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The podcast that teaches tweens and teens necessary life skills to achieve their goals, develop unconditional confidence, cultivate positive habits and become UNSTOPPABLE in all areas of life!
Will (00:04.502)
Yo, what's, yo, what's good everybody. Welcome back to another episode. have a question for you to start off this podcast. Do you guys ever like sit and do nothing? I mean, it sounds so lame. It sounds so boring. Like actually do nothing. No phone, no TV, no music, just sitting like an NPC kind of thing. Just like sitting. I'm going to guess most of you guys are like me and you're saying, no, Will, that sounds horrible. And I get it.
The idea of being bored sounds like the worst thing ever. But here's the thing, that feeling that you're running from is one of the most important things that you can prioritize. The boredom that you're trying to escape, it might actually be the one thing that you need in order to feel better, feel more motivated, feel more energy, have awesome ideas because ideas are fun, you know.
creative ideas. And I know this sounds crazy, but just like stick with me here because here's what's happening. Every single time that you guys feel even like a tiny bit of boredom. And when I say you guys, I mean all of us, like I'm talking parents, I'm talking adults, I'm talking dogs, I'm talking me because I'm a dog, you you're a dog too. Every time that we feel boredom, we reach for our phones, we open TikTok, check Snapchat, we scroll on Instagram.
We're doing everything that we can to avoid that uncomfortable feeling of having nothing to do. But here's what nobody really talks about. Boredom is not the enemy. Constant stimulation is. I know that there are people on the other side of this device right now that feel overstimulated. And if you don't know what that feels like, I'm talking stressed, I'm talking overwhelmed, I'm talking there are so many people to catch up with. There are so many
you know, games to play. There are so many conversations that I know I should have. There are so many podcasts that are like this, that are telling me I need to do this, this, this. We just feel overstimulated. And I'm going to tell you why this matters so much. Your brain is kind of like a muscle. I always like to think our brains is like muscles and just like, you know, muscles that you want to grow when you are going to the gym. Those muscles need rest days. They need, you know, time off in order to grow.
Will (02:27.114)
Stronger your brain needs that downtime as well, but we aren't giving it that We're running our brains at full speed all day every day And then we wonder why we can't focus we wonder why we can't come up with good ideas Why we don't have that resilience that you know when things get hard we continue to push on Why we feel exhausted even when we really haven't done anything and we've been sleeping a bunch think about like this like Think about like this
When was the last time that you had like a really creative idea, like a genuinely good idea that wasn't given by ChachiBT, but just like kind of popped into your head? I'm willing to bet that a lot of us, it wasn't, I'm willing to bet that it wasn't while you were scrolling through your phone. It probably was in the shower when you were having like a conversation with your conditioner bottle, or maybe it was on a walk or lying in bed right before you fell asleep.
You know why? Because your brain finally had a second to do absolutely nothing and actually breathe. Every time that we reach for our phones when we're bored, every time that we try to fill that time with video games or whatever, we're training our brain to need distractions. You're literally rewiring yourself chat to be dependent on constant entertainment. And the scary part is we don't even realize that we're doing this. I had this kid that I was coaching.
and they gave me permission to share this. her name was Maya. She was constantly stressed. She always felt overwhelmed and I could, and she could never focus on her homework for more than like five or 10 minutes. She'd tell me, dude, I just can't concentrate. My brain just won't stop constantly racing, right? I'm thinking about my friends. I'm thinking about, you know, X, Y, Z. So I asked her to try something that sounded kind of ridiculous to her. said,
I want you to sit in your room and I want you to stare at a wall for 10 minutes. This is actually what I have done in the past chat. Okay. No phone, no music, no anything. Just sit and stare at the blank wall. She looked at me like I had, you know, 10 heads and she tried it. She tried it and guess what happened? The first two minutes were torture. She told me her brain was going a million miles an hour. She kept wanting to grab her phone. She felt anxious and really uncomfortable, but around minute three or four,
Will (04:45.482)
everything shifted. Her brain started to calm down by minutes and she felt peaceful. She actually kind of felt low key good, like actually relaxed the very first time in weeks, maybe even months. Maya's brain had been running on overdrive for so long that it forgot how to rest. And the nice thing is it doesn't take a lot of time. I mean, literally 10 minutes to reset and re teach our brain how to rest. It's kind of like, you know,
Our brain is like a car engine, right? It's been red lining for hours and red lining is like, it's been going as fast as it possibly can for hours. It just needs to cool down and boredom is how your brain cools down. And there's actual science behind this, by the way, like I'm not just making this up to torture you to stare at a wall and convince you that that's like the key to life here. You know, it's like the purpose of life is to stare at blank walls. Researchers have literally found that when your brain isn't focused on a specific task, it's answers into what they call default mode.
default mode, default mode network, I think is one of those two things. Basically your brain starts to make connections between different ideas, processing emotions that are really needing to be processed. you know, thinking of memories, all of the important background work, all of the important background work that makes you well like you, but you can't access that mode. If you never let yourself be bored, creativity doesn't happen when you're scrolling. It happens when you're bored.
And I see this with students all the time, as well as myself. They'll tell me that they have no ideas for their English essay, or they want to start a business, but they don't know what business to start. They just feel kind of stuck. And then I find out they literally never give themselves time to think about those things. I always tell people, most of the people that I talk to that don't know the goals that they're trying to work for in life have never actually given themselves time to think about their goals. And I think it's kind of obvious. It's like,
you in order to know the goals that you want to focus on, you got to think about your goals. So I give yourself 10 minutes to actually think, what do I actually enjoy? What brings me a lot of fulfillment? What are things that I actually care about in this world that I want to continue to care about and create goals around? You'll never learn to be really comfortable with yourself.
Will (07:04.512)
And I don't want to come across in this podcast is like, I'm judging y'all because again, I do the same exact thing. I got ADHD and I have an extreme dopamine addiction. You know what I'm saying? Like I fill my time with all of those things as well. I couldn't sit still for two seconds, you know, before I, started teaching myself some of these things and actually allowing myself to give myself a break and let my brain rest. So you might be thinking to yourself, well, you know, I'm a teenager, bro.
Like it's 2025. Everyone expects me to be connected all the time. My friends think I'm weird if I don't have, you know, Snapchat open all the time. If I don't respond to their texts within a couple of minutes and I hear you, I'm not saying that you need to become like, you know, some monk and never use your phone again. I'm not saying you need to delete your social media, but we just need to create intentional moments of boredom in your life. And even 10 minutes a day makes a huge difference. So the first thing that I want you to do is literally schedule boredom.
And I'm serious, put it your calendar. If you have a calendar, chances are you don't have a calendar. And I think the last 10 minutes of each day and the first 10 minutes of each day are perfect times to really prioritize boredom. Like you don't need to meditate. You know, again, you don't need to be a monk. You don't need to be productive. Just let yourself be bored. Give yourself permission to do nothing. Let your mind wander wherever it wants to go. The first couple of
you know, minutes and the first times will be uncomfortable, but that's kind of normal. So just like push through those first couple of minutes and you start to actually feel some peace in that noggin of yours. All right. The second thing is really important. Embrace boring tasks. The next time that you are doing chores, you know, I know that they're boring next time that you are, I don't know, like waiting for your food to heat up in the microwave. Don't put like, don't pull up your phone.
Don't put in headphones. Don't watch tick talks. Just do the task. I have a habit of like every time that I'm walking to the fridge or going, you know, to the bathroom or let's say like walking outside and trying to actually touch grass and get away from my phone. I'll bring my phone and I'll scroll while I'm doing those things because I just want to fill the time. Let your mind wander. Don't bring your dang phone to the toilet. Don't bring your phone to the microwave and to the couch. Like be
Will (09:23.168)
okay with being bored and embrace those boring tasks. And then the third thing, kind of obvious, like take phone breaks, not like a five minute break from your phone. I'm talking like real breaks. I mean, I try to make it like a habit to have, you know, couple hours every weekend where I am leaving my phone and I'm going out for a walk or I'm going out to, you know, like, a restaurant and I'm not even bringing my phone, put it in a drawer for an hour.
while you do your homework. Delete social media apps for the weekend. See what happens. I promise you, you are not going to miss nearly as much as you think you will. When you learn to be comfortable with yourself, you become unstoppable and you can only learn to be comfortable with yourself when you're bored. So just remember this boredom is not the enemy. It's your secret weapon. The next time that you feel uncomfortable and you feel that like, you know, Oh my gosh, I need to, I need to do something. I need to fill my time with something.
Don't grab your phone. Sit with that boredom. Let yourself be bored. See what happens. And I think you're really going to surprise yourself. If this episode helped you guys do me a huge favor. Leave a positive review. You know what I'm saying? You can leave a review for me. You can leave a review for my cute dog. If you've ever seen a picture of him, just, makes me so happy when I see students, um, you know, sending messages of things that actually made a difference. Plus it helps other people just like you kind of see the podcast and level up their lives too. So,
Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Love you guys lots. Thanks so much for listening and I will catch you in the next one
Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you in the next one.