Ep208: Why the “All or Nothing” Approach Will End Up Getting You Nowhere | with Nick Harauz

Zack Arnold

I'm here today with Nick Harauz, who is a certified Adobe, Apple and AVID trainer. And for anybody that is in the editing world like me knows that that covers just about everything. So Nick, it is a absolute pleasure to have you here from the other end of North America.

Nick Harauz

Thanks for having me, Zack.

Zack Arnold

I'm in LA Of course you're in where again?

Nick Harauz

Toronto freezing cold Toronto right now.

Zack Arnold

Yes. And everybody in LA is putting on their winter parkas and their hats because it's in the high 50s and drizzling.

Nick Harauz

Oh, that is weather I would love to have, right now.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. Having grown up two hours from the Canadian border in northern Wisconsin. I just I've been out here for 15 years, and I still laugh like, I'll when I do my afternoon and evening walks. It'll be in like, the low 40s. And I love it. I'm in like a tiny windbreaker and people are just like huddled up and frozen. So it's funny.

Nick Harauz

And I live in a wind tunnel in the city. So I'm like, right by the water in downtown Toronto. Oh, God. So so the average starting January to February is going to be you know, I'll be lucky if it's, if it hits, you know, 20 to 25. Right? I'd be that'll be a good day.

Zack Arnold

Yep. I remember I remember those days when I like when I was in high school, there was a time when I think the windshield was projected to be 20 or 30. Below, and there was talk of maybe canceling school that day. They were on the fence. It's like we should we like are the parents gonna get upset if we cancel. And then when she was 30 below, like, well, we probably should. But we'll we'll chances. But anyway, we're going way off tangent. I like talking to people that understand that the winter weather world because it's fun to watch people that don't. But anyway, one of the cool things about our relationship is that you're kind of a fitness and post OG, where you are in one of my very, very first early Challenge Groups. Yes. I mean, this would have been in 2014, I think, right? This was a couple of years ago. Yes. And this was back when I had no flippin idea what I was doing. And I'm not saying I do now. I'm starting to feel a little bit more comfortable. But I had no clue what I was doing. And we had a grand total of five people in our challenge group.

Nick Harauz

Yes, at the time. Yes, totally. It was I think it was I forget how long it was. But I was in that test, like group for. It was very small at the time, but it was it was great. And I actually I also partook in one of the online fitness and post challenges with the Fitbit, as well.

Zack Arnold

Right. Yeah. The Fitbit leaderboard of that I used to have Sure. Yeah, yeah. So it's funny because out of that group, I built some amazing relationships, you being one of them, Jeff Greenberg, being another who's been on the show a couple of times, and is you know, another one of the Guru's in the editing space. And I can link to the episodes that I did with Jeff, because those are some fan favorites. We can do a little bit of geeking out on the editing side of things today, but you actually reached out to me, and were very insistent about wanting to get on the show, because you have a you know, a fitness before and after type story that you wanted to tell. So I want to go into that. But before we do, so I want to just give people a little bit clearer picture of what you do for a living what your day to day looks like. So then we have that framework, so we can jump in your more specific story,

Nick Harauz

Definitely. So I would say right now, Zach 70% of my work involves training. So within the Avid, Adobe, and Apple spectrum, you can find a bunch of my courses right now on Lynda. So I have about, I think 12 courses in the library, and even two more to come. And I also do tutorials and training for a bunch of third party plugins. So you could find right now a series on on Gen Arts, which is a plugin maker, well not owned by Boris, but just recently did about 20 or 30 videos with them in terms of a top 10. So a lot of my experience comes to recording online videos. So I am sitting at a desk a lot of the time if that if that spells it out correctly, where I'm sitting engaged to the desk and doing online tutorials in terms of the editing apps or motion graphic apps, right. And on the other 30% is involves production. That could be anywhere from branding activation videos, they film around the city of Toronto, or even, let's say documentary style internal video.

Zack Arnold

So that having been said, you spend most of your time in front of a computer, but you also have that blend of where you're in the production world. And that's a very, very different lifestyle where, depending on your role, you may not sit for 12 or 14 hours and you're on your feet all day long, correct?

Nick Harauz

That's correct. So when I am on the production, I am very active. I would be overseeing the production more than let's say grabbing a camera. But yes, it's a totally different spectrum. But it's up it's active. You know, you're you're running around, and hopefully depending on the size of the crew, or it's on the company The flip side of the spectrum, which is more of what I do, which is more in the edit and post room, so editing on a laptop or recording on a laptop, or, in some cases, yeah, putting together pieces on the laptop and being stagnant.

Zack Arnold

So because you're in kind of both worlds, and there are a fair amount of people that are in our industry, and they're also in other creative industries that kind of blur the line between these two, I think the term now is predator, which I've I've never really liked that term. But basically, it's a producer slash editor, where you kind of do go back and forth. And a lot of people that listen to the show are 100% of the time, the creatives behind the computer like me, on average, and behind one computer for 14 hours a day. But having been in both sides, where you kind of have one toe in the totally sedentary lifestyle, and then another toe in the moving around all day, What differences do you notice in your ability to create thoughts have energy and really work when you're in both of those spaces.

Nick Harauz

So I have certain routines in place when it comes to the stagnant nature of my business in order for me to have that creativity and have that focus. But on your point, when I am up and about involved in production, I feel a little bit more alert, I feel more active, I'm also engaging with people. And with that engagement and with Communications Act, I just find my energy levels tend to be up I tend to be almost even a little bit brighter than I would say, in a period where I'm involved in post at a computer where I have a series of let's call it safe holes in place to make sure that I can mimic those levels of creativity that I would experience in production.

Zack Arnold

Well, I definitely want to get to those safe holes. And that's a brand new term that I've never heard before that I may have to steal, because that's a fun one. But before we go to kind of down to the road to all of your solutions. Let's now dig a little bit more into what brought you to contact me because you said that you had a story that you felt needed to be shared. So let's kind of start from from there.

Nick Harauz

So let's rewind back to April of this year, it was just around NAB. And I had gained about 10 pounds from January to April. I wasn't feeling very good. This was a period of a huge stagnation. I was at a computer I wasn't working out. Effectively, I'll terminate it, I'll basically term it. And I wanted to change something I didn't know what was going on. I needed something to uplift, I needed to feel good. And I wanted to feel involved. So I took a couple steps. There was also some auto immune issues that were happening that I wanted to address. And I couldn't really determine it. But I had started doing some some research online and how food is part of a factor in terms of that lifestyle. And really look at what I was eating. And I decided to take Have you heard of a food allergy test? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Of course, well, I took an allergy test, I wanted to see what I was allergic to. And I looked at my overall diet. And I got back the sheet. And I was like in the redzone for a couple major things. So So one was wheat, and the other was dairy. And dairy was fairly consistent within my diet and wheat. More. So in occasions of Yes, I not so much breads or complex carbs. But when I went out to drink beer, so I looked at the sheet and it was just amazed and was kind of disheartened at the time of like, okay, what am I feeding myself and I decided to do a challenge where I not only a challenge, but cut out all of the items that were in the redzone for 30 days, and also not drink. And combined with that worked out vigorously for at least 45 minutes a day for six days a week. And during this period in July, I lost just over 25 pounds.

Zack Arnold

And that was in just 30 days. That was in just 30 days. So that so it's funny because this is the exact opposite of the approach that I take, which is I always talk to people about not doing the all or nothing not going crazy and changing your entire life. But you've done it and you did it successfully for those 30 days. What I'm really way more interested in is where things went from there because people that watch like, for example, the biggest loser I don't know if you guys have that in Canada or have something like it but you know the biggest loser they have people that are four 500 pounds and that's not an exaggeration. They are actually that large. They do crazy deprivation diets. They burn calories like Mad Men, they turn into like these these hanging bags of skin where they're like 150 pounds. And there are these amazing success stories. What NBC is not broadcasting afterwards is that six months to a year later, the vast majority of everything Neither one of them has not only gained the weight back, but they've gained more back because of how badly they mess with all their hormones. So now I'm really interested to hear how you kept up with it. That's the part I'm interested in is the long game. So let's let's keep going.

Nick Harauz

Definitely. So yeah, so that was the short game. And that's what I did for those 30 days. And there came a period, Zack, I guess the biggest thing was in July or August, where I started to put on, it ended up by September me putting on these additional 10 part pounds from what I had lost. So in September, I started asking myself these questions like, Okay, you, you just kind of went through this crazy diet, which is probably, like you had mentioned, almost unsustainable, so how do you balance it out. And I started to look at various ways that I could basically contain or have a healthy lifestyle, at the same point in time, keep the weight off. And this is this is where I would say lead to now, this involves do things where I think I went a little bit overboard with exercise, I'm still very balanced with exercise actually do. Right now I do yoga, four times a week. And that is my form of exercise for over an hour. The reason I chose that as an activity mostly is I find it the biggest challenge to me in terms of flexibility. But also it's it relates towards mindfulness to me during the practice. And for me, that has been one of the the things that has kept me grounded

Zack Arnold

well, and when you mentioned yoga, and I have a couple other questions before we go too much further, but when you mentioned yoga, I don't want to kind of just let this fall off the wayside here, because everybody that listens to the show regularly knows how much I talk about yoga, I built an entire yoga library into my program. And when you say it's all about flexibility, you're right. However, what I try to really emphasize to people is is way more about flexibility of your mind than it is of your muscles and your tendons. And I'll put links in the show notes to a couple of past episodes that I did with one of my favorite human beings on the planet that's a certified yoga instructor and runs an online yoga studio. But it really is about reframing your mind and developing that sense of mindfulness. And I was really surprised when I did these yoga episodes, because I'm like, Oh, God, editors, they don't want to hear about yoga, they don't care about this stuff. But I got a really good response. Because people would say, Man, I just started doing it, like 1520 minutes a day. And my days are easier. And I don't get as upset when I get notes. And it really is a it makes a major difference.

Nick Harauz

Oh yeah. I love how you how you just frame that like flexibility of mind versus flexibility of body because I completely agree. And when I had approached yoga, this is about two or three years ago, like I could exactly, I could barely, let's say touch my toes, you know, I never would consider myself to be a very flexible person. Or at least when you see people who are, let's say advanced in the practice of perform it, it almost was like I felt like I wasn't able to do it. And in looking at it more and more, it just became so important for me to do it just because of in some cases because of my stagnant lifestyle for sitting at a desk for long periods of time, which I'm also which I also tried to target these days. But I would say in the last two or three months, for me doing this repetitively, my amount of hip flexibility, especially around the core area has greatly improved. And this was something I did not experience so much in July. But this built up from that continued practice. And on top of that, I always work out in the morning. So I am finished this before I hit the desk or hit the computer. So this is just one of I would say several accomplishments that I I feel before I start my workday.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. And I love that you're looking at as an accomplishment before the workday looking at how it's affecting the quality of your work day. So now we've kind of gone into into one year habits that you have. But before we go further, I actually want to sit backwards a second because there's one clarification that I want to get from you. And you said that you'd lost 25 pounds in 30 days doing this crazy diet. When you said that you gained the weight back did you gain 10 pounds of it back? Or you're saying you actually gained 35 pounds meaning the 25 plus an additional 10?

Nick Harauz

No, no, I gained I gained 10 pounds if it backs up, in addition, right?

Zack Arnold

Okay, well then well then that's good because usually it's whatever you lost you like the basic math is when you do a crazy program like that whatever you lost, take that and add 10% That's generally what happens when you mess with your hormones in a crazy way like that. But I'm glad to hear that you didn't actually gain 35 of it back. So to go deeper into that specifically because I I've been down this road to where I've trained for Tough Mudder Spartan Races. I've done p90x For six days a week for 90 days. And p90x is, on average 75 minutes a day, and one or two days a week. It's actually night. Oh, so you so you've been through that whole program.

Nick Harauz

That's what I did for. I didn't do the entire program, but I was with it for 60, 60 to 70 days.

Zack Arnold

And that's amazing. Because most people, there are millions of people that own p90x Millions of them. But I think this statistic, and this is not specific to p90x this is specific to exercise programs in general and diets in general. But I think it's roughly 96% of them fail. So about 4% of people actually reach that final goal. But you saying you got to 60 days, rarely do I meet anybody that got that far, it's usually week two or week three, where people say you have got to be kidding me. I can't even get out of bed in the morning. There's no way that I can sustain this. And I've been there too. I did. Took me three tries to get through p90x through all 90 days. And that was just because I had the fear of death put in me because I was running my first Tough Mudder. So that was the only motivation I had to finish it. But let's go back to that point where you had gained the 10 pounds back, how long did it take you to gain those 10 pounds after your 30 day crazy diet?

Nick Harauz

Oh, it was it was two months. Okay. Yeah. And it was a series of at this period of time, I had gone on vacation and a bunch of other things. So I was a little bit less active. So this is how I had gained it. And while I haven't lost all of that I have lost that was the initial 25 pounds, that I gained 10 pounds of that back. And now I'm five pounds down. So for the year, I'm 20 pounds down.

Zack Arnold

Right. So it goes you're gonna say that the net gain is still incredibly positive based on where you were in April, where you said, I just don't feel like myself and I need to do something about it. So what exactly was that one turning point where you had done the 30 to 60 days, you looked at the scale, and you're like, holy crap, I just lost 25 pounds, this is amazing. What was that moment where you're like, I don't think this is going to work.

Nick Harauz

There wasn't a specific moment, to be totally honest, it was, I had just started to introduce an idea of let me start reintroducing some of these foods, I then just started, because my natural pattern wasn't to workout as much I had started, I would say, working out less effectively. And then through the vacation that I took with my girlfriend, I had just started to indulge a little bit too much. I also think my sleeping patterns were off at the time. So those were some things that came into play that I would say affected that weight gain. Now, the the aha moment was when I look back at that, in trying to look at a lifestyle where I guess I could maintain a workout as well as maintain eating healthy, but nothing so extreme that it fits into my lifestyle. So I don't know if I explained that completely well, but the I guess the idea would be to there was there was something extremely positive about what I did in those 30 days that accomplishment in terms of being able to cut out certain foods and to to not drink as much. And what I wanted to do was just how do I now take a look at my existing lifestyle? And how do I fit it into something that I can live into. The biggest important thing that I want to take into now and into next year is I want to have a healthy lifestyle consistently. So I don't want to think of it. The word diet to me these days, or like thinking of the word diet is almost something temporarily. And I'm trying to replace that with the word lifestyle in terms of okay, how am I going to develop these patterns in terms of eating, exercise, nutrition, sleep, meditation, to fit my existing lifestyle? And how do I continue to be consistent? So that's what's important to me. And that's like, I guess I would say the the brain shift Zack is from getting that idea of like temporary diet towards long term lifestyle. Makes sense.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. Not only does it make sense, but you're preaching to the choir. I mean, that's exactly I had the the same aha moment, which was the spark of inspiration for this entire program was I had done the full p90x program, and admittedly it took me 100 days, not 90, so I had a few skipped days, but I did every single workout and I did it in 100 days, and I ran my tough Mater A week later, so I give myself a week of recovery ran the Tough Mudder got home, and then I had like a bag of Doritos for dinner to celebrate. I'm like, This is awesome. And then I woke up the next morning and I'm like, I don't want to keep doing this. This is too hard. So I'm I'm just going to do something else. But then a week went by, and then two weeks went by and one Other things that happens when you do these crazy deprivation diets and exercise programs, if you stop, like you were saying, you started to indulge, your brain is still expecting this huge amount of calories to come in. But you're not keeping up trying to burn all this energy. So that's why partly you gain all this weight back so fast. And you're also completely messing up your appetite regulation hormones, so you're hungry all the freaking time. And I've talked about this with Natalie before, because she's a marathon runner, where she can eat a horse after she does a hard workout. And that's great. But if you just stop, and you do a vacation for a week, or two weeks, or whatever, your body and your brain are saying, Where's all this food, but there's no balance between them. And that's why it's not sustainable, long term. And yes, like this is all about lifestyle design for me. And that's not my term. That's this Tim Ferriss term. And I don't want to claim I've designed or really invented the idea of lifestyle design. But for me, it really is about finding what is long term sustainable. However, the one thing I do want to highlight. And the caveat before this is that anybody that's not aware, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a certified nutritionist. I'm just a dude that loves geeking out on the stuff. So be very clear about that. But one of the things you did that is very beneficial long term, as you found out, I have an allergy to specific foods, you did a 100% elimination of those foods for 30 days, and then you introduce them back in to see how you reacted. That is something that I definitely advise for people that are concerned that there is a certain type of food that's affecting them. So I don't want people to think that's a crazy deprivation diet. That is very smart, long term thinking if you need to reshape your diet.

Nick Harauz

Exactly. Yeah. And there's certain foods that I don't have very often like dairy is I don't think anything I can have. I react to it actually, where one thing I've noticed is when that I do have dairy, these are apparently two common symptoms is I have bags under my eyes, and then a runny nose, that's after me having dairy or having a dairy intake. So it's just something I just don't have very often. I mean, I will have it, it's during the holidays, but it is something that is I've continued to eliminate from my diet, as well as the Additionally other high one, which is, which is wheat, or wheat products.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and both both wheat and dairy are absolutely infamous for creating inflammation in your body and in your brain. So when you're seeing bags under your eyes, that's inflammation, that's your body puffing up and inflamed, because our bodies are not designed to have large amounts of wheat and dairy in our diet. So I've promised I'm not going to be going down this black hole. I've done it before. And I don't want to do it for this episode. But very, very briefly, the human body should not be ingesting either those things on a regular basis. Because that's not like think about another mammal in the animal kingdom that drinks milk after their babies. Nobody does except us. Because cheese is amazing. It's fantastic. Like why wouldn't you right? But our bodies aren't designed to ingest it. And the same goes with wheat, but because of the giant multibillion dollar machine behind it. There are dieticians that got the government to flip the food pyramid upside down. So rather than having trace amounts of these, we've been thinking for decades, oh, this should be a staple of my diet. That's not according to science in the human body. That's according to food marketers, but I promise shutting down the black hole now we'll continue with your story

Nick Harauz

No and cheeses. That is I would say the biggest part or the biggest challenge that I have with dairy for sure. There's just to let you know is that there's a market. It's called St. Lawrence Market. It's it's a downtown. They have a farmers market on Saturdays. So there is a ton of healthy food. But some of the cheeses there are just you know, to die for. But yeah, just that. So those were some of the things were to try to continue to cut those out, which was great. One of the biggest things, the most influential things to me over the last four months is how I've been treating my mornings. There was a book that I was actually referred to from my girlfriend who's a mindfulness coach. And the book is called I'm sure it might have probably has come up at some point called the Miracle Morning. Have you heard of it?

Zack Arnold

Yeah, no, I've actually read it. So I'm very well aware of Hal Elrod Yeah, it's a great book. I recommend everybody read it.

Nick Harauz

Yeah. So I started to develop these patterns in the morning. So that that there's this idea of that you do six things for which he calls savers. And in the morning that involves one thing is meditation, right. So in terms of I meditate, try using the app headspace, that's my primary go to. I've been doing that for over a year. And I would say I skipped about 12 days overall, but I've been fairly consistent with that, which has made some huge differences. And in terms of, I would say, my lifestyle as well as my focus. Another thing that is something that I had never done before, which was the he calls it scribing. But it's the journaling process. And I had done journaling before. But my, my journaling had tended to be negative, if that makes any sense. And there was a recommendation in his book to get this daily journal. And this journal forces you to reflect and to be positive. So it's all about positivity. So it asks you to come up with a daily affirmation, which is huge. Ask or basically say things that you are thankful for, at the start of the day. And then there's a part of the journal also that's designed to for you to write in at night as well. So you reflect on your day, and say, these are things that I am thankful for, for the day. And there's only one section where it's like that where you could wish for, let's say something to have gotten better. But using this type of journaling was huge for me. So that was one thing as it had a built in affirmation. And I also then have a list of affirmations that I read every morning, that are mixed between, you know, trying to say the things in terms of of what I want in terms of creativity, as well as what I want for my career mixed with what I want for my lifestyle. Then on top of that there, I do some visualizations, I use primarily Pinterest to come up with vision boards. And then I perform exercise and that exercise mostly is yoga. And not it's not necessarily p90x, but I do subscribe to Beachbody on demand, Zach. And they've recently really stepped up their game in terms of their yoga library, where they they had a I think it was back in September, I think it was a 20 day yoga challenge. Or maybe it was a 15 day yoga channels. I'm not exactly sure. But they had three instructors on there. And the challenge was just for you to do anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes of Yoga Day. And one thing that I had never been into is it's actually just bare basics. And one of the coaches, Ted was in one of the P 90x videos.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, he was in p90x Three. I don't know him personally, but I know I can I know the guy you're talking about.

Nick Harauz

Yeah, so he wasn't one of the p90x videos. But these instructors were just fantastic. And they brought a level of awareness, I would say, to my practice that I've never had before, it was like I've gone to different flows and astanga yoga practices. But instead of a suit, like assuming they basically assumed, I guess, with the practice that everything everyone was new. So their attention to detail in terms of their descriptions and stretches, were in terms of the routines that they had recommended were just huge, it was just such a game changer to me. And really, I would say, that was one thing that really opened up my practice. And it gave me just as a, whether it be a mix of, of routine or continually doing it mixed with our instruction. But that was just something that was just a huge benefit to me. And it's something that I still continue to do, they're now continuing to expand to that library. So where it started off with just like the this yoga challenge of a certain amount of days. Now each of the sorry that were there are for instructors have anywhere from 10 to 30 minute yoga routines online, from beginner to intermediate. And it's just great to kind of go in there and switch up and have something that I could perform at home.

Zack Arnold

Well, for anybody that's listening, I will put links in the show notes for both Beachbody on Demand because I'm also a huge advocate of it. It's basically the Netflix of online workouts. So you don't need to buy the DVD packages anymore. It's you can get any workout you want on demand anytime 24/7. And I'm also going to put a link to Yogi's Anonymous, which is a library that I subscribe to as well. And this is the library from Ali Hamilton, who I've had on the show before, but they're like 14 things. I want to talk about all that because that was just fantastic. The first of which is that I never expected to have an editor on my show and start talking about Ashtanga Yoga. That's a first for me. So now now that I know that you're using words, like Ashtanga, and I know you've been down that path, like I, you and I could geek out for hours and we certainly won't because I know my audience is like I don't know what that means and whatever. But anyway, very excited to to have a fellow editor that that knows that world but I want to go backwards before we hit the yoga and actually talk about the morning because that is so vital and so key and it's actually something that I teach in my Optimize Yourself program is how to lay out your morning routine, your evening routine, how to structure the questions, but I know that there were people that were saying, affirmations like really like come on daily affirmations and vision boards, like that's just a bunch of crud And one thing that I want to make very, very clear to people is that I like science. I like numbers, I like analytics. And there is a ton of documented science that shows that you can re engineer your level of happiness simply by creating more positive thoughts. So we are so conditioned to believe that happiness is external, when I get this job when I make this amount of money when I get this car, but it's very, very clear that that doesn't work out and you talk to anybody that's achieved those things. But the first thing they say is God, this is it, really. So for people that listen to this, that are more interested in the career side of things, you're not going to be successful and become happy. It's the opposite. Once you're happy, then you will become successful. And one of the easiest, cheapest ways to re engineer your level of happiness is a morning routine, just like you discussed. And it sounds like you've had that exact experience.

Nick Harauz

Yes, exactly. And this is something now. So this was one of the I guess the big shifts that started for me in October was to have a daily morning, routine and ritual involving all of these things. And Zach, I had not looked into all of the science of these things, but wanting to give these ideas of daily affirmations a chance, and also just being able to write or to scribe. And I think the most amazing thing to me, again, about this, like morning ritual is that the time is focused on you. And all of the things that are involved, I guess what the Miracle Morning are, even if you took two or three of them, they're all about you. And it's something that you're doing even before you start your workday. And there's something to me about having these affirmations to visualize and to meditate, that has given me a level of clarity within my work that I haven't experienced before. And to me, that's gold. I think another thing is, as editors, in the post production industry, we all search for levels of balance. And I've seen peers who have, you know, who worked themselves into let's call it a black hole, who will work several hours a day might not sleep, and they just not necessarily treating themselves well, in terms of exercise. I mean, to me, I guess, for me to have a future in this industry. To me, it's so important to have a balance. And you were just actually talking about happiness as well and reengineering the mind. And you reminded me of this amazing exhibit I saw back in Toronto, this is about three and a half years ago. It was by a TED talker. His name is Stefan Sagmeister. Have you heard of him?

Zack Arnold

No this is a new one for me.

Nick Harauz

Okay, so you have to watch this TED Talks. It's based on one of the TED Talks is about seven rules for making more happiness. And he's one thing that he was really big about or another TED talk that he has, he's designed covers for Rolling Stone. He's a designer in all different levels. And one of his big thing is he talks about one of his exhibits was all about happiness. And right at the beginning of the exhibit, if I remember, right, was the question is, how happy are you? And it was from one to 10. And basically, what was amazing about that is whatever number you chose is how happy you are. And the whole exhibit went through various levels of happiness, like how happy are people who have families, and it was statistics mixed with just beautiful typography and design. And you should totally just check out some of his, some podcasts, he talks about being happy. And then he also talks about, one thing that he's done is he's taken several sabbaticals throughout his work career in order to refresh and recycle new creative ideas. So he's taking anywhere from six months to a year and he's just fantastic to listen to. So you should totally check it out.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I will definitely watch it myself seek it out. And I will make sure that by the time this episode airs that I will have a link to this TED talk, because it sounds like it's right up my alley. Well, this has gone into like crazy tangents that I didn't ever expect. So I'm super excited about that. But I would like to talk more now about how these things, like you said, has specifically affected your creativity at work and the habits that you've established when you're in that sedentary mode. So if you're running around set, you're grabbing cameras, you're grabbing sandbags, that's a world that there's gonna be a lot of movement throughout the day and like you said, you're fresher, you're brighter. I would really be interested to know how you live throughout your day when you're in sedentary mode. Because at the end of the day, I don't talk about trying to lose weight, trying to eat less calories, like I don't give a crap about any of that stuff. What I'm interested in is designing a long term lifestyle. That's all about making sure you're maximizing your levels of energy and creativity so that you can do awesome work during the day have Fun and then have energy leftover when you get home to your family at night. Like that's my whole shtick. So how have you use all this to design your life in sedentary mode?

Nick Harauz

Yes. So okay, so I go through the Miracle Morning steps, essentially. And then I would say, by the time that I hit my computer, there is a level of focus that has developed over the time that I, again, hadn't really experienced before. Now, in terms of the work days, let's call it nine to five, or potentially nine to six, or nine to seven,

Zack Arnold

Nine to five is a half day for most of the people, I'd give anything to work nine to five.

Nick Harauz

Yeah, nine to five. So So talking about that day, um, I, one thing that I have developed, is to make sure that I get myself up at least once an hour, for a period of five to 10 minutes. So I don't have an elliptical at my desk. But that's something that I've been I've been looking into. But I do make sure that I am standing now for a period of at least 10 minutes on the hour. And I'm trying to actually increase that even more. But it's something where I have, I forget the name of the app, I know there's about three or four different apps, but I do have an app or a timer, that forces me to to get up after a certain period of time. Another thing I like to do is, in certain cases, I'll actually try to pull myself away from something or pull myself away from the computer or the screen for a slight period of time, in order to come back to whatever it is I'm working on with more energy and vigor. Another thing is also just I don't eat in front of the computer. So this is a huge thing for me, I used to eat in front of a computer like so I would order a salad, or let's say order. something even worse, let's say I hamburger, I would be eating with my hamburger, but still engaged in the computer. And what I found about that is that it's just I wasn't being mindful of eating, I was actually almost almost to I wasn't chewing enough. So another thing that I do is to make sure that I actually eat away from the computer. And I'm mindful of that eating. So these are some things that I have in place in that workday. So making sure that I'm not completely sitting down the entire time, like just being able to stand up at least that 10 minutes an hour, being able to eat mindfully, that's a huge thing for me. And I don't have a routine for this as much as other things. Sometimes I'll try to even pick up some weights or do a little bit of exercise throughout the day to try to keep my metabolism up. So those are some things that I have in place. Other things throughout the workday, when I began, I always have a to do list of actionable items, which I divided into two categories. One are actionable items that take under two to three minutes. And then others are longer term actionable items. And I'll go through this list and decide how to go about my workday, based on looking at it before I engage in those activities. Right. Some based on priority, others based on how quickly can I action, a certain item. So those are some of the things I have in place during the day, this is a thing I don't have in place. And this is kind of the future for me is that because you're talking about energy levels, also when you go home. And something that I'm trying to be mindful of these days is screentime. Like, I love my computer. But I sometimes use it at night. And I'm trying to make sure at least for the last couple of weeks, that I don't engage with my screen at night. And I also have downloaded a ton of apps before my desktop and I'm using the new night shift in the iPhone. Make sure that my eyes adjust now to getting rid of that. That horrible law, light that doesn't really, really help us to sleep if you know what I mean. Yes. So my big thing is right now is one of my challenges is trying to fill some of my last hour in the evening with something other than a screen.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. And that's and that's not easy because we are addicted to our technology. And I did a full one hour deep dive into the science of sleep and technology and blue lights and all these other things. I'll put a link to my episode with Sean Stephenson, who is probably one of the top three foremost experts in this field and just released a huge best selling book on the topic. So I won't go too deep into that if people want to listen more but you did open a bit of a can of worms that could easily become an entire episode but we've been talking so far about movement and nutrition but you just opened the productivity rabbit hole and everybody knows I love to talk about productivity, so much so that I actually have a weekly course coming out on Lynda, that is productivity for post production. So specifically, all these different tactics that you can do every single week for an entire year to become more productive. But you talked about one that's so important, and it sounds tiny. But I want to break this down further, which is the idea of separating your tasks. And what you're actually doing is creating contexts. So my question is, where did you learn how to separate those tasks. And then I want to dig a little bit deeper into how we can even maximize that further.

Nick Harauz

So I was working at this training scientists about five years ago, it was called the witch education, they were a split center between the technology trading in terms of avid Adobe Apple training, which is the side I worked for, but they also did management training. And the boss of the time, Greg, which had recommended a book to me called Getting Things Done. And this is the book that I read that in terms of how to split things into two various actionable items. So things that you could finish in under a certain amount of time. And then other things that take longer than that short period of time that two to three minutes. So that's how I kind of started to go about my To Do lists, and then just be basically be able to file things in certain areas of actionable items. So that was a huge thing. I'm sorry, that executive actually just mentioned, it's so funny. I didn't hear him on your show. This sorry, the sleep expert, Sean Stephenson, I heard him on another podcast just recently, he's like, just absolutely fantastic. He's the guy who I learned about the night shift from as a Christmas gift actually got his book for my girlfriend.

Zack Arnold

Nice. Well, he had here's, here's the funny thing, I swear on my children, you and I didn't talk at all, before this podcast, we had no agenda. But I feel like you're just basically running down this laundry list of all of the different guests that I have. I swear, we didn't plan any of this. But David Allen was just on my podcast, the inventor of the Getting Things Done system. And so I didn't feed you that question, thinking that you were gonna get like, I had no idea. But as you were saying, and I'm like, I bet he's gonna say it's getting things done. I'm like, Oh, my God. So that's amazing. So yes, that was one thing that I wanted to highlight is, and I have an entire blog post about the idea of contextual editing, where you're not just saying, I've got a whole bunch of stuff to do, let me just go down my list. If you break it down into different categories, and mindsets or contexts, you can become immensely more efficient. But it's not just about I can get done work faster, you can actually be more creative and more focused. And it sounds like you've experienced that.

Nick Harauz

Yes, totally 100%. Then from that book that getting things done, or did that lesson that I learned, especially getting? Where do you go about just being able to complete a series of actionable items that are short, and to have that focus, so that, you know, the mind is not so scattered in thinking about all those things, will make a huge difference to me in terms of being able to go about my day and become engaged, whether it be with a video on it, or with a video recording, right, in terms of putting together a solid piece of education, so to speak. Right where I am, I'm focused, and in that moment, so those were some huge things in terms of that book that I that I learned from,

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and one of the keys of focus. And this is something I've studied for years and years. And it was out of necessity. It's not because I said, Oh, I'm a focused person. And I want to teach other people how to be focused like me, I was the opposite. I was diagnosed with adult onset add, and I couldn't get anything done, I would have huge laundry list of things to do. And I was running a business at the time. And I would just sit on the couch in my office and do nothing. And I would just pull my hair out saying I don't know what I should be doing. I don't know what I should I have so much to do. Like I was so overwhelmed. I was having panic attacks, I was having anxiety attacks. And it was really just because I couldn't prioritize the work that I was doing and anybody listening now was like, but you're like a productivity guy and you're efficiently trust me. I wasn't I was a total basket case. But one of the fundamental things about focus that people don't realize they're always looking for the app, they're always looking for what's the next cool thing that's going to help me be focused the number one thing that helps you be focused is having the confidence that what you're doing right now is the thing that you should be doing. If you're not second guessing should I be doing this are there other things I should be doing once you know in your mind this is absolutely the only thing that's important right now your focus goes through the roof

Nick Harauz

and having those lists and I think I'm so I have to go check out your your that David Allen podcast that you did. But you got to knowing having that knowledge that knowing what you're doing at the time is what you are should be doing, I think, to me is just it's completely uplifting. And I'm so amazed at being able to, to see, I'm not trying to toot my own horn too much. But it's been amazing for myself to reflect on. Where I've been where I've come in terms of productivity, based on implementing routines within my before work and during work, and how I'm kind of super excited to continue along this path to continue being able to do this work in the creative field, these things that I've implemented into into my daily life so that the morning ritual, which is just huge for me, placing a list before I start to go about my workday are, I've seen a huge improvements in in the, in what I'm producing. And it might not be so much in terms of amount. But where I really noticed that it is in terms of quality, and having that that quality, as well as also having in some cases, that amount, gives me that feeling that I am, you know, the tasks that I am doing during the day are what I should be doing. And that's just been through practice of being able to put these these, let's say, for safe holes or whatever you may call them this this routine into place into my daily work life.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. And I mean, that couldn't encapsulate it better. And speaking of focus, I want to make sure that I am respectful of your time and allow you to get back to your work, because we're just about running to the end. But before we go, I know that you said that you're really interested in trying to kind of get over that final hump where you said, you've really figured out the morning, you figured out the work thing, now it's time to figure out the afterword thing. So what is your what is your plan then? And for those listening, this will be airing in 2017. But we're actually recording it right before the holidays. So having that context in mind, what is the plan for 2017? To go to that next level?

Nick Harauz

Yes. So the plan in 2017, to go to the next level really has to do with my night routine, which we mentioned. And really, it's trying to remove myself from the screen for the last hour. It's something that I've already started to implement. But I'm always weary of making new year's resolutions just because I don't want to jump on that bandwagon train of so I like to put them into place. Before that. There's something I guess just to me refreshing, rather than starting to carry something out on January 1, I've already started trying to do different things at night versus looking at a screen. And it's as simple as to me just being able to pick up a book and read it, to engage in a conversation with my girlfriend, and to just chat about something before bed. While technology driven. I'm not staring at the screen, there's a couple of meditation apps that I've also utilized into terms of trying to be able to, to relax other things too, like engagement of just being able to listen to music. But the main two that have been, you know, over the last little a couple of weeks are reading and conversation versus staring at the light. Yeah. And then the other thing is, I'm going to I'm exploring more and more. So I'm going to totally steal the books that I just bought from my girlfriend, the book that's written by Sean Stephenson and and try to develop some of those patterns for better sleep. Let's call it because I think that's going to make a huge difference in my overall routine as well.

Zack Arnold

Sure and one thing that I can direct you to, I actually wrote an entire cheat sheet for that book. So it's kind of like the Cliff's Notes for the podcast and for the book. So if you go to the show notes for that episode, you can just download it. Like I said, he basically 10 15 minutes, here's kind of the Greatest Hits, then you should absolutely read the book. I'm not saying don't don't read it. But if you want like here's the here's the very quick get started version, I wrote one of those myself just to kind of coincide with the podcast. So people have the motivation to get started. Because a lot of times it's like, oh, this is a great book, and then it goes on the shelf, and then it becomes shelf help instead of self help. And the idea is that I wanted to get people started, oh, here's a couple of quick wins. Let me do those. Now I want to jump into the book. So that's if you wanted to look at that that can help you get started. Awesome. But that having been the case, I had no idea where this conversation would go like frankly, I was like, Oh, he wants to be on the show. He sounds like he's got a great story. Awesome. Five minutes before I get an alert. It says hey, I need to talk to Nick on Skype. Okay, what are we going to talk about today? So this has just been absolutely fantastic. Well above and beyond my expectations. And I'm so so happy that you could come on the show and talk about this often very candidly share your story. So I really, really appreciate it

Nick Harauz

Awesome, and thanks for entertaining the idea of having me on here. Yeah, absolutely. So,

Zack Arnold

Yeah, absolutely. So, before we go, if people want to learn more about your work, they want to find all of your trainings because you're obviously you're all over the place. If people want to find everything that you're doing, where can they go?

Nick Harauz

Well, you can, you can find me on Twitter at clipsandhandles. And at the time being, you can also come go to clipsandhandles.com. That's my website right now. And you can also check out my courses on lynda.com. I mostly have them in the Final Cut Pro series and I'm going to be doing a couple extra applications starting next year in the Adobe spree. So it's a great place I've got some training on Adobe as well but finally clipsandhandles in terms of on Twitter as well as clipsandhandles.com. You can reach out to me by email there, and I'd be happy to answer anyone's questions if it's definitely post related.

Zack Arnold

Awesome. Well, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Nick Harauz

Thanks for having me, Zack.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai