How to live longer and make it suck less transcript

Hey. Slow down. >> [music] >> I have something to talk about for a minute. I hate going to the grocery store. It freaking sucks. I do not come here because I have to. [music] I do come here because I have to. Not because I want to. It's become kind of a necessary evil. I got to spend [music] hours of my life coming here for my family. But I've been challenging myself recently. Instead of coming in here, flying in, trying to grab everything I need, check out, leave, can I slow down?

Kind of relax a little bit. Peruse the aisles. Maybe even enjoy myself. I've been wearing earbuds to the store to try to make [music] this happen. I hate it when people are always wearing their ear AirPods out in public. But I have the bullet because if you can shift into this gear, you're shifting into the same gear as some of the people who have lived the longest in the world. 120-year-old people. And there's a name for this gear.

Harvard calls it slow living. Slowing down [music] to a very comfortable pace and being okay in the moment that you're in. Taking it all in. People who can do this can avoid all this stress and tension [music] that comes with life sometimes. And as it turns out, that stuff kind of kills you. If you're stressed out all the time, your cells age faster, your DNA can get damaged. It's serious stuff. And guess what? [music] Jeanne Calment, 122 years old.

Richard Overton, 112. All these people that lived super long lives, they're smoking, they're drinking. But they're not letting the stuff stress them out. >> [laughter] >> They let go of stuff. So, it may be worth asking yourself when you're feeling rushed, could I slow down and enjoy this? And you might be surprised when the trade-off isn't actually as bad as you thought it might be. There's [music] a great story about this, a guy Derek.

He loved riding his bike. He lived out in California by the coast, and there is this 15-mi loop right on the ocean that he would he would go to all the time. And he kind of got in the habit of just hauling through this thing. He knew though he knew it backwards and forwards. He could do the whole thing in about 43 minutes. What starts to happen is then if he hits it longer than 43 minutes, he's a little bit like, "Ah, man." So, one day he's going and he's tired.

He's kind of stressed out. The idea of having to do this crazy thing, he just doesn't have it in him. So, he's like, "You know what? Today, I don't care about the time. I'm just going to go at a pace that feels comfortable for me." So, he's going. He's a little bit more relaxed. There's a dolphin jumping in the ocean. He looks up [music] and there's a seagull flying over his head and it poops in his mouth. Apparently.

I don't know if that's true, but that's what he says. Uh So, that part's not good. But, he feels like he can just go forever. This is great. He kind of remembers his joy for cycling. And he looks down at his watch when he's done. 45 minutes. 2 minutes longer than his usual time. He would just squeeze all the juice he had in him. >> [snorts] >> Go as hard as possible for 4% faster than today. And that is a lesson that he never forgot.

And it makes me wonder, could I relax and get pretty much the same result? I think that's true more often than we might think. That's what he called his blog article, relax for the same result. Wrote it in 2015. I'll link it. My dad sent me that. I don't know. But the other thing is you might be sacrificing a lot more than just stress by not slowing down enough. I had this manager at work. His name was McQueen. >> [clears throat] >> I'm just going to call him that cuz he likes going fast, okay?

[music] We had this project we were assigned and he wants to get this thing done >> [music] >> as fast as possible. He wants to impress the CEO. He knows he wants it done and [music] he's like, we can just like faster than fast, quicker than quick. It's just the two of us. I'm the one building it and I just kind of slapped this thing out. He's like, all right, let's go, release it. Send it out to production. This is like software stuff.

And now was everybody really impressed? No, they hated it. It broke immediately and they and people were like, what the heck is going on? People are complaining, we're getting tickets coming in. I have to spend more time fixing this stupid thing than I did building it in the first place. I ended up having to answer for this in my performance review. It was It was not good. And uh this is why the military has a mantra.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. I think enough guys messed stuff up severely. You know, but if you take a step back, you can see your surroundings and make sure you're stepping in the right places. You go to the grocery store, try to just get in and out as fast as possible. You forget something and then halfway through the week you have to come back and you [music] had Cheetos for lunch. So, it might not be a bad idea to ask yourself, could I slow down and not just get the same result, but maybe a better one?

That's true a lot of the time, I think. Now, here's [music] the deal. I love going fast, right? I like driving fast, [music] exercising. There's There's times to do it. But, when you're going fast, ask yourself, am I doing [music] this because it's fun? Or am I going fast because I feel >> [music] >> some kind of pressure? Am I stressed out right now? Is this fast, fun, or fear? That's what you should ask. Is it fast, fun, fear?

Fight or fall. Now, look. Pressure [music] is fun sometimes and stress has a purpose. It's also good sometimes. Push yourself, put yourself in uncomfortable situations, [music] but just remember sometimes you have a choice in the matter. That's kind of the point, right? Slow down. Enjoy your life. Break less stuff. And live longer. Hopefully. You know.