YouSaid · the spoken record

Andy Johns

lines on the record: 91
first: 2023-09-10
most recent: 2023-09-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I'm trying to do more work for the benefit of others as opposed to what it does for my bank account. So, you know, if part of this message has been beneficial to you, it would certainly put wind in my sails to hear that. So that would be one way to help.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A couple ways you can find me on Twitter, my username is clues.life. So C-L-U-E-S-D-O-T-L-I-F-E. You can also find me on LinkedIn, search for Andrew Johns. You'll find me on there. And you can check out my website, clues.life. It's basic MVP, but it's sort of an ARC project that's in process. And so those are a couple of ways that you can reach out. In terms of ways it can help, you can't always tell who you're helping. And when I sit behind my laptop and I write and I send my messages out into the world other than getting some thumbs up here and there, you don't always know what impact you're having. And Sometimes it's good to hear, you know, because, again, for me, this is part of me rewriting. That internal narrative”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. My luggage was half a world away from me. And so when that happened, you know, what could I do? I just said, okay, well, I have shorts and a shirt on me that I can wear for the next three or four days. And that's what I did.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tune in with yourself and pay attention to that current and you relax into it. You'll arrive at a destination that you were meant for. In a sense, that's what I did that is sort of brought me to this conversation today instead of talking about investing in companies and what have you. I'm instead trying to connect with people on an entirely different level and help them make their own way downstream, so to speak. So, for me nowadays, that's kind of how I'm living. At the moment, I'm actually in Vietnam. I just got here about 10 days ago because it seemed like the current of life was taking me here right now. And it's likely that it's just the next lily pad towards wherever else I'm heading to. But I guess I'm in the mindset now where I'm willing to just surrender and see how it unfolds.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you do the opposite of fighting the current. You allow the current to take you where it's trying to take you. And for me, I actually find that I believe that that's a more fitting metaphor for life. It's possible that Something amazing for us downstream. So long as we're willing to surrender and just let go, to turn off the intellectual mind a bit, to quit trying to plan as if you can predict the future. Quit thinking about all the edge cases and trying to optimize our life, which I think is a bunch of bullshit. It's possible that if you just relax and you instead pay attention to the signals around you, you feel where the current is trying to take you, maybe towards a potential life partner. Maybe away from an oppressive work environment, maybe towards a place to live that is more common and peaceful. Whatever it may be, if you”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, for example, if you go whitewater rafting, they'll give you a little safety crash course at the beginning. They'll say, here's how you paddle, and here's put your vest on. And one of the things they'll ask you is, what do I do if I fall overboard? Especially if I fall overboard into the rapids or the cold water. This is maybe the most important thing they teach because commonly, what happens if you're in sizable enough rapids and you fall overboard, the tendency is to freak out and to fight the current. And when people freak out in the water, especially when the water is choppy, that's when they get in trouble. Thing they teach you to do is instead you sort of go into mummy mode, right? You lay back, you cross your arms across your chest and you stick your feet out like you're a mummy.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I experienced was that once I got to the top of one mountain, then I had to find the top of another and another and another. And although you see and do some amazing things along the way, at some point, it's too exhausting. At some point, you may really get yourself into trouble and you might not survive. The vast majority of people who die on Mount Everest actually die on the way down, not on the way up. Don't save anything for the return home, I think is the point And instead of pursuing my life now as a mountain to be climbed in the hopes that reaching the top will make me feel good again I'm instead trying to float down river.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, I'm good, I still have my ups and downs. I've I've arrived at an interesting part in my journey, where It's something that I'm practicing now And I still don't quite have the hang of it. And I'll use one more metaphor. I think the way that I approach the first part of my life was as if life was a big mountain to be climbed. Where you're trying to head up Everest under this assumption that once you get to the top, you're going to have this bliss that will sort of persist or that will make you feel that you had a life well lived and that that was the answer.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wish you a happy journey. And just know that things are going to be okay. Now, the second question What am I up to nowadays?”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure, sure. Well, let me answer the first one a message to leave to folks. I would imagine that there's a lot of high performers, successful folks out there. Some of you May feel like you're on the verge of answering a call towards a new chapter in life or towards finding a way out of whatever situation you're in that you don't want to be in anymore. Thing I guess I would say to you is that Having undergone some change myself. I can promise you is that it's going to be in some ways the best thing that's ever happened to you, but also the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Those are the experiences that define a life. And if you feel that call inside of you, Seek a new way of living. Just know that you're not the only one out there doing it. And there are others out there, such as myself, and that I can always be reached.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then he sort of famously made his way to the Bodhi tree and sat under it and meditated for 40, 41 days. I can't recall what it was, a long time. Then he had his enlightenment, and out of that came one of the teachings, which is known as the middle way. Not about being a prince. It's not about being poor. There's something in between. He found that was his path to Bangkok. You could walk that path, and maybe it'll teach you something. Or it'll lead you nowhere because it's not your own path. I think that's the point.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For me, I take that as maybe the most fundamental message in looking back at the story of the original Buddha himself was The teachings The traditions, everything that's formed around his teachings has power and merit to it. But I look at what he did. He was born as a prince into a royal family. Something wasn't right and he was seeking the truth behind this anguish and this unfulfillment and there was something inside of him that said I must seek the answer because this can't. Growing up in this sheltered life as a prince, this can't be the answer. So he left it all behind, including his wife and child. And then he lived as an ascetic. For years, nearly dying close to starvation. He did that for years. And then eventually you realized well, that's not the answer either.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I wanted to talk with them. And so I said, hey, something tells me that you figured out the secret to life. And I'd like to chat. And so we talked. And it turned out that half the time he was a farmer. He had a small little farm, you know, an acre up on a hill in the mountains, and he'd work at his farm half the time and the other half he would then go and work at the animal sanctuary. He was a practicing Buddhist. And one of the things he said to me really stood out he used a simple analogy. He said, everyone's trying to make it to Bangkok. The problem is they're getting to Bangkok by following somebody else's road. The whole point And he was making that same point or a similar point of you've got to find your own way. That is the message.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that really ties in with this point of the uniqueness of people. You have to find what works for you. For some people, it's going to be the ice bath thing. For others, it's not. Last year, quick anecdote working at an animal sanctuary in northern Thailand for abused animals and neglected animals. This place is amazing. They take in anything and they say we'll find a way. That's what they do. So they have hundreds and hundreds of animals, including a large herd of elephants, which is pretty amazing. And there was a worker there who I met. Just by the expression on his face, I could tell that this was a liberated man. This was somebody who had figured out something that was contributing to his deep sense of peace.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and that gets to my point earlier around I'm not entirely convinced that this is an act of free will on my part. There have been moments of me intervening and acting with free will. But I believe that there are also undercurrents that would fall into the realm of superstition for a lot of folks that this is the path that was laid out in front of me. Even before I was born.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That truth that you are in large part the way you are because of what the world told you to be. And it's making the choice consciously to then say fuck that and I'm going to go against the grain and I'm going to now tell the world that I don't want its influence on me anymore. And I will, like Moby Dick or like Ahab going down with the white whale, I am willing to die. Return to my individuality and to break free and to be who I want to be in the face of the currents around us regarding the messages around how we should thank live, act, and feel. So that is the thing. That prevents transformation. The simple thing is you could say fear. What is the fear? That is the fear. It's to say I'm going to walk my own path now and I'm going to be who I want to be and I'm going to discover who I was before the world told me who to be.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What do we end up doing? We choose to push down our individuality in exchange for being accepted by the PEC. Beginning with our parents and then our friends and then our teachers and then our bosses and all of the other sort of dimensions of society. And so we lose Who we were before the world told us who to be. It's actually a Carl Jung quote. The world will ask you who you are. And if you don't know, it'll tell you. And so I would say that that is the number one reason why transformation doesn't take place is because. A long time ago, we made that exchange to forego our individuality in order to be accepted by others because of that deep primal need for love and acceptance. And in order to undertake that process of personal transformation, One of the truths you have to realize is that truth.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so that's why I say the inertia of civilization, or I should have said the inertia of society is because you're born into a world that begins to condition you at a very early age to act a certain way and not act a certain way, believe some things and don't believe others. Why am I at a San Francisco Giants fan? Well, because I grew up in a Giants family. It's not like I was two years old and I picked the Giants. It doesn't work that way. What ends up happening then is, and this begins again really young, your two, three, four, five years old and the world around you, namely the adults in the world start telling you who to be. And it begins to challenge or run into conflict with that individuality. But because our fear of not being accepted and loved is so great.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then further through the socialization of life, we all have unique experiences. And those experiences are passed through this unique prism of our own mind and genetics to where we're further accentuated as individuals. So we're born with this fundamental need to be connected and to be loved. We're also born with this need to be ourselves and to express ourselves. Ends up happening though is the world that you're born into eventually conditions you away from the unique individual that you were. And that is the function of society. Society operates because enough people choose to agree on the same beliefs and ideas, around the style of education, of raising children, of city planning, of millions of things. And so society is the substrate of society or the adhesive of it is shared belief.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so we're born with that need, yet at the same time, we're also born as unique individuals. I read a study where the scientists sort of estimated the probability that Tuesperm or 2A would be genetically identical. And for context, I think the average man generates in their prime somewhere around between 10 to 100 million sperm a day. So we generate a lot of sperm in our lifetime The math that they came up with. Million times greater than the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And there's somewhere between 100 to 400 billion stars in the galaxy. So it's a million times greater than that. So all that is to say is when you were born, you were unique. There's never been a U before. It's going to be a really, really long time or another dimension before another one of you shows up again.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A significant thing that holds people back from change is the inertia of civilization. We all experience a fundamental conflict in our life because when we're born Have many needs, but there are Substantial needs that are Immutable in everyone, especially children, the first need is the need for love, acceptance, and connection for mammals. We have one of the longest gestation periods of the entire animal kingdom. And even when we're born, we're helpless. We can't survive. We need nurturing for many, many more years afterwards in order to survive. And that goes hand in hand with our need for connection. So we're biologically hardwired. To need to be accepted and connected because it is perhaps the most essential thing to survival, more essential than water, right?”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because she had suffered so much that she needed to find liberation from that. And in her case, that even meant separating not all the time, but a significant portion of her time away from her own children, who, if I recall correctly, were sort of early teens sort of time frame. But now I think that Pema Chodrun is the only female Buddhist nun in all of North America. And there's a very well-known spiritual teacher. I also think her journey was somewhere around seven or eight years. And again, that's just a valley between two mountains. Truthfully, the journey continues for the rest of your life. But just another example I wanted to share.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, or another popular figure in Western spirituality is Pemachodrun, who she's got a lot of great books. One of them is titled When Things Fall Apart. So one of the first books I read when Things Fell Apart for Me. Her story Actually, she used to live in Berkeley, I think. But an American woman, she was married, first marriage didn't work out. She got married again. Second one didn't work out. It ended in somewhat sudden and expected and catastrophic fashion. And here she is with a few children and a broken heart again and deep emotional suffering. And that suffering was so great that it led her to ultimately say I must pursue these teachings and this spiritual tradition that I'm starting to wake up to in the Eastern traditions of Buddhism in particular.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Based on some of the experiences I've had sort of believes that it was somewhat preordained and that this was going to happen for me. But it's in the minority of cases where the radical transformation of one's sense of identity takes place. It's not common. My general sense is it's definitely less than 1% of the population. And I suspect that's just kind of the way things are.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, it's a spectrum. What I've experienced is that the vast majority of people who feel Some tug to undergo a process of change, I'd say. ninety ninety five percent of the time pretty confidently i can say that those changes are more of the micro transitions It's okay. Let me change my job. Let me downsize my house. Let me break up with my partner. Still hard things. And for them, that may be all that is needed and necessary. There's no moral judgment on my side about everyone's got to dive into the deep end. That's certainly not the case, and I'm not advocating for it. I honestly don't even know if it's a choice. There's a part of me that”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. When you have suffered enough and searched for the truth becomes the only thing that matters and that truth leads you to understanding that like it's okay. I can accept myself for who I am. And it's not all my fault. That has been done in earnest. And when you feel those moments of love for yourself. It suddenly changes how you see everybody else. For me, step four was the easiest because it just happened. It happened after Eight years, nine years of my own on and off mental health journey, but it finally happened.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For me, my experience was that it kind of happened automatically. You do the first three. It is the result. It's the thing that comes out of step number three itself. Because again, when you dig deep enough Like, you know, like Captain Ahab going down with the white whale and Moby Dick, that is what that book is about. Not about a fisherman going after a whale. This is the author himself through a story talking about his own journey of emotional and spiritual liberation. Many people that would Experts and historians that might disagree with that. And I would disagree with them. Is the story of seeking the truth at all costs to liberate oneself, including being willing to die for that whale metaphorically? Because at the end of the book, they don't really reveal. Did Ahab actually go down with the whale and never come back?”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, on the scale of 13 billion years, it's instant. But from our perspective, it's not. It feels a lot longer than that.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are many other examples I can pull up like that, including Siddhartha Gautama, my Lord Buddha himself. Wasn't a couple weeks or a couple of months his journey towards liberation from his own mind. If I can recall, that was also a seven or eight-year journey. So these big shifts. A cosmic universal scale, it's instantaneous, right?”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then waking up the next day and feeling this deep sense of peace and freedom for the first time in his life. But His journey continued to unfold. He eventually started to research to try and understand what had just happened to me, what experience did I have and sort of dot dot dot seven years later, he woke up one day and realized he was now a spiritual teacher. Seven years. It's not that the journey had ended. But to use a metaphor of two mountains and a valley, like that first mountain in his life, when he got off of that mountain and he entered this valley between the first mountain of life and the second mountain of life, the valley that he was in. That sat between the old sense of self and then this new sense of self as a spiritual teacher that Valley was seven years for him.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are some famous figures that you can turn to. For example, Eckhart Tolle. He wrote the power of now, which he's probably most famous for. He's a great Western spiritual teacher of Eastern traditions. He went through immense suffering himself actually. The suffering was so great that for him it led to a somewhat sudden and spontaneous collapse of his sense of identity. Doctors would probably say psychosis. And what he actually had was a spiritual liberation, liberation from his mind. He describes it himself and reading his book and listening to some of his lectures and talking about his own journey. He wrote this at, I think, in the first chapter or the preface of the power of now, when he described the suffering that he was experiencing and the sudden collapse and the sense of identity.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was consistently cathartic for me. I would cry at the end of almost every single one of those runs. So, you know, it's just to recap. It's in those little moments. And sometimes in those big moments too. But it begins with the awareness based on truth and then the daily practice.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things bubble up, you confront the stuff in your mind that in our day-to-day is easy to just, you know, keep it under the hood. Some find that through psychedelics, some find that through Somewhat extreme physical feats like there was a period in time where Didn't realize this at the time, but not only was I building my career, but I was running Ultra Marathons. And looking back at that, I was like, yeah, there I was, another desperate attempt to feel worthy. But I also recognize now that like that was medicine for me, that me going out onto a remote mountain range for five hours every Saturday and just running. Well, beyond the point of discomfort.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A pattern of mine now that if somebody gives me a compliment, I look them in the eyes and I say, thank you. And I really try and like embrace that little moment because it's in all of those ways. You identify these little patterns, you intercept them, and you choose to make a change to how your condition to behave in that moment. And if you do that consistently enough and you keep practicing it and you keep it up every day, Then you're developing a new internal narrative through all those little actions and it accumulates in ways that are pretty powerful. Every now and then there's things that you can do that are more of like a brute force method of driving at home. Some may find it through a Vipassana retreat, you know, seven to ten day silent retreat, which is agonizing if folks haven't tried to be that client that long.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, I understand that I have a low sense of self-worth, and I understand that it plays out in all these ways. And I have the awareness of it that now when I'm doing something that is a conditioned behavior or a conditioned response, born out of that deep self-belief or that negative core belief, When I spot it, there's an opportunity for me to intervene. And it starts in the simple ways. For example, I had a boss once where you would come over and he would give me praise all the time. He was wonderful human being, and I think I was doing a good job, right? One day you swung by and he said, Hey, amazing job. And my response was, oh, yeah, you know, I did my best. And then he looked at me and he said, Hey Say thank you or you're welcome. That's it. When somebody gives you a compliment, just say thanks. Accept it. And so it's become”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's likely this deeply internalized soft belief. And you can think of that as one of the deepest grooves in the neural pathways in your mind. That was the case for me. So deep that you don't even realize that it's there. It's omnipresent. Going to take time To rewire that because what you're effectively trying to do is take an internal narrative. And edit and rewrite that thing. And this internal narrative is probably at a foothold in you for years or decades. And so it's reasonable to believe or to understand that, okay, if I have not had a high opinion of myself for 30 years, that's not going to change overnight. For some people, it kind of miraculously does. That's not the dorm. For most others, including myself It starts with that truth stage because with truth is the awareness.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For years, my grinding was so bad that I had to, now two times over, had to completely redo all the teeth, all my molars, and then most of the front teeth as well. And I just continued to move forward, even though my body was, again, throwing out all the signals. And for anyone who's listening to this, especially for the folks who haven't, go get the book, the body keeps the score by Dussell van der Kolk. expert clinician who's worked with trauma patients for decades. And the entire book is basically one big message saying like, hey, when mental health presents itself, look to the body because it's the body that is keeping the score on the score. It's the body that's the scoreboard. And it's the body that is actually holding on to all of this shit you've been carrying for years. And eventually.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd say it's to look at those things. Like when those are suffering Or when they're really out of whack. It's undeniable that there is something that is detrimental to your well-being that's going on right now. And your body is telling you like, stop, something needs to change. So that is number one to look at. Look at the fundamentals. Reflecting on my own situation, like, you know, I almost had a heart attack at 35. And I got the classic talk from a Stanford cardiologist saying like, you're just going to be another 40-something year old CEO with a broken heart. The years of really poor sleep, the number of teeth that I had broken, that I had to have fixed multiple times.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are day to day stresses that are normal, and we just have to put up with. But then there's the other stuff that's kind of the flashing red alarm. For me, in a lot of the research in literature supports this too is You can go back to animals. It's like when they're fundamental functions, when their core behaviors of diet exercise, playfulness, socialization, sleep, when those things get disrupted, it's a sign that there is something going on here that you need to take a look at. And so the same is true with people. If your sleep always sucks. If your relationships are constantly strained or frequently strained, If your physical health is failing There are so many ways that that can be measured. So, there's really no excuse for that to say, like, oh, I just didn't know, right?”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so this journey along the way is like there are dozens of truths and then hundreds of truths. And then every now and then it's punctuated by the big, oh, holy shit, I never saw that coming kind of truth. And it's kind of just what the experience is. I had many, many truths about myself that I discovered before I hit some of the fundamental ones that were at the core of my subconscious.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Were many parts of it Yeah, at its core. At first, it began with With a simple truth, which was, you know, I went into the therapist, I was describing what I was feeling, I was describing the uncontrollable thoughts and mental imagery that I was experiencing in my sleep disruption and my pounding heart and everything else. And she said, yep, you're having panic attacks. And just knowing, oh, there's a thing, and it's called a panic attack. Starting at that basic truth was enough in the moment to just take a little bit of the edge off.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then from there, it's kind of an unstructured process. Keep asking, keep digging, keep asking, okay, if this happened, why did that happen? Well, and then write a little bit. Well, is that really the reason why? Was there something else? Like just keep working at it until you hit the truth. And you'll know what the truth is because it always feels either deeply uncomfortable or it feels like an epiphany.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Simple bullet points of The most recent situations you can think of where you became most acutely reactionary and emotional. You could have been having a political conversation with somebody and they said something that really just, you know, you felt like you just wanted to reach out and strangle them. You could have felt deeply insecure in a social setting. Just run through those scenarios where something disrupted what might have been your current state of presence and calmness. When you identify those situations where there was some strong reaction, that is very revealing because that wasn't a conscious thought process that led to the reaction. That was a knee-jerk reaction. That was a reflex. If there's a reflex, then there's something that's underlying the reflex. And the question to then ask is, why did that happen?”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are different ways of doing it, some advocate for a completely unstructured approach because what you want is Don't want to turn it into assignment, you kind of want to feel your way into it if something is bubbling up in your mind, just spit it out. Don't analyze why it's coming up. Just allow it to flow. That method certainly works. Sit down with no agenda. And on some days, you'll write one sentence, and that's enough. And on another day you'll write ten pages, and that's also enough. There's some magic to allowing the human mind to just work and to not interrupt it through some analytical process. The flip side, if you want a little bit more structure, one thing you can do is I'd like to start with if the goal is to understand oneself. Then one of the quickest ways of doing that is to quickly write down a list of”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know people that have arrived at a deep place of self-love and self-understanding through those methods. And I know a lot of others, including myself, where the writing to others was really the writing to myself 15 years ago is a way for me to continue to understand myself more deeply. So I think pen and paper is deeply, deeply overlooked and underrated in this process.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. If you're not in a state of distress, but you feel like there's something to be figured out, there's an ancient technology known as pen and paper. At the end of the day, this is the seeking of the truth involves the seeking of a deep sense of self-understanding. You can get into the daily practice of being able to sit down with pen and paper and write to yourself to ask yourself questions Really sit there and evaluate the thoughts that are running through your head. It is possible for somebody to I'll use the term. I won't get into it, but to reach some state of bliss or enlightenment or some real spiritual awakening, it is possible for somebody to do that entirely on their own with just pen and paper and a quiet room.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're going to want a therapist that is at least as intelligent, if not more intelligent than you. Because I think part of that openness to learning from them and to feeling somewhat comfortable, but also feeling inspired and kind of looking forward to it as if sometimes they say things that make you say, oh shit, wow. I never thought of that. That was smart, right? Or that was a wonderful insight. I don't think if you respect their intellectual abilities, then it's going to be difficult for them to help you. They may not be able to communicate on the same wavelength. You really want to look for that intuitive feeling of something that is safe and comfortable. Ideally, if you can find somebody with some intellectual horsepower that matches your own, honestly, I think the rest after that is just implementation details.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you see the dog transform and change, and that's when you can teach it a lot because it's open and receptive to it. So That's number one in my advice is. Speed date if you've got the opportunity to and try out a few therapists and just go based on intuition. What just feels right to you? And you're going to want to fall into that feeling of comfort. Now, a quick asterisk on that, of course, if you're in real distress, if you're in a bad place, just see whatever professional you can as soon as possible. That's what I did. I was fortunate to wear the first one that I saw was also fantastic. I ended up seeing many other specialists over the years, but that first one, she was wonderful. So, yeah, it's essential that you feel comfortable with them. I would also say this one's a little controversial”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's, I mean, it's kind of like speed dating at first because I would argue that the most important factor is that you feel safe. Think of animals can teach us so much about what it means to heal ourselves. Think about Magic going to the pound and you go in there and there's a bunch of dogs that have been picked up off the street or that have been abandoned and the vast majority of them, they're a nervous wreck, right? Their tail is down in between their legs. They're hunched over and they might be shaking, right? Their nervous system is completely overwhelmed. That is not the time to teach a dog tricks. The dog still can't come out of the corner of the kennel is not the time to teach it how to sit. And once that dog can make it into the arms of an owner that it feels safe with and loved by.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Who might this person also benefit from speaking with? Let's route them to this person that specializes in body-based work, somatic work. Let's send this person to somebody that specializes in nervous system management through breath work or other things. So seeking therapist is a pretty good first step.”
2023-09-10 · Lenny's Podcast · When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source