Increase Your Happiness & Lifespan By Focusing On THIS | Michael Pollan EP 232

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:53What would you suggest for people to overcome the feeling of loneliness? Meals. The institution of meals. Eat with other people. Don't eat alone. Find somebody invite someone out to have a meal with or cook and invite people into your home so much happens at the table that isn't about fueling your body and That there is a kind of connection that happens when we eat together. That's really wonderful When we share food out of the same common, you know dish we're connecting that's a connection Sharing food is a very powerful bond between people. It has been for like thousands of years Why do world leaders always have banquets, right?

1:32Going back a thousand years, it's a time where, you know, you don't shoot someone over a banquet table. You know, you put down your arms and you pick up your fork and knife. You connect. You connect. I just think the meal is one of the great institutions. And it helps us deal not only with healthier eating, because you're not going to eat junk food. You're not going to eat a microwavable food in front of someone else. You're going to cook something or order in and eat the same thing. That sharing puts us on the same mental wavelength. It's almost like in training ourselves to someone else that we're eating the same thing together.

2:03When you eat alone, you eat mindlessly. You're in front of the TV or you're reading something and you just don't know what you're doing. I mean, think about, you know, you're in front of the TV with a bag of potato chips. Like, you don't even realize you've eaten a bag. Also, manners automatically helps people control their appetites. People don't want to act like pigs at a table. Yeah. Whereas when you eat alone, you do act like a pig. So getting away from solitary eating, we're looking at not just the health effects of food, although those are very important, but there are all these other effects.

2:34There are ways to align your eating with your values. And we all have different values. And some people, food is just going to be about health. But for other people, it's about their relationship to nature, for example. You know, are they eating organically or sustainably? Is that what matters to them? And for others, it's about ethics. Do I feel comfortable eating animals or these animals? So there are moral and ethical questions that come. So much happens at the table. And so where I came out is there's no one right way to eat. There's probably a right way to eat if health is your only concern.

3:11But if you're thinking about these other things, and eating for pleasure is the perfectly legitimate reason, it argues for slightly different kinds of food. How does someone come up with their eating values? Well, that's a process of kind of self-inquiry. So what really matters to you when you think about food? Are you someone who thinks a lot about nature and climate change? There's a way to eat if you really want to make your contribution to reduce climate change. There are foods that have a big climate footprint and foods that don't. But maybe you're concerned about the health of the soil. And what about social justice, the health of the workers in the food system?

3:48That argues for slightly different choices, too. What's great about food though is that we're not stuck with one choice. We now, we're very lucky because there are now, you know, there's organic food, there's conventional food, there's what's called regenerative food grown on very healthy soils, that we can, we have an opportunity to express our values by our food choices. That's a great vote to have, you know, we're really lucky to have that vote. Because in many parts of life we don't have that vote to make.

4:30Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

5:20Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.