Secret #68: Secrets of Rest with Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Recommended Episodes:
Rest is not the opposite of work. It is the partner that makes great work possible. In this conversation, best-selling author and strategist Alex Soojung-Kim Pang shows how rest is a learnable skill that powers focus, creativity, and longevity. We dig into deliberate rest, the default mode network, and why short micro breaks can boost productivity. You will hear practical rhythms for your day—90 to 120 minutes of deep work followed by low-intensity recovery like walking or gardening—plus how absorbing hobbies, device boundaries, and shared team norms protect you from burnout. We also explore the social side of rest, building a sense of mattering and community so you can sustain excellence in a world engineered for distraction.
Highlights:
• Rest as an active skill that partners with work
• The 90–120 minute deep-work rhythm and low-intensity recovery
• Walking, gardening, and “default mode” insight during breaks
• Hobbies, mastery, and community as buffers against burnout
• Simple tech boundaries and the “zombie apocalypse” notification test
• How to design environments and norms that support focus and rest
• Sustainable excellence: doing great work for decades, not months
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Opening
00:41 Welcome and guest intro
02:00 What rest really is and why it is active
03:38 Why passive rest is not enough
04:41 Rest as a skill and a partner to work
05:41 Cultural and economic forces that devalue rest
07:00 The beach cartoon and Churchill’s “painting as a pastime”
08:32 Deliberate rest and picking the right kinds for you
09:58 Daily rhythm: deep work blocks and long breaks
11:10 Default mode network and insight during walks
13:48 Nights and weekends: hobbies that truly detach you from work
15:27 Lifelong pursuits that renew focus and courage
18:27 Rest with others: community, teams, and accountability
20:31 Sports, mastery, and making time as a high performer
22:37 Social benefits of rest and workplace norms
29:01 Burnout, mattering, and staying connected
31:55 Replenishing outside work when reinforcement is lean
32:55 Longevity mindset versus the arms race against time
36:04 The modern distraction challenge and why it is not your fault
38:37 Practical tech boundaries and the ringtone test
40:13 Designing spaces and schedules that protect attention
41:42 Permission to rest and resisting always-on culture
46:13 Final takeaways and next steps
More about Alex Soojung-Kim Pang:
Follow @askpang on Instagram
Read Alex’s books:
Alex is a best-selling author, consultant, and researcher who studies how people and organizations design time for focus, creativity, and recovery. He has held academic positions at Stanford and Oxford, advised Fortune 500 companies and governments, and speaks around the world on deliberate rest, deep work, and sustainable performance. His work translates neuroscience, history, and organizational psychology into practical routines teams can use to do better work in fewer hours while avoiding burnout.
Follow us on Facebook @lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast and on Instagram @lifesdirtylittlesecrets
Reach out and let us know you are listening and what you would like to hear on the show - email:lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast@gmail.com
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Secret #68: Secrets of Rest with Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
[00:00:00]
[00:00:41] Introduction and Guest Introduction
[00:00:41] Emma Waddington: Welcome to Life Study Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington.
[00:00:45] Chris McCurry: And I'm Chris McCurry, and today we are thrilled, delighted, honored to have Alex Susan, Kim Payne as our guest today. And we are gonna be talking about [00:01:00] breast. Alex received his PhD in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania. He has spent decades studying people and technology and the world of work. He has been a Silicon Valley-based futurist and consultant, and he has worked with governments in Fortune 500 companies.
[00:01:21] Chris McCurry: Spoken
[00:01:21] Chris McCurry: at venues ranging from C-I-A-C-I-A headquarters. I wanna hear more about that to Shakespeare's, if you can talk about that. To Shakespeare's Globe Theater, to the Google Plex, and he has held academic positions at Stanford and Oxford. He's the author of several books, bestsellers rest, which we will talk about today, as well as the Distraction, addiction, and Shorter, a Guide for Companies on how to Work Less and Get More Done. Welcome, Alex. Thank you
[00:01:53] Chris McCurry: for being here.
[00:01:54] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: thanks
[00:01:54] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: very much. It's great to be with
[00:01:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: with you.
[00:01:56] Chris McCurry: So.
[00:01:57] Understanding Rest: Beyond Naps and Relaxation
[00:01:57] Chris McCurry: Rest. I mean, most [00:02:00] people think about rest as, you know, taking a nap you know, decompressing in some way. Low energy not a lot of activity, you know, either mentally or physically. And, and we live in a world where there's just a lot of pressure to the productive, particularly these days people are fearing for their jobs.
[00:02:21] Chris McCurry: And if they don't work 68, 70 hours a week
[00:02:25] Chris McCurry: they're,
[00:02:25] Chris McCurry: they're afraid they're gonna, they're gonna get sacked.
[00:02:28] Chris McCurry: That
[00:02:29] Chris McCurry: message is quite different. So tell us about, you know, rest as. Such an important thing in people's lives and how it's not necessarily being, you know, dormant.
[00:02:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Right. So, no, I think that's a, a great way to
[00:02:45] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sort of introduce the subject. And I
[00:02:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: think that, you know,
[00:02:49] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: we often think of
[00:02:50] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: rest as something that is entirely passive, right? It's
[00:02:54] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: something that happens sort of sitting
[00:02:56] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: on a couch with the
[00:02:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: remote in
[00:02:58] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: one hand, in a bag of snacks or a [00:03:00] drink in the other. It can be sleep.
[00:03:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: But you know, whatever it is, it is the opposite of work in the sense that it's, you know, it involves doing as little as sort of possible. And while there is nothing wrong with that kind of rest,
[00:03:17] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: I think that that it is an incomplete picture. Of sort of what rest is. So if you think of rest as the time that we spend sort of rebuilding or recharging the sort of mental and physical batteries that we spend down when we're working or being a
[00:03:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: parent or such
[00:03:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that.
[00:03:38] The Active Nature of Rest
[00:03:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: It turns out that the most restorative kinds of rest are not always passive, but rather active. You know, they are things like sort of exercise like, or of taking walks, sort
[00:03:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of doing stuff in the garden, things that sometimes are involved. A mix of physical exertion and [00:04:00] some, and some mental exertion
[00:04:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or challenge that's different from work that sort of takes your mind off of sort of your work
[00:04:09] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or your troubles.
[00:04:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: So the idea of rest is something that's active
[00:04:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: is I think, an important thing for all of us to understand.
[00:04:17] Rest as a Skill and Its Importance
[00:04:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Another thing is that rest is a skill. It's actually something that we can get better at in the same way that, you know. Let's say breathing is something that is completely natural, but if you're an athlete or a singer, you learn how to use your breath in order to, or carry a note or, or to project to the back of a hall or to get a, you know, extra bit of energy sort of in a final sprint to the lawn.
[00:04:43] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: But also, you know, we. Tragically think of rest and work as opposites as sort of competitors. You know, part of a zero sum game. And the biggest thing that I learned in writing my book rest was that, [00:05:00] we should think of them not as competitors, but rather as partners, that each one is necessary for supporting and sustaining the other.
[00:05:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And that whether as individuals looking to ourselves, whether as sort of managers or as parts of organizations, I mean, it's important for us to think about the ways in which we can design our time. So as to both work well and to rest well to make that possible for ourselves and to the extent that sort of, we have that power to make
[00:05:33] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it sort of available to others as well.
[00:05:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: So, yeah.
[00:05:39] Cultural and Economic Factors Affecting Rest
[00:05:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And then there was sort of your question about, how it is that we've gotten into this state that is, you know. That's a whole big complex thing that we can spend
[00:05:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: quite a bit of time talking about. And there are a lot of reasons that we don't.
[00:05:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Take rest as seriously as we should, either as a kind of [00:06:00] life project or, or of in our daily lives. And it is really very multifaceted right there. I think there are cultural reasons for it. There are certainly are economic ones. Things have to do with professional identity, having to do with history. So,
[00:06:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know, if this is something that.
[00:06:17] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Your listeners don't take
[00:06:18] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: very seriously yet. There are very good reasons for that, right? You've been trained in all kinds of ways for decades to think about rest in a particular, somewhat negative kind of way, and that's not something that you can, you know, just flip a switch on, but rather requires some digging around and unpacking in order to order to do well.
[00:06:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: well.
[00:06:43] Chris McCurry: I Have a New Yorker cartoon on my refrigerator. It's a beach scene. Couple sitting on a blanket with the umbrella, the guy looks very unhappy and the woman is saying, we are doing something. You're just not good at it.[00:07:00]
[00:07:00] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: That's great. There was a lovely book that Winston Churchill wrote called Painting
[00:07:06] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: as a Pastime, that in which he makes the argument
[00:07:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: for sort of painting as something that politicians or business people, people who generally are, you know, very busy working
[00:07:18] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in offices sort of can pursue.
[00:07:21] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: As sort of, as a serious hobby. And one of the
[00:07:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: points that he
[00:07:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: about it is
[00:07:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that first of all, it exercises different parts of your brain than you use in commercial life or political life. Right?
[00:07:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: very visual rather than verbal. It's images
[00:07:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: rather than words, but it's also, you know, it's also a good thing because, you can see steady improvement at it, right? The more you do it, the better you'll get. And for people who are maybe highly competitive, who are very ambitious , in seeing even in, or [00:08:00] the rest that you take, the hobbies that you have a capacity for getting better is actually,
[00:08:06] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that's.
[00:08:07] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: That can be an important thing for giving you motivation, order to stick with it. And even if you're
[00:08:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: at that
[00:08:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: stage in the New Yorker cartoon of not being good at it you know, being willing to continue and sort of to, or to pursue it further so that you can get the benefit from it that you really deserve
[00:08:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Earth.
[00:08:26] Emma Waddington: My goodness.
[00:08:26] Emma Waddington: So much to unpack here. I love this idea of rest and work being partners. And
[00:08:32] Deliberate Rest: Finding What Works for You
[00:08:32] Emma Waddington: as you're describing rest this, this concept that you talk of in your fabulous book about deliberate rest, right? Being intentional with your rest. What
[00:08:42] Emma Waddington: you described with sort of Winston Churchill and many other great thinkers of our time that used rest in this way got me thinking, how do we know which kind of rest will be deliberate for us?
[00:08:57] Emma Waddington: You know, because, because, the default, you're [00:09:00] right. We think of rest as, you know, sleeping or you know, watching something on the TV that doesn't require much. But actually what you're talking about here is really quite different. And I can just see some of our listeners and even my mind going, is this the kind of rest I should be doing that's actually going to make, the work. You know, that partnership that we're talking about making me better at my work, I can see us putting that. Level of
[00:09:31] Emma Waddington: Analysis
[00:09:32] Emma Waddington: and preoccupation onto the quality of our rest. So I'd love to hear from you. You know, when we talk about deliberate rest and this rest that really is good for us and our brains.
[00:09:42] Emma Waddington: What do we, how do we figure that out for ourselves?
[00:09:45] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Sure. Okay. So I think we can,
[00:09:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: You can think about it
[00:09:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in, at a couple different ways or at a couple different levels, sort of,
[00:09:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: first of all, at the level
[00:09:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of sort of things.
[00:09:58] Daily Breaks and Their Benefits
[00:09:58] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Things that you do as a break [00:10:00] when you are working.
[00:10:01] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Right.
[00:10:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: One of the things that I see. Highly accomplished, very creative people sort of doing in their daily schedules is actually working.
[00:10:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Far fewer hours than you might imagine or necessary to complete something like the Ninth Symphony,
[00:10:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: whether it's Beethoven or Mahler, or the origin of Species, or, you know, to be Stephen King.
[00:10:23] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: What you see with, in, with them is that these are people who will work really intensely hard for about 90 minutes to two hours and then take a long break, right under, in a sort of half an hour, 45 minutes
[00:10:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: so, and then go
[00:10:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: back and work some more
[00:10:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and stack
[00:10:40] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: two, maybe three of those sort of really intensive work
[00:10:44] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sessions so that.
[00:10:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: on top of,
[00:10:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or sort of Sandwiched
[00:10:49] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: between sort of these periods of
[00:10:51] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: rest. And
[00:10:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that for them is a day. So very often their work, they are laboring perhaps four or five
[00:10:58] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: hours a day [00:11:00] now. In that rest period, what
[00:11:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: they're doing is relatively low intensity stuff. Very often going for a walk maybe spending some time working in the garden, doing something in nature.
[00:11:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And you do
[00:11:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that because
[00:11:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it
[00:11:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you an opportunity to activate a part of your creative subconscious that allows you to keep thinking. Kind of subconsciously about outstanding questions that you haven't been able to answer. You know, furiously typing away at the keyboard or, or of, at the, or of, at
[00:11:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the blackboard.
[00:11:32] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: It involves a sec, a part of the brain or a set of regions that neuroscientists
[00:11:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: called the default mode network. the default mode is something that's capable of switching on very, very quickly, right? Literally in the time it
[00:11:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: us
[00:11:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to blink our eyes, it starts to activate and the default, one of the things that the default mode is really good at is working on problems that we have not been
[00:11:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: able to solve through conscious effort.
[00:11:58] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Now,
[00:11:59] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Now,
[00:11:59] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: [00:12:00] sometimes.
[00:12:01] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: That or our
[00:12:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: default mode will get caught on,
[00:12:04] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: let's say, you know, a fight you had with a friend or,
[00:12:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or of some challenge at work and will kind of ruminate on it. But if you've been working hard on a problem and you haven't solved it, the default mode network tends to wanna
[00:12:19] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: keep working
[00:12:20] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: on that.
[00:12:20] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And, but
[00:12:22] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: if during your break you do something that's too mentally intensive, then that can get in the way of the default mode.
[00:12:28] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: So.
[00:12:29] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: It turns out that not only does, let's say, you know. Going
[00:12:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: for a 20 minute walk after
[00:12:36] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you've been working for a couple hours, give
[00:12:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you an opportunity to clear your head, to look out,
[00:12:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know,
[00:12:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: at things that are not just on screens, but are
[00:12:45] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: farther away.
[00:12:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: But it also gives, or of your subconscious time to work on problems, even as your conscious mind is elsewhere, and sometimes to come up with answers that had alluded your own sort of deliberate effort. [00:13:00]
[00:13:00] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: This is something that actually operates
[00:13:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: very often on a
[00:13:04] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sort of in our daily lives. You know, when you're trying to remember the name of the
[00:13:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: who was in the
[00:13:09] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: movie and that other thing, and.
[00:13:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: The, the, it's on the tip of your tongue and then five minutes later you're folding laundry and oh, that was Hugh Jackman, right? That's the default mode continuing to work on a
[00:13:21] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: problem even
[00:13:22] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: while
[00:13:22] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you're
[00:13:22] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: doing something else. And so during the workday
[00:13:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: doing relatively low intensity things that kind of give you a stretch, that get your muscles moving, but are not very intellectually intensive, can be really good for.
[00:13:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Or of both recharging your batteries but giving you some time to or of, to keep working on problems and maybe come up with some novel
[00:13:45] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: solutions.
[00:13:47] Hobbies and Lifelong Interests
[00:13:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Now there is an if you expand to sort of the level of like nights and weekends for people who
[00:13:54] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: are
[00:13:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in. Sort of high intensity
[00:13:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: jobs or have trouble detaching from work [00:14:00] either because it's highly stressful, right?
[00:14:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: You, if you work in an a and e or an emergency room, for example the people who survive in those jobs longest are people who have serious interests outside of work that take their mind off
[00:14:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: work. So.
[00:14:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: So.
[00:14:18] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And that can be anything from, you know, rebuilding a transmission in a, in sort of an old car
[00:14:24] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to being a
[00:14:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: potter or artist or
[00:14:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or of going to the gym
[00:14:29] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and beating up on various, you know, sort of boards and backs.
[00:14:33] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: It is highly personal, so it's, IM so it's important to figure out.
[00:14:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Which thing really
[00:14:40] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sort of appeals to and works
[00:14:43] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you? Meaning
[00:14:44] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the thing that is going, first of all, to give you a real break, second to be something that you're gonna continue to do, right? There
[00:14:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: may be something that's kind of engaging if you can do it,
[00:14:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: but only if
[00:14:56] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you're doing it
[00:14:56] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: with friends
[00:14:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you're doing it with the right teacher, but [00:15:00] does not have kind of
[00:15:01] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: an
[00:15:01] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: inherent.
[00:15:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Pleasure to
[00:15:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it.
[00:15:04] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Finding the thing that,
[00:15:05] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or that you'll do no matter what
[00:15:07] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: is, I think sort of also really important. And then the third thing I would say is
[00:15:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that there is that
[00:15:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: above and beyond this, there can be really serious sort of lifelong hobbies that people or of take up that turn out to be real wellsprings of creativity.
[00:15:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: So.
[00:15:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: You know,
[00:15:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: these are things often more time intensive, sometimes physically dangerous, like sailing or sort of mountain climbing that
[00:15:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: do a couple things.
[00:15:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: One of them
[00:15:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: is that they.
[00:15:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Literally take you out
[00:15:43] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of work and sort of your normal life, there're
[00:15:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: are often things you have to plan for. So you have
[00:15:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: fixed periods where
[00:15:50] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you've gotta be out of the office
[00:15:51] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: because you are,
[00:15:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know, taking
[00:15:53] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: a week and sort of
[00:15:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: going climbing or
[00:15:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sailing or whatever.
[00:15:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: It's also. [00:16:00] Generally physically quite demanding rather than cognitively.
[00:16:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And for lots of people, it offers some of the same rewards as they find in work when it goes well without the frustrations. So for example,
[00:16:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: scientists.
[00:16:18] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Are sometimes sort of really serious rock
[00:16:21] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: climbers or mountain climbers,
[00:16:23] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and they talk about climbing as being a lot like
[00:16:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: science in the sense
[00:16:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that
[00:16:28] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it's a really intensive engagement with nature, but it takes a very different form.
[00:16:33] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: It is also though. An enterprise in which you have to focus
[00:16:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: really, really
[00:16:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: hard. You have this
[00:16:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: challenge. You break down into a lot of smaller technical steps, and then you have to execute them. It's different from science, though, in the sense that at the end of the day, either you've reached the top of the peak or you haven't.
[00:16:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: In contrast to lab experiments where sometimes you
[00:16:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: spend a year and you don't really get much of an answer or you get something that's very [00:17:00] ambiguous, so you
[00:17:01] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: get a very clear payoff
[00:17:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in a short period that feels like.
[00:17:05] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Lab work when it goes
[00:17:06] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: well, if you talk to CEOs who are climbers, in contrast, they talk about it being like leadership, right?
[00:17:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: You've got this big challenge and you've gotta motivate people to push past their boundaries and or to plant, you know, to
[00:17:20] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or of to be strategic with their
[00:17:22] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: resources. And so
[00:17:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: even
[00:17:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: though it's the same. the same sport they're zeroing in on different facets of it that sort of appeal to them in their work when it goes well.
[00:17:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And so, you know, over
[00:17:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and over again, I see people. Even who are in highly competitive fields who sometimes are, in or, contests for some big dis, you know, world changing discovery, who have these hobbies and
[00:17:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: will spend, you
[00:17:53] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: know, a month, a year
[00:17:54] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or pursuing them
[00:17:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and. If you can find one of those, I think that that [00:18:00] can provide a really great counterpoint over the long run to sort the challenges
[00:18:06] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and trials of your work.
[00:18:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: So Slightly eng engage, you know, slightly physically engaging, but or
[00:18:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: things on the
[00:18:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: daily basis.
[00:18:15] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Hobbies on nights and weekends that take your mind off work. and then these big challenges that remind you of what you love best about or of work when it goes well, but in a very different kind of medium.
[00:18:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: These are different examples of how deliberate
[00:18:30] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: rest.
[00:18:32] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Operates and plays out and rewards us at these different scales.
[00:18:36] Chris McCurry: these don't have to be sold. Of endeavors.
[00:18:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: No, certainly not. No. They can be, they can be things that you do with other people. I think
[00:18:45] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that, sailing is a great example
[00:18:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: something that generally you need at, other people are of
[00:18:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: on deck sort of to do safely. I think that for, you know, as
[00:18:58] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: practical
[00:18:59] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: matter, [00:19:00] many people when they are younger
[00:19:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: who play team sports will gravitate to things that they can do
[00:19:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: on their own or with friends.
[00:19:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: That's mainly a scheduling thing, right? People's lives get complex. You can't necessarily get 11 people, to the field at the same time. And so shifting
[00:19:20] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to
[00:19:20] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: something else that you can do by yourself or you can do with a couple friends you know, sort of turns out to be the thing that's feasible.
[00:19:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: But there's nothing about this that says that if you've got, you know.
[00:19:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: A
[00:19:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: football league
[00:19:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in your neighborhood that you should not choose that and instead
[00:19:36] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: do this other thing by yourself. I think that the, you know, the only bad kind of deliberate rest is the kind that you don't take.
[00:19:44] The Role of Community and Mastery in Rest
[00:19:44] Chris McCurry: I have a colleague here in Seattle who rose, he's part of a rowing
[00:19:49] Chris McCurry: group.
[00:19:50] Chris McCurry: Uh, He's my
[00:19:51] Chris McCurry: Age, they call themselves the ancient mariners, they
[00:19:55] Chris McCurry: do eight man. She,
[00:19:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:57] Chris McCurry: They practice and they go to [00:20:00] meets. And so it, it really
[00:20:03] Chris McCurry: It
[00:20:03] Chris McCurry: kind of forces him in a way to show up.
[00:20:06] Chris McCurry: and he's not gonna let the team down. He has to go to practice.
[00:20:10] Chris McCurry: So he can't, he can't put it off so easily if it's a solo endeavor.
[00:20:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that's fabulous.
[00:20:15] Chris McCurry: that, yeah.
[00:20:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Yeah. You know, there is, there was a wonderful longitudinal study done in Southern California of scientists at UCLA, Caltech and and USC starting in the 1950s,
[00:20:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and they did psychology tests
[00:20:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and.
[00:20:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Interviews every couple
[00:20:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: years with the aim
[00:20:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: trying to understand what
[00:20:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: makes
[00:20:40] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: some people are successes in science, what
[00:20:43] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: accounts for, or basically what psychological
[00:20:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: attributes make people, geniuses, And
[00:20:50] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: One of, and the fascinating thing that they found was that, you know, over the years, this community bifurcates into four Nobel Prize winners
[00:20:59] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in a bunch
[00:20:59] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of very [00:21:00] high performers, and then a second group that is not particularly distinguished
[00:21:05] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: psychologically in terms of their profiles and things, their IQs,
[00:21:09] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Et cetera.
[00:21:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: They look identical. The difference is that the high achievers continue to play sports of
[00:21:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: one kind or another, while the second group does not, in part
[00:21:23] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: because they feel like they
[00:21:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: don't have time for it.
[00:21:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: The first group.
[00:21:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: group.
[00:21:28] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Forces themselves to make
[00:21:30] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: time
[00:21:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in the way that your friend or of who Rose does, right?
[00:21:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Having that commitment
[00:21:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to other people is sort of forces you to be, I think, a little better organized with your time
[00:21:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: work so that you can, you know, show up. On
[00:21:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the water at, you know,
[00:21:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: 6:00 AM or whatever crazy hour
[00:21:50] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: rowers tend to sort of, you know, or of be
[00:21:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: out there.
[00:21:53] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And
[00:21:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: this is, you know, and this was something that held
[00:21:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: true or.
[00:21:58] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of[00:22:00]
[00:22:00] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Even while these people, you know, were in their sixties or seventies, right? They were still out, this
[00:22:06] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Southern California,
[00:22:07] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know, sort of climbing the San Gabriel Mountains or in a couple cases still surfing and sort of it became one of, one of the great constants of their lives along with the Nobel Prizes and other cool things.
[00:22:23] Emma Waddington: this conversation is very validating 'cause I can see how this deliberate rest has many functions. You know, one is around this. Community, building a community potentially and being a part of something. There's
[00:22:37] Emma Waddington: also the piece around mastery. You know, sometimes work can feel quite challenging and like there isn't the outcome, we're not getting to where we want to.
[00:22:47] Emma Waddington: And some of those things that we do outside of work can feel more masterful. where I live in Singapore, there's a huge community of triathletes and and it's always struck me that these are [00:23:00] sort of incredibly high performing in their work and they're choosing these, you know, Ironmans very, very difficult and very you know, training dense activities.
[00:23:12] Emma Waddington: These are spending 15 hours a week training, and yet this is what they're choosing. So I can see that sense of. the function around mastery and feeling like you can succeed because some of these sports do have, you know, you, can win or lose or you can get better. And, and talking to some of the triathletes, you know, they sort of optimize their nutrition.
[00:23:34] Emma Waddington: They really, really think about it
[00:23:36] Emma Waddington: a
[00:23:36] Emma Waddington: And then I can see there's another part of rest, which is that sort of. Piece around the aha moments that you can get when you're taking these breaks. So it feels, and, and when you were talking about that, it just, it really validated the way that I work.
[00:23:51] Emma Waddington: I'd never
[00:23:52] Emma Waddington: thought of it until I read your book. When I was writing my PhD, I, I used to spend [00:24:00] hours cooking these really lavish three-course meals and inviting all my friends and, you know, I learned how to bake. And I remember there was these three friends in particular who are like, we can't be fed like this all the time. We're gonna become humongous.
[00:24:15] Emma Waddington: And I,
[00:24:16] Emma Waddington: I I didn't understand what I was doing, but after reading your book, I realized that I was resting. I was writing, I was doing my PhD, and then I would bounce off my chair and go into the kitchen, which was next to my office. and I noticed that I still do that today if I need to, you know, write a an article or whatever I might be doing.
[00:24:36] Emma Waddington: I find myself doing the work, but then I have to leave. I can't stay at my desk. I have to get up, go for a walk, go for a run, actually running. Is is an incredible time for me to get ideas and solutions to complex problems, and I'd never understood it
[00:24:52] Emma Waddington: until I read about.
[00:24:53] Emma Waddington: the.
[00:24:55] Emma Waddington: You know, the default network mode that you describe in the book.
[00:24:58] Emma Waddington: And so I can see how [00:25:00] rest is a partner to work in so many different ways in the, you know, we take these breaks because it actually
[00:25:06] Emma Waddington: nourishes
[00:25:07] Emma Waddington: us in many ways and it sort of, I can see how it reduces the risk for burnout because you can feel masterful and purposeful in different ways, not just work.
[00:25:16] Emma Waddington: And connection. And it can actually make you a work
[00:25:20] Emma Waddington: Better
[00:25:21] Emma Waddington: because by taking these breaks, you might get the breakthrough the ideas. And I can feel them in my brain. I talk it that they're percolating. It feels like it's percolating in the back. I just never had a name for it that was more scientific.
[00:25:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: at the very least what
[00:25:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: a break,
[00:25:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know, during the day is gonna provide you.
[00:25:41] The Power of Micro Breaks
[00:25:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Is a
[00:25:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: slightly clearer mind and more energy when you do come back to
[00:25:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: work, right? I think there is study after study that tells us
[00:25:51] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that,
[00:25:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: What
[00:25:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sociologists call micro breaks, right periods of 10 to 15 minutes after a couple hours
[00:25:58] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: at work, [00:26:00] make you more productive even though you quote unquote lose the time during those micro breaks to
[00:26:07] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: non-work
[00:26:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: activities.
[00:26:09] Mastery and Control in Hobbies
[00:26:09] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: I think also that, you know, the,
[00:26:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: your point about mastery is a really good one because one
[00:26:15] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of the things
[00:26:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that you see.
[00:26:17] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: You know,
[00:26:18] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in hobbies, in sort of the kinds of, you know, in sort
[00:26:22] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of serious activities like, sort of, you
[00:26:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: know, climbing or sailing,
[00:26:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: is that sense
[00:26:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of mastery, sense of
[00:26:29] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: control,
[00:26:30] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and the fact that it offers an opportunity to sort
[00:26:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of,
[00:26:36] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to feel and to exercise that, which for people, especially who are in fields where the work itself is.
[00:26:45] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Has a degree of unpredictability to it
[00:26:49] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: is
[00:26:49] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: psychologically very important.
[00:26:52] The Social Dimension of Rest
[00:26:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And then finally,
[00:26:53] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the resting community, I think you're,
[00:26:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you are really onto something there in that, for many of us, [00:27:00] just as work, provides a kind
[00:27:01] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: kind
[00:27:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of. Sort of, you know, opportunity for socialization being around other people, making friends.
[00:27:09] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: So to can rest.
[00:27:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: There's finally, and
[00:27:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: I will
[00:27:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: build on that by saying that there is also
[00:27:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: often an important social and collective dimension to rest in the sense that, one of the things that impacts our ability to rest well.
[00:27:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Is, or of the degree to which other people, particularly at work, our colleagues or of are able to support this or,
[00:27:36] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or preferably to do
[00:27:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it with us, right?
[00:27:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: That we are powerfully affected both by social or professional norms, but especially by
[00:27:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: expectations in the workplace. And if you are in
[00:27:51] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: a place where. People have designed daily schedules in which everyone, it's, you know, okay to be heads down and a [00:28:00] little bit antisocial for a couple hours in
[00:28:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: morning,
[00:28:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: but then you all get together for coffee at this time and talk about the game
[00:28:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or catch up on other things that turns out to be.
[00:28:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Really powerful as a way,
[00:28:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: both of giving
[00:28:16] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: everybody an opportunity to focus harder, but also making sure that at the end of that
[00:28:23] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you get,
[00:28:24] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know, the benefits of
[00:28:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Spending time
[00:28:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: with one another without a sense of guilt about, you know, sort of, are you kind of. You know, letting your colleagues down or such because they're right there with you.
[00:28:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And so
[00:28:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: there is. An element of
[00:28:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sort of communality or sociability to rest that is easy to overlook and that's very much worth sort of being aware of when you try sort of to implement this for yourself, either in your own personal life or at work.
[00:28:58] Emma Waddington: And
[00:28:59] Emma Waddington: like [00:29:00] you were
[00:29:00] Emma Waddington: saying.
[00:29:01] Burnout and the Sense of Mattering
[00:29:01] Emma Waddington: You know, I work with a lot of organizations. We talk a lot about burnout and the emphasis often in burnout is, you know, this idea that it's the relentless stress that burns us out. But one of the biggest protective factors is a sense of mattering.
[00:29:16] Emma Waddington: You matter to
[00:29:17] Emma Waddington: the organization, but to also to the people that you work with. And as you were describing, you know, taking those coffees and asking each other about the game or you know, what's been happening in your life,
[00:29:29] Emma Waddington: that
[00:29:29] Emma Waddington: does instill a sense of mattering to each other.
[00:29:33] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that , all the literature that I'm
[00:29:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: aware of on burnout
[00:29:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: does talk about that sense of
[00:29:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: alienation from the work or
[00:29:44] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: from colleagues as.
[00:29:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Arguably
[00:29:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the most important things that sort
[00:29:50] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of determine whether you're going to feel burned out or not.
[00:29:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: than
[00:29:53] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the volume of the work or the number of hours that you are sort of the, that you're spending. [00:30:00] And, you know, I think it's all too often we underestimate the degree to which sort of our ability To matter to other people socially
[00:30:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: as well as,
[00:30:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know, matter to them as
[00:30:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: units of economic production
[00:30:17] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or as you know, collaborators on projects.
[00:30:20] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Really really actually is important both for us and for them. And so we should not,
[00:30:30] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: underestimate the
[00:30:32] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sort of,
[00:30:32] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the value of that. And just as micro breaks are important for our energy levels and sort of output, so too is that time with other people at work important. As sort of a source of mattering for, you know, really for all of us.
[00:30:52] Chris McCurry: I mean, for so many people, their work is well, is as we would say in behavioral psychology. We are in a [00:31:00] lean reinforcement schedule.
[00:31:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Hmm.
[00:31:03] Chris McCurry: we
[00:31:03] Chris McCurry: don't, we don't get the kudos. We don't get the pats on the head. We don't get the at boys, outer girls very often.
[00:31:09] Chris McCurry: And whether, and I think a lot of our listeners are in the mental health field, and Being, being a psychotherapist, a social worker can be pretty depleting and you just don't get a lot back from, your clients, your patients. And parenting certainly is not a two-way street in terms of, you know.
[00:31:29] Chris McCurry: a
[00:31:29] Chris McCurry: Affirming what you're doing. So it is really important that we seek this, these kinds of,
[00:31:36] Chris McCurry: recreating
[00:31:36] Chris McCurry: ourselves in the getting, getting filled up outside of the, the work situation. 'cause often it's, it's just not very rewarding, frankly,
[00:31:47] Chris McCurry: you know, you know, over the long haul.
[00:31:48] Chris McCurry: Maybe, you know, it's my calling, et cetera.
[00:31:51] Chris McCurry: But on the day-to-day basis, it can, you know, the burnout potential is quite high.
[00:31:55] Balancing Work and Rest for Longevity
[00:31:55] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Yeah, but I think that, you know, even, even if you are in [00:32:00] a job that you really like
[00:32:01] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or, or of doing work that you see as, as a calling or a vocation, it's still really important to think about
[00:32:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: how you can structure your work
[00:32:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and your rest
[00:32:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: so
[00:32:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that you can do
[00:32:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: this for a very long time rather than just for a few years.
[00:32:19] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: You know, the first book that talked about,
[00:32:21] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Workaholics was one written by a professor at University of Louisville who was in the school of Theology. And,
[00:32:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know, it was based on his observations you know, as a professor of pastoral pastoral theology, I think it was. But you know, he trained ministers.
[00:32:40] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And, you know, talk about something that was both a calling but also had a very high burnout rate. And so the, you know, I think that all too often we imagine success
[00:32:53] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: as being a kind of sort of arms race against time, right? We're or against [00:33:00] our own obsolescence or sort of exhaustion that, you know, we have.
[00:33:04] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: We imagine we have
[00:33:05] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: a limited window in which to make
[00:33:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: our impact.
[00:33:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And that may be true for, you know, big data and our,
[00:33:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and you know, AI or
[00:33:15] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know,
[00:33:15] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: certain cutting edge fields. But for most
[00:33:18] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of us,
[00:33:19] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: work is something that if we enjoy. If we get something out of, we should seek to figure out how we can do it for a long time rather than for a little time because it'll be better for us and over.
[00:33:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And I think, you know, we almost all of us find that we have things
[00:33:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to
[00:33:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: give with
[00:33:40] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: experience.
[00:33:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: That, you know, we could not have done when the main things we had to offer were, energy and novelty and
[00:33:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: inexperience.
[00:33:50] Chris McCurry: Right. Youthful ignorance
[00:33:52] Chris McCurry: that kept us going. Are you familiar with the work of David White? W-H-Y-T-E?
[00:33:57] Chris McCurry: He's
[00:33:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: know the name, but go
[00:33:59] Chris McCurry: poet. [00:34:00] He's a poet, and he is also written a lot about work and you know, corporate consultant that, um, in one of his books he's in conversation with a monk
[00:34:10] Chris McCurry: and he's,
[00:34:10] Chris McCurry: David White is talking about how exhausted he is and the monk says the antidote to exhaustion is not rest.
[00:34:16] Chris McCurry: It is wholeheartedness,
[00:34:19] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: I like
[00:34:20] Chris McCurry: I really like. But you know, and that goes to the idea of play and the thing that really replenishes you and and then being able to go back to work, you know, wholeheartedly.
[00:34:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: No, I think that, yeah, I real, I really like that and
[00:34:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: I have to respect anyone who is able to be both a poet and a corporate consultant. So, or good for them to be, for being able to or of navigate those two worlds.
[00:34:45] Emma Waddington: and it's this idea
[00:34:46] Emma Waddington: around that sort of sustainable excellence, right? That what will sustain us to be able to continue to do. The work that we think is valuable and meaningful.
[00:34:59] Emma Waddington: I, [00:35:00] I work with a lot of sort of high performing individuals and we talk about that a lot on the on the podcast, and I loved your first book on driven to Distraction.
[00:35:09] Emma Waddington: It's a while back that you wrote that, but this idea is so true that, you know, our weeks are sort of peppered
[00:35:17] Emma Waddington: with,
[00:35:18] Emma Waddington: You know, contact with technology, emails, meetings, messages. And so, the concept of four, you know, hours of deep work feels almost impossible because we are so, distracted.
[00:35:33] Emma Waddington: I put it in air quotes, but there's so many things on a day-to-day basis that are coming our way, that demand our attention
[00:35:40] Emma Waddington: that
[00:35:40] Emma Waddington: it's hard to decipher do. Decipher
[00:35:42] Emma Waddington: truly matters, what truly is important, and what is it that I need to, it's almost like how do we organize our day when we have so many demands, not just from a,
[00:35:52] Emma Waddington: Know,
[00:35:52] Emma Waddington: working parents particularly demands from that.
[00:35:56] Emma Waddington: But there's also the demands from the day to day working with teams that are [00:36:00] hyper communicative, And engaged. Do you have any thoughts on that? Actually.
[00:36:04] The Challenge of Modern Distractions
[00:36:04] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Well, I think, you know, first of all, let's understand, let's acknowledge the, sort of the scale of the problem, right? , we go
[00:36:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to sort of open plan offices where we use
[00:36:18] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: technologies that have been designed by a hundred behavioral science PhDs to get
[00:36:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: us.
[00:36:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Who
[00:36:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: are ab testing every last pixel and second of the experience
[00:36:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in order to keep us online just a little longer to subscribe to, you know, one more, you know, sort of one more monthly box. I mean the, the range of things that are trying to capture and
[00:36:43] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: commodify our attention are enormous and we have never had the magnitude of sort of the challenge of sort of managing and sort of reclaiming our attention on a daily basis that what have [00:37:00] we face today? It's not new in an absolute sense. I mean, you know, the Buddha was talking about the monkey mind 2,500 years ago. It is.
[00:37:09] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Capacity for
[00:37:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: distraction is a very, very human thing.
[00:37:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: What's new is that
[00:37:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: we now have
[00:37:15] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: a billionaire class able to
[00:37:17] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: wield incredible technologies to make a lot of money off
[00:37:21] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of it
[00:37:21] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and a lot of science that, or behind how to or of,
[00:37:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: How to push it just a little farther.
[00:37:29] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: But I think that if your listeners find themselves in a situation where
[00:37:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: they are challenged to focus the way that they did when they were younger, or the way
[00:37:40] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to focus,
[00:37:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the way that they feel
[00:37:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that
[00:37:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: they ought to be able to, they are not alone, and it's not just them.
[00:37:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: They're living in a
[00:37:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: world that is engineered for distraction.
[00:37:50] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: I think that the good news is that it is never too late
[00:37:56] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to start to
[00:37:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: recognize how these [00:38:00] technologies and the spaces in which of we work are almost custom made to a road. Our attention. And that we know now a lot about how we can push back against
[00:38:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: those things
[00:38:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in order to create sort of more space for focus, which translates into more time for ourselves, which translates into also more time or for rest, which then begins a kind
[00:38:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of virtuous circle.
[00:38:28] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: You know, and I think
[00:38:29] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that this can be starting with really.
[00:38:33] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Basic things like you know, changing the way in which you set your alerts on your devices. Right. I have a thing called the
[00:38:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: zombie apocalypse test, which is I ask myself, who is it? Who during the zombie
[00:38:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: apocalypse needs
[00:38:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to be able to call me?
[00:38:50] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And that's basically family and a couple other people, and
[00:38:54] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: I give them one ringtone. It's the opening bars to Derek and the Domino's, Layla. Because you know [00:39:00] that
[00:39:00] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that fantastic guitar riff because no matter where I am
[00:39:04] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that's
[00:39:04] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: gonna cut through and I'm gonna hear it.
[00:39:07] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: I only give that
[00:39:08] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to the people who deserve to be able
[00:39:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: interrupt me
[00:39:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: matter what else in my life is going on.
[00:39:15] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Everybody else gets the opening bars of one of box unaccompanied cello sweets because. If I'm really deeply focused, I have no trouble just ignoring that and letting it go to voicemail if I'm not. I can make, it's easier to make a choice about whether I'm going to pick
[00:39:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: up or not.
[00:39:35] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: That's just one example of the kinds
[00:39:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of things that you
[00:39:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: do that turn your phone from the equivalent of a toddler who's always trying to get your attention.
[00:39:43] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Look at me, see what I'm doing. You know, you're not paying enough attention to me to something more akin to. A slightly haughty assistant who is not gonna let
[00:39:56] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: go see
[00:39:56] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the boss, sort of just because you want to. [00:40:00] Right. But I think that
[00:40:00] Designing Environments for Focus
[00:40:00] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: one of the things that you know, that this points to is the need to take seriously the idea that we need to recapture or we need to design environments now in which.
[00:40:14] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Our
[00:40:15] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: attention is allowed to sit with sort of important things, and that
[00:40:24] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: if we have or have
[00:40:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: lost that it's not because we are Falling down on the job or because it's a sign of moral weakness, but because we live in
[00:40:33] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: a world that is designed to
[00:40:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: do exactly that and that we can begin to recover that.
[00:40:38] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And to design ways of working, ways of, you know, being with our devices that don't perpetually distract us, but allow us to be more mindful when we need to be. That allow our minds to wander when or of when that's necessary. And finally allow us to have or of better lives, both sort of [00:41:00] better interior lives, but also better lives.
[00:41:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: As
[00:41:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: parents, as friends, coworkers, or other kinds of lives with others.
[00:41:08] Chris McCurry: I think a lot of this is giving yourself permission to do this. I mean, if right now. I've got little icons at the bottom of my monitor one for my Outlook email and the other for Gmail. And they both have little, little envelopes there. So I, I, I know I'm, I can
[00:41:28] Chris McCurry: see I have, I have email, you know, and it's sort of like, check us, check us.
[00:41:34] Chris McCurry: You know, this could be important, you know, fomo. All of that. And you know, I want, I, wanna be responsive to people, you know, when they email me, they'll have the time. It's ju So I think a lot of it is just recalibrating our minds, you know, in our self concepts to be able to say, you know, this is, I, I deserved this.
[00:41:58] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Now
[00:41:59] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it is. [00:42:00] one of the, I think one of the great challenges that we sort of, that we face today speaking to this
[00:42:05] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: sort of issue of deserving it, is that, you know, when we worked on, when we worked
[00:42:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: factories
[00:42:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or, or of, you know, on farms. It was very
[00:42:17] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: easy to, relatively easy
[00:42:19] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to measure how much we got done in a day, and when the day ended, right, the sun went down, the factory whistle, ve went off.
[00:42:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And either we had finished plowing the field or had a big, you know, basket of widgets or we didn't. And in the kind of work that so many of us
[00:42:37] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: do today. We don't have those kinds of
[00:42:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: signals on a daily basis
[00:42:43] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and maybe even
[00:42:44] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: on a longer span that or allow us to or to know
[00:42:48] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: how well we're doing and
[00:42:51] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: whether we are sort of measuring up.
[00:42:53] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And so in that environment. Ours have turned into a proxy for ourselves and for our [00:43:00] bosses
[00:43:00] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of how productive
[00:43:01] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: we are, or at least
[00:43:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: how devoted
[00:43:03] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: we are to sort of the work. And I think, this has only gotten worse
[00:43:07] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in a world in which
[00:43:09] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: we now
[00:43:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: are able to carry our
[00:43:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: offices around, you know, in our pockets, thanks to our, or to smartphones that have turned.
[00:43:17] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: The potential for being
[00:43:20] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: accessible anywhere into an imperative that we
[00:43:23] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to be
[00:43:24] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: available
[00:43:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: everywhere and
[00:43:26] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: at all times. Right. And it's actually gotten worse during the
[00:43:32] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: There's a new sort of study sort of about work-life boundaries sort of during the pandemic and after
[00:43:39] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that, you know, tells us among other things that sort of during lockdowns.
[00:43:44] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: People had a harder time detaching from work, taking breaks because they didn't get the signals from sort of their,
[00:43:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you know, colleagues,
[00:43:54] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: let's go get tea or go have a walk or even just walk down to the,
[00:43:59] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: [00:44:00] to the conference room and have this meeting. And that those challenges have persisted.
[00:44:07] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Even you know, even years after the
[00:44:09] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: pandemic.
[00:44:10] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: That the, the issues that we have with scheduling time order for breaks with lowered boundaries between work and non-work time of have not rebuilt themselves sort of over the last couple years.
[00:44:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Which I think again speaks to the need to be aware of and conscious of sort of these, these issues and to work actively to solve them rather than to assume that, you know, either
[00:44:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: they're gonna take care of themselves
[00:44:44] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or that if
[00:44:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: we're bosses,
[00:44:47] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: that our employees can just do it on their own. Or if we're employees that
[00:44:51] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: we just need to find the right workplace , in which these problems are solved for us.
[00:44:56] Chris McCurry: So
[00:44:57] The Importance of Practicing Rest
[00:44:57] Chris McCurry: going back to the idea of play de [00:45:00] play, rest as skill, we have to practice it. And sometimes it's awkward at first and we have to hang in there with it until it becomes more of a habit or an established routine.
[00:45:14] Chris McCurry: And
[00:45:15] Chris McCurry: that, that may not feel comfortable. There may be forces, you know,
[00:45:18] Chris McCurry: Demanding our attention that we have to resist.
[00:45:21] Chris McCurry: And it's
[00:45:22] Chris McCurry: it's not easy, but I've been making notes of some things that I'm gonna be doing in the future, like batching my emails.
[00:45:28] Final Thoughts and Takeaways
[00:45:28] Chris McCurry: So in the interest of time, Emma, do you have any final thoughts or questions?
[00:45:35] Emma Waddington: Oh, it's just so much to take in. Actually, I'm really, really, I, I didn't take notes, but which I'm now regretting, but I wish I had because I think there is a lot to think about. And and the, the thing that sort of.
[00:45:49] Emma Waddington: Strikes me is that we can't wait for others to tell us when the work is done and when it's good enough.
[00:45:54] Emma Waddington: Right. Once upon a time when we worked at the factory, the bell went off and Oh, that's just sounds like [00:46:00] quite marvelous, you know?
[00:46:03] Chris McCurry: The, The, parenting bill never goes
[00:46:06] Emma Waddington: yeah, exactly. The
[00:46:07] Emma Waddington: pa not,
[00:46:07] Emma Waddington: not, there are no bes in my life. For any of it.
[00:46:11] Emma Waddington: And that we have to do that right. And that is uncomfortable. And that we will feel anxious.
[00:46:16] Emma Waddington: We might feel like we're letting people down. We're not
[00:46:19] Emma Waddington: doing a good enough job. All the, all the things that keep us trapped in this cycle are gonna show up as soon as we change our behavior. And so, like, you know what, Chris, you said it takes, it takes practice. It takes skill to get comfortable.
[00:46:35] Emma Waddington: And hopefully with time we will see the rewards of doing that. But. You're right, it is a bit relentless. We talk about that here a lot. There is a sense of relentlessness. The demands are relentless. And it is our
[00:46:50] Emma Waddington: responsibility
[00:46:51] Emma Waddington: to take care of ourselves and our wellbeing so that we can
[00:46:57] Emma Waddington: do
[00:46:57] Emma Waddington: better and feel better.
[00:46:58] Chris McCurry: Carry your own [00:47:00] oxygen mask first.
[00:47:00] Chris McCurry: to me.
[00:47:01] Emma Waddington: Yeah.
[00:47:02] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: thinking exactly the same thing. No, I think that
[00:47:05] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: This is one of
[00:47:06] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: the more pernicious ways in which we downplay or of the value of rest. That, or of the assumption that
[00:47:13] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: whatever, whatever we are able to do in a state of exhaustion will be, or of will,
[00:47:20] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it'll be a better, better contribution or a better use of our time than rest.
[00:47:25] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: It's a really easy. Really easy thing to believe.
[00:47:30] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: It's
[00:47:30] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: certainly a very easy thing for the world to try
[00:47:32] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to convince us of.
[00:47:34] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: And it, it, and, you know, whether we are talking about ourselves as workers or
[00:47:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: as parents
[00:47:41] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: or, you know, as, or you know, or engaged, engaged in things for ourselves the assumption that we are, we are best pushing
[00:47:51] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: through to
[00:47:52] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: exhaustion than sort of stopping is.
[00:47:54] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Always wrong. It is, , that that we will get more from the break in the [00:48:00] long run and be able to do more thanks to it for more of our lives if we're able to make that a regular thing than if we don't. And
[00:48:11] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it takes, and
[00:48:12] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: yeah, it does, it does take a little time. And, but you know, one of the things that I saw consistently in my book was that
[00:48:22] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Even incredibly smart people sometimes had to discover the value of rest
[00:48:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: in their
[00:48:27] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: thirties
[00:48:28] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: and forties after some health scare or
[00:48:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: you
[00:48:31] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: a nervous breakdown or something. And so, you know these, and I was writing about some of the world's smartest people. So if they have to learn about the value of rest the hard way, then none of us should feel bad about sort of coming
[00:48:46] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: to that recognition later than we might think we should have.
[00:48:50] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Right? The only bad thing is recognizing it and never acting on it.
[00:48:56] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: it. But
[00:48:57] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: there are all kinds of ways in which you can do [00:49:00] that, starting with small things on a daily basis and working up to some very big ones. But the world will be a better place and you'll be a better person if you do, or if you know, if you do take those first steps and make those small changes.
[00:49:16] Chris McCurry: Wonderful.
[00:49:17] Chris McCurry: That is,
[00:49:18] Chris McCurry: that's
[00:49:18] Chris McCurry: a great place to end.
[00:49:20] Chris McCurry: end.
[00:49:20] Emma Waddington: Mm,
[00:49:21] Chris McCurry: We will have links to your books and your other websites on the show notes and,
[00:49:26] Chris McCurry: thank you. This is this has been great. I've certainly a lot and it's been very inspiring and I'm gonna put it into practice
[00:49:35] Emma Waddington: yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the work that you do.
[00:49:40] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: Chris and Emma, thank you very much. It was sort
[00:49:42] Alex Soojung-Kim Pang: of great to talk to you and appreciate your excellent questions and thanks for having me on.
[00:49:48]
