2518: We Need More Room

There’s a competition raging for your attention—and most people are losing without realizing it. In this episode, we break down how modern life drains your headspace through distraction, overstimulation, and unexamined commitments. Drawing on Blaise Pascal’s warning and the Meaningful Few framework, this conversation challenges the myth that more is better—and introduces the Headspace Audit, a simple tool to reclaim your attention, reduce noise, and realign your life across the six areas that actually matter. This isn’t about productivity. It’s about defending your clarity. Get the Headspace Audit here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HBK9vqp9X3ZuEQmtLL9bC_4-frUmEtrxpVWP_MwdF8c/edit?usp=sharing George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of The Meaningful Few here: https://amzn.to/4qA26X9 Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: MyMeaningfulFew.comWant to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee.https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifebloodThanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here:​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcastCopyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:43Speaker 01

  There's this competition which is constantly raging and it's certainly going on right now. There are all these organizations always interested in more market share. Increasing market share, getting more margin, just dominating the competition, all of those things. But the competition that I'm referring to, it's not a company trying to get some some faraway version of market share. The competition I'm talking about is the one that is raging right now for you. These companies are interested in you.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  They want their market share, but they want shares of what you have to offer, what they can extract from you. They want a share of your wallet. They're interested in having you purchase new, having you purchase different, having you purchase better. They want to upgrade. They want you to subscribe. Because if there's one thing that's better than a one-time purchase, it is a lifelong customer, somebody that pays them on a monthly basis. So it's certainly not a surprise that there are all these new kind of subscription services that are out there as opposed to selling you a dollar, a song that costs a dollar.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  They would rather have you sign up for a service that costs $15 a month and does that into perpetuity. And they're also going to be hoping and betting That you're just going to let that ride and that you're never going to stop paying it, even if you stop using it, because if you stop using it, they're not going to send you an alert or ask you a question like, "Hey, notice you haven't logged in. Are you sure you want to keep paying for this?" No, they're probably not going to be doing that. So, have to be worried about that, have to be concerned for that, but more so than that, they also want a share of the space in between your ears. They want a share of your headspace.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, they want your money, but they also really want your attention. We live in this attention economy where we didn't realize, they did, that we were in fact the product. Not so much the products that they're selling, they realized that we are the product that they can extract resources from, your attention, your likes, your clicks, your subscriptions, your surprise, your sadness, your outrage. And of course, they're interested in taking your time as well. And those are our most valuable resources, your MVRs, your most valuable resources are time, energy, attention, and money.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  And if we are not good stewards of those things, well, they will happily make those decisions on your behalf regarding where and how those resources are best be allocated. So, and they're awesome at it. They are really good at extracting those resources from us. In 1654, a very, very, very bright human being named Blaise Pascal. Blaise recognized this problem way before algorithms were a thing, way before notifications, way before there's this timeline, you could just infinitely scroll and you would never find or reach the bottom of it.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  I wonder, is there a bottom to it? If you scroll indefinitely for an indefinite amount of time, will you eventually run out of content to consume? Probably not.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Because I believe content is being created at a clip far faster than even the most effective scrollers can sort of sort through and mind-numbingly sort of stare at. And I'm guilty of that too. So I'm not saying I'm way better at this than anybody else, but I am saying that this is something that I've noticed and I would like to alert you to it as well, so you can make your own decisions about it. So anyway, Blaise Pascal, he wrote, "All of humanity's problems stem from the inability to sit quietly in a room alone." All of humanity's problems stem from a person's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  I always enjoyed that. I think it's so true, so prescient. And again, this was from the 17th century, 1654, he wrote that. So, I mean, it was as prescient today as it was back then, but it's pretty wild to think that, what, 370 years ago, that that was something that people were thinking about. Like, look at that. This person would rather consume anything else than just to be able to sit quietly in a room by oneself. The idea that our heads are the scariest places in the world and I would rather retreat

• 6:00Speaker 01

  from just being alone in my own head to busying myself and occupying myself with literally anything else. Now, what that was in 1654, I don't know, honestly. But certainly today, imagine if Pascal were to see what it is that we are contending and grappling with today. I imagine that his head would absolutely explode compared to what he was observing 372 years ago. So as technology and complexity have expanded and evolved, we have tried to respond to it.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  In this battle or this game, this competition that I'm talking about, this cat and mouse game between the person who's interested in extracting my resources and me, who's interested in either holding on to them or deciding myself independently how I want to allocate them.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Human beings wanted more space. We wanted more space, so we built bigger houses. Okay, but that actually isn't what we need more room for. We need more headspace. We need more headspace. I don't need more just space to put more stuff in. I need more headspace. And Blaise Pascal, he understood that. He was pointing to the value of contemplation. He was thinking about the value of stillness. That doesn't mean sitting slack-jawed in front of my TV, watching Netflix incessantly. It's just being comfortable, being just alone by myself.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  The necessity of being able to ruminate on a subject, not in a negative way, not in a doom scroll-y kind of a way, but just kicking things around before we take action on things. Having a little bit of blank space. He understood that that's something that we need. We need that blank space. I need blank space in my calendar. If I'm just going from one thing to the next, that is equal parts soul-crushing, but also really bad for our mental health and just all of it. Bad for my mood, bad for the vibe. So I need that blank space in my calendar. I need some time in between engagements,

• 8:24Speaker 01

  in between my meetings. I need some blank space in between the inputs coming towards me, that deluge of just more stuff, more images, more whatever, more, more, more, more, more.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Because if we don't have that space, I don't think that there's any room for judgment or discernment. And when we don't have the ability to discern or make good judgment calls and value judgments, then we're losing a little bit of agency, then we're just kind of jacked right into it and it's sort of just flowing through us as opposed to something coming to me and me making an assessment as to whether or not it's something I want to act on or give resources to.

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• 10:14Speaker 01

  It's like you're in a blender, just getting shaken up. There's a giant. I'm living inside this jar and this giant just comes along. It's like I'm in a snow globe and I get shaken up and it's like, oh my gosh, I don't know what just happened. I'm just, I don't know where is up or where is down or whatever. You sort of get the idea. So is that real? Is that really what we're doing? Are we really sort of letting the tail aggressively and sort of painfully wag the dog? I think that we are. We're extremely distracted. We have very, very, very, very low attention span.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  It's just constant new shiny objects smashing us in the face all the time. We're medicated, a lot of pills, a lot of magic bullets that we are attempting, or magic pills as it would be, to solve the problems that we are experiencing, that are happening to us, that we're.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Sort of created to provide this solution to we're stressed, we're anxious, way too many of us are broke, we're not healthy, we're alone, we feel lonely, yech. So those things, I believe are evidence that the way that we are currently interacting with headspace, with attention, with time, with energy, with money, we're not doing it great. There's room for improvement. We can, we can get better at this. And I'm not saying that we're losing, not saying you're losing, I'm not calling you a loser, although I certainly feel like

• 11:57Speaker 01

  I'm losing a lot of the time and I do occasionally feel like a loser. That's not true. That's not true. That's not true. We are getting our butts kicked. There it is. We are getting our butts kicked, we're getting technology and whatever else, whatever you want to call it, modern living is eating our lunch, it's kicking our butts. So, everything, I don't, I just don't think that more is the answer. And I don't think that you think that more is the answer either. But that is, again, we're trying to give ourselves more space, more, more bandwidth,

• 12:34Speaker 01

  so that I can continue to accumulate and consume and allow in. But that's not it. It's not more content. It's not, it's not a bigger closet so I could put more stuff in it. It's not more commitments. It's not more notifications. It's not more hustle. It's not more noise, not more meetings. It's not more, more, more, more, more. At some point, at some point, I think it's prudent, we have to put down the metaphorical fork and knife. We have to push ourselves back from the metaphorical table because I'm stuffed. I can't possibly eat another bite, even though it's so good.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  That rage and the concern, the surprise that X gives me, delicious.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  The delicious food that I put in my mouth, delivered by Grubhub or DoorDash or Uber Eats or whatever. That sure is good, but I don't need to eat anymore. I don't think I need to take on any more commitments right now. I already have a lot.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  It's not because food is bad. It's not because these things are necessarily bad, but because overconsumption and overeating is always bad. It's always bad. So I submit to you. Is the answer more? Or maybe the answer isn't more. Maybe the answer is less. Less commitments, less social media, fewer apps, less screen time, less mindless consumption.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Get in there.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  But here's the key.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  I'm not talking about deprivation. I'm not talking about taking a vow of poverty or swearing off your favorite things. But I'm talking about discernment.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  The answer isn't less of everything. It's definitely not more of everything either. The answer is it's just right. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. Optimal. Optimal means as good as possible. So it's not the best thing in the whole world and it's not me just doing everything right all the time. It's finding out what is the best that it could be, as good as possible, optimal, just right. Just right. Remember Goldilocks, too hot, too cold, too hard, too soft, just right. That's what we're looking for. More of the right things, less of the wrong ones. And that's the work to suss out what those right things are and it will invite more in

• 15:22Speaker 01

  or to protect those right things and to get rid of the wrong things or to do less of them. The work, the work, that just means it's a practice that just means it's not ever done. It is a process for making those kinds of considerations or decisions.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  And to be ruthless with how you administer them, which means it must be done continually. It's not spring cleaning once a year, or once every 10 years. It's not every occasional, you know, it's not every once in a while I'm going to revisit these things and, and trim the fat, or separate the wheat from the chaff, kind of a thing.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  How do you do that? Well, here's, here's the good news, and slightly self-serving, but not really. If this resonates with you, if what I've been talking about resonates with you, if you feel like you are doing too much, constantly looking for more.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  I built something exactly for this problem. It's called the meaningful few. It's called the meaningful few. It's based on Pareto's work, Pareto from the famous 80/20 rule, telling us that 80% of the results are going to come from 20% of the actions or inputs. So those are of value, the 20%. Well, he also talked about this idea of the meaningful few versus the trivial many. The trivial many are the universe of things that we could engage in. The universe of things I can give my, my, my most valuable resources to. But he knew that there are only a few, meaningful few things that really deserve your resources,

• 17:01Speaker 01

  your time, attention, energy, and money. So how do you figure out what yours are? And then how do you protect and build structure around making sure that we are executing faithfully on our meaningful few versus getting lost and caught up too frequently in the trivial many? It's not any kind of an infinity war where I'm trying to get you to be perfect all the time. It's just getting better at it. It's finding that just right. So I wrote a book. It's called The Meaningful Few: Designing a Life That Works. There's a lot of tools and resources. There's, there's a course that you can take advantage of. There are some assessments. There are lots of tools and resources.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  There is a mastermind group that we're going to be kicking off really soon. Excited about it. And they're just designed to help you reclaim your headspace, take back your most valuable resources, your MBRs, to live more intentionally, and hopefully, ideally, a more contented life. It's not by doing more, but by choosing better.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  You and I don't need more space in our lives. We need fewer things taking it. What I'm really talking about, as always, is doing your part by doing your best.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  GLP-1s are changing weight loss.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  My sister had amazing.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  The ideal treatment is.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  Seems like everyone's a GLP-1 expert these days. But when it comes to your health, it pays to listen to someone who actually is. Orderly Meds makes it easy to get started with personalized support along the way. And with your first month's order, we're giving you the second month free. Visit OrderlyMeds.com. Bringing orders to the chaos of GLP-1s. Individual results may vary. Eligibility and prescription required. Not medical advice. Visit OrderlyMeds.com for details. Compound and medications are not FDA approved.

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