Tami Simon: Hello friends, my name’s Tami Simon and I’m the founder of Sounds True. I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast: Insights at the Edge. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True’s new membership community and digital platform. It’s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original premium transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, and special weekly live shows, including a video version of Insights at the Edge with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you’ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us, and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
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Hello friends. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Nataly Kogan. Nataly is an entrepreneur, a self-proclaimed science geek, an author, an artist, a mom, and a sought-after public speaker. She’s on a mission to help millions of people cultivate happiness and emotional fitness by making simple, scientifically backed practices part of our daily life.
Nataly immigrated to the United States as a refugee from the former Soviet Union when she was 13 years old. Starting her life in the projects and on welfare, she went on to reach the highest levels of corporate success at companies like McKinsey and Microsoft. When she still found herself unfulfilled, she set out to discover what really leads to a fulfilling and happier life, and she shares those discoveries in her trainings, in the online projects that she creates.
And through her books with Sounds True, Nataly Kogan is the author of Happier Now, The Awesome Human Project, and a new book. It’s called The Awesome Human Journal: A Tool Kit for the Tough Days, the Good Days, and All the Days in Between. Nataly, welcome.
Nataly Kogan: Thank you for having me. So great to be here, Tami.
TS: Always great to be with you and to have this chance to talk with you. And I wanted to start by talking about this whole notion of scientifically backed tools. The journal, your new release, makes these tools available to people in a user-friendly, interactive way. And you’re a self-proclaimed “science geek.” And throughout the journal, you have these mini neuroscience lessons. So right here at the beginning, what have you learned from neuroscience that you wish we all knew?
NK: What a great question. It would make my physicist father so proud for me to start this interview by acknowledging my inner science geek. He is where that came from. I think, though, if I had to name one, it would be the fact that our brain, the human brain, does not report accurate facts as thoughts. Our thoughts are not facts. The brain is not an accurate reporter of reality, and instead, what the human brain does is it chooses certain data points in our day, in our life, to focus on, because there are so many different impulses and impressions. It can’t take them all in. So it chooses. And then it creates a story, a narrative based on those.
And recognizing that, I think, is one of the most important things in terms of improving our emotional fitness and well-being and just living well, because we also learn that the brain doesn’t choose randomly. It chooses things that are either alarming in some way or negative in some way. Now why does the brain do that? It does that because, I always say, your brain doesn’t actually care about your happiness. It doesn’t care about how you feel. It cares about mostly one thing, how to keep you safe from danger, which is actually wonderful. I think being alive is great.
And so because the brain is always focusing on looking for possible danger to protect you from, it focuses on things that are alarming or negative. Because when something is negative, it might signal possible danger.
So recognizing that—that your brain is focusing on the more negative things, on the more alarming things, and largely ignoring things that might be familiar but good or comforting. And then it makes up these stories, again, that are mostly more negative than positive—I think is huge. Because when you recognize that that’s what your brain is doing to keep you safe from possible danger, you have an opportunity to shift. And that’s, I think, what largely a lot of my work is around, is offering these simple, actionable, in-the-moment ways you can work with your brain, that you can help your brain become your ally, versus being this alarmist and negativity-bias-focused activator in your life.
TS: You mentioned that we can talk back to our brain. And you even write, you advise, “Spend more time talking to your brain than listening to it.” And this got my attention, because I thought, well, mostly I’m listening to my brain. I’m not talking back to my brain. I think my job is to listen. So what does that mean, to talk back to your brain?
NK: Yeah, I love that you pick out—that’s, I would say, one of the most life-changing skills that I have learned and that I teach, is this idea that your brain is not all of you, and there’s this other part of you. And you can call it whatever is comfortable for you. I like to call it the wiser part of my being. It’s the part of you that is aware of what thoughts you’re having.
And most of us, I think, Tami, I used to be what you just said. We just think whatever our brain thinks, that’s it. We just follow along. But again, once you recognize that your brain is not really giving you accurate information, it often is causing you struggle, it often is too alarmist, you have an opportunity to step in with that wiser, aware part of you and talk back. What do I mean by talk back? I’m not saying you just scream at your brain or tell it to shut up. It’s not possible. But by talking back, you have a conversation with your brain in which you choose more productive, more helpful thoughts that actually help you to move forward.
So just a super quick example. I mentioned that the brain loves to focus on negative things. So let’s say you are sitting there, and it’s the morning, and you’re looking at your calendar and you’re like, oh my God, this is going to be the worst day. That’s what your brain’s thinking. I have full calendar of meetings. I’m never going to get this stuff done. I’m going to have a horrible day. Those are the thoughts you’re having. You have an opportunity right there and say, OK, hang on brain. And I think it’s really important to actually personify it, to talk back out louder in your head. And you say, well, hang on a second. Yes, I have a lot of meetings. Yes, this is a pretty busy day, but I’ve handled busy days before. They don’t have to be awful. Instead of focusing on how awful it’s going to be, let’s think about how I can help to make it an OK day. What are the top three things I need to focus on today? Let’s think about those. Or is there anything in my calendar that I could shift?
So you’re in this conversation with your brain, you’re taking an active part. And that helps you to create a better relationship with your thoughts, which is core to well-being and emotional fitness. But also, it now got you out of the stress and overwhelm where your brain put you and you’re choosing more productive, more helpful thoughts.
TS: One of the things I’d like to understand better, and I thought, I think Nataly can help me understand this better, is our default network, the default mode in the brain. And what’s happening when we’re just kind of relaxing, our mind is wandering, and it’s going all kinds of places? I don’t think particularly useful, not particularly useless necessarily. What kind of orientation would be, in your view, the most helpful when we’re just in that wandering mind?
NK: Yes, so it’s a great question. So just to geek out a little bit, the default modal network in your brain, it’s not really a network, it’s what it’s called. But it’s several parts of your brain that work together. And you can think of it like that’s a default network. It’s like you’re breathing right now. You’re not really thinking, OK, let’s take a breath, let’s breathe out. That’s the network that’s helping you breathe. It’s helping all these other things go on, that go on without your attention.
Now, when the default modal network is in charge, it’s usually at times when our frontal cortex, the thinker, the analyzing part of the brain, the doing part of the brain is offline, is relaxing. So a great example is, think of when you’re taking a shower, right? You’re not in the shower going, let me turn this knob, let me turn this knob. You’re kind of on automatic. That’s another way to think about it. Your default network comes online. It’s also when you find yourself, maybe you’re taking a walk and your mind is wandering. So that’s your default network at work.
Now, to your question, Tami, two things. The default network, as most things in life, it has its really positive impact and negative. The positive thing is when your default network is activated, it’s doing things like processing information, organizing information, coming up with creative ideas. There’s a reason we often come up with ideas in the shower. There’s a scientific reason for that, because your thinking is relaxed, and the default network is taking all this information that you’ve processed, putting it together in unexpected ways. You’re like, oh yeah, that’s it. So that’s the positive part of the default network. It actually helps us to be more creative. It stores things in memory.
The downside of it, it often will also ruminate on worst-case scenarios. It’ll often get itself self-critical thoughts, because remember, the default mode of your brain is more negative because it’s looking for possible danger. So the downside of letting your thoughts just run, I’m sure you’ve all experienced this. You find yourself like, oh my god, this isn’t going to work out, I’m not good at this. So we start to ruminate mindlessly.
And so what helps is awareness. If you can become aware of where your thought process is taking you, if your brain is being super creative, great. But if you find yourself in this, wow, I’ve just thought about all the things that are wrong with me, that’s an opportunity to shift. But that’s a little bit of what our default network is doing in our brain.
TS: All right, tell me specifically. Let’s say that when we’re not thinking about anything in particular, we find ourselves going back to something that we continually worry about. This is something that’s happening in my life, and I worry about it a lot. What do you suggest for interrupting that and shifting that?
NK: So one of my favorite exercises, and this is in the journal, I actually created a template for it. And by the way, that was one of my major motivations for creating this. It’s essentially a workbook. I teach all these practices and people tell me how useful they are. But then sometimes it becomes harder to implement it on the go. So when you have a template, you fill it in and it forces you to edit your thoughts.
So when you find yourself—worry is a really common thing for the brain because possible danger, something happens, it likes to ruminate. So it’s a three-step process of editing your thoughts. The first question—it’s three questions. Ask yourself, is this thought true? And what I mean by this is let’s say, so I’ll use an example. I’m a mom, my daughter is in college, so we’re not together. So I worry, oh my God, she has a super challenging organic chemistry exam. What if she doesn’t do well? She’ll be upset. So the first thing: Is this thought true? And what I mean by that is, what are the facts you have to support this thought? In my case, what are the facts that I have? Facts, not ideas, not things that happened before, but facts to support that my daughter may not do well on the test. I don’t have any facts. She’s studying, she’s doing her best, and that’s all I have. So questioning. And again, you’re really keeping your brain honest. What are the facts I have to support this?
The second question to ask: Is this thought helpful? I find this to be the most powerful interrupter of those cycles. So let’s take my example. Who does it help if I sit here and worry about Mia not doing well on organic chemistry? Does it help Mia do better? Nope. Does it help me help her? No. Does it help me be better as a mom or in other parts of my life? No. And that awareness, getting really honest with yourself—is this thought helpful? —is really powerful. Those worry thoughts, I’ve practiced this for years. I’m never like, yes, this is really helpful. Let me worry more.
And then the third question, when you realize, OK, these are the facts. A lot of them are not facts, a lot of them are stories my brain made up. The story is not helpful. Ask yourself the third question: Given how things are, given what my brain is doing, given this is the situation, what is a more powerful thought that I could choose? What is a more productive thought or action? What is something I could do in this moment to move forward with less struggle or to shift a little bit?
And again, using my scenario, obviously there’s nothing I can do to help my daughter with this organic chemistry. There’s nothing I can do about the situation. But once I recognize that direction of thought is not based on fact and it’s not helpful, a couple things I can do.
In my case, I did this yesterday. I wrote her a text and I was like, “Hey babes, I know you got this big test going on, and I know you’re studying, and I know you’re probably stressed out. I just want to tell you I’m thinking of you and I really believe in you.” That was really helpful. That was more helpful and productive than sitting and worrying about what she would do. Even if there’s nothing you could do, you could choose a different direction of thought. You could say, OK, instead of worrying about this thing, let me take out a piece of paper. Let me write down, if the worst-case scenario happens, how can I move forward? How could I support myself? And that exercise is also in the journal.
So three, edit your thoughts. Three questions. What are the facts to support this thought? The rest are stories, therefore not fact. Is this thought helpful? And then if not, usually not, what is a more fueling, productive thought or action that I could choose in this moment?
TS: Now you briefly, here, mentioned this additional exercise of the worst-case scenario, and I want to bring that up, because as someone who has a tendency to think through my worried thoughts, having this worst-case scenario exercise, I was like, I love this. I love this as much as all of the, “Is this helpful? Let’s shift it.” I was like, let’s just get into it. So tell me how it is that by imagining the worst-case scenario and really bringing that into our consciousness, that helps us.
NK: Yeah. So again, a little bit of geeking out. Why does the brain worry? The brain is worrying because things are uncertain, right? Like in my example, I don’t know how my daughter is going to do on the organic chemistry. So it’s uncertainty, and your brain hates uncertainty. The human brain absolutely hates uncertainty. It’s the worst condition. Why? Because it doesn’t know how to protect us from danger when things are uncertain.
And by the way, I should say, to your brain, physical danger is exactly the same as psychological danger. So being eaten by a pack of wolves to my brain is the same danger as me being sad if Mia doesn’t do well on organic chemistry. So our brain doesn’t differentiate.
So uncertainty, your brain hates it. Because when things are uncertain, it doesn’t know how to protect you from danger. It’s one of the reasons it worries. By worrying about it and ruminating on it, it thinks it’s preparing you to do something about that possible danger. So that’s why it is so helpful instead of, again, you never can ignore your thoughts. That’s something I just want to say, because your brain is like a little child. And you know when a little child is upset, ignoring them just makes them louder.
So when your brain is worrying about something, acknowledging, actually taking a moment and say, OK brain, you know what? Let’s think this through. What is the worst thing that can happen? And you actually write it down. And I really do encourage you to write these things down. When we write things down, it helps us to be a more objective observer of our thoughts. So instead of just being the thought, we’re like, OK, let me observe it.
So what is the worst thing that can happen? You write it down. OK, then you think through, and that’s the exercise in the journal. How could I move forward? How could I support myself if the worst thing happens? Who could I go to for help? What are actions that I could take?
And when you’re doing this kind of rational analysis of the worst-case scenario, you are in control. You’re showing your brain that you have control. So instead of, oh my God, this possible dangerous thing is going to happen. Everything will be awful, ruminate, ruminate, you’re shifting into, OK, if it happens, here are choices that I have. Here are actions I could take. And now you’re in a feeling of control.
And when we’re going through stressful experiences in life, the number one factor that improves our resilience, so improves our ability to move and adapt through them, is feeling like we have a sense of control. And that’s why, Tami, it is so powerful. Instead of just letting your brain run wild with the worst-case scenario, to actually take control, analyze it. Think about what could happen. What am I going to do if it happens, who could I go to for support? Because it shifts it out of lack of control and into, I have choices, there will be things I am able to do. And that’s hugely helpful to your brain.
TS: When I ponder this notion that our brains really don’t like uncertainty, they really don’t like not being in control, I think of the time we’re in right now as a collective, and how much uncertainty we’re facing as humans, and the sense of, I’m not in control when it comes to climate change. I’m not in control of the political division in the United States, the level that it’s escalating towards. I feel so out of control. What do you suggest that will help people with their brain that’s like, I can’t find any certainty here at a collective level?
NK: It’s such a relevant question Tami, and I talk about this so much, because I think it’s really important. So what you bring up is such a powerful opportunity to shift from, oh my God, all these things are going on and I have no control—which is very stressful—to, OK, within this, what is my sphere of impact? What is something that I could do that is within my control? And that is one of the most powerful things. And I want to give some really tangible examples.
I have a dear friend, his name is Jeff. He is someone, I mean he reads about politics all day long. If you want to know anything about politics, you just call Jeff and he’ll tell you. Hours and hours of podcasts and reading. And I had lunch with him the other day. He’s like, “I’m so stressed out because things are really unstable.”
And I said to him, “Well, what is something you could do? You’re obviously very interested in politics, but you can’t snap your fingers and make everything how you like it. What is something you could do within this area that is aligned with what you want to do or what you want to make happen and is something that you can control?” And we had kind of a little brainstorm, and I think he is going to start writing a blog. He hasn’t started yet, but that’s where we got to. He is like, “You know what? I have things I want to express,” or maybe he’ll do it on Facebook. I don’t know. But he’s going to start. He said, “One thing I can do is just share some of my reasons and thoughts, and encourage people to consider theirs.”
So that’s a really great example of, instead of sitting there and reading the news and going, “Oh my God, all this stuff’s going on.” What is your sphere of impact? What is something in your sphere of impact in this topic area that you could—you mention climate change, right? Again, what is within your sphere of impact that you could do?
And I think that is one of the most—I gave a keynote yesterday to a company that just went through a very severe round of layoffs, twice. I do the survey, usually, before I give a talk of what people are worried about. And a lot of the employees said they’re feeling like they don’t know if another round of layoffs is coming, and they’re just unable to focus on their job.
And so I addressed this and I said, “Look, can you control if the layoffs are coming? No, it’s not your decision. What is something that is within your control?” And I just asked this question, and people said things like, “I could just focus on doing a great job,” or, “I could just focus on being supportive of my colleagues who are also stressed out.” Again, once you choose things that are within your control, you’re out of the uncertainty rumination, and you’re actually focused on having a certain impact. And that is not just really great for your stress level, it actually builds agency. And agency is your belief that you can make choices that support yourself in this life.
And so that would be my advice. And it’s just a question to ask yourself like, OK, I’m worried about this. Or, this uncertainty about the world is stressing me out. What is something within my sphere of impact that I could do? And that’s a really, really powerful shift.
TS: I want to talk to you, Nataly, about something that’s deep in my heart that’s a little vulnerable. But I think this could be a very interesting conversation, which is, one of the things that I’ve been sorting through personally is my own tendency to be skeptical and to not believe, and not trust, and to just kind of be like, “Really, I’m not so sure.” And of course, there are positives in this, and OK. And this gets deep, so just stay with me here for a moment.
Part of what I’m seeing is that within my own inherited family line, a Jewish family line where my mother actually believed, and just bear with me here, that there was a way that—this was her belief—that God betrayed the Jewish people through members of our family dying in the Holocaust. And that you always had to stay vigilant. You always had to question, you always had to be prepared for the worst. “Don’t trust too much. Be prepared for the worst. Keep your eyes out, keep thinking Tami, keep questioning, keep being critical.”
And I’m wondering, as someone with your own background, as a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union, what might live in your inherited family line, and how have you worked through that?
NK: Tami, I’m so grateful for your openness in asking this. You just described my mom. You literally just described my mom. So I am very close with my parents. We moved from New York City to Boston to be near them. I love them beyond words, but you just described my mom and her mom and her mom. I am grateful to still remember my great grandma, and my grandma was alive until five years ago. And my mom.
We have also brought in my family this—on top of the Jewish heritage, put the Soviet Union, where trust did not exist, where the entire beingness there involved being lied to. And as Jews, we were persecuted. The first memories I have are my parents telling me, “Don’t trust anything you hear in school. Don’t ever tell anyone you don’t trust anything.” So I lived this kind of duality.
So what you just described is absolutely in my DNA, and you mentioned your mom. My mom is someone who—I don’t think I’m revealing anything private—she really prides herself on having a critical mind, that she doesn’t take anything at face value. She questions everything. And anything that comes from any kind of authority is immediately mistrusted, again, because in Russia, everything we got from our authority was a complete lie.
And so my mom really prides herself on that. Just as an example, if I tell my mom, “I read the study about,” blah, blah, blah. She’d be like, “Forget it. There’s no way. All studies are lies.” And my mom is one of the most intelligent human beings I know, and she’s a classical pianist, but no trust. So what you just described is so close to me.
And Tami, I’ll tell you that before I went through my really severe burnout/breakdown seven years ago, I think I was a lot like that too. And I really took that on pride. I question everything. I don’t trust everything.
I think Albert Einstein talked about that we can either live in a world, in a universe that we believe is hostile, or we can live in a universe that we believe is friendly. And so my shorthand for where I think our parents—as we just talked about, they believe we live in a hostile universe—and what your mom said about God and Jews, I mean, I live with that for my grandparents.
So one of the things, and this is very vulnerable and personal for me, is when I began to kind of do my inner work. And as you and I have talked about before on podcasts, I went through a really difficult—I refer to it as burnout. But to me, it really was kind of a breakdown of being, because I don’t think I was aligned with myself. I was living a life that wasn’t aligned.
As I was going through that—what we just talked about, this proclivity to not trust, to think that everything is hostile, to question everything. That was something that came into light for me. And I began to shift, and I can share how, but the vulnerable part I want to share, I think I write this in Happier Now. I felt I was betraying my family. I was betraying my heritage by becoming someone who actually thinks that we are living in a friendly universe, by becoming someone where I choose not to question everything. I’m still a curious, intellectual mind, but I choose not to question some things.
And I guess in sharing this, one thing I would invite you and listeners who are nodding violently right now because they can relate—and I’ve said this to my mom gently because things are more sensitive when it’s your mom. I think it’s a powerful question to ask yourself not why you’re doing it but: Is this fueling to you? Is this helpful to you in all instances? And just that question, I found very illuminating, just asking myself that question.
And again, it’s my mom. But sometimes very simple things, we’d be in a restaurant and my mom immediately looks for, “Oh my God, that waiter, he’s kind of being slow. Maybe does he not like us?” Just questioning everything and just asking yourself this question: Is this really fueling for me? Is this helpful to me in some way? And then there’s just asking that I think creates some opportunities to let some of it go.
I don’t think we can fundamentally shift that core, deep part of our identity. But I think again, it goes back to choosing some of the directions for our thoughts. And maybe on certain things, it’s better to use your energy elsewhere.
And that’s how I think about it. If I mistrust everything and question everything, I can’t create. I can’t be of help to people as much as I’d like to be. I can’t create new books or new talks, because I’m always in that mindset. So that’s how I have found, that’s the practice for me.
But I guess one other thing I do want to say is, as much as we all have so much legacy of our genetics, of our upbringing that we’re carrying through, I am a firm believer that we have choices. At any moment, we can choose a different thought, we can choose a different direction for our thought. And I think that’s a really important reminder. And I remind myself that just because my mom is that way, or my grandma was that way, or all the Russian Jews are that way, if it’s not serving me and my ability to be of service to others, I can choose differently.
TS: You mentioned, Nataly, that seven years ago, you had a big shift in your life. You could say, I think breakdown, breakthrough. Tell us what happened and what changed for you afterwards.
NK: So the first thing I want to say about it is, it happened when I was around 40, but as these things are, it wasn’t kind of a one day, it just happened. For years, I had been burning out on a daily basis. I was living in a lot of dread, even though on the outside my life, I started this company called Happier to help millions of people live happier lives. We had a very popular gratitude app. I was in every press outlet. I mean, I was helping, people were driving to our offices to say thank you for how it changed their lives. So on the outside, life was amazing, but I had this deep feeling of dread and just darkness that I couldn’t identify at the time.
And so it kind of snowballed. But what happened eventually is that I stopped being able to function. And what I mean by that is I’d used up all my will. I’d used up all my refugee, immigrant, entrepreneurial force. And it was very scary, Tami, to be honest, because I just was completely swallowed up by this darkness. And it was seeping into every area of my life, or rather, it was becoming clear to me that it was affecting every area of my life, from my marriage to my complete inability to lead a team or build a company.
And so just very tactically, I laid off my team and I stopped working. And I remember I write this, I think, in Happier Now, in my first book. I would Google things like, “How do you feel better?” I didn’t know. And I think you and the listeners of this podcast will appreciate, I started coming across different books. And one of the first books that came up, I don’t even know how, but it was one of Ram Dass’s books. I think it was Polishing the Mirror. I know it was Polishing the Mirror. And I ordered it and I started reading it.
And at this point, spirituality was not even in my life, but I lived completely from the neck up, completely intellectual science geek. So it was so foreign to me, but I felt this opening. I didn’t know what it was, right? I had no idea. And I did have this teacher that was brought to me, actually, by one of the investors in our company. They sat me down as things were getting really dark and said, “You are not OK. You need to get help. And here’s this woman, her name is Janet. I need you to go see her.” To which I said, “I don’t need a therapist. I am fine. Everything is fine.” Total oblivion to anything.
Janet became my spiritual teacher. Thankfully, she didn’t say the word “spiritual” for two years, because if she had, I would’ve run out of there. Because to me, spirituality was for people who can’t live lives in a real way.
And so it was this process that took years of me, I think, opening up to first seeing myself as a human being. And if that sounds strange, it wasn’t for me. I don’t think I acknowledged myself as a human being. Until then, I think I thought of myself mostly as an accomplishment machine, and just opening up to the fact that I am a human being with feelings and needs and joy that needs to be fueled. But also opening up spiritually, and opening up to this awareness that there is something greater, and there is deeper meaning. And I am living in a friendly universe.
And it was a long process. It was a really challenging one. And in the words of my teacher at the time, Janet, she said, “When you came in, I saw so much darkness, but you had one thing going for you. Practice.” She said, “It’s a miracle where you’ve gotten to and a miracle is not magic.” She said, “Miracle is faith plus practice. And when you came in, you had no faith.” I didn’t, in anything, including myself. But I have always been just, if I can practice something, I do something. And that’s why my work is based in practice and asking people to do these simple things, because that, I think I can say, saved my life and saved my health and my family and my marriage and my ability to do this work. But I think it was very much an awakening, both to myself and my fuller self, but also to living in a way that is aligned with who I am and what my unique gifts are and how I can best contribute them to others.
Because I think until that point, I wanted to do good in the world, but I spent not a second thinking about myself as part of that, if that makes sense. Who is it, who I am, and what is it that I have to bring? So that’s a bit of what I went through.
TS: Not just a human being, Nataly, but an awesome human being. Awesome. Now, I’m curious, if you were to describe your faith now, how would you describe it?
NK: I would say I am a deeply spiritual person in the sense that—in that statement that we live in a friendly universe, I believe that there is a oneness that is around us that we’re all part of. And that it is, to use the simplest word that I can, in a way, a partner in what I do and a partner in what we all do. And I try to consistently cultivate my awareness of that.
And it’s a really beautiful thing, because as I remember my teacher Janet saying, she said to me—and at the time, again, I was just in a really dark place. I said, “Janet, I feel like I failed everyone in my life,” blah, blah, blah. “And I just feel really alone.” And she said, “Nataly, you’re never alone.” And I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “Well, the universe is always with you.” And I was like, “Yeah, woo, woo, whatever. What is the universe?”
But I really feel this way now, is that I feel that part of something, this oneness that is greater than me. And I am very grateful for having that not just belief but a knowing in myself. So that’s how I describe it.
TS: You mentioned a talk you were giving just the other day to a corporation where people had been through two rounds of layoffs, and you teach a lot within the corporate sphere about what I think people would call well-being, corporate well-being, or you could say managing your energy.
And I wonder if you can address that person who says, “Look, how am I going to get all this stuff done? The human accomplishment part of being me at work, and honor my well-being, the human being part of my—how am I actually going to do this at the same time? I mean it sounds good, but this is expected of me, and this is expected of me. And I can’t really do that and honor the needs that I have to go on all these long walks and do yoga and be with my family.” And it’s a contradiction. There’s no both/and there.
NK: It’s a great question. And just to be really honest, and I try to do some of my work, I don’t have a magic pill. I hate these articles, like, do these three things and you’ll optimize your well-being for life. Life is complex and challenging, and so are we.
But a couple of things that I do want to say. The first is, as I learned and as I teach, and we discover when we practice, is that actually, very simple things that don’t take a lot of time can make a huge difference for your energy level, your well-being, your emotional fitness. So it doesn’t have to be an hour of yoga every day or two-hour walk. Actually really simple things. We’ve already talked about a bunch of them Tami. Editing your thoughts, becoming aware of your thoughts, shifting to more helpful thoughts, acknowledging, practicing awareness. None of these things take hours or even five minutes.
So that’s the first thing, and that’s probably the most important message that I bring into the busy human lives. It takes a lot less time than we think. When I was going through my burnout, I had these thoughts. I was like, you know what? That’s it. I have to run away to Nepal and meditate for ten years, and that’s the only way that I can heal. I did not run away to Nepal. I have the same family, a very demanding job, the same mortgage, responsibility, parents. I didn’t do that. So how did I do that? Because it’s the small shift. So that’s the first thing I want to say.
The second thing is, there is I think a saying by a Zen master about meditation, that everyone should meditate 20 minutes a day. “If you don’t have 20 minutes a day to meditate, you should meditate for an hour.”
What is meant by that is that when we practice some of these small things that help us fuel our energy, that help us have a more productive, helpful relationship with our thoughts, we actually gain a lot of capacity to do more stuff. I’m not advocating that you should improve your well-being so you can do more. But it turns out that when you do these small things to invest in your energy level in more helpful thoughts, you actually can get a lot more stuff done.
And so I think those are two ways that I would try to convince those fellow busy humans who say it’s a contradiction, there is too much going on in all of our lives, and yet there’s still things that we can do. And just to name a couple really simple ones, in addition to what you and I have talked about, I define self-care as a skill of fueling your emotional, mental, and physical energy. So self-care is not going to a spa, it is not taking a trip somewhere. Those are wonderful things. Self-care is that daily management of your energy. And for example, five-minute walk outside, or five minutes of just closing your eyes and breathing, or five minutes of journaling, or just five minutes of doing something that you love. Reading a couple pages from a book or dancing to a song in front of your mirror has a huge impact on your energy. It’s a net positive activity.
So doing something for five minutes fuels your energy. If you can do it for 20, great. But if only five is what you have, I think last podcast we did, I talked about this practice, I call it the mini fuel-up. Just like if you have a car, it either takes electricity or gas. Well, you have to plug in your car or take it to the gas station. You do the same for you.
So every day, if you do something for five to 20 minutes that fuels your energy, well, that keeps your energy level in a good place and you’re not going to crash and burn as I did. So that’s a really small, consistent thing that anyone could do. And when I do this and I had people say, “I don’t even think I have 20 minutes.” I’m like, “Ready? I’m going to play a magic trick right now.” Everyone listening, if you’re like, Nataly, she doesn’t know my life. I don’t have 20 minutes. Are you ready? Because I’m going to give it to everyone. Ten minutes less reading the news, and ten minutes less social media. Boom, you have 20 minutes. We all have 20 minutes, but we have to choose to spend that time fueling our energy. So thank you for coming to my TED Talk for how even the busiest humans can fuel their well-being.
TS: In this conversation, Nataly, there’s a painting behind you, and it’s a painting that you created. But you didn’t start painting until relatively recently. Can you tell us about that, and how that was such a breakthrough for you, and what we can all learn from it too?
NK: I love this question. Thank you, Tami. So my whole life, I wanted to paint. In Russia growing up, we would go to the Hermitage. I grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Hermitage is probably a museum lots of folks know. It’s bigger than the Louvre in Paris. So we’d go there, both with our class and with my parents. I’ve always wanted to paint, but I never let myself, because I thought it was this distraction. What does painting have to do with building a successful career, or taking care of my family, or being a good mom? Nothing. So I didn’t do it. It literally felt like this, not just a distraction, but this luxury I didn’t deserve, because it didn’t have anything to do with the accomplishment.
And after I burnt out and I couldn’t be the accomplishment machine anymore, I was turning 40. And with a lot of encouragement from one of my closest friends, I said, “OK, you know what? I can’t do anything in my real life.” I signed up for this watercolor workshop in Tuscany. Oh my God, it took me months to make that decision, because spending money on myself was also something I never wanted to do, because that’s selfish and self-indulgent. But I said OK. And I went, and it was brilliant, because it turned out to be a workshop for semi-professional watercolor artists. And I don’t think I’d ever done watercolor. But I fell in love with painting. And I came home, and I started to paint.
And at first I did it in secret, Tami. I had this little place in our basement, and it was not even a room. But I just would do it there. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it. But as I did it, I started to feel this, I wouldn’t even call it joy, but an aliveness in me. And then my family, my husband and my daughter, it started to bring that aliveness to them.
So first, I realized every time I’d come up after I painted, I was a better human being. I just had better wonderfulness to share with my family, and they would take that on, and then we put my art in our house, and they would smile. And so it just started to ripple beyond me.
And then a couple of years ago, I started to put my art in my video frames behind me. Now I have slides, when I’m on giant stages in front of thousands of people, my art is behind me. And the thing that I have learned, Tami, it’s been nothing other than magical, is that when I started to do this thing that helped me feel more alive, helped me feel more full and joyful as a human being, it has helped so many people around me. It’s rippled to so many people around me.
And I love that you asked me about this, because I am not the only person. I know so many people are listening right now and they’re nodding who are denying themselves joy, or doing something that brings them joy, because they think they’re not going to be good at it, or it doesn’t align with what they think they should be doing. I’ve met so many people like that, and I want to say this into the heart of those people, that when you do something that fulfills you, that brings you that feeling of aliveness, it is the greatest service that you can offer to others, because you become a more alive, fueled, giving human being. You have so much more to give. You also encourage everyone around you to practice that aliveness.
Tami, I cannot tell you. At this point, it’s thousands of people who have, in my community or who write to me, they tell me, “You know what? You’ve been sharing your art and talking about how you’re doing art just for joy. I started playing the piano after 20 years, and I love it so much.” Or, “I am now doing watercolor because I’ve seen you do it and I love it so much, and I’m doing it with my grandkids,” or, “I’m doing it with my kids.” And I think that we’re a society that is denying ourselves a lot of our humanness and fullness and joy. And I love that you asked me this question and that I had a chance to share this, because I’ve learned the opposite. When you do something that fulfills you, you have so much more to give to everyone around you. It is a true responsibility to do things that fulfill you.
TS: In a way, this is almost a sad question that I’m going to ask, but I’m going to ask it. What would you say if somebody says, “God, I don’t even know what brings me joy anymore. I mean, I’ve been so like, ‘Well, that’s indulgent, or that’s not particularly useful.’ And I don’t even know.”
NK: It’s actually a very common question, Tami. It’s a really common question when I speak or do workshops. And one of the exercises—you have it in the journal—is to do a little brainstorm about creative things that might bring you joy or things that might bring you joy. And often people say this, “I don’t know, Nataly.” I think I would’ve said this seven years ago. And so what I invite you to do, if you feel that way, first of all, do not judge yourself for it. It’s not your fault, it’s just you haven’t practiced it.
And then I invite you to give yourself a little bit of joyful brainstorm space. Think about things like, what were things that you loved to do as a kid? I used to love to draw as a kid. Whenever I could get my hands on a pencil or a marker, I would draw. What were things that you loved to do as a kid? Often those are things that bring us joy that we sort of stopped doing.
Or think about, when was the last time that you really felt like that? I don’t know, it doesn’t have to be giant joy, but you held that moment of like, this is fun. Or, I love doing this. And think about those and don’t minimize them. It could be the smallest thing. And one of the workshops I did on this, a woman raised her hand, she said, “Nataly, I don’t know if this is the thing we’re going for,” she said, “but when you said brainstorm things that give you joy,” she’s like, “I love organizing my cupboards in the kitchen. What does that have to do with joy?” And I said, “That has a lot to do with joy.”
So we had this whole conversation, and it turns out she loves color and color coordination, because that’s how she organizes her pantry, by color. And then I was like, “OK, so you love organizing things and with color. What else could that go to?” She ended up, I think, taking a class on color theory. Great.
So don’t minimize anything that comes up. But when you ask yourself those questions, like as a kid, what did I love to do? What are some of the things in my memory where I really felt joyful or a little bit more alive? Those are threads that you can then pull on.
TS: Your new book is The Awesome Human Journal. And as I was engaging with the journal—and it really puts into practice all of the emotional fitness skills that you write about in The Awesome Human Project. As I was with the journal, I thought my nickname for this journal is “the befriending journal.” This journal’s really all about becoming a friend to myself. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that, that whole notion of, “now there are two of me, but one of me is a friend to me.” And that’s really what I felt with the journal.
NK: I love that so much, Tami. I couldn’t describe it better myself. If you asked me why I wrote this journal, I would tell you, “I want you to become better friends with yourself.” I don’t think most of us think that we have a relationship with ourselves. I ask this question of my audiences often: “How would you describe your relationship with yourself?” And most people are like, I don’t know. I don’t have a relationship with myself. But you do. And your relationship with yourself, it is not selfish. It is the most important relationship in your life, because how we treat others is rooted in how we treat ourselves. If you are a friend to yourself, you get to bring your full capacity to things.
So I think that it is really worthwhile to think about and become aware, what is my relationship with myself? How do I talk to myself? How do I treat myself? And for me, those were not pretty answers before I burnt out.
But that awareness is really powerful, because ultimately, if you can treat yourself with support and care that you would treat a friend, what you’re doing is you are allowing yourself, then, to waste less of your energy on struggle and stress and self-criticism and overwhelm. And you can then use that energy to do all the wonderful things you do that contribute to people in your life. And that to me is the ultimate motivator.
Because I used to think that taking care of myself was selfish, that being nice to myself was selfish. It is the opposite. I see it now as my responsibility, to you Tami, to my publisher, to every single person who reads my work, to every single person listening now. Because by being a supportive human in my own life, by being in that relationship with myself where I want to support myself, where I care about myself, it then allows me to bring more of my gifts out. It allows me to have more energy to do this work that I do, that I care about.
And so that’s my raison d’être for the journal, is to help you become a more supportive, caring friend to yourself and get into those daily habits. And to recognize that when you do that, you have so much more to give to others.
TS: You have us ask a question in the journal, “What would your younger self be proud of if your younger self could see you today?” And I’m just bringing that up as an example, because I loved that. And I actually felt proud of myself from the perspective of my younger self. And I thought, oh my God, this journal’s working. It’s working. I feel proud. Whoa. Not something that I normally feel in relationship to myself.
NK: Yeah, I love that.
TS: Good work, Nataly. Good work.
NK: Yeah. It means a lot. Especially coming from you, that means a lot. And I love that you picked that question. It’s an example of changing our frame of reference, right? And looking at ourselves through different lenses that really allow us to see ourselves more fully, versus through that very negative, critical lens that as we talked about, our brain loves to adapt on its own. And I love seeing the smile on your face as you shared that.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Nataly Kogan. She’s the author of the book with Sounds True, The Awesome Human Project, and a new Awesome Human Journal: A Tool Kit for the Tough Days, the Good Days, and All the Days in Between. Nataly, I want to call our conversation living in a friendly and joy-filled universe. So thank you for bringing that experience right here to Insights at the Edge. Thank you.
NK: It’s an honor. Thank you, Tami.
TS: And if you’d like to watch Insights at the Edge on video and participate in the after-show Q&A session with our guests, come join us on Sounds True One, a new membership community featuring award-winning original shows, live classes, community learning, guided meditations, and more with the leading wisdom teachers of our time. Use promo code PODCAST to get your first month free. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com. Sounds True: waking up the world.
