#216 – The Scientific Significance Of Fun With Mike Rucker

Wes Moss [00:00:39]:
Enter doctor Mike Rucker, an organizational psychologist, behavioral scientist, and a charter member of the International Positive Psychology association. His ideas about fun and health have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, and more, and he currently serves as a senior leader at the active wellness and is the author of the best selling book the Fun Habit. Mike uses his rucker play model to rank fun activities according to their level of challenge. The answers and the timetables may be different for everyone, but embracing the overall need for joy and togetherness can help us avoid the unhealthy distractions that come along with isolation. The reality of modern life is that we don’t have as much free time as we might want. But with a little bit of self empathy and Mike’s creative outlook, we can find some ways to dial up the fund meter and increase our happiness. I’m wes Moss. The prevailing thought in America is that you’ll never have enough money, and it’s almost impossible to retire early.

Wes Moss [00:01:48]:
Actually, I think the opposite is true. For more than 20 years, I’ve been researching, studying, and advising american families, including those who started late, on how to retire sooner and happier. So my mission with the retire Sooner podcast is to help a million people retire earlier while enjoying the adventure along the way. I’d love for you to be one of them. Let’s get started. Before we talk about autonomy, let’s maybe get your definition of you’re the guy that talks about fun. Everybody wants to know how we can do more of it. Just what does it mean to you? I mean, it’s kind of like the only reason we really are living, right? Shouldn’t we?

Mike Rucker [00:02:26]:
Well, I think it’s definitely an important part and one that know for so.

Wes Moss [00:02:31]:
Many different purpose and fun. Purpose and fun.

Mike Rucker [00:02:33]:
Yeah. And those two can coexist nicely, I think. But we’ve been led to believe, you know, by various measures that sometimes the way we go about things has to be through martyrdom. And there are different reasons. You know, it’s a complex issue. Some people have really bought into the idea of meritocracy. So it’s sort of like, I work hard, I don’t enjoy myself, but I’ll get the fruits of that labor sometime out in the future. For some, you know, it’s the protestant work ethic.

Mallory Boggs [00:03:00]:
Right.

Mike Rucker [00:03:01]:
Like, if somehow I’m enjoying myself, there’s this latent guilt, which is very strange and hard to unpack, but it still seems to exist.

Wes Moss [00:03:09]:
Yeah, I’ve got that, by the way. That’s one of my issues, the way I grew up.

Mike Rucker [00:03:13]:
And it’s interesting, a lot of times you can dislodge that just by simple reframing. And I think we’re starting to understand that more. But it is. It’s an inherent sort of this ideal that work is virtuous and it’s not meant to be enjoyed. And what a shame, right? And then you have the adage right next to it, you know, that you enjoy your work. You never work a day in your life. And so those two can’t really coexist. And yet we see some of the most successful people be the ones that are enjoying what they do.

Mike Rucker [00:03:47]:
And when you think about it scientifically, right, definition of fun I often give is just things that you enjoy that you’re drawn to. Like, if you don’t like the work you’re doing, then why would you keep doing it? And we know that that’s true. That’s why we’re seeing this record level of burnout across all vocations, especially here in North America. And so finding ways to tip the scales into at least, maybe not necessarily making it a circus, but figuring out ways that people actually enjoyed the. The time that they spend is important. And so the concept there is, and we kind of touched on it at the very beginning, is looking at affluence not in just the sense of financial measures, but also time.

Mallory Boggs [00:04:32]:
Right?

Mike Rucker [00:04:32]:
So financial affluence gives you this tool, money, to be able to make a wider breadth of choices. If you look at time the same way, how can I control this scarcity asset? I mean, truly an asset that you can’t make more of. We don’t know how much we have, but you can’t make more of it. The people that look at it critically like a product of affluence. So I want maximum control over the 168 hours I have in my week. We just know through empirical research these are some of the most happy people. And so you can kind of partition off finance as a vehicle, because certainly we know that the access to different things is going to augment the human experience. But it’s clear that when you pair those two together, people that have a bias towards wanting to be time affluent and have control over their schedule so they’re not serving others and giving everything away tend to be the ones that in the moment and retrospectively are describing themselves as happier.

Wes Moss [00:05:45]:
However, here we are in America, where we’ve read about doctors have this massive burnout rate at something like over 60%.

Mike Rucker [00:05:55]:
Yeah, last year was the worst.

Wes Moss [00:05:57]:
It was, what, 60?

Mike Rucker [00:05:58]:
It was something three. And that was the highest number we’ve seen ever.

Wes Moss [00:06:04]:
And then I always go back to the, I’ve tracked Gallup polls on workplace satisfaction for a long, long time, for almost 20 years. I’ve always been fascinated with that. And that’s if you look at, in North America, it’s really around the world, but particularly in North America, where you have a really small percentage, let’s call it a third or even less than a third, which means of people that really are engaged and love what they’re doing. And then you’ve got the other two thirds. I mean, two out of three people are in the take it or leave. I call it the take it or leave it camp. So they don’t hate it, but they don’t really like what they’re doing. And then, of course, you’ve got a huge chunk of people that hate their jobs so much, they’re actively trying to bring their companies down.

Wes Moss [00:06:48]:
And they call, Gallup calls it quiet quitting and loud quitting. But it’s basically people that just could work sucks for a lot of people. And is that just a function? So think about all of the work you have done around this time. Autonomy and so many books around happiness and economic freedom, yet it’s such a high level that it just. People don’t achieve that.

Mike Rucker [00:07:11]:
Yes. What I’ve found as, like, a broad base, common issue is we’re starting to realize that access to leisure. And when I say leisure. Right. Some of these words are triggering like pleasure. Oftentimes in North America, people immediately go to intimate pleasure.

Mallory Boggs [00:07:29]:
Right?

Mike Rucker [00:07:29]:
Yeah, I do. And the same with.

Wes Moss [00:07:31]:
That’s what I think, leisure.

Mike Rucker [00:07:33]:
Right. They’re thinking about that one vacation they take a year, but leisure just means access to time that’s not necessarily reserved for productivity. Right. And we’re starting to learn that if you don’t at least have some partition, you know, within your day or some sort of leisure, you know, being able to reduce that cognitive load on chewing on big problems so that you’re actually relaxing the limbic system. If you are, I call, quote unquote fun start. Its essentially the same consequences as being sleep deprived. The issue is its more insidious and its a slower burn, right? So if week after week youre not finding joy in anything that youre doing, what happens is slowly but surely you start to identify as not being a joyful person. And what can happen is once that identity is sort of set, you start to find artifacts, right? We can all succumb to confirmation bias.

Mike Rucker [00:08:31]:
And once that happens is like, you know what? Life just isn’t meant to be fun. Right? Now, no one says, especially the sandwich generation that so many of us find ourselves in, right? We’re having kids a little bit later. Our parents are living longer. They’re living longer, and we had kids later. So our parents generation likely could get help from their parents. And we’re not seeing that as much. We’re actually seeing, you know, Gen Xers having to take care of both sides. So they’re some of the most time poor people we’ve ever seen.

Mike Rucker [00:08:59]:
And they were taking this stoic look like, you know what, this just isn’t meant to be a fun period. But what happens if you’re not enjoying, you know, anything? One, there’s physiological and psychological effects. We just know that. But the other real problem, and in my academic work, I’ve looked at physicians specifically. And so im making a broad based statement on just what I know about physicians. Once you get in that state of burnout, you lose empathy. And so what I know empirically is when physicians lose empathy, the patient outcomes falls off a cliff. Anybody can look up that research.

Mike Rucker [00:09:37]:
But what I would suggest is if we looked at that through a broader lens, you would see that lack of empathy affect everyone around, right? Tangential research and social contagion sort of proves that, right? If you’re near a bad mood all the time, you tend to pass that on to your loved ones and the ones that you interact with. But I think, too, when you see burnt out parents, they’re approaching childcare as I have to do this instead of this amazing opportunity that most of us only have 18 years anyways, and kind of just throwing that away, right? Like, I’ll get through this. It’s just something that I have to take the kid to soccer practice or I have to get them out of the house. Right. Instead of kind of reframing it and going, yeah, I can create amazing opportunities with these people that presumably, you know, were by design anyways.

Mallory Boggs [00:10:30]:
Right.

Wes Moss [00:10:30]:
And so do you think, Mike, though, the problem is it stuck within our workplace, our american culture of work. And you mentioned the protestant upbringing. I actually, ironically grew up as a Quaker, and now I’m part of the presbyterian church now. So it wasn’t a protestant upbringing, but I guess it felt, maybe feels like that in retrospect, is not being. Allowing yourself to have, quote, fun because it’s not productive. And then, so then we get into a society, or in your case, doctors, wherever we’re enduring these phases and just saying, look, this is just tough. Like work is just tough, and I get burned out and then they have a lack of empathy and parents can do it. It just sounds like it’s societal at this point.

Mike Rucker [00:11:20]:
Yeah. And again, it’s a complex issue. Right. So everything that you said, you know, has factual underpinning. The piece that we haven’t brought up yet is certainly the advent of technology and knowledge work. So, you know, our parents didn’t necessarily have to answer emails at the end.

Wes Moss [00:11:37]:
Of the day, 24/7 all the time.

Mike Rucker [00:11:39]:
Right. And so they knew when their work day ended. Right. You know, now we call that a transition ritual. They didn’t need a term for it because it automatically happened. They left work, their mindset, you know, on the drive home, they were able to reset, and then they dealt with domestic life in a way that was different than work life. Now, you know, we’re still on a conference call. When we walk in the door, we wonder why our kids are on a screen, right? We’re telling them not to be, but we’re modeling the behavior we’re telling them not to do.

Mike Rucker [00:12:07]:
And then what we know from the neuroscience is it does, it doesn’t allow us to leave work. So even if we do put the phone down and still have dinner, if it was only a few minutes earlier, we’re still chewing on that email we got from our boss. That kind of pissed us off. So we’re not there present with the loved ones. Right. Dopamine has been talked about way too much, but the undervalued neurochemical is oxytocin. That’s what you really get from this pro social behavior, whether that’s your partner, your friends, or your family. And a lot of that is lost because of this always on mode that we find ourselves.

Mike Rucker [00:12:46]:
So that’s another piece of.

Wes Moss [00:12:47]:
Wait, what do you mean? I’m sorry. Explain pro social to our listeners. What’s that?

Mike Rucker [00:12:52]:
Just engaging with your friends, people that you want to spend time with so that you don’t feel lonely. Right. Robert’s great book, the Good Life, was about that huge Harvard study, and if you believe the data in it, and it’s really well done study over a long period, loneliness has more of a physiological impact than things like smoking and sitting and so making sure that you feel connected to others. And I would argue that fun is an amazing glue to make sure that happens, you know, becomes a vehicle for good mental hygiene at that point. So, yeah, sorry, it’s kind of a geeky word for just saying, hanging out with people you like.

Wes Moss [00:13:32]:
Pro social. That’s what I’m going to start saying. It’s like, guys, look, we need to be a little more prosocial. I like that, though. So let’s go back to just the overarching word that I ended up originally writing a book about. I used the word happiness, right? It was all about happy versus unhappy retirees. And by the way, I’m sticking with that. But I’ve also opened, I understand that happiness is not necessarily the perfect word for that.

Wes Moss [00:13:58]:
It’s just a nice umbrella word. So what for you, what is the essence of fun? And then how does that maybe differ a little bit from what you say is happiness?

Mike Rucker [00:14:08]:
Yeah. And I think. So let’s start with why happiness works in the context of your work, right. I think all of these are contextually relevant.

Mallory Boggs [00:14:17]:
Right?

Mike Rucker [00:14:17]:
And so in the field of psychology, we did need this idea of happiness. We boiled it down to this idea of subjective well being. But when we’re doing our work, we need to know whether or not we’re moving in the right direction. So for your work, are these retirees moving in the right direction? Is the outcome that we’re hoping for happening? Where it became problematic is, as we began to really elevate the word, it was always outcome focused. And what happened is we started to over prescribe this idea of good vibes only, and that if you had a bad day right, then somehow something wrong was happening. And what happened over time is we found that and myself included. As you know, I unpack in the book, if you’re thinking about that day in and day out, you start to ruminate on the fact that happiness is out here in the horizon, right? Maybe when I finally retiree, and you ruminate on that gap between where you are today and where happiness is supposed to be. And so folks like me early on that were like, yes, happiness is the end goal, actually sent people on the wrong path.

Mike Rucker [00:15:27]:
And we know there’s been amazing work in this area from Doctor Aris Mauss at a cal, but it’s been replicated by others. Once you get in that state of rumination, it then subconsciously gets into the identity like we talked about or, and so, you know, you might have been living a joyful life doing the things that you wanted to do, but all of a sudden, because, you know, you’re, you’re focused on this future state, you’re like, well, I meant happiness is out there. It’s not here. So I must be an unhappy person, right.

Wes Moss [00:15:57]:
Eventually. Right. And it kind of keeps moving the goalposts further away. Well, eventually, eventually it’s that proverbial carrot.

Mike Rucker [00:16:04]:
In front of the horse. Right.

Wes Moss [00:16:05]:
You know, and the horse never gets it.

Mike Rucker [00:16:08]:
Exactly. So fun is an action orientation. It’s a reminder that we really can have joyful moments. You know, there’s this new word called microjoys. If that works for you, that’s fine. But we can create these moments in our day to day, generally whenever we want to, as long as it’s done in a healthy manner and it’s not a form of escapism or, you know, you’re skirting, you know, whatever purposely driven life you have or, you know, obviously the duties that you have for others. But when you look at time use studies, even the busiest people, right, which like single moms that have a full time job, they generally still have 14 to 20 plus hours that they can reclaim. If they’re looking at that with the eye of I want to make deliberate choices instead of this fixed mindset of I have no control over this, or again, because weve already committed the knot that this is a bit complex.

Mike Rucker [00:17:08]:
Some folks are kind of weighed down by that guilt and you were kind enough to sort of confess that that can happen to you sometimes. Certainly happened to me. Right. And so if youre another piece of this puzzle is we were kind of conditioned to believe time equates money.

Mallory Boggs [00:17:23]:
Right.

Mike Rucker [00:17:23]:
And so if Im spending an hour with a friend at a comedy club, moneys flying out of my pocket. So we have all of these headwinds, yet we know, similar to sleep, that if we’re not doing it ironically, we’re not productive the next day. We don’t want to show up to work. We don’t want to do the things that actually fill us up and lead to betterment and lead to fulfillment. So we need that piece.

Wes Moss [00:17:49]:
Yeah. And one of the things I know you kind of talk about is that we have to kind of first come to that realization that it’s a requirement, right. It’s like you gotta shed the guilt or shed whatever is holding you back from doing it and incorporate it, literally, in any given day. So I’d love to even hear, can somebody as busy as a doctor who also has this heavy, heavy responsibility? So it’s a heavy job, and it’s a busy job. How does that person then, if they’re in a rut of not having any fun at all, how would you help? Or how have you helped groups like this turn it around?

Mike Rucker [00:18:31]:
Yeah. And I’ve learned a lot since the books come out with regards to the need to do it slowly. Right. We know that any kind of behavior change, it’s just like January 1, right. When you go to the gym and you’re like, I’m gonna lift 280 pounds by February. Pretty good recipe for disaster, right? So there are a couple things here. One, you know, you want to take baby steps, and so just figuring out one or 2 hours that you can reclaim, you know, and so whatever that is for you, whether that’s kind of refixing the idea that you couldn’t go out on a Thursday, you know, whether that’s, you know, kind of habitual behavior that you’ve done that, you realize, like, I gone to this group every Saturday. I don’t like the people there.

Mike Rucker [00:19:20]:
I don’t enjoy the time. When I look back, I can’t remember what I did, because I kind of feel like it’s unimportant. An important first step is to try and find spots where you can change your circumstance. Because certainly what we don’t want to do is prescribe fun to someone who’s super busy. Right. Then it just becomes, in medicine, we call this moral injury. When there’s this workplace wellness initiative, we’re like, hey, you know, we know you already have rounds for 70 hours. Now we want you to do yoga for another five.

Mike Rucker [00:19:48]:
Right? Like, that’s just. Anyways, that’s a whole nother.

Wes Moss [00:19:53]:
I love that, Mike. Literally, it’s like, some of these things are laughable, really, is what you’re saying.

Mike Rucker [00:19:59]:
And the best of attention. Right. Because, you know, these things work, but they don’t work if you’re so exhausted that you can’t implement them into your life, right.

Wes Moss [00:20:07]:
So we’re gonna have fun. We’re gonna do yoga, and you’re gonna do it with ten people you don’t really like anyway. Yes, that happens all the time.

Mike Rucker [00:20:16]:
One of my favorite anecdotes, sorry for the quick aside, but it was another organizational psychologist that was just talking about how funny escape rooms have become for team building exercises. So you have nine fellow colleagues that you hate, and what we’re gonna do to make it better is lock you all in a room together.

Wes Moss [00:20:38]:
That’s so true. That is so true. It is funny. It’s like escape rooms today are like the. I don’t know, the baking bread of COVID 2020. It’s like, that’s okay. What do we do? For some reason, it’s like a viral thing now.

Mike Rucker [00:20:54]:
It’s like, well, in the right context of super fun, my daughter’s birthday was last weekend, and with friends that she wanted to be with. Right. They had an amazing time. So I’m not villainizing them, but I do think it’s funny. These things that are really with the best of intention, but we don’t think through the longitudinal aspect of what the potential consequence in addition to the reward will be. So, going back to your initial question, I think if people find themselves in this state, it’s one. How can you free up some time? Because generally there are things that you can remove from your schedule when you look at it critically. So whether that’s doing an entire 168 hours, you know, audit of your time, which tends to be a heavy exercise for someone that’s burnt out or just saying, you know what, I’m going to just pick a couple things and integrate that.

Mike Rucker [00:21:44]:
You know, just this week, I’m going to do the thing. I’m going to find micro joys. The second important step is to check in with yourself afterwards. You know, in the book, I reference research from Cassie alms out of visa laden, and she has a simple intervention where she just asked people to go into their weekend thinking it’s a vacation. A reminder that this is your respite, right? This is your chance to do the things that you want to do. She doesn’t give them extra money or doesn’t ask them to change up what they do. In fact, when she looked at what they did, if they still had to mow the lawn, they still did it, if they still had to. Whatever they had habituated, that still tended to happen.

Mike Rucker [00:22:27]:
But in those little moments that they had, even in their busy lives, when they were more mindful, they’re like, hey, yeah, maybe we should go do something fun, because this is the weekend. But even more beneficial is they’re the ones that showed up Monday at work ready to work, and this is backed up again. I know I’ve thrown a lot of geeky science out here, but anybody that wants to latch onto the science is in line with the hedonic flexibility principle. And so what we know is that folks that are deliberate about their transition rituals are deliberate about making play dates with their friends, even as obnoxious as having to schedule those things out, because we are busy people. They’re the ones that show up and are actually more productive at work. So ironically, their work product and what they’re producing is more they’re actually enjoying life. They’re on an upward spiral where the folks that are living through this lens of martyrdom and I just got to grind it out weekend and wake out eventually are burning out, find themselves on this downward spiral. And now we know what the end result is.

Wes Moss [00:23:33]:
We keep hearing that inflation is coming down. For the past three years, the common man inflation gauge is still up over 20%. That’s necessities like food, gas, utilities and shelter. How can you possibly keep up? Well, one option is income investing. That’s using a combination of growing stock, dividends, bonds for more cash flow, and other areas that can be a hedge against inflation. Look, inflation is tough. Let us help you overcome it. Schedule a time directly with our team@yourwealth.com.

Wes Moss [00:24:00]:
dot. That’s your wealth.com dot. So explain the hedonic flexibility principle. Maybe take me down to like a fifth grade level.

Mike Rucker [00:24:13]:
Yeah, no worries. So really simply what it went out when the idea was kind of brought forth. And there’s an amazing, there are a bunch of different studies, but if you google it, you’ll find the big 128 thousand folks in the study. So it’s not just a little pilot study. Harvard, MIT, Stanford Data researchers did this social scientist and what they were set out to do is this idea and philosophy that we’re pleasure seeking animals, that we try to avoid pain, and that we’re always kind of seeking pleasure. And so it turns out to be true that if you are living a joyless life, you do tend to look for ways to escape that pain. Poor forms of escapism like drinking again, getting lost in work. Fine, I’ll just answer emails, you know, eleven at night, or even passive things like, you know, doom scrolling on news, or, you know, just things to sort of alleviate what we call negative valence, which is essentially just a fancy way of saying feeling shitty, right?

Wes Moss [00:25:18]:
Yeah.

Mike Rucker [00:25:19]:
But what surprised them, and what was kind of amazing, especially in the context of my message, is that the folks that did take time off the table for themselves, that were deliberate about finding moments of joy in their schedule. So what I call having their fun cup foiled were the ones that actually seeked out harder challenges because they didn’t need more fun in their life. They knew it was there and always accessible. And even if they had a terrible week, they knew the next week they probably could change their circumstance. So these were the ones that were actually seeking out harder challenges, getting to work and going, what can I do today to make myself better? Because I already know funds out there. And there was actually this second component that I feel is equally as compelling. So not only paradoxically, are they more productive and actually enjoying work, right? Because they’re not so depleted. They hate everything.

Mike Rucker [00:26:12]:
They’re actually some of the most innovative. Because when we’re burnt out, and most people can relate, when I share it this way, when you’re burnt out, you rely on your algorithms, right? You’re like, I just need to get through today. I’ll just, you know, I know what to do. I’ll go from point a to point b, the day will be done, and I can finally get to sleep, right. But when you show up with vigor and vitality because you know you’re enjoying things, then you have that resilience to be like, you know what? Maybe I’ll break a few eggs today. Like, you know, I don’t. This isn’t really exactly how I want it, but I’ve got some time and mental capacity to kind of chew on this.

Wes Moss [00:26:49]:
And so your creativity blossoms.

Mike Rucker [00:26:52]:
Yeah. You can bring a nonlinear ideas together more easily. You’re not reliant on doing it the same way because you’re not exhausted. And you. Again, this is kind of tangential research, but you tend to be more resilient, too. So if you do do something wrong, you don’t look at it as the day wasted. You’re like, okay, well, I’m going to have to throw all this away, but who cares? It was fun. It was a playful thing that we did.

Mike Rucker [00:27:19]:
And so all of those are benefits from kind of living this balanced life with regards to enjoyment and then the things that you do find purposeful and harder.

Wes Moss [00:27:31]:
Can you put this in the context of maybe increasing? You’ve talked about how we can’t just do it overnight. If we’re going to increase, we’re going to go from totally burned out, totally unenjoyable, stuck. No creativity, no empathy, which scares the hell out of me in any profession, because the empathy, the giving, caring about what you’re doing is like, 90% of the battle in literally, like, almost every profession, it’s most scary when you’re talking about medicine or that and maybe, like, nuclear engineering.

Mike Rucker [00:28:05]:
I know, from looking at the sales data, it’s the other one that I’m closer to. I haven’t done any original research in this area, but sales people that feel empathy and a connection to who, to who they’re trying to help tend to do better, too. So I think there’s a strong argument that if you looked at it across all vocations. Right. So sorry to interject, but you’re spot on.

Wes Moss [00:28:24]:
Yeah, totally. But can we think about it as a. And am I going to. Can I increase my focus on making sure I’m having some fun? Should I do it 10% more or an hour more a week or 2 hours more a week to start out with? What is kind of just a realistic prescription around that for you? And maybe talk about the play model that we just touched on, those quadrants.

Mike Rucker [00:28:52]:
So I think for every person, it’s going to be different depending on what their life circumstances. The play model is a way to just look at each thing that you’re doing and then potentially see if there are opportunities to change your circumstance. And so play stands for pleasing, living, agonizing, and yielding and pleasing are just the things that we enjoy doing. Right. Hanging out with our partner. You know, if you have a pet, hanging out with your pet, maybe it is certain things at work. So, you know, the day to day joys that oftentimes we undervalue. But we know that if we’re mindful when we’re in those moments, we can remember, like, oh, yeah, you know, I like what I’m doing.

Mike Rucker [00:29:31]:
I like the people that I’m with. I like the environment that I’m in. So they’re generally accessible to most people, but when we kind of just mind wander through them, we don’t get the benefit. Right. Living is kind of a bigger concept. We don’t have a ton of time to dig into it, but it’s just that reminder that doing kind of big things at least once in a while, if you’re looking back at your life and you’re like, I haven’t done anything that’s sort of challenging or for my own betterment or for spiritual growth or whatever it is, maybe I want to figure out why and at least ask better questions. The other two are important in context, especially so pleasing.

Wes Moss [00:30:07]:
Think I love walking Cody with my wife, our dog. That’s pleasing. Correct. Learning how to snowboard at age 55 would be like, that’s maybe living.

Mike Rucker [00:30:21]:
Exactly.

Wes Moss [00:30:21]:
All right, so those are two of the quadrants.

Mike Rucker [00:30:24]:
And I guess to expound on it more. So essentially, when you look at it, how much effort does it take? Because pleasing things don’t take a ton of effort. So in theory, if we want to do them all the time, we wouldn’t be exhausted. At the end of the day, living generally does either take mental energy or physical energy. So in that sense, even if we’re really enjoying those things are not something that we can realistically do all the time. Right?

Wes Moss [00:30:50]:
Yeah.

Mike Rucker [00:30:50]:
So agonizing and yielding are the same, but they’re things on the negative side of valence, the things that we just don’t enjoy. So. And again, you know, I unpack this in the book. Certainly we all have agonizing things we need to do. That’s just part of life. But the reason that that quadrant is important is a lot of us don’t look at those things critically or ways that we could potentially change our circumstance. Right. There tend to be three things that make something enjoyable.

Mike Rucker [00:31:15]:
The people that we’re doing it with, the environment that we’re in, or the activity itself. And so when you identify these things that, you know, maybe you just always hated them, but you hadn’t thought about how you could change your circumstance. Like, you know, I love what I do, but I just don’t like the people I do it with. Like, so maybe it is time to, you know, jump ship and find, you know, a place where I actually enjoy the, you know, because of moral compass or whatever it is. Right. You know, in the pandemic, this is a really easy, accessible example. But the environment, right?

Mallory Boggs [00:31:49]:
Yeah.

Mike Rucker [00:31:49]:
We were so sick of our home offices that folks found that just being in a coffee shop around vibrant people was enough to, like, break out of that malaise. But it could be one of the examples. I, you know, in my day job, I work, we put wellness centers, you know, essentially health clubs and corporate campuses and hospitals. But if folks hate being in the four walls of a gym, let go, walk out in nature. I’m surprised how many people just that simple invitation where they’re like, you know what, I’m never going to be healthy because I hate, you know, being on the treadmill. Like, yeah, you’re allowed to hike. Like, oh, my gosh, I love nature, you know, and it’s the same drive. And so just that simple, you know.

Wes Moss [00:32:29]:
You can change the environment. Just. Just change the environment. Yeah.

Mike Rucker [00:32:32]:
And then the activity is, are you going about it? Is there any way to go about it differently where you could potentially change your circumstance? And then if you come from a place of privilege, can you buy back your time?

Mallory Boggs [00:32:43]:
Right.

Mike Rucker [00:32:44]:
Like, sometimes I share that and get accused because it is, you know, if you have the financial means, great. It’s not something that’s accessible to everyone.

Wes Moss [00:32:51]:
Wait, are you only talking about rich people?

Mike Rucker [00:32:53]:
Correct.

Wes Moss [00:32:55]:
But you disguised it as financial privilege, just like pro social.

Mike Rucker [00:32:59]:
Yeah, exactly.

Wes Moss [00:33:01]:
So talk about that. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Mike Rucker [00:33:03]:
Well, I think especially for entrepreneurs, right. A lot of folks when like, you know, podcasters is a great example. I don’t know how many podcasters who are using this as a vehicle to essentially bring light to their business, and yet they’re still editing their episodes. And you ask them why? Because they’re like, I hate it. And you could find someone, if your billable rate’s dollar 200 an hour, you could find someone for dollar 60 and then not have to do that at night. So you could be with your kids, you know, and so that’s just one example. But, you know, oftentimes when you’ve habituated that, you’re like, oh, this is just something I have to do.

Wes Moss [00:33:46]:
Yeah.

Mike Rucker [00:33:46]:
Do you really have to do it? You know, you have to make that social media meme and you don’t even know how to use Photoshop. You know, I get why you want to do it at the beginning, right? Because you kind of wanted to learn and, you know, it’s your brand, but is it something you should be doing two years later? You, you hate graphic design and so those types of choices, right? Like it’s something you really don’t like doing. Oftentimes it, you know, maybe it’s not even necessarily outsourcing it, it’s trading it for somebody, you know, somebody, I do love doing this, you know, using that same example. You know, it’s actually, Fred loves making the means and Joe actually loves editing and they never talk to each other. So, you know, figuring that out. So again, in summary, you know where you’re doing it, what and how you’re doing it and then who you’re doing it with. And oftentimes just changing one of those can really bring an agonizing activity up above that threshold of valence.

Wes Moss [00:34:42]:
Yeah, I think of that as remembering specialization of labor to some extent. And that is a huge, it’s a huge thing in our lives and our jobs too. It’s, when is it time to look at the 20 jobs you’re doing? Are you better to do ten and figure a way to outsource the other ten? But it’s not economically possible all the time. But I think more so than people maybe give it credit for.

Mike Rucker [00:35:06]:
Yeah. And where I would say it grows roots.

Mallory Boggs [00:35:09]:
Right.

Mike Rucker [00:35:10]:
So oftentimes that isn’t the heavy lift. The heavy lift is, well, this is just always what I do on Thursdays. And that’s the weirdest one. And the one that we really have a hard time believing is true. But we just know we’re habituated animals. We get into those rhythms of life, and then because we don’t encode that information, time kind of just passes us by. And it’s a little bit comfortable, but it’s not enjoyable. And so there’s a whole other argument there.

Mike Rucker [00:35:38]:
But I do want to get into yielding because that’s the most.

Wes Moss [00:35:40]:
Yeah, let’s talk about yielding.

Mike Rucker [00:35:41]:
So yielding are things that are really easy to do but don’t bring us joy. So it’s really just ways to pass time. And so the one that’s talked about most often is social media use. And so certainly not villainizing these platforms. It’s a great way to stay in touch with folks that I moved from San Francisco to North Carolina. So it’s a great way for me to stay connected. But a lot of us use it passively just to displace boredom. We might have a couple hours on Saturday and instead of making a good choice of something like playing pickleball with a friend, we’ll just sit there and mindlessly scroll memes.

Mike Rucker [00:36:19]:
Its gotten so bad, right, that Google and Apple have gotten good about providing health meters in your phone. And a lot of folks will look at those and go, oh my gosh, I cant believe I did spend 8 hours on Instagram. So those things can be really illuminating. And if you see that kind of data, thats a perfect place to start, right? Im not saying completely get off of them because as we know, you deprive somebody or something, then all of a sudden, you know, that’s not as interesting. But saying, okay, let’s make your Instagram time 2 hours a week and then let’s figure out 6 hours a week of doing something that really fills you up. You know that when I ask you what you did, you can tell me in rich detail with a smile on your face. Instead of, oh yeah, I saw a couple funny memes.

Wes Moss [00:37:05]:
What is the practicality of finding that? By the way, I’ve had retirees ask me over the years, one of my terms for this is core pursuits. These are the things that I guess I would put these in the fun category, but these are the, I think of it, as you live for these things, you don’t just do them.

Mike Rucker [00:37:25]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Wes Moss [00:37:26]:
How do you jog the creativity to come up with something new.

Mike Rucker [00:37:31]:
So, I mean, it’s as simple as just sitting down and brainstorming, right? And so I think you get it all out. I call it a fun file. There are going to be some kind of bumps in the road there, because especially later in life, you’re going to mourn a few things. I know I’ve done this exercise a few times, and Boston Marathon comes up because every seven years, it’s on my birthday, and it was something I always want to do. I see it on the list. I mourn the fact I had the hip replacement. That’s just not something that’s going to happen. I cross it off the list, but then I continue to think about, what are the things that do light me up.

Mike Rucker [00:38:08]:
Um, what are the things that I, you know, have wanted to do? Who are the friends that I want to connect to? Who are the friends that are crushing life? That could be great examples. If I just had a conversation like, what are you doing? You know, is there an opportunity to tag along? And so, hey, give me an example.

Wes Moss [00:38:25]:
Tell me about a friend that’s crushing life. I want to know about a friend that’s crushing life. Like, what do you think that is? And two, I want to know something that. That your favorite, let’s call it new edition. That came out of a fun brainstorm.

Mike Rucker [00:38:39]:
Sure. Well, my best run is certainly crushing life. I would put him in the category of being affluent in both categories, but I think he is just so deliberate about creating moments with his family, especially because he was raised in a military family, where because of deployments and things of that nature, they became difficult. So really creating these moments, being deliberate about being creative and then letting the things that don’t work go. So he’s a really good model for me in that regard, because I think sometimes, too, when you’re first getting started, if there’s a string of bad luck, which will happen to the best of us, oh, this isn’t working. But if you can kind of laugh at those situations, like, wow, this is a horrible mistake.

Mallory Boggs [00:39:30]:
Right?

Mike Rucker [00:39:30]:
Like, going back to Vegas in your fifties for a three day weekend. Right? Like, that was amazing when you were 30. Right? And it sounds like a great idea in your fifties. And it’s just, I think, for the majority of us, like, a reminder that things have changed, but being able to laugh at that instead of saying, I’m not fun anymore. So he’s been a great model for me personally. One of the things that’s kind of like being contrarian to that is I had picked up the guitar. But I also djed in college, and I had this mindset that, you know what? In my fifties, I’m too old to DJ. But I was just in New York for work and saw an old high school friend.

Mike Rucker [00:40:11]:
His name’s Josh Davis, but he goes by DJ Shadow. 52 year old guy, still crushing a big crowd, you know, in a club in New York. And so I picked the turntables back up, and I’m playing around a little bit with them, and it’s really fun for the kids. Cause they’re like, what? What are you doing? What?

Wes Moss [00:40:31]:
Do you have a d? Wait, have you figured out a dj name yet?

Mike Rucker [00:40:34]:
Well, my old DJ name was DJ Ruckus, because my last name’s Rucker.

Wes Moss [00:40:37]:
Oh, that’s so cool.

Mike Rucker [00:40:38]:
I don’t know if it fits, though, but. So we’ll see what happens. I think a new one needs to develop. We’ll let my kids decide.

Wes Moss [00:40:45]:
I don’t know. It may be tough to beat that name, though, because even DJ Rucker, you’re just. Your name is cool. But ruckus, I mean, I don’t. That’s pretty awesome. There’s this intentionality that you prescribe. We’ve got to understand that it’s okay to prescribe yourself fun. And if you’re at work, we can change our environment or change the people that we’re necessarily around all the time.

Wes Moss [00:41:13]:
And these are the. I guess to some extent, these are prescriptive ways that we can start to. I think of this fund meter as like, dialing it up from. I’m only having fun 10% of the time, but I want you to have fun 25 or 30 or 35% of the time. I want people to add more to their lives.

Mike Rucker [00:41:31]:
And I wouldn’t even quantify it. I would say the frame that I like is really when we needed to reframe the conversation about sleep in the nineties. Remember all these a type, folks? Gary Vaynerchuks of the world, who I like, by the way. Cause he’s completely changed his tone because he knows better. Remember we were championing sleep deprivation, right? You know these eye bankers that, you know, a lot of us, 4 hours a night. Yeah. And now you. No one would prescribe that because we know what happens, right? These folks burn out by their late twenties.

Mike Rucker [00:42:03]:
And so sleep hygiene has become a pillar of health. And I think you’re going to begin to see that with leisure, right? If you really need, you know, kind of this range. Again, I fall back on the research of doctor Cassie Holmes. But she’s found two to 5 hours is kind of the sweet spot. I think for most people, two is still kind of a stretch goal, you know? So I again suggest just trying one to 3 hours a week after 5 hours with her and her, I believe she did this work with doctor Jordan Ekinata Duke. After 5 hours, you start to question, like, maybe I’m having a little too much fun, right? Like, you know, anyone that wants to live a meaningful and purposeful life will start to question whether or not you’ll start to erode that hedonic flexibility principle effect. So that’s sort of the range.

Wes Moss [00:42:53]:
But you’re talking about two to 5 hours per day. Week or. Per day, yeah, per day.

Mike Rucker [00:42:58]:
But some of that could be at work, right? I mean, it’s really the mental frame you want to think here is, am I in control of my time, right? So if I’m in this meeting, is it something that I did deliberately or if I’m working on this project, is this something that I have complete control over and I enjoy? Right. It’s not something that’s been delegated to me again this time of time. Effluence. The one other thing I want to make sure we cover before we end is that if all of this still kind of seems foreign to you, remember to be the best version of yourself, to kind of reclaim that empathy. Like, if you want to serve your children, this is especially true. I find, for whatever reason, there seems to be this gender bias to, you know, guilt when you’re actually engaging in self care. A whole corpus of empirical research suggests that by doing this, you are actually that person you want to be. Because now when you show up to care for others, you are engaged with them, you’re mindful, you want to be there.

Mike Rucker [00:43:59]:
It comes from this I get to do attitude rather than I have to do. And you will feel better about the things that you’re doing. So it, by the way, is it.

Wes Moss [00:44:08]:
Men or women that have higher levels of guilt?

Mike Rucker [00:44:10]:
Women, they tend to feel like they have to serve the family, where for whatever reason, and again, these are broad generalizations, but men find ways to play golf with their buddies or, you know, they seem to. They still, both sides are complex, but for whatever reason, and, you know, men have their own problems, we tend to not ask for help less. So, yeah, there’s complexities on both sides, but men will take time off the table for themselves. Right, where sometimes you see women live the whole 168 hours of their week for other people. And we know that’s a recipe for.

Wes Moss [00:44:48]:
This Oscar that’s pretty indicative of our family with. I have four kids, Lynn will spend all 168 only thinking about them all the time. And it’s hard for her to tear herself away to go have. I mean, not even maybe two to 5 hours a week is a stretch, not a day.

Mike Rucker [00:45:10]:
Right. And that’s, again, where I start. I think that’s interesting research, but for most people, I think, realistically, let’s start with one to 3 hours a week.

Wes Moss [00:45:21]:
Mike, you talk about the importance of journaling and keeping track of this to some extent. Talk about that for a second.

Mike Rucker [00:45:29]:
Yeah. So I call it reminiscing, and it’s essentially a way to expand the value of the fun that we have. So we’re reminded that we have opportunities to create these joyful moments in our life, and then it allows us to encode that information. And so one of the physiological benefits of living a life that’s a broader tapestry than a lot of us are living is that when we have a corpus of whether they’re fun or just interesting memories to look back on, our brain perceives that time as a longer timeline. It’s just a matter of math. What we know is the folks that have really habituated their lives and aren’t really doing anything interesting, unfortunately aren’t encoding information. So they’re not creating neuroplasticity, but also they’re not looking back at their lives with, you know, much concern. And so this work, a lot of people are familiar with the work of Bronnie ware.

Mike Rucker [00:46:25]:
She wasn’t necessarily a scientist, but she was a palliative care nurse that asked, you know, people in their later years of life what they regretted. And if you look at the five main things, three of them are cemented and not enjoying the things that they did. And so, you know, in that context, even if it’s just, again, you know, one or two things a week, so that you have this body of things to remember, that becomes important. And journaling is a great way also to cement that, because maybe you have a crappy two or three weeks where you didn’t have control of your time at all. You can at least look back at that journal, and we know reminiscing things that you did enjoy can be as powerful as enjoying them in the moment.

Wes Moss [00:47:09]:
How often do you do it?

Mike Rucker [00:47:12]:
I’ll go through stretches again. You know, I unpack this in the book. It’s not a good habit to prescribe this habitually, so you really should do it as whatever feels good for you. Some people ritual of every night is a great way to kind of data dump. What I would suggest is it’s not too introspective, but really cataloging what happened. If you feel like you have to unpack some things, great. I’ll do it a couple of times a week, then I’ll go a couple weeks without doing it, then I’ll do it every night for ten days or whatever. And sometimes it’s not just about fun.

Mike Rucker [00:47:49]:
So for me, sometimes I want to unpack what went wrong as well. But it’s sporadic, but I would say on average, ten to twelve entries per month.

Wes Moss [00:48:02]:
You don’t have to go back to revisit it, necessarily. It’s the doing of it that encodes it.

Mike Rucker [00:48:07]:
Yeah. And so for anyone like me that doesn’t want to, that feels like that’s homework. Right. Because that it needs to be fun.

Mallory Boggs [00:48:14]:
Right.

Mike Rucker [00:48:15]:
And so, yeah. Sonia Lubermersky, she’s at the University of Riverside, is the one that did this, because it was another facet of this toxic positivity. Right. There was gratitude has been well studied.

Mallory Boggs [00:48:27]:
Right.

Mike Rucker [00:48:27]:
And it is an amazing practice. But then life coaches, quote unquote, tapped into it and started telling people they had to find three things a day to be grateful for. Well, you know what happens. I think I already shared, I lost a loved one that wasn’t a time for that type of prescription. And so when there’s this dissonance of what you’re told you need to do to be, quote unquote happy and how you really feel inside again, we’re going back to that moral injury. So do it however you want. And I guess a word of warning. What I found is initially my journal had the days in it, so I would feel bad because you’d see this big, empty space back to a composite book, and I’ll write the day in so I don’t have to think about the blank pages where I didn’t feel it in.

Mike Rucker [00:49:14]:
Again, agency and autonomy at its best, right.

Wes Moss [00:49:17]:
It is the true measure of freedom and happiness and fun. It’s just so much about autonomy, so gratefulness again, you don’t like this idea of you have to be grateful for three things every day and write it down. So do you do this more organically as you’re journaling about and you’re kind of encoding?

Mike Rucker [00:49:37]:
Yes.

Wes Moss [00:49:37]:
That’s your fun memories, the days that.

Mike Rucker [00:49:39]:
I feel like something is worthy of writing it down. But what I’ve done through kind of cultivating this growth mindset is knowing that it’s there. And if that thing sits for a week, then I can ask better questions of like, hey, why haven’t I picked that up? Like, why haven’t I been able to create something that belongs in that journal? And then I’ll start to make better choices. And that happens all the time, so it’s a nice kind of artifact totem as well, is that, hey, I haven’t picked this up. I need to create something in my life so that’s worthy of writing something in that journal.

Wes Moss [00:50:14]:
So as we wrap up, I’d love for you to leave our audience with maybe one action step or one way we can improve, let’s say, relationships with either our friends or our kids. Maybe it’s our spouse. What’s a practical action step to infuse a little bit more fun with one of those groups?

Mike Rucker [00:50:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. So one, again, try to find one or 3 hours where you can kind of clear space. So again, don’t try and make this out of clear space, and then figure out what is your jam? What do you want to do? I’ll fall back.

Wes Moss [00:50:48]:
That could be from the yielding category. Right, so you find some of that time.

Mike Rucker [00:50:51]:
Yeah, exactly. Then use some tools from my background in behavioral science. Whether you want to do a full blown fun file or whether you just want to sit for 30 minutes and go, you know, what? What is something that I haven’t done in the last twelve months that I want to do? You know, is it going to the comedy club if you’re, you know, you like jazz? Is it Jazzenhe? Is it a solo activity because you’re introverted? Is it just curling up with a good book at a pool and not having anyone bother you, whatever that is. Create that list, but make it things that could be reasonably done in the next couple of weeks and then pre commit to it. Get it on the calendar. If it costs a little bit of money, prepay for it if it’s inviting a friend. So there’s that social contract and, you know, you don’t want to let your friend down. Invite your friend along, even if you’re introverted.

Mike Rucker [00:51:46]:
I tend to push people in that direction because if we get others involved, we generally don’t want to flake on them. And even introverts still want to be around people, just not a lot of people. And again, the benefits of the geeky word again. But pro social behavior can’t be understated. And then just make it happen. And then check in with yourself the next day. How do you feel? How are you showing up to the things that you needed to do that you thought might be affected because you were quote unquote selfish with your time the day before. And I promise you, you’ll understand what the benefits are.

Mike Rucker [00:52:22]:
The same way we got people to understand the benefits of good sleep hygiene when they stopped answering emails from 09:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. realizing it didn’t take away from productivity and how much better they felt the next day.

Wes Moss [00:52:37]:
Have you gone to a flip phone yet? Have you done that yet? I keep talking about it. I think at some point I may do that.

Mike Rucker [00:52:44]:
But I’ll tell you, I talked about this in the book as a one off. And it is something that I’ve gotten feedback from multiple people that they’re like, thanks so much. And I didn’t even really prescribe it. It was more of an anecdote. And that is on Amazon, you can get a locking cookie jar. So it’s meant to stop people from eating cookies that’s on a timer rather than a lock. People love this intervention. They get home from work, they put it in the cookie timer, and then the cookie timer opens up at 08:00 a.m.

Mike Rucker [00:53:14]:
so they don’t have access to their phone. And like, so of course, if they need it, they could smash the cookie jar. But, you know, not many of us are going to do that.

Wes Moss [00:53:24]:
I also wanted to, before we go, I wanted to kind of give our folks a preview in the fun habit about Cindy and kind of her quick transition in her journey in retirement. Can you share just a little bit about that as a preview in the book?

Mike Rucker [00:53:38]:
Yeah. So Cindy is a friend of mine’s mother, and her and her husband went into retirement. And I think what’s beautiful about her story was when they first embarked on that one, they realized they wanted to change their environment because their environment hadn’t made them happy. And that’s why I first wanted to interview her. But the beauty of it is they realized that they had habituated their lives so much that they didn’t know each other anymore, and so they got to fall in love all over again. And so obviously that comes with some potential risk. And so it wasn’t all beautiful, but the ability to someone that you shared this life with to be able to rediscover them and also share in like, okay, well, I know when we were both kind of courting each other, we thought we knew what each other thought was fun. That must have fundamentally changed.

Mike Rucker [00:54:28]:
And this was true. Her husband’s name is Mike for both of them. And so they got to reintegrate what they really wanted to do later in life, gave themselves space to do the things that they wanted to do separately, but then came together for these moments of co created fun in ways that were just amazing because they were deliberate about it.

Wes Moss [00:54:48]:
Well, this has been fun and I love that you give us permission to focus in on it. I think that the thought around I could absolutely see, and this took sleep to your point, probably two decades to everybody to finally agree that sleep, the no sleep thing is b’s, the full blown amount of sleep you need. It’s not something that we should die on a sword for the whole, oh, I don’t need, I can do the four hour sleep thing, the Vanderchuk deal. But to think that the prescription around having these being intentional around, we have to put ourselves in a place to be able to have this experience of more fun and enjoyment and autonomy in our lives is just as important. And I see that it’ll probably take another ten or 15 years, but it’s a good candidate to get that stamp of approval.

Mike Rucker [00:55:44]:
Yeah. And I think fortunately the empirical research similar to sleep is now making, you know, a pretty strong case you’re seeing in the EU, companies begin to protect their employees in this regard. One of the examples I bring up is France has made it illegal for companies to keep their email servers on past 05:00 p.m. on a Friday so that people illegally.

Wes Moss [00:56:08]:
Wait, that’s a government rule, correct? I don’t know if I knew that. 05:00 p.m. on a Friday. I’m so guilty of that specific. I don’t even look at the clock anymore. Well, all right. Doctor Mike Rucker, thank you, man. Thanks for stopping by the retire sooner podcast and I think we learned an awful lot and I love the direction that this helps our would be retirees or current retirees focus in on something that I want people to be able to give their self permission to do.

Mike Rucker [00:56:43]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Mallory Boggs [00:56:46]:
Hey y’all. This is Mallory with the retire sooner team. Please be sure to rate and subscribe to this podcast and share it with a friend. If you have any questions, you can find us@westmoss.com dot. That’s wesmoss.com. you can also follow us on Instagram and YouTube. You’ll find us under the handle Retire Sooner podcast. And now for our show’s disclosure.

Mallory Boggs [00:57:06]:
This information is provided to you as a resource for informational purposes only and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. There is no guaranteed offer that investment return, yield, or performance will be achieved. Stock prices fluctuate, sometimes rapidly and dramatically, due to factors affecting individual companies, particular industries or sectors, or general market conditions for stocks paying dividends. Dividends are not guaranteed and can increase, decrease, or be eliminated without notice. Fixed income securities involve interest rate, credit inflation and reinvestment risks and possible loss of principle. As interest rates rise, the value of fixed income securities falls. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Mallory Boggs [00:57:46]:
When considering any investment vehicle, this information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance, or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. Investment decisions should not be based solely on information contained here. This information is not intended to and should not a primary basis for any investment decision that you may make. Always consult your own legal tax or investment advisor before making any investment tax, estate or financial planning considerations or decisions. The information contained here is strictly an opinion and it is not known whether the strategies will be successful. The views and opinions expressed are for educational purposes only as of the date of production and may change without notice at any time based on numerous factors such as market and other conditions.