Chris Bailey

Chris returns to share his experience with the Spodek Method. He did something different than he committed to: he stopped using his smart phone---the latest Apple iPhone---in favor of a simple flip phone hearkening almost back to the nineties. What happens? Does his life fall apart? Does he find more calmness? Should you simplify your life by avoiding the call for the latest and greatest? He shares his experience and you can find out (I'm not sure he did it for this podcast, in that I think he was planning to do it anyway. Still, he shares his experience).

Bringing back Chris for first time since five years ago. Since then, his last book got big, as we briefly discussed. We started talking about meditation and at a high level, framed the conversation to come on how the mind works, outside our control, though we don't notice. More framing: we talk about intention and action, meaning and purpose. The topic of his new book How to Calm Your Mind is interesting to me because I see billions of people on autopilot, sleepwalking into polluting ourselves into oblivion. We spend most of our lives reacting, avoiding the feelings of powerlessness, anxiety, and often guilt and shame keeping us from facing that we are powerful, not powerless. Chris shares a moment of anxiety, becoming burned out that prompted his research into calming down. That moment was performing on stage in front of an audience. His research found that a book was missing and he wrote it. He describes how to calm your mind and to avoid losing our calm and our cultural imperative to achieve more, absent a measure of enough. We share our experiences in our journeys. Calming one's mind and pulling back from "more" and chasing dopamine overlap with sustainability.

Chris Bailey shares how to focus and create intention---how to become more productive on the outside and live with more meaning and purpose on the inside by focusing on what is important to you. Focus isn't necessarily easy, but Chris shares from personal experience that anyone can improve theirs. He shares to slow down and focus on less in order to make a larger impact. Modern society motivates the opposite, with marketers and advertisers learning and practicing more effective ways to attract and distract you. They tell you they want to help you achieve and enjoy more, but they distract you from what Chris lives and shares. People judge us as leaders by our behavior. Focus affects how we perceive the world and how people perceive us. It's essential to being effective at leadership or any performance-based activity. Read the transcript.