Moby (00:00:03):

Hi, Lindsay.

Lindsay (00:00:04):

Hi Moby.

Moby (00:00:05):

Hi Bagel.

Bagel (00:00:05):

Hi, Moby <laugh> <laugh>.

Lindsay (00:00:07):

Uh, so today we're talking to Liz Moody, who is a really successful, fascinating wellness expert.

Lindsay (00:00:15):

She's an author, she's a podcaster. She is a nomadic traveler and cat lover. But I've been following Liz Moody for a while. I listened to her podcast, The Liz Moody Podcast, and I knew that she had a book coming out and so I was really, really excited about that. So when the opportunity came to talk to her, I got really excited.

Moby (00:00:38):

One of the things that I find both really interesting and a little intimidating about doing our podcast is, well, a lot of times when we're talking to someone, it's someone we're friends with. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, like Ed Begley or Hunter or Steve O or Lisa Edelstein, like people I've known for quite a long time. But then every now and then, like Liz Moody, uh, or Ashley Jackson who we had on recently, like we've never, I've never met them before. Mm-Hmm. Like in, in Liz Moody's case, like you know, her work, but I knew nothing. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I did a little research and it's so interesting if you think about that phenomena of like, you're introduced to someone in your house, they walk in and two minutes later you're having a 90 minute long, incredibly personal, intense conversation. Yeah. It's such a fascinating phenomena and the intimidating part is you never know if it's gonna work out or not. In her case, it worked out great, but there's that fear of like uhoh, like what if we've just let a sociopath into my house <laugh>, and then I have to figure out how to like get them out. But in her case, obviously she's wonderful and delightful and clearly not a sociopath.

Lindsay (00:01:41):

Well, it's funny because when we had her on, I've listened to her podcast so much and I've been following her on social media and she posts a lot of amazing videos. So I kind of felt like I knew her a little bit, which is probably a little bit creepy, but it was already like chatting to a friend because I've known her, but she didn't know me.

Moby (00:01:59):

But I wouldn't say that's creepy, especially given the nature of what she does. Yeah. It's very personal and intimate. Like it's one thing if she was a member of Daft Punk and you feel like you knew her Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you'd be like, well they are French guys pretending to be robots. There's a good chance you don't know them. But her work, you know, like her RA and her output is so personal and

Lindsay (00:02:19):

Truly, but also on her podcast, I felt a connection to her when I listened to it because she asked the questions that if I were sitting down with that person are exactly the same thing I would ask. She's really curious and really scientific minded and really focused on how to be your best self, whether it's physically, spiritually, emotionally. That is her focus. And she loves to travel and she just maintains this kind of childlike perspective. But with all of this fantastic knowledge, one of the things we talk about in this podcast is her book, 100 Ways to Change Your Life, which is so great. And I've read it and it's wonderful and we'll talk about it here. But I just wanted to mention it before we do to just prep you before we listen. Okay.

Moby (00:03:01):

So let's go talk to Liz. Okay,

Lindsay (00:03:03):

Great.

Lindsay (00:03:12):

Hi Liz.

Liz (00:03:13):

Hi.

Lindsay (00:03:14):

We are so happy that you're here. 'cause I've actually listened to your podcast for a long time because I was so impressed by the massive amount of varied experts that you were having on. And I was like, not only is every guest so very different, but they all somehow relate to something specific in my life that I'm looking for more information or guidance or, or something along those lines. Getting to have you here is very exciting for us, so thank you so much for coming.

Liz (00:03:44):

Thank you so much. That's definitely our goal on the podcast is to solve every problem you can think of in your life, whether you're trying to decide whether to have kids or trying to figure out how to have more money or trying to get to the root of gut issues. So that's very, that, that warms my heart to hear.

Lindsay (00:04:00):

I mean, these are all the things that matter most to me. I'm like, Ooh, somebody's talking about gut stuff? I'm on board. Should

Liz (00:04:06):

We solve your problems? We can. We can go for it right now. No, I

Lindsay (00:04:08):

Actually, a big part of the reason I wanted to have you here is because selfishly I just want you to fix my life with all of your knowledge. Yeah, let's do it. Um, and because you have this book coming out that I think Will, will fix your life, truly put me on the path to righteousness. So I'm very excited to talk about to talk about that too.

Liz (00:04:23):

Me too. Yeah, let's fix your life.

Lindsay (00:04:24):

Great. Well,

Moby (00:04:25):

First and also at `present, I'm listening, but I'm also distracted 'cause bagel is being extra adorable and feisty. So she had a bath this morning and she really doesn't like being bathed. So she deals with the trauma stoically, but then afterwards she's a delightful lunatic. Even more of a delightful lunatic. Do you think

Lindsay (00:04:44):

That people in like the 14 hundreds or 15 hundreds when they had a bath, like were lunatics for that day because they bathed so rarely?

Liz (00:04:51):

I also wonder what was happening like on a bacterial level that they were disrupting after not bathing for weeks at a time. Yeah, I

Lindsay (00:04:58):

Bet it felt so good. I

Liz (00:04:59):

Wonder if they felt like high

Lindsay (00:05:01):

And they must have. Yeah, I kind of do after a shower, after a couple. I mean, Moby, you know, <laugh> Well, is that, is that okay to say that you love a sporadic bathing experience?

Moby (00:05:08):

I have. I,

Liz (00:05:09):

What does that mean, <laugh>? I

Moby (00:05:10):

Have, I have a, basically, I, I don't, I don't like to bathe that much. He's

Lindsay (00:05:15):

Not a big fan.

Moby (00:05:16):

So I do bathe. I bathed today. Yeah. <laugh>. But, so what happened was years and years and years and years ago in 1987 and 88, I lived in an abandoned factory. Did I talk about way too much? And the abandoned factory had no running water. So I just sometimes went extended periods without bathing. And I found myself being perhaps a little too comfortable with that. And so now I bathe far more often than every two weeks. But then the internet told me, and the internet's never wrong that sort of, to your point, our skin benefits from sort of like a stable environment of flora and fauna. And every time we bathe, as delightful as it is, we're essentially killing off our exo. And so that has been my justification for having a loose approach towards bathing as a, I wanna respect my exo biome. I, did I just make up that term? Or is that a real term?

Lindsay (00:06:09):

I simply can't be sure. But I will say that is confirmation bias in its most hilarious form. <laugh>

Moby (00:06:15):

<laugh>. So, okay, so, so apparently in the middle ages there were lots of people who never bathed. Like there were people

Lindsay (00:06:23):

Like in their whole lives, in their

Moby (00:06:25):

Entire lives, they would maybe bathe once or not at all. But

Lindsay (00:06:28):

Also you lived until you were like 18 back then.

Liz (00:06:31):

That's true. Although that I heard that was a fallacy,

Lindsay (00:06:34):

Really?

Liz (00:06:34):

Yeah. Based on the fact that so many children died. But actually, if you made it to like your twenties, you were likely to live a fairly long life. Wow.

Moby (00:06:43):

There's a, there's a great series slash book. I think it was either Eric Idle or Michael Palin, one of the Monty Python guys had a sort of revisionist history of the Middle Ages. And he was like, it wasn't a dark ages. It's like, yeah, a lot of, a lot more people died in childbirth. But if you did survive past those few years, people lived long healthy lives. There was relatively egalitarian, relatively healthy by comparison. So it certainly wasn't this like dark, sad time. It, his story, his story history purports it to be,

Liz (00:07:14):

Except for that period after the volcano went off in Iceland and then all of Europe was like, had a cloud of ash for people's entire lifetimes. And all the crops failed and everybody died.

Moby (00:07:24):

But there's, there's a really interesting aspect to that. Okay. Which is climate.

Liz (00:07:28):

Is this where you thought the conversation was gonna go? <laugh>? No,

Moby (00:07:31):

Lindsay, by the way, I apologize. We're gonna get back to relevant stuff. No,

Lindsay (00:07:35):

I love, no, I say let's follow this path because I, I, I need to know more about it.

Moby (00:07:38):

So I believe the most recent time, what you're describing happened, I think it was in the 19th century and there was like this, It's called like a little winter where it's snowed in New England in July. It like, it was like this weird global cooling because of volcanic emissions. And this at present is the only thing that's gonna save our species and our planet. Mm. Is at some point. And a lot of climate scientists don't want to even talk about it or look at it. 'cause it's really last case scenario is geoengineering by putting particles in the air. But it's the only thing that history has proven like you can cool the earth down super quickly by discharging a lot of particles in there. Like it happened almost overnight. And what you're describing is big volcanic emission global temperatures went down four or five degrees. So that's the problem there is it doesn't address any of the underlying causes of climate change. But it could actually cool the climate very quickly. I'm not advocating for it. No, I don't wanna get in trouble. But it's definitely like, it's a tool in our climate toolbox. I guess it

Liz (00:08:39):

Just makes me so nervous. 'cause I feel like so many apocalypse novels start with us being like, we've got a solution and then the solution goes awry. Yeah. And I just wanna be like, if you're gonna do this, like just be very confident in what you're doing. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. You know?

Moby (00:08:52):

Yeah. It is the beginning of every dystopian science fiction novel pretty much is that like we figured out the solution to the problem and

Liz (00:08:58):

Then we make it way worse.

Moby (00:08:59):

It's robots and then fast forward the robots are in control and we are locked in pens.

Liz (00:09:05):

Yeah. I don't want that. That's not my ideal. Doesn't future, that doesn't feel like my best life. That's

Lindsay (00:09:09):

A check in the box to not have children is that they'll be put in robot cages.

Liz (00:09:13):

Is that the first problem we're solving for you? We trying to figure out whether you should have children?

Lindsay (00:09:16):

Well, I, I mean it's always, it's, it's a topic of conversation that I have that I've talked with my friends about so much of like, is it just nihilism to say that I don't wanna bring a child into our failing kind of crumbling planet? Is that, am I, is that wrong? Might be wrong. I, I hope to be more hopeful about the future of our planet.

Moby (00:09:37):

So forgive my ignorance, we did a bunch of research on you, but I don't remember. Yeah. You have a cat.

Liz (00:09:43):

I do have

Moby (00:09:43):

A cat and a husband. I

Liz (00:09:44):

Have a cat and a husband

Moby (00:09:45):

And a home in Brooklyn. I

Liz (00:09:46):

No longer have a home in Brooklyn. Okay.

Moby (00:09:48):

So I'm wrong about lots of things, but

Liz (00:09:51):

I have a cat and a husband and no human children.

Moby (00:09:53):

Okay. And clearly I'm incapable of producing children. So what do you think?

Lindsay (00:09:59):

What do you mean clearly? Well, I, because you haven't yet?

Moby (00:10:01):

I'm, I don't have, I don't have a, a uterus. Oh,

Liz (00:10:04):

I see. Oh, like, I see. But not like doing your part. I could,

Moby (00:10:07):

I could in theory do my part, but like, trust me, the world does not need more like bald white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant guys with possible inbreeding and insecurity <laugh>. So like, like it's, it's, I think it's probably for the best that I am the end of my genetic line.

Liz (00:10:25):

Was that a hard decision for you to come to?

Moby (00:10:27):

Not in the slightest from my perspective. And tell me if you think this is wrong. I feel like there's some people who, from day one, know that they want to reproduce like a friend of mine. That's the only thing she's ever wanted to do is have babies. And as a result, she has three of them. When, so when she met men, she was like the terminator, like her only question was, do you want to give me babies? And now she has babies. And please correct me if you think I'm mistaken, but my feeling is when people are on the fence about having children, that's usually a good sign that they might not actually deep down want to have children. Mm-Hmm. I'm sure that there are other mitigating factors. So tell me if I'm wrong or not. So

Liz (00:11:03):

We've explored this a lot on my podcast. I have a whole series of episodes about the pros and cons of having children. I had a therapist on who counsels people about the decision about whether or not to have children. And I actually think a lot of people will say, if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no with children because it is so much work. It, it obviously takes this huge, huge, huge role in your life. I sort of disagree with that. And the therapist that I had on the podcast also disagreed with that because it is one of the most significant decisions you can make in your life. And I think approaching it with the same level of logic and searching and research and insight that you would any other really major decision to me makes a lot of sense. So she, she has a lot of questions that she asks people who are kind of more on the fence.

Liz (00:11:48):

For me, I was more on the fence and I'm leaning more towards having one because I, I think that that gives you sort of the best of both worlds. You can have the experience of having a child and see what that's like, but it isn't necessarily going to be as large of a part of your life. It's obviously gonna be a huge part of your life, but it's not the same as having two children or three children, or being the Octo mom, which I was never really on, on my radar <laugh> as part of a potential journey for myself. But yeah, I think that it can make people who are on the fence or who are undecided about this choice feel bad when it's like, oh, if you don't definitely, definitely wanna do it, you shouldn't do it. It can be a little bit alienating. I have found, because I just wanna approach the decision with the same gravitas that I would approach any other major decision in my life. And I'm not a person who just jumps off cliffs. I tend to research a lot and think things through. So I don't know why having children would be any different. I feel

Lindsay (00:12:45):

Similarly. And I think a lot of people have even said to me that, because I don't, I don't know that it, that I shouldn't. But I, I mean there's so many factors that go into it because there are times when I question my, any, any need to procreate because I'm like, is this just conditioning? Is this just cultural conditioning that I can't see past? And I don't know, maybe it is, is this just biology trying to get me to do something that I don't necessarily want to do in a modern world or in the modern sense. Uh, but then, you know, then I also have this feeling of like, oh my God, well I can still do it now, but when I can't, when I'm in my late forties, will you regret? Is that one when I'm gonna wanna do it, regret it? Yeah. Will I regret it?

Lindsay (00:13:30):

Of course, there's many ways to have a child if you can't or have fertility issues or whatever that is. And you can also put eggs away, put embryos away. Like there's, there's many, many ways to approach it, which is why the research or, or even like a deep consideration is valuable because you know, you should see a doctor and know what's going on in there probably before you make any big decisions because it'll make some decisions for you. But also there's just a lot to consider. And especially like if you even get to the point where you do decide you wanna have a kid, where do you do it? Do you need to have, do you need to be in a different city, a different country? Do you need to be closer to your parents? Do you need to be much further away from your parents?

Liz (00:14:10):

<laugh>, like <laugh>, there's

Lindsay (00:14:11):

Just so many things to consider in the process. It's a massive question. It changes your life. I mean, your life is no longer the same after something like that in many ways.

Liz (00:14:21):

For sure. Do you know who Dr. Robert Waldinger is? No. He's the head of the, it's like the study of adult development at Harvard. It's basically the longest running study of human beings. It's gone for over 80 years. And they measure these people throughout their lives. They send them surveys, they take blood samples, they do all these different markers of like, how good is your life? How are you feeling? What is your longevity? What are your health steps? All these different things. And it's this incredibly long running study. And I had him on the podcast and he said something that completely flipped my perspective on all of this stuff, which is that we are going to have hardships, we're going to have regrets no matter what path in life we take. And I think we're trying to figure out what is the best path, what is the one that I'll be free from the hurt that it is to be human.

Liz (00:15:12):

And that doesn't exist. So when parents say, oh my gosh, it's so hard, the stress, the overwhelm. And I'm as a non-parent, like, well, that doesn't sound fun. I wanna avoid that, but I'm gonna have different things that I'm invested in. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, if I'm not a parent, different things that are gonna stress me out that I'm gonna care so, so deeply about because we're humans and we care deeply about things and that's going to go somewhere. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and so it's freeing for me to be like, I don't think there's a wrong choice in anything. It's gonna be hard. You're gonna have regrets almost no matter what. That's been the interesting thing to me about, um, interviewing so many parents for this series and non-parents and child-free people is everybody gets a glimpse of that life that they're not getting to live. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But that's part of what it is to be human. Every moment, every day we are interacting with lives that we're never gonna get to live. And this is just such an extreme example of that. And it like puts that into perspective.

Moby (00:16:09):

Yeah. I love what you're saying. And there are two aspects to it. One is, and I was just talking about this with a friend of mine, but everything comes down to an existential subtext. You know? And obviously there's hereditary elements, there's cultural elements, but it's this, this human question. The, the greatest paradox for humans is the fact that we only know one thing and the one thing we know is the one thing we know nothing about, which is death. Mm-Hmm. Our lives of, like, we rush around and we try and create meaning. We try and create significance with the full understanding. We're in a universe that's ancient vast, where there's a better than likely chance. Nothing we do has meaning or significance long term, or it does, we don't know. And the confusion and the terror that comes from looking at that, like as Nietzsche said, like staring into the void.

Moby (00:16:57):

Like the void might not stare back at you, but it's going to suck your soul in. And I used to be a little more dismissive of the ways in which people tried to stave off the void or stave off the existential context in which we all live. You know, whether it's hedonism, materialism, nihilism, cynicism, all these coping mechanisms. But I'm like, you know what? Life is unknowable and terrifying. People find their coping mechanisms. And there's one other thing that you were saying. It's a really interesting question. Other people's lives, you know, the internet version of compare and despair. And I'd like to ask you guys with scrutiny and thought, is there anyone in the world that you would trade places with?

Liz (00:17:38):

So two things on that. First, I just wanna roll back to the death thing for a second. I have a tip in my book, 100 Ways to Change Your Life. That is literally Think about your death. And I say at the beginning like, no, no, no, don't skip this tip. But I actually find that regularly thinking about my death gives me such a helpful perspective on my life. Whether it's should I be worried about my cellulite or should I enjoy this day at the beach? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Whether it's, oh my gosh, I made a mistake in that conversation and I'm dwelling on it. I just think having the perspective of this is your one time on the planet and picturing yourself on your deathbed kind of like looking back and thinking what would matter to her is so, so helpful for me. Mm-Hmm. So I love bringing, inviting the concept of death into my life with some regularity to get perspective on my decisions, choices, regrets, desires in the present. I think it's a really, really helpful tool that we could all utilize a little bit more. Um, what was your question? I had an answer for that too.

Moby (00:18:38):

Oh. And it's to both of you. If you guys could trade lives with anyone, and this is sort of a trick question 'cause I played this with a friend of mine recently. If there's anyone you could trade lives with, who would it be and why?

Liz (00:18:49):

So I love that you asked this because this question is the single most helpful tool that I use when trying to deal with jealousy. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I'm like a naturally kind of jealous person where I'll look at somebody, I'll be like, oh, I like want her house. Or, that's such a cool job. I wish I had that job. I wish I had that opportunity. I wish I was five foot seven. So badly. <laugh>.

Moby (00:19:11):

Yeah, me too.

Liz (00:19:12):

<laugh>. But when I think about like, oh, her house comes with her partner, her job, her child, her struggle, her hardships, all these things. If I think you can't take one thing without taking all of the other components, it instantly dissolves my jealousy because there is nothing in the world that I would trade for my brain, my ability to think the way that I can think for my husband, who's just the best partner that I could ever dream up for My cat who smells like heaven and is just the sweetest angel for my friendships. It's just like when you actually think about losing all of these other components, you're like, I would never do that. And it helps me be like, I would never trade that for that house, that job, whatever. And it quells the jealousy a lot for me.

Moby (00:20:00):

Yeah. I love that perspective, Lindsay. If you could trade lives with anyone? Would you, and who would it be and why? Well,

Lindsay (00:20:06):

I don't know if I would actually trade lives with someone because that it removes so much agency from who I am and, and what I strive for. And I think that what I have learned while painful and while there's been so like a massive amount of discomfort and hard lessons, they're mine and that feels great. Are there people who I'm like, oh yeah, would I wanna be Dan Buettner and travel the World and go on long bike rides and be like super duper hot? Um, with like a number one Netflix show after years of like fascinating research, uh, yeah, that sounds pretty cool. But then I wouldn't have bagel, I wouldn't have my friends, I wouldn't have my family. And I want those things.

Liz (00:20:49):

Well, and isn't it so interesting too that we never know what's really going on in those lives as well? Exactly. When you said that, that's Dan Buettner now. But like so many people pedestal Anthony Bourdain. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> in that way. And we're like, oh, I would trade places with him in a second. So I think we need to remind ourselves all the time that we like really have no idea.

Moby (00:21:06):

Well, I think based on experience, you've touched on what I think is one of the most overlooked aspects of who we are as humans is we go into the world thinking that we know things. We go into the world with this sort of imagined sense of omniscience. You know, so meaning like, Joe looks at Bill's life and thinks he understands it. And I'm like, yeah, but Bill doesn't understand his life. How could you? And also, like you don't know where Bill comes from. You don't know where Bill's going, you don't know where Bill is. So like we look at other people's lives and we judge them either positively or negatively, but our judgment is always flawed. And the reason I bring this up is a friend of ours was really suffering with compare and despair as a lot of people do. You know, she was thinking like, oh, I haven't accomplished this.

Moby (00:21:55):

I haven't been able to do this, I haven't. And I was like, okay, let's look at some people who have everybody. If you scratch the surface and you understand who they are, where they're coming from, what their lives actually are, everyone is not as we perceive them to be. There's one slightly funny story. A friend of mine was going to have a profile on her and her husband and her family and Architectural Digest. One of those super annoying, like everybody's rich and happy and pretty, and like, here's our house in Florida and isn't the sun better here than it is in the poor neighborhoods? And everything about the pictures are beautiful. They look so gorgeous. I know the day after that article came out, they filed for divorce, they just waited 'cause they wanted the article to come out. So if you look at the article, you think these are the most successful, most beautiful, wealthiest people you've ever seen. I know they hated each other. They were crying themselves to sleep every night, but they wanted this article to come out. Yeah. So comparing and despairing is understandable, but would none of us have the objective perspective to do it with even one 1000000% of accuracy?

Liz (00:23:04):

Well, and I think social media has made it that much worse. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Because we used to just compare and despair with people in our lives who at least I would say we have 10% knowledge of. And on social media you have like 1% knowledge, but you think you have the whole story. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>

Lindsay (00:23:18):

One thing that you started out doing, you wrote, you've written two cookbooks and you spend a lot of time talking to people about human health and diets. And one of the things that you've said, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's you should be eating 30 different kinds of plants every week.

Liz (00:23:39):

Yes. I like to look for instead of what should we be taking out of our diets? What are the things we should be restricting? What are the commonalities that doctors are recommending of things that we can add into our diets? I think a lot of people are like, how do we get through the fact that there's so much different information out there? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I'm like, there is, there's, that's for a lot of reasons. That's because one, people have unique health needs. Two people have sometimes unique information sources. Some are more credible, some are less credible. Three, science is always evolving and that's great and we love that. But in that world, there's so much that people largely agree on. And diversity of plants in your diet is one of those things where study after study after study has shown its benefits in so many different ways.

Liz (00:24:25):

It feeds your gut microbiome. Different types of fiber essentially feed different microbes in your gut. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And when different microbes are fed, you get a more thriving and robust gut ecosystem. And then having a gut microbiome that's thriving is gonna benefit your hormones, it's gonna benefit your skin, it's gonna benefit your mental health. All of these different things. And I think that 30 plants a week is a really nice way to get that diversity with kind of gamifying and not thinking about it very much. And 30 was the number cited in this study by the American Gut Project, which is a really robust study about the actual benefits. And they tested 30 types of plants. So there's different ways to do that. You can do, um, one of the doctors that I interviewed does like, I think she does five at dinner, I wanna say like one at breakfast. There's, you can like keep a little list on your fridge

Moby (00:25:12):

Question. Yeah. When you, because I'm on board When you say plants Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. How far a field? No pun intended. That was a good pun. <laugh>.

Liz (00:25:22):

That was a good pun. <laugh>.

Moby (00:25:23):

Um, how far a field pat myself on the back, do we go with the world of plants? Meaning does that include grains? Does that include seeds? Does

Liz (00:25:32):

That include the, the study did include grains and seeds, but it's anything in its whole food form. So oatmeal would count as a plant. So like if you make your oatmeal in the morning and you add, you do oatmeal, blueberries, you add some chia seeds, you add some flax seeds, and then maybe you, uh, like rip up a little bit of basil on top. That's five plants.

Moby (00:25:52):

Okay. So plants in the broadest sense. So plants is everything from a cranberry to a peppermint leaf to a leaf of kale to a black bean.

Liz (00:26:00):

A hundred percent.

Moby (00:26:01):

Yeah. I'm, I'm enjoying this conversation very much. 'cause

Liz (00:26:04):

You do a really good job

Moby (00:26:04):

Of it. I eat that every day. Like I, I probably, I can't even count the number of plants I eat on a daily basis. And that's why you

Liz (00:26:11):

Have such a thriving gut microbiome.

Moby (00:26:12):

And I'm trying. So it's so, so bagel loves scrunchies.

Liz (00:26:16):

I've noticed that <laugh>. And

Moby (00:26:18):

So bagel has a thing, she's very proud when she has a scrunchie and she'll go around and she'll show off her scrunchie. But at the same time, she's also doesn't wanna make us feel bad that we don't have scrunchies. So she'll be proud but restrained. She has dignity. Should

Liz (00:26:32):

I tell her that I have scrunchies because I do. No, she'll take them. She'll take and you'll never get them

Moby (00:26:36):

Back. The reason I bring it up is I sort of am feeling a little bit this way about all the plants I eat, like a little bit like proud, but I don't wanna brag.

Liz (00:26:44):

Oh, you can brag. I think that's a fine thing to brag about. I think, you know, we can acknowledge that a lot of people maybe don't have access to the amount of plants that they would want to eat. And we can rally for the systemic changes that need to happen so that everybody can access all the plants that they wanna eat. But you can absolutely be proud of all the plants that you do eat. Yeah. I'm, a lot of people do have the access and don't eat the plans.

Moby (00:27:04):

And I'm feeling a little bit.

Liz (00:27:05):

and they brag about that.

Moby (00:27:06):

I'm feeling a little bit smug and I really probably shouldn't. I should just, or I at the very least keep my plant smugness to myself. So.

Lindsay (00:27:15):

Well, you're very, you, you put a lot of effort into it. I don't think this happens naturally for you. You put a lot of time and effort into making sure that you have this amazingly varied diet. I think a lot of people will think, you know, I'm waking up and I'm having coconut yogurt with walnuts and blueberry, blueberries, every single blueberries day,

Liz (00:27:33):

Blueberry, blueberries, <laugh>,

Lindsay (00:27:35):

Um, and blueberries every single day. And then having these same things every single day and thinking that it's, it's healthy. Which, which

Liz (00:27:42):

It is. No. That I think that is healthy. And I think that if you can, you know, switch it up a little bit. Like if you can have raspberries instead of blueberries one day. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. If you can have almonds chopped up on top instead of walnuts, if you can just kind of like switch up these little elements, all the better. But also, so that's your breakfast. You have more opportunities at lunch, you have more opportunities at dinner. And I really want to make this feel simple for people. So what I do myself, which is different, all the doctors had like different approaches to this adding in plants thing. But I just literally, every single time I eat food, I'm like, how can I add a vegetable to it? So if I'm eating my breakfast, I'm adding, I love herbs. I think herbs are so underrated. They make things taste good. They make things look pretty. If you have like a big blob of brown leftovers and then you rip up some herbs on top, you're like, wow, it's a beautiful meal. Yeah. And it makes you want to eat it more and you're just adding all of these nutrients to it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I'll add herbs to something. I'll add berries, I'll add nuts, I'll add seeds. But every single meal throughout the day, I'm asking how can I add a vegetable in? Um,

Moby (00:28:40):

Do you want to hear something sad?

Lindsay (00:28:43):

Yes. I

Liz (00:28:43):

Guess I, that

Moby (00:28:44):

I guess depends. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's bad.

Liz (00:28:48):

Okay.

Moby (00:28:48):

It's something I read over the weekend that has challenged me to the core of my being. It's cha it it's, it's, it's forced a big lifestyle change. Well,

Lindsay (00:28:57):

Let's unpack it.

Moby (00:28:58):

There is a university in the UK and they did an extensive study. So I believe the science is correct that bananas inhibit flavonol absorption. They almost decimate flavonol absorption.

Liz (00:29:13):

So I was looking into that study. I haven't had time, I'm gonna be completely honest to do a deep dive on it. But I believe that they weren't testing with Whole Foods on both sides. There were some they're

Moby (00:29:23):

Doing flavonol extracts.

Liz (00:29:24):

They, yeah. Yeah. So I think that we don't quite know at this point how berries and bananas, which were the example that the viral TikTok was using. I don't think we have enough information to say how these things interact when they're actually together in say, a smoothie.

Moby (00:29:40):

The, the study. I mean, and, and, and the guy who wrote the study, he even said, he's like, look, I love bananas. He's like, I'm gonna keep eating bananas. He, he was just like, if you're making a smoothie and it has berries in it, try not to include bananas and have your bananas somewhere else. And I was like, okay, that's gonna be hard. That's,

Liz (00:29:55):

But see, the thing is, I, I don't like people to get too caught up in the nitty gritty of that. Because first of all, all of these things have so many benefits outside of just the flavonols. Like we're talking about fiber, we're talking about different micro and macronutrients. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I think that when people get too caught up in the nitty gritty, it can make all this feel really intimidating and not enjoyable and not fun. And then often they just won't do it at all. I think a lot of people might see that study and be like, well, if a smoothie isn't even healthy, I'm just gonna go get an egg McMuffin. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I, I really encourage people to think more big picture and think more like what are the habits that I can add in that I can stick to rather than getting caught up in the minutia. Because that smoothie, whether or not it has a banana in it, it's good for you.

Moby (00:30:42):

Yeah. And bananas are great. I mean, bananas have inulin, they have tons of potassium. I mean, bananas are fantastic. I will continue to buy and consume bananas. I'm just trying to make an effort to not include them in my berry bigger smoothie based smoothie. Which when I said earlier that this was sad news, I was indulging in a little dramatic hyperbole. <laugh>, I thought

Liz (00:31:06):

You were gonna tell us something about like a study that showed that plants have feelings and we shouldn't eat them or something.

Moby (00:31:12):

Not, not as far as I know. No. Okay. Good. <laugh>. Yeah. No, I was, I was just being overly dramatic. 'cause I don't have a lot going on in my life and I need those little moments of drama to make it seem like I'm

Liz (00:31:21):

Interesting. Don't me all. So I will say though, that I think a big challenge that happens in the health world is that people are so focused on that last 2% that they let that take their attention away from the actual baseline thing. So people are like, what supplement should I be combining bananas and berries in my smoothie? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And they're not moving their body daily. They're not eating, you know, vegetables regularly, but they're focusing on that little smoothie thing. They're not investing in having a strong community, which is such an important element of health. I just think that there's a tip in my book that's like, make a mental health checklist and it's make sure all of your baseline things, there's five things in it. It's structure, community, nutrition, I think sleep, and then I wanna say movement. And I do think that it's a nice reminder to focus on those pillars of the pyramid. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> that base that's gonna keep it structurally strong before we get into the nitpicky details that are really just like ornamentation on the structure, but it's flashy and it's bright and it's decorative and it can steal our attention from the, the foundations of the building. I I

Lindsay (00:32:26):

Love that. And that's a little bit of how Dan Buettner's Blue Zones research is that it's not one thing Yeah. If you eat right, that doesn't mean that you are in perfect health.

Liz (00:32:36):

No, I love his work because if people are always like, tell us a secret so that we can apply it here. And he's always kind of like, he'll share some secrets and I love his research and all of that, but he's often like, well, all of these different things are working holistically and synergistically and the places that people are and you can't get the benefits of living in Sardinia if you're living in the middle of downtown LA Yeah.

Lindsay (00:33:00):

But there are things that you can do,

Liz (00:33:01):

But there are things that you can

Lindsay (00:33:02):

Do. There are things you can do to set yourself in this motion of overall wellbeing. Yeah. Which I, I love, like, you know, you can exercise and eat right every single day, but if you don't have any community or outside support, then that's really going to hamper your wellbeing.

Moby (00:33:21):

Does watching 30 rock count as community?

Liz (00:33:23):

No.

Moby (00:33:24):

<laugh> <laugh>.

Liz (00:33:26):

Um, if you do with somebody else,

Moby (00:33:27):

Agree to disagree.

Liz (00:33:29):

<laugh>. I do think community is an interesting one though, because it's one of the ones that people will let slide in favor of other health habits. They'll be like, oh, I didn't have time to hang out with my friend because I have to work out, I have to meditate, I have to do this big meal prep, whatever. But so many studies show that community contributes more to our longevity, to our overall health, both in the moment and long term than almost anything else. And so it's an interesting one that, that we, I don't think give enough credence to,

Lindsay (00:33:56):

I love that. And I think that even, and especially in this day and age, it's very easy to think, well, I messaged a couple people on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, or I was on social media without even connecting to anyone, but I saw what other people are doing. So that in some way kind of scratches the itch of connection. Oh my gosh.

Liz (00:34:17):

But

Lindsay (00:34:18):

But it doesn't actually give you the benefits of community.

Liz (00:34:19):

Yeah. I think it's, it's the flip. It's the opposite. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> like, I feel like scrolling and thinking, you know, what your friends are up to is in some ways worse than interacting with them in any, like, I don't even think it gets you a step in the right direction. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I think it kind of gets you a step in the wrong direction. I think if every time we went and started scrolling on social media, we instead called or texted a friend, our brains would be so much better off.

Lindsay (00:34:41):

I couldn't agree more. And I think I've watched so many people that I know. I think connection is hard for a lot of people. It's intimidating for so many. And it's even been hard for me at times of my life to connect where I just can't see outside of myself for whatever's going on. But knowing that that's something that I need has motivated me to figure out what's going on in there and therapy or 12 step or calling one person that I trust that I don't know how to get out of this bind. Yeah. And motivating me to get to the other side where I can enjoy community again.

Liz (00:35:14):

Yeah.

Moby (00:35:15):

So I, a while ago mentioned my desire to get to know you better, like your origins. Can we do that? Yeah.

Lindsay (00:35:23):

Yeah. So I,

Moby (00:35:24):

We know Arizona. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> something about Arizona I was born and panic attacks

Liz (00:35:29):

<laugh>. That and that's it. That's all start. Yeah. Okay. So,

Moby (00:35:32):

So, so we've checked that box. So, so you, you're from Arizona and you had panic attacks. Now here we are. Yeah. <laugh>, it's 2027

Liz (00:35:39):

<laugh>. Um, yeah, I was, I was born in Riverside, California actually. And then I grew up in Arizona and then I went to high school in Modesto. Um, I did have panic attacks. Uh, I had extreme agoraphobia when I was living in London where I would have panic attacks whenever I, uh, left the house. And eventually whenever I got out of bed, lived in New York for a little bit, which you knew about my Brooklyn apartment. And, um, then I've been living nomadically since the pandemic since May, 2020. And just kind of moving around every month with my husband. And I'm happy to expand on any or none of those things.

Moby (00:36:14):

So the nomad part, are you nomad with a fancy nomad car or are you nomad with

Liz (00:36:19):

We have a hybrid Toyota Highlander. Is that a fancy nomad car? Like

Moby (00:36:23):

Do you sleep in it?

Liz (00:36:24):

<laugh>? No. Oh no. I host a podcast. I don't think I could deal with that. No. We, um, and we have a cat, Steve,

Moby (00:36:31):

Steve, I, I hadn't seen Steve-O in a while and he came over with his podcast van that he sleeps in as well. Sometimes it's fully kitted out with like cameras, microphones, mixing

Liz (00:36:41):

Desk. Okay. Maybe I need to talk to him. 'cause that's very impressive. Cool. But I still think my cat would be an absolute nightmare if I was like, Bella, we're starting a podcast and need to be quiet in this little van. I think she would be like, well, I would like to be a part of the podcast <laugh>. Understandably so. We do, we rent Airbnbs or VRBOs or we've rented one house on Craigslist, but we do short-term rentals and we essentially take our rent money and we put it towards renting houses in beautiful places every month. Wow. That's amazing. What's your favorite place? You've, you've stayed so far. So we love the Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado. So like the Carbondale area. It's like, if you know where Aspen is, there's a whole aspen's at the top of this whole valley and there's these little towns all up and down the valley, and they all have kind of their own flavor, their own personality. And we love that. I actually recorded my audio book in a little studio near Aspen that all of these iconic musicians have recorded at. And it was really, really fun. We also stayed in Squamish, which is near Whistler in Canada. Mm. And we thought that was absolutely stunning. We're kind of searching like most beautiful nature towns. Yeah. And that's where we, where we go and stay is

Moby (00:37:44):

Okay. So where, because I've been to Whistler a couple times, a friend of mine lives up there and on a regular basis, he reminds me how great it is and how disastrous the United States is. Like whenever something terrible happens in the United States, he's like, yep, I live in Canada. It's so much better. And I was like, yeah, I, I wanna disagree, but you're, you're right. Is that, so Squamish is, I, I know. I've been there where

Liz (00:38:08):

It's like 30 minutes south of Whistler. So if you're driving from Vancouver to Whistler, you're going right through Squamish. It's right where the, it's called the Cedar Sky Highway. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it's right where the ocean kind of meets these really high mountains on a little bay. It's so beautiful. So we love there. I also love Bend Oregon. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, which I think is just one of the most underrated towns in America. It's so cool. It has like, great food. It has one of my favorite music venues. It's an outdoor music venue. You're right along the river. People get floaties and they float in the river to listen to concerts for free. Wow. Which I think is so cool. That's fun. And they get really good artists come through there and great skiing, great hiking and all of that. These are hot tips.

Moby (00:38:49):

I, I want to, if we can go back to panic attacks in childhood. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yes. Because when Lindsay and I were doing our research, I realized one thing you and I, at least according to the information about you and the Internet's never wrong, is

Liz (00:39:02):

That as we've established, you

Moby (00:39:05):

Potentially first had serious panic attacks as a result of a psychedelic drug experience, which in your case was marijuana.

Liz (00:39:13):

Yes. So it was a lot of things. I had an eating disorder at the time. I was severely malnourished and I smoked weed by myself on a beach in Brazil. And I had gotten that weed from a questionable origin. So I don't know if there was something in it other than weed. But I had a seizure and I got taken to one of the public hospitals, which is a really traumatic experience. Uh, it was, the stuff that I like saw there and was surrounded by was really stuff that I'd never seen before in my life. And I didn't think I had PTSD. I was sort of in my party phase of life and I was just, I remember I had my mom send me a multivitamin from the States. 'cause at this time it was just like, it was harder to find, like you couldn't find peanut butter when you traveled to most countries. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that's changed now. But I was like, I'm sure I'm just nutrient deficient. That's why I keep having these like episodes where I feel like everything's going dark and I can't function or whatever. And she sent me multivitamins and I thought that would solve it. So I was like, resolutely. Sure. I did not have PTSD and I was still partying and living my best life. And it took me a long time to come to terms with that. Did you start to have panic attacks after a drug experience?

Moby (00:40:21):

Oh yeah. I, well, the first real anxiety I remember, I, I grew up with a lot of trauma abuse being around addiction, all sorts of things. And when I was seven years old, this is my first anxiety. I'm not gonna include it as panic attacks. Uh, I had homework that I couldn't complete. It was drawing homework. And I remember going to my mom panicking at age seven. I was like, I'm not gonna be able to finish my homework. And like, I was seven, I was in first grade, second grade, third grade, one of those grades. And but then years later when I was 19, I tried LSD once and I had flashbacks that became crippling panic attacks. Mm. That led me to drop out of college. It led me to move home. It was re they really, really bad. Mm-Hmm. In hindsight, and this is one of the sort of, Lindsay, you were talking about this earlier when you were talking about possibly trading lives with someone, I realized the adversity that adversity and other experiences of adversity I've had in hindsight are the things I'm actually sort of grateful for.

Moby (00:41:25):

You know, like if, if I hadn't had that crippling panic attack that led me to drop out of college, I'd be in a very different place physically in every sense of the word. And sometimes being disrupted, sometimes being knocked off, your trajectory is excruciating. And we hate it. And we like raise our fists to the sky and say like, God, how could you do this to me? Or universe, how could you do this to me? But in hindsight we're like, oh, it was for the best. So that taught my brain how to have intense panic. And I still, it still knows how to do that. But luckily over the years I've sort of cobbled together a bunch of skills and tools and coping mechanisms that help me to not be decimated by panic attacks.

Liz (00:42:08):

A hundred percent. I feel very much the same way where when I was in my worst part of my agoraphobia, I was so just uncomfortable physically and mentally on a day-to-day basis, that I questioned very seriously whether or not I wanted to continue to live because it was just so uncomfortable, like every single day. And I think in questioning that, I had to question like, what was the point of life? What did I want my life to look like? What would a good life look like? And that was really the origins for the journey that I've taken to get me to where I am today. And I, I don't think in any way that I would be where I am today if I hadn't experienced that.

Moby (00:42:46):

I mean, you are sort of describing in very good general terms the hero's journey. You know, like it's very hard to find in literature or history. Anyone who's lived a remarkable life who hasn't been knocked off course. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, very few people like have like a, a clear straight line trajectory without adversity who go on to do great things. Like everybody gets knocked off course. And by being knocked off course, that's usually what leads people to like, have the realizations that are gonna help them to have remarkable lives or end up in places where they can have remarkable lives. I

Liz (00:43:20):

Also think that developing the skill of being comfortable with failure Mm-hmm. And being comfortable with discomfort is so critical for taking the types of risks that you need to take to live a big and bold and exciting life. And so I think that's why often those two things go hand in hand.

Lindsay (00:43:37):

I also think that there's a version like, to be able to take a hit in life and look at it objectively and say, okay, this has happened. It's not great. I can acknowledge that. What am I gonna do next that makes my life better after this? Discomfort is not something that happens to everyone because I think of people, uh, like take Donald Trump for instance, where any failure that he has, spirals him into even more violent delusion. You know? So I think that there is a little bit of magic in being able to say, this is hard, this hurts. I'm going to try to do something better.

Moby (00:44:15):

Oh, I think you're absolutely right. And there's one other variable I'll add to that, which is contextualizing Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, like if you're experiencing adversity, saying to yourself, okay, have I been here before? You know? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Like, I have terrible insomnia. And when I'm battling insomnia somewhere, it's awful. Like when you've gone like two or three days without sleeping and you start to really decompensate and lose your mind, it's bad. But I can say to myself, you know what, yeah, this sucks. It's unpleasant. But I've been here before and you remember the other 10 times I had crippling insomnia. I got through it, it wasn't that bad. And it helps to sort of like, I don't know, take the pressure off whatever the adversity is right now. Like if you're going through a bad breakup, for example, you might be able to say to yourself, you know what? I've been through bad breakups before. At the time, they seem like the end of the world. And now I never think of them. It's very

Lindsay (00:45:05):

Hard to forget your own history, much less the history of others. Which brings me to my next question. Here's what I wanna ask you, because I know you've talked to a ton of relationship experts and Moby did just bring up bad breakups, which I don't know who that relates to.

Moby (00:45:21):

Not me. 'cause I don't have relationships. <laugh>,

Lindsay (00:45:23):

Um, of the relationship experts that you've spoken to, are there any things that they've said to you that have shifted your perspective on your own relationship or how relationships function as a whole? Romantic relationships. I

Liz (00:45:39):

Mean, oh my gosh, so many. First of all, are you going through a breakup?

Lindsay (00:45:41):

Hard to say. Unclear. Okay.

Liz (00:45:43):

Okay. Well it's one of those sending you love. Thanks <laugh> <laugh>. Um, which actually does bring me to probably the thing that's, that's changed the most for me, which is the huge importance of communication. Like I think the number one relationship, secret relationship trick or breakup trick, uh, sex trick is just communication. It's so interesting because I feel like when I was in my twenties, my girlfriends and I would like meet up for brunch. We'd be like, oh, we're in sex in the city. And we would talk about if you slept with a guy the night before and you'd be like, oh, is he good in bed? And it has been such an awakening for me since talking to these experts and getting into my thirties in general, that I don't think there is people who are universally good in bed or universally bad in bed.

Liz (00:46:25):

I think there's people who are able to communicate what they want and then be receptive to that communication. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it will change everything. Like I just, I just think being able to be like, even what I wanted last week is gonna be different than what I want to today, which is gonna be different than what I want in a month or two months. So I think it's a two-sided thing. One, it's communication with yourself. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Because you're constantly trying to figure out what do I want? What do I need? What does this situationship maybe like what is this giving to me? How is this feeding me? What are my goals here? So I think that can provide a lot of clarity, whether you're in a relationship, whether you're in a breakup, whether you are dating, any of that. And then the communication with the other person that's involved I think is just, it changes everything.

Lindsay (00:47:09):

Yeah. I think that's such a valuable thing. Yes. What you share, how you share with your partner is unbelievably important, but having that connection with yourself of what do I like? What do I need, how do I feel, is something that I think people aren't putting enough emphasis on of how your knowledge of self, how your inner world and your relationship to your inner world changes everything about your relationship.

Liz (00:47:38):

I did a podcast with a fashion expert yesterday and it came back to like, who are we as people? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and how is fashion helping us explore and express that? And I kind of think that's everything in life. Like I think sex is like who are we as people and how is sex helping us explore and express that? I think our relationships with other people, I think all of these things are invitations to say, who am I at my core? What is a life? Well lived, what is a satisfying experience in this context at this moment. And I think that relationships are one of the most powerful and scary opportunities to navigate that

Lindsay (00:48:13):

Because it brings up so much, these relationships, not only every other relationship that you ever have had and your feelings about those, but also your relationship to your parents and their relationship and all of that. I feel like these romantic relationships are just like pulling weeds, making you look at them and sometimes you put 'em back and sometimes you throw 'em out. Well,

Liz (00:48:31):

And they can also be powerful tools for healing some of those things. I say this in the book. Mm-Hmm. And it's one of my favorite, favorite phrases. There's the idea that relational bonds can heal relational wounds. And I think sometimes Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, we feel like if we don't do the work ourself, like it's fake or it's not real. So like, we need to be in the therapy, we need to be reading the books. All of these things. And all of those are really important tools. But also developing attachments with people in your adult life, whether they're friends, whether they're family, whether they're partners, can really help us explore and heal from a lot of the trauma of our childhood. Mm-Hmm. And that's not cheating. That's literally how our brains are designed to work. So I've used my relationship with my husband to address a lot of the attachment issues and the fear of abandonment and the fear of being not loved from my childhood. And it's been a really powerful tool. And whether we stay together or not, which, you know, I really hope we will and we're doing very well. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Don't be nervous, <laugh>. But that's a really beautiful and powerful thing that I have gotten from this relationship. Yeah.

Lindsay (00:49:33):

It was a real shift for me when I started to understand that these relationships were showing me where the work needed to be done. Because without those triggers, I probably could have just skated over whatever that thing was until something tripped me. But I'm in this space of using these relationships, which using has a negative connotation, but it kind of is to have these relationships be the thing that helps me find where I need to put my focus.

Liz (00:50:00):

Well, and I love that too, because then, and I think this can be helpful if you do happen to be in the middle of a breakup, but it's not wasted time. First of all, there's all of the experiences and memories and things that you shared with this person, whether or not it ends a certain way, but also it was progress and on your journey of having the relationships that you wanna have and being the person that you wanna be.

Lindsay (00:50:22):

Yeah. You've been with your husband now for a long time, <laugh> and I, I love that you've been with him for such a long time and you are still staying so active in your personal evolution and your relationship evolution. I think a lot of people think once you've been together for a certain amount of time, it just becomes easy and the work goes away. And I love that you are being this example, living this example of it always takes work and you have to continue putting the effort into yourself throughout the process.

Liz (00:50:51):

I think we're always in a process of evolving ourselves. And also, and I think this is so important and so often underlooked, our partners are always evolving themselves too. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And sometimes we can get trapped in this relationship dynamic where we see them as the person that they were 10 years ago. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And they're like, I'm growing and changing. I like different things. And we're almost trapping them in our conception of them. Yes. So I think as much as we are leaving room and encouraging our own growth and development, leaving space for that and the people that we love the most is so important too. Especially like parents. How many of us get trapped in that parental dynamic where we're just like, our parent is who they were when they raised us. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But it's like, it's been decades. Yeah. Like, can we not leave the space for them to grow and evolve and change and surprise us too. Yeah.

Lindsay (00:51:36):

That's really fascinating and beautiful to be nourishing your own evolution and leaving space for not only your partner, but all of your friends and all of your family. I, I mean, that also encourages them to be they, where they don't have to feel painted into a corner by your perception of them because they can, you know, they're like, well, I don't really like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anymore, but I guess I'll eat it. You know what I mean? Or, you know, whatever the emotional, I'm like, who

Liz (00:52:00):

Doesn't of like humor and jelly. Exactly. It's classic.

Lindsay (00:52:02):

I

Moby (00:52:02):

Mean, I sort of think of it, it's the, it reminds me, I call it the Lil Jon House phenomena. Uh, you remember the rapper, Lil Jon?

Liz (00:52:09):

Vaguely

Moby (00:52:10):

Remember Lil Jon?

Liz (00:52:11):

Can you sing like a little bit of a to? Oh, is that, I don't know. I don't, he's like, does this was drop down to a ball. Yeah.

Lindsay (00:52:18):

A classic. A poetic

Moby (00:52:19):

Classic. I just know he had like, like a big synthesizer sound like,

Liz (00:52:23):

Yeah. Yeah.

Moby (00:52:24):

I think I just sung it perfectly

Liz (00:52:26):

By the way. Yeah. Like, I feel, I feel like between the three of us, we captured the essence of

Moby (00:52:30):

A song <laugh>. So a friend of mine bought Lil Jon's old house. Okay. It was a party palace.

Liz (00:52:36):

Yeah. Well there was the windows and the walls and the sweat on the balls

Lindsay (00:52:40):

And stuff. Yeah. You gotta have a party that's a neon light. If I ever heard

Liz (00:52:44):

It. He described it. It did not sound that clean. <laugh>. Yeah.

Moby (00:52:47):

So, and I'm not, I don't wanna get in trouble with Lil Jon. There's no criticism here. But my friend bought his house in Los Angeles and renovated it. But the house had like, it, it had been a little over the top, like sort of like, it was basically Las Vegas in Los Angeles. Like it had a strip club in the basement. It had stripper poles, it had mirrored walls. And so she did a gut renovation. She ended up selling it because she couldn't not see what it had been before. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So like when she looked at her basement when she had turned into like a playroom for her kids, she still saw it as Lil Jon's stripper pole room. I hope I'm not getting in trouble by saying this, but like, it was

Lindsay (00:53:24):

Almost like, I don't think anyone's

Liz (00:53:24):

Surprised that Littlejohn had stripper pulls in his face. Yeah. I think Littlejohn is like happy that you're Yeah. <laugh>.

Moby (00:53:28):

Okay.

Liz (00:53:29):

So solidifying this image,

Moby (00:53:30):

But I just thought it was so interesting, like it had changed the way that we changed the way our partners change. Well, I don't, 'cause I don't have relationships, but the way everything has the potential to change, but we still sometimes see things Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, it's almost like they take on a suit of armor or it's like the clothing of something that we are became immediately acquainted with and you can't not see it. Mo. And the truth is, while you guys were talking, I felt like you were talking best case scenarios that people do grow, that people do change. There are also a lot of people who don't like who did who, or if they change the worst parts of them grow. Mm-Hmm. You know, like the number of men who become more racist, the people who become more judgmental, more misogynistic, more agoraphobic. You know, like, I mean, how many, I don't know why I'm, I'm throwing my gender under the bus, but how many men, like as they get older, like they sit inside, they follow Q Anon websites, they watch documentaries about World War ii and they refuse to like go to big cities.

Moby (00:54:29):

So it is wonderful when people recognize their ability to change and they're willing to change. But there are sadly a lot of people who have the capacity to change, but choose not to. And I think part of self-care is letting them not change and just saying like, you know what, okay, family member, friend, relationship, partner, I don't like your unwillingness to change. So I'm leaving. So I'm gonna have healthy boundaries if it's a family member. Like, and I think from my perspective, that's a big something I learned in 12 step programs is other people's journeys, trajectories. They're none of our business. You know, we can't force people to change. We can't force people to become who we think they should be, but we have the absolute right to have healthy boundaries around them. You know?

Liz (00:55:13):

A hundred percent. Yeah. I have a few thoughts on that one. I do think that our brains like to see the house as it was, et cetera, because our brains like certainty. Mm-Hmm. We find safety and certainty. And so I think figuring out ways that we can find safety in uncertainty, because life is uncertain is one of the most powerful things that we can do as human beings. Two, I think people, some people will never change. And I'll say that as 0.3, but for two, some people will never change. But people will definitely never change if you don't give them the space to change, especially in your interactions with them. So I think it's kind of like that is your side of the street. That is what you can do in the hope and the spirit of allowing them to grow and evolve. But then three, yes, I think some people won't change and having those boundaries in place.

Liz (00:56:01):

And I would also say I'm a big fan of generally not cutting people out entirely, but redefining relationships with people saying, this person doesn't need to be everything to be, I don't need to have the parental relationship that I see in sitcoms and on movies, and I can make peace with that. This person can fit in this specific instance in my life. And that's okay. That's the person that they're gonna be to me. And I think that for familial relationships, I think that for a lot of friendships, we expect our friends to be everything to us. And maybe in this season of your life, this friend is just your yoga friend. Maybe they're just your like, go out and party friend and not your spill your secrets to friend. Or maybe this is your spill your secrets friend. And whenever you take them out to party, they have a really horrible time and you should stop trying to do that. So I think letting people fit into different pieces in your life without making them be everything can also be really helpful.

Moby (00:56:53):

Yeah. I mean, it's great to have a hammer, but it's great to understand that a hammer will not be a cuddly toy, will not be a pillow. You know, like if you expect a hammer to be a pillow boy you're gonna be sad and disappointed. Right.

Liz (00:57:07):

And you'd be so much better off being like, wow, this hammer is gonna be so useful when I'm trying to hang this photo, but I'm, when I'm trying to sleep, I should go get a pillow.

Moby (00:57:15):

Yeah. I should probably not. And I shouldn't be mad at the hammer for not being a pillow. Yeah. And I shouldn't judge the hammer for not being a pillow.

Liz (00:57:23):

No. You should applaud the hammer for being so helpful when you're trying to hang a picture.

Moby (00:57:27):

And then every now and then you find, you find something magical hammer, like a hammer that's soft, that can be used as a pillow. And you're like, oh wow. What a magical entity this is. But for the most part, like so much disappointment in life, I think comes from like having expectations that are just not based in actual ontological reality. I

Liz (00:57:47):

Agree

Moby (00:57:48):

With that. Um, they call

Lindsay (00:57:49):

It going to the hardware store for milk. Really?

Moby (00:57:51):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Lindsay (00:57:52):

It's the saying

Moby (00:57:53):

For going to the hardware store for vegan, vegan plant-based milk. Yeah, of

Liz (00:57:56):

Course. Almond milk. I love that. That actually fits with the hammer. Well done

Moby (00:58:01):

<laugh>. Okay. I have a question for you. So daily practices. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, what do you do on a daily basis that you feel comfortable talking about that sort of like, makes you feel centered, healthy and whole? And what do you recommend other people potentially do, uh, as daily practices?

Liz (00:58:19):

So one of my favorite daily practices is something that I'm sort of, I've gotten a lot of people on the internet doing with me. I have a tip in the book about it, but it's called Take a Circ Walk. And so the idea is as close to when you wake up as possible to get outside and get light in your eyes and take a little walk so you don't have to

Moby (00:58:35):

Move. So the circ is circadian?

Liz (00:58:36):

Circadian, yeah. Short for circadian. Mm. And you don't have to move, like you could just sit outside. Honestly, in our last house when we were in Colorado, there wasn't a fence. And so, and our cat loves to go outside, but we only let her go outside supervised. So we would take this like meditative amble around the property, watching our cat kind of go around and sniff things. And that was our circ walk. So there's a lot of different ways it can look. I have doctors who I've interviewed who just like brush their teeth outside in the morning. They do like a circ toothbrush. Mm-Hmm. But I love a circ walk. It sets your circadian rhythm. So that's gonna do a number of different things. It's gonna help you, uh, go to sleep better and get more quality sleep at night. But also your circadian rhythm is your master clock for your entire body. So almost every single cell in your body is regulated by your circadian rhythm. So your hormones are gonna be impacted, your microbiome, all of your different microbiomes, your skin microbiome, your gut microbiome, all these different, your oral microbiome, all these different microbiomes are gonna be impacted by making sure your circadian rhythm is set and knows when it is light out and is on that 24 hour schedule that's serving you best. So that's five, five to 20 minutes outside. If it's a little bit cloudy out, go out for a little bit longer.

Moby (00:59:47):

Um, unfortunately, I am not capable of doing a morning circadian rhythm walk.

Liz (00:59:53):

Okay. Why? What's the issue? The

Moby (00:59:55):

Issue is I wake up at four o'clock in the morning. Okay. So my circadian rhythm walk at four o'clock in the morning would be stumbling around in the darkness. So

Liz (01:00:03):

For you, it's as close to when the sun gets up and you get up as possible. So when the sun is rising over the horizon, that's when you wanna get outside and take your walk. Yeah.

Moby (01:00:12):

Which I, which which you do. Yeah. I can't remember the last time I woke up when it was daylight outside, but

Liz (01:00:17):

I think as long as you're getting that sunlight in your eyes when the sunlight is up as close to when it's rising as possible. And then other people have said to me like, oh, I work and I drive to work in the dark. And then by, by the time I'm at work, it's not even light out yet. And I had the app in when I lived in New York and I worked in office job, and I would just take a little break. You know, people used to do smoke breaks and people do bathroom breaks. Nobody's like, how long were you in the bathroom for? So yeah, I just do like five, 10 minutes as soon as the sun was up when I got to work and I'd go walk around my building. I

Lindsay (01:00:46):

Do notice a difference because I used to first thing in the morning, take bagel out for a walk. And lately I have just been letting her out the door and being in like matcha gremlin mode, not going out. And I'm, I've been noticing I feel a little less good and I wonder if it's because I haven't been getting out first thing in the morning

Liz (01:01:08):

Again, that circadian clock is regulating like 99% of the cells in your body. Wow. So it's just an insane impact. I think of it less as a practice and more like taking a multivitamin from the sun essentially. Mm. Like it just is impacting so many different parts of your body. The sleep and the energy is kind of the most obvious part, but it's having long reaching effects outside of that. So that is an absolute staple in my daily routine. I absolutely love it. I do that pretty much every single day without fail. And then what do I do? I usually make a green smoothie, which I love, and I use bananas and berries in my smoothie. And I'm just gonna say that proudly <laugh>.

Moby (01:01:47):

It's such a, it's, I'm, I'm still working through the grief I have around the fact

Liz (01:01:52):

We're gonna get more information for you, Moby. Okay. I'm gonna, we're gonna dive into the research a little bit more just before you make any drastic changes to your,

Moby (01:01:59):

To be fair, I removed the bananas from my morning smoothie and it's still phenomenal. Oh, wonderful. But I do miss that anchored creaminess, but it's still stick

Lindsay (01:02:09):

A papaya in there.

Moby (01:02:11):

Uh, yeah. I don't may, but you know what, it's not just bananas, avocado. It's, it's poly. It's it's poly... I'm, I'm, it's some, some something oxidase. It's things that turn brown. So apples are bad.

Liz (01:02:23):

Avocados have them

Moby (01:02:25):

Thing. Yeah. Things that brown after you cut them, it's that browning that inhibits flavonol absorption. According to this study, obviously more will be revealed. We're gonna do more research. But nonetheless, I've, I've had to sort of remove a few things from my smoothie. And in the grand scheme of things, I do not expect any sympathy whatsoever. Uh, removing organic bananas from your delicious organic morning smoothie. When I look at the world, I cannot think of anything less worthy of sympathy, but

Liz (01:02:54):

You're still allowed to have your pain and we can see your pain and we can honor your pain. Thank you. So then I'll do a morning workout. I find that if I don't work out in the morning, I won't work out all day. I hate working out. Same. I'm the

Lindsay (01:03:05):

Same. Yeah. I just, like, if I don't get it in the morning, it's done

Liz (01:03:07):

For me. I'll do a home workout because again, I'm just trying to fit it in for habits. Being consistent is so much more important than anything else. So I say get shorter, shorter, shorter until you can do it every single day or as regularly as you're trying to do it. And then amp up from there. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make with habits is trying to fit in too much and go too hard and then they disappoint themselves and then they don't trust themselves anymore because trust is built in actions. Uh, so making something that I can actually do every single day. And then you have that win. I'm not a bed maker, but the reason that bed making is an effective morning strategy is because wind beget other wins. A thing I say along with Isaac Newton is that objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest.

Liz (01:03:50):

Stay at rest. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So any little tiny thing you can do to get yourself in motion to take advantage of that inertia. If you can just get in motion, you will do other things after. So when I'm like laying on the couch, I'm procrastinating, I'm stuck, I'm scrolling. If I just get up and like make a cup of tea or I do five squats, then I'll send the emails, then I'll start the project, then I'll start the podcast research. But if I sit there and I say, oh, you've gotta go research and dive into all this literature for this episode, I would never do it. It's too intimidating. And so any little thing to get yourself in motion, and for me, my short morning workout does that. But making a bed is also a great example of like, it's a win. It's gonna be get other wins, it's gonna get you in motion and say to yourself, I'm the kind of person who makes the bed. I'm the kind of person who does a workout. So you're gonna be more likely to make those choices that you're gonna be proud of throughout the rest of your day.

Lindsay (01:04:40):

Yeah. I love that. One of the other things I was going to ask you is about motivation, because I think a lot of people struggle with either procrastination, lack of motivation, whatever that is. And I know that that weighs heavy on people and their mental health when they feel like they just can't get it started, they can't find a way to express or to move their lives along. So I love those tips for getting motivated, which is just getting in motion. But are there other things that you've found that help with motivation?

Liz (01:05:07):

Yeah, we have a whole podcast episode. It's about how to get out of a slump. And so it's about when you have those like low motivation moments, what are all the tips and tricks and tools you can do? What are they? And one of what, what

Moby (01:05:17):

Are they? <laugh>

Liz (01:05:18):

<laugh>. It's a long episode, so I can't say all of them. But, uh, one of my favorite ones is just to set the bar lower, which I alluded to too. I think that we want to build the muscle of our brain trusting that when we say we're gonna show up and do something, our brain is like, oh yes, we are gonna show up and do something. And when we constantly let ourselves down, our brain doesn't trust us anymore. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so I think that setting the bar as absolutely low as it needs to be, so that you, when you say you're gonna do something, you keep that promise to yourself. You build that self-trust. I also think that self-trust is a foundation of self-love. Because if you're saying to yourself in the mirror like, I love you, Liz, I love you so much, you're so great.

Liz (01:05:56):

But everything that you do in your life when you're like, I'm gonna go for a walk, you're like, mm, no, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna stop scrolling. Mm, no, I'm not gonna do that. You're, you're not building a trusting relationship. So when you say these things to yourself, like, why would you trust yourself in any way, shape, or form? So I think that setting the bar as low as you need to, it still counts. A five minute walk counts, uh, eating one carrot, you know? 'cause you even doing nothing to it. Standing by the fridge, eating a carrot that counts as eating a vegetable. What is meditating for? Two minutes counts. Anything counts. What's the lowest thing that you can do consistently that will help you reach the goal that you want to reach?

Moby (01:06:33):

And it increases the chances that you'll do more. Absolutely. You don't, you don't have to. I mean, it reminds me pre sobriety. I used to have giant parties like big degenerate drunken drug fueled parties apart from being hungover in the morning. One of the consequences was I would wake up in hell. Meaning I would wake up in a house that had just had 40 people drinking, smoking, crystal meth, doing terrible things. Like you'd wake up in basically a garbage dump. And so you're hung over, you're tired, you're self loathing, and you look at this squalor, you know, the, the beer cans, the et cetera, and you can be overwhelmed by the enormity of it. You can be like, how in the world am I ever gonna clean this up? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And instead, the trick I would do is I'd be like, I'm just gonna clean one thing. Yep. See that table over there that has like a cigarette butt and a beer bottle on it. I'm just gonna clean that. And once you do that, you're like, okay, I feel a little better than before I cleaned that table. Why don't I clean another table? Fast forward two hours, everything's clean and you feel a million times better. So it's sort of like by creating the momentum objects

Liz (01:07:39):

In motion, stay in motion.

Moby (01:07:40):

Stay in motion. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And yeah. And that is so powerful. It reminds me like one of the best meditation tips I ever received was from an old meditation teacher. And he said very simply, the meditation you do is better than the meditation. You don't do a hundred percent. You know, like, like pursuing perfection at the expense of just doing something like saying like, oh, well there's no point going in that five minute walk when what I should be doing is hiking to the top of the mountain and doing 800 squats and doing the perfect meditation and coming home and having an Irish sea moss smoothie with Hailey Bieber. Like, yeah, do your five minute walk and eat a carrot. I

Liz (01:08:18):

Didn't know that Hailey Bieber came with you when you got the smoothie at Erewhon,

Moby (01:08:22):

Isn't she? Uh, I I feel like she doesn't she have like a custom No,

Lindsay (01:08:25):

She does. She has a fancy smoothie at

Liz (01:08:27):

Erewhon. I she showed up and, and arrived when you ordered it.

Moby (01:08:29):

You mean Hailey

Lindsay (01:08:31):

Bieber basically.

Moby (01:08:31):

Yeah. I, I insta whenever I instacart my Irish sea,

Liz (01:08:35):

Haley

Moby (01:08:35):

Bieber, Hailey Bieber smoothie, she sometimes Justin comes with her, they hang out. They, I

Liz (01:08:39):

Assume that's what happens when you're like a successful musician that these people just show up at your door. Right.

Moby (01:08:43):

I mean, in their case they try to convert me to Canadian Jesus. Mm-Hmm. Uh, so I, so interesting. So, wow. Okay. So we went from eating a carrot.

Liz (01:08:50):

Wait, I have a question for you

Moby (01:08:52):

To Hailey Bieber to, okay. Yeah. So

Liz (01:08:54):

Mty do you miss at all? Like, does any part of you miss like, the big debaucherous parties and like that lifestyle whatsoever?

Moby (01:09:01):

It's such a wonderful question. 'cause there's so many parts of my old life that are no longer a part of my current life. And happily, I don't miss anything. I don't miss the parties. I don't miss the red carpet events. I don't miss touring. I don't miss hotels. I don't miss limousines filled with cocaine. There's, there's no, I'm trying to think. No, I don't think there's any part of it that I miss, which is so nice that that's true. Mm. It might not be true five minutes from now, but it's so nice to be like, oh no, it was all, it was fun. It was interesting. I learned from it. The degeneracy the stupidity, but I wouldn't want any part of it to be a part of my life now. Mm. So, yeah. So it's, uh, it's nice. I I'm very grateful that I've, that I'm at this point, I don't know what work I did to get here, whether it's just the willingness to look at evidence, but it's nice to have no longing for past quasi glories.

Liz (01:10:00):

That's interesting because

Lindsay (01:10:02):

I, I, I know that our time with you is kind of winding down and you've talked to so many people and I'm so excited about your book because I feel like that's going to be a place where you are kind of synthesizing all of this information into usable activities that people can do in their everyday lives to kind of optimize in the gentlest sense. Because I know optimize is a little bit of like, feels like very like

Liz (01:10:29):

Tech bro. It's the way you wanna feel. Yeah. I always say it's to feel good now and to feel good later. I think a lot of times wellness, you're sacrificing feeling good now for feeling good later and a lot of times pure hedonism and debauchery or you're sacrificing feeling good later to feel good now. And I really like to marry the two. I think there's a lot of things you can do feel as good as possible right now and feel as good as possible for as long as possible.

Lindsay (01:10:51):

Are there things that stand out to you as something that you would wanna, that you'd wanna bring up of, uh, something that you learned that surprised you that you've implemented into your life that has really shifted how you do things?

Liz (01:11:05):

One of my favorite tips in the book, and I love this tip because you can do it anywhere at any time. And first of all, thank you so much for describing the book that way because that's exactly what I want it to be. Every tip you get the science behind something, you really get an explanation and a dive into why this works and the research around it. And then you get this actionable snippet of like, what can I actually do to today to apply this? So you never get that. I've read a lot of like self-help books that kind of feel like you're like eating Doritos, where in the moment you're like, oh, this is so satisfying. Like I can do it, I got this. And then you close it and you just are like, wait, I'm still hungry. Like, what do I actually do?

Liz (01:11:42):

And I really wanted my book to answer that question. So one of my favorite tips in the book is around rewiring our neural pathways. So we, we can literally change the way that our brain has. Its go-to thought patterns. Neurons that fire together, wire together. And the way that you can make your neurons fire together is when you have a good moment in your life, whether it is looking out the window and being like, wow, it's really green and beautiful. Whether it's watching bagel play with a scrunchie and being like what pure enjoyment and bliss this dog is getting.

Moby (01:12:13):

Although, to be fair, sorry to interrupt, she doesn't play with. Yes. She shows it, it's her, it's her vocation <laugh>. Got it.

Liz (01:12:18):

I'm so sorry. I did not mean to

Moby (01:12:20):

Diminish does I'm my, I just didn't wanna demean her job. Yeah. And she does her

Liz (01:12:23):

Scrunchie work. I'm so sorry. Bagel <laugh> <laugh>.

Liz (01:12:25):

But when you have these little, and they don't need to be big is my point. These little moments of good in your life, you just want to linger on them longer. And then you want to amplify them and really let them sink into your brain. And what you're doing in that moment is you are rewiring those neural pathways so that in the future, if you think about your brain is having like all of these, it's a field and it has all these paths through it, and it wants to take the paths that are the easiest to pass. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And if you're thinking stress thoughts, if you're thinking anxious thoughts, if you're thinking self-critical thoughts, those paths are gonna be the ones where the grass is really worn down. And when your brain's just like going to think a thought, it's gonna be like, oh, I'll take that path. That's like the easy path and what you're doing in these moments that you're growing and lingering and sitting in the good. And this is based on the work of Dr. Rick Hanson, who is a happiness psychologist who I'm obsessed with. I'm trying to make him my uncle. He doesn't like know this and I don't know quite how to do it, but I, yeah,

Moby (01:13:17):

I, I, Rick and I are friends. Oh, I

Liz (01:13:19):

Love, he's just the gentlest.

Moby (01:13:21):

I love that that that 50 things you can do book

Liz (01:13:24):

Is amazing. Yeah. And he just, he, he does such a great job of marrying, um, historical and cultural work and zen Buddhism Yeah. But also the latest neuroscience. And I just think he's

Moby (01:13:35):

And kindness and

Liz (01:13:36):

He's the kind, that's why I'm trying to make my uncle Yeah. Like, because he's just the kindest, he radiates kindness.

Moby (01:13:41):

I think he's still living

Liz (01:13:42):

In the Bay Area.

Moby (01:13:43):

Yeah. Outside San Francisco near Tassajara. Yeah. No, what's that place? Spirit rock?

Liz (01:13:48):

Yeah. Yeah. He's, I think he's

Moby (01:13:49):

In the Jack Kornfield place. Yeah.

Liz (01:13:50):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. He's wonderful. So we did an episode together called Ask the Doctor Happiness Edition, where we really explored all of the different things that stand in the way of our happiness and how to find happiness. And I just love this tip because it's something that we can all do every day. It takes a few seconds extra. And it just makes us aware too that when we're having those critical thoughts, it's not just in the moment we're really treading on those paths and we're making our brain more likely to take those paths in the future. And for me, that's motivation to be like, maybe I shouldn't think about myself this way. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, maybe I should try to reframe the situation and not be so stressed about what I said or things like that. So I love the idea of growing the good, and I think it's just such a powerful tool that anybody can use on any day of their life.

Lindsay (01:14:36):

Yeah. I love that. I think it kind of goes back to what we were saying of how do you change for the better versus for the worse. And I think if you just keep treading those same negative paths, you are gonna get to the place where you are reveling in these bad, negative, stressful, occasionally violent thoughts. Whereas if you can shift away from those well-worn negative pathways and build pathways that are built on joy, gratitude, appreciation, excitement in the good way, then that's how you keep from going down that scary path. I love that

Liz (01:15:09):

A hundred percent. And I like Dr. Hanson's technique so much because it gives us such a pragmatic way to do that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So literally just the next time you feel any good feeling that little glimmer of my partner is hugging me, it's a beautiful day outside. I love this song on the radio, whatever it is, just sit in it, linger in it a little bit longer, amplify it a little bit more and just notice that it's there. And I just think it's such a pragmatic way to literally restructure your brain. Mm-Hmm.

Lindsay (01:15:35):

<affirmative>. Yeah. That's amazing. I also think there's a lot of hope in you can restructure your brain and all the work that's come out around electricity is exactly like,

Liz (01:15:42):

It's so fascinating. There's a lot of stuff in my book about the power that we have to use our neuroplasticity for good. And I find it so incredibly hopeful.

Lindsay (01:15:50):

And it's empowering, it's so empowering to know that like you can make a decision that shifts your life in this way. And all it takes is just these small things. I lo and I'm, I'm really getting the sense of like, this is kind of an overarching pathology, or not pathology, but overarching ethos of yours is to something I've noticed is that this meth methodology of yours is to not put so much pressure on yourself to do it good, to do the right thing, to do it perfectly, to opt a m <laugh>. It's to put, do little things in your life. It's adding dill to a sandwich. It's enjoying a joyful moment a little bit more. It's, it's doing these small little actions every day that aren't overwhelming, that are highly achievable to kind of build to this better place and better, better path for yourself.

Moby (01:16:44):

And makes me think a little bit, it's, it's that, and we should let you go soon because I know that you've got, you've gotta go do other stuff. But, um, <laugh> and, and we sometimes give short shrift to this is like the, the cumulative effect of thoughts and actions. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it's one of the, I'm gonna use such a cliched la example. Oh boy, I can't, Lynn, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use an example that I'm gonna be ashamed of, but it, it works, don't

Lindsay (01:17:10):

Worry. We'll play it a bunch of times. Oh

Moby (01:17:11):

Boy. Okay. Is, oh man, I'm gonna say this is a yoga practice. Mm. <laugh>. Oh boy. I can, yeah. So this is, this is why people in red states hate us, but in any case, doing, like, when I first started doing yoga, I was terrible at it. I could barely even get my, the tips of my fingers like halfway down my calves and slowly, slowly, slowly I got to be good at it. And I got to the point where it's like, oh, I can touch my toes. I can put my hands on the floor. And it's so nice. Like if we just keep applying ourselves to things in the mo in very small ways, the cumulative effect can be remarkable. You know, and it, it works on the negative level I know from experience, but it also does, to your point, and to Rick Hansen's point on a very positive level, just keep doing small things and it adds up

Liz (01:17:59):

A hundred percent. I completely agree with that. I mean, that's why my book is 100 Ways to Change Your Life. There's all these small things and you can go through the whole book and do it as a plan and have your whole life change from that. But you can also pull out the tips that resonate with you at a particular moment. You can pick up the book when you need inspiration, and you just need a little bit of that motivation because it'll remind you constantly that there are all of these tiny ways to change your life. I'm really proud that you don't need to buy anything. I think for 99%, if not a hundred percent of the tips, they're all things that are tools that are at your disposal that you can use to change your life at any moment.

Moby (01:18:33):

Well, and congratulations on everything. Thank you. And if you talk to Rick Hanson, say hi from me. I will,

Liz (01:18:39):

I

Lindsay (01:18:39):

Love that you have brought out the parts that resonated most for you that you've been able to put into your life. And now it's like your book be, make you my like big sister in a way of that's what I hope to do. How do I

Liz (01:18:50):

Do stuff? Yeah. I mean, and that's part of the, like, feel good now and feel good later is like, I wanna learn, but I don't want it to feel like boring. I want it to feel interesting and fun. So we always say, we're like, big sister meet science, so Mm-hmm <affirmative>, we're gonna sit you down. We're gonna make you feel good. And that's the same with the stress stuff you were talking about earlier. Like if you're, if you're stressing about optimizing or trying to make it so hard and be so perfect, then you're really sacrificing the feel good now for the feel good later. And we're not willing to do that here we are. Feel good now and feel good later. Feel good as much as possible.

Lindsay (01:19:19):

Yeah. I think that there's very much an audience for like extreme optimization.

Liz (01:19:24):

Yeah. This is not me, <laugh>

Lindsay (01:19:25):

And I, and that has been done and I've seen it and I've tried it and it hasn't necessarily worked for me, but I do think that there is this space for a kind of overarching, gentler way to make all these aspects of real life better. And I think that you've really zoned in on that, honed in on that, um, in

Liz (01:19:41):

Such a great way. And I'll also say that like you get just as powerful of results. I think that's so important to note. You're not getting gentler results because you're being kind to yourself. You're not getting gentler results because you're not spending thousands of dollars, you're not getting gentler results because you are not saying, I wanna live a really life to make these things come true. You're getting incredibly powerful results. And that's why the first few pages of every single tip are like, here's the science behind the results you're gonna achieve. Yeah. You're getting, getting an incredibly powerful result, but you're doing it in a way that feels really good. I

Lindsay (01:20:11):

Love that.

Moby (01:20:12):

Well, again, congratulations. And where on, in all of the places in the world where you reside, where can people find you? Probably not physically. Yeah. Because as much as you might love your fans, you might not want them showing up at your house three o'clock in the morning, like sniffing your hair.

Liz (01:20:29):

I do value my sleep. Um, <laugh>. So I am Liz Moody. You can find me at Liz Moody on Instagram and on TikTok. And then I host The Liz Moody Podcast, which you can just find by searching Liz Moody on whatever your favorite podcast platform is. And then my book is called 100 Ways to Change Your Life. And it has all of the tips that we've talked about and many, many more, lots of science, lots of actions. And you can find that wherever books are sold.

Lindsay (01:20:52):

So exciting. That was such a lovely conversation with Liz. I feel very, very grateful that we got to have that time with her.

Moby (01:21:10):

I completely agree. And like I said at the beginning, there's always that apprehension on my part, like inviting a stranger into my house to have an intimate conversation. And obviously that was wonderful. I'm sure at some point we're gonna have someone over and it's gonna go wrong. I wonder if we should start carrying mace or something. Like what if we have like a terrible experience?

Lindsay (01:21:30):

I took three or four self-defense jiujitsu classes, so I feel like I've got us.

Moby (01:21:34):

Okay,

Lindsay (01:21:35):

Good. I just wanna say, if you enjoyed this conversation with Liz, please check out her podcast, Liz Moody podcast and follow her Liz Moody and also her book, A hundred Ways to Change Her Life, the Science of Leveling Up Health, happiness, relationships, and Success is legitimately great. So pick it up. Read it. I, I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from it in some way. I feel like it's kind of the big sister who kind of knows everything and tells you what you need to know to live a cool life.

Moby (01:22:01):

So in two weeks we'll be back with something great <laugh> and interesting and creative and dynamic. I don't quite know what that's gonna be yet.

Lindsay (01:22:11):

Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna blow your top off.

Moby (01:22:15):

Um, there's so much I want to do, but I mean, we've got our long list of like episodes we wanna make, but we haven't made that one yet. So we'll be back in two weeks with something hopefully phenomenal. Okay. I really want to teach you how to DJ 'cause for a while you've been talking about how you wanna learn how to DJ. So maybe, okay, you know what, I'm gonna stake a flag right here in saying two weeks. We're gonna have an episode where we're gonna talk about DJing and you're gonna get your very first DJ lesson. What

Lindsay (01:22:42):

About words?

Moby (01:22:43):

You can, words are, words are evergreen words. Are we, were gonna do one where we talked about like etymology and puns and things, but can we please, I really, the DJ want to just want to do Oh,

Lindsay (01:22:51):

I'm dying to learn how to deej.

Moby (01:22:53):

Okay. <laugh>. Okay. So in two weeks we'll be back with a podcast episode all about DJing and Lindsay will get her first DJ lesson. The one caveat Lindsay I have is the way I DJ is a little bit old school.

Speaker 5 (01:23:08):

No, I can DJ at the steam punk bar.

Moby (01:23:10):

Oh, <laugh>. So, so just, that's my caveat. Like there's some new DJ technology that as a very old person I don't know about. So you might wanna find a young person to teach you the new stuff. I'll just sort of show you the old guy DJ ropes.

Speaker 5 (01:23:25):

That's great. That's

Moby (01:23:26):

Thrilling. Okay. So thank you everybody for listening and thank you Liz Moody and thank you Lindsay and thank you Bagel and thank you Jonathan Nesvadba and thank you human content. And I already said thank you to everybody who's listening, but why not say thanks again.

Lindsay (01:23:42):

Okay. Bye. See you soon.

Moby (01:23:44):

We'll see you in two weeks with a DJ episode where Lindsay and Bagel will learn how to DJ.

Lindsay (01:23:49):

Wiki wiki.