Moment 3 - John Vincent On How To Live A More Present Life

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. In this episode John Vincent, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of the Leon Restaurants, explains why he believes that the current social-media-focused world we live in is slowly and subtly ‘boiling’ the younger generations like a frog in a pan. John goes on to offer his advice on how we can live more in the present moment using his experience meeting with African tribespeople as well as what he’s learned from physical-based meditation. Full episode - https://g2ul0.app.link/mPPnb0OFPfb John: https://twitter.com/johnv_leon?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-vincent-52b62bb2/?originalSubdomain=uk Watch us on Youtube - www.youtube.com/stevenbartlettyt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Steven Bartlett?

  We live in a world where, as you said, everything is designed to make us feel significant, right? The sort of fundamental design of social media is to reinforce us in some way that we are, what we said was smart, funny, or, you know, worth sharing. What, in your perspective, are the dangers of our kids and your kids growing up in this sort of social media world?

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's like, it's the old phrase, isn't it? If you put a lobster, or a frog even, into boiling water, it'll jump out. But if you slowly boil it, then it doesn't realise it's being boiled. And I think our kids are being slowly boiled, and they don't realise it. And I went to a conference the other day where they were talking about how babies are going to be chipped, and that mothers and fathers will be allowed to have lower taxes and lower insurance if they allow their babies to be tracked from a health perspective. Because of course it will reduce the NHS bill, and of course it will reduce the policing bill if we know where everyone is.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  And I think we all have to recognise the fact that we will be sold in very, what seem to be very rational terms, very economically viable terms, to track our own health, to accept being monitored in terms of our whereabouts and our physical health. And I think we need to recognise that that's shit, and that's not good. And I think that the dangers are that, on the one hand, we will lose our freedoms, that I think are very dear at a practical and an emotional level and spiritual level for people, to actually have freedoms. And the other is that we will start to believe our own storytelling and ego. And I think when you talk, Steve, it's really interesting about, we are constantly, you know,

• 1:51Speaker 01

  told to create our own online brands, to curate our own online brands. You know, I know, perhaps when one of my daughters takes a photograph to go on Instagram... Maybe it takes an hour and she chooses one photograph out of a thousand. That doesn't happen often. Sure. But I've seen that happen. And so therefore people think that what they see online is somehow real and true. And we pretend that social media is a window into truth. And unfortunately, it is a window into artifice. And the more artifice and lack of truth that we pervade and popularise, the more mental health disorders will be created. And I think it's based on the other idea, the fact that, you know, people talk about I, and we talk about ego, we talk about the people that we are.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  But I think we need to recognise that we don't exist, by which I mean the Steve Bartlett or the John Vincent, they're both just constructs. Or Barack Obama. Barack Obama is just a construct. Barack Obama is a set of stories that have been told, set of media imagery, media storytelling. And as we think about our own individual identity, it's worth remembering the we that we think exists is based on a whole bunch of myths that we've told ourselves. So first of all, we're in the car and someone says, Steve. And then you keep hearing this name Steve. And you're like, fucking hell, this is getting ridiculous. They keep mentioning this word Steve. What is Steve?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  And then eventually you realise, shit, they think that I'm separate from them. That's weird. Of course, I'm not separate from them, but hey, I better start believing it. And then you go to school and they call out your name in class. And they say, Steve, and you put your hand up. That reinforces his idea that you're separate. And they say, Steve, you've won the history prize. And you go, hey, Steve's good at history. Now, whether it's true, half true or not true, you create a sense of who you are. It's mostly not true. The Steve that we have in our mind or the John Vincent that we have in our mind, it's a set of myths, a set of stories that we tell ourselves. And we tell ourselves because we attach identity and constancy to it. What's the danger of us doing that? The danger is that we start to become very unwell

• 4:00Speaker 01

  and we stop being happy now. So if I think about the major lessons.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  They are, do not seek happiness from a future occurrence. Do not defer happiness to this magical island that exists that once we arrive at this magical island, we will be happy. And do not associate your happiness with money. Do not associate it with fame. Do not associate it with recognition from third parties. Because as soon as we put ourselves into a situation where we are deferring happiness into the future, we are clearly off balanced in the present moment. And if I look at the tribespeople that I meet, certainly the ones that I meet in Africa,

• 4:51Speaker 01

  and the ones that my friends have met in Brazil, they are rooted in the present moment. They are absolutely conscious and present now. And the problem with living your life abstracted online or abstracted in the future means that you are off balance and you are not getting fulfillment from the now. And you know, the martial art that I do, Wing Chun, it's predicated on fulfillment coming from the practice, not from the result of the practice, not from one day I will win this fight, not one day I would have this glory.

• 5:27Steven Bartlett?

  I hear what everybody is asking themselves, which is, how do you be present? I read your Twitter bio and it says that you're taking a break from Twitter to be more present. So I was going to ask you about that. So how do I be more present in a very, very busy digital world where notifications are bombarding me? And everything is about the future and making plans and schedules and things like this.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  So we're talking very practically, aren't we? Is that what you mean? Okay, so I think there's a practical element and then there's a sort of mental element. The mental element is to start.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  By not valuing anything. So by which I mean, recognize the fact that ultimately, the very act of breathing, the very act of trusting our subconscious processes to drive our immune system or the process of making sure that we're breathing, only value that. So that will immediately put you into a situation where all you're valuing is the things that are literally within your own body. As soon as you value a prize that you might get, or what a girlfriend might think of you, you are putting yourself in a much worse position from point of view of your own

• 6:45Speaker 01

  mental health and almost act as if you're dead. And I think some people might think this is a bit strange. So I think people are going to have to bear with me here. But if you say, I am dead, I've died, it allows you to suddenly revalue the things you really then want to value. So if you start with a starting point that says nothing, nothing is of value, I am dead, you then start adding back the things into your life that are only the absolutely critical things. And what are those things to you? On the practical side, I would say breathing is the most wonderful way of becoming present and physical based meditation. So some people may have downloaded the Headspace

• 7:30Speaker 01

  app, or some people might have found that, you know, those sorts of things in terms of meditation help. I would say from the point of view of what we've learned in Wing Chun, the physical movement, even literally walking and breathing and allowing your body and your mind to synchronize and breathe as you do it, something literally as simple as going for a walk and consciously breathing as you do. And walk away from your phone. Yeah. Walk away from any devices and be in touch with nature. As in, it could be a tree in a park in Manchester. It could be a small bush that you find on the estate where you live. But literally, find something. It could be a small frog. It could be a spider. It could be a tree.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  But just observe that. That's a very practical thing that people can do.