Mere Mortals

Share on social media:

If we have shorter attention spans, how can you sit through this very podcast?

In Episode #463 of 'Musings', we dive deep into the concept of focus, exploring its nuances and how it differs from attention and concentration. There are some theoretical aspects of focus, including its relationship with consciousness and how it can be both a conscious and unconscious effort. We also touch on the practical side, examining how focus can be applied in daily life and whether it is a finite resource.

No boostagrams this week, very sad puppy :'(

Timeline:
(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:01:01) Defining Focus: Conscious & Directed
(00:06:08) Grammatical Focus and AI Interpretation
(00:14:27) Energy Drinks and the Myth of Focus
(00:22:38) Finite Focus and Human Capability
(00:28:01) Do We Have Shorter Attention Spans?
(00:29:30) Boostagram Lounge: Sad Puppy
(00:39:02) Practical Focus in Daily Life
(00:46:52) Teaching Focus And Environmental Influence
(00:52:36) Deep Work: Lex Fridman Example
(01:00:01) Practical Tips for Enhancing Focus

Connect with Mere Mortals:
Website: https://www.meremortalspodcast.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/jjfq9eGReU
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/meremortalspod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meremortalspodcast

Value 4 Value Support:
Boostagram: https://www.meremortalspodcast.com/support
Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/meremortalspodcast

[00:00:08] Juan Granados:

Welcome back, Mere Mortalites. You are indeed blessed by the two mere mortals here. You got Juan. And Kyrin here on   17th November. 17th. Sunday, 9 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time as usual. As usual. Now you came up with the, the thoughts of Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I did. Now focus.   What what was the oh, no. We've got a   dodgy mic. What breaking the table here we got the setup and but you know the actually same back meanderings.   No music music music's more so than meanderings. We used to do meanderings which is you know while Karen was traveling and I wouldn't say it was I wouldn't say that it was unfocused but it was We didn't have a particular topic. Yeah. No. No one thread in particular that we were talking about or discussing about and so in these in musings we like to go a little bit more detailed on a particular topic, something that we can   riff on, think about. And today's was was focus. Yeah. Yeah. Why did the idea of focus come up? So one thing was you mentioned something in the last podcast. I can't remember what it was now. But there was something there was something you were talking about  

[00:01:13] Kyrin Down:

Related to focus there. Go back to that one if you want to check it out. But we also got a mail as well for we did ship off. I think we'll talk about that in the boost to gram lounge. Cool. Yeah,   I don't know. This was just there's something on my mind about it. So I was like,   actually came up because of a naval Ravikant   little thing, but I'll talk about that in a little bit.   Nice. He's got a show beer of a I don't know what that is. Is it Miguel? No sugar raspberry?  

[00:01:42] Juan Granados:

Yeah. No, it's a raspberry flavored soft drink with 0 sugar. Nice. So I was gonna say something like, Oh, it's neutropically focused. Hey, mind thing that's no no sugar. No, it's no sugar. She was like a builder soda. Sugar will help you focus. Alright, so  

[00:01:53] Kyrin Down:

as usual, I'll start off with like a definition or something, perhaps a little bit theoretical.   So it's a sub branch of my favorite and most mysterious of subjects, which is consciousness. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Everything links back to that. I think it's worth distinguishing it from attention or concentration.   It gets   thrown in with those ones focus, you're attentive,   you're concentrating.   In my   kind of worldview, it usually refers more to the narrowing of that down.   So something can catch your attention. But   that doesn't necessarily mean you're focusing on it. Yeah. If   in the terms of focus seems to be more directed,   you get to choose where you put your attention. So if something grabs your attention could be doom scrolling, it could be a loud noise outside, it could be a spider.  

I can you don't really get to choose that it   it something happened and captured your attention,   or grabbed your attention. And as these words capturing and grabbing, but you know, whilst you're focusing on it, it's like you didn't get to choose it. So grabbing attention versus losing my focus.   I'm using this focus more in the sense of   you're trying to put your attention towards something and you're you're focusing upon that. So that's, that's kind of the little definition that I've got.  

[00:03:17] Juan Granados:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I was gonna that's had a couple other notes, but then something came up while I was listening to   yesterday and today, I actually been listening to it for a little while,   talk about AI. I don't know if you've started or wanting to listen to the   5 and a half hour episode that Alex Friedman has been doing with the Claude guys. Nah.   So I've just gone past one 4 and a bit hours. Okay. And at the 4 and a bit hour mark, I mean, came up with other, like, oh, it's kind of related to this. But it was, I guess, for focus,   how would you would you differentiate between   it having to be conscious?  

Or could you have focus whether it where it's unconscious?   So   the reason why I was thinking about that was,   okay,   if I was to say to you,   you have to stare   at that white wall   the next hour, that'd be focused.   It is   a high probability   that at some point in that hour, you're going to be unfocused   to that task. Let's just say so it's   you consciously being asked to go and do something and be focused purely on that and it's likely that you're gonna be unfocused during that hour. So that I guess I would be like looking at focus in a very conscious effort and then you can go to any random tasks that make sense and you do that. However,   and to kind of get we have talked about this in the past, it's like anything new. When I work   when I do tasks or actions, especially ones that   don't   dominate   my   active thinking, if you will, like I don't have to be problem solving things   really heavily and having to be so pristinely focused in that. But instead I can put some music on. Again, right now it's Freddie against London rooftop session, an hour and 40 minutes something like that. I wanna just beat them that thing too. Yeah. And and I will I will listen to that. I'll be just in rhythm and I'll do   work. I'll be really focused on that.  

Well that's the other thing, it's I'm unconsciously   focused   on what I'm doing. Okay! So it's like   I'm not necessarily   conscious per se. Yeah, that I'm like, oh I'm doing this. I'm responding to this. I'm doing that. My mind is not all right. I've got to go respond to this. It's more   I'm in this flow state. I can't get really conscious. So are both of those focus in this particular or is it just I'm being attention grabbed   While I've got this flow state on? Yeah, it's,  

[00:05:44] Kyrin Down:

I'd still put that in the same ish category.   It's   in terms of the overall larger one, you are focused even though you're doing it unconsciously.   But   yeah, we'll talk about both. Okay.   So the this first half usually is about the kind of theoretical,   you know, what if type questions, then we get into the practical stuff in the second half after the Instagram land show. I always like finding these things and I usually find them when I am jumping into Wikipedia and I'll get into some like grammatical   stuff which   10 years ago   and plus years ago   in in high school, I would hate this like grammar or English. Oh, I suck at this.  

Now I just find it really   interesting. I don't know why. Just the word choices language   kind of it captures me for a little bit. So I can't I can't spend all day on it, but for a little bit it's good. And this one was kind of cool. So you can actually have   a focus grammatically.   So and this is we'll touch upon AI as well. So   Mary   only insulted Bill.   That's, that's the sentence that you can see that written down. Mary only insulted Bill.   There's a grammatic thing where you can have the focus on the word and individual word and emphasis. Like only. Yeah. So yeah. And you can do it for   in the example they gave, they only switched it between insulted and Bill. But then I'm like, oh, you can do this with every word. So you can say Mary, only insulted Bill. So it was only Mary who was doing it.  

You can have Mary only insulted Bill. So that's the only thing she did.   Mary only insulted   Bill. So she was doing things to him. But she only insulted him. Like that was the only thing she was doing to him. And then Mary only insulted Bill,   which was   she was insulting, perhaps lots of people. But no, she only insulted Bill.   So   it's kind of cool how you can have just the emphasis on the word. And this is more a verbal thing, rather than   I'm not sure if you can really   showcase this with a with actual grammar as in using a punctuation   mark   using commas.  

And   I'm not sure you can still keep those 4 words in that order and show that grammatically.   But when you're maybe using speech, you can actually change the focus point of the of the sentence onto   something completely different and give it a whole lot of context and meaning even though the   the   words  

[00:08:16] Juan Granados:

have remained the same. Well, I'm thinking in we're talking English here.   Yeah, but then in other languages,   they do utilize some   differentiations in the letters, let's just say to give   slightly different meanings or I guess   more, let's just say more meaning to the what it means in the context of the sentence. But I don't think it goes that far as to be able to explain   or it's like this, this particular thing is being   pronounced differently. And that means this particular context as opposed to maybe just, oh, that's grouping versus individual or something to that effect. I think I think you'd find the same thing. Look, I haven't,  

[00:08:55] Kyrin Down:

I probably should do a bit of research on how large language models   change things in other languages. So I think this, you know, this is where   the concept of these things come in into importance, because   they're just interpreting   words. And, you know, and when I say interpreting words, I'm maybe giving them a bit too much credit, and that they're actually conscious and doing things, but they're actually just looking to art of, you know, letters and words. And   there's no intonation   in what that so when someone's writing on the internet,   if you have a bit of backstory behind them, you could probably understand like, okay,   that they're actually the focal point is on this, but they just can't really express that just straight through words.  

And so I wonder   how much of this they'll they'll miss   in terms of   the actual meaning and context behind a sentence?   Because they,   they can't interpret this thing or   say, for example,   that you get the transcript of this, this podcast,   they're not going to be able to   get all this rich extra info of, you know, that whole thing that I just did of Mary only insulted Bill, they're just gonna see me saying the same sentence 5 times over and it's like, wow, it's so insightful. He's just saying the same sentence that's coming up with like, all these different meanings.   So   yeah,   I'm unsure   as   to will they ever be able to   get the nuance of that?  

Were you know,   because you'd need something, you know, instead of large language models, you'd need what large audio models or something? No, no, certainly.  

[00:10:39] Juan Granados:

I've used any   of   the call them alarms or AI   that allow audio inputs and tried something like that.   Of   So I would get to like that. I talk into it. You can talk to it on the phone and it does understand any of intonation. And it responds back in in audio? In audio.   No. I haven't tried that. Try that. Yeah. Try try try to get to it on very, very good because what it does about that and a few others do it really well in that if you tell it   go slightly louder or be more punctual on this particular word, it does do that.   Whether I guess it's not like whether it's doing that folks and doing it because it knows what it's doing, I guess that's something else to be siphoned, but it does   do it as in if you talk it about and you stop and you say this in particular, it will do it. In fact, I don't know if you've seen it, but if you get at the count 1 through to 50,   it'll go 1, 2, 3, 4. But if you go go fast, like, do it really fast. Go 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, it'll actually pause and take a breath like a general human would. Now, I don't know if that's part of the direct   I'll go L. L. M. Or if it's the pre training post training that happens on a lot of these machines. So if you,   go listen to I think snippets of the Claude,   lady, I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but she's the one who does most of the training for Claude to help it out on how would you interact when you shouldn't say all these words, if it should be nicer or not nicer. So that's not done necessarily by the algo, that's done by a human doing the training to get it to that scale as well. I don't know if they're doing that already for some of these things. I feel like there would be   so many catch catches, though, that all what about this? And what about this? And what about this? I've I haven't been too impressed with the ones I've seen where they would  

[00:12:24] Kyrin Down:

describe it as artificial,   trying to do human things. There was this one I heard on   podcast in 2.0 that played where it's it's basically like, meant to be daily news snippets told by 2 people   in a kind of back and forth, or they'll interpret interpret a report.   And they'll they'll condense, you know, what would be   45 minutes worth of reading into 15 minutes or something? Is that Google's one?   I   can't  

[00:12:52] Juan Granados:

get   Google's Google's newest one is you give a web page, you give it a book, and it'll generate for you  

[00:12:59] Kyrin Down:

like a 10 minute conversation podcast form between 2 people to describe it and summarize. Yeah. And they've got a whole bunch of these artificial pauses where it's like this person speaking, and then, and then they're allowing the next person to jump in. But there's no talking over each other or nothing. It's always just this kind of it's still it's still still still like it not not quite human levels yet. But it is getting there. But you're right. I guess the focus  

[00:13:25] Juan Granados:

the grammatical focus,   maybe it's getting there from an AI perspective, but it is when in a in a guess, general interactions.   Huge. It's a huge deal of how we focus on a particular   word grammatically that it makes a big difference.  

[00:13:41] Kyrin Down:

The sentence structure or what you're doing. Yeah, I think it makes a big deal in the   the huge scheme scheme of things such as   perhaps   with loved ones with   really important conversations   of   did this person say this? What do they actually mean when they said this?   In the context of like work and most conversations?   Yeah, sure. Like,   it's not going to matter. And that's why this stuff will still have a big impact. Even though I think it's   it, it's not going to perhaps get to the   level of replacing another person in your life. Unless  

[00:14:17] Juan Granados:

you're you're maybe, you know, autistic or something. Can you just struggle to connect with people anyway? And so this thing can connect with you in the deepest manner. Deepest. And then there's the physical body and things. So the other I mean, the other thing I had in my mind around focus, right? Where's my sex robots? It's like coming. Now one of the things with focus that I was playing around my mind was   when you   drink a Red Bull, or drink new tonic doesn't exist here in Australia from Chris Williamson, or something to that effect.   There is   maybe an expectation   or a default setting into people's minds that, oh, if I drink this,   it's gonna give me wings, okay, it's gonna make me focused, it's gonna make me energized. But part of that, I think sometimes is just focus,   which then again gets connected to energy,   doing things   and I think there's a differentiation there or do we differentiate it,   very like theoretically around focus in that,   if I drink an energy drink and   it sharpens my cognitive pathway so that I can focus   on   specific tasks, like singular tasks.  

But it also may be allows me to do let's just say if I'm doing 3 tasks at   70% efficient or 70% effectiveness,   and I take this energy drink and it makes me   75%   effective at all 3 of this. Have I actually increased my focus?   Is that like a, oh, you're more focused now, you can do more because maybe 3 out of the 10,000,000 things, the 3 are more honed in.   Is it just a case that you have more active energy? It's actually not focused like that. It hasn't changed your whatever description of focus is   because part of me goes, I don't think if that's actually focus. That's just   more, you're more motivated to do something, you're more energized to move faster.  

You've got more just inherent energy. It's not I wouldn't define or describe that as  

[00:16:20] Kyrin Down:

enhance your focus in any way. Yeah, because the you can have the opposite of that, which is someone who's really highly strong or something and   bouncing off the walls, ADHD or whatever.   And they'll they'll give them something to calm them down to be able to focus. So   yeah, it's it's it seems less the energy aspect unless there's like a neutral middle energy level.   Although.   Yeah, what I see like people I don't really see people on cocaine. There's what I imagine   when I see people on cocaine is that they're like,   they're already maybe like a little bit high energy and then they go crazy high energy and they'll claim their focus but I've never done it myself. And I think and I think it's  

[00:17:05] Juan Granados:

even even the the concept of focus.   Maybe this is wrong. I'm trying to like word out of my mind. The concept of focus kind of makes   no meaningful sense if it doesn't get attached to an action or an outcome.   Like could you say,   could you say you're focused but not achieve anything or do anything? Does that mean you're focused? -Yeah, I reckon you can. Yeah. -Yeah, like, let's take an example, like meditation. -Yeah. -If you, if you focus on nothing but your breathing or your   your breath going in and out, I guess that's just a pure focus.   So I guess be unfocused is like, what's the aim? What's the outcome? Yeah, is doing that? Well is  

[00:17:47] Kyrin Down:

if if you're trying to focus on nothing, is that still focus?  

[00:17:51] Juan Granados:

Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. So because I think in almost every concept that you think about it when you're when you're thinking, I wanna be more focused, we should be more focused as a mere mortal.   That generally means you want to do a certain thing that you're trying to achieve. You know, I want to focus with work. That probably means you want to get achieve the stuff that you want to do with work or I want to be more focused in with the podcast. That problem means you want to spend more time, more dedicated time, more effective time to whatever outcome that you want to. I don't think that,   I think it is that's a hard question. Okay. Well, if you focus on nothing,   is that actually there's no achievement on anything.  

Does that concept  

[00:18:29] Kyrin Down:

really apply or make sense at all? Probably most I think it does. But   it's not certainly the most common   use of how you would define focus and  

[00:18:39] Juan Granados:

how would you how would you this is I mean, we just defined it before.   But how would you   if we if you could try, how would you quantify   the variation of focus?   To say yesterday, I was what 3 out of 5 focused and today I'm 4 out of 5. What does that one difference act like? How would you quantify what that means? You'd maybe see in the brainwaves or something like you know, if you're  

[00:19:03] Kyrin Down:

if you're trying to focus on work, and   maybe emotion,   the emotional parts of your brain are lighting up,   then and,   and, you know, that's not helpful, or, you know,   you're meant to be studying and,   or, you know, advanced calculus or something. You   know, this is not meant to be igniting   emotional aspects, not like you're looking at unless you come across as number 69 or something, can you just fucking like, oh,   But you're probably not going to be wanting   nor expecting   the emotional is it hippocampus?   I shouldn't even said that I'm just guessing.   Emotional aspects, the emotional parts of your brain to light up. Yeah.  

Or left brain, right brain, you want to be doing something super creative, or you want to be doing something, you know,   Boris,   boring focus, more routine sweeping a yard.   You could probably get chuck on a brain scanner or something or just spend a whole day in a CT mobile CT machine.   And,   yeah, you'd then be able to see okay, well, obviously, I lost focus in this second here, because this other part of my brain was lightened up. So I think depending on the task, yeah, you could probably want to fly it like that. Okay. And I think we'll talk about it more in the practical sense, because there's  

[00:20:20] Juan Granados:

only not gonna be on that on a daily basis, man. I'll be carrying a CT machine around my head whilst doing my, like my laundry. Well, there's there's the other cuts in the camp in my mind, from a theoretical thinking perspective is okay.   If there's an energy drink that gives me focus,   gives me focus, whatever that means   in this   conversation   and you have 1   every hour, 24 hours a day for the rest of your life.   Does a human possess unlimited amounts of focus capability? What is a finite resource? Yeah, I  

[00:20:53] Kyrin Down:

was gonna save this for more a little bit later, I think because   I didn't have   something practical around that.   Maybe not.   I don't think they do. Yeah, I don't think that's possible. I think we have a finite amount of focus. Yeah.   Some people's will be larger, I think than others. But it's still probably   still probably in the for me,   1 to 3 hour range a day of in total of Yeah, in of   actual focus. And then a lot of the rest is   kind   of busy.   This is the the one where you're conscious   1 to 3 hours of conscious focus. And then you could probably get if you've got your routine really   nice and in order, and we'll talk about the Lex Fridman Twitter post thing. Did you see that as well? Yeah. So then then you could if you got your routine, like nailed down, sure, you can maybe get an extra 10 hours of focus in fit into your day into your 16   hours of waking.  

Yeah, sure. But I think of that kind of conscious, real conscious focus, like hard,   deep learning, if you want to call it like that, or I   think it's really minimal.   That there's this from personal experience. Experience. Yeah, no, no,  

[00:22:11] Juan Granados:

I don't I mean, I don't think it's an infinite resource. I think given that example I gave even if you had whatever a drink they gave you   gives focus or whatever it gives you every hour, you'd still at some point, not be able to continue that you know offset sleep, let's just say sleep doesn't come into account. I don't think you could have a human that would be able to wake up   and go to bed   and entire time be,   focused on  

[00:22:36] Kyrin Down:

what they choose consciously to do. I hope that you will be  

[00:22:40] Juan Granados:

buffeted by the wind. Yeah, there'll be other things. Even though I'll give leeway, I'll give leeway on   you know, maybe this level of focus is   doing a task that's in front of you and then you need to step away to go to the bathroom or to drink some water or to take a call and then you come back to it. Look, I'll still say   in rough terms, I'll still focus,   but I still don't think that that can be done   consciously   for an entire day and then just repeat repeat repeat repeat. I don't think that that's a realistic thing. I think you mentioned like speed vendors,   a couple of other people who maybe at the   outside like from outside world might look like they don't focus all the time. Then you learn about some of the things that they do. That's still it's not it's just gaming or something separate. It's okay. I wouldn't say that you focus Yeah, anymore in that particular task you're doing. Agreed. Last theoretical one.  



[00:23:32] Kyrin Down:

Do we have shorter attention spans 1? You get to hear this get thrown around a lot nowadays. Do you agree with  

[00:23:40] Juan Granados:

that? I think I do.   I think we have I think we do   in some regards   because why?   Like evolutionary wise, we have migrated into a world of technology and the ability for dopamine hitting and other   more immediate   services to be provided that before   300 years ago just did not exist at all. So   evolution   does not go that fast. And so we are in this   human   goo that   can't necessarily handle   this onset of amount of information and   inflow of things as it was before. So   yeah, I'd rather genuinely probably say like,   we haven't we haven't evolved quickly enough to keep up with how much we get dumped up information on a daily basis. Okay.  

[00:24:33] Kyrin Down:

Using this kind of distinguishing between attention and focus that we talked about, I would say attention spans are exactly the same. The   we've always had the same amount of attention,   like,   yep, do we do we unless we're sleeping more or sleeping less nowadays, then I think that that's the only thing that's changed. But in terms of attention, attention for me is just,   it's just always around is just depending what it's on. So,   you know, if you want to argue against it, you could say things we've got longer podcasts, you know, binging shows people can spend hours scrolling on their phone, they're paying attention to their phone.   But   focus spans,   those perhaps have gotten shorter. So AKA the ability to choose   where we're doing it. So this is where Yeah, maybe there's   more things which are capturing our attention that we don't want to put it on.  

AKA the doom scrolling the you know, the Tiktoking   the flashing lights, the you know,   maybe for kids, you've you've seen how powerful just the little the children show up for kids, you know, Vienna cannot stop looking at it once it gets thrown on,   which is good and bad.   So   the clickbait as well,   the probably even the smaller size   post or formats of   Twitter being only X number of words used to be Instagram, you can only fit so much information.   TikTok videos used to be only be what 10 seconds or something. Vines   a minute and everything. I mean, shit, everything's getting longer. You could argue against like, Yeah, no, we're getting longer attention spans. TikTok was the perfect format.  

30 seconds, 10 seconds, however long it was. And now you can put fucking   how long videos you've got fucking live streaming on there. You can you can   concentrate put your attention on something for 24 hours if you want. So   I it irks me when I hear we've got shorter attention spans. I think they're the same but our focus spans have gotten shorter. Yeah, no, that's a good distinction. Definitely.  

[00:26:37] Juan Granados:

Attention. I don't think it's changed. I think the attention is more   more connected to the   more connected to the human and that it hasn't changed over time all that much. But I guess because focus is a directed   is a directed conscious,   maybe subset of attention in that, yeah, okay, then you're choosing to focus on a particular thing   And just largely there's   more things with shorter time spans that we choose to focus and then go next, go next, go next, go next. It's   that repeat repeated   ability to just have to focus on shorter things to get whatever rewards that just didn't exist. Whatever, 100 years ago, 200 years ago. So   I would say like if you if you put inversely the other way, if you put someone like a kid   200 years ago,   let's say 8 years old, and another 8 year old from today who's been raised   on video games or watching TV and everything else,   I think the   the kid of today would have a real hard time to finding focus and doing something that's a more   longer,   maybe slower drip feed of rewards versus the kid from 200 years ago. I think that the kid from 200 years ago would find the ability to focus in a longer term things, And the kid of today would just be like,   now just throw tantrums and not know how to handle that. So, actually attention, attention itself would be the same. It's just the ability to focus and how long you do that maybe.  

Maybe another part of focus, I guess theoretically is   you will only,   well only,   you will generally focus on something because you want to also get not just the outcome but the reward like the animalistic reward that you get from it as well. So if you were to if someone said to you   Kyren, from tomorrow until   2052,   I need you to focus on looking at a wall   every day for 2 hours, every single day.   I think even if you were a master of focus,   you'd find it real challenging to do that. That would be a real challenge of wanting to do it. But if  

[00:28:39] Kyrin Down:

people just came up to you and you're like, current, I want you to spend X amount of hours for the next decade doing this. And you're just like, yeah.  

[00:28:47] Juan Granados:

Right. But if someone said,   now, I'm gonna give you a reward, like an incentive to this to help you out in it. I'm gonna give you 100 bitcoins every day. Oh, you do this.   I think you gotta do it. I think you're gonna go, you know what? I'll do that. Like, it is so intense, but the reward aspects comes in. I think there's there's some attachment to, like, and I guess it comes to that conversation of as our focus,   change or like a span of focus.   Yes, because we also related to how much of a reward we get and how quick we want the reward. I think now we're associating it with, well, if I'm going to focus on something, I better get a reward really, really quick   versus instead of whatever time domain   back in the day.  

That wasn't so much the case. Yep.  

[00:29:29] Kyrin Down:

Yep. Sounds good.   All right. We'll cap it here for the theory. Yeah, we'll go to boostgram. So I don't think there's any boostgrams. I do have the email that we popped up. So I think it'd be worth talking about them, especially because it's related to to focus.   So this for those who don't know, boostgram lounge, this is a section where we talk about our supporters of the show, the people who are helping make all of this possible.   So we do this available, make it available anywhere, anytime, any place for free. But we do ask that you return some value to us in some shape or form. This is the section where we typically talk about the financial aspect. We do have a lot of costs going on with this. You can see all the lights, the microphones, cameras,   all this sort of stuff, hosting fees.  



[00:30:12] Juan Granados:

And we didn't get any this week. Why? We didn't. No, no, no. I said why? Why? Why? Why? Because why? Now bitcoin has gone whoo   rocketed up. Could be that is a g and this is a this actually was something I was gonna post you.   And we don't have to go to it too deeply. But   if   BD keeps on going up like it is, let's just say continuously for the next couple of years.   Is there a potential that the value for value concept as a whole dies off? Because nobody wants to anymore give it away to give away that code?   Is it a detriment?  

The value for value model that actually increases?  

[00:30:49] Kyrin Down:

No, it's   I mean, I think people will just adjust how much they give and maybe in the period where it's really rocketing up and you're like, all right, like, you know, I could give this $100   in Bitcoin to   Chris, Chris Fisher for   what Bitcoin did not what   the what does he call it this week in Bitcoin   Twib   when he's a very popular one, he's he gets a lot, you know, usually in the 100 of 1000 sats per week.   For his episodes.   People might go,   I might just hold on to this. But now the the concept of giving value back and forth, that's gonna remain the same. So but it could  

[00:31:31] Juan Granados:

I'll make   a bold prediction and see it got 50% in a day. I'll make a bold prediction the other way. And I'll say if   it does keep going up in a pretty significant fashion and doesn't stabilize   for   a little while, like for a little while, I'm just saying like, if it keeps going up and down up and down, yeah, like something to that effect, I think it will kill the Valley Valley model it will actually kill it because   it will convert into much more of a   like a asset to hoard and sell as opposed to using it for that sort of transactional like the transaction of it will change I think it'll define its usage   from a exchange   of are you valuing this with this to a no I'm going to use it much more as a transactional like financial asset Yeah, more so once again, value for value is not Bitcoin value for values, just providing value of any sort back and forth. But correct. But if you're talking about the underlying   asset of Bitcoin as its trading  

[00:32:30] Kyrin Down:

asset the way we do yes, but plenty of shows don't so what else do they use? Just fear, you know, no agendas. Oh, gotcha. Okay. PayPal for fucking forever. Sorry. Using the value for value here and like the specific use of   It was from Sebastian   legend. And he was I just want to call him out because   at magic magic mind, there's one of the fun things where it's like, we don't have to talk about this. And because we're not getting sponsored by them, but because this is probably one of the first ones that have been   a genuine nice email not like, hey, hey, mere mortals,   or hey, 1 and 1 Granados and Kyron down where you can tell they've just ripped it straight from the from the feet. Yep.  

You can tell there's an actual person.   And yeah, so he's got a product called   magic mind. And our science black blend of machinotropics   adaptogens work together to get you faster into flow state.   No anxiety, no jitters. Here we go. Just focus on productivity. So   I don't know. He said, Did you reply to a second email?   I think I wanted to bugs hasn't come up with 1 or if you if you want to reply to someone I'll get but yes, I'll get back to you.   So yeah, maybe it's good. I don't know. I'm not going to try it because I don't really like energy drinks and that sort of stuff. But  

[00:34:02] Juan Granados:

one does I think well, this is the thing. It's like,   not that I've looked into it in any detail, but again, I was I was just interested when I saw that. You want a metonic, didn't you? I want a metonic. And again, there's   the compounds, let's just call it, all the chemicals underneath some of these things.   What do they help? And I guess that's more in the theoretical as well. It's like, does it help focus? Okay. Does it have to be   it? Not through caffeine. So I guess caffeine is the   equivalent of what people would say is like, oh, more energy. I guess   Technically, it's not more energy. It's   suppressing of your sleep,   or your sleepiness, I guess is more more correct. But, you know, one of the other things that it provides us telling you that it's focused, which I guess that's what I was getting to. Yeah, how do you define that you are more   focused quote unquote besides the practical nature of just saying it because just because you skull 10 red bulls and then you feel like you're about to have a heart attack doesn't mean they're like, oh my god, I'm so focused. It's like, yeah, maybe you're focusing on dying, but   I would dispute that you're actually that that focused. There's actually   in,   I guess I wouldn't say just lifting in specifically in power lifting   there's   this concept of thought is that I've seen kind of go between both ways and starting to go down to the more practical position of focus.  

What's better?   To go to the squat rack, pick up the barbell,   have music   blasting, you're like ferocious, you're angry, you're spitting on the floor. If you're a female, you piss through it like your pants. Just squatting because you're letting go. You're that focused, it's going wild. Have you not seen this? No. Oh, mate. Go check it out. Go check it out. Yeah. Wait. What do you type in to check that out? Just say,   involuntary bowel loss, female power lifting. It happens all the time. Happens all the time. This is like this is a very common thing. Yeah. But, you know, is that level of focus where you're just like enraged, you get the bar, you've got 40 kilos, fucking yeah,   you go down, you go up, you do a squat, you put it around.  

You're like man, I was so focusing on that. That was brilliant or   is it better or more focused if you just casually go up to the bar the same way?   You're just like, I'm styled in calm meditative, you're like, cool   down up mechanical feel everything racket wonderful!   Both of them you achieved like a one rep max.   Was one more focused than the other?   Wow! Would you define one as just having   more of an energy   output?   Same focus as this one. This one was just more still.   I've seen that kind of fluctuate and get practically,   sorry, my take on this, I'll jump ahead. My take on this is   both of them have   focus. Yeah. The same level of   focus that it took to achieve   what you needed to achieve.  

Just because you   might have performed it   or been in a different mind state. So, and this is where I get maybe I get,   I disagree with that concept of using brainwave patterns and stuff because I do think you could have 2 very different states of mind.   But you I would still say underlying that it was the same focus to achieve   the same outcome.  

[00:37:16] Kyrin Down:

But I don't know if you that would depend on the person. I was gonna say the second one's obviously better, because that's what I would probably do. So therefore is better.   But no, yeah, you're right. If it's the   if you're the person who does get turned on by calculus,   you know, you do get enraged when you find a hard problem. And  

[00:37:37] Juan Granados:

you say enraged or engorged? Enraged,  

[00:37:39] Kyrin Down:

enraged.   And your emotional   centers of the brain are lighting up.   Same thing applies for if you're at the gym,   then yes, sure you   then it's a good thing if those centers are lighting up with your brain scan and going on in that thing. So   yeah,   that kind of gets back to energy again, I guess. And I think it doesn't particularly matter. Do you want to drop energy? So me drop my bombshell on focus?  

[00:38:06] Juan Granados:

Yeah, sure. My   my boss. Yes, my bombshell on focus is   I think the concept of focus is kind of bullshit.   Okay. It's kind of dumb. It's kind of useless.   Why the fuck would you care about how focused you are? Yeah. Because I think in a in practice, you can you can theorize it all you want. You can talk about various connotations, differentiations   of it. But because it is a subset of attention.   Right? One aspect, subset of attention. 2, there's some fluctuations whether it's a conscious versus unconscious.   Practically,   being models, I don't think it is useful for you to think about the concept of focus in an everyday life. I think the   ensuing things come from it is what is most important.  

I think you can get really wrapped up practically going like,   today, I've got to be really focused like I've got I've got to work and I've got a gym and I've got to look after my baby, so I've got to be focused when I'm doing this and focus on doing that.   That kind of helps,   but I see it in the same sense of I've got to be happy today. I've got to be happy because I've got to do this. I'm gonna be happy to do that.   It's not,   I don't think it's a practically good experience or thing to do more. So I would be, I would say, okay,   off the back of what you want. So if you want to be focused,   what is it that you want that to achieve? Like the achievement, the outcome, the reward. Okay. Let's put an example of yesterday. I was doing some contracts, right? I was updating some contracts and doing some notes about some stuff. So it can be a global contract. Not just an Australian contract.  

I was looking at that and going, well, I could say to myself,   I want to sit down for an hour and I want to be focused on doing things   for this particular thing. But practically for me, it was actually better to go,   no, like tonight,   like my outcome is to finish this contract   and in that view, in that perspective,   I would quote unquote, got focused. I listened to my music and I did the thing, but it was more practically important for me to think about the outcome of the thing I wanted to achieve   as opposed to   focus on focus.  

I will make a caveat here because I would say 98% time, 99%   of time. I think it's   pretty bullshit to focus on it. Focus on focus as a human as a mere mortal. Like I don't think it's very good apart from and maybe there's more but this is the only one that comes to mind. Apart from   if you are a creative   or you're pursuing an endeavor,   where you don't necessarily   know what the outcome should be   And then you have to   focus   on just doing something for a specific time domain and not   deviating away   from doing that. And that's kind of the example for people who buy books and they'll say, okay, I'm gonna sit down for an hour and I'm just gonna type and see what happens.   So maybe I extrapolate and say,   maybe don't take that particular advice if you're doing something where the outcome is an unknown.  

But most of the time for most mere mortals, I think you kind of know what the outcome is that you want to go into it generally or the reward that you want.   And so because of that I go, it's less useful to think about focus as a concept,   more focusing on all the other things that you actually care about.  

[00:41:14] Kyrin Down:

No, I'd I'd put you on the opposite side of that. I think it's more about agency. The   what's a lot of problems that people have is   feeling like they're not in control.   And   that's true, you know, so much of life is not in your control.   Just circumstances   happen,   get into geopolitics,   and you're   worrying about this worrying about that. It's like, like, man, you know, there's nothing you can do or affect here.   The only thing you can affect is where you where you put your attention.   And so yeah, I think   there was something that I was listening   to Raoul Pal today, and he was just talking about,   basically,   probably why why crypto is going to do really well in the next year. And then he was just saying like, you know, there's probably going to be some people out there who,   if they've just got a large enough amount of capital, and they just put it in,   they,   they the hardest thing for them to do is just not to do anything,   like the to not fuck this up.  

And,   and they can just go traveling for, you know, a couple of years, come back 5 years later, and   they've done everything that they need to do.   That kind of kind of put myself in that bucket a little bit where I was like, I think I think that's kind of where I'm at.   And   it was,   I think it's the same sort of aspect where it's   a person who let's say they they   they've only got this, what I would say like 1 to 3 hours a day of focus.   But   it feels like they should have 12   feels like I should be working really hard get get to work at, you know, 7 am work until 7 pm, that sort of thing.   And they beat themselves up because they, they just get distracted at work, like work colleagues talking to them, they, they take that lunch break a little bit too long, and they ended up only doing 3 hours of kind of actual good work.  

That same sort of person, if they, they could just get, you know, their mind sorted.   And they've still got the same amount of fucking around. Let's let's call it of the TikToks, the talking with work colleagues, the eating, all that sort of stuff. Daydreaming.   If they could just get that 3 hours right in the morning, really dial in really focused, just get 3 hours right in the morning, and then give themselves the time   to just fuck around the rest of the day. They can then feel good about that fucking around, around, and not beating themselves up about it. So they get the same amount of work done. But it's,   but it's   one of those people are way happier, and has a way more pleasurable experience of life.  

And not self   recriminations and stuff. So so in that aspect, I'm kind of like,   if you can just get a handle on   your your attention, and   thinking about it as in terms of okay, I'm going to direct my attention   for this period of time.   Yeah, I think it can have some benefits outside of the actual   being more productive   or things like that.  

[00:44:18] Juan Granados:

So yeah, part of me goes,   yes.   But   like an example you gave.   If you practically said, Yeah, I want to be focused for the first three hours of the day. And then I can just   not goof off, but just do other things.   Let other things. Yeah, let us in time. But if you do the first three hours, let's say it's a work context. Let's say you do the first 3 hours, 9 to 12,   and you don't get fucking shit done. Like, you don't do anything. Like, you focus in on doing this. Let's say use a just say it's mathematics. And you're like, I've got to work on this equation. I've got to get this done by the end, maybe end of day, end of the week for this thing. You put 3 hours of focus and you get fucking shit all done.   Yeah. And then you are cool. I'm just gonna goof off for the rest. Now, I'll tell you right now, there's lots of people that'd be like, they'll be fine with that. There'll be loads of people be like no kind what the hell that sounds like bullshit that's why I kind of go no the concept of focus   is a mirage because you will always   always overlay with some human   concept of   the outcome, the achievement, the what the hell are you actually doing it with.  

In that, yeah,   I think I think you can   maneuver the maneuver the focus   very distinctly unless someone can, unless you can like really quantify it down to something   in, like human body   stats or something else. I think it's just too difficult to   say practically that focus is a phenomenal thing.   If you so if we are saying, if you were to say that focus is such a like, oh, no. It is it is a concept that is   not not just useful, but something that you you would think about it or apply. I guess, I would put it this way. If you had a kid, kids 8 years old,   one, is focus going to generally be something that's genetically   gifted or something that is environmentally   or taught along the way? Again, my answer is probably more so the environmentally   taught aspect of it as opposed to just someone being genetically   gifted with more focus. Now, you could make comments that,   you know, if you're autistic or you've got certain attention spans,   that will that would deviate your ability to focus because if you've got a shortened amount of attention span, well, that's going to shorten the amount of focus that you probably have. So, okay, you can make that kind of concept,   but if you're going to transfer that as a skill, you're trying to teach someone how to be more focused.  

My answer wouldn't be trying to teach someone how to be more focused by telling them, oh, this is focus. I think it'll be more   attached to the human concept of   the outcome of reward of knowing what it is that you're going in to do   and having some way to verify and measure that you're actually doing it.   That which then gets me into like, oh, why wouldn't you just focus on that? Focus on that I suppose to focus on the concept of focus.  

[00:47:00] Kyrin Down:

I guess, like the way that I've termed it. Yeah, I just put it as the the higher level thing. You know, my advice   that I hesitate to call that advice, but   it's certainly more for people like me, it's like, you know, you're not going to be able in a standard 9 to 5, you're not going to be able to work from 9 until 12.   And then fuck off.   And be obviously   just enjoying the whims of   of whatever,   from 12 to 5, you know, your boss is probably gonna get up here and be like,   what the fuck are you doing? You know, this sort of thing. And even if you could show him like, look, statistically,   I get the same amount of work done as I used to using this new method, that'd be like,   here's like an extra 5 hours of work for you.  

So no, this is more for people who are a bit more self directed   and don't have those pressures   of, of life. It kind of got me thinking like, you know, when when I when I tell people that I'm like,   if I say that I'm retired to people, what what actually goes through their minds? Like, do they think like, holy fuck, this dude's really old. He's older than I thought, does it go like,   man, what a waste of space as a human being because he's, he's not contributing to society anymore.   Does it go like, wow, that's aspirational. I've been what a lucky guy. But does it you know, I don't know. It'd be rather interesting to know if I could like poll people.  

[00:48:21] Juan Granados:

What new models please send through to us and some sort of message or something.   And Karen says that what do you what do you   think?   Okay, try to put this because I don't think I could answer this question.   What is your focus in life?  

[00:48:38] Kyrin Down:

I don't know if that's a   helpful question focused in life.   I could I could answer   what are the thing how I use those kind of 3 hours a day   of focus?   I could answer that.   But focus in life, I guess that would just be like the  

[00:48:59] Juan Granados:

But I guess maybe there's part of   is it gonna get me more so I'll be out here because maybe I'm not gonna   to me that that question is stupid. Yeah.   Because I don't think that you can generally use   a as a normally thinking human.   There's a concept of lots of folks in life.   That doesn't really crystallize into anything practical as a human, I guess. For me, it's like,   if you'd ask it, maybe what are the things I want to achieve? What are the outcomes?   That's probably a little bit easier. That makes a little bit more sense, especially if you've thought about it and sat down because the focus of your things or   the attention that you have and the because, okay, I'm not saying that focus doesn't exist. I'm not saying the concept doesn't exist. I'm saying the concept exists, but at the realm of a human, it's stupid to think about it. So, you have your attention   and you have a subset of that, which is the focus that you lean towards something, but it is the something that you are leaning towards that actually matters in the conversation. So,   if I'd asked you, what are some of the outcomes you have in life? I think that would be an easier answer around like, well, you could have your handsets and you have financial independence, all these sort of things. When you ask someone the question of what's the focus in your life? I think it's a little bit more of a struggle just because it's a more  

[00:50:11] Kyrin Down:

theoretical concept. Yeah, that's that's a time spent thing. If you ask someone, you know, what's your focus for the next hour? I think that's a reasonable question. That's a good point. You'd or what's your point for today? Or?   Yeah, when it when it gets to that long, it's   it's a bit out there and which gets  

[00:50:27] Juan Granados:

is focus for the next hour and the outcome over the next hour. Not going to give you the same answer.  

[00:50:33] Kyrin Down:

No, not necessarily. Because that that kind of can be   my focus for the next hour could be   you know, listening to a, an AI podcast to understand to try and understand something. Okay. So the outcome is that you try and understand something about it. Yeah. And which I might not. And then,   you know, it's helpful to have both of them in mind.   I guess.  

[00:50:57] Juan Granados:

That's good. That's good.   And that's maybe okay.   You've spun me around. Okay, maybe, maybe focusing on a short domain makes sense. Because it because focus is probably more the  

[00:51:07] Kyrin Down:

you can have that the outcome, what do you actually want to get? But then how are you going to get it? That's probably more the focus aspect.   What are you actually going to do to try and get that thing? That's that's more like the direct once again, the directing? Yeah. Okay. No, okay.  

[00:51:21] Juan Granados:

I'll go   the the shorter that makes maybe that that is a reasonable concept to use. Okay.  

[00:51:28] Kyrin Down:

So one one responded to this post, which a dude   put on x. And it was about Lex Fridman's routine and how  

[00:51:36] Juan Granados:

he, how he managed to get a lot of focus and deep work done today. I always think all that it's always so bullshit. When I read some of these things, I'm like, I don't know. Again, is it every day?  

[00:51:47] Kyrin Down:

Just give it a quick brief   info of what  

[00:51:51] Juan Granados:

the routine was. It was it was and look, I'm not saying that this is not not doable. I just don't think that it is largely true in some ways. But I believe it was it was something along the lines of wake up   early. It was wake up early go straight into about of 4 hours of deep work. No, no, no. So first he had spent  

[00:52:12] Kyrin Down:

like 10 minutes.  

[00:52:14] Juan Granados:

Sorry, no, 10 minutes ago. And he was like, yeah,   ideas and stuff like that.   I think there was the   ice bath in the morning, something to that effect, then then 4 hours of deep work,   then   food and training,   then another 4 hours of deep work, then some sort of break for something and then another extra 2 hours of deep work. That eats once a day or just meals. Yeah, something's that effect. So  

[00:52:41] Kyrin Down:

you notice how those and the funny thing about it was like,  

[00:52:45] Juan Granados:

all the comments were, of course, just like, oh, yeah, wonderful. Well, how great like, this is so amazing. And he had his own comments of, you know,  

[00:52:53] Kyrin Down:

deep work is important to Lex because blah, blah, blah, blah, eating once a day is important to Lex because blah, blah, blah, blah,   blah. And you know, you looked at this, this just like one thing and you're   okay, there's nothing in there about any other people. So   obviously Lex is on his own this entire time.   Doesn't talk anything about bowel movements. So he obviously doesn't shit. Or maybe he does it when he's powerlifting fucking who knows. That's that's how Lex Fredman goes to the gym. You heard it here first on the mere model.   It's   it's just I would be surprised if Lex ever had a day like that. So ever in his life had a day that was exactly as described.  

And if it was, he'd probably be like, fucking burnt out and just be like, Jesus Christ, that was the worst day of my life. No, well, no, this is the thing. So I've been I'm on  

[00:53:42] Juan Granados:

towards Taylor now the newer Elon Musk book by Walt Isaacson.   And it came out in bloody 2023. And dude,   the amount I'm assuming of things have already happened since that book, it's just crazy. Like, yeah. But reading some of the stuff that Elon and Lee now, he's autistic   and his ability to interact and the way that he deals with things is pretty, like, nuts. This is, I'm not recommending that this is a good thing, but you know how like that was that,   mention of what like starts on the day and whatnot.   The   the example daylight day of Elon on maybe back in there, maybe not like this anymore, but what it was just seems   absurd to the entire. Is it like chaotic, wouldn't it? Oh, it's chaotic, but, like, absurd in that he would have I think in the part that I was reading,   they were having   daily   meetings for the Raptor engine for SpaceX from 8 till 10 PM, and that started shifting back to 11 PM to 1 AM. That was every day, including of weekends. And then after that, you'd have another couple of hours of, like, reviewing Tesla and a few other things. And then I would go to, like, 7 in the morning, and then he'd started looking at when he was buying Twitter and all this sort of stuff. So,   like obviously they're obviously nuts like it's just crazy stuff   and do you look at that as like wow this dude is super focused   I don't know if is if you'd like   I   noted his focus as opposed to just   like sheer brutality of doing a lot of things. Yeah, it's just Yeah.  

But even in that there wasn't I don't think there's 4 hours of deep work. Let's just say   I think I don't know. I don't know. It's it's   even the concept of like, when I've seen that, and I've seen it a couple of other people talk about human beings talks about other I'm sure played, we'll talk about the concept of deep work.   But if you do a bout of focused   for hours deep work, I still part of me goes,   like, when you call that.   If I was to say straight after this, I'm gonna do 4 hours of deep work. I guess you could in some domain, say practically, yes, I'm gonna focus on Deep Work for the next 4 hours. And I guess that does help in some regards because you would mean, okay, I'm gonna put my phone on do not disturb.   I'm gonna listen to music. I'm gonna try Pomodoro technique. I'm gonna try and do this, this, this, that, that, that, that to be focused for the next 4 hours.  

But I guess what's important for me would be well, yeah, but what the hell are you gonna try and achieve out of it? You know, you could be focused for the next 4 hours of porn. You know? So that seemed like   a a good achievement, a good outcome. Wow. Amazing. You know?   So I guess it's very much better what the outcome is that you're trying to achieve from that regard.   I would also say and I guess it's maybe maybe because focus has   some   some aspects to it that can be like tagged in with charlatans and a few other things. It's it's a dangerous concept   to be sold on   energy drinks or   again, I'm not Sebastian here with, the the idea of providing something that's going to help me focus. I'm not suggesting that it might not ensue in helping out some of these things, but I think you can get caught up in   what is   the concept of focus   with the missing piece of action. So   does it?  

Criticalism, that does when I went to go see him. I heard it before, but when he said it in person, I was like, oh, yeah, this this kind of course, I hadn't I've said a couple of   this. There's listening   to us talk about in the podcast mean doing the podcast?   I still doing that thing. Does me researching for the podcast mean doing the podcast?   No. It isn't that. Does me, you know,   going and getting particular lessons to do a podcast. Me doing a podcast. No.   Does that mean that, you know, if I was to say, oh, yeah. I'm really focused on doing a podcast   and I'm doing all these other things,   but I'm not doing the fucking podcast.  

Are you actually focused?  

[00:57:25] Kyrin Down:

Yeah.   Yeah. Good point. That's more.  

[00:57:28] Juan Granados:

So, it's like it's a very it's a very distinction of well, what's the action of the outcome that you're doing?   Where I think people and I'm saying more so I think you can get trapped into seeing something like what is this   god mode level of being focused every day like Alex Freeman   post yet. Yeah. And being sold on like that's what you should be doing if you wanna be as successful as these people, But I think the reality is all not that much that I don't think they focus on   focus itself.   I think they   focus on the optimization of what's important to them. What's priority? What they like? If I had to say probably realistically, what does LAIX do? He probably,   I think he does what he wants today. I think he trained and runs quite a lot. He does a lot of the focus work that he prioritized it and wants to optimize for and does a lot of the podcast. Right? I think that's less a sense of  

[00:58:19] Kyrin Down:

him wanting to be focused more sense of it. This is what's really important and what I really enjoy. I'm just gonna do it and point in on that. Yeah, what you described there was too much emphasis on the starting the directing the beginning and not enough on where you're actually going. You probably need to have I don't know, an equal mix of both. But certainly,   you want to know   where you're trying to go to as well, not just how you're gonna get that you don't just get in your car and   you very rarely do you get in your car and you're just like, I'm just gonna drive   for the next 5 hours until my fuel runs out. You know, you're probably gonna think like, it's okay, if you do that, but you want to end up somewhere where you can refill your car again. Otherwise, you're screwed.  

So   the other thing I was thinking was, yeah, focus isn't always good. We're gonna go to our friend Mitchell's place, Mitchell financial advice, Kuma   on on next Saturday.   I don't want to be focused there. Focus would be a detriment to me there. I want to have fun. I want to relax.   I want to be the kind of opposite of focused. I can just be myself. I'm around a whole bunch of people where I'm uncomfortable with being around. And so I don't have to focus on like, exactly what they're saying. It's okay. If I, you know, there's multiple conversations going on at the same time, it's probably going to be a little bit of chaos there. It's gonna be a dog. Yeah, little puppy running around as well, I imagine and chickens. So I'm going to put the dog in with the chickens and see if it will attack them.   Because they apparently they're not going to but   those chickens are dead. I will kill those chickens and blame it on the dog. And   that's one time where I don't really want to be focused. So it's, you know, obviously, you don't want focus all the time.  

Haven't really, I'll do my like, the final practical part of the podcast.   I have not found ways to increase the amount of focus,   k a, like deep learning, that type of thing, conscious directive   attention per day, I reckon it's around 1 to 3 hours. The only thing I've noticed is   rarely in the afternoons,   will it work for me where I can do that. So that's where I prefer to work out in the afternoons.   So 1 to   5, 6 ish. And then even after that, my brain has even more mush after that, from like 6 until   12 ish. So I don't try and do anything that requires   really deep attentive focus,   AKA, which is probably best used to learn things, to be honest.  

I try and do that all in the morning. So things which are related to language learning,   or research   of   whatever it is that I'm that I'm focusing on at the moment and, you know, go back to our monthly goals, and you'll see   why   we'll have our end kind of end states and things that we want to be focusing on.   That's, that's what I've done.   Technique wise Pomodoro, all that sort of stuff. I   think I've experimented with some of them, but I haven't really found nothing sticking   particularly other than   Yeah, it's probably better to have   a quiet space where you can focus on the thing that you want to focus on. Try and get less distractions   in that space as well. That's like, honestly,   I don't have a great amount of   practical,   you know, here's how you're going to change your life by   by learning how to focus more on this energy drinks and tonic and stuff.  

They don't really seem to do much for me that caffeine doesn't help me focus.  

[01:01:45] Juan Granados:

Yeah,  

[01:01:46] Kyrin Down:

I think it's great. It's great. That's that's  

[01:01:49] Juan Granados:

my takeaway. I think my money money goes my only part like actual practical   takeaway is   for me, I end up finding when   the discipline   is aligned with motivation.   It's a real powerful combo   of quote unquote being focused. So example yesterday, you were saying 13 hours. I think it was focused.   Basically, like, 7 PM to 10 PM   doing things,   like, that you would, I guess, define as needing to be focused in. Talked about contracts, running to things, doing whatever, read for an hour, that type of thing. I was focused. I wasn't distracted. I wasn't doing other things.   It was easy for me to do so. I think it was partly the discipline of a lot of things combined with the motivation. Like, I really wanted to do it as well. So that kind of combined in one just made it superbly easy. I've had   days that doesn't happen often. I've definitely had days where I probably said   8 hours of focus work, 10 hours of focus work, easy, like easy easy easy   because I'm but it has to be an alignment of motivation and discipline. If it's a   some sort of broken up modality of that or because I'm having to go and do something then   yeah it's an absolute   bullbuster to try and kind of connect those 2. So as long as I tend to connect those it's good   We're and that's probably why for me music does help connect that in that there are there are some   joys or motivational aspects of music  

[01:03:11] Kyrin Down:

that will help me engage into whatever I'm doing to be more focused. But that's the only thing I would say. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the other thing would be okay. So you've only got 1 to 3 hours a day of focus.   Fuck me, nothing much work done. But it's like, no, you can do tonnes of work, but it's just going to be the what I call would call out like loaning out of consciousness.   I'm just I'm just gonna, you know, sweep the house or I'm gonna vacuum or for me putting music in is more of like a dulling thing. Like it just it's just like kind of background noise maybe gets into my gamma wave brain states or something where it turns off my brain and they turn into more of a zombie or robot. And yeah, you know, like, yesterday, I was waiting for my brother was bored and I just got out of rake and I started like cleaning the   and a brush and I cleaned out the garage. You know,   I wasn't focusing, I would not call that focus.  

But I got something done and it made it improve the house. You know, it made things better. And the universe was better. Because I put some order into it.  

[01:04:10] Juan Granados:

Entropy.   That's the true definition of your fight fighting back against entropy. Correct. And you're focusing putting energy towards   stopping the universe   from going into chaos. Yeah, yeah. That's that's basically Alright, I've saved the I've saved the universe. Yeah. If you're saving the universe in some way, you are indeed focused to be immortalized. That is our takeaway for today. Brilliant.   Good. Okay. Well, thank you very much for joining me in more than last. I don't know if there's any chat messages that came through while we're we lost focus. We lost focus. I didn't see any.  

[01:04:40] Kyrin Down:

I lost it'll bring out. We'll have a quick look. Yes. Lucas, we have a new hand balance here. Karen, Juan is getting in the thing. Let's go. Alright. Thank you, Lucas.  

[01:04:49] Juan Granados:

What? He just said, Juan, it's getting the thing. Let's go. Juan's getting the thing. He's getting it. You know what what it is? What I'm following in it. Okay, baby.   Although,   maybe maybe he's actually referring to the some of the handstand work I've been putting up on. Oh, yeah. He probably is actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They've been getting pretty good. They've been getting pretty good. Nice. I'm still I've only   this is not a brag call because,   I know the type of handstands, but I've got my   back in my 1 22nd handstand on again. Nice. This was of course, you know, in between Banana. One second handstands.   Yeah. They're always banana. I think they're always gonna be banana depending on how much they say banana. But the it's starting to feel good. It's starting to feel good. I was able to do,   on the wall against the wall.  

So it's kind of it's still a curve. I was able to do like fingertip hole and I can only do it with my   right hand being the dominant, left hand being the the finger hole, but again, maybe 10 seconds, 50 seconds, something like that. So I was like, I was feeling good.   If I   could get my balance right, okay. So, I'm going to call this out right now. I think I would be able to easily do the strength needed for a 1 arm handset like there is no doubt in my mind. It's   just the balance, the balance I've got to get right and   maybe my other practical tip is I found   that I'm actually better not on like concrete, but on a little bit of grassiness.  

You know, the type of gym. Well, you can kind of grip it, I guess. Man, that is just a nominal I can really balance well and that sort of stuff. I can kind of move myself around and it feels kind of good. Should get together sometime and you can try on one of my blocks because you can you just fall on grip the thing. Yeah, you get you get in every direction.   Can't give me the heebie jeebusy good thoughts.   But today has been focused. Me more or less if you got any thoughts, comments, ideas,   you want to tell Karen where he's wrong or correct, feel free to send them through in all the various ways. Yep. We are we are live here. Joey Seth Comedy also just popped in said hola. Hola. Thank you, Joey. Much appreciated. Well, you're good, sir.  

[01:06:42] Kyrin Down:

Yeah. So live here. 9 a. M. Australian Eastern Standard Time on a Sunday.   Value for value. You know, share the show with someone who you think would enjoy it. Leave us a comment on what you think. Kyren's,   you know, freaking what what do you think of Kyren's retirement and him saying that is he a waste of space? Is he a god? Is he somewhere in between? Who knows?   And then also get jumping on to mere modestpodcast.com/support.   And we've got a couple of different ways that you can support us financially as well, which is very much appreciated.  

[01:07:13] Juan Granados:

We'll leave it at me more. Thank you very much for tuning in. Or if you're listening to this afterwards as well, be well wherever you are in the world. Yep. 1 out.