SUMMER REPLAY: RICH LITVIN: Finding What You Want

22:15you know i think i think we're in in a moment too where the coaching model is becoming more and more adopted as the leadership model so that if you're in a corporation or you started a business the big part of your role is coaching the people that are your teammates but people struggle with this because of that second part where you said bold enough to say what other people won't say. How did you get to that place where you had more courage? Is that just something that you either have it or you don't? Or did you kind of hang yourself out there, not sure what was going to happen, and then just through enough exposure, you got good at it?

22:55Well, let me tell you an embarrassing story first. I was talking to my team the other day, and I realized we were just reviewing the year. Where are we going with business? What are we up to? What are we going to do next year. And it dawned on me that my zone of genius is coaching. And I use that phrase in my team, what's your zone of genius? And my job is to help them find the thing that they're better at than anyone else on the planet and go deeper and deeper into their zone of genius and let everything else go away. So we'll bring other people in to do those other things. And it dawned on me that if my zone of genius is coaching, why aren't I coaching my team?

23:28And I said to them, I said to all of them, you know, my clients pay$100 ,000 to work with me. But if I coach you, then it might look to you like, well, why would I want to give$100 ,000 value to someone on my team I'm actually paying? Well, because they can make decisions that can generate millions of dollars for us. And so I said it with a little bit of embarrassment because it only dawned on me the other day that, wow, I have not been bringing that magic into my team and I need to do that more. you started by asking about how do you become bold you just have to lean into an edge courage the word courage comes from the french and before that the latin core which means heart and so my definition of courage is following your heart now that's not easy but if your heart tells you to say this to do this then you need to lean into that edge even if it's to start off by saying hey i feel a little bit nervous to say this, but here's what my heart is telling me to say.

24:28Then you're in. That's so good. Megan actually taught me a great hack that I've been using for a couple of years. And that is when I'm about to say something bold to say, correct me if I'm wrong, but here's what it seems like, you know, because sometimes I am wrong, right? And so it doesn't have to be them being defensive, but they can kind of try it on and see if it fits. Actually, I have to give credit where credit's due. That comes from Martha Beck. And what she said is, now tell me where I'm wrong. And then she'll fill in, you know, whatever her observation is. So it just leaves that door open.

25:00You know, if you are wrong, it's like, I want to have a conversation about this with you, which I think is a great invitation to a deeper conversation. I've started using handwritten images when I'm running a session with clients. But I was teaching something the other day and I'm using hand-drawn images. And my AV person told me the power of a hand-drawn image is that people think that the thought process isn't yet complete. So it draws them in. If you do a webinar that has beautiful images that your graphic designers worked on for months and they look perfect, well, where's the space for me?

25:36It might be a great idea. It might be interested. But there's not much space for me to come in. And I think the start of that, when you're saying to somebody, correct me if I'm wrong, what do you think about this, invites them in and now there's some connection. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, absolutely. So you're working with people at a very high level, as you said, they're coming to you as Olympic athletes or founders or whatever their particular profession is. what is it that people can't do for themselves or that keeps them, I guess is really a better question. What keeps them from reaching their potential?

26:11They have, they've already reached a level of success before they decide to engage you, but there's something they just can't get to. And why is that? Or what is that? So there's two things. First of all, now that I say this, Megan, you're going to realize, oh yeah, I'm wearing glasses. I'm talking about you, Megan, who are wearing glasses, anyone who's listening to this. But a moment before, you'd forgotten you're wearing glasses because those of us who do, we forget about them. But now that I say that, you'll be aware of the rims of your glasses and you can see them in your vision. But in a few moments, you'll have forgotten that again.

26:44Sometimes I come into my house and I have prescription sunglasses and I forget I'm wearing sunglasses. It's the middle of the day. And then I start to, it's four or five in the afternoon. I was like, it's getting dark in a bit. Turn on the lights. And I realized, oh, I'm still wearing my sunglasses. and I'd forgotten. And so everyone is looking out through lenses on the world and their lens has been created at a young age and they've learned other things and different lenses have gone in front of it like that time you go and sit in the optometrist and all those little glass things come in front of your eyes.

27:12And we have all of that in front of us and we don't know it. And so the power of coaching is doing this, pulling it down so someone can look out and go, oh, wow, this is what the world looks like. And we don't know that. We forget that. So that's the first piece to this, that we forget we're wearing these lenses. With regard to highly successful people, I'm writing a book right now called Beyond Success. And this is not a book about how to become successful. It's about the unique challenges that very successful people face on the other side of success. So the thing about success at that level, here's something that most people don't know.

27:48If you sell a business for eight or nine figures, there's an emotion that occurs quite quickly afterwards and it's depression. And most people have no idea. When you're an entrepreneur and you've created a business, your identity is part of that business and that business is no longer there. Well, who am I? What do I have left in the world? And so, so many entrepreneurs jump straight back into a business without giving themselves a break. So there are all sorts of things that go on at a high level for very successful people. look, these are quality problems. Don't get me wrong. It's not for everybody, but I happen to work with these particular people and my clients tend to be people making a big difference in the world.

28:26So I love spending time with them, but they do face these quality problems around what next. Here's one of the other ones that happens if you're highly successful. There's a single addiction in this country that we praise people for. If you're addicted to alcohol, to drugs, to sex, to the internet. We know it's a bad thing. There's all sorts of help you can get to support you. If you're addicted to work, everything is set up to support you in doing more of it. You get praise, you get accolades, you get awards, you make money, you get success, you get well-known, you become famous. So our whole world is built to keep us addicted to this thing we call work, especially if you have a job that you love or is making a big impact.

29:11and I see you two nodding, it's very easy to not see that side of thing because it feels good. Well, I'm making more of an impact today. And at some point we burn out along the way and highly successful people are susceptible to this because especially if they have a job or a business that's making a real difference, at some point they just hit rock bottom and they don't know it until it's too late. Wow. Absolutely. You know, one of the things we hear a lot from clients is, well, I don't really have any hobbies. You know, this is an answer to the question. What do you do when you're not working?

29:47I don't really have any hobbies because I just love my work so much. It is my hobby, you know, and that's such a red flag all the time. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me, right. It's just, it's so common. And, and the addiction thing is really difficult because, you know, for those of us who have kids at home, for those of us who have other things that are not where they're important, but they're not where we're getting those accolades. They're not where we can check things off the list. They're not where we feel successful or affirmed because it's a long game, you know, marriage, parenting, other things like that.

30:26It's very challenging because you get addicted to that dopamine reward cycle that happens in the brain. And it's like almost nothing else can compete with that. So when somebody comes to you and that's where they're starting from, and maybe they know they're out of balance or maybe they don't, how do you help them find balance when there really is an addictive component to it? Yeah. I joke sometimes, you know, I can go spend another hour in my office and I can come up with an idea that can make me hundreds of thousands of dollars. Right. But I can go spend an hour with my wife. And if I'm not fully present, or if I'm not really paying attention to her, it will have a negative return.

31:06Not just it won't make me$100 ,000, it'll actually backfire. But what happens over time is that people don't see that. Again, I said self-awareness is really important. A lot people don't have self-awareness. Well, so gradually over time, I just spend a little bit more time in the office and a little bit more time, a little bit less time with the wife and the kids or the husband. And over time, we spend up more and more time doing that thing that we think we love. And then there comes a moment when the partner asks for a divorce, the kids have stopped talking to us. The kids are now grown up in their twenties and they don't see us anymore.

31:35We wonder why don't they want to see us? Well, that tiny little gap that started at a young age has grown too big and you can't cross to any longer. So I don't know if I believe in balance. I'm not sure I believe in this thing called - I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. But what I do believe is you do need things that nurture your soul. You do need things that nurture your spirit. and as much as doing the work that you love can feel great, it doesn't always nurture your soul. And here's the other problem that goes with that. If I put on my calendar that Friday's a day off, the problem is, as someone who really works well on a schedule, that when it comes to Friday, it's my day off.

32:14I think, well, I just go to the office in the morning and check email. Why not? I've got a free day. But then I come out an hour or so later because I've checked a couple of emails and they took me down a rabbit hole. And in the middle of the day, I get a text from a client and I start answering that. I've discovered that I need to schedule my time off. I need to have things that happen in my time off so that I can actually enjoy the time off. Because otherwise that magnetic pull back to my work, which I do love, is really dangerous for me. So what do you say to the client that comes to you? And this would be many of the people listening here.

32:48And frankly, it's us from time to time. But what do you say to the person who comes to you and there is no margin for anything other than work. And they're frustrated, but they really think that balance or more of this stuff that feeds their soul is just impossible. Maybe somebody else could do it. Rich, that's fine for you, but I can't do it. What do you say, or how do you help them kind of rethink that, reframe that, and begin to pursue a more holistic life? like first I'd probably say you need me more than you think you do if you really think that you don't have space for that because there are people who are more successful than you whoever you are who definitely have the ability to do more things than you're doing right now that's just the first thing I want to provoke them a little bit so deliberately trying to provoke their thinking second thing that often happens to me a client starts working with me and they say well let's get started I've got all these things I want to do well no let's first find out what do you really want?

33:46It's the question I said earlier, right? What do you want? And we go deep into that question about what they want. There's a story about Warren Buffett and Buffett's pilot says to him, hey, Mr. Buffett, can you help me? I really see how successful you are. You set these goals, you accomplish all these things. What help could you give me? Would you be willing to help me? And Warren Buffett says, yeah, sure. Make a list of the 30 things that you really want to accomplish in life. And he goes away for a few days, does some reflection, does some thinking, comes back a few days later and says, here's my list.

34:16These are the 30 things I want to accomplish. Buffett says, well, what are the top five on the list? And what are the most important ones? And he goes away and thinks about it and comes back and says, here's the top five, here's the bottom 25, but I don't want to let go of them. They're still staying on my list. And Warren Buffett says, no, here's your problem. That bottom 25 just became your avoid at all costs list. and that I think is the key for people who say well it's all right for you I haven't got the time to do this they're trying to do too many things we're all going to be stretched too thin and avoid all costless doesn't mean you have to avoid it out all costs forever it just means at this moment in time if spending time with your kids is important and doing these things in business is important then you have to put these other things to one side and most people are afraid to do that.

35:08So they dabble in a bunch of different things and then they can't ever have success in any of them. I always say to clients, it's not magic math. I'm not going to tell you something where I have some kind of trick up my sleeve that will enable you to do all 30 things. That would be dishonest. It's really about getting clear on what's most important and then being able to connect with why they're important and discipline yourself to leave the other ones alone because there are only 24 hours in a day. Nobody gets more than that. Sometimes we think there's some magic formula out there, some productivity solution, some planning solution, some goal achievement methodology that if I know it, then I can, I get the cheat code or I can still do all 30 when most people could only do five.

35:52And there's a kind of arrogance and there's a kind of unwillingness to accept, I think the limitations of life. And I really feel like those limitations are a gift in many ways because it forces us to identify the five. You know, if our time was limitless, it wouldn't be good in many ways. I've read every time management book under the sun. David Allen, you name it, I've read them all. And I used to teach this stuff to clients. What I found out is if you work with someone who's really successful and struggling because they've got too much on their plate, and you give them some great time management tools, they're grateful for two weeks.

36:29But what you've done is help them expand their plate. And two weeks later, they can now do more stuff with their time. And it hasn't freed them up. So if I was only allowed to take a single coaching tool into the future, you gave me one choice of one coaching tool forever for the rest of my life. The one I would take is the energy audit. And I do this for myself every 90 days with my team. I sit down and I grab a piece of paper, put a line down the center. and on one side I write down what drains me of energy and on the other side I write down what energizes me and I make a list of all the things the people the places the thoughts the habits rituals rituals tend to be more energizers but all of those things in my life and I make a list of them and people is their top of the list because people's uncomfortable sometimes there are people in our life who drain us of energy and so we need to look at that and so the first thing I do is make a list of the things that drain me, the things that energize me.

37:27Then if I'm working with a client, all I need to do is take one thing that drains them of energy and find a way to either remove it from their life or turn it into something that energizes them and they have a bit more energy. So whatever your client wants to accomplish right now is limited actually by the amount of capacity for energy that they have in their life. And you find ways to give them a little bit more energy, a little bit more energy, a little more energy, then you're suddenly removing the cap on what's possible. And they'll come to you and say, without any coaching around the goals and things they want to accomplish, oh my God, listen to what just happened.

38:01Listen to what I just created. Because you're helping to create more energy in their life. Energy is a real key. I love that. That's a helpful distinction. I have a friend, you know him, who was diagnosed with, I wouldn't say it's terminal, but a very serious chronic illness. And his doctors finally told him, they said, you can work two hours a day, period. And he's now reporting after six months of this, best thing that ever happened to him. Because now he's focused on the stuff that truly matters. And he's realized that everything else is just kind of noise. It's just, he's getting a psychological benefit from it, but it's not additive to anything personally or professionally.

38:43So I love that idea. I do too. Tim Ferriss asked that as a question. I asked my clients once in a while, but I got that idea from Tim Ferriss. If you're only allowed to work one hour a week, if you're only allowed to work one hour a month, it just sounds ridiculous. One hour a month, that's all you're allowed. Well, what would you do? Well, again, it's a thinking exercise, but it gets you thinking about, well, what is really, really important?

39:11I want to go back, Rich, to something that you said a few minutes ago about feeding your soul. I find that just like asking people, what do you want? That's a hard question to answer for people, especially the people whose default answer would be, oh, my work. You know, my work is the answer to every question. You know, sometimes we joke about Christians that, you know, it's like every answer is Jesus, you know, and it's like, it's not. Every answer isn't Jesus. Sometimes there's other answers. And I'm wondering how you help people to discern what feeds their soul if they've been disconnected from their soul for a long time.

39:46That's a good question. One of the most powerful coaching tools is a really simple one. And it's the art of gentle reflection. So what I would do in that case is I would say to somebody, okay, every night for the next 30 nights, have a piece of paper by the side of your bed. and before you go to bed, ask yourself, what did I do today that fed my soul? What did I do today that nurtured my spirit? And let's talk in 30 days. And in 30 days, you'll have some information. If I ask you now, what feeds your soul? It's hard to do. It becomes a bit intellectual. But if every night you reflect, what did I do?

40:22Oh, you know what? I had 20 minutes reading to my son before he went to sleep. That felt so great. You know what? Today I went for a walk with my wife along the beach. You'll gather some evidence over time. So I can't come up with a list of things that will nurture people's spirit. It's different for each of us. But if they use some self-awareness and this gentle reflection every night for 30 nights, asking themselves, what fed my soul today? What nurtured my spirit? They'd come up with some information that we'd have to talk about 30 days later. Was that a journey for you to kind of get in touch with that yourself?

40:53I mean, were you, like most of us, kind of addicted to your work and had to excavate your soul at some point? Just so to be clear, there's no past tense at all. I'm in it as much as you guys are. We teach what we most need to learn. This is the most challenging thing for me. It really is. We've just had two weeks off. I've been with the kids. My kids are younger than you. I was 11 and 13. I'm realizing as they went back this morning, I'm realizing I don't give myself any space for me. I'm a great dad, but it means in some ways I'm going to catch that. I'm not necessarily a great dad because I'm not necessarily modeling for them what I'd want and I'm saying this as I'm thinking it out loud in this real in real time I'm with them a lot when they're away we play together we go on trips together but I didn't model for them I need time for myself and so today they go back to school I've got this week there's nothing on my agenda apart from being with you guys this week and I'm it's a little bit of time for me to to slow down and reflect but I'm realizing, oh yeah, that's, that's another area where I need to get better at to actually to model to my kids that I take time for myself, even when I'm with them.

41:58I would echo that. I think sometimes, you know, people come to us and are a little bit surprised and pleased that we don't have it all together. You know, and I think the, the more we confess that and acknowledge it, I think it gives people the permission to be honest with where they're at and then to pursue growth. It's not about becoming perfect or you're not going to reach this milestone where bam, now everything just works. You know, it doesn't work at a higher level. You know, one of the things that I find personally is challenging about the things that feed my soul is that those things tend to be things that require my full presence and attention.

42:37They're not things that I can sort of do like multitasking and feeding your soul. That's not a thing. Those are antithetical. They require my presence. They're often physically engaging in some way. Maybe I'm knitting or I'm gardening or I'm on a walk or I'm having coffee with somebody that I really care about or find fascinating. And personally, one of the struggles that I have is that the digital environment, in particular, social media for me, like Instagram, I'm very visual and I love aesthetics and all that kind of stuff is so dopamine centric, you know, like you could just get hit after hit after hit and there's no end to it.

43:19There's, it's not like, oh, now I'm done with Instagram. You know, that's not a thing unless it's so late that your eyes are crossing in bed. How do you help your clients or pretend I'm your client? And I have this kind of compulsive or addictive relationship sometimes with technology, with my screens, social media in my case. And I know that that, you know, when I get done being on Instagram, I've been off now for maybe five weeks, that when I get off of Instagram, I feel empty. You know, even though it's beautiful and stimulating and exciting, I feel empty. I don't feel connected to anybody or anything particularly.

43:55How can I change kind of what's going on in my brain so that I have the capacity to engage in things that I know ultimately feed my soul, but they're like a slow burn, you know, they're not a fast bonfire? That's a kind of muddled question, but help me, Rich. I feel it. I feel it. We live in a world of empty calories. You can eat ice cream, zone out on Netflix, spend hours on Instagram. And it's so hard to go to the gym sometimes. There's massive resistance to going to the gym. I've never come back from the gym and regretted going to the gym. Absolutely. Yep. So true. eating too much ice cream pizza netflix on some show i don't really want to watch or instagram those are the empty calories you said how can i rewire my brain i don't think you can the best scientists and psychologists on the planet have been paid millions of dollars over the last 20 years by these social media companies to get us addicted i was watching my father-in-law who's in his almost almost 80 at a family event on tiktok and i was looking at it because i've refused to get tiktok because i know what it's what it's like and i was just watching it and i was seeing the algorithm has been honed because he likes this there are some challenges he likes with numbers that he he does he feels like it's kind of challenging his brain and it feeds them to him and so i don't think you can i think and again i'm i'm talking to myself as much as to you megan Yeah.

45:22We got a safe at home. I used to feel embarrassed about this when I did. My kids were so addicted to their iPads that if we didn't hide them away somewhere, we'd find them in the middle of the night watching something. Absolutely. Yeah. Same. I Googled safes on Amazon and found out that all the reviews for those personal safes that you can have in your house, like in a hotel that size, they're all bought by parents doing exactly the same as me. They're locking their kids' gadgets in there. And I think that's what we need to do for ourselves. And the problem I find, the reason I find it so hard to do is I tell myself, well, this is my phone, but I might get a call on for an emergency or something.

46:02And so there's no way out of business, can't lock it away. But I read something recently about getting two phones, a kale phone and a cocaine phone. I love that. I forget who had the distinction. You know, Andrew Huberman talked about that in a recent podcast. He didn't use that language, though. That is fantastic. But yeah. And so take a phone that has nothing on it, maybe Uber and a couple of map apps and things like that. And you've given it to the people who love you that you've got, they've got your cell phone in there and you have that one with you during the day. The other one's locked in a safe.

46:36Yeah, that's radical. But one of the things I've been thinking about, we interviewed a guest, Ian Cron, who's a good friend of ours. He has a new book coming out called The Fix. And it's basically like the 12 steps for everybody, you know, assuming that his assumption is that we're all on the addiction spectrum somewhere, you know, there's like really dramatic addictions and we all know those people, we might be those people, But there's also everybody has some kind of addiction. And I think part of the question that I'm asking myself, and I'm literally, I have a spiritual director that I'm going to be working with this year and I'm going to be working with her on is what does sobriety look like around this issue that I struggle with?

47:16Because to your point, you can't completely abstain from using a phone. Like you can't just decide I'm going to have a home phone and nothing else and not use a computer. I mean, you could, but that would be prohibitive for the kind of work that you do and that we do. And yet, I don't think that means that sobriety isn't important. And so when total abstinence isn't possible, then there needs to be nuance. But I think that there has to be nuance that is uncomfortable, like locking it away or having two phones or whatever. If we think the first of the 12 steps is admitting that you're powerless and that your life has become unmanageable.

47:49And I think if we think, oh, I can defeat the algorithms or I can somehow overcome, I can be strong enough to not let the pull of these devices pull me away. Like you said, millions and millions and millions, billions of dollars really are going into keeping us on them. It's like the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, said the only real competitor that they have is sleep, which is a terrifying thought, you know, like, wow. Anyway, I think that that's helpful to think in those terms because it's a creative and effective way that most of us don't even consider as an option. But if we're going to feed our soul and have a life that's worth living, then we're going to have to do something besides just like try to manage our screen time, for example, on our own or other things that take us away.

48:36Here's how I see it. Present day rich is strong. Future rich is weak. I can have all these dreams about how I'm in a shop. So when I go to a hotel, my assistant calls the hotel before I arrive and asks them to remove all the junk food from the hotel room. Because I know I have three days. I've seen it. For three days, I won't eat any of the Pringles, none of the Twix bars. But if I'm in a hotel, especially on my own for work, on day four, I will devour as many packets of Pringles as they have there and all the Twix bars. And so I hate my assistant the moment I arrive in a hotel because I can't help it.

49:11I always check the mini bar. Did she remember this time? Maybe she forgot. And I hate her. She remembered. If I'm going to an event where I'm running an event and I'm organizing the food. I find out what's on the menu and order the food in advance. And again, I always hate it because the salad comes and everyone else has got the comfort food, but I know that future rich is going to be weak. And so I have to put some things in place because, and especially social media, you know, you can't fight it. We're not stronger than that algorithm. We can't be. Yeah. So we need ways to support. I've been on two plant medicine retreats the last year and the best single best thing about going on these retreats has been they took our phones away on day one.

49:53Wow. The thing that everyone talked about on the final day, how nervous they were about getting their phone back. And we all had these ambitions, what was going to happen. And I brought my journal that I wrote in after the first retreat to the second retreat. And I read through it. And I read all the notes I made at the retreat, which was really powerful. And then I looked at the journal I'd started keeping on day one after the retreat was finished. Day one, that was it. I wrote a journal one day after this retreat and then I got back into life and I had my phone. And so it's very hard. It's very hard.

50:27And I think rather than try and fight it, in AA, they say you admit you're an alcoholic so you don't have alcohol ever again. Well, and you do it just one day at a time. I think you're right. You can't do that with the phone. We do need phones. So it has to be some simple rules like I don't bring the phone in the bedroom at night or I lock the phone away at certain hours of the day. Things that can be simple to abide by because otherwise you're going to get caught into this trap where the phone just kind of sucks you in. Yep. Okay, you guys got to help me with this because the one barrier I have to this, bringing the phone into the bedroom, is my parents are 91 and they live in assisted living.

51:08And if they were to call in the middle of the night, which has happened, I want to be available for that. but that requires I have a phone. But that's where the second phone comes in. I think that, I love the idea of the second phone. I think I'm going to do that. I think I'm going to Verizon after that. Yeah, me too. Give me one while you're there. But I really think that that is the secret because the problem is you just sort of go into this trance around your devices and you're not intentionally choosing. You know, you're not saying, I think I'm really going to give an hour of my life right now to watch this show on Netflix.

51:40Or I think I'm going to give an hour of my life right now this morning to surf the news and just see what's going on in the world. You would never do that. You would never do it if it was a choice. But one thing, it's like the, you know, Rich, your kids are probably young enough to remember these books, but, you know, the give a mouse a cookie. If you give the mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk. It's like if you open your phone, you're going to end up on the New York Times, and then you're going to end up on Instagram. I'm just talking about myself. And then you're going to end up on ChatGPT, and then you're going to end up.

52:06And before you know it, an hour and a half has gone by, and you missed your workout, and, you know, So you didn't do your quiet time or plan your day. And I just think that putting yourself in a position again where you have clarity around what does sobriety look like and you've taken the steps that you're not relying on your willpower. You're not relying on your good intentions. You're just removing it. I'm not going to leave a bag of gummy bears out on the kitchen counter and tell my kids they can have two a day. That'll last for about 30 minutes and then the whole bag will be gone by lunch, of course.

52:38Isn't it crazy? three of us, very successful people in all sorts of ways to accomplish all sorts of things. And we're having this conversation that we could probably speak about for two more hours about this gadget that sits in our pockets that we find so valuable and so insidious at the same time. It's very, very interesting. Yes. Well, I hate to say it, but almost an hour has gone by and we got to land the plane. So we have three kind of traditional questions that we ask at the end. And these are rapid fire. You don't have to give us a long answer unless you want to. So the first question we have is, what's your biggest obstacle?

53:11You, Rich, what's your biggest obstacle in getting the double win? And again, that's the name that we ascribe to winning at work and succeeding at life so that you're pursuing both of those things. What's the biggest obstacle for you? Oh, it's hard to give a quick answer to that one. It feels like we've had the whole conversation today has been about that in sorts of different ways. I think I'll go back to right where I started. It's knowing what the double win is. it's easy to know what the win is in business it's not difficult how much money do I want to make well what's the profit I want to make how many clients do I want to have what's the business going to focus on it's easy to come up with lots of ideas on that side of things it's much harder to come up with the ideas on the other side how do I set a goal around nurturing my spirit how do I set a goal around how healthy I want to be for the next 20 years of my life those are much more complex.

54:01And so I think it needs real time and actually needs time with interesting people. And so I'm, those of you who are listening, I'm pointing at these two because this has been a fun way to talk. I heard a quote recently that Oprah credited a lot of her success to having people in her life who blew the lid off her thinking. Yeah. So true. And I think that's, that's what I'm craving a little bit more of myself right now. Yeah, me too. Okay. How do you personally know to that point that you've gotten the double win, that you are in this moment winning at work and succeeding at life? Time is funny.

54:36It feels like yesterday that I came to the United States. I remember being fired by that boss. I remember crying as I drove home in my car, like wondering what was going to happen next. And now it's almost 20 years later. Time goes by in a flash. Dan Sullivan has this lovely way of describing setting goals. He talks about having a 25-year mission. What do you want to accomplish in 25 years time? And by the way, when he was 75, he set his next set of 25 year goals. And the thing about 25 year mission is that it has to get you out of your head. You can't, you can't imagine if you look back 25 years, there's no way you could have imagined any of the things that you're doing now, 25 years ago.

55:17So give you a chance to dream and scheme and be really big in your thinking. And then he also says, check in every 90 days a year. Everyone's setting New Year's resolutions right now, they don't work. We know that. But 90 days is a good timeframe. And if you set some goals, things you want to accomplish over the next 90 days, well, every 90 days is 1 % towards your 25-year mission. And so if you accomplish some great results, you're 1 % closer. And if you don't, it was only 1%. And I like that thinking, 25-year thinking. I do too. That's great. Okay, last question. What's one ritual or routine that helps you to kind of get back into the double win when you've lost it or it's slipped away?

55:59Or how do you keep yourself there as much as possible? What I have right now is walking 10 ,000 steps a day. My wife's been really inspiring me around that one because for six months, she has not missed a single day. Wow. I've missed it quite a few days along that, but I'm getting back into it right now. And we walk from our house along the beach to the pier in Santa Monica. We can get to the end of the pier and back. And if we leave, like we did this morning before six, we're back before eight. It's like an hour and 30, hour and 45 minutes. And then we've done 13 ,000 steps before the day has begun.

56:32Amazing. So that's one routine, a ritual that feels great. Plus it's with my wife. And every once in a while we argue on the walks, but usually it's long enough that we can resolve the argument by the time we're back anyway. That's great. I love it. Well, Rich, thank you so much for joining us. This has been, no pun intended, Rich. And I've enjoyed this conversation immensely. where can people find you? And if people want to connect with you, where's the best place to do that? Hey, thanks, Michael. You too, Megan. I've enjoyed really thoroughly being with you guys. If you go to richlitvin.com, you'll find all my stuff there.

57:04You can put my name into YouTube or Google. There's a ton of stuff I've created over the years. Yeah. Reach out if you want to have a conversation. Well, I want to say that I highly recommend that you all subscribe to Rich's newsletter. I subscribe to a lot of newsletters, but I read very few and Rich is one of them that I read all the time. So thanks again, Rich. It's been a pleasure being with you. Thank you both.

57:38So Meg, what were some of your key takeaways from that conversation with Rich? Well, the thing that I'm personally taking away is I'm going to get a second phone. Me too. It's like, you know what? I can set up all these screen time things and use these apps and whatever. And really it would be so much easier if I just put it away and had to choose that because I really feel like the focus of this next year for me is about feeding my soul. That's not the language I would have used coming into it. It's really about flourishing. But I think technology is one of the biggest risks to that, you know, that it's so enticing that pulling ourselves away from that, it being present in the real world in ways that feed our soul, which happen almost totally in an analog space.

58:23I mean, I think that's an interesting thing to contend with. I'm not able to do that through willpower or even some of the technological means to overcome the technology. Well, I don't know if you remember this, but about two years ago, I decided to do this. So I got a Verizon line and the biggest pushback I got was from my daughters, who just said, it's a hassle to have to have two numbers for you. But the other problem was - Wait, are you blaming us right now? Kind of. The other problem was, is that I actually just put another SIM card, an electric SIM card in my existing phone, which meant I had to remember to turn off the one and turn on the other.

58:59That feels complicated. I don't even really understand what you just said. Yeah. Well, it's just, it's basically, you can have two lines on one phone. Okay. Yeah. So you can just manually turn the phone that you use during the daytime off in the evening around on the weekends. But I think a second phone. The truth is I've got some extra iPhones. I'm not going to have to buy into the phone. But some that have go back. But for something just like calls, I literally think I'm going to take every application off except text messages, which nobody will have the number except my family and a couple of close associates, and the phone number.

59:28Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking I could probably use just text messaging, maps, Uber, like for when I travel, maybe podcasts, because I like to do that when I'm working out. I just need to keep anything that involves my eyes. That's where I get in trouble. If I have to use my eyes for more than driving, that's going to be a problem. I tried the light phone several years back and that was just like too much. It just annoyed me all the time. It's probably come a long way. The interface is annoying. Yeah. They do have a new and coming out this year that I know you can pre-order right now. Do not tempt me to get another gadget.

1:00:01I know, right? Right? Your mother will kill both of us. I think that it was just a meaningful conversation about being present, about self-awareness. I mean, you cannot be self-aware if you're not present. So true. If you are in the trance of addiction to work, technology, whatever your thing is, you can't be present. Yeah. And if you can't be present, you can't be self-aware. And if you can't be self-aware, you can't feed your soul. and you also can't make your most meaningful impact in the world. And I think one of the things for us to just think about with the double win is how do we help people be more present so they can know when they're not getting the double win?

1:00:39Well, I think that's right. And I think that one insight that he has, and one of the things we've talked about in the past, is it's not enough just to say you're not going to do something. Right. You have to be for something, not just to get something. You have to be for something. Because if you just say, okay, I'm not going to work on Fridays, Richard talked about that. I'm not going to work on Fridays. Well, unless you have a plan, nature abhors a vacuum. And that space is going to get filled with what's familiar and what's comfortable. And that's checking your email. And what's easy. I think one of the realizations I've had since I've been really intentionally trying to limit my screen time and gotten off of social media and all that is that the things that are feeding our soul are not effortless.

1:01:18Amusement and entertainment don't really require any effort. But if you want to fill your soul up. That involves, you know, maybe that's reading books that are really meaningful to you or going on a hike or, you know, having people over for dinner. All those things take effort. It's effort that's restorative ultimately. But when we're faced with like the empty calories, like what he said, you know, empty calories or a nourishing meal. I mean, it's just easy to grab the process stuff because it's just right there. And it'll, it'll kind of fill you up for a second, but then it, then it goes away.

1:01:50And so I think we, the planning part that he talked about is useful for making a decision. Like I'm going to go on a hike this Thursday, because I know that when I'm done with that hike, I'll not want to do it on the way there. But once I get there, I'm going to just, my soul's going to start filling up and it's going to feel so good. You just did that last week. I did that. And it was wonderful. It was so much fun. And I think that we just have to be intentional and we can't be intentional if we're like walking around in a trance or a haze. You know, I think it goes back to the very first thing that we talked about, the question that Rich asks his client, which is, what do you want?

1:02:22And so I think all this conversation about technology and being present, it all comes back to serve, what do we want? And what I want is to be fully present in my life. I don't want to be a bystander or an observer, or suddenly all the time steps away and I get to the end of my life and I go, what the heck. Like nobody ever said, I, you know, they get to the end of their life and they think, I wish I would have worked more. Right. You know, we know that from the research, nobody ever says that. I don't think anyone ever says, I wish I'd spent more time on my phone. That really is what did it for me is I looked at my screen time report.

1:02:54You know, if you have an iPhone there's in your, it's like eight hours a day was what, how much time I was spending on, on my phone. And I was like, I am literally flushing my life down the toilet. Like that's, That was a conversation I had. I was like, I will regret this. I don't want to have regret. I want to do things that, and I think fundamentally, this is at the heart of the double win. We want you guys and we want for ourselves not to have regret. We want to invest our life because really it is an investment. You either get a good investment or a bad investment. And I want the return on that investment to be things that are worth having, like people and rich experiences and all that kind of stuff.

1:03:33And our life truly is like a vapor. It is. It's here today. gone tomorrow. Well, guys, thanks so much for joining us on the Double Win Show. We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and we hope you'll come back next week when we'll have another guest that we'll be interviewing. And in the meantime, if you could rate and review the podcast, that would help us in our mission to make it nearly impossible for people not to get the double win. We want to raise awareness on this issue so we've got more people that are living with intention and with balance and developing rich lives and rich connections with people that they love.

1:04:06So, see you next time.