and breathing in and just being ready. And you might even observe, you know, folks will observe like Aaron judge, like throwing dirt before he's going to, you know, do, do something specific on the ball field.

30:45And like a lot of, a lot of athletes have these sequences. For me, it involves both physical and mantra-based. So a statement. It doesn't seem honestly that extreme to me. First of all, be here is going to resonate with every meditator everywhere. Second, the stomping the ground kind of reminds me of like, ever seen those, the indigenous folks from New Zealand, the Maori, they do these kind of like dances. That's what comes to mind when I hear you describe it. Yeah. And there actually is something so guttural, like ancestral about you. And I'm wearing lifting shoes. So they're they have a hard sole.

31:25And they when they connect with the ground, I imagine it's almost like a tap shoe. Like it's like you're here. So I hear that. And I'm like, let's freaking rock and roll. That seems scalable to lots of activities in life. Be here. Like I got to go have a hard conversation. Be here. Whatever. And it also helps with the catastrophizing of like, well, what if this happens? And then what if this happens? And whatever. It's just like beer. What are you going to control? Go do it. I was freaking out recently and I was kind of in a spiral on something. And my wife said, you should call Joseph Goldstein, who's my meditation teacher, which I recognize is super privileged that I can call this guy.

32:06And I did call the guy. And we're talking about something that the Dalai Lama once said, which is that if you if there's something you can do about the problem, there's nothing to worry about. You should just do the thing. And if there's nothing you can do about the problem, there's also nothing to worry about. And I'd heard that a million times. It never really resonated with me because I'm so attached to worry as a M.O., which has not served me well, honestly, or maybe has sometimes served me well, but usually tips over into stupidity. Now, though, I'm realizing, like, just break the problem into manageable parts.

32:44And if there's nothing to do about it, just write it off. I find that the paralysis of worry feels like it's productive. I'm so action-oriented, to a fault perhaps, that worry doesn't stand a chance. I truly use action as the antidote to those feelings of anxiety. Yes. As often, I didn't coin this phrase, but I often say action absorbs anxiety. I also often fail to live up to it. I will get stuck in the paralysis. Or the loop or something. The loop. Yes. A couple other questions about aspects of inner talk that I've heard you talk about. One thing I've heard you say is using jealousy as data. Like there's a kind of like there's a way we can co-opt our jealousy.

33:37Absolutely. You should notice when you have those moments of, oh, I wish I had that. And I don't mean like I wish I had that person's bag or shoes or whatever. It's more, I think it's more when you're observing a family construct or a social environment or an aptitude for something. You know, you see somebody who's effervescent and social and you're like, oh, I wish I wish I could be like him. I wish I could be like her. And at least that's how when I observe it in myself, when I see folks with qualities that I wish I had or life aspects of their life, work life, social life or personal life that I wish I had.

34:14And I really used to feel this when I was practicing law and I would notice friends who were perhaps in more creative fields and they had more control over their time or what I, you know, this is all perception. I perceived them to have not a care in the world and they could, you know, go to, you know, read for 90 minutes on a Tuesday if they wanted. And I really craved that freedom. And instead of shutting that down, I actually used, I observed for a few years when I was planning to leave law, I actually observed those moments. And then I used them to help paint the picture of where I wanted to land.

34:53Even if I didn't necessarily have the path to get there yet, I knew how I wanted to feel because I was jealous of other folks who I perceived to be already feeling that or experiencing those things. Yeah. So instead of getting stuck in useless, unhealthy jealousy, you were like, oh, no, this is pointing me where I need to go. Correct. And I do think it's a clue. And especially if it happens more than once. I think that's your intuition. The whispers that we hear are often the biggest clues that we ignore. And I think when we're thinking about passion and, you know, find your passion, I mean, I believe that the success leaves clues and whispers.

35:32And it's up to you whether you're going to go all in or not. Related to jealousy as data, I think you've also talked about this idea of, like, why not me? I ask myself that in journal about it every month, probably. Every quarter, for sure, when I'm doing my vision board. Say more about what that means. Well, I think that we often view greatness and achievement as other. And we are absorbing and inheriting lots of historical context of what we are capable of. And I especially think, I don't know, as a mom, as someone in their 40s, it's for sure changing a lot of those narratives that I feel like I've inherited.

36:18but when one feels stuck, I think that's a very helpful question to ask. Why not you to get unstuck? Why not you to become that person that has never done that thing? Again, a lot of sports analogies because that's what my world is. But you've got two people just broke world records at the London Marathon, getting sub two hours. Why not them, right? And now there's gonna be a cascade of folks who do that. Because that broke that bubble of potential. And that's an extreme example, right? Like the top of a sport in human history. But we can scale that and make it apply to our everyday lives. And I think the goal setting, anytime we're goal setting, that has to be a central question.

37:06Why not you? I'm curious, just personally curious, listening to you talk about your goal setting, vision board, striving for greatness. Like what's on there now? Like, what are your goals? That's interesting because I just released, if you had asked me this a year and a half ago when I was creating my cookbook, it would have been my cookbook. Because I thought, oh my gosh, there's no way as somebody who's not a classically trained chef, I'm going to be able to have a cookbook that is received. And it's vegan, right? It's a plant-based cookbook. It felt like the little engine that could. And it did make the New York Times bestseller list.

37:39And I was so deeply proud of that because I didn't think it was possible at all. Like, I was like, there's just no chance. And that's okay. I'm going to, I poured so much love into that project, not thinking it was going to get some, you know, button of achievement on the other side. I genuinely did it because I wanted to bring folks into my home and into my kitchen and my point of view on fueling intentionally as a plant-based athlete. Now for this year, I am giving myself the freedom of not having a short list of, I got to do this and I got to do that. You know, there are unscripted projects that I want to pursue.

38:16I, you know, my husband and I have a, have a media company, Swagger Studios, and we have some seeds that we're planting. I always want to continue expanding into the lifestyle space, beauty, fashion, but it's not like, I think that you have to let things breathe. And I think I want to pursue things out of hunger, not thirst. And I'm just waiting for a few pangs of hunger. It's admirable in my view that you can wait instead of just hurling yourself into the next thing because there has to be a next thing. I'm so aware of energy as currency, my own energy as currency. And the projects that I work on now, I want them to really reflect that hell yes.

39:00And if I'm just going into the next thing of like, oh, okay, well, I'm an author now, so now I should do this. Or now I'm in, I wrote a cookbook, so shouldn't I do this? And it's like, wait, do I want to? Does the world want me to? Like, what? And that pressure, I actually think people don't talk enough about the pressure of creating the next hit. Because success can be just as intimidating as getting to that first successful point. And I'm just going to reclaim my agency back and do it on my terms. Meaning just you don't feel like every next thing you do has to succeed just because you've succeeded in the past.

39:38You're willing to do things that might be out of the box or not guaranteed to succeed because that's what you want to do. Correct. Or and especially in environments, industries, verticals where I'm not expected to be there. And it's like, but I am so high. I think a lot of people listening to this might be like, you know, where does where do you get the courage to do that? Because, yeah, I think a lot of us struggle with, you know, finding the audacity. I do think some of that comes from my parents. I they both have pretty audacious stories. I'm a first generation Latina. My dad was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in the Bronx.

40:20because my mom is a Cuban refugee born in Cuba and came over in her teenage years, not speaking a lick of English. And so their stories are really, when I think about their stories and I hear them tell it, like, how dare I not? Like, truly. And I, my kids better be audacious. Like, I didn't work this hard for them to cower in the corner. Like, you better find your thing. I think that I walk into rooms with a straight spine because I genuinely think I have a thousand abuelas behind me being like, we didn't go through all that for you to cower in the corner. And even if the energy, you know, of my kids, for example, is softer, is subtler, is, you know, it doesn't have to be loud, but it's got to be yours.

41:03It's interesting, this thousand abuelas thing, because I think I've heard you say it in R.I.D. I think about it all the time. I think the old me who was nihilistically skeptical and sarcastic, I'm still a lot of that. But I think that idea of like conjuring your ancestors I might not have grokked it, but now I really do. The idea that, I mean, my family tree is actually not super dignified. Lots of depressed, anxious people who, you know, like one of my ancestors was a deserter from the Civil War. So I don't know how much strength I generate necessarily from all of my ancestors. But the idea that that you do have a wind at your at your sails and there are a lot of actual people in my ancestral line who did amazing things.

41:54And it's not that they're not necessarily that I have a metaphysical belief that they're here with me right now, but I can conjure them to produce a tailwind. I think that's kind of what you're pointing at. Well, I mean, I do have spiritual beliefs that they kind of are around me and I see signs of it, but I choose to see signs of it. But even if you don't, it's not necessarily that for me that I look back and all of them were perfect icons and they were written into the history books. I actually think in some ways I'm doing things differently and I'm breaking ancestral curses and lines and that they're looking at me being like, yeah, exactly.

42:31Because you stepped into your purpose. And like folks who follow me in my lineage are going to be like, yeah, I did it differently because she messed up in that way. And here we are. And I actually think that that's a beautiful thing. I mean, I guess I don't have faith metaphysically. You know, I can't pound the table and say my grandpa Sam is in this room right now. Well, this isn't going to be a medium, don't worry. I've done that on this show. I have. But actually, in part, doing having a medium on the show and knowing people in my life who I do take seriously, who do take that seriously. It hasn't imbued in me some sort of dogmatic belief that it's true, but it's a kind of openness to like, yeah.

43:09OK, so if Grandpa Sam, who was a lovely man, but flawed and I think cut off a few of his fingers to avoid going to World War Two and like used to have bouts of depression and was unable to get out of the bed. He did the best he could in the circumstances in which he came up in viciously anti-Semitic America in the 1920s and 30s and 40s. And he and a patriarchal, not very psychologically oriented society with a guy who was clearly neurodivergent. He did his best. And so the best version of him is on the other side, maybe, if you want to say that. cheering me on thinking, okay, this guy is doing a better job and had more resources.

43:56Yeah. And what's the harm in that? I guess that's where I approach it. Like, if it helps me go into a business meeting and ask for more money, good. If I'm able to speak a truth that resonates to somebody at Peloton and then they walk into their business meeting with more confidence, good. And I know that I'm here to light fires in people's lives. And that makes me really proud to contribute to that energy. Like somebody needs a friend in the group chat that's going to be writing in all caps. And guess what? That's me.

44:33You always know when Robin has entered the chat because it's caps lock. Or at least one or two exclamation points. I imagine you using a lot of emojis too, like fire emojis. I do, I do. But I like to, I do not like the trend of being grammatically incorrect. I have I use punctuation, which probably really dates me as a elder millennial. Right. Well, I'm even as established older than that. I cannot stand misspelling, especially in an era of like autocorrect. We should be able to get this right. A word from Eight Sleep before we get back to Robin. For anybody working on habit formation, the hardest part of any habit is showing up every day, especially the ones with no immediate payoff.

45:20Sleep can be the worst offender in this regard. You cannot will yourself into deep sleep. You can't even tell in the moment whether you got any. The Pod, which is a product made by our sponsor today, 8 Sleep, is a smart mattress cover that goes on top of your existing mattress. It heats and cools each side of the bed independently and automatically, anywhere from 55 to 110 degrees. The AI, which is called Autopilot, learns your patterns night to night and adjusts on its own. You don't have to remember to do anything. You just sleep. What I like about this when I think about it in the frame of habits is that it's the rare habit you don't actually have to manually recommit to every night.

45:59The system runs itself and every morning you get a clean read on how you actually slept, which makes the invisible habit visible. And the way they report it is very elegant. It's on an app on your phone. As mentioned, You don't have to wear anything. It just tracks it for you right there on your phone. And it really gives you a sense of how you're doing so that you can make better decisions and get better sleep. And the fact that it cools your body down and then actually, if you set it the right way, will warm you back up in the morning. You can also set an alarm and it will gently vibrate to wake you up in a way that isn't super jarring.

46:36And if, like me, you're a snorer, it actually can raise your head up so that changes your airways and can reduce the likelihood of snoring. It's really quite an amazing product. My wife, my son, and I are all marveling over it in the days since we received it. You can use the code DanHarris at 8sleep.com slash DanHarris for up to$350 off the pod 5. 30-day trial if it's not for you.

47:09Okay, the last bucket of questions I have for you is about motivation. One of your arguments is that motivation is not a prerequisite for action. Like the action can precede the motivation. Can you just say more about that? I mean, I'll say much more. I think motivation is absolute nonsense. I think that we feel entitled to motivation and we really, really need to recalibrate that. We feel like we're going to have this overwhelming emotion or state of being, of feeling motivated to take action when it's the action that creates the momentum and it's the momentum that creates the feeling of motivation.

47:50And sometimes that motivation never comes. Sometimes you are going through the motions and that feeling of motivation never comes. And I experience that all the time in my own workouts. and as somebody who does that professionally for a living i can assure you that waiting for the feeling of motivation you're you're likely going to be stuck um so you have to start anyway i mentioned joseph goldstein earlier my meditation teacher has been a massive impact on me who has had a massive impact on me he has he teaches in these little expressions these kind of pithy phrases. And one of them is effort creates energy.

48:27Love that. And I mean, it's scientifically true, I think. And we I hear the motivation myth most often from folks who haven't even tried yet or tried for a week, you know, especially in a movement context, tried for a week, tried for two weeks and then they fall off. It's like, what would happen if you stopped giving up? You wouldn't be waiting for motivation. Let's talk about a movement context because exercise is this thorny area for many people. They just like, just can't get their shit together to do it. I don't have that problem for me. If I don't do it, the stakes are so high because I'll just get depressed and anxious.

49:10And so like, I know that I need to do it. So I don't have to struggle with motivation, but I have a lot lot of sympathy for people who do struggle with that motivation. So what would you say? What do you say to the thousands of people who come up to you and say like, yeah, I love you on Peloton, but I just can't get my ass on the bike or my feet on the tread? Practically, how do you do it if you don't have the motivation? Lower the barrier to entry. Instead of telling yourself it has to be whatever you perceived it, a 60 minute tough thing or even a 30 minute, you know, moderately tough thing, make it five.

49:46I would rather see somebody do get back, like create less breaks in the chain. And for me personally, I don't have more than two breaks in the chain. I haven't taken, you know, more than two days off, you know, except for the birth of my two kids. And that's because I lower the barrier to entry. I'm not asking folks to, you know, leap onto a tall building. It's like, can you jump onto a shoebox? Probably most days. and liberating ourselves from the preconceived notion of what a quality workout looks like, I encourage folks to create a minimally viable movement practice that they can do on most days.

50:28And when folks are goal setting, they say, I'm going to be the 5 a.m. workout person, but they're doing it at 7 p.m. over cocktails and dinner and they feel great. Like, set your alarm at 430 in the morning on Monday and then decide what the goal is going to be. Like, make the goal when you're in the state with the potential barriers to, you know, with the potential friction. This thing you said about lowering the bar, as you know, there's a lot of evidence for this. There's tons of research around what works in habit formation. And we should say from the jump, habit formation is diabolically difficult.

51:06The, I think, skeleton key for all of this that unlocks it is exactly what you said. do it sometimes people recommend for running for example just start by putting your shoes near the door or go around the block with meditation i often say start with one minute and just just and and also daily ish doesn't have to be every day but don't as you say don't miss two days in a row this mixture of um structure with doability is i think and the evidence seems to support this the route to establishing an abiding habit. Yeah. Like don't let perfectionism enter the conversation because that's when you give yourself the out and then it becomes, oh, well, I didn't do any of this in the ways that I the exact perfect way that I envisioned.

51:55So now let me just throw it all out. It's like, no, claw back to one, you know, one semblance. What is what is a shade of what you were trying to paint with? Like that, I would like to see people do more often. What are your thoughts on the fresh start effect, the idea that we can harness the power of Mondays or a new year or a new month or a birthday to get ourselves moving? Use it and then plan for the messy middle. Using Monday as the example. Use it. Like when you feel motivated, when you have that fresh start, when it's Monday, when it's January 1st, when it's your birthday. Use it, but plan the schedule and the routine for the Wednesday at 3 p.m.

52:41when you know you are not going to feel great and make that the basis of your practice. And what can, you know, I will leave notes for myself. Like I will write things in my notes app and actually paste them into my calendar for the days that I know it's going to be like, you're not going to want to. And that like plan for it. Plan to plan to not feel like it instead of pretending like you're always going to feel like it. A couple of much of what you just said is also backed up by the evidence. One of the other conclusions that kind of comes screaming out of the data around the research into behavior change, as I understand it, is flexibility is really important, like planning for the messy middle in a way that like, okay, you might feel like shit.

53:27So maybe that's the day that you're going to do less. And so you have this elasticity in the system that allows you to succeed in a lasting way. And then the other thing is, and we've talked about this earlier, but self-compassion or positive self-talk, having an inner coach instead of an inner drill sergeant is a great way to keep yourself motivated without burning yourself out. The elasticity piece of it is so beautiful because it also takes into account these elements of burnout that we were talking about. Like you might have the time to do what you planned in terms of movement, but your nervous system might be on the fritz.

54:06Like women hormonally, like we might be going through a lot. Like your kids might've been up. You're, you know, you don't know what life is going to throw at you, but that minimum viable link in the chain goes a long way into bridging towards the identity of someone who keeps the promises they make to themselves. And I think that that is worth the effort. I have worked my way through my voluminous list of questions for you. What did I miss? Anything you were hoping to talk about or would like to talk about that we didn't get to? Like what's on your mind these days that I didn't ask you about? Well, what is on my mind lately is using breath.

54:48I'm a longtime meditator. And now I'm exploring ways in which breath work could more easily get me into different desired states. So it's not just necessarily the mantra or the slapping of the thigh, but it's like, how can I train myself through different breath work to get into what I know is, you know, I know if I get into my, you know, start saying my mantra and it's a Vedic meditation practice, like I can be in that state pretty quickly now. And it's like, OK, like, how can I have a cheat code into different desired states and especially as a parent kind of using the physicality of parenting to be a better parent?

55:30I think you have toddlers. I have a five year old and two year old. OK, so a toddler and a kindergartner and you're being pulled in two different directions simultaneously by two little rugrats. And maybe you're losing your patience. Maybe you're tired, whatever. in a moment like that you can do kind of like breath work like free-range breath work yeah but also it's the other way it's if i get home and i'm tired and i can use breath work to like oxygenate and maybe similar to like a wim hof or something type of method that people might be familiar with i'm sure people are familiar with to give them the 20 minutes they just want with me on the floor and that's where my mind has been going lately it's like how i spend so much time training for races it's like how can i make this applicable to make create more meaning in the moments that matter for me and that's having energy you know for my kids how does the breath work work so usually i mean i'm still figuring out a process around it but um if my husband is home or if our nanny is home it's like me going into my into the bedroom for 10 minutes to like try to lie down and do more like breath of fire type stuff and then coming out and and having a little bit more energy for for them i don't actually know what breath of fire is so i think it's i mean i think it's like a yoga a yogic practice where i mean you're essentially like i'm like by the end of it i'm like literally sweating i don't know i couldn't explain it to you because i have to bring up videos and stuff to actually do it but it's energizing let's just say that i was talking at my shrink the other day uh and he was recommending um i think it's four seven eight breathing uh developed by this guy dr andrew weill uh who i don't know andrew uh you should come on the show um where you it's an inhale count of four hold for seven seconds and then breathe out through your mouth with your tongue behind your front teeth and you just do that a bunch of times and apparently it kind of like resets your nervous system.

57:36That's kind of a calming. Yeah, I think it's a calming thing. So it sounds like it'd be quite different. Well, there are a lot of paths to it. And I think that's what's so cool. And that's just where my curiosity is right now. Can you be teaching Peloton in, say, 20 years? Yeah, because I plan to be a 90-year-old baddie being able to deadlift my husband. And you're welcome to join me. can you deadlift him now yes more than him more than more i could deadlift him plus have you actually deadlifted him i wouldn't subject him to that but his his equivalent weight is kind of where the joke came from got it okay yeah i'm sure my my wife would like to do a lot of things to me but probably not that listen i want i really do um we're all steeped in the longevity game right now and how we want to play it is up to us.

58:30But I think Peloton is a pioneer and a leader in the space and making it accessible and efficient. And we're increasingly informing ourselves as instructors. I'm a head instructor and with the team of training specialists. We're really trying to marry the technology with stuff that makes sense in people's lives. And you're not going anywhere. I'm glad to hear that because I use it all the time. Can you also So just remind everybody of the names of your books and also your podcast. Yes. So my podcast is Project Swagger, your weekly transformation toolkit in 30 minutes or less. My most recent book is Eat to Hustle.

59:06It's a plant-based protein packed cookbook directly from my kitchen with recipes that I have pressure tested over 12 years of being a plant-based athlete. I have two children's books, Strong Baby and Strong Mama, with a lot of the values that you've heard today. And I have a journal called Welcome Hustler with prompts that I used to transition from law to wellness. And my very first book was Shut Up and Run, which is a running manual. Robin. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. A quick word from the sponsor of today's episode, Eight Sleep. They call themselves the Sleep Fitness Company and they make a product called The Pod.

59:48The Pod is a smart mattress cover that goes on top of your existing mattress. It heats and cools each side of the bed independently and automatically from 55 to 110 degrees. It tracks your sleep stages, heart rate, HRV, respiratory rate, all without a ring or a watch or a chest strap. The AI learns your sleep patterns night to night and adjust on its own. Eight Sleep says the pod is backed by 1 billion hours of sleep data. The company's own testing reports users get up to 34 % more deep sleep and up to 44 % faster fall asleep time. Quick note, the pod is not a medical device. It shouldn't be used to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

1:00:34One thing worth mentioning, if you're sitting on an HSA or FSA balance, Eight Sleep partners with TruMed, so you may be eligible to use those funds toward the pod and save about 30 % on average. You'd qualify through one of their practitioners online, worth checking before you buy. Use the code DANHARRIS at eightsleep.com slash DANHARRIS for up to$350 off of the pod five. There's a 30-day at-home trial if you sleep on it and decide that it's not for you.

1:01:13Thank you so much for listening to or watching the show. And thank you so much to everybody who works so hard to make this show a reality. 10 % Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Also, one last thing before you go, remember to sign up for my app, which is called 10 % with Dan Harris. You can sign up for the app over on danharris.com.

1:01:47On the app, you'll find a growing library of meditations from many of the world's greatest meditation teachers. Add free access to this podcast and our voluminous back catalog. Exclusive live stream events and robust discussion threads connect with me and with our teachers and our team and one another. There's a free 14-day trial if you want to try before you buy.