- And so I got so fascinated with couples,
you know, with being in
your primary relationship.
Because at the end of the day,
how happy we are there,
is how happy we are in our life.
All the rest really doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter if you
have a great day at work,
if you get home and life sucks at home,
your life sucks.
That's just sort of how it is.
So I started getting really into couples
and watching them everywhere I went.
And here's one of my
favorite things to do.
So my favorite thing is I
love to go to restaurants
and look for couples,
look for people who are
on the dreaded date night,
you know these people?
So it's these like
battle-fatigued couples, right?
Who were told by their therapists
or some well-meaning friend,
you should go on a date night.
What a great idea.
I can hardly stand you,
everything you do bugs me,
let's definitely spend
some forced hours together,
trying to get that spark back.
That's gonna be awesome.
And what's so sad is that they leave,
and they start to think,
you know, I can't change my relationship
because my partner refuses to change.
Or we have tried so many
times to make changes,
we've made them and we always backslide.
Or we've been this way for a year,
it's gonna take so long to change this,
and I already feel defeated.
I see people nodding, you relate?
And what I found and what makes me so sad
is that that's all a lie.
And it's a lie because
it's based on a lie.
And it's the big lie
that everyone believes,
is that our days are based on 24 hours.
And they're not.
And so I'm gonna rock
your world a little bit
with sort of a paradigm shift
of another way to look at your life,
and those of your clients
and everything that you do.
And that is instead of
basing your life, your day,
on 24 hours, I want you to
base your day on something
I call apps, instead of hours.
So if you think about you
know your smart phone,
with all your apps on it, right?
You've got your calendar,
your Itunes and your Facebook
and all your stuff.
And all that is very
distracting, isn't it?
Lots of apps, got a lot of apps open,
lots of stuff going on?
Well in our personal lives, right,
we were the same.
So if you think about your day
and you think about oh I've
got all these things to do,
and then you look at your schedule
and you fit everything
into those hours, right?
You divide everything up by the hours
and you put it all together.
But if you're like me,
you, you know, run around all day,
you work, commute, take
care of the kids, shop,
do all of that stuff, and you get home,
and you still have tons of
hours left in your night, right?
You still have tons of hours left.
But by seven o'clock,
you're binge watching.
This is us vegging on the couch, right?
Eating all the things you
didn't allow yourself all day.
And that is because you're not
paying attention to your apps.
So your apps are, again, all these things,
all the stuff that I just mentioned,
the commuting, all that,
but there are also things going on
that you are not aware of,
that are, what I call, the
background apps, right?
So that's your, for me it's my
aging mom in Florida, right?
It might be some bills you haven't paid,
the root canal you haven't had, right?
That gray hair your found this morning,
it wasn't on your head, right?
All the things that happened
in the course of the day
that you have going on,
planning summer camps
and scheduling things.
All those extra things, right?
They are all apps that are running
that you're just not aware of.
And they're all draining your battery.
So when you're looking at your day,
it's not about the time in your day,
it's about the mind in your day.
And that's why you can get
to seven o'clock at night
and still have hours left
till you go to sleep, right?
But you're exhausted.
I'm done, I don't wanna do anything else,
I don't wanna have rockstar
sex with my partner,
or go to the gym
or do any of these things
that we're supposed to do.
And this is really the reason
that self help books fail.
Because they give us things more to do,
more apps to open,
and they don't take care
of the other apps, right?
They just keep adding onto the day.
And this is also why if
you've tried to workout
or do other things and you
haven't been successful, right?
It's the same kinda thing.
So what do you do?
So people always well that's nice, Abby,
that's a great, you know, what do I do?
Well the first thing is to understand
what your apps are made of.
Yours apps and you are
made up of willpower.
And what's willpower, right?
Willpower is your ability to
resist any urge or impulse.
And at the center of a happy,
connected, fulfilling life,
is your ability to resist
impulse and urges, right?
So you wanna be more productive?
You gotta resist the urge to
scroll through Facebook, right?
You wanna be more fit?
You gotta resist the urge
to eat the donut, right?
You wanna have an awesome relationship?
You have to resist that urge
to just veg out on the couch
and not talk to your partner, right?
All of these are resisting those urges.
Now your willpower is amazing
because it's an exhaustible resource.
You wake up every morning
with the most willpower
you're gonna have all day.
You're at your top, okay?
Then you're gonna min...
So let's say, I'm gonna make this up.
You wake up with a hundred
units of willpower, right?
Then you have your commute, right?
All those things.
You're eating breakfast, you're showering,
you're taking care of the kids,
getting them all to school, right?
So mum's gotta go to work, right?
So you do your things, you do all that.
And god forbid you don't love.
I love my job, I'm like
the luckiest human alive.
I love my job.
So it doesn't take a lot of apps.
It doesn't take a lot
of willpower to do it.
But if you hate your job and it's a grind,
if you're working with a client
who's miserable, guess what?
So instead of, you know, my day
might be 25 willpower units,
but that person will be 50.
And then you have commuting.
One of the worst sucks
on willpower, right?
On those apps.
And by the time you get
to the end of your day,
yeah you get home at,
let's even say six o'clock.
And you're like oh I have till
10 o'clock till I go to bed.
You're likely behind the eight ball
by the time you get home.
And you think you're
gonna do all these things.
Now the other big secret nobody tells you.
I don't know why no one.
I didn't learn this in school.
I've had a lot of schooling,
too right, Jew from New York,
that's all we do, is go to school.
I never learned this there.
New habits are awesome, right?
Getting into new habits,
learning something new
that's really gonna help your life, right?
So if you've changed your relationship
and it was awesome, right?
Wouldn't your life be better?
It would be so much better.
If I started working out everyday, I do.
And eating well, and meditating
and doing these things.
My life would be better.
And by the way, I will
build those willpower units.
So I'll have more to use during the day.
However, learning a new
habit drains your willpower.
Anything new you take on,
initially, even though
later it's gonna add,
in the beginning it drains.
And that's what they don't tell you.
So you say, oh I'm gonna
read this self help book.
I'm gonna go to therapy,
I'm gonna meet with my coach,
I'm gonna do all this stuff,
it's gonna be so great.
And you make time to go do those things.
But you don't make mind to
do what needs to be done
to incorporate what you're learning.
To really understand and
integrate what's going on.
And this is why all of
us, we work with people,
we tell them, right, what to do.
We give them all kinds of good things.
They have an ah ha in the office, right?
Such an awesome moment when
they're really getting you
and they're really understand,
isn't that the best?
That's my best feeling,
I love that, right?
And then they go away
and they don't do it.
Over and over.
And then you meet again
and you re-strategize,
and you're like well
maybe I missed something,
let's try this, let's do, right?
And you do it again, right?
Everyone feels good.
And then they leave, and what happens?
Once again it didn't happen.
And this is why.
Because you can't start by just adding.
We already have very full plates.
So the secret is you have to take things
off your plate first.
You have to have things
that are gonna leave,
before you're gonna add.
So I always ask people when they come in,
that's great, you're here
for executive coaching,
couple's therapy,
whatever you're here for.
What are you gonna take off your plate
so that this can work?
And I don't care if that's
hiring someone to help clean the house,
I don't care if it's
getting someone to car pool,
I don't care if it's, you know.
You're gonna say no to that bake sale
you volunteered for at school.
All those things have to come off
for this thing to come on.
And the beauty is once you get better
at this new thing that's
on, you'll have more.
You'll have more energy,
more mental bandwidth,
more capacity to deal with the rest.
So then you can add the bake sale,
then you can add these other things.
And in this take, all the research,
my 30 plus years of experience,
started when I was 12,
all of that, right?
And may be later.
All my experience, I literally worked
with thousands of people at
this point and I can tell you,
it takes 90 days.
So I just tell people,
give yourselves 90 days.
For 90 days, get a house cleaner.
For 90 days, give away the car pool.
For 90 days, whatever that
is, take this off your plate,
get that new habit in place,
and then you can do the next thing.
And that's it.
Thank you so much.
(clapping)
