0:02

Hello friends and welcome back to Deep Dive, which is

0:04

normally the weekly podcast where I have the immense privilege

0:07

of sitting down with entrepreneurs and authors and creators and

0:09

other inspiring people. And we find out how they got

0:11

to where they are and the strategies and tools we

0:13

can learn from them to help build a life that

0:15

we love. This episode is a little

0:17

bit different because as you may or may not

0:19

know, my brand new book, Feel

0:21

Good Productivity is now out. Yes, it's

0:23

out finally after three and a half

0:25

years of work, it is finally available

0:27

for purchase in stores all around

0:30

the world. And in this episode, I

0:32

thought we would include the segment

0:34

of the audiobook, that's the introduction to the book. So

0:36

if you haven't yet listened to the audiobook, and you

0:38

want to get a flavor for what the book is

0:40

about, this is the introduction. It's the

0:43

first chapter where I lay out the thesis of

0:45

Feel Good Productivity, which is what it's all about.

0:47

And I tell the story of how I first discovered

0:50

the principles of Feel Good Productivity. So

0:52

if you're interested in checking out the book, there'll be links in

0:54

the show notes. If you want to check them out, you can

0:56

go to feelgoodproductivity.com, you can check it out on Amazon or Barnes

0:58

and Noble or Waterstones or you know, wherever you normally get your

1:00

books. And I'd really appreciate your

1:02

support. If you've gotten value from my content, I would love it if you

1:05

could buy a copy of the book. But

1:07

hopefully this introduction gives you a bit of an

1:09

idea as to what's going on with the book.

1:11

And then you can decide whether it's something you

1:13

might like to hear more of. So without further

1:15

ado, here is the introduction to Feel Good Productivity,

1:17

read by me. Merry

1:22

Christmas, Ollie. Try not to kill anyone. With

1:25

these words, my consultant breezily hung up the

1:27

phone, leaving me to handle an entire ward

1:29

of patients alone. I was

1:31

a newly qualified junior doctor, and three weeks

1:34

previously, I'd made a rookie error, forgetting

1:36

to fill out a form to request the

1:38

holidays off. Now here I

1:40

was managing a hospital ward on my own

1:42

on Christmas Day. Things

1:45

had started badly and rapidly got worse. When

1:47

I arrived at the hospital, I was met

1:49

by an avalanche of patient histories, diagnostic reports

1:51

and cryptic scan requests that would have made

1:54

more sense to a seasoned archaeologist than an

1:56

on-call radiologist. Within minutes, I was

1:58

confronted by the day's first emergency. A man

2:00

in his fifties who had collapsed from a

2:02

severe cardiac arrest. And then one

2:04

of the nurses informed me that a patient

2:06

urgently needed a manual evacuation. If you know,

2:08

you know. At

2:12

10.30am I looked around the ward. Nurse

2:14

Janice was sprinting up and down corridor A

2:16

in a panic, her arms overflowing with IV

2:18

drips and medication shots. On

2:21

corridor B, a stubborn elderly patient was

2:23

loudly demanding his misplaced dentures. Carcie

2:27

had been taken over by a drunken

2:29

exile from the emergency department, wandering the

2:31

corridor and shouting, Olive, Olive, I

2:33

never learned who Olive was. And

2:35

every minute somebody was making a new demand.

2:38

Dr. Ali, can you check on Mrs. Johnson's

2:40

fever? Dr. Ali, can you help with Mr.

2:42

Singh's elevated potassium? I

2:45

soon found myself starting to panic. Medical

2:47

school hadn't prepared me for anything like this. Until

2:50

then, I'd always been quite an effective student. Whenever

2:53

the going got tough, my strategy was simple,

2:55

work harder. It was a

2:58

method that had got me into medical school seven years previously.

3:00

It had allowed me to secure a handful of

3:02

publications and academic journals. It

3:05

had even allowed me to launch a business while I

3:07

studied. Discipline was the only

3:09

productivity system I knew, and it worked.

3:13

Except now, it wasn't working. Since

3:15

starting as a doctor a few months previously, I'd felt

3:17

like I was drowning. Even when

3:19

I worked late into the night, I couldn't see the

3:22

number of patients or finish the paperwork that I needed

3:24

to. My mood was suffering too. I'd

3:27

enjoyed my medical training to be a doctor, but

3:29

I was finding the actual job utterly depressing, constantly

3:32

worrying that I might make a mistake that would

3:34

kill someone. I stopped sleeping,

3:36

friendships faded, my family stopped hearing from

3:38

me, and I just kept working hard.

3:43

And now this, Christmas Day, alone on a hospital

3:45

ward, failing to get through my shift. Nothing

3:48

came to a head when I dropped a tray

3:51

of medical supplies, sending syringes flying across the linoleum

3:53

floor. As

3:55

I forlornly looked down at my damp scrubs, I

3:57

realized I had to figure things out, or my

4:00

dream of becoming a surgeon would slip through my fingers.

4:03

That night, I hung up my stethoscope, grabbed a

4:05

mince pie and opened my laptop. I'd

4:07

once been so productive, I thought. What

4:09

had I forgotten? During my

4:12

first year at medical school, I'd become obsessed with

4:14

the secrets of productivity. I'd

4:16

stayed up night after night, making notes on

4:19

hundreds of articles, blog posts and videos, promising

4:21

the key to optimal performance. All

4:24

the gurus emphasized the importance of hard slog.

4:27

A Muhammad Ali quote came up a lot. I

4:30

hated every minute of training, but I said, don't

4:32

quit, suffer now and live the rest of your

4:34

life as a champion. As

4:36

Christmas turned to Boxing Day, I stayed up, poring

4:38

over my old notes and wondered whether that was

4:40

where I was going wrong. Did

4:43

I just need to regain my old work ethic? But

4:46

when I returned to work the next day, resolving to

4:48

just do more, it made no difference. Even

4:51

though I stayed on the ward until midnight, and

4:53

even though I was reciting Muhammad Ali's line to

4:55

myself during my toilet breaks, I wasn't getting through

4:57

my paperwork any quicker. My

4:59

patients were still getting a tired, ineffective version

5:01

of Ali, and I was

5:04

still displaying a conspicuous lack of Christmas cheer.

5:07

At the end of my hardest day yet, I felt

5:09

completely underwater, and then from nowhere, I

5:11

remembered some words of wisdom from my old tutor,

5:13

Dr. Barkley. If

5:16

the treatment isn't working, question the

5:18

diagnosis. Only

5:22

then, all at once, I started to doubt all

5:24

the productivity advice I'd absorbed. Did

5:27

success really require suffering? What

5:29

was success anyway? Was suffering even sustainable?

5:32

Did it make sense that feeling overwhelmed would be good

5:34

for getting things done? Did

5:37

I have to trade my health and happiness for,

5:39

well, anything? It would take

5:41

me a few months, but I was stumbling

5:43

my way to a revelation that everything I'd

5:45

been told about success was wrong. I

5:48

couldn't hustle my way to becoming a good doctor. Being

5:51

harder wasn't going to bring me happiness. And

5:54

there was another path to fulfillment, one that

5:56

wasn't lined with constant anxiety, sleepless nights and

5:59

a concerning depression. I didn't

6:01

have all the answers, not by long shot, but

6:04

for the first time I could make out the beginnings

6:06

of an alternative approach. An approach

6:08

that didn't hinge on exhaustingly hard work,

6:10

but on understanding what made hard work

6:13

feel better. An approach that

6:15

focused on my wellbeing first and used that

6:17

wellbeing to drive my focus and motivation second.

6:20

An approach I would come to refer

6:22

to as feel-good productivity. The

6:26

surprising secrets of feel-good productivity. Back

6:30

in medical school, my obsession with productivity had led me

6:32

to tack on an extra year to earn a psychology

6:34

degree. As

6:36

I started putting together the pieces of feel-good productivity,

6:38

I remembered a study I'd been tested on. One

6:41

that involved a candle, a book of matches and

6:43

a box of thumbtacks. Picture

6:46

yourself with these three objects before you. Your

6:48

task is to stick the candle to the cork

6:50

board on the wall so that when it's lit,

6:53

the candle wax won't drip onto the table below.

6:56

You find yourself puzzling over the items, turning them

6:58

over in your hands. Can you think

7:00

of the solution? And here

7:02

in the supplementary PDF you will find the diagram, but I'll

7:04

just describe it to you because I know that you might

7:06

be listening to this while driving or something. Basically

7:09

it's a diagram of a candle, three matches

7:11

and a box of thumbtacks. So

7:14

when presented with this problem, most people only consider

7:17

the candle, the matches and the thumbtacks. But

7:19

more innovative minds recognize the potential of

7:21

the thumbtack box. The optimal

7:23

solution to the puzzle involves viewing the thumbtack

7:26

box not just as a container, but as

7:28

a candle holder. And

7:30

again in the supplementary PDF you'll see what this

7:32

looks like in diagrammatic form. Basically the box is

7:34

attached to the wall using the thumbtacks, which are

7:37

these little pin thingies. The candle is on top

7:39

of the box and the matches are underneath. And

7:41

so the idea is that if the candle drips,

7:43

the wax goes onto the box rather than onto

7:45

the floor, thus solving the problem. This

7:48

is the candle problem, a classic test of

7:50

creative thinking. First developed by Karl

7:53

Dunker and published posthumously in 1945, it has since been

7:55

used in

7:57

countless studies testing everything from cognitive

7:59

flexibility to the psychological fallout of

8:01

stress. In the

8:04

late 1970s, psychologist Alice Eisen used

8:06

it as the basis for an

8:08

influential experiment to study how mood

8:10

affects people's creativity. Eisen

8:12

began by dividing her volunteers into two groups.

8:15

One group was given a small gift, a bag

8:17

of candy, before facing the candle problem. The

8:20

other group started the task with no such incentive.

8:23

The theory went that those who were given the sweets

8:25

would have a more positive mood when they tried to

8:28

solve the puzzle. Eisen

8:30

found something interesting. Those whose moods were

8:32

subtly improved by the gift were significantly

8:34

more successful in solving the candle problem.

8:38

When I first read about Eisen's experiment during

8:40

my psychology degree, I found it interesting but

8:42

not exactly transformative. Personally, I'd

8:44

never felt the overwhelming urge to stick a candle to

8:46

a wall. But coming back

8:48

to it as a junior doctor, I realized that

8:50

Eisen's insight was quite profound. It

8:53

suggested that feeling good doesn't just end with feeling

8:55

good. It actually changes our patterns

8:58

of thought and behavior. I

9:01

now learned that the study had become the

9:03

cornerstone of a wave of research exploring the

9:05

way positive emotions affect many of our cognitive

9:07

processes. It showed that when

9:09

we're in a positive mood, we tend to

9:12

consider a broader range of actions, be more

9:14

open to new experiences, and better integrate the

9:16

information we receive. In other

9:18

words, feeling good boosts our creativity

9:20

and our productivity. One

9:23

of the first people to explore how exactly

9:25

this works was Barbara Fredrickson. A

9:28

professor at the University of North Carolina

9:30

at Chapel Hill, Fredrickson is one of

9:32

the leading figures in positive psychology, a

9:34

relatively new branch of psychology that focuses

9:36

on understanding and promoting happiness. In

9:39

the late 1990s, Fredrickson proposed what

9:41

she called the broaden and build theory

9:43

of positive emotions. According

9:46

to the broaden and build theory,

9:48

positive emotions broaden our awareness and

9:50

build our cognitive and social resources.

9:53

Broaden refers to the immediate effect of

9:56

positive emotions. When we're feeling good,

9:58

our minds open up, we take in... more

10:00

information and we see more possibilities around

10:02

us. Consider the

10:04

candle problem. In a positive mood, participants were

10:06

able to see a broader range of potential

10:09

solutions. Filled refers

10:11

to the long-term effects of positive emotions. When

10:13

we experience positive emotions, we build up a

10:16

reservoir of mental and emotional resources that can

10:18

help us in the future. Resources

10:21

like resilience, creativity, problem-solving skills,

10:23

social connections and physical health.

10:27

Over time, these two processes reinforce

10:29

each other, creating an upward spiral

10:31

of positivity, growth and success. The

10:35

theory suggests a whole new way of understanding the

10:38

role of positive emotions in our lives. They're

10:40

not just fleeting feelings that come and go

10:42

without consequence. They're integral to

10:44

our cognitive functioning, our social relationships

10:46

and our overall well-being. Positive

10:49

emotions are the fuel that drives the engine

10:51

of human flourishing. Why

10:55

feel-good productivity works. When

10:59

I first started learning about broaden and build, I caught

11:01

a glimpse of a different way of thinking about my

11:03

life. For years, I thought that by

11:05

simply hustling harder, I could achieve the things I

11:07

wanted. If I wanted to be

11:10

a good doctor, the life ahead of me would

11:12

be defined by grinding, unrelenting work. Now

11:15

I could see another way. Fredrickson's

11:17

theory suggests that positive emotions change the

11:19

way our brains operate. Step

11:21

one is feeling better. Step two is

11:24

doing more of what matters to us. But

11:27

why? I wondered. The

11:29

more I read, the more I realized that the explanations

11:31

are varied and in some cases remain unclear. But

11:34

scientists have started to home in on a few answers.

11:37

First, feeling good boosts our energy.

11:40

Most of us have felt an energy

11:42

that's not strictly physical or biological, one

11:44

that doesn't come from sugar or carbohydrates,

11:46

but from a mix of motivation, focus

11:48

and inspiration. What's

11:51

the energy you feel when you're working on

11:53

a particularly engrossing task, or when you're surrounded

11:55

by inspiring people? This

11:57

energy has many different names. It's

11:59

been labeled as emotional, spiritual, mental

12:01

or motivational energy by psychologists?

12:05

Zest, vitality or energetic arousal

12:07

by neuroscientists? But

12:10

if researchers can't agree on what to name

12:12

it, they're agreed that it makes us focused,

12:14

inspired and motivated to pursue our goals. So

12:19

what's the source of this mysterious energy? A

12:22

short answer, feeling good. Positive

12:24

emotions are bound up with a set

12:27

of four hormones, endorphins, serotonin, dopamine and

12:29

oxytocin, which are often labeled as the

12:31

feel-good hormones. All of them

12:33

allow us to accomplish more. Endorphins

12:36

are often released during physical activity, stress

12:38

or pain, and bring about feelings of

12:41

happiness and diminished discomfort, and elevated levels

12:43

usually correlate with increased energy and motivation.

12:48

Serotonin is connected to mood regulation,

12:50

sleep, appetite and overall feelings of

12:52

well-being. It underpins our

12:54

sense of contentment and gives us the energy

12:56

to tackle tasks efficiently. hormone

12:59

or the reward hormone is linked with motivation

13:01

and pleasure, and its release provides a satisfaction

13:03

that allows us to focus for longer. And

13:06

oxytocin, known as the love hormone,

13:08

is associated with social bonding, trust and

13:10

relationship building, which enhances our capacity to

13:13

connect with others, boosts our mood and

13:15

in turn impacts our productivity. All

13:18

this means that these feel-good hormones are the

13:20

starting point of a virtuous cycle. When

13:23

we feel good, we generate energy, which

13:25

boosts our productivity, and this

13:27

productivity leads to feelings of achievement, which make

13:29

us feel good all over again. Second,

13:33

feeling good reduces our stress. In

13:35

addition to the broaden and build

13:37

theory, Barbara Fredrickson also developed what

13:39

psychologists call the undoing hypothesis. Fredrickson

13:43

and her colleagues were interested in decades of

13:45

research showing that negative emotions cause the release

13:47

of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. This

13:51

isn't a problem in the short term, it's the mechanism that

13:53

motivates us to run from danger. But

13:55

if we experience these negative sensations too often,

13:58

we become riddled with anxiety and office. physical

14:00

health surface. A continuous

14:02

activation of these hormones can even increase the

14:04

risk of developing heart disease and high blood

14:06

pressure, not ideal. Fredrickson

14:09

wondered about the flip side. If negative

14:11

emotions have these harmful physiological effects, then

14:13

perhaps positive emotions could reverse them. Might

14:16

feeling good reset the nervous system and put the

14:18

body into a more relaxed state? To

14:21

test this out, Fredrickson came up with a rather mean

14:23

study. Researchers told a group of

14:25

people that they had one minute to prepare a

14:27

public speech that would be filmed and judged by

14:29

their peers. Knowing that the

14:32

fear of public speaking is practically universal, Fredrickson

14:34

hypothesized that this would elevate the subject's

14:37

levels of anxiety and stress. And

14:39

it did. People reported feeling more anxious and

14:41

experienced increases in heart rate and blood pressure.

14:45

Next, the researchers randomly assigned participants to

14:47

watch one of four films, two evoking

14:49

mildly positive emotions, the third neutral ones

14:51

and the fourth sad ones. And

14:54

they then measured how long it took the participants

14:56

to recover from the stress. Their

14:59

findings were intriguing. The participants who

15:01

watched the positive emotion films took significantly less

15:03

time to return to their baseline state in

15:05

terms of heart rate and blood pressure. And

15:08

those who watched the sadness evoking film took

15:10

the longest time to return to baseline. This

15:14

is the undoing hypothesis that positive

15:16

emotions can undo the effects of

15:18

stress and other negative emotions. If

15:21

stress is the problem, then feeling good might just

15:23

be the solution. But

15:26

the final and perhaps most transformative implication

15:28

of feel good productivity goes well beyond

15:30

any one task or project. Because

15:33

third, feeling good enriches your life.

15:36

In 2005, a team of psychologists read all

15:38

the studies they could find on the complex

15:40

relationship between happiness and success. They

15:43

delved into 225 published papers, which involved data

15:46

from over 275,000 individuals.

15:50

Their question, does success, as we're often told,

15:52

make us happier, or could it be

15:54

the other way around? The

15:57

study offered hard evidence that we tend to get

15:59

happiness wrong. Individuals who

16:01

frequently experience positive emotions aren't just

16:04

more sociable, optimistic, and creative. They

16:06

also accomplish more. These

16:09

people bring an infectious energy to their

16:11

environment, proving more likely to enjoy fulfilling

16:13

relationships, get higher salaries, and

16:15

truly shine in their professional lives. Those

16:18

who cultivate positive emotions at work morph

16:20

into better problem solvers, planners, creative

16:23

thinkers, and resilient go-getters. Their

16:25

less-dressed attract higher evaluations from their superiors

16:27

and show a higher degree of loyalty

16:30

to their organizations. Put

16:32

simply, success doesn't lead to feeling good. Feeling

16:35

good leads to success. And

16:39

we have a diagram in the book here which

16:41

basically summarizes what we've just said, which is that

16:43

feeling good firstly boosts your energy, secondly it reduces

16:45

your stress, and thirdly it enriches your life. And

16:50

there are some cute little icons in that diagram, but

16:52

obviously you're listening to the audiobooks, you can't appreciate the

16:54

illustrative prowess that went into these, but that's okay. How

16:59

to use this audiobook? Back

17:01

in that first harrowing year as a doctor, most of

17:03

these discoveries were still years ahead of me. I

17:06

was working endless shifts and trying to shoehorn

17:08

my productivity research into the fleeting breaks between

17:10

visiting patients. But even

17:13

the basic insights I uncovered were enough to cause

17:15

a dramatic change in my relationship with work. When

17:18

I started to let go of my obsessions

17:20

with discipline, and focused instead on making work

17:22

feel good, my horrific shifts started to get

17:25

easier. Soon, my mood started to

17:27

improve too. I remember

17:29

one appointment with an elderly patient a few

17:31

months after I discovered feel good productivity. You

17:33

know doctor, she said, you're the first one in

17:36

here who has smiled all week. These

17:39

new perspectives wouldn't just alter my approach to

17:41

being a doctor, they would alter the direction

17:43

of my life altogether. For

17:46

the first time in years I began to

17:48

see the opportunities beyond the confines of my

17:50

work, my friendships, my family, and the other

17:52

passions that had sidelined. And

17:54

I soon found myself wanting to share my discovery.

17:57

For a few years I've been running a YouTube channel on which

17:59

I... hosted study tips and technology reviews.

18:02

Now I started sharing practical insights that

18:04

I'd learned from psychology and neuroscience, using

18:06

myself as the guinea pig, experimenting with

18:08

everything I learned and the strategies I

18:10

thought might work. As

18:13

my radical notion that success doesn't have to be

18:15

tied to suffering, started to gain traction, I started

18:17

to get more and more emails from my viewers.

18:20

High school students aced their exams, business

18:22

owners doubled their income, parents managed to

18:24

balance work and family life better, all

18:27

by applying the strategies I was sharing. Even

18:30

seasoned professionals, worn out from the grind

18:32

of corporate life, were discovering fresh energy,

18:34

motivation and a new direction. And

18:37

so was I. The more I read, the more

18:39

my philosophy developed. Eventually, by following

18:41

the same principles and strategies I was learning

18:43

about, I realized that I wanted to take

18:45

a break from medicine to pursue something new.

18:49

That's when I knew I had to write this book. What's

18:51

contained in this audio book isn't just another productivity

18:53

system to help you get more done at any

18:55

cost, it's about doing more of what

18:57

matters to you. It'll

18:59

help you learn more about yourself, what you love

19:01

and what really motivates you. My

19:04

method has three parts, each of which tackles

19:06

a different aspect of feel-good productivity. Part

19:09

one explains how to use the science of

19:11

feel-good productivity to energize yourself. It

19:13

introduces the three energizers that

19:16

underpin positive emotions, play, power

19:18

and people, and explains how to integrate them

19:20

into your daily life. Next,

19:23

part two examines how feel-good productivity

19:25

can help us overcome procrastination. You'll

19:27

learn about the three blockers that make

19:29

us feel worse, uncertainty, fear and inertia,

19:32

and how to overcome them. When

19:34

you remove these blockers, you won't just overcome

19:36

procrastination, you'll feel better too. Finally,

19:39

in part three, we'll explore how feel-good productivity

19:41

can sustain us in the long term. We'll

19:44

delve into the three different types

19:47

of burnout, overexertion burnout, depletion burnout

19:49

and a misalignment burnout. And

19:51

I'll explain how we can harness three simple

19:54

sustainers, conserve, recharge and align, to make us

19:56

feel better not just for days and weeks,

19:58

but for months and years. Every

20:01

chapter contains its fair share of practical tips, but

20:03

my goal in this book isn't to offer you

20:05

some sprawling to-do list, it's to offer you a

20:08

philosophy, a new way of thinking about productivity that

20:10

you can apply to your own life in your

20:12

own way. My hope is

20:14

that you leave this book an amateur productivity scientist

20:16

as it were, finding some methods

20:18

at work, discarding others and working savoury to

20:20

see what helps you feel good and achieve

20:23

more. That's

20:25

why every chapter contains not only three

20:27

simple, science-backed ideas that you can use

20:29

to rethink productivity, but also

20:31

six experiments that you can implement in your

20:33

own life. If an experiment

20:36

works for you, great! If it doesn't,

20:38

then that too is a helpful insight. By

20:40

the end of the book though, you should have

20:42

a toolkit for applying feel-good productivity to your own

20:44

work, relationships and life. I only

20:47

hope it works as well for you as it has for me,

20:50

because if there's one thing I've learned by

20:52

immersing myself in the science of feel-good productivity,

20:54

it's that it applies in every sphere. It

20:57

turns daunting tasks into engaging changes, it

21:00

leads to deeper connections with peers, it drives

21:02

meaningful interactions in what you do every day.

21:05

By understanding and applying what makes you feel

21:07

good, you won't just transform your work, you'll

21:09

transform your life. Feel-good

21:12

productivity is a simple method, but it

21:14

changes everything. It shows that if

21:16

you've ever felt underwater, you don't have to settle

21:18

for staying afloat. You can learn how

21:20

to swim. Let's dive in! you