- All right, hi everyone.
I'm just recording a quick video today.
I just got back from the gym.
I came home early from my class for a reason
that you might not expect.
And it's the same reason that instead of going to have
a shower and have breakfast and do all those other things,
I'm sitting in front of you still sweating
and my hair is dumb,
because I had a revelation.
A couple of, a couple of dots joined.
So I've been reading this book recently called
"Thinking, Fast and Slow."
Some of you may have heard of it.
It's a very famous classic book.
And it's all about mental energy and mental resources.
And the two systems in our brain, which I won't go into,
'cause if I do go into, that'll be another hour
of me talking.
So the most interesting thing for me around that
is how it relates to our ability
and our executive functioning ability.
So very interestingly, they were all of these tests
essentially, research studies that have proved that
there are, come on words.
(exhales)
When I get too excited the words don't (mumbles).
Let me try again.
(exhales)
We have one bucket of mental energy, and there are
a variety of different activities and functions
that draw from that energy bucket.
Things like resisting temptation, pushing ourselves
really hard, regulating our attention,
and various other things
like doing difficult mental activity, remembering things.
I have to go back through the book to give you
a complete list.
So the reason that I came home from the gym early,
is for two reasons.
One, because I had this revelation,
and it was sitting in my head, and I was spending a lot
of energy trying to remember it.
And now, what I learned from the book
and what has made sense, because this is being
my experience my whole life, is when I'm
in this state of I've got something that I'm trying
to remember, I spent a lot of energy, just,
it's like holding on to it, trying not to let it go.
Because I know if I let it go, it's not gonna come back.
Or at least I worry it's not gonna back.
And what happens there is it takes a lot
of this resource of mental energy to hold it there.
It means that I can't focus on what I'm doing
at the moment, it means that an hour later
when I finally get to act on this idea,
I'm really tired.
So that's why I came home from the gym early.
I did half my class and I said no that's it,
instead of doing the rest, instead of pushing myself
and using more of my mental energy,
I'm gonna come home instead.
And I'm gonna record this video straight away
before I forget, because otherwise,
I'm just wrecked for the entire rest of the day.
And this week has been a really great example of that.
We just finished our one week of enrollments
for autism 101, which has meant that I've spent
a lot of time in front of my computer doing things.
And juggling so many different tasks,
and pushing myself to do things that I find very difficult
like writing emails for example.
And the difficulty is that it's a,
kind of a double-edged sword,
because the more tired you are, the harder you have to push
to do the same job, which obviously makes you get
more tired even more quickly.
So, I was originally tryna relate this to sensory things.
Why does, how does sensory processing
affect executive function?
So if I am easily distracted by sensory input,
and I am constantly regulating my attention
back to whatever I'm supposed to be paying attention to,
that costs mental energy.
When I am trying to sit still, when my body
doesn't want to sit still, that requires mental energy.
And if I'm doing that all of the time,
then naturally, by the end of the day,
by midday, by after half an hour of sitting still,
I'm gonna have very, very low reserves of mental energy.
And it was really interesting to read all these studies
in this book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow,"
about how this was not anything to do with autism.
They were just testing the general population,
and they proved that your ability to concentrate,
your ability to perform mental tasks,
or make decisions, or persevere,
was severely diminished when you're tired,
when you've, when they deliberately exhausted
those resources of mental energy.
So anyway, that's very interesting.
I'm sure you've heard that I have an interesting
emotional intelligence anyways,
so that's why I like sharing this stuff.
While I'm here, I might as well let you know that
I'm planning on running another
emotional intelligence calls webinar in January.
My EQ101 course has been available as a self-guided course
and is available right now as a self-guided course.
But I'm going to do a live webinar series,
which will be free for everyone who's already
done the course.
So that's gonna be fun to have everyone who's
done the course previously, come along again.
Quite often when a (mumbles) people have come
multiple times because there's just so much content
and then just like I was saying at the gym this morning,
just things, just click.
And you're like oh, it makes sense.
This thing that I've been reading about that I've been
learning about, it actually really matches my experience,
and it's really useful.
So for example, I know that if I come home
from the gym early, I'm gonna be more productive at work.
Sometimes I go to the gym and it's quite easy,
and it doesn't feel like I'm pushing myself too hard,
which is great.
But sometimes, you wake up and you're doing something,
you're like I really don't wanna do this,
is it worth really pushing through?
And for me, sometimes it's not.
I had a, I'm way digressing again, but I had a housemate
who used to go for a swim every morning.
And one morning I went with her, and she would say things
like isn't that amazing to get up and do something
and then by the time you get home at 9:00 a.m.
in the morning, you've already done something?
I'm like no, no.
For me, swimming is pushing, lap after lap,
tryna remember a number, tryna remember what lap I'm up to,
and then just pushing, which means that I am wrecked
by 9:00 a.m. and I can't do anything
for the rest of the day.
Anyway, gonna stop this video here.
Clearly, I could talk about these kind of insights forever.
So, I would love to share them with you,
if you would like to check out the emotional intelligence
101 course that I put together.
It's 12 lessons, it goes over a whole thing,
and also be running a live webinar series
on that in January.
That's the plan, and the reason I'm telling you
is so that I have to actually do it,
and it doesn't just sit on the back burner
and feel like it's too hard.
So I'm going to do that, committing to doing that right now.
And it will be great to see everyone who has
already taken themselves through the self-pace course.
So yeah, hope you've enjoyed this video today.
And I should also mention
my various generous Patreon community.
The reason I, the luxury for doing this video,
is because I'm gonna spend some more time
doing the video I was supposed to be doing this week,
which is actually another, going way over time,
another great strategy that I found that works
for myself, which is going with my energy.
So I am very grateful to all of my Patreon,
all about Patreon family, thank you so much
for responding so quickly whenever I ask you
what I should do or reach out to you for help.
That's been really amazing.
So following my energy today, making this video,
going home from the gym early and next week,
definitely gonna happen.
So yeah, I'm diagnosed autistic or something.
I don't know, I haven't planned.
I do things right.
Okay, see you later.