Different Life

Episode Summary
In a world engineered to hijack your attention, being present has become a rare and powerful skill.

In this episode, we explore how divided attention quietly erodes leadership, relationships, and culture. What starts as a quick glance at your phone during a meeting or a notification during a conversation compounds into something bigger: weakened trust, shallow communication, and fractured connection.

From staff meetings to family dinners, from sales calls to patient care, attention is currency. If your brain leaves the room every time your phone lights up, you are not truly leading. You are multitasking your relationships.

This conversation breaks down why presence matters, why modern technology makes it difficult, and how small, intentional changes can dramatically improve communication, business performance, and personal relationships.

Key Topics Discussed
  • Why being physically present is not the same as being mentally engaged
  • How phone notifications disrupt focus and relational trust
  • The illusion of multitasking
  • The impact of distraction on team culture
  • Active listening as a performance skill
  • Community and belonging in modern life
  • Practical strategies to reduce distraction and improve presence
Chapters with Timestamps
00:00 – Opening banter and distracted moments
 05:30 – The staff meeting example and leadership blind spots
 12:15 – How notifications hijack attention
 18:40 – Work culture and constant connectivity
 24:10 – Phone habits and personal strategies
 32:00 – The illusion of multitasking
 40:15 – Curiosity and active listening
 48:30 – Finding community and connection
 55:00 – Practical steps to reclaim focus

Notable Quotes
“If your phone lights up and your brain leaves the room, you’re not actually present.”
“Attention is leadership currency.”
“You’re not multitasking your work. You’re multitasking your relationships.”
“In a distracted world, presence becomes a competitive advantage.”

Resources Mentioned
ChatGPT
 https://chat.openai.com
Slack
 https://slack.com
Cheers (TV Series Reference)
 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083399/

Connect With Us Here:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WholeHealthSolutions
Website: https://wholehealthsolutions.life/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wholehealthsolutions.life
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholehealthsolutions.life
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/whole-health-solutions-sports-performance


Creators and Guests

Host
Gary Donia
Gary Donia, MSPT is a physical therapist and Chief Operations Officer at Whole Health Solutions and Sports Performance. With more than 20 years of experience, he helps individuals and athletes recover from injury, build strength, and improve long-term physical capability. Gary focuses on identifying root causes, creating practical plans, and guiding people toward sustainable health and performance. In addition to his clinical work, he coaches high school and Legion baseball, applying movement principles to develop resilient, confident athletes. He lives in Townsend, Massachusetts, with his wife Jessica and their two sons, and is passionate about helping people build healthier, more capable lives both on and off the field.
Host
Peter Brouillard
Peter Brouillard, DPT is the Founder and CEO of Whole Health Solutions and Sports Performance. As a physical therapist and strength coach, he works with individuals and athletes to recover from injury, build strength, and develop long-term resilience. Peter takes a whole-body approach to health, integrating exercise, lifestyle habits, and performance principles to help people exceed their goals and unlock their potential. His focus is on practical strategies that create lasting change, not quick fixes. He is passionate about empowering people to take ownership of their health and build lives defined by capability, confidence, and meaningful progress.

What is Different Life?

Most people don’t need more motivation. They need a different approach. Hosted by Gary Donia and Peter Brouillard, Different Life draws on years of experience helping people navigate pain, movement, recovery, and performance — but the conversation goes far beyond health alone.

We talk about:
• Strength training as a life skill
• Back pain, mobility, and injury recovery
• Pelvic floor health and durability
• Sleep, stress, hormones, and energy
• Performance and longevity over 40
• Discipline, habits, and identity shifts
• Parenting and modeling health
• Relationship-based healthcare

We discuss these not as isolated topics, but as part of a bigger question: What does it look like to live differently, not just try to live better?
If you feel stuck in patterns that no longer fit who you want to become, this show is for you. Because better often keeps you in the same cycles. Different changes your trajectory.

Gary Donia (00:00)
All right, Peter, we're back.

Did you just take a bite of an apple as we started the show? I'm not cutting that out. I'm leaving that in there. I'm just glad you're done slipping on your chicken. It's right juicy. It's wrong with you. I actually walked into our office the other day and you were, we just recently hired a new person and you were doing some training with that person. And as I walked in, you literally were sitting about six inches from her face, you know, talking to her and you took this giant bite of an apple like right in her ear.

And I remember thinking like one that had to be so loud and two like we know that your apple juices tend to squirt everywhere. Did you ask her about it? I didn't ask her. I don't know. You know, but I was just like, my gosh, she definitely just got apple all over the side of her face. Yeah. It's like, do you remember when I bit right next to you? Yeah. I was just like, God, I walked into the room. got a Courtney go, poor Cheech Yeah. Which is the name of the new girl. Yeah. Okay. Are you present?

here today, Peter. Are you in the moment can tell by how deeply I'm looking into your It's awkward. I'm going to look the other way. the reason I ask is because we recently had a staff meeting. So we have all of our people you own, you own for people who are new to us. Peter owns his own company. so all these people work for him. So there's probably, I don't know, four people in there. Well, 12 total. But in this meeting, maybe four five of us total at the time. That's five.

We had it down in one of our offices and we're having this staff meeting and I swear to God you paid attention about five, five percent of the time that we were there. You know what you were doing the rest of the time? No. You were on your phone. What? I'm not supposed to be on my phone. No shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is why I'm bringing it up because this show today is going to be about being present because you wanted to talk about it for the record. I didn't, I didn't bring this up just to computer hard time, but he wants to talk about being present.

and he had some thoughts, he's been thinking a lot about being present and it reminded me of this staff meeting. I actually asked one of our coworkers this morning, I said, hey, did you, in the last staff meeting, did you notice Peter? And she's like, yeah, he was on his phone the whole time. Why didn't you say something? Because I didn't want to call you out in front of the whole should have. I didn't know. So you were doing other things, I don't think you were scrolling, it wasn't like you were scrolling on social media. No. I think you were texting with.

maybe some prospective clients, you were checking, like, I think at one point you were on your email, something to do with the building, we're trying to get some more space in the building, I think you were doing something with that. Like there was all Yeah, like it was meeting related. Yeah, not our meeting. because then you would kind of look up and be like, what are we talking about? And then you would chime in, but it was stuff that we already had talked about. So you basically were a non- You might as well not even have been there.

Like you didn't participate, you didn't have any thing to really add or say to the thing. But meanwhile, all of your employees noticed, right? So then what do you think they think in a meeting like that? Where Peter doesn't care. should we? Right. Interesting. So, but I think that was an example of when there was something like in this case, it just happened to be a staff meeting that was, should have been the most important thing to you in that very moment. You were not present.

Everyone else knew it and I think this happens all the time and so then that leads me into this like you said that you have been thinking about this a lot recently so clearly there's something else going on in your in your World that made you think about it. No, I mean that's an example like that's a part of it. that's an example So so what's been going on outside of maybe here or whatever that that you because you said I've been thinking a lot about this So what made you think a lot? Yeah, so in work outside of work, whatever it may be if I'm with somebody

then it needs to be like totally unimpeded by outside distractions of any kind. So give me an example of this. Yeah. So, if my phone is anywhere near me and it had, it dings like, so even if I'm intentionally not looking at it, like my phone's like, like this, if it's face up in my peripheral view right now, I can see the screen light up as a notification comes in. What does that do?

That takes me out of the present moment and it brings my mind to this thing instantly that I've been trained to react to right so and so even if you don't look at it, it doesn't matter. My brain is you've left the conversation correct and I got to like reengage right? So I'm doing this like so anything so that's one example. This is like anything in life. So if I am engaged in if I'm in my house and I have like an earbud it I gave you an if it's just one I'm still fucking happy. I'm so do that. No, so if you did not when people are around. Yeah.

Like by myself I am, like, but like my kids, instance, like, you know, they'll like, so Peyton will just be in the habit. My daughter of like having one in, or maybe even both. And then like, I basically have like a deaf child walking around the house. Like she might as well not be in the house, right? Can't really have a conversation with her or like, you know, if my kids are on the phone or I'm on the, it's just, if we are distracted when we're trying to be with and interact with somebody else, we're not actually being with them.

We're doing this other thing. You just happen to be in the same place. And it's this half ass like attempt at a relationship. Yeah. And so there's just it's really important to me that when I'm with you that I'm with you and the only time I'm on some device or being distracted is when I'm trying to do the work, right? And I'm not like with another human being. Yeah. So it's just like that matters to me a lot. And I've been working through like trying to be intentional in the moment when I'm with people.

to take away everything that is distracting to that mission. Right, so what have your strategies been? So I agree with you. So I think the world is very distracted right now. We're all distracted by like a million things, right? Like the phone is, one of them is designed that way. You know, the colors, the sounds, the everything, the vibration. That's the main offender. Yeah, the phone for sure. I think in general though, I think people are, you mentioned, or we've talked recently,

about work culture, people never stop working, right? The work from home thing has created a big problem with this because there no boundaries. You're always at work, but you're home now. Yeah, you're just always at work and so there's no boundaries and therefore you're constantly, ⁓ I have a client here who I think she basically has nightmares over the sound that Microsoft Teams makes when a message comes through.

Because it happens like all of the time is constantly going off on and it gives her like stress and anxiety because she can hear it I mean, you know what? don't associate this sound with the thing that you hate Yeah and it's automatically like even if you're if it's like a holiday morning or something and the thing is beeping in the background because your computer happens to be open in a different room you can hear it and that makes you think about work, know, and we've had this conversation here about Leaving our employees alone when we're when they're not supposed to be here because even sending them a message on

And we use Slack, so sending a message on Slack, even if they don't look at it, if they hear it or see it come through, they leave whatever they're doing in their mind and they think about, I wonder what that is. Peter just sent me a thing or Gary just sent me a thing. I wonder what that is. And I think we try to be better at that and we fail pretty often. I know I do. I text one of our employees like all of the time because we're working on like marketing things together and I drive her nuts and I try and then I'm like, sorry, we should leave you alone.

You know, Sunday, but what are you? So what are you doing? Like, what are your strategies around say outside of work? Like with your family, what are some things that you've been doing to be more present? So it always starts with intention, meaning like, if you just go by default, your brain will do the normal thing it's used to doing and you'll be distracted and your phone will ding at you or the TV's on or you are distracted by this other person. So

So when I go into an interaction with people, if I can be aware of what's happening, I will set my intentions of, OK, during this interaction, I'm going to do these things to take away all of the distractions that I possibly can so that I'm much more prone to be in the moment and have a better conversation, have a better interaction. So what's an example of the stuff? I have an example that I think you do. You're doing more recently. And the reason I know this is because it's annoyed me a couple of times. yeah? OK.

because I've tried to contact you and then hours later you finally get back to me and you're like, sorry, I left my phone at home. Yeah, sure. So is this a strategy that you've been doing recently? Like if you go, I think in one of the cases you went over to your sister's house, I think it was for Superbowl Sunday, you went over to your sister's house ⁓ with your kids and your wife and everybody. And I believe you left your phone at home. Was that intentional because you wanted to just enjoy family time? And then also another example I believe is on Sunday mornings.

when you spend some time with one of your friends every Sunday morning, I believe your phone is either not with you or it's tucked away somewhere. I just leave my phone in my car. In the car, yeah. So are you intentionally doing that to make sure that you're present in those interactions? So I feel like I'm a slave to because, you know, because so much of my life revolves around work, so much of my work runs through my phone. I don't feel like I have a handle on the control around it. Like if it comes in, I just respond. So the only way I cannot respond if I don't get notified.

Yeah, so therefore it just has to be physically out of my presence if if I'm with you in person and I can attend to that and you know I don't want to be distracted by my phone right now then I'll put on airplane mode or I'll try and take away all of the possible notifications on my phone can give me and Then I'm at least not distracted by it. Like it can be in my presence I don't need I don't have compulsions around needing to be on it But for sure the sound and the buzz will like give me that like it'll take me right out Yeah, so it's either physically away

or if it's in my presence and I can attend to the moment that I wanna be with you, you know, more in person, then it just, I have to take those away. Yeah, I think for me, and I really haven't done much of that, I would have to have the phone completely away. So I think it's less the sounds. I'm sure those have an effect on me. Just having it in my, like on my person, I have this impulse to check it. Like as if.

Like the email that might have come in in the last two minutes. even know it's happening. You're like reaching. grab it. And check it. It's in your hand. I probably check my email 600 times a day. You know what I mean? Like for what? Like what am I waiting for? Like I'm not like getting any like exciting emails, but it's like, it's almost this need for me to make sure there's none in my inbox. Like for instance, on your phone, do you have any red, you know, those little red things that tell you how many emails you have? Like do you have on your email? Do you have red ones? Do you have red ones? So I have a strategy on my notifications. Yeah.

So this is another part of being present so instead of checking it all the time Yeah, I will not check my text or email I'm unless I'm in a place where I can respond to my text and email Yeah, so it builds up. So like I will not respond to you via text for hours Yeah, or emails for like like days sometimes. Mm-hmm because I have to be like sitting in a moment Yeah, I have like an hour block. I'm gonna get it all done Yeah, because if I click on it and I see it, but I don't respond to it Then I'm much more I'm much less likely to actually do the thing. You're probably forget about

I probably forget about it. So I just I'm just like I don't even bother. I let it alone. Do you get caught up on all of them? Or do you always have a red thing? Like it's telling you that you have some unread? No, no, no, no. But what I see is like, so like, if I look at my phone, I'll have like the, I don't know the notifications on the front of it. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean the red thing. Oh, oh, no, you mean like the little those little things that pop up on your home screen I'm talking about these little red ones that I'm like showing you like on my oh Sure, and there's a little red. I will always have those on everything. Yeah, so I hate those So even now just looking at this like I'm like, what is that? Like what do you mean? I have two of something like the number like I have a need like a desire just to get those to go away That's like you're cleaning your house. Yes, it's clutter. It's clutter. It's phone clutter. Yeah, and that's they want. Yeah, that's so if if

So right now you can see on my email one, which is on the very bottom. Yeah, there's none of those. Right? Is that very, that's very important to you? That's satisfying to me. But that's the problem. So like this thing is constantly, if it's anywhere near me, I'm constantly, if I see that red thing, I have to open it to like, even if it's just to delete it. And most of the times that's what it is. think that there'll be any value in taking that function off of your phone so that doesn't give you like the number count? Can you do that? I would imagine. if? I know you can shut off notifications, but is that one of them?

Like, can you shut off the red thing? I bet you the great Chat GPT We'll have to check afterwards. Would that actually, would that help you? I don't know, because then I might think of like, well, what's behind the box? What do I not know? But if you're not being told that there's something there, would you think that you would care less? think, well, I think I'm trained to look. So it would take a long time to be like, care. Because I'll know that I'll be like, okay, well, I don't see a little red thing, but maybe, maybe there's like 10 really awesome emails waiting for me.

That I don't know about so I should probably check I even find myself checking I tend to use Twitter X It's like a news platform. Although I don't know why I look at it It's just all garbage but but it's like news and I like news and information And so I find myself just randomly checking that probably dozens of times a day for no reason for usually just to get annoyed because all the stuff on there is just like It's just social garbage, you know, it makes you more annoyed than I think but I find

I just find myself ⁓ compelled to check it all of the time. I'm like, what am I even doing? I don't give a shit. you find yourself in the middle of it? How did I get here and why am I doing And why can't I stop? Yes. Yeah, it's annoying. You ever thought of just leading it? ⁓ I did. I did for a while. I actually forget why I got back onto it. I think it was for my son's hockey season because that's where all the hockey teams post their updates. And so I went on there for that. I know the reason I got back on Instagram a little bit was for here.

for work because I was in charge of doing all of our social media. And so I needed to be on there and then I all of a sudden found myself like, you know, scrolling through it I was like, what is happening? Why don't you delete it right now? Live? Live on the podcast. You want me to get rid of my... Fine. Just uninstall it. Have I told you how much I hate this podcast? Yeah, this is great. Wait, what do you have on yours? Can we delete something on yours? I deleted them already. I don't have Reddit anymore.

And we'll have Instagram. Ready?

delete that. Yes, you've got it's gone. But look, I still have LinkedIn and Instagram. Well, there's one. One is gone. Yeah, don't need Twitter for sure. I mean, it's just a waste of that's a lot of wasted my time. So okay, so so one strategy is, let's not have the phone. You know, we can leave it behind you're leaving yours behind. Yeah, but things off when I say that sometimes people will panic and they'll like, what if somebody needs to contact you?

You actually got really mad in the clinic just the other day. thought this somebody said that about cause your kids, were talking about the kids not having it in school, how they, um, how the teachers, not the teachers, but you know, the schools are taking the phones as you enter the thing. And somebody said, well, what if you need to contact you? Like that's garbage. You're like, I don't need to contact my kid. They're fine. The nurse's office can literally call me and tell me if something's wrong. Do I need to know 30 seconds ahead of time from them? What's going on? No, like.

Probably not. It's gonna be fine. I don't need to be in constant contact with my goddamn kid. Okay, so let's do some role playing. Okay, so you are you and I'm me. That's great. Easy roles. Easy roles to play. Just start having a conversation with me about the day. Okay. Yeah. We're talking. Ask me how my day was. How was your day going? How's day? Doing good. Ask me something else. Wow, so are you going to Kaiden's game later?

Gary. Okay, so what kind of hello, you can't see here. What I did was in the middle of our conversation, I picked up my phone and I started to like, would immediately stop talking to you. Right. So what, so that's what I want to know. So what is your reaction when that happens to you? Cause this happens all the freaking time. You're having a conversation with somebody and all of a sudden they like pull the phone. try to make it awkward and they start to like look at it. So what do you do? So in that example that we just did, like I picked this up and I start looking at it and we were, you and I were just trying to

What would you say to me? What would you do? If I'm in the middle of a sentence and I'm talking and then you suddenly look down because something dinged and you did one of these, I just totally stop. I'm not going to pretend like it's not happening. Like it just happened. So I'm just going to wait. I'm kind of going to stare at you and just wait until you look up and feel bad. Yep. So I do the same thing. But you know what I noticed more often than not? That person doesn't even remember.

that they were having a conversation with you. What happens? they, it's almost like it's like because their attention was taken away and it takes a little while for your attention to come back. It's almost like that first part of that conversation. Yes, they have to reengage, but they almost, it's almost as if it never happened. I could literally start over with the same thing that I said, because they almost were already gone. You see what I'm saying? Like they were like, yeah, they faded out somewhere when they felt the buzz or maybe they, they in their head, they were thinking like, got to check. stopped forming.

That's why yeah, so it happens before before the moment that they actually picked up the phone. Yeah, you're right They had already switched their attention away from whatever you were saying got the impulse correct and they grabbed the thing or even if they didn't get a buzz maybe they were just thinking like I wonder if I got that text back from my son or whatever and they start thinking of that while you're talking to them and then they they've already checked out

So now they're not listening to you for like 10 seconds and they're wondering like, I wonder if I can check my phone. He's still talking to me. So they don't hear anything that you've said for the 10, 15, 20 seconds leading into it. So then if you, if you stop like you do, and you just stare at them, which I also do, and I just, you can literally just walk away at that point and they'll have, they'll think nothing of it. It's almost done talking because they don't even remember it, but it actually infuriates me. Like I hate that.

bothersome and I really try not to do it. I know I'm sure I do it to people too. I really try not to right I tried to notice it. So fine. So if I so if you do that to me, yeah, then I'm gonna say something. Yeah, sure. That's fair. Like get off your phone. Yeah, or I think it'd be like it's more fun if it's like super passive aggressive. yeah. Like, would you like to share that with the rest of the class?

Remember teachers used to do that. We're looking at like when you're passing notes as a kid. They'd be like, Mr. Brouillard Would you like to share that note with the rest of the area? didn't pass notes cuz I didn't go to school ⁓ I forgot that you grew up in a cult I think so look but so great. We know we're all distracted. This isn't this isn't news. We know our phones distract us I think it's important to talk a little bit philosophically of like why why is this important? Yeah

I think what happens is as a society, we're used to the degradation of our personal relationships. And it's harder to form deeper connections with people you actually listen, like being an active listener, like what are you saying to me? And then can I have a response to you? As opposed to like being half in half out and just like, yesing and no'ing you. That's not actually like communication, right? Why do think people are so uncomfortable with that? Like the only way I do that with you is on a podcast. Yeah, I know, I'm aware. This is the only reason you agree to this. I consent to this.

Because this is the only time I actually get to talk to you without it being like kind of like awkward and uncomfortable And and even then it's still somewhat. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, so so why what was your question? Why why why is it important? Why is it an important thing to have a connection with somebody? Yeah, or no, sorry Why why do think it's hard for people to do that in today's world? Because I feel like in the past that was the norm You don't mean you because you didn't I mean, so let's let's think back. Let's be fair to the previous generation. I mean

I guess they had papers, right? So you could like technically be distracted by like a newspaper or something like that. But before then, probably not that much, right? That's even worse because like, just like opening this. That's fully blocking out the visual field. That would be like such a sweet move. Excuse me. I was just checking the headline. That's so great. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe we just get, maybe we just have many generations now of

being used to having our attention taken away by this other thing. I don't know, I think some people are better at it than others. Is there really any hope to get it back, to get our attention back? I think it has come, all of these companies are spending trillions of dollars to take our attention away. And in many cases, take our brains away because we're now relying on just like we do, I mean, we don't hide it. use chat GPT and other AIs for a lot of our thinking, you know, nowadays.

Or at least to assist in some of that, right? To make things more efficient. We do the thinking and then it helps us come up with like designs a bit more efficiently so that we know. And sometimes we let it do some of our thinking. You know, sometimes we ask it question. I mean, we certainly just like Google before it, right? We used to ask Google to do thinking for us because we don't always know the answer, right? And so, but you know, basically the amount of money and time that's being spent by really smart people. Are you about to take a bite of that apple? You're not.

You're not. Just do it. do it. But the amount of time and energy from really smart people that are essentially trying to take our attention, right? That is their entire job. How do we get their eyeballs and attention onto our thing? Yeah, we're gonna lose. Right? We're gonna lose. It's the same as like processed junk food. Like I actually think it is the same thing. It's like, it's like processed.

shitty like information that's like really, really bad for our brains in the same way that like processed food is really bad for our bodies. ⁓ I don't know that as a society it ever comes back. But I think in a part of this podcast, we talk about it because individually, we can choose to make decisions around these things, we can choose to like let go to create strategies around how to improve our overall brain health, our body health with some of these actions. a society, I think we're lost. in general, like if somebody can attach this and say, it's really important to be in the moment.

maybe I can take some of these strategies or implement some of my own, ⁓ then maybe it can be more in the moment and form better relationships with people. I wonder, I feel like a lot of people think in the moment sounds like something for hippies. You know what I mean? Like what does that mean to you in the moment? It literally doesn't mean you're doing anything like that you're like a.

this is like the one and only moment that this time, it's whatever. I think that's what people kind of think, right? Like when you say be in the moment, there are times like that. Like for instance, if I'm watching something that I know, ⁓ say it's like my son's, ⁓ my older son, when it was like his, potentially his last hockey game or last baseball game that he's ever gonna play. Like I remember thinking like, I really have to like pay attention to like every detail of this day. Because I don't get it again. Because I'm never gonna get it again. I wanna remember, right? So there are times.

That that's what you're thinking. But clearly you can't do that for every moment. Like this moment right now, Peter, with like you podcasting. I'm not sitting here thinking to like, I like cherish this like moment. It could be the last But I can still be in the moment, right? Without having it being this grandiose kind of Yeah, but think of the tail end. like this. So look, what is but the present moment, the future in the past. If you're thinking about the future or the past while you're in the present moment, you're not here.

And if you're not here, you can't engage as fully as if you were right. so I think, I think being able to control where your brain is and live in the now is how you have less anxiety. It's how you have less stress. It's how you have like more like presence, more relational abilities in the moment right now. Like I truly believe that every moment does matter. It doesn't mean that like all is lost if I'm not in the moment, obviously.

I failed miserably at the last staff meeting. I wasn't even aware of it, right? Right.

So I think being in the moment is also really important from not thinking about what happened in the past and what's going on in the future. We don't just need a device to be distracted. Imagine if you and I were talking right now, but my mind's on where I needed to be after this. If I drifted off into that, which happens all the time to people.

Well then again, like I'm now I'm multitasking and I'm not actually in this conversation. My follow ups are not going to be like as good as if, cause I'm not really listening to you. So like if you're actually talking to somebody like your daughter, your son, your wife, your, know, your boss or coworker, if that relationship matters and like, boy, you better like just be in the moment with them. Like that's best way to know is if you actually have the ability to ask a question or you ask a why I think it's a good practice to get people to get into being curious, being curious.

You know what I mean? Like you're one of the more curious people. I know you do a good job of this with most of your people. Like when you're talking to them, you're always asking like the follow up. Well, why is that? Like, oh, why do you think that? Or what do think that is? You know, just stuff like that. That shows that you're engaged and you're actually listening. And I think that that that matters. And it also allows you to, I guess, like first for your own personal reasons to stay present because you're asking.

those types of questions that then creates a conversation. build high amount of trust with people if you can actually like listen to them and give follow ups that like they care about. Yeah, like seriously, because it's hard. If you're like if you're for instance, if you're on a sales call, and all you're thinking about is the next thing that you want to say, or the pitch that you want to sell them, and you're not actually hearing them and asking them questions based upon like what they want.

That's a horrible interaction. they feel that they feel it's gross. They don't want anything to do with that. They feel like they're being sold to. But it's just like, boy, like if you can just talk to somebody and listen, that's kind of what it all is in the end. I don't know. I it's so simple. It's it's sound. But for a lot of people, that's like really hard to do. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's really hard to just talk. We have to get out of our own heads. think there's an Underlying selfishness.

to society today because people kind of don't give a shit about other people or their thoughts or whatever. They really just kind of care about their own thoughts and their own opinion or they don't want to hear an actual opinion of somebody else. You know what I mean? They just want to. really sad. That bothers me a lot. I don't know where that's coming from or why. It's just the nature of the way things are portrayed these days and people.

You know, have an idea. I think it actually has something to do with the fact that how individualistic we are like in this particular country. Yeah, we're so based upon the individual. Everybody's like a special snowflake. Yeah, we're so not communal anymore. We're going away from community. To be honest with you, dude, I think like a huge part of what makes Whole Health Solutions so special is that we offer that communal like aspect of people. It's all about relationships. And it's all about being in the moment. How can I help you the best?

doing it together, having a good time. And I think that we lack that. I guess my point was is that if we're so individualistic and that's how we grow up, that's how our parents grow up, then that's just how we're trained to just like me, me, me as opposed to like the broad community. Right, because in the end if you don't really give a shit about what the other person is saying or about other people, then you're never really gonna be present. 100%. Right, yeah, it's just not gonna be there.

I think recently we did just speaking on community. We had one of our clients who comes in here, shared an article and I forget all the details of it, but it was basically about finding like your own cheers. Yes. You know, like so for the old TV show, cheers.

Like the theme song was, you know, something to do with where everybody knows your name, right? It was a place you walk into the bar and like literally every person knows their name. And, ⁓ here it's, you know, it's the same thing. And I think if you can find that place, the article was speaking to how, how important it is to find places like that in your own life where everybody knows your name, where you walk in and you feel like you're part of a family, you feel like you're part of a community. And that's.

you know, something to seek out in life to give you more happiness and joy. And I think it is because there's connection there. There's being present. You're, you're less likely to, you know, those people care about you. You care about them. You're less likely to maybe be on your phone the whole time that you're there. think most of our people when they're here with us, ⁓ because they're part of our community, I don't see a whole lot of our clients like just going to their phone, all that, you know, as much as maybe they do in their normal life. We put an emphasis on that as well for us as like, as this, you know, the providers.

We're trying to eliminate as much distractions as we can so that we can be more in the moment with our people as well. Yeah, so I think there's there are other strategies that can be done. I would agree with you. It's as a society. I think we're probably going to continue to go further and further and further away. Maybe it will hit a tipping point or breaking point at some point and people will, you know, fight back. Yeah, revolt back to against the man. Maybe like the next generation, you know, will be like this is dumb. Like, you know, we're all everyone's super lonely and we know we have no community. We gotta do something.

something but for right now it's you know, all of the all of the money and technology is being put into the opposite of that but individually we can choose different and you know different in your case for instance is is leaving the phone at home sometimes or in the car or Just making an effort to ask follow-up questions when someone's talking to you, you know make eye contact when somebody's talking to you

not worrying about what's next on your schedule. You know, just the right now. Yeah, just trying to be as much as you can be in the current moment. And I think I agree with you. think more people need to think about it. And I think if your awareness is half of it, right, if you're aware that it's happening, you can at least do something about it. So I agree. Awesome. Good. Good discussion. All right. That's it for you for this week. Talk to me next Thursday. And with that, something about different