Most of us make decisions about time without really thinking about it.

We have these kind of internalized rules.

Some of them come from childhood.

It's like this is how this is how time was spent.

You know, we all had dinner at this time.

These are ways that we interacted.

These were the expectations that I had, and so we tend to carry those on or we like you know, create our own at some point without thinking about it so subconsciously.

So one time rule is like I am always responding.

I respond to things within a certain time period, you know, within twenty four hours or whatever.

And maybe, like we've talked about, maybe that's helpful and maybe that's a good habit, or maybe that's actually a stressful habit that's not actually serving you that well.

So what is a what is a better habit?

You know?

Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore the depths of human potential.

Today, we have Chris Gilibo on the show.

Chris is an author, entrepreneur, blogger, and speaker.

Actually received attention for his travel blog and book called the Art of Nonconformity.

More recently, he wrote the book Time Anxiety, The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live.

In this episode, we discuss how time anxiety is more than just fear of missing out and is also different from ADHD.

Chris argues that the fear of running out of time is very normal and that you have the power within you to feel better about your time.

We discuss things like what is enough and he challenges the quote gospel of efficiency in Western culture.

This was a fun and informative chat with someone I've wanted to chat with for quite a while now.

So without further ado, I'll bring you Chris Gilbo.

Hey, Chris, what a Cality podcast.

Awesome?

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, I'm very happy to have you and I really enjoyed your new book.

Congratulations.

Oh, thank you, enjoyed yours as well, Rise Above.

Yeah that's well, last couple months.

A couple months behind me, I guess, but around the same time, right I saw you're doing all these interviews, I was ready to publish.

Well, thank you, but this is about you.

This interview is about you, your new book, Time Anxiety, the Illusion of Urgency, and a Better way to Live.

Can you just start off by telling our audience a little bit about you and why you wrote this book?

Yeah, of course, So like you, I'm an author.

I've been an entrepreneur.

I was an aid worker for several years in West Africa.

I had a project called the Art of Nonconformity where I went to every country in the world and started blogging about it.

That's kind of how I started sharing online.

Going back to two thousand and eight, I remember that.

I remember you, Chris, I remember you from the Psychology Today days when I was valuing there.

Yeah, okay, that's right, that's right.

Wow, how about that?

That was a that was that was quite a while ago.

Yeah, and then I wrote my first book with Perigee.

Actually I saw you've been with them for several of your books, and yeah, I mean I kind of built this like on dimentional career community, sharing with them, hosting events and stuff.

And As to as for time anxiety, I guess I felt like over the past few years, I was doing a lot of things but also feeling kind of stressed out about it and feeling a little bit I don't know, chronically indecisive or you know.

I'm doing all these things.

I like the things that I do.

It's not that I'm unhappy, but I also feel stressed about how I spend my time, and like, am I doing the right things?

How do I decide what to do next of all the things I could do?

And just as I talk with lots of people kind of see that this is maybe not universal, but a very common condition or experience of people just feeling distressed about time in different ways, a sense of time running out, a sense of being too late for something.

There's various, you know, aspects of it.

But I just thought it was really interesting and I wanted to delve into it more like for myself and ultimately for other people as well.

That's great.

Yeah, it's very clear as part of our culture right now, that's been as long as I can remember.

It's been part of it, this pressure to get as much done or else or else you're missing out.

But you clearly distinguished between this and FOMO fear of missing out, and as well as ADHD.

I'm surprised you didn't put the acronym fort the fear of running out of time, but that's what you're that's the acronym, right is fort?

Okay?

Yeah?

Maybe for the revised edition.

Yeah, yeah, So can you just tell the audience a little about why is the fear of running out of time different than Fomo and even Adhd.

Sure, sure, well, I think the fear of running out of time and it's not only it's like the simultaneous, like the fear of running out of time, while the uncertainty over how to spend the time that we have.

And I think that is what time anxiety is.

It's not one or the other, it's a little bit above and and I think time anxiety occurs through like all three conditions of time, so past, present, and future.

Like the past, we have some regret, we feel that maybe we should have made a different choice about something, and that's has therefore informed the paths that are available to us now the present, like we talked about what do I do?

You know, how do I?

How do I choose how to spend my time?

And then the future?

You know, one am I ultimately working toward?

You know?

Is there a sense of purpose?

You know in my life?

Whereas I think Fomo tends to relate more to the present.

You know, it's like everybody's having fun without me, or like I am I am missing out on something?

And then you know, for Adhd, I think you know I have experience with that I was diagnosed as a kid and then as an adult.

And the more that I've learned about ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence, the more I kind of recognize, Okay, this, you know, this might show up in different ways, or it might be more common among those of us who you know, identify with the traitor.

It can like that, but also the general population, like a lot of people have you know, fears and concerns and distress over the role of time in their life.

So it's not something that is unique to ADHD.

There are parts of it, like time blindness, you know, that might show up more for people who have ADHD, but it's certainly not exclusive.

Cool.

Thanks for making all those distinctions.

You really this came to problems with you when you wrote a blog post, isn't that right?

You wrote a blog post about your experience, and you got a lot of feedback, You got a lot of comments.

What are some things you discovered from those comments?

Yeah, I noticed in the comments.

But then also, like I did a lot of research and talked with about fifteen hundred people, some detailed surveys of people with different walks of life and different ages and backgrounds and stuff.

I think the thing that surprised me more than any other book project I've worked on, or any other research project, the shared language.

People you know, from these different backgrounds would say almost almost uncannily like the same words, and I'd say, what does time anxiety mean?

You know?

To you there was the sentence, I feel like there's something I should be doing, but I'm not sure what it is.

Like there's something I should be doing right now, but I'm not sure what it is.

A lot of people said that, like, like just verbatim, almost when I talked with them individually.

And also the sense of being too late for something.

And I thought what was interesting about being too late is I think a lot of us might think, oh, that's something that people say at a certain like, you know, generational point in their life.

You know, as you get older you say that.

But I heard that language from seventeen year olds.

So it's like a seventeen year old's like, I feel like I'm too late, you know, for something, And it's easy for those of us who are, you know, not seventeen or anything close to that, easy for us to kind of like dismiss them and say, oh, but you have your whole life ahead of you, you know.

But the whole point is the perception.

Yeah, the perception is like the perception people have is that they've.

Missed their chance.

So see, those are some of the things that kind of jumped out right away, and I realized, like, there's a lot to this that we should look at more.

What if you have missed your chance?

I guess there's other chances, you know.

I mean, you know, I've missed my chance to become a gymnast, right or you know, there's lots there's certain things that you do need to do, you know, from a young age and specialization and such.

But you can dwell on the fact that you know, you're not going to be a gymnast at the age of forty seven or whatever someone's age is, or you can say, given all the life experience that I have acquired thus far, you know, and there has to be some wisdom through that, even if you acquired that wisdom by making so called mistakes, like what's next?

Like what what is the what is the chance that you can now no grab a hold of?

What do you think?

Hmm?

Well, yeah, I love this that you have other opportunities.

But I think that there's a great relief in accepting that it's too late for some things.

You know, I think a lot of people, some people feel a lot of pressure.

I mean, women feel a lot of pressure to get to have children before sertainaid, right, I mean, because they're biological constraints.

But you know, I spoke, I've spoken to some women who used to be obsessed with that and then then it never happened, and you know, now when their fifties and they're like, yeah, I've made peace with that.

Yeah, it's like life still goes on.

It's okay, I can deal with this.

You know, there are other ways I can leave a legacy, and so you know, sometimes it's not as bad.

You know, you panic, you panic, you know, maybe you miss it, and then you're real you do realize that life goes on, you know, you know there are other things you can do.

Yeah, maybe there's a grief process you know that has to occur, or you know, a process of acceptance you know, as as you say, but ultimately, like ultimately we are stressed about time because time is limited and time is short, and you know, it's just it is a continuous process, which is I think a big part of what is to stressing.

You know, once it is, once it has been lost, it cannot be regained, you know, unlike other resources.

And so ultimately I think, I mean a key is you know, radical, radical acceptance of it.

I want to jump right.

I really enjoyed your book, and I want to shoot right to my favorite chapter, which you know, so I know usually you're supposed to go in order and be all like that, but I just want to shoot to, which is you have a chapter in your book called what Is Enough?

And I kind of beligned myself to that chapter because I wanted to know the answer and because I think that it spoil or you don't you don't, you don't give the answer once and for all.

But can you explain to people why they're first of all, why is there the whys of always feel like we're never enough?

And how do you answer that question?

Yeah?

Well, I think for let's see, what's the best starting point?

Mentioned?

You know that I mentioned this thing about how like how do how do we choose you know, how to how to spend time and such?

Of all the things we can do and for most of us these days, like we're not working in factories, you know, we're not working in manufacturing, like we're doing some sort of knowledge work, you know, whether it's for an organization or an education or for ourselves or whatever.

So the work never ends, right, and so like there's always something else to be done.

You finish something, there's always something waiting.

And then it's not only in our work lives, there's all like we have access to unlimited information, right, unlimited information, education, entertainment, as youainment, like, there are no limits, there are no constraints, which is exciting in lots of ways, and it's also overwhelming.

And so I think, you know, the general point is if we don't set constraints or limits for ourselves, nobody else is going to.

And so what I've found to be helpful is, like you know, at the start of any day or any week, or any project or whatever kind of life cycle you think in, it's kind of deciding, here is what enough looks like, Like if I do these things, I'm going to feel satisfied.

I'm going to recognize that as a point of achievement or completion, or at least like a point of pausing and then just kind of reflecting right before I just kind of go on to something else.

I think we tend to get overwhelmed and burned out just because we keep going, you know, all the time, and that's our natural tendency, at least it is for me.

And so I've started to kind of like, what would enough be?

Like, you know, in this situation, if I do these things, will that be?

Okay?

I could do more?

But is that sufficient?

Why do you think it was your you know, you said you'd liked that concept.

Why was that resonant to you?

Hil I want to take a moment to make a few important announcements that I'm really excited about.

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Okay, now back to the show, because I'm low key obsessed with this this this tension we often feel between doing and being.

And you know, I struggle with the optimal sense of how much story my day should I be doing and how much should I be being?

And I like the way you frame it.

And in a way, your book is like a good coaching book because you don't tell people how to live their life, but you ask good questions, some powerful coaching questions, things that really for people to really reflect on and to really think about.

You know, even just like sitting back and just meditating to yourself, how much would be enough for me?

It is a really interesting question, you know.

It's like it really got me thinking about like I can answer that question and then I can try to accept it.

But the second after I accept it, I'm already thinking what should I be doing next.

It's like it's like there's such a tendency that's built into us that that that when we're being, we're thinking about doing.

When we're doing a lot, we think, oh I maybe need some rest here, need to be being, you know, we're constantly wanting to be in another state.

Is another thing too.

Yeah, well, I mean it's okay to want more, you know, I think it's okay.

Like I'm still pretty goal oriented and also like low key obsessed with like, oh I want to do a bunch of stuff.

I mean that's so this is not a book on minimalism, you know, necessarily, this is not a book, not a book on do less.

It's more like if you are a person, if you are type A, or you don't have to be Type A, but like if you are like a person who likes to do stuff but also feel stressed out of it sometimes, I mean that's you know, like it's okay to want more, but you also might have to accept you know, it's like there's ways to look at all of it.

I have so many questions here for you, buddy.

I thought that it was interesting that that you bring in the literature on cognitive distortions into this, because that's a topic I, as a psychologists, really care about, you know, and and I would love to know some ways in which my cognitive distortions can be hindering or or or accelerating my feet my what was the acronym?

I said, my fear of my fort when you have time?

Okay, right, right, right, a little bit sure, yeah, yeah, what cognitive distortions do you feel like you particularly experience I mean personal personalization?

Yeah okay, oh yes, right, I'm like Michael Jordan over here.

That was personal.

Right, right, right exactly?

That that's the name.

Okay, So you're right, right, you know, maybe feeling off that I don't know that this problem is unique to you or something, or you know, obviously you are a high performer, but you should be performing even higher, right, Like there is no sense of enough, right, It's you're on some sort of like treadmill or it's you know, pushing the rock up the hill kind of thing.

You know, maybe a sense of like unable to I don't know, it's like happiness is a weird word, of course, but unable to like feel some satisfaction or contentment.

You know.

It's like if one thing is done, you know, what's the next thing?

Or if something goes well, you know, your your booksells like, you know, bunch of copies, but then you look like somebody else's book, you know, sold more copies.

I mean these are slightly different, but I do think they're all kind of connected to, you know, to a sense of disortion around around personalization.

So what, so what do we do?

I mean, you're the expert.

I feel like you're more of an expert than me in this.

You know.

I always think about, like, how can we.

Rewrite, you know, a story, or write or like write a different story.

It's it's not like the other story isn't there in our heads as well, but how can we add to it?

How can we think about when I when.

I feel like the self applied pressure, or I feel envious of someone else, or feel like my circumstances are unique, I often think like would I want to live somebody else's life, Like would I like, I maybe I feel envious of this person, but would I want to trade my life for theirs.

It's not even just living someone else's like, it's trading your trading your own life, you know.

Ye going to say, like, when you trade your life or someone else, you you don't just get there is you have to give up yours, right, you have to like all the experiences you've had, the relationships that you've had, the like learnings that you've had, like everything that you know good and bad in your life like no longer exists.

And once I think that way, I'm like, oh, there's nobody, Like, there's nobody out there that I would want to trade my life for.

And that actually feels pretty good.

Were you going to say?

No?

No, I really resonate with that, and that that's really helped me a lot with my whatever jealousy of people on Instagram and I'm like, Okay, that's just one aspect of their life, but you know it's not.

No, No, really really good point.

Can you tell people a little bit about this concept of time blindness?

Time blindness?

Yeah?

Yeah, Why can it be so liberating if you understand it.

It's interesting.

I wrote this like manifesto for the book and had the recommendations like one through ten.

I put like first recommendation is, like, one of the best things you can do your life is to allow ten to fifteen minutes more than you think you need for transitions or you know, for going somewhere, leaving to meet someone, or is just kind of moving from you know, thing to thing in your life.

And it's obviously very simple advice, but it seems it seems to both resonate and also people some people feel really uncomfortable with it as well.

And time blindness, you know, is essentially a condition or an experience of chronically like overestimating or underestimating time.

And I think we're you know, it's it's common for people with ADHD, but I think a lot of people, most people don't perceive time very well.

I was doing this experiment on my book tour where we would like count to like everybody close their eyes and count to sixty and let's see how accurate you know you are, and like, nobody's accurate.

Everybody's off by like fifteen percent, and so in the course of one minute, people are off by fifteen percent.

And so if you extrapolate, like if you're trying to keep track of time in your head, you're going to be off like all the time.

Plus it's not a very good use of your cognitive functioning.

There's a lot of other stuff you should be doing, you know.

So time blindness is just like you know, imagining that we are going to be able to do all these different things.

I have to leave for a meeting, but I'm going to try to, you know, do one more thing before I go, and then I'm going to be late because I didn't think about the traffic or how you know, whatever the other variable or circumstance is.

And so most people who are chronically late, I think they don't like that.

Like most people are like not happy with that.

They know, it's like stressful for them.

They feel bad that they're letting other people down.

And you know, the simplest thing they can do is just to add a little bit more time and it will make their their life a lot better.

But some people are resistant because they're like what will I do with all that extra time?

You know, which is a weird thing, but you know, you are if you are ten to fifteen minutes late all the time.

You're probably not going to shift of being ten to fifteen minutes early all the time, Like you're probably gonna shift actually being like on time for things.

And that's good.

It's going to feel relieving.

Yeah, I know, that's a great point.

And just in general, this this fear you talk with somebody like beliefs that people have that they need to unlearn, and this just even just this thought that it if I have free time, you know, what am I going to do with it?

You'll you'll end up spending that time thinking about and what you should be doing more of.

But why don't we think about why don't we ever think about it in terms of being like like in a wonderful opportunity for being you know how people like there's not a societal kind of script that says you should free up your time so you can have more time to meditate, or you can favor time so you can have more time to just exist and like maybe just behold with all in wonder, like your loved one or your child or I mean that's just a different framing, but it feels like that kind of you don't I don't know, it might beginning.

You don't always need to have a task, I think is what you're saying, right.

Thank you, thank you for explaining what my point was.

But yeah, no, it goes a lot back to this this being versus doing thing, you know, And I do think there are certain beliefs about I have to fill every second of the day because if I don't, what am I gonna do?

And and it's like, well, you don't always have to do every do something.

Right, but just do you find this also produces a conflict?

Then, like once you adopt this framework, you're like, Okay, that's good, that's a good little tweak.

But now my choice is what's the ratio?

You know?

Right?

Like, Okay, I now I'm I'm experiencing being more and that is good in my life, But you know, I also want to work on things.

I want to like make things and create.

Is it just an intuitive process you kind of understand or like, I'm here's the time for doing, here's the time for being?

Is it seasonal?

Well?

What I've what I learned from your book is that a great first step is giving yourself more time.

And I think there's something really beautiful about that about figuring out how you can have more freedom and maximum possibility to choose the things you really want to choose, because I think that's what it comes down to at the end of the day.

It's like like we get so busy checking things off our to do list that we start losing our own sense of self or losing our own connection to ourselves.

So yeah, well I like that.

I wanted to say, I like that as the first step.

Oh it's good.

I like the frame, the framing of the you know, the being and doing the first step is interesting because I think I wrote the rest of the book first, and then it's just talking with my editor and it's like, man, some interesting like research and probably some good suggestions here, but like, think about the ideal reader for this book.

You know, the ideal reader is is pretty distressed and they are kind of like overwhelmed, and like we need to give them something like what do you do right now?

You know, Like what is something you can do to start feeling better?

You know?

And I think one of the one of the great things that anybody can do is, as you just said, like give yourself the gift of time.

So there's all these cliches about like time is the most precious resource.

You know, time is more valuable than money, and but most of us don't really live that way.

And so like there's a whole like industry, cottage industry of decluttering.

You know, it's like all this stuff I got to declutter from my physical space, my home, my apartment, et cetera.

And I think that can be helpful.

But like, time is the thing that we are stressed about more than you, like how many socks I have or how many trinkets are on my desk?

So what can we do to give ourself time?

How can we remove items from our calendar?

How can we close off one of our inboxes?

How can we just reframe how we think about saying yes, you know to people who want to hang out that we don't necessarily want to hang out with, Like, it actually feels very relieving to do that.

I agree really well, put thank you.

So how can you use time rules to your advantage not your disadvantage?

So most of us make decisions about time without really thinking about it.

We have these kind of internalized rules.

Some of them come from childhood.

It's like this is how this is how time was spent.

You know, we all had dinner at this time.

These are ways that we interacted.

These were the expectations that I had, and so we tend to carry those on or we like you know, create our own at some point without thinking about it so subconsciously.

So one time rule is like I am all responding.

I respond to things within a certain time period, you know, within four hours or twenty four hours or whatever.

And maybe, like we've talked about, maybe that's helpful, and maybe that's a good habit, or maybe that's actually a stressful habit that's not actually serving you that well.

And so what is it?

What is a better habit?

You know, what is something you can do that's different?

I love it.

You're you're kind of read writing the roles of societal expectations around this stuff as well.

I feel like you want to change culture too, don't you.

Well, I think I want to.

I always focus on individuals, you know.

I focus on people like you know, I used to.

I did a lot of like work in the entrepreneurial space, and I wrote a book called hundred Dollars Startup.

And part of why I wrote that book back in the day was like there's a lot of books about startups and like companies and organizations, And I really want to focus on people like individuals, because I mean that's how society changes, right, it doesn't change like top down with somebody being like, here's a society, now change you know.

Yeah, Chris, what what are you?

I don't I don't know, Scott, I have no idea what what?

What?

What are you?

So?

If you had to say, like your soul is it an entrepreneur?

No?

My soul?

Agree?

Writer?

Yeah?

Author?

A creator?

I gain what creator?

Now is now a word that's been like, you know, it's kind of like influencer.

I don't like that.

But you're not conformist?

Yeah, yeah, myself?

You know, right, but you're no but yourself.

You're a very unique You're a very unique self.

I think you look like you are too.

I mean, I was just gonna say I was just going to say, kindred feels a little bit of a kindred spirit.

You know, I don't know how many Columbia like psychologists are doing mentalism, you know on the side, right, you know.

No, I just feel like we both just like being nonconformists and and living life on our own terms.

I think that's the big thing, that's how can we live life?

On our own terms and that I've resonated with you about that since I was in grad school writing for a Psycholoday today and reading your bog posts.

That's funny, that's so well two thousand and eight.

Yeah, yeah, when you've done ten books, right, ten books?

You know, so I'm only on.

Nine eleven, but he's eleven.

Who's yea rise above is my eleventh but yeah, we're not counting here.

But no, so yeah, no that I really want to just like get to like what is the essence of you?

Like what is you know?

Yeah, like your books are not their books are very different from each other too.

Yeah, so.

You know what's like the thread that runs through like your your all, your.

Work, the thread that runs through it all is this message of you don't have to live your life the way other people expect And I think God love that starting point.

You know, I kind of goes through everything.

I mean, we could say more about it, but it is also kind of self explanatory, you know, like there's in life you encounter all kinds of people who have expectations for you, and they have ideas and here's what they want you to do, and good for them, you know, they can they can have those things, but also you can decide for yourself, and you know, and deciding for yourself is not, by the way, like a completely selfish, you know, hedonistic approach, like you ultimately are going to be fulfilled you know, by doing good things for yourself and for others.

Like there's very much a service component to it.

But I think, you know, if you just start with that, like you don't have to live your life with other people want you to.

And also maybe there there's another way.

This is another theme of like there isn't there there's one path, you know, and there's a traditional path, and there are alternative paths there.

You know, it's more than one way to do things, and you can apply that to you know, education, relationship, spirituality, business, life, work, travel, you know everything.

Yeah, are you an ely child?

Uh?

I have a brother and a sister, but I'm the oldest.

Okay, you're the oldest, And like were you was this part of your personality like in like middle school?

Like do you do you see seeds of this?

Like yeah, well I was kind of I didn't have the greatest childhood, like I had some like trauma and things and then uh I.

Didn't go to high school.

I went to one year of high school and dropped out and later went to college.

That's it.

Well that's interesting.

Look that will yo, let's double click on that.

Sure, Well, this is the psychology podcast, you know.

Yeah, yeah, you got you know, you got, you got yourself into here.

Now.

That is so I won't go I won't go into traumas.

I want to be respectful.

But uh, but the fact you only had one year so did you?

So you never graduated high school?

Is that?

No?

Yeah, I kind of stuck into community college and because they're not like you know, super checking for you know, qualifications at the average community college and uh and then uh, by the time I I think they realized I didn't have the high school degree, I was doing pretty well.

I actually liked college.

College was very different than high school because I had some freedom.

I had freedom of choice and like, oh, you can schedule a class at this time or this time, and oh, if I want to study this, I can take that.

So I liked that kind of thing.

And then I transferred to like a four year institution and so then I was a transfer student, so I'm like skipping the whole like high school thing.

Yeah.

I mean it's amazing what you've what you've done with your life, and.

I feel very fortunate.

I feel I made some good, some choices at at like this early age that really led to like a branching out later, you know, and like that really that was the thing.

If I didn't, if I hadn't made those choices, like my life would be very, very different.

So it's not like, oh I was so smart.

It's more like I saw this opportunity and figured this one thing out.

So I'm really grateful for that.

And I almost did a PhD.

But I came to my senses before that, so I stop at the master's level.

Yeah, yeah, that's smart.

No, I mean, look, you're just you're such an interesting guy.

I've never never had you in my podcast, and you know, it's like I want to talk about your art of nonconformity stuff too.

It's just like you know, I've I want to like fold in some of your older stuff too, because yeah, I see the thread.

I also just think it's so interesting because like you're you're known as well in a lot of these productivity spaces.

I mean, you're spoken in the same breath as James Queer, and Tim Ferris right, and and you've written books about hot you know, like finding a side hustle right and and having a startup and business and and and and and now here you are kind of writing this book about about It's not it's not it's not like time management.

It's like, I feel like a new word invented to describe this book is about time freedom.

I don't know, I don't know time on anxiety, like not not anxiety with time.

You so, but you're what you're doing is you wanting people to change the relationship they have to time.

And I feel like that's the essence of this when you say.

That is exactly the essence of it.

Yes, like we need a different relationship with time because what we've been doing is not helpful.

Like what we do is we kind of look to like the time management methods or here's a new method of getting things done, a new method of productivity, and you know, to tie back to where we started a while ago.

It's like, well, then we get really good at doing the wrong things.

Or we're like seeking relief and ultimately all these steps that we're taking are not going to provide relief.

We're just going to like get to the top of the mountain and realize we've climbed the wrong mountain, or or we're just not ultimately going to be very good at these like we're going to sure, we're going to like apply this to this technique, but as I said, the more you do, the more there is to do.

So yeah, so you're going to You're not going to win that war.

We have a lot of beat to interest.

One is I think we're both a bit ner diversion so little h which probably explains our nonconformist lifestyle.

I mean, I think there's gotta be a correlation there between ADHD in particular and restlessness or a certain like adventure seeking kind of persona.

Do do you agree?

One hundred yeah?

Absolutely yeah.

And can you tell people about this event neurodiversion that you.

Hoped we need to we need to have time.

Can I come to you.

I would love for you to be there next year.

We just did the neurodiversion it people can learn about it neurodiversion dot org.

It is a celebration of neurodiversions.

I wanted to create an event unlike any other amazing I used to have a previous event called World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon.

I did ten years.

Was that what Jonathan Fields?

Yeah, Jonathan was there all ten years, like ten years.

Jonathan's my boy.

Yeah, yeah, he's one of my best friends.

I talked to him almost every day.

Yeah, tell me he's talked today.

Okay, I will.

Yeah.

I mean he also started two thousand and eight, or maybe it was two thousand and seven he started.

So I did that.

Yeah, so we did.

We did that previous event and loved it.

Kind of came to a natural end, like during the pandemic, and I really missed hosting events.

I like bringing people together and just doing things, you know, just doing like big things.

And so.

I talked to as I was getting more into like the nerd Divergent space and ADHD space, I was talking with people and they're like, there's nothing like there's academic conferences, that's fine, but there's no like community focused event.

So so we just did the pilot project in Austin in March.

We brought about three hundred people together and we're going to do it again next year, bigger and better, and it will be in Austin again March twentieth to twenty second.

Would love to have you there or maybe the amazing doctor Scott.

Yeah, I'll do a show if you want.

Yeah, no, I totally want.

Actually we talked about a little bit for this one, but the first one, but I was that was my pilot project and was like figuring it all out.

Well, that's spring break, so I don't have classes doing those dates my calendar right now.

That's good, you know, I would love to have you there.

So, yeah, we want to bring people together to well to learn, but also just to connect.

And I think probably my favorite part about hosting an event like that is when people say, like I feel really seen.

I feel like, you know, there's other people here who like think the way I do or see the world the way that I do, and like I'm finding community.

That's like, that's the reason we do it.

So yeah, we'd love you and some of the listeners to be there as well.

Absolutely.

I just think that's uh, it's just so cool that you're doing that.

And I've been a big advocate of nerdiversity before it was so cool to.

Be an advocate o G.

Yeah, yeah, I just feel like now it's like really cool to be nerve.

The Virgin it's like for young people.

You know, I'm a college professor, so I'm you know, I see what the latest trends are, and I feel like nerd diversientcy is trending on TikTok.

How do you feel about that?

Like I imagine you might have like most I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, you have mostly positive feelings about that, but also like obviously some caveats and oh definitely.

I wrote an article recently, aren't we all nerdiversient and quotation marks and saying no, we're not.

You're answering that question is like, no, we need to chill a little bit, because an article came out in the UK saying that every everyone identifies now is nerd diversion, that the word will kind of lose all its meaning if if everyone is that, But we're all definitely weird in some way.

That's true, you know, but we're not all.

We're not all you know, wired for ADHD or wired for autism or a whole number of things that have traditionally followed under that umbrella.

But it is an interesting question whether or not the term nerd divergent really like just how much we want to include under that umbrella, you know, And that is an interesting question.

I would be humbly say I did not have the answer.

I didn't have the answer that.

You know, everyone that feels weird or different, does that mean they're nerd divergent?

You know, And I don't have the answer to that.

But I'm okay right now circumscribing it to a handful of of social disorders and other kind of developmental situations that make you so out of the norm that it actually is a disruption to your life as well as bringing you lots of gifts to your life.

That's great.

Yeah, yeah, well said, that's great.

Yeah, yeah, perfect.

Yeah.

Do you still travel a lot?

Have you have you chilled at all in your exploration dry?

I have chilled a little bit.

Yeah, I mean I'm still traveling a good bit.

I'm going to the Mid East this week, so I'll be there for a little bit.

But I do this like a few times a year.

I'll go on like a big trip.

I used to be like once a month.

I was going around, like completely around the world, and I did that for eight years.

And you know, I still like it, but I also like not traveling.

So do you think like it ever reached the level of like something like pathological, where like you're trying to avoid yourself.

Sure, I don't know if well pathological, I don't know, but I don't know it is compulsive.

Like further back a little bit, like let's retreat from pathological and call it compulsive.

But I would say, yeah, definitely, definitely, no for sure because.

I speak out a personal experience.

I used to feel like wherever I was, I didn't want to be there, you know, you know what I'm saying, Like i'd be I need to go to England next week.

I need to go to England.

But then I realized it's just like wherever you go, there you are, you know.

And I was like, oh, maybe that's the issue.

As I like to come to Jesus moment, like I did about that.

I don't think I had to come to Jesus moment, but I did.

I mean I kind of even knew that at the time that there was this element of I really liked the transit of it.

I liked like I didn't like backtracking.

I really hated backtracking.

But if I was going in a direction, I mean, it was completely illogical, right, But like if it was just if I was traveling, then I felt better about then if I stopped, if I stayed in England for you know, a few days, I'm like, oh, I got to get on, Like what's where It's the next place.

So I think that was that was part of it, for sure, for sure, But it was also like enjoy enjoyable.

It's like, well, what else was I going to do?

You know, like you know, I think that was also like a thing of like, Okay, I can see that this not every element or aspect of this is pure, and at the same time.

Some of it is, So you know, what am I going to do?

Yeah?

And also you know you really you really have decided you wanted to live life on your own terms and not.

I wouldn't trade for anything.

Well, it's great to get to know you better as a human.

I hope you were okay that we spent the last twenty minutes talking about you.

Great.

I wanted to talk about whatever is helpful or interesting to you and your Oh yeah, so let's splip it some time and talk more about you.

I'd love to learn more.

Oh, thanks, gret I really apprecid.

Yeah, absolutely, well, this can definitely be a to be continued situation.

But I wanted to know a little more context behind, you know, what leads up to a book like this.

This kind of book just doesn't come out of nowhere, and it's part of a long history of of you trying to think of outside the box about life, and outside the box about kind of societal pressures and expectations.

So I see it within a larger context ecosystem of Chris.

So thanks so much for Yeah cool, Thank you so much for coming to my podcast to discuss with that's and good luck with the book tour.

Awesome man, sounds good.

Thank you, Ny