672: Chris Bailey, part 2: How to Calm Your Mind
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.