How Systems Free Us & Community Lifts Us Up | Neil Pasricha
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2022
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Here’s a weird statement, my friend, Neil Pasricha, is simultaneously one of the free-est, and also most rules-based and systematized humans I know. He’s got a system or ritual or set of rules for just about everything from how many nights a month he can be away from his family - that’s written into his signed family contract by the way - to what he does the first two minutes of every day to how and we he can hang out with friends, wander the streets in solitude, workout. Even the very thing that exploded him into the public consciousness about a decade ago, his wildly-popular blog about tiny pleasures and awesome things, was pre-designed around a countdown from 1,000 to 1 day.
You might think this would make life feel rigid, boxed in, devoid of freedom and room to play. But, for Neil, it’s the exact opposite. All these systems and rules and rituals and routines remove so much decision-making burden it’s like he has tons more time to actually just do the things he loves and that make him smile. And that includes everything from playing with his wife and kids to traveling, speaking, writing a series of blockbuster books and more.
His new book - Our Book of Awesome: A Celebration of the Small Joys That Bring Us Together, for the first time ever, invites hundreds, actually, it might even be thousands of people into his writing and sharing and community-building process to share awesome things from people’s lives, large gobsmacking to short, sweet and funny, from all over the world.
It’s a wonderful read that I highly recommend, and today we’re diving deep into Neil’s compelling take on saying yes to systems as a way to bring more freedom and joy and space into your life and then inviting the community to share in both the awesomeness and the process of creation.
You can find Neil at: Website | Instagram | 3 Books Podcast
If you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Susan Cain about the creative power of bittersweetness.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The first entry in the book of awesome was flipping to the cold side of the pillow. |
| 0:03.8 | And the first entry in this one is carrying the ice cube tray from the sink to the freezer without spilling. |
| 0:09.2 | That's really what I'm aiming for, is that universal feeling of something that you just don't talk about, |
| 0:14.0 | but which we all share. |
| 0:16.2 | And then, hopefully, it just pushes us a little bit to realizing and recognizing that we're all the same. |
| 0:22.4 | I really think that now is the time where we need each other more than ever before too. |
| 0:26.8 | So here's a bit of a weird statement. |
| 0:31.0 | My friend, Neil Pasricha, is simultaneously one of the freest and also most rules based on |
| 0:38.2 | systematized humans that I know. He's got a system or a ritual or a set of rules for just about |
| 0:43.6 | everything from how many nights a month he can be away from his family, which is actually written |
| 0:48.6 | and signed into a family contract to what he does the first two minutes of every day to how often |
| 0:53.9 | he can hang out with friends or wander the streets alone in solitude, work out, create, right? |
| 0:59.6 | Even the very thing that exploded him into the public consciousness about a decade ago, |
| 1:04.5 | his wildly popular blog about tiny pleasures and awesome things. |
| 1:08.4 | It was pre-designed around a countdown from a thousand to one days so he knew the constraints |
| 1:13.3 | before he said yes to it. And you might think that this would make life feel kind of rigid, |
| 1:18.8 | boxed in, devoid of freedom or room to play. But for Neil, it is the exact opposite. |
| 1:24.8 | All these systems and rules and rituals and routines, they remove so much decision-making |
| 1:30.4 | burden, so much friction. It's like he has tons more time and energy and bandwidth to actually |
| 1:36.5 | just do the things he loves and the things that make him smile. And that includes everything from |
| 1:41.1 | playing with his wife and kids to traveling, speaking, writing a series of blockbuster books and more. |
| 1:46.4 | In fact, it's given Neil the time and space to travel the world, give over 50 speeches a year, |
... |
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