Where am I

conflating

momentum with what's meaningful? [music]

How much of my time is serving the

things I actually [music] want versus

the things I should be doing?

>> Welcome to Meet the Leader, the podcast

where top leaders share [music] how

they're tackling the world's toughest

challenges.

This week's special episode asks

researchers, [music] an adventurer, an

artist, and a Buddhist monk how you can

focus on what matters most. Subscribe to

Meet the Leader on Apple, Spotify, and

wherever you get [music] your favorite

podcasts. And don't forget, rate and

review us.

I'm Linda Lacina from the World Economic

Forum

and this is Meet the Leader.

>> You have to do behavioral change, change

your environment, and then you can

change your thinking [music] and your

and your mental habit.

>> It's summertime.

Have you taken your vacation yet?

And if you took that vacation, did you

ever put your phone down? Could you stop

scanning for emails and Slack

notifications and little things with

your name on them?

Those things are going to be there when

you get back, I promise. [music]

I've done it, too. It's hard to stop,

retrain our brains, take a moment to

reflect, but those moments are critical,

not just to avoiding burnout, but to

[music] helping us keep a fresh

perspective, to help us make better

decisions.

We have been so lucky this year to talk

to a range of incredible experts who are

perfectly poised [music] for this

critical topic, how to find time for

reflection so you can refocus on what

matters most. Leaders in this episode

will share research and insights and

strategies, and they're all things that

you can deploy help refine your center

when things go sideways. We'll get

started with Hiro Iwamoto.

Hiro Iwamoto is a blind adventurer

and together with his sighted navigator

and crewmate Doug Smith, they completed

the first-ever non-stop crossing of the

Pacific Ocean by a visually impaired

person.

You might remember them from last week's

Meet the Leader episode where my

colleague Robin Pomeroy talked to them

about that extraordinary journey and

what surprised them about spending 55

days with just the ocean below them and

the stars above.

They found it liberating and the journey

helped drive home to them that life's

real necessities

everything they needed was really on

that boat. It's a great reminder to

anyone to ask yourself, what do I really

need in this moment? And do I have it

already?

Here's Doug and Hiro.

>> We're on a boat and you know, you didn't

have the constant ding ding ding of your

phone and the message coming in. You

know, everything you need was there on

the boat. Um someone asked me he's like

didn't you feel lonely um or scared in

the middle of ocean and I think both of

us said no, we felt more connected and

and our course took us where you know,

there was not a lot of boat traffic or

any traffic. I mean the closest people

on Earth they

weren't on Earth. They're probably in

space station uh above. So I think we

both found it kind of

liberating to um

feeling to to be out there to be

self-sufficient.

You know,

uh to be separated from the world and

not have the constant noise of news or

your your device dinging at you.

>> Hey, it sounds glorious. I want to do it

now.

>> Yeah, and of course, you know, there

were times where you have big storms and

you know, things happen, things break

and they

need to get repaired, but that that was

expected. So it wasn't uh

>> So step by step, right? When something

happens definitely on the sa- sailing

across the Pacific, but step by step how

to figure out. And good time to

have a dialogue with yourself

and with uh universe.

Excellent, you know, and feeling why

this world has a war polarization or

climate climate crisis, you know, in

this on the middle of the Pacific, I

feel this Earth is one thing, right?

>> Right.

>> Yeah, so feeling very well. So, instead

of those

you know, difficult time, excellent

time, you know, I

what I remember the most, yeah.

>> That's you talked about the the space

station maybe being closer to you than

uh humans on Earth. You you you you seem

to have had an experience both of you

similar to what astronauts have when

they look down on Earth and this feeling

of it's this precious place and uh and

and we forget about it all too often,

right?

>> And it felt like we were because we're

sailing in the trade winds, so you go

for a long time. The sun is rising

behind you in the morning, setting you

know, in the afternoon, so you're

continually setting you know, sailing

into the sun.

And you get this feeling it's like what

you this could have been 10,000 years

ago or 100,000 years ago or 10,000 years

from now. You felt like you were

in some ways

stepping out of time.

>> So, after landing, you know, I was

shocked then

uh when I went to, you know, the biggest

stores and supermarket things are

everything and too much things in the

how materialistic this world

became, you know. What we needed is what

we put on the sailboat. That's it. 55

days. We could gone 90 days, 100 days,

you know. So, this world you know, the

different way to see we had through the

sailing across the Pacific, yeah.

>> Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist

and an expert on human flourishing. In

fact, he's taught a course on that topic

for the last 12 years at New York

University.

He was a guest on Meet the Leader this

year talking about human happiness and

how tech distraction and fragmentation

get in the way of that.

He shares with us a simple tip to help

you take back control of your day and of

your mornings.

One that starts with your devices.

I'll let him explain.

>> What habits can you develop with your

phone to increase your chances of

flourishing?

One thing that I've learned from

teaching undergraduates and MBA students

in their late 20s is that almost all

young people and a lot of older people

the very first thing they do when they

wake up in the morning is check their

phone for notifications. They don't get

out of bed, they don't go to the

bathroom, uh they don't make coffee,

it's the phone.

And what's the last thing they do before

they close their eyes at night? Same

thing. It's the phone. And what do they

do in between? For a lot of them, mostly

it's the phone. That is not a life. That

is not a life with relationships. That

means you are never fully present in

human interactions.

So, one of the things that I strongly

encourage all of my students to do and I

encourage all adults to do,

make a list of the first five things you

do after you open your eyes.

And look at it and say, is that really

what I want? And find ways to change it.

Make a list of the last five things you

do before you close your eyes.

And look at it. Is that really what you

want?

And what everyone finds is when they do

that, when they give themselves space to

wake up and to set the day and to choose

what they want to happen that day, set

your intentions,

you have a much better day.

If you don't do that, you open your

eyes, you look at your phone and your

phone will now control your thinking,

your cognition, your thoughts, your

priorities, and your actions for the

rest of the day. You'll constantly be

interrupted. You'll never have deep work

and you won't really amount to anything.

So, willpower is overmatched. Willpower

is not enough.

You can't just say, "I'm going to look

at my phone less." You can't just say,

"I'm going to be present in my social

No, you cannot That's not enough. The

phones, the apps are designed by people

who studied behaviorism, they studied

gambling and gaming addiction, they use

techniques from Las Vegas in designing

these apps, and they are too strong for

our willpower. As Angela Duckworth

writes, she's the of the book Grit, you

have to do behavioral change, change

your environment, and then you can

change your thinking and you and your

mental habit.

>> At Davos this year, cellist Yo-Yo Ma

curated an inspirational conversation on

how leaders can live in balance with the

planet. It's a pretty incredible

session, and it's one that stopped me

cold when it played in our staff office

in January during the annual meeting.

You can watch it on your own, I'll have

a link in the show notes, but there was

a moment in the session where Yo-Yo Ma

asked Olani Willheim, the CEO of

nonprofit Nia Tero, an organization that

supports indigenous peoples and their

guardianship of lands and waters, all

about the idea of ancestors and being a

steward of our environments and the

impact we have on others.

It's an enlightening chat that can help

you think about urgency differently and

ask yourself, "How can I be an ancestor?

How can I think about the long term?"

Here's Olani.

>> Your father

is Swiss.

He's from Steffisburg.

Steffisburg.

A town with no railroad.

And your mother is native Hawaiian.

And

Olani has devoted her life

to advocate for the well-being

and to spread the wisdoms of indigenous

peoples.

And that is one out of 20 people on our

planet.

One out of 20.

So,

it's a big job.

How do you think of time?

Of big time, of generational time, of

the time that's that um

how do you think about that time when we

have to live in the moment in a very

unstable and fast-changing world?

How do you negotiate the two?

>> I am Native Hawaiian and I was fortunate

to be raised primarily in

[clears throat] the homeland of my

mother

and in her culture. And in that culture,

we learn very young that we're descended

from nature, that our oldest kin are

non-human

uh relations, that we're the younger

siblings

um of the of what we now refer to as the

natural world, but it's who we are. We

are nature. But my father is Swiss and

he is from Stäfa Bach in Canton Aargau.

Um and it's really wonderful because I

have those ancestors as well. And the

funny thing is is even though my parents

came from literally halfway around the

world, they both came from

extraordinarily humble means. They

actually both came from farming families

and you know, fishing families in my in

my mom's case. And the only thing they

ever argued about was time.

If we weren't 10 minutes early,

we were late for my dad.

And if we weren't 1 hour late, we were

early for my mom.

And the role my brother and I always had

to play was straddling these worlds,

right? Actually trying to figure out how

to stretch and navigate time so that

we'd have peace in our family and we

could actually get anywhere at some

point and kind of understand the nuances

of that. And so literally in me is like

this kind of holding of time and what I

learned from my you know, my Hawaiian

family is that we so say "Oh, it's okay.

Like, relax, calm down. Ancestors will

stretch time."

Like, you will have the time you need

to be able to do what's at hand. Right?

And that for me is like that poetic way

of that tension between the urgent and

the important or like, you know,

something having to do it in today,

right now, this one thing has to be

done, but you have to be mindful of

where we're going in the future.

>> Shokai Matsumoto is a Buddhist monk and

the author of several books, including

Work Like a Monk: How to Connect, Lead,

and Grow in a Noisy World.

Shokai uses ancient wisdom to help

people find meaning in the modern world.

He also talked about thinking like an

ancestor, but his focus was on how we

can be better stewards of our attention

so we can better appreciate the present.

I'll let him explain exactly how to do

that.

>> So, if you want to be a good ancestor of

yesterday's you,

you need to

have an agency. If you give up

your

um

autonomy

on

how you

manage your attention,

you cannot do anything, right? Uh you

will be just

uh swiped away

by

overwhelming

wave of

attention economy and politics, right?

To become a good ancestor,

it is really important to

first, number one,

you need to be owner

of your own attention. To be an owner of

your attention,

you need to be grounded in the first

place. So,

before

start speaking,

stay calm,

and start listening mindfully to your

own voice.

Then

to others' voices.

But, remember

this present moment

is the point where every

course of future, every course of the

past is unfolding.

Start appreciating the present. So, this

is a very important, you know, starting

point.

Whatever you do.

>> To take us home, we have Suleika Jaouad.

She's a memoirist and best-selling

author of The Book of Alchemy. That's a

special guide to journaling with prompts

and essays that help people take time to

reflect on moments and questions that

they wouldn't otherwise.

She's also a three-time cancer survivor.

Journaling helped her through many tough

moments, including living with that

disease. Here's Suleika on journaling

and how this creative process helped

her.

>> I believe that a creative practice is

beneficial for everyone. You don't have

to be a professional writer or musician

or poet to benefit from its power. But,

when you think about it, creativity is

the undernetting of everything that we

do. Cooking is creative. Negotiating a

deal requires creativity.

Um

making a sacrifice and um having an

argument with your spouse requires

creativity. And so, exercising that

muscle of creativity in a context that

isn't for public consumption. Uh taking

a moment each day to sit down, to write

or doodle, or make a list and find your

way back to yourself. that to me is the

starting point of every good idea, every

first draft of an important

conversation, and it is the bedrock of

uh not just my work um

and and my ability to keep enduring and

surviving uh but more than that, to to

keep living, to live well, to live

intentionally, to live meaningfully, to

live uh a life that doesn't feel like

drowning in uncertainty, but instead is

a life of curiosity, of asking

questions, of reflecting and taking

stock.

>> I also asked her how in a world where

we're so comfortable prompting AI and

search engines, why we should stand and

ask ourselves some questions in the

process.

Ursula K. Guin's answer.

>> We live in a culture that is obsessed

with as the journalist David Brooks put

it, our resume virtues, the things that

make us attractive in the common

marketplace. We're less focused on the

eulogy virtues, on cultivating the

traits that we're often remembered for

long after we're gone. Were you brave?

Were you humble? Were you kind? And I

think it's so easy

in this modern day to tumble through

your life, to be focused on doing as

opposed to being without actually taking

a moment to reflect on what it is that

you're thinking, what it is that you're

feeling and experiencing.

And so to me, even 1 minute, even a

sentence is valuable. It's to paraphrase

the poet T. S. Eliot, a way of finding a

still point in the spinning world. What

I've found that may seem

counterintuitive

is that when I shift away from being

productive. When I begin my day with a

to-feel list rather than a to-do list,

which is one of the prompts from the

Book of Alchemy that I return to every

day, um it changes my mindset as I

approach the rest of my day. It sets the

tone for everything. And we are

giving prompts all the time, often in

the context of AI, but to prompt the

self

>> [snorts]

>> is to

take a moment

to

slow things just enough that you can ask

yourself what actually matters to me

today. Are my priorities really my

priorities? Uh what would make this day

meaningful as opposed to productive? How

much of my time is serving the things I

actually want versus the things I should

be doing?

>> Lastly, I asked her what questions she's

asking herself these days.

>> Where am I

conflating

momentum with what's meaningful? It's so

easy

to confuse busyness with a sense of

progress.

And

as someone who is admittedly pretty type

A, um when I'm doing a lot, it feels

like forward motion.

But the ability sometimes

to pause,

uh to take a moment to actually reflect

about what I'm doing and why and where

it's taking me, sometimes can be the

most

productive unproductive use of time.

And so as we're here at Davos and having

questions and and conversations, uh

specifically for example, about AI and

there is this race to innovate

um

and

very [music] real questions about the

implications of that race for humankind,

[music] for our workforce, for our

artists.

Um

I think

that

the focus on

meaning

over

momentum and and specifically

>> [music]

>> defining

the the why of the momentum and the why

of what's meaningful um is [music]

something that I know I could benefit

from and that I believe others could,

too.

>> Those were the top tips on how to focus

on what matters most.

Thanks so much to [music] these leaders

and thanks so much to you for listening.

Do you know someone who could use a

couple more strategies to reflect and

focus? Send them this episode. They'll

be grateful. We have full podcast

[music]

conversations with many of the leaders

in this episode, leaders like social

psychologist Jonathan Haidt, writer

Suleika Jaouad, and adventurer Hiroki

Motodo. Put the links in the show notes.

Find a transcript of this episode as

well as transcripts [music] from my

colleague's podcast Radio Davos at

wef.ch/podcasts.

This episode of Meet the Leader was

produced and presented by me with Taz

Kelleher as editor, Juan Toran and

Edward Bailey [music] as studio

engineers in Davos, and Gareth Nolan

driving studio production.

That's it for now. I'm Linda Lacina from

the World Economic [music] Forum.

Have a great day.