Practice Session #5

Thanks for checking out my show notes! I’ll be utilizing this to clarify and elaborate on points that I didn’t convey as well as I would’ve liked to. I’ll also provide links to further information and resources.

I’ll be interspersing all of this with the transcription from the audio, which will be displayed like this:

Intro.

[00:00]

CK: Okay. There you go. All right, here we go. Heyo! I’m CK and you’re listening to Practice. I’m your functional systems integrator, and this is my podcast where practice is not just the theme of this show, but also the whole purpose behind it. I’m using this platform to practice podcasting and just speaking in general while espousing half-thoughts and providing unsolicited advice.

So I’ll be talking about my experience with this process along with various lifestyle practices as well as theories and ideas behind the virtue of practice itself. I tend to talk a lot about science and philosophies, especially around complex systems and mindset. So hope you’ll find some interest in that.

And as always, we’re here with my Practice partner and partner in life, Pam.

Pam: Hey, everybody.

CK: And for more information about this whole process and project and detailed show notes. Checkout ForcesOfEqual.com/Practice.

The latest on my podcasting practice.

[00:59]

CK: So we’re here, back, it’s another week. Today is Sunday, March 29th, 2020 and this is our fifth recording session and things are just rolling along and, you know, it’s kind of slow going. I actually haven’t- I don’t know if anyone’s even listened to these episodes yet, but I finally got around to publishing the first three, which I’ve designated as my warmup episodes.

So those are out there in the wild. I haven’t really publicized them, so I don’t even know if anyone’s listened to them yet or not. And I was hoping to get last week’s episode published before we started today’s session, but, you know, things got pushed back and other things happened and other priorities came up. So we’re pushing that back once again.

But now I am getting the workflow down and I have a lot of the basic processes and tools that I need to use settled. So things are going to be churning up- churning out much faster in the upcoming weeks. And I’m thinking I’ll be able to get these- this episode and the previous episode up this coming week, hopefully within the next day or two. And then from there, I think I- I’ll be all caught up and I’ll be able to do this on a more timely basis and release these episodes as they happen or more closely to when they happen.

So the goal is to release ’em the day after we record the session. And eventually I may get to a point where I’ll be able to release them the day of recording. I’m not sure how that’s working out, so I’m thinking I could release them the day of recording and then work on the show notes and have those available within the next day or two after recording because the- it takes a bit of time… I have to listen back through that episode and kind of correct some of the transcription and add my own commentary and links to additional resources and stuff like that. And I don’t know if I necessarily want to do that after these sessions because this is my weekend and I want to enjoy the weekends, so we’ll see how that goes.

But those are my thoughts for now. And what do you think about that, Pam?

Trying to mitigate my severe optimism bias.

[03:28]

Pam: Um, I think that it brings up a really good point, which is that everything takes longer than you think it’s going to. So we’ve talked about like every week that you’re like, okay, and I’m going to publish. And the idea of publishing, you look at it and you go, okay, I just have to like push a button or whatever.

But when you’re learning something new, you have no idea what actually goes into that new thing that you’re doing. And like every little step, you’re like, you uncover something else. Oh, I have to do that first. I have to do that first.

And it can get really frustrating. Because you keep like, you’re like, I just want to get this thing done, and there’s all these roadblocks, or like new things that you hadn’t anticipated and, and that it’s really important to understand that, especially at the beginning of a new process, everything is going to take longer than you think it’s going to. And that’s totally normal and totally natural.

CK: Yeah, that’s such a great point and I’m glad you brought that up because I wanted to mention. Just that, actually, and how I personally know that I have an- a severe optimism bias.

Pam: Yes.

CK: So, yeah, I- I- the way I plan things out, I know that I tend to think that I’ll get things done a lot sooner than I actually do. So in my work I’ve learned to work that in, and I’ve kind of found that things tend to take five times longer than I usually think they do with my work. Which sounds like a lot, but once I started incorporating that mindset and giving clients a more accurate timeframe for things that I was totally inaccurate about before, it’s made things a lot easier in terms of the client management, in one aspect.

And then of course in another aspect, the way that I proceed with my work and you know, I- I don’t get hung up on the timeline and having to spend time on something or having to rush something because, you know, I set this unrealistic timeline for myself. So with my work, I’ve learned to incorporate the 5X longer rule and it’s worked and it’s actually kind of crossed over to this, where this took pretty much five times longer than I thought it would to release.

You know, cause I thought I’d get the first episode out within the first week that I recorded, and now we’re on the fifth session. So. I mean, it’s pretty accurate with my patterns. So something to think about there. Yeah.

So yeah, I mean, if you are aware of certain biases and patterns of thought that you fall into, it’s great to be aware of that and be mindful of that because then you can adjust your thinking or adjust the way that you process things. Or even zooming out further than that, kind of adjust maybe the things around you to remind yourself of how you go about these things in an unrealistic or irrational manner so that you can put certain things in place or reminders or cues in place to keep you alert about these tendencies and then you can adapt appropriately from there.

So you know, whether it’s like a sticky note somewhere to remind yourself to remember these kinds of things, or something else about your environment to kind of interrupt your patterns and change up or kind of force you to realize or think a different way is always good in terms of getting you out of certain habits that you might not be aware that you’re falling into. Does that make sense?

Pam: It does. That’s good advice. I think, um, being aware and making conscious decisions to change your patterns is super important. And along the- like hand in hand with that is just giving yourself a little grace, like not getting frustrated with yourself when things do take longer, especially when you’re learning a new thing.

Maintaining perspective throughout the process.

[07:57]

CK: Right, exactly. And that’s the other thing is all this is brand new to me. And you know, I’ve never recorded a podcast before, or, I mean, we’ve done some recording sessions and stuff like that, but you know, I’ve never published a podcast before. And so I’m learning the software and the workflow and best practices.

And you know, I’m developing the website and figuring out how to format the content. And then I’m also doing the music for it, or trying to do the music for it. So with these first three warmup episodes I released, you know, I was really hoping to be able to, to create some intro and outro music for it. And on that side of the coin. I’m learning all new instruments.

So it’s a total departure from what I know of music before where I guess you could say I was more of an analog music player. You know, I played instruments like a saxophone and guitar. And you know, it may be an electric guitar, but it’s still hardware, kind of on the analog side of the spectrum, or you know, the piano or the drums.

And now I’m trying to learn to play music electronically and the production side of it and sampling and sequencing and learning these digital audio workstation (DAW) software and stuff like that. So I’m learning so many new things and having to do that in order to produce this podcast. And so I have to remember to consider all that and realize that, you know, this is stuff that I don’t know. Like I- I don’t know what I’m doing.

So kind of getting over the mindset of, you know, I, I can’t publish or be putting stuff out there if it’s like half done or unfinished or unpolished is an interesting process. It’s an interesting part of this journey, because we’ve talked about many times before already that I’ve been stuck in a preparation mode and haven’t gotten into action. But now that I- I am, and you know, I have the first episodes published and out there, it’s totally changed my mindset. And like, I’m much more comfortable now of where I am and how I’m going about things and how I present things to the outside world.

And just the mentality that I had and creating things and the potential of other people consuming it. So I don’t know exactly how to verbalize my feelings or mindset around this, but I think I’ve stumbled onto something really beneficial here in terms of just this whole process with this podcast in terms of getting myself to kind of talk more on the fly and, you know, with the notion of other people hearing me and just putting myself out there and you know, all those things.

It’s just a- it’s all new to me and now it’s- it’s fun for me and the whole process. Like if I was thinking about this- the way I would’ve been thinking about this like four or five weeks ago is a lot different from how I’m thinking about it now.

And even now, like even coming into this today for this session, I’m a lot less anxious about talking and what I’m going to talk about. And a lot of that has to do with, uh, having done these sessions for the past couple of weeks and putting in the practice. So I mean, this whole thing has been so beneficial and I hope that I’m able to convey that well enough so that other people can take something away from this and hopefully help themselves in a similar fashion or some other way that this whole process sparks.

Pam: Me too.

Functional Systems Integration.

[12:39]

CK: So in the introduction, you may have mentioned (⁉️ I meant noticed. 😬) me saying that I’m a functional systems integrator, and I want to kind of clarify what that is

Pam: Yes, please.

CK: I made it up so I’m not even sure exactly what it is, but it’s- so do you know anything about this at all, Pam?

Pam: Uh, no. When you said those three words, I was like, “Okay, cool. CK made up something.”

CK: So yeah, so this is what I do. Like I’m all fascinated with language and stuff. Like I mentioned before, and complex systems is a big thing. And like when I- when people ask me what I do for work and stuff like that, it’s so difficult for me to answer that because there’s, like, I do a lot of different things and I’ve done a lot of different things. And to me it’s more about how I do things, because the things that I do kind of span a bunch of different industries.

So functional systems integrator- integration is something that I kind of made up to encompass what I do. And it’s- I’m not necessarily expecting it to be like a mainstream title or anything like that. It’s just- I want to get that idea out there and it has a lot to do with…

So how I define it right now is: it’s a philosophy that encompasses the complex systems of progressing toward ideal outcomes in any situation in a practical and efficient manner.

And there’s a lot of points that go into that. And I have this written out on my personal website cKdisco.com/fsi for functional systems integration. And so you can check it out there, but I’ll go through the points real quick. Uh, there’s more explanation on that page that I just mentioned, but I surmise the following to be the foundational qualities that make for a functional systems integrator, and those are: exploratory curiosity, conceptual proficiency, contextual relativity, experiential diversity, situational variability, and sustainable adaptability.

And it all goes into seeing things from a systems perspective. So I’d mentioned complex systems before and how things don’t just occur in a vacuum. There’s a lot of different things that affect it and many variables that you have to consider.

And so it has a lot to do with comp- considering systems and taking a strategic- uh, strategic, like a longer term strategic view of things instead of, you know, immediate- immediate gratification per se, or, you know, immediate results.

It’s a more systematic, strategic view on longterm effects. So…

Pam: So it’s more- more holistic.

CK: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, yeah, you can read about all that stuff more on cKdisco.com/fsi and I, you know, it’s just- I want to try to clear up how I think or you know, that’s like- I have so much trouble like explaining how I think about things, even in terms of the work I do.

And that’s only because, well, one reason is because I have been lacking in the interactions that I’ve had, I guess, over the past few years in terms of me being more reserved with my communication. So that, you know, that’s a big reason I want to do this practice is to be more comfortable with speaking and conversing.

All language is metaphor.

[16:51]

CK: And so, yeah, I want to do that. And one of the reasons is I want to be able to convey my thoughts and. Like I was saying what I do and how I do it in a more informative or understandable manner, and I, you know, want to be understood in order to offer perspective and interface with the world. So, uh, yeah. I don’t know if I

Pam: We need to start with you not saying interface with the world.

CK: there’s a reason for that language. But you know, we, uh, I’m sure we’ll be getting into that a lot more as time goes on. But you know, the whole thing, like, I like, I like to philosophize around language because that’s the way we, that’s the main way that we communicate with each other. But the thing is, if you think about it.

Oh, language in some sense is metaphor. Like if you think about it on a spectrum, the way that you communicate something is the way it, first of all, it goes through your own filter of cognition. So it’s goes through the filter of how you think about it. So it’s not necessarily how it is. It’s how you perceive it to be.

So you’re trying to by, let’s say, by talking about something, you’re trying to convey that in terms of how there’s something relates to you. So it’s not necessarily exactly what that’s something is that something could be different to someone else. So it’s not necessarily a hundred percent fact or truth.

on a spectrum of how that’s filtered through your thoughts.

in that sense is what I’m thinking of in terms of how language is metaphor, like all languages metaphor.

So I don’t know if I express that accurately the enough or if that makes total sense. But I think the whole thing I’m trying to say here is that.

We get, we could get confused or, or you know, if we take everything someone says is fact or you know, without like considering why they’re saying it or how that was filtered through them in order for them to convey it that way, then, you know, we could fall into a cycle of. Metaphorical information that gets further and further away from the actual reality or the truth or the fact,

Pam: And there’s, there’s also the layer of, um, your. Perspective and your perception that you are, um, projecting onto what they said. So on both sides, there’s no fact. There’s no truth.

CK: Yeah. There’s that too. Like that opens up a whole other perspective of it.

Pam: Next time on practice.

Language flexing.

[20:27]

CK: Yeah. Well, I mean, this is stuff that I think about. So right now I’m so interested in language that I’m learning Korean. I’m learning Latin. Uh, I don’t think you know this, but I’m also learning Hebrew.

Pam: I did not know that

CK: Yeah. Um, but I don’t know…That’s- it’s really hard.

Pam: You’re not learning Spanish anymore.

CK: Uh, I have that, uh, I’m not actively learning it right now. I’m waiting to finish one level of Latin and then maybe I’ll go back to Spanish. I also have German in there too, but I’m not actively doing that. But, you know, I’m learning these different languages and I’m also looking at music as a form of language.

So with all the stuff I’m learning about music, that’s all going into it too. So yeah, I’m totally fascinated with how language is shaping our thoughts. And so that’s just kind of, you know, that’s going to come up a lot during these podcasts and hopefully I’ll be able to convey my perspectives and ideas on that a little better as time goes on.

But yeah, I mean, if anybody out there has any questions or interesting insights on language, throw them at us, it’d be loved. I’d love to hear all that. Any, anything around that kind of stuff.

Let’s try an example of cross-functional strategies.

[21:39]

CK: So let’s see. I guess. Uh, all of this is just kind of an example of my interdisciplinary system strategy, mindset.

So like, uh, in terms of complex systems and the way that I work, it’s more of how I work, and how I think about things in systems terms or strategic terms. And that’s kind of like the foundation of how I think. And then I can take that across any discipline. So you know, every- and you can apply systems and strategies to anything really.

And it’s all about like different perspectives and variables and then just seeing different levels of things and how everything affects something instead of something being like binary or whatnot.

I wrote a little note down here. I’m not sure exactly how accurately this will relate to what I’m talking about, but hopefully to give a picture to people about this thought process: we were watching This is Us, the TV show on NBC this- a couple days ago. And… great show. We love it. It’s awesome. You guys should check it out if you don’t watch it. But it’s a very well done drama, is it, would you say?

Pam: Yeah. Drama.

CK: Drama, like it’s a family drama

Pam: I definitely cry a lot.

CK: Yeah, it intersperses the timeline really well of the past, present- past and present, and I don’t know if it’s future or just… more present. But yeah, it’s a great show. Check it out. This is Us. I think it’s on NBC.

But Randall, one of the main characters… It’s a show about a family, and there’s three siblings. And Randall, one of the siblings, he goes to therapy because he’s having a ton of anxiety about life. And you know, I’m not going to tell you guys everything about the show, but- So he goes to therapy and he’s a very smart, very Type A, you know, he’s on- he’s gotta be on top of everything.

Pam: Control freak.

CK: Yeah. He’s a total control freak. And so he’s in therapy trying to calm- curb his anxiety and he keeps interrupting the therapist, or kind of doing his own self-analysis and kind of throwing that back at the therapist.

And you know, as therapists do, she’s taking it and she’s calm and she finally comes back at him and tells him that, you know, her job is basically just comes down to two things. It’s making observations and asking questions. And I was like, Oh my God! Like, so I’m a very first principles thinker, and so I’m like: Oh man, first principles of therapy – that makes so much sense! Making observations and asking questions.

And then that immediately flashed me over to Chris Voss’s Masterclass on negotiation. And Chris Voss, he was a former FBI negotiator and he has this Masterclass and it’s awesome. He just talks about the different theories and practices for negotiating, and he now he does this for businesses and like CEOs and stuff like that. And his two fundamental principles of negotiation are labeling and mirroring.

And labeling is basically making observations, and mirroring is asking questions. And so I notice how these elements of therapy and negotiation totally crossover in there. You know, in terms of first principles, it’s the same strategy. And so that’s kind of- I guess that’s kind of an example of how I notice patterns, I guess you could say… and these systems across different disciplines.

So I don’t know, does that kind of clear up my, the way I think.

Pam: I don’t know if it clears anything up, but it, um, it shows how, uh, there’s so much in life that we maybe complicate or, um, think of as a unique situation or a specific job or a specific task or skill and that at the- at the baseline there’s very few things that we as humans actually do, and that the same things- the same patterns happen over and over again in all of these different jobs and all of these different skills and all these different interactions, were like doing the same thing over and over again just in different ways.

CK: Right. Yeah, and I guess. My thing is noticing these patterns and- and, you know, and while there may be patterns that are similar, one discipline may be more advanced or have a different way of going about that pattern. And that could inform the other discipline of possibly how to proceed in a better way or, you know, think about things differently.

So that’s what I like doing. I like seeing these patterns in the systems and seeing how they can improve and significant, improve something across- in a different discipline or a different system or something like that.

Pam: It’s really funny that you bring this up today and this is what we’re talking about because as I was changing the sheets this morning, I was thinking about how there’s this idea that when you get better at anything. You get better at everything. Kind of like developing new skills in a completely different area makes you better at other things in your life.

You could like learn an instrument and something that you learn from that, whether it’s that you need to practice or you know, whatever it is you, you learn a skill, but at the same time you are learning processes and systems that you bring over into other areas of your life and that all learning benefits your entire life.

Back on the podcasting process and some logistics.

[28:23]

CK: Yeah, totally. And that kind of goes into… like I- I so want to talk about complex systems and hierarchies and where that kind of falls under, but we’ll have to save that for a later time ’cause I can’t believe I’ve just been talking for almost half an hour already.

And so I wanted to keep these episodes to about half an hour and I still kind of do. But this one… I cut the last one a little short… I still had more to talk about. So this one I’m just going to keep going for now. But I think, you know, moving forward, I still want to try to keep ’em to half an hour.

Unless, you know, I get feedback and you guys want to hear more. But what I’m thinking now is, you know, I have a lot more stuff that I want to talk about, and moving forward I’ll try to keep it to half an hour and maybe if I have more to talk about, then I’ll figure out some way to share it like throughout the week, like on social media or something like that.

Pam: Can we just take a second to appreciate that everything takes longer than you think that it will,

CK: Well, I mean, I dunno for this if I thought it’d take longer than it, I thought it, uh, yeah. I don’t know. It’s-

Pam: Oh, no. But that you have a plan. You had a plan for the show and we’ve gotten through a third of it.

CK: Right, right. But I think this part might be more a factor of it. Me being worried about not having enough to talk about. So I kind of maybe overprepared. But, you know, I- it’s kind of become really easy to prepare for the next episode because as I go through the transcript and create the show notes for the previous episode, it just totally automatically informs me about what I want to talk about on the next episode.

And like, I found that. I don’t want to wait so long- or it’s hard to wait a whole week to have to talk about- to be able to talk about this stuff. So I think it might work out where I’ll share some stuff throughout the week as I go along and hit like maybe the bigger points during these episodes. So that’s just what I’m thinking now.

If you guys have any suggestions, feel free to let me know. But, yeah, we’re keeping everything agile and adapting on the fly. So it’s the name of the game here.

On discussing the current outbreak.

CK: And what I want to touch on now is the whole coronavirus pandemic. And I touched on that last week if you listened to that episode, and you may have noticed my hesitation to talk about the current state of affairs around the world.

But now I think it makes perfect sense for it to inform the direction of my talking points for this podcast, because, you know, we’re all in it now. And everybody, it’s, you know, basically on the top of everybody’s minds. And I know that you may want to get away from it all, but for me, my big thing with this whole podcast is to perpetuate knowledge toward happiness and fulfillment.

Yet that’s not with just my own knowledge base, but more so through the feedback mechanisms of participating in contributing to society through this podcast. So for me, it all comes down to feedback from interactions and the whole social aspect.

And this external feedback can come in various forums and they provide stimulus that we can respond to. So I’m talking about like- Oh man, I don’t know how deep I want to get into this, but basically I’m just talking about energy when it all comes down to it, and energy in all forms is basically feedback that you experience.

So energy in the environment, per se, which could include, you know, whether it’s just energy from chemicals or air or the earth. Uh, energy from your environment can also include other humans and how they affect your senses and thoughts, your perceptions and thoughts, your cognition and your actions. And then further down the line, your tendencies.

So you know, all this feedback that you get from your environment can place different pressures on you and influence you in ways that could produce a variety of responses like where you set your boundaries for certain things or how you proceed with your next actions. So as they say, true character is revealed in the choices humans make under pressure. So that pressure, whether it’s adversity, like temptation or a crisis like the current pandemic, it kind of forces us to think about things differently.

And you know, if there’s the mentality of scarcity that kind of reveals your innate human characteristics in how you’re going to behave. Does that make sense?

Pam: yes.

CK: Was that, was I being pedantic there?

Pam: Um, no. I think that, uh, you’re making a lot of assumptions about what people know as far as like a scarcity mindset and how that impacts the way we behave.

I can barely make sense of what I said there. I just kind of threw a whole bunch of stuff out and it sounded like almost complete sentences. I talk to Pam about this kind of stuff a lot, so she knows what I was trying to say, but I need to be able to articulate this better.

[34:00]

CK: Right? Yeah, it’s a- so I don’t know how deep we want to get into that kind of stuff. But there, you know- so all of this is my opinion, and I just want to put it out there to give people a perspective on things. And I feel like it’s a perspective that’s not publicized very much, if at all. And so what I’m talking about are like my perspectives around human behavior and behavioral economics and why people are behaving the way they’re doing right now.

And like in terms of like abundance and scarcity, it’s a mindset where you know, you think you need to have this, and there’s not as much of it out there, so you need to do whatever you can to get it. Or, you know, you have so much- or in terms of abundance, you have so much of something that you know you’re satisfied and you don’t need anything else so you know, you go about life in that respect.

But I mean. Today, we’re living in the most abundant era of human history in terms of like the food that’s available to us and the shelter, and like life is so easy for us right now, relatively speaking. I mean, if you think about our ancestors, or even a hundred years ago, or even…

How old are we now?

Pam: 40.

But even like 20, 30 years ago when we didn’t have cell phones, like,

Pam: Or the internet.

CK: Yeah, like if you think about that and how much we have now, you’ll start developing a totally different mindset in terms of abundance and scarcity. So, for example, right now, everybody’s kind of going crazy over toilet paper.

If you can imagine cavemen going crazy over toilet paper, like- a, I don’t know if I want to go down this road, but

Pam: Well that we’re so far away from our basic needs and understanding that. We, we have everything that we actually need and that we got so far away from that, that this idea of a pandemic put people into a tailspin over toilet paper.

CK: Right. Yeah. Like… God forbid I have to…

Pam: Use a Kleenex.

CK: …or even like a magazine, a newspaper. I mean, come on. We’ve all done that, done that before and…

Pam: I don’t want to know.

CK: I don’t think I have, but just the collective “we.” But yeah, I’m just saying like, think about what’s really important for you and what you actually need, and then think about people who don’t even have that stuff.

Yeah, I think this is a useful time to think and think from a different perspective or broaden your perspective.

And you know, things might not get back to where they were a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago. So, you know, this could be closer to our new normal than not. Hopefully not. But I mean, this isn’t the last time a pandemic’s gonna spread. So, uh, I mean, it- I don’t know that for sure, but the way things are going, it doesn’t look that way.

Pam: The scientists say that they will probably become more frequent. So, but it gives us an opportunity to, um, well, it’s forcing us into an opportunity to rethink how we think about our resources and our neighbors and people who don’t have as much as we have and how that- how that affects us. So it’s, it can, it can still actually be a little bit of a selfish mindset.

So you’re thinking about like, I need to take care of those people who don’t have as much as I do because if they get sick, I get sick. But it’s- it’s a- it drives us into more of a community mindset.

CK: Exactly. Yeah. I love that. That’s a good point.

And I also want to touch on language here with the whole social distancing thing. Like I just don’t like that terminology at all because we don’t want to distance ourselves socially. Like we still want to be social. And the thing is, like I was saying before, in terms of the abundance we have now. Like back in the day there, there was a time when we didn’t have phones at all, and in order to communicate we had to walk miles, you know?

Pam: You’re send a letter and wait a week for a response.

CK: Yeah. Or send smoke signals,

Pam: Yeah.

CK: And now we have all this technology and easy ways to communicate with people across, you know, whatever expanse from, you know, just talking to a relative in the next town over or to one another side of the country.

And we can do this through video now. And you know, I mean, of course there are benefits to in-person communication and you know, we can get into all the chemical effects and nonverbal things and all that kind of stuff. But like, I mean, the technology that we have these days in terms of video, videophone…

Pam: Video conferencing.

CK: Right? Yeah. Yes. Video calling and all that stuff. Like, and we can play like games with each other and… You know, there’s just so many ways to socialize without actually being in person that can be beneficial in times like this, that, you know, we need to realize that and take advantage of that. And at the same time realize how beneficial it is to meet in person so that you know, when we’re able to do that, you’ll be more grateful for having the ability to do that.

So yeah, I don’t like the language of social distancing. It should be something more like physical distancing or something like that. But yeah, I mean, definitely practice the physical distancing, but also consider that- all the different avenues and resources we have today in terms of how to socialize.

Pam: in other words, call your mom.

CK: I should do that.

Some useful resources for SARS CoV-2 and COVID-19.

[41:41]

CK: Um, so I guess I do want to name off some resources for the whole coronavirus-

Oh, actually one thing I wanted to clear up from last week is I was discussing like the terminology around the whole virus and disease and stuff, and mentioned SARS CoV-2. And so let me try to get this straight: SARS CoV-2, is the name of the virus and COVID-19 is the name of the disease that you can get from the virus, and this is a form of a Coronavirus.

So I just want to make that clear. Um, I think last week I just said everything they just- is officially SARS CoV-2. But that’s just the- for the virus specifically iand the disease is COVID- COVID-19.

So now that we have that cleared up, I know that, you know- and you guys might be getting bombarded with information around Coronavirus from all different outlets and you know, how do you know what’s true and what’s false and how do you know what to believe.

Um, me personally. So these are- this is kind of how I go about things is I want to get information… Uh, I don’t know how to explain this. Well, I’ll just name off the resources.

So I have three resources here that people can follow. And this is just. The way that I like to go about things in terms of getting information.

So the first one is actually a course, and Coursera came out with a course on COVID-19 it’s called Science Matters: Let’s Talk About COVID-19 and it’s from the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA). And that’s based at the Imperial College of London, and it’s like one of the most- It’s one of the best research colleges in the world. And they have a course, a whole course about COVID-19 and it’s kind of coming out as the pandemic goes on. So like, it’s not a fully flushed out course, but it’s free and the information is great. You get to hear from scientists who are looking into this, like on the front lines.

And so. That’s a like- I like getting actual information, like scientific information like that instead of all these opinions and conjecture that you may see in mainstream media. And so that’s one.

Another one is Dr. Peter Attia, and he’s someone that I follow. I’ve been following for a while and he’s big in like the biohacking space and I’ll just read his- a couple of lines from his bio real quick, but basically I like him because he’s kind of like- I would consider him to be a polymath. Like he’s- He studies a lot. He has like a broad range of interests. And another thing I really like about him is his athletic pursuits. He’s big into like endurance athletics and stuff like extreme endurance athletics and stuff like that.

Uh, so here’s Peter’s bio. It says, “Peter trained for five years at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in general surgery, where he was the recipient of several prestigious awards, including resident of the year, and the author of a comprehensive review of general surgery. He also spent two years at NIH as a surgical oncology fellow at the National Cancer Institute where his research focused on immune-based therapies for melanoma. He has since been mentored by some of the most experienced and innovative lipidologists, endocrinologists, gynecologists, sleep physiologists, and longevity scientists in the United States and Canada.”

So, I mean, he’s got a lot of experience and a lot of life experience. And so I really liked the stuff- the content that he produces, and he has a podcast, um, and they go pretty in depth and he gets like great intellectuals on his podcast, whether they’re philosophers or doctors.

And he recently had Sam Harris on there who is a neuroscientist and philosopher. And he also had Ryan Holiday on there recently, who is a stoic philosopher. And there’s a lot of great information in terms of science as well as well-being that he talks about. So it’s great.

And then he also has been doing Instagram live posts, and these have been about 10 minute posts, and he does, um, quite frequently, maybe almost daily now. And it’s just his updates. And he’s- he’s in New York and he’s on the front lines of that whole thing in New York right now. So he’s giving us daily updates and his stance on what’s going on. And I would definitely recommend checking out his material if you’re interested in getting information that I think is, uh, some of the most accurate information you can get during this time right now.

Pam: So watch that instead of the press conferences.

CK: Yeah, totally. Like, oh man- Uh, we’ll probably get into that- I’ll get a- I don’t know.

Yeah, I have opinions, but we’ll see. Uh, the last thing is a website called COVIDNearYou.org. And this is a, like, basically crowdsourced citizen science site where you can go and enter in information about yourself, whether you’re experiencing symptoms or not.

So this is kind of a way for you to be active yourself in terms of helping gather more data and analyzing different patterns around the country or even around the world. I’m not sure exactly how far this website spans (North America), but it’s this, it was basically created by epidemiologists and developers at Harvard and Boston children’s hospital.

And they produce like data maps to help citizens and public health agencies identify current and potential hotspots for the virus. So it’s a useful way- I mean, it’s useful for researchers and it could- and I mean, it’s an avenue for you to provide information and help the cause. So…

Pam: I think that’s really important because we’re being told that even if you’re symptomatic to just stay home and self-isolate because going to the hospital, like they’re already overwhelmed. So if you’re not in serious condition, just stay home. But that means we don’t know how many people are sick.

So if they can’t crowdsource this information, it gives them a lot more data to work with and to also see where problems are going to be occurring. So I think that’s, that’s great.

CK: Exactly. And right now the data is key. Like we’re having so many issues with testing right now that, you know, I could get into this, and then in effectiveness of government and all that unpreparedness and stuff, that’s, I don’t know. I mean, I can go on that for a while. Maybe… Maybe on social media, well see.but.

Yeah. I mean, we need more data. That’s like how we figure out how to proceed. So, you know, go check out COVIDNearYou.org and entering your information and help the cause. Help them get more data so they can figure it out and possibly, you know, uh, push resources to areas that need it most.

Pam: are you supposed to do that if you’re healthy or only if you’re symptomatic.

CK: No. Yeah, great point. It’s both if you’re smptomatic or if you’re healthy, they want to know it all. And uh, they want you to go on there regularly or more than once. So, yeah. Uh, I’m not sure of the exact details of how often they want you to check in (daily), but go check that out. It’s COVIDNearYou.org and also Peter Attia’s website: PeterAttiaMD.com.

And the course on Coursera, uh, the course there is at Coursera.org and you can look up the Science Matters: Let’s Talk About COVID-19 course there.

And of course I’ll have all this stuff linked in this detailed show notes. (Ta-da!)

Okay, let’s bring it home.

[50:28]

CK: And I guess I’m gonna end it there for now. Man, we’ve been going on- I could still keep going so…

That’s crazy. Let me know if you guys like this extended format, and if you guys want me to keep talking this much in the future. Or, yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see how that goes.

Outro.

CK: And you know, as always, we’re keeping things agile and adapting on the fly. So thanks for joining me on this adventure of positive reflection, agile podcasting and functional lifestyle optimization.

Make sure to check out. Oh man, d’ya hear my voice crack?

Pam: I did… This is probaby the most that you’ve talked ever,

CK: Oh yeah. Seriously. This probably- I’ve been breaking records every week with these- these sessions, so.

So anyway, make sure to check out the detailed show notes for this episode ForcesOfEqual.com/Practice and feel free to hit me up on the Twitter @cKdisco. And Pam, do you want people to hit you up?

Pam: Yeah. On Twitter, I’m @Pamela_Lund.

CK: Perfect. And that’s all for now. So I hope you come back next week and keep on practicing!

Too-da-loo! ✌️