Sleep is your superpower by Matt Walker
TED Talks Daily
10
Alexandra Andrews: ...that you need to do a lot of grunt work to get to the good stuff
Nobody Told Me!
Matt Walker: I did whatever I wanted to do
On this episode, we welcome adventure entrepreneur and author Matthew Walker to the program. Matt is a behavioral scientist and adventure expedition leader who works with people to take the lessons learned from adventuring and apply them to the everyday challenges we face. Matt is the author of Adventure in Everything: How the Five Elements of Adventure Create a Life of Authenticity, Purpose, and Inspiration. His work has been featured on CBS and NPR and in USA Today and Psychology Today, among others.
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Key Smash Notes In This Episode
It’s what brings vitality and engagement in our lives. It’s important to have routines and some normalized behavior. Adventure is what brings out the best in us.
A classic form of adventures includes storytellers that can catapult us. He believes that the moments that truly define us come from adventures.
High endeavor, uncertain outcome, total commitment, tolerance for adversity, and great companionship. Addressing all five of these is when our values create max internal alignment.
When we force ourselves into new environments, that’s when learning really takes place, and where the patterns of behavior are so obvious.
Walker suggests for someone to practice small local adventures. There are certain things you pass by that you have never experienced. It starts with having more curiosity to open us up to different ways to look at our communities.
It’s easy for humans to go into a place of shame due to those emotional experiences. Hard resets are ways that we can start over with new practices with a clean slate. We give ourselves permission to continually keep trying.
There’s a tool that's divided into four elements that Walker recommends for people to incorporate. He urges people to start small by doing one behavior per category each day for 30 days straight.
He wants people to be super clean and clear by getting all of their verbiage and story out of the way. In doing so, people will be really clear about who they are and what they're doing in the world to help them see if they are aligning their values and life.
Walker states how easy it is for us to be stuck in patterns. The plan is acknowledge, reflect, and plan. He does not recommend people to do all three in one sitting because it’s better done over time and to work with others so you are held accountable.
It’s the way that we move in the world that is far more important than the actual accomplishment that we create.
Nobody told him that he could still do whatever he wanted to do. He grew up where he had to follow a direction in order to move through the world. The space of creation is limitless.