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Finding Genius Podcast

Tiny Steps to an Immeasurably Improved Life

Finding Genius Podcast

Richard Jacobs

Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.41K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Could procrastination play a starring role in anxiety and depression? For David Parker, it definitely did.

Tune in to learn how he overcame it, and discover:

  • Why making a to-do list might not be the best way to tackle procrastination
  • What types of procrastination exist and why they exist
  • How tiny accomplishments for David Parker paved the way for an immeasurably improved life

Procrastination, anxiety, and depression can form a vicious loop; we feel anxious about getting something done, so we push it off and avoid it, only to feel more anxious and even depressed about having procrastinated in the first place.

When putting a line through even one task on the longest, most concise to-do list feels impossible, it may be a sign that we've taken the wrong approach.

Since childhood, David Parker suffered from severe anxiety and depression, and found no relief in multiple psychotherapists and antidepressants. Day after day, the strongest allure was anything and everything that could pull him away from what he actually needed to do.

"Everything looked like it was 10 miles away…everything was bleak, distant, unachievable," says Parker.

But eventually, he embarked on a journey of intense introspection. This brought him to the realization that his tendency to procrastinate was making him miserable. And this realization led him to create the J.O.T. Method, which entails jotting down Just One Thing on the "to-do" list, and actually doing it.

Parker explains this method in detail, and explains who it can help the most.

Tune in to learn more, and be sure to check out his book, The More You Do the Better You Feel: How to Overcome Procrastination and Live a Happier Life.

Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/30PvU9C

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Forget frequently as questions, common sense, common knowledge, or Google, how about advice from a real genius?

0:07.0

95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified in license, 5%

0:12.0

They become very good at what they do, but only 0.1% are real geniuses.

0:18.0

Richard Jacobs has made his life's mission to find them for you.

0:22.0

He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field.

0:25.0

Sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more.

0:29.0

Come the geniuses. This is the Finding Genius Podcast.

0:33.0

The Richard Jacobs.

0:37.0

Before we begin, a note from our sponsor.

0:40.0

I'm Richard Jacobs, Executive Director of the Nonprofit Finding Genius Foundation,

0:44.0

and host of the Finding Genius Podcast.

0:46.0

In late 2016, I was rear-ended at 65 miles an hour by a truck on the highway,

0:52.0

which sent me off-road into a ditch.

0:54.0

The impact of the collision gave me a concussion and other injuries.

0:58.0

At the hospital, a CT scan showed that I had thyroid nodules, which turned out to be cancer.

1:03.0

It was then when I had a biopsy my neck that I realized, even if I was a million there,

1:08.0

I wouldn't want a second or a third biopsy due to the pain and the invasiveness of it,

1:12.0

and appointments at that time for thyroid experts were three to six months out,

1:16.0

and I was worried about dying now even if that was irrational.

1:19.0

So because of this, I've decided to raise money to conduct a literature review on steroids,

1:24.0

on the causes of anxiety and depression.

1:27.0

A condition that affects well over 50 million people in the United States

...

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