Mastering Ideal Days for a Happier Life

Discover how top executives craft ideal days for happier and more a fulfilling life with insights from Duncan Young. This conversation delves into the strategies for personalizing your daily routine, making intentional decisions, and leveraging your unique strengths to achieve peak performance and happiness.  Duncan and Peter share practical advice on balancing past reflections with future aspirations, preparing for success, and using micro habits to drive lasting change and a happier life.

Duncan Young is a motivational speaker, wellbeing habit change leader and executive coach who inspires people to thrive. His programs help individuals and companies enhance performance by building awareness, fostering curiosity, and embedding lasting habit change.
Reach out to Duncan Young on Linked in or on his website duncanyoung.com

Peter Anthony coaches people to improve organizational and personal effectiveness. Find out more here https://peter-anthony-coaching.mykajabi.com/ or arrange a time to talk about your coaching needs with Peter here https://peter-anthony-coaching.mykajabi.com/

Key topics include:

- How senior leaders can optimize for happiness
- The role of empathy and emotional intelligence in leadership
- Building resilience through mindfulness, meditation, and positive habits
- The impact of social connections and lifestyle choices on executive well-being
- Managing the challenges of technology and social media
- The power of small, intentional actions for long-term success

Whether you're an executive looking to boost productivity, enhance well-being, or make a greater impact, this conversation provides actionable tips and proven strategies to elevate your professional and personal happiness. Watch now to learn how minor adjustments in your routine can lead to significant, positive transformations.

Key Takeaways

Designing your ideal day is a skill that requires intentional choices.
Your best life is unique to you and should reflect your strengths.
Understanding past experiences can guide future decisions.
Preparation is key to executing your ideal day effectively.
Micro habits can lead to significant changes over time.
Tracking progress helps maintain motivation and belief in goals.
Focus on positive outcomes rather than negative restrictions.
Habits are influenced by the environment and can be complex to change.
Every action contributes to the person you aspire to be.
People's needs and motivations can vary greatly over time. Empathy can diminish in the workplace due to perceived softness.
Ideal days vary for each individual and are influenced by lifestyle choices.
Social connections are crucial for life satisfaction and decision-making.
Technology and social media can distort our perceptions and interactions.
Optimism and positivity are linked to better life outcomes and planning.
Mindfulness practices, even in small doses, can lead to significant benefits.
Meditation can be a simple yet powerful tool for self-reflection.
Small intentional choices can shape our daily experiences and trajectories.
Helping others enhances our own well-being and social connections.
Building meaningful relationships is essential for personal growth and happiness.

Transcript

G'day Duncan, welcome to Growth Tails. I'm really curious, we're talking today about designing your ideal day, but ideal sounds like a big stretch. How do you think about that?

Duncan Young (00:15.286)

Well, we've got a product called Build Your Ideal Day. So it is very close to designing your ideal day and that's the whole intention of it. We actually are trying to get people to live their best lives and your best life is different to my best life. Really what we're trying to do is get people to think about the small intentional choices they can make in order to build what is ideal for them. And these are the small intentional choice we make each day.

Peter Anthony (00:21.486)

Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Anthony (00:38.627)

Okay.

Peter Anthony (00:42.714)

Yeah, that's true. I was curious because one of the things I spend a lot of time studying is personality. And I think of like personality traits. I'm thinking like an ideal day for an introvert, introverted engineer might be different than the ideal day for an extroverted salesperson or CEO. So it's going to be, it's highly contextual, right?

Duncan Young (01:02.7)

It is like, as I said, it's a skill of daily intentions and it's no use me designing my ideal day that is best for you. It's a really personalized thing. So this is really about leaning into your strength. Let's work well in the past and what that will indicate what might work well in the future. That's why we swim every day, by the way.

Peter Anthony (01:24.388)

Sorry, that's why we spend every day.

Duncan Young (01:26.38)

That's why we swim every day because initially I was a good swimmer and what do you do for your health and wellbeing? I try and swim every day. I don't, I'm not good at running. I'm not running every day. I'm leaning into what my skills are, which is I'm a handy swimmer.

Peter Anthony (01:28.679)

Of course, of course, yeah.

Peter Anthony (01:41.752)

Yes, which is one thing we've got in common. We both swim in the bold and beautiful swim group. And I guess if you think of an ideal day, something like swimming in the ocean with friends, it ticks a few boxes, doesn't it? It ticks the exercise box, the outdoor box, and it ticks the friendship and relationship box, doesn't it?

Duncan Young (02:01.132)

Yeah, very much so. You know, I used to think as a swimming group, but I've really now worked out as a coffee drinking group after you swim. So, so these groups are really, really important. You know, if you get the park runs of the world and you get the bold and beautiful, of course, we send the drinks express that the slightly earlier version, but it's really about doing a shared activity with like-minded people. You're more likely to talk to them. You've got something in common to start with.

Peter Anthony (02:07.395)

You

Duncan Young (02:26.936)

So really it's about leaning into the kind of things that you like doing. And over time you build these relationships and friendships and they're really important as we know for both longevity and life satisfaction.

Peter Anthony (02:35.172)

Yes.

Peter Anthony (02:38.948)

Yes. given that we are all different and we are are unique. How do we go about designing an ideal day? Like what are the overarching guidelines, if you like, that you recommend in designing an ideal day?

Duncan Young (02:55.798)

Well, that's a great question. And if listeners had time, I could take you through the 90 minute workshop, but let's just look at it from a high level. We use a theory called appreciative inquiry. That's a 4D process and it's about discover, dream, design and deploy. And it's really about thinking about what's worked well in the past for you. Then thinking about if life was, if you were living a fully abundant life, what would you be doing? What then might you do?

Peter Anthony (03:04.228)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Duncan Young (03:25.484)

you know, to move towards that goal and what might you do tomorrow. So it's really about understanding what your strengths are, projecting yourself fast forward to what your best possible life could be, and then just doing small elements to build towards that.

Peter Anthony (03:37.336)

Mm.

Okay, okay. And I'm going to put a link in the show notes for how people can connect with you or contact you to do that workshop. It sounds like an ideal way to spend 90 minutes, I on the ideal end.

Duncan Young (03:46.829)

Yeah, wonderful.

Duncan Young (03:50.722)

Yeah. Yeah. I've actually got a short shorter one too, which is the seven habits to build your ideal day. So we'll probably start there. And that's a really good short shortcut or entry level for people looking to enhance their wellbeing.

Peter Anthony (03:59.673)

Peter Anthony (04:07.93)

So you've mentioned two timeframes there or two perspectives, if you like. You've talked about the past and the future. So I'm looking at the past and thinking, what in the past have I done that's ideal that I should replicate or do more of? And also what I did that I should do less of or avoid. But you're also looking at the future and thinking, what does a future ideal day look like for me? So how do I balance those two things, the past and the future?

Duncan Young (04:25.646)

Hmm.

Duncan Young (04:36.878)

Well, I think the past is going to give you some indications of what has worked in the past. And that's a question we ask, you know, when you've had times in your life where you've had ideal or great well-being, what were you doing? So it's going to give some indication. Then when you've layer on your strengths, so two types of strengths, what are your strengths? I'm a good swimmer, hopeless speller, but what gives you strength? What gives you joy, happiness, excitement to actually do the things you want to do? And so by looking at the past,

and adding on that strength lens, it can often predict the kind of future you want to make. And of course, Pete, as you know, the future is what you make of it. It's not determined for you and you can shape that.

Peter Anthony (05:17.028)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter Anthony (05:21.696)

It's very much a blank canvas, isn't it? And it's interesting when you talk about strengths, a lot of people I've coached talk about strengths as things that they do well, but often if you do something well, it's not necessarily a strength because you could be doing it really well, but you actually don't enjoy doing it at all. But you've learned to do it well, like through your role, you've learned to be a very disciplined timekeeper or you've learned to be...

Duncan Young (05:41.005)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (05:48.718)

like excellent at managing things with Excel. You've learned that's a strength, if you like. It's something I do well, but I actually don't like it at all. I just, I do it because I have to. So are there, there must be aspects of the ideal day that you don't like. Is that fair to say?

Duncan Young (05:53.72)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Duncan Young (06:06.446)

Well, I think there's a broader piece there. So people focus on what they want, but what creates that might be something different. So I always say to people, people say, Duncan, you swim every day. How can I be a better swimmer? So spend all their time watching YouTube videos and strengths, know, strokes per a hundred and all that kind of stuff. But how you become a better swimmer is just turning up the swimming and to turn up the swimming, you need to wake up at five 30 walk the Greyhound go to swimming.

Peter Anthony (06:11.567)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (06:30.926)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (06:35.926)

That means you need to go to bed at 9.30. So the actual key thing to improving your swimming is going to bed at 9.30, quietening the mime with a book so you get a good night's recovery and then turning up the swimming. So we often focus on the actual activity. It's all the things before that, the prep, if you like, that gets you there.

Peter Anthony (06:36.238)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (06:52.448)

Okay. okay. That sounds like the secret source to the ideal day. It's not the actual day, it's the night before or the day before.

Duncan Young (07:03.884)

Yeah, well, we, we, before the show started, we had a quick chat like that. you look at the likes of Angela Duckworth, she's famous for a book called Grit. And she is very keen on the idea that you can't plan and execute in the same day. So if you want to make a change in your life, what we're trying to do is make a small change in our life from where we are today to where we want to be. You can plan that today, but you've got to execute tomorrow. If you wake up tomorrow morning go, I wonder what I'll do to build my day.

Peter Anthony (07:13.391)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (07:33.638)

The likelihood is it won't happen. But if you plan the day before, put your wetsuit at the front door, you've got the dog lead ready, all that kind of stuff, makes it easier to swim the next day if that's your chosen thing.

Peter Anthony (07:34.105)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (07:41.454)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (07:47.854)

Yes, and I like to not give myself a choice. So once I plan my day, unless something quite disastrous happens, it's all about waking up and executing. It's about saying, well, I'm gonna, I plan to swim, so I'm gonna swim. Unless there's a cyclone or a member of the family's ill, I swim. And it's, I've decided, and I guess curious about your thoughts on this, because there's different versions of us, right?

Duncan Young (08:00.94)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (08:15.748)

There's different versions of Duncan, the different versions of Peter. There's a lazy version of me. There's a quite focused version of me. I'm thinking the really focused, well-intentioned version made this plan. So I'm going to allow him to take control and not the lazy guy that wants to sleep in and not swim. Yeah. So I'm sort of, I'm deferring to the better version of me to make these decisions and not the lazy version. Is that part of the ideal day or part of how you execute?

Duncan Young (08:38.025)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (08:46.164)

Look, I think it's very complicated. think, you know, different times of year, different days of the week, you have different energy levels. And a lot of the time we're just trying to manage our energy level, whether that's through better recovery or things like that. But the key thing is we don't want to be black and white. A good example, as people say to me, you know, my aspiration Duncan is to not drink alcohol for six months. go, well, that's a lofty aspiration, but

Peter Anthony (08:56.782)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (09:05.207)

Okay.

Duncan Young (09:15.362)

You know, often I get to three months and say, all right, I'm a failure. I had some drinks. I said, well, your aspiration was to drink less. So you've, you've agreed, you know, you've already ticked that box gone 90 days without booze. But really what we should have coached him to, have this, aspiration is to do the thing that is replacing alcohol. So I want to spend more time with my family, having quality conversations. I want to spend more time working on my hobbies. And that's what you get when you don't drink alcohol, but they're

Peter Anthony (09:20.057)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (09:44.514)

focusing on this negative and when they fail, it's either a pass or fail. So I think habit changes, you really need to be gentle with people. So I'm going to share a secret with you, Pete, that I say to most people, I swim every day. But the reality is I turn up to swimming every day and I might do what we call a T-bag, just jump in the water and jump out or I might do a 5K swim. So technically I tick the box to earn my coffee, but I don't commit to swimming

Peter Anthony (09:49.316)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (09:59.577)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (10:05.097)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Duncan Young (10:13.838)

a 1500 every morning at 6.30 because that's very finite and when you've got other things on your life you need to give yourself some flexibility.

Peter Anthony (10:18.99)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (10:22.51)

That's right. Yeah. Plus the conditions might change. Like this morning there was some blue bottles around, for example. The ocean could be huge or just too dangerous to try and swim out through it. sometimes it's yeah. And it's often the social contact we're looking for as much as the actual swimming part, which is makes it makes it interesting. But just cycling back to the alcohol. I've had this conversation with lots of people, too, because I've given up alcohol for long periods of time, like for a year or more time. That was more.

Duncan Young (10:27.704)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (10:31.362)

Correct.

Peter Anthony (10:51.14)

for health reasons than anything else. But when I hear people talk about alcohol, they say, I'm giving up alcohol. And I like to say to them, look, maybe you could also think about what you were gaining, not what you were giving up. Like you're gaining self-respect, you're gaining health, you're gaining more money in your wallet, you're gaining more intelligent conversation, you're gaining not making stupid decisions after too many drinks. Rather than giving it up. Yeah.

Duncan Young (11:05.539)

Yeah, of course.

Duncan Young (11:12.195)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (11:15.555)

Yeah.

Yeah, we obviously don't want to be demonizing anyone that drinks alcohol. I still drink alcohol on a regular basis, but you you're more likely to succeed in habit changing or coaching psychology if we can focus on the positive outcomes versus a finite black and white negative outcome.

Peter Anthony (11:24.708)

You

Peter Anthony (11:37.924)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (11:42.084)

Yeah, so focusing on the gain, not the loss. What I'm moving towards rather than what I'm moving away from. And I'm curious too, Duncan, when you talk about habits, I understand you're a big fan with this ideal day with like micro habits or little habits rather than big global changes like make tiny ones. Is that true with this ideal day?

Duncan Young (11:44.599)

Yeah, yeah.

Duncan Young (12:08.13)

Yeah, so the statistics are that 70 % of all of your actions were influenced by your environment. So that's a UK sport research study. We know that 40 % of all of your daily actions are habits. So we know that habits are tremendously complicated. I'm not going to demonize habits. There are good habits and bad habits. Obviously, the bad habits

give you instant response. let's say, for example, you eat a chocolate bar, instant sugar rush, happy days. You get home, you have a glass of wine, you're a bit frazzled, instant calmness. You get that instant response. You do a good habit, which is like legs down the gym. You saw for two weeks. There's nothing immediate about it than pain. But the good habit actually helps you in the long term. So we need to break the change down. We call it bridging the gap.

Peter Anthony (12:54.724)

Yeah, yeah.

Duncan Young (13:06.862)

The gap is between where you are now and where you want to be with a very small change. And you only need to look back at the theory of marginal gains. This is David Brailsford. They made a 1 % change and they won seven of the eight Tour de France. It really small things like, you know, pillow density, how the rider shook hands, aerodynamics on the bike, all that kind of stuff. But if we can get people to do these tiny changes that actually just moves you towards.

And of course, 1 % change made daily for a whole year, you'd be 37 times better. It's hard to believe that these tiny change makes such a big difference. And because we don't see the change, it's not linear, it goes in these peaks and troughs or peaks and plateaus. We need to stick the course long enough to see that change, meaningful change. And if you break it down into the smallest element, you will see that change as you go. And that's really important.

Peter Anthony (13:47.375)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (14:03.386)

So it's delaying gratification.

Duncan Young (14:07.638)

Well, no, I think if you are looking for changing your life, you need to break your goals down into the smallest sections possible so you can see goal progression as you go and you need multiple pathways. So let's say, for example, Pete, you want to increase your cardiovascular fitness. Your chosen way to do that is to swim every day, the Bowling, Buford and Manly. When the seas are rough and the blue bottles are in, you could go for a jog along the beach. You're still increasing your cardiovascular health.

just chosen a different path line. That's what it's really about. Multiple pathways and then keeping it small.

Peter Anthony (14:38.638)

Yeah, Yeah, small, small steps and, and thinking of that, that long, being satisfied with the small step today, but focusing very much on, well, I'm doing this for a long term, a long term gain too. And it's going to, it's going to multiply, right? I'm going to get, it's like that interest effect when you're investing over time, it extrapolates.

Duncan Young (15:05.89)

Yeah, compounding interest. talk often about you watch your super balance growing early in your career. It's absolutely doing nothing. But 30 years in, we really see that compounding effect. And it's the same with your wellbeing. It's these small, small things that build over time. Like really wellbeing is a platform of good habits that then grow over time. And because they're interconnected between social, physical, mental, know, spiritual, financial career.

They all sort of creep into each other and obviously support each other. But in financial theory, they talk about the best form of motivation is progress. So being able to see that you're progressing allows you to go, you know what, things are working. They might be slow, but at least we're moving forward. I mean, that's really important to remember.

Peter Anthony (15:40.708)

Yes.

Peter Anthony (15:55.641)

Yeah.

And like maybe in that case, would you recommend like keeping a checklist like the days of the days of exercises where tick tick tick tick tick tick or something I can see? Yeah.

Duncan Young (16:06.592)

Well, let me tell you, I'm going to show you something right now.

Duncan Young (16:13.39)

When you build your ideal day, obviously comes with a workbook, really what you're looking for is a habit change tracker. And you, you write down your chosen goal, the smallest thing you can think of, and then you start looking for a pattern. Where are you able to do it? You know, where are you able to get into bed by 9.30, you know, most days this week. And if it's no for the whole lot, you need to change your goal. Maybe it's 10.30, maybe you're

Peter Anthony (16:16.067)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (16:21.83)

Duncan Young (16:40.77)

been a bit aggressive, but you need some kind of tracking and you've already done your masters in coaching psychology, but the active learning loop is the most underrated tool that all of us know, which is you try something, you assess whether it works and then you adjust it and you spend your whole life in this active learning loop or reflective loop, seeing the progress only by reviewing whether it's worked or not. So I think that's really important.

Peter Anthony (17:09.218)

Yes, yes. And there's looks like there's an element of belief in this as well. it's belief in myself and also belief in the goal. how much, but when I'm coaching folks and they talk about goals, like coaching goals, and they've done nothing about this goal, like for a long period of time. Like they say, it might be a health goal. I want to lose 10 kilos or it might be a professional goal. I'd like to do my

my MBA, whatever the goal might be. And I often get very curious about how real that goal is. Does that mean you've got to change your beliefs, you've got to change your habits, or is that really a goal I'm keen on achieving or not? Can you see what I mean?

Duncan Young (17:57.314)

Well, they definitely sound like any goal that goes for two years like an MBA probably needs a few sub goals in there. So if your overall goal is to increase your attractiveness to the workforce or to increase your education,

Peter Anthony (18:05.594)

It does.

Duncan Young (18:18.798)

then that might be a lofty goal. How do you do that? I'm going to win role in the NBA. That might be your first goal. Then you've got to do your first semester, second, third. I think breaking it down is really, important. I wanted to loop back on you spoke about personality and identifying. And that's really important with Habit Changes. James Clear talks a bit about this. And he says, once you start identifying who you are,

Peter Anthony (18:19.044)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (18:24.964)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (18:28.377)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (18:36.75)

Yes, yes.

Duncan Young (18:46.426)

let's say I want to, have greater benevolence in my life. want to help others. So I opened the door for people as a walking to the bakery, for an example, that action is a vote for the kind of person I want to be open the door. That's a benevolent act and it's working towards me, you know, having greater, you know, level of benevolence or volunteering or whatever it is. Every action is a vote.

for the kind of person you wanna be. In your case, Pete, with your swimming multiple days of the week, every time you turn up to swimming is a vote for the kind of you wanna be, which is you wanna be a better swimmer and you wanna drink coffee with your buddies.

Peter Anthony (19:26.318)

Yeah, yeah. I like that. And it's curious you mentioned that, yeah, I know James, I don't know him, but I know his work. know James personally. It's curious you say that though, because I was raised, if you like, or I became aware very early on that I love talking. I love running workshops and talking in groups. But one thing I wasn't so great at was listening.

Duncan Young (19:29.41)

That's James Clear.

Peter Anthony (19:51.396)

So one of my goals now is when I'm at the swim group, and we had that social time afterwards, I ask questions and listen to the answers. And I measure myself by how much talking I do. I attempt to do as little as possible.

Duncan Young (20:04.502)

Yeah, well, there's a good lesson that I suppose you spent two years listening with a coaching psychology masters. But, know, if you drill into the most recent book, which is called Super Communicators, the best communicators in the world that are the ones that listen the most, not the ones that talk the most.

Peter Anthony (20:21.766)

That's true. It's And at the best, and that was the big shift with me from going from running workshops to coaching, because running workshops is primarily about talking and facilitating conversations. Whereas coaching is primarily about asking great questions and really listening to the answers, not about talking at all, really. It's a very different skill set, which is one of the reasons I was so keen in getting involved in that. And you go.

Duncan Young (20:32.598)

Yep. Yep.

Duncan Young (20:39.491)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (20:48.718)

Yeah. Well, I wonder whether if you were to reflect on the Peter of the past versus Peter of the future, when you were asking open and closed questions or asking the kind of inquiring type questions in your workshops that you've learned from coaching, whether your workshops are now better. So I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think you can bring the skills of coaching into your workshop, even though in a workshop you're largely

delivering information, so what we call building awareness, and coaching is about embedding the action or the habit. And they run the two together.

Peter Anthony (21:20.664)

Yes. Yeah.

Peter Anthony (21:26.606)

It is. Yes. It's interesting too, the way I've learned more recently about coaching and teaching is that when I'm teaching or workshopping, I feel like I'm transferring information to people that they don't know, right? I feel like I'm teaching them, giving them something. Whereas when I'm coaching, what I feel like I'm doing is I'm helping people find things that are already there, but then I'm quite sure how to find them.

And I'm asking them questions to help them find what they already know. I'm not actually, I'm just using coaching techniques to help them find these things. Like find their beliefs, understand their personality, like understand who they really are and what they really want. Cause I can't tell them that. I can't sit in a coaching chair and tell Duncan, Duncan, this is who you are. This is what you should do. Only Duncan, only, only you know what makes you happy, right? Only you know what makes you feel good. Like who makes you feel good? What makes you feel good? I can't tell you that.

Duncan Young (21:53.603)

Mm.

Duncan Young (22:22.712)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (22:22.776)

I can help you understand what it is and then help you understand how to go about getting more of what's going to make you feel great.

Duncan Young (22:30.2)

Well, in the coaching sort of wheel that you've got, you've got counseling, mentoring, know, pure coaching, you've got all these different forms and you've got to sort of adapt. Sometimes people need a bit of direction. You might need to tell a story that inspires people to action. And that's not pure coaching, but it might be guiding people in a certain direction. I think that, you know, people are complex. You know, some people just need certain things at certain times.

Peter Anthony (22:46.766)

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Peter Anthony (22:56.136)

Bye.

Yes. And it's interesting you say complex and personality because the personality model I use, it's called Lumina Spark and it measures it on three levels. It measures it on underlying personality, like who you really are. I can use that. Your everyday, which is how you turn up at work or in the world, which can be different. Then your overextended, which is how you are when you're stressed or when you're very anxious, right? And that can be quite different. They can be very different versions of you.

Duncan Young (22:59.607)

And off you go.

Duncan Young (23:13.112)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (23:16.397)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (23:28.326)

One of the things I like to help people do is understand like who are you really? Like what are your underlying traits that really serve you and make you happy as compared to who are you obliged to be when you're at work? And maybe who you're obliged to be is different than who you really are. And a great example I had a couple of days ago, there was a particular female executive I was working with, very senior.

Duncan Young (23:38.99)

Hmm.

Peter Anthony (23:55.258)

Underlying, she had huge levels of empathy. High, like by huge, I mean 90 % empathy. Every day when she came to work, she demonstrated almost none, right? And when we looked at that, I said, I'm really curious about like, where does the empathy go? And why does it go? Why does it disappear? Or does disappear? And in her view, in the early days of her career, she thought empathy was soft and was too gentle and she just partialed it out. So.

Duncan Young (24:22.947)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (24:24.206)

she needed to reintroduce or find ways of reintroducing that.

Duncan Young (24:28.716)

Yeah, well soft skills are pretty important these days.

Peter Anthony (24:31.866)

Extremely, extremely, like the collaboration, the empathy and all those good bits. are there, if I think about ideal days, are there different ideal days? Like other ideal, like ideal, because I'm imagining we don't always have the same day every day, right? That there's going to be different sorts of days, like an ideal family day, for example, or an ideal work day, or ideal weekend day. Do you break it up like that? Or is it just, is it one day?

Duncan Young (25:02.338)

So it's just a tagline for a workshop, Pete. Let's not over-complicate it. The intention is to help. My tagline is I help people be the best version of themselves. We do that by building awareness. That's talking them, telling them a story that ignites their imagination about what's possible. then help them with their curiosity. Sometimes we use heart rate variability wonders, like the one I've got here.

Peter Anthony (25:05.824)

Okay, okay, okay.

Peter Anthony (25:16.73)

Yeah, okay.

Peter Anthony (25:24.046)

Okay.

Peter Anthony (25:31.945)

Duncan Young (25:32.014)

First speed product that shows your levels of stress. Are you sleeping all that kind of stuff? And then we try and embed that change with coaching psychology Everyone's day will be different. There is no Perfect day or no ideal day that is the same for anyone. In fact, there's probably no ideal day That is the same For that same person. It's always changing because we're on a trajectory of what we're trying to

Peter Anthony (25:37.402)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (25:41.476)

Okay.

Duncan Young (26:01.166)

trying to get to. And every day is different, and you've got to respond to those different parameters. But as I said earlier, 40 % of all of our actions are habits. And if you think that some studies suggest between 40 and 80 % of chronic disease and premature death is due to what's called lifestyle choices we make every day.

Peter Anthony (26:08.281)

Okay.

Duncan Young (26:28.814)

It's pretty clear that your lifestyle choices is responsible about 40 % of all chronic disease and premature death. So these tiny things you do can make an extraordinary difference to how you live your life. And when you add social connection or your social environment, it's worth about 15%. So essentially we're just shaping the direction of going, because everyone thinks it's genes and genes are really responsible about 30 % of your trajectory until you're

Peter Anthony (26:45.816)

Mm-mm. Well.

Duncan Young (26:58.67)

age about 80 and then the wheels start to fall off. But most of your life is within your hands. About 55 % is really about kind of people you hang with and the choice you made on exercise food and those other things.

Peter Anthony (27:01.711)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (27:06.948)

Choice there.

Peter Anthony (27:14.758)

So are there, I understand like each ideal day is unique to the individual, but are there some consistent things you recommend? Like one thing you mentioned then was like social connection and relationships. Is that one, would you recommend some things and say what, social connection will be one? I guess health or exercise would be another, would that be the second one?

Duncan Young (27:26.68)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (27:32.77)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (27:38.926)

Well, I'll go through them. So if you think about Harvard Grant Study, been running for about 85 years, it's the study of Harvard sophomores. And when they interview them every year, and they're now interviewing their children and their children's children as we go through, the number one determinant of life satisfaction, which you know is different from happiness, but how you live a good life, is the number of meaningful connections you're having in your life. So your social fitness or your social well-being. So that's number one.

Peter Anthony (27:44.996)

Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Anthony (27:57.807)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (28:05.69)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (28:07.648)

If you're surrounded by the right type of people, you tend to make better decisions. Even at the dinner table, you know, if you eat with someone else, it modifies your habits. so when you start with the social connection and then you've got recovery is probably the number one thing, especially in our society today where where sleep levels have been declining, you know, in the last eight or 100 years quite significantly.

Peter Anthony (28:14.126)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Duncan Young (28:35.82)

We know there's a really big impact if you don't on your cognitive ability, the beta amyloid plaques that build up in your brains. These have causative effects for both Alzheimer's and dementia. Don't get washed out if you don't get your seven to nine hours. And then how you exercise. So you might be aiming for cardiovascular fitness for exercise, but you've got to remember that your brain uses about 20 % of the oxygen running through your body. So if you've got a healthy

Peter Anthony (28:36.026)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (29:04.408)

circular tree system, pumping oxygen around the body, you're gonna be better as well. There's weird things that also happen. So when you exercise, you get much better creative thinking outcomes, so divergent thinking outcomes. So they start all bleeding in together. If you rest well, you're more likely to exercise. If you exercise well, you're gonna be more brain smart. You're gonna be cleverer, you're gonna see things. So they're all interrelated. surround yourself with the right people.

Peter Anthony (29:22.532)

Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Duncan Young (29:32.994)

get off Instagram basically, you know, and then, cause you've got the three environments, your physical environment, what you have in the fridge determines what you eat. The kind of paper you hang with your social environment determines what you do. And the last one's your digital environment, the kind of things you absorb, you know, whether it's TikTok and Instagram or whether it's, know, more positive news stories that come through and Johann Hari was actually in,

Peter Anthony (29:35.437)

Ha ha ha.

Peter Anthony (29:43.14)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (29:50.969)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (29:59.502)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (30:02.998)

in Sydney this week. went to see him and had a nice chat with him. He wrote a book called Stolen Focus. I'm now a big fan of understanding the impact of social media essentially and the hooks they've got into us in order to advertising the whole time. So their ability to wrestle back our own attention is really, really important.

Peter Anthony (30:05.22)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (30:20.142)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (30:25.558)

It is. I saw some Pew research just recently, Duncan, and they suggested that this is just in Americans. Americans have never been never the less less likely to change their point of view after a social or digital interaction in recorded Pew history. This is like 50 or 60 years. And the writer of the article was suggesting that that was primarily social media, whose algorithms

feed you more of what you already believe. Like if I think red's the best color, I'm going to get red, red, red, red, red, blue, green, yellow, they're crap, right? Talk about red. Whatever I do, I'm going to get more of and I'm going to get the other view is the enemy. Whereas if you think about social interaction, quite apart from not being good mentally, if I'm going to be very bigoted about what I think and what I feel, I'm not going to be very good socially because I'm going to be surrounded by people that think different things than me, which

Duncan Young (31:01.879)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (31:21.796)

which I find quite interesting. When I come across some of the things differently, I'm curious. I'm not angry. think, wow, I'm really curious. Like, not in an aggressive way, I'm really curious. How do you think that way? What does it come from? How does that make you feel good or how does it make you feel great? I find those people interesting. Like different people.

Duncan Young (31:40.226)

Well, I think back on the tech thing you mentioned, it's more sinister than that, right? So large corporations are hooking our attention to sell us more advertising. The longer you spend on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, the more adverts you get. It's as simple as that. And then what they do is they dampen down good news stories and they accelerate stories that rage people. If you see something you don't like, you're more likely to comment on it.

Peter Anthony (31:48.121)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (31:56.59)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter Anthony (32:05.87)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (32:08.728)

Now there's a really interesting example of the stolen election of 2020. Of course it wasn't stolen. But the 20 top stories about that election, so the most popular stories on Facebook, 20, 19 of them were false. And yet they did nothing to bring them down. So they're literally, the world is raging with misinformation because that's what sells advertising.

Peter Anthony (32:15.726)

Yeah

Peter Anthony (32:27.951)

Well.

Peter Anthony (32:37.166)

Yeah, it does. It does.

Duncan Young (32:38.752)

And so we need somehow to either flip the switch or control this kind of stuff, because, you know, you think about China and place like that. This is a Johann Hari piece. So they've got TikTok, right? In China, of course. But the kids are only allowed 45 minutes per day. You're allowed a license, a licensed amount of minutes per day. And they're only feeding content to the kids, which are about excelling in schools, being a good citizen, all that kind of stuff.

Peter Anthony (32:52.547)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (33:06.084)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (33:07.18)

The stuff that's been served up in the Western liberal, you know, it's really distracting for kids and adults alike. And we really need to wrestle our attention back. I mean, this is why we can't have, you know, meaningful and honest conversation because people are getting different information, you know.

Peter Anthony (33:17.913)

Yes.

Peter Anthony (33:25.228)

Yeah, that's true. And also, there was some parallel research by Apple on how many conversations people have. was the only way they could measure is by phone conversations. And it had consistently fallen for 25 years until the average conversation now is like 90 seconds. This is on a phone, right? What's called a phone, which no one actually uses as a phone, it's still called a phone. So we're talking less.

Duncan Young (33:45.772)

Yeah. Yeah.

Duncan Young (33:53.24)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (33:55.118)

But the other insidious thing, I think, and you talked about advertising, I spent about 12 years working in big ad agencies. And the way we made ads was by showing somebody with a problem. David Ogle, said it well, said, if someone's got a sore, scratch it. Like, hey, Duncan, that's pretty bad. Saw you've got there, pretty bad. Sting you've got there. Remind you about how bad the sting is. And then you think, shit, it is pretty bad. Better than worse than I thought it was. And then introduce the cure, right?

Duncan Young (34:22.828)

Yeah, bit of itching powder.

Peter Anthony (34:23.0)

So are you lonely, sad, depressed, whatever you might be. Again, put some itching powder on it and then give you the cure. And the cure works better if you, we called it skillfully building the pain. Like build the pain and then introduce the cure. So his view is that this is like, is it China or is it the big multinationals doing this or is it both in his view?

Duncan Young (34:35.906)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (34:49.454)

Well, you can see what China are doing. They're limiting, you know, the impact of it on their citizens. You know, they're investing in the future technology. They're doing all that kind of stuff and then in the rest of the world, they're just letting it flow. But I suppose going back to your ideal day, you know, you can, there are a lot of things you can do as an individual. You know, why, if you're waiting for the government to regulate your life in order for you to live your ideal day, I think you're going to miss the boat.

Peter Anthony (34:54.964)

Yeah, yeah.

Duncan Young (35:15.79)

So we need to think about the small intentional choice we can make as individuals to do that. And I think a lot of it is also about your mindset. know, obviously Carol works, learning or growth mindset, you to, you know, you probably never thought earlier, a couple of years ago that you could have a podcast series and here you are today, you know, you've probably got a hundred podcasts under your belt and you know, you're doing some great stuff, but being positive is also important. So optimism and.

Peter Anthony (35:15.95)

Yeah, yeah.

Duncan Young (35:45.582)

positivity makes a big difference because people who are optimistic and or positive plan for the future. They save money for their retirement. They stock their fridge with leafy green vegetables, the modified Mediterranean diet so they can eat better to give them the energy to do the things they want to do. So I think being positive and optimistic, which of course much of the world is not at the moment,

Peter Anthony (35:46.584)

Yes, yeah.

Peter Anthony (36:05.038)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Duncan Young (36:13.166)

control, there's small things you can control and putting some positivity in them is really important.

Peter Anthony (36:19.398)

And the way I see optimism, I look at the Seligman way. And you think about Seligman and he's suggesting that it's explanatory style. It's the way that you explain things to yourself and others, which is great, which means it's adaptable and you can change it if you understand how to change it. So if you are, because some folks might think, well, I'm a pessimist. I don't, I think pessimistically well, if that is true, like technically true that you're pessimistic, it can be changed. And it's changed by

Duncan Young (36:36.215)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (36:48.666)

how you answer certain questions that you ask yourself. And that can change. And I guess the more optimistic I am, the more likely I am that I can have my ideal day.

Duncan Young (37:00.686)

Yeah. Look, we're not suggesting here that polyanna type, you know, personality is the way to go here. But we're, you know, the majority of the population has a negative bias and hence why the social media is so good at harnessing into that. But you can change your optimism over time. The learnt helplessness piece by Martin Seligman that you've studied before. But

Peter Anthony (37:05.677)

Nah.

Duncan Young (37:25.31)

We can reframe and, know, just because things didn't go as well as they could have, we can look for the small wins and reframe that as a success time for it. So I think it is important to not be so optimistic that you don't think that a car heading towards you going to swerve around you. You know, you need to be sensible about it, but you need to be practical. But having some optimism to say, you know what, I haven't done this before.

Peter Anthony (37:33.87)

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Anthony (37:46.74)

Yeah, practical.

Duncan Young (37:54.52)

But in other scenarios where I've tried something new, it's turned out okay. I'm going to give it a go. I think that's really important.

Peter Anthony (37:59.34)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's where it circles back to social support too, because if you've got people around you encouraging you, that is going to help. I was interested to, when you talk about these small steps, I'm a huge fan of meditation, both personally and also for my coaching clients. And I don't have like research on this, but I know anecdotally with the clients I work with, I always prescribe meditation.

at the beginning and end of each coaching conversation, we meditate together, right? And just for 10 minutes. And I've just done a small series of videos looking at 10 reasons to meditate for 10 minutes a day for 10 days. Like as a way to say, just meditate for 10 minutes a day for 10 days. And if it doesn't work, quit, right? But I know it's gonna work. I know it's gonna change your life. And here's the 10 reasons why it's a great idea.

Duncan Young (38:50.285)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (38:57.314)

To me, that's a micro step. It's only 10 minutes. You're thinking, and I got reminded about that when you talked about being on TikTok or your favorite social media. Most people will be spending more than 10 minutes a day on social media. I'm thinking, right? I'm thinking of like an hour or more of social media a day. So if you took that hour, knocked it down to 50 minutes and did 10 minutes of meditation instead of that extra 10 minutes of social media, did that for 10 days in a row and ideally do it in the morning.

Duncan Young (39:10.68)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (39:26.847)

tends to work better in the morning, your life will start dramatically changing anyway, just by itself, just by doing that. Like one micro step, yeah.

Duncan Young (39:32.685)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (39:36.27)

Well, that's actually quite a big step. you think, think the stats are, and you can look this up, but I think it's around, we spend 46 hours a week on our screens. That's a combination of work and our phones. So, you know, that's a lot of time. That's a number of years of our lives gone there. And, you know, I would challenge you to say, what is meditation? And I would say it's a reflective practice.

Peter Anthony (39:48.258)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (39:53.496)

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Anthony (40:02.83)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (40:03.02)

Why couldn't you just stop people off with three deep breaths? You know, what could you do in 30 seconds or less? Cause 10 minutes for a non-medit idea like you're dreaming, buddy. So how could you break it down?

Peter Anthony (40:06.98)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter Anthony (40:13.082)

Tim, you could break it down to three breaths. You could break it down to mindful walking. could just, the next time you're walking in the morning, just do it mindfully. You could break it down by saying, well, three times a day, I'm going to feel my toes inside my shoes. Right? I can make it micro, if I want to make it micro, micro. Yeah. I mean, when I talk about meditation, it's got two rules. It's got one.

Duncan Young (40:22.178)

Correct.

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (40:41.964)

is a focusing device, which is usually your breath, right? The second is a non-judgmental attitude about what arises. So I'm not trying to solve or fix anything. I'm just focusing on my breath. And I've got a non-judgmental attitude. Like I'm sitting in a, I'm watching a Netflix show, which happens to be my life. don't, I'm not judging it. I'm just watching it, just observing it. And a lot of people, can use guidance. I've recorded meditations. There's great apps like Calm, there's awesome.

short guided meditations. The reason for 10 minutes is that the literature suggests that like between six and eight minutes you start getting really profound impacts. It takes you about a minute to get in and about a minute to get out. So 10 minutes is about the ideal prescription. That's what I recommend. But I can see your point. That could be a huge step. But you know what I love? You'd love this too. When people say to me, I tried meditation once and it didn't work.

Duncan Young (41:25.421)

Yeah.

Peter Anthony (41:38.104)

I tried it once and it didn't work. Like saying, I went to the gym once and it didn't work. Right? Or I tried talking to a girl once and it didn't work. So it's not a very big sample size, is it? To try something once and it not working. You think, well, you might want to try it more than once. You know what I mean?

Duncan Young (41:51.007)

No.

Duncan Young (41:57.326)

Well, we, yeah, we've got to lean into the strength. it might be, you know, what could be a challenge for some people is like, why don't you go to the loo without your phone? Now, why don't you go for a dog walk in the morning without taking a phone? Like, why don't we try and reduce the distraction first before we get people into the, well, obviously, you know, I did the, search inside yourself a couple of probably 10 or 12 years ago. They came to Australia as a Google technique.

Peter Anthony (42:10.382)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter Anthony (42:24.526)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (42:26.772)

And it was interesting. And then when I took that and tried to apply it into the workplace, know, everyone's so cognitively busy. We need to go back to first principles just to create the space for people to do something different. We know that it works, but if you haven't created the space for the opening, then it's not going to work long term.

Peter Anthony (42:39.613)

Peter Anthony (42:44.266)

Yeah, Yeah, I like you. I like your micro steps. Just don't take the phone with you. Walk the dog to take the phone. Like actually pay attention to your surroundings or the puppy or the other one I find interesting. You see people at dinner or lunch or like a breakfast together and they're all, they're watching their phone. They're actually with somebody and watching the phone to think, how do you do that? How do you, how do you do that? How do you have dinner with somebody and be on your phone at the same time? It's bizarre.

Duncan Young (42:51.075)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Duncan Young (43:01.827)

Yeah.

Duncan Young (43:10.86)

You need to be not judgmental in your view of others as well, Pete. This could be, you might need to listen more and be a bit less judgmental because you don't know what's going on in their life. They could be texting each other for all you know, unless you're close enough.

Peter Anthony (43:14.923)

Hahaha

Peter Anthony (43:21.69)

I'm cross. That that yes, that's true. Maybe I'm maybe I'm maybe I'm too judgey. I'm just curious. I'm just curious. How do you do that? How have dinner with somebody looking at your phone? I'm just curious.

Duncan Young (43:38.648)

Well, they might have just basically been in a four week overseas cruise to Antarctica and spend all their time together. And they're just having a you know, little relive time, doing something, shared experience together, which is staring at your phone. You they could be, we just don't know what's going on.

Peter Anthony (43:54.062)

Yeah. Or they could be extreme introverts.

Duncan Young (44:01.071)

It be.

Peter Anthony (44:02.21)

And they don't like that contact. So very cool. Duncan, I could talk to you for days on this. I find you a very interesting and brilliant guy to talk to. I'm going to put in the show notes the links to reach out to you if people would like to do that workshop, which sounds incredibly worthwhile to do. And they can design their particular ideal day.

Duncan Young (44:15.032)

Thank you, that's very generous.

Duncan Young (44:30.381)

Great.

Peter Anthony (44:31.727)

In the meantime, I just wanted to thank you for being a guest on Growth  today.

Duncan Young (44:36.364)

Yeah, great, Pete. It's great to be asked onto the show. And I know you have quite a few listeners who broad in nature. hopefully I've been able to share a little bit about building your ideal day. But I just want to close with something which I hopefully might resonate with your listeners. So have a change about the small intentional choice you make every day. That's about, you know, making it as small as possible and heading in the right trajectory.

Peter Anthony (44:50.637)

Sure, sure.

Duncan Young (45:03.256)

But I want us also to think about what we can do for others. So post the pandemic, we've had a almost 20 % increase in what's called benevolence. That's volunteering donations and helping strangers. I think the social connections that we have make such an impact on others. And we all need to focus a bit more on like helping others. You know, there are lots of people who suffering out there at the moment. So even just being a better listener or

You know, that kind of things can make a really big difference. So I truly benefited from people who took the time 10 years ago to listen to someone talking about me believing wellbeing was going to be a really big thing in the future when many didn't believe so. And I've benefited from that. And we all need to, you know, take our own time to listen to others and hopefully encourage them to follow their own dreams and build your ideal day.

Peter Anthony (45:59.258)

Thanks, I can see that. Bye. Bye.

Duncan Young (46:01.87)

See you, Pete. Bye bye.