Podcast Rest

#414 - REST: WHY YOU GET MORE DONE WHEN YOU WORK LESS, with Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

 

Before you dive into today’s episode, take a slow, deep breath with me…

and let it go... 

Today, I’m joined by the wonderful Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less.

His book completely reframed how I think about productivity, creativity, and the rhythm of our days. Alex has a magical way of showing us that when we rest well - truly rest - we don’t fall behind.

We rise.

We think more clearly.

We create better.

And we step into our dreams with more energy, intention, and joy.

Whether you’re closing out a big year, building something exciting, or simply wanting more ease in your days, this conversation offers the permission slip so many of us need: to slow down, breathe, recalibrate… and trust that rest supports your dreams.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did - and I encourage you to listen all the way to the end, because there is so much goodness you won’t want to miss.

As always, I’d LOVE to hear what resonated most with you - so please share and let’s keep the conversation going in the Dream Life Podcast Facebook Group here.    

…and remember, it all starts with a dream 💛

Dream Life & kikki.K Founder

P.S. If you’re ready for guided support, explore Dream Life Coaching here: https://www.yourdreamlifestartshere.com/course 💛

SHOW NOTES:

  • Download our free 25 Prompts PDF here... 
  • Buy Kristina's book, Your Dream Life Starts Here
  • Follow Kristina on Insta and TikTok
  • If you feel it's time to take a leap and invest in you, join:
    • My Platinum Coaching Program where in December our focus will be on "Hello Future You! Design Your 2026 Dream Life". Dream big, create your vision, and get clear on what matters most for your best year yet. Learn more here.  
    • My Dream Business Book Club here. In December, we'll be reading and learning from:  The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olsen. It's a key that makes all the other business books and insights you consume actually work.
    • My online personal Growth Book Club GROW, December, where we'll be reading and squeezing the learnings out of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. Learning how to rest - the smartest life hack of all. Learn more here.

RESOURCES:

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

[00:01:24] Kristina: Hi there, and welcome back to another episode. I would like for you to take a deep breath with me, Hang on. Breathing And breathe out because today's episode, it's such a beautiful reminder that rest is not a reward, it's a strategy.

[00:01:44] and it might just be the secret superpower you have been craving. I'm so thrilled to share this conversation today with author Alex so young, Kim Pang, author of Rest. Why You Get More Done [00:02:00] When You Work Less

[00:02:01] a book that completely reframe how you think about productivity, creativity, and the way we design our days. Alex has this wonderful way of showing us that when we rest, well truly rest. We don't fall behind, we rise. We think more clearly. we create better, and we live more intentionally.

[00:02:25] And honestly, what a better time than December to soak in this wisdom. as the year begins to wind down, There's something very magical about giving ourselves permission to pause, to breathe, to reset, and to step into the new year with clarity, energy, and a sense of grounded calm instead of exhaustion.

[00:02:46] And if you are craving that too, then you are going to love what we are doing inside. Grow my monthly book club this December we are reading Rest Together and we'll not only explore all the ideas that Alexa put in his book, but also gently integrate them into our daily lives.

[00:03:07] So you can start 2026. Feeling nourished, focused and ready for whatever dreams you are chasing next. So basically we meet twice in December so we read a book, we discuss the book, and then we decide what to implement. If you want to join us, just head over to your dream life starts here.com. I will also link to it in the show notes.

[00:03:30] It's such a beautiful community of like-minded women learning and reflecting and growing together. let's get into today's episode. Make yourself a cup of tea. Get comfy go for a walk and let this conversation be your permission slip to slow down and discover how powerful that can be. Let's dive right in. Well, hello Alex and a very warm welcome to my [00:04:00] podcast. I am so excited to have you.

[00:04:02] Alex: Well, it's great to be with you.

[00:04:04] too.

[00:04:05] Kristina: Thank you so much. before we get started to talk about your amazing book, I have got a question that I ask all my guests that, and that is, did you have a dream as a child, something you wanted to do or have or become?

[00:04:19] Alex: You know, like a lot of boys, or at least a lot of American boys, when I.

[00:04:23] was very young, I had a fascination with dinosaurs. And so, you know, I, I think, imagined myself being a paleontologist, though I didn't really know what that. Involved just, I knew that it involved dinosaurs and bones and that was kind of enough for what, a five-year-old me when I was a teenager.

[00:04:42] you know, I got into music and would have loved to have been a musician but, I certainly never imagined being. a consultant or, or of writing about rest or, or of the four day work week. So even though those were sort of not dreams that had occurred to me, I think, you know, despite that fact, I am sort of probably as close to living my dream life today as one could hope.

[00:05:07] Kristina: Oh, that is so wonderful to hear. So I can't wait to dive into your book, but before we do, could you share a little bit about your journey? So we got, we got listeners from all over the world and, uh, everyone might not have heard about you yet, but they certainly will.

[00:05:23] Alex: So professionally my background is, I trained as an academic. I did a doctorate in history of science, which is why when you read rest, you see these stories from Charles Darwin and mathematicians and or Marie Curie and or of so on. I then went on to work in Silicon Valley. First as a technology forecaster and sort of futurist, and more recently as a writer and as a consultant.

[00:05:53] So, you know, working. Partly with sort of people to figure out how to rest better, but also working with [00:06:00] organizations to think about how to sort of implement new policies, sort of, or strategies that allow everybody to have more free time and to become kind of better and more sustainable places to work.

[00:06:13] So that's kind of my own trajectory though. You know, having said that, from the inside it looks. A lot less sort of linear than maybe that description holds. I realized that, my career feels a lot more like playing the video game Grand Theft Auto than sort of climbing up a ladder where, if you've played this game, you know, you have kind of certain things that you always do.

[00:06:39] You have a lot of freedom in this world. And so you kind of, you know, you hijack a car at one point and you drive until you crash it, and then you get on a motorcycle and then you have to, you know, rob a liquor store so that you can commandeer the bus. and that feels like a more accurate kind of vision or representation of sort of my own professional life and career.

[00:07:03] Kristina: Hmm. I love that it sounds a little bit more exciting than a linear way of doing things. For sure. So you have written the book Rest, why you Get More Done When You Work Less, which I really, really enjoyed. So I am curious what made you write this book?

[00:07:22] Alex: Mm-hmm. Well, you know, I've always had an interest in what makes people creative or, or of how creative people work. One of the first classes I had in college was on exactly that subject, and, you know, it was both a fascinating intellectual journey at that time and kind of set up a set of questions that have interested me ever since.

[00:07:42] When you study that subject though. You know, you dive into neuroscience or the psychology of creativity, et cetera, but you're always focused mainly on what people are doing, let's say in the laboratory or at the blackboard, right? those moments where people are consciously [00:08:00] exerting effort to solve problems.

[00:08:02] You don't in contrast, look at what it is. That allows 'em to have things like those random aha moments or insights that are part of almost every story of scientific or artistic or entrepreneurial sort of discovery or invention. And I realized when I was sort of, a few years ago on my own sabbatical at Microsoft Research in sort of Cambridge, England, that, Being away from Silicon Valley, a place where you're perpetually, you know, kind of half a half a step behind and always overworked in an environment. That was a, for me, a lot more relaxed and where I was getting a tremendous amount of stuff done. I had this epiphany that, you know, actually maybe our assumption that or good work involves being.

[00:08:55] Constantly overworked and being a kind of arms race against your own self-destruction, is actually incorrect. And that maybe the way you do great work is to, Bring in more rest to learn how to work in more sustainable ways and to understand the role that rest plays in helping us both have more creative days and more sustainable creative lives.

[00:09:21] And, from that, I. discovered that there was, you know, in the decades since I'd become first interested in this, a whole bunch of great research in sort of neuroscience and psychology and sociology, that really confirmed that initial insight that allowed me to build on it and to sort of write something that, you know, felt like a story that a lot of people sort of needed to hear.

[00:09:49] So that's how rest came to be.

[00:09:51] Kristina: Yeah, I absolutely love that. So I started a business a long time ago and it became a global business and it was very full on the head stores [00:10:00] around the world. And, um, and one thing though is that I, I never had a burnout because I was always focusing on health and wellness as their foundation. in a perfect way, but as soon as I felt like it was too much, I needed to kind of take some time away.

[00:10:16] And when I was working in London. We were opening a lot of stores there. I came home one day and I had to present to the team back in Australia about the com, you know, the creatives that we were gonna focus on for the next season. And I just had nothing in me. So I said to my partner, I'm gonna go away and I'm just taking my journal and a pen.

[00:10:38] And, uh, you know, we had young kids, so it was not an easy thing to do when you've just been away. And we were actually based in Sweden at that time. And I was kind of commuting to London. Sounds very glamorous, but it was a lot of work and very tiring. And when I got back I was like, the last thing I wanted to do was go away, but I did.

[00:10:57] And the first 24 hours was just nothing. I was tired and, and just no creativity. But then the second day I, one day just thought when I woke up I was like, actually I'm gonna write a book. And, uh, I do a lot of public speaking. And, uh, there's always a handful of people who come up after asking a few questions.

[00:11:17] So I thought, I'm actually gonna put all that in a book. 'cause you never had enough time to talk to them and or help them. And that's how I came on my book that I, wrote, I think 2017 or something like that, and it became a bestseller. And it's, um, it was a, a really fun journey and it's, it's really fascinated me that you need some space sometimes to come up with ideas that will not normally come up. And I've always said that too because I think once you get, we had private equity involved and, um, in our business and very much like that kind of culture where you, where you work by the desk and I always said my great ideas never comes chain to a desk.

[00:11:55] They come when I'm out walking or, or doing something. [00:12:00] Inspiring. And, what I love to dive into is that what you said when you went to, Cambridge was that you actually got a lot of things done. So it wasn't like you were just lying on the couch, you know, reading novels. You actually got really productive in some way and came up with lots of things.

[00:12:15] So why do you think that is that we feel like that's a rest, but it's actually doing work in a very nice way, in my opinion.

[00:12:24] Alex: Well, first of all, it speaks to the fact that, we have this kind of misapprehension about what rest is, right? We think of it as a kind of negative space, marked by the absence of work, or complete inactivity, right? But it turns out that. Very often the most restorative kinds of rest are active rather than passive.

[00:12:51] So, you know, especially for people who are ambitious, who are accustomed to sort of working a lot or, at a kind of fast pace that I. Kind of switching gears and going from one's work to doing other things that maybe are quite absorbing, that perhaps are physically challenging, but which exercise, different skills or different, or, you know, what you would feel like different parts of your brand.

[00:13:17] That, that turns out to be just as restful as sitting on the couch with a, you know, remote in one hand and a bag of sa, uh, something salty sort of in the other. so given that it's really not a surprise that, uh, you know, that you had the experience that, you know, so many creative people have, which is that you had ideas that came.

[00:13:42] When on one hand. You were able to kind of extract yourself from your every day, right? but you weren't just doing nothing, right? You had gone off, you had at least a bit of a plan. and it is in those kinds of moments. [00:14:00] That often our best ideas occur, you know, 20% of or of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley say that their ideas for, or the companies come to them when they're on vacation or on some kind of a brick.

[00:14:15] And, but I think that, you know, particularly for people who are, ambitious, who are accustomed to working a lot, that, it's important to. Realize that rest is not merely passivity, right? It's actually very often it is active, it's challenging, it's even something of a skill, right? It's something that you can actually get better at with practice and in so doing you get to understand yourself better well as being able to work better and be more creative.

[00:14:51] Kristina: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And in, so I've started a new business since I lost my first one. I now, do a lot of speaking public speaking around the country and what I love that. I love this new business actually more, and I never thought that that was going to be the case, but I love a new business 'cause now I get to travel, which is one of my passions.

[00:15:10] And I always stay in inspiring hotels and I always bring lots of books and my journal and I work and. I just feel like this is, like, it's almost feels, feels like wrong to say it's work because I can work from amazing cafes. I love coffee, so I always look out for the best coffee places, which they're often very creative as well.

[00:15:35] The people who are passionate about coffee always have a really nice environment and I just now feel like in after COVID, obviously COVID was, um. a challenging time for many, me included, but now when we can actually have the opportunity to work from anywhere, it's just like, that is to me, like my dream life.

[00:15:55] And I just, uh, I, yeah, I just love it and, uh, I go away almost every, [00:16:00] every week to somewhere and, uh, I always look forward to it because that's when I do my best work for sure.

[00:16:07] Alex: you know, first off. This is a great story. And I think there are lots of creative people who have had similar kinds of epiphanies, and there is a bunch of research about how cafes in particular can offer a certain amount of stimulus, but not too much.

[00:16:25] In a way that helps you, uh, that helps break up your kind of usual ways of thinking and opens your mind a little more to essentially having new and more creative kinds of thoughts. But it also, the downside is I think it shows how poor our and impoverished our conventional workplaces have become, right?

[00:16:45] That the fact that. So few of us have that kind of experience when we go to work. And indeed it's necessary to, you know, get out of the office in order to have to have our best thoughts. You know, why is this? And it is great when we're able to figure it out for ourselves, but either for.

[00:17:08] People who are either newer in their career or don't have the sorts of resources that it sounds like we do to sort of travel and to make these discoveries, but also for organizations themselves who increasingly run on new ideas, require creativity. If they're not going to just be subsumed by some, you know, virtual entity, that's a bunch of AI agents that can do the most average thing a billion times.

[00:17:35] they need to figure this out as well. And to figure out how they can start creating places that bring out. that kind of creative spirit in their people rather than being places that require us sort of to find it ourselves elsewhere. Anyway, end of rant on that

[00:17:57] Kristina: Yeah. No, no. I absolutely love it. [00:18:00] So, let's talk a little bit about, part one in your, book, which is, um, all the things that I absolutely love. That's why I love this book so much. And I was sharing with you before we, um, recorded it, that Last December in my book club, choose a book that got everyone RevD up and act excited about, kind of 10 xing their business.

[00:18:22] And so these, they were all kind of a bit annoyed. They were all excited, but it, but they were like, we need some rest. So this year when I read your book, I was like, so anyway, this is the December book, so I'm really excited to read that. But all part one is. All the things that I love, which is working four hours, which I love working, but I also love, you know, going for a walk. And as I said before, that's where I get all the ideas. I love my morning routine so much. I could talk about morning routine for days. Uh, I love walking. that's what I start every day with. I'm not so good at napping because I'm not a good sleeper, so I like to really focus on sleeping at night.

[00:19:02] Um, but sleep is another one. Uh, so I'd love for you to just maybe share a little bit about that part of your business to our listeners.

[00:19:12] Alex: Sure. So, you know, what I was interested in is sort of how do people, uh, sort of design days to maximize their creativity. And the really short version of it is when you look at the lives of some of hist history's most accomplished, most prolific authors, distinguished scientists, most creative mathematicians, et cetera, you see?

[00:19:35] A consistent pattern. The first is that they work really hard, but they don't work as many hours as you would expect. So what they're doing is they're trying to kind of push the peaks of intensity higher, but they're generally not working. Longer than about four or five hours. So that's about two hours with a long break and then another two hours and [00:20:00] then another break, and then maybe a little cleanup and prep for the next day.

[00:20:04] that's point number one. The second is they are layering these periods of deep work and deliberate rest, by which I mean they are. working really intensively, but then consciously taking breaks, usually scheduled in advance, right? Not working until they're feeling exhausted and going off and doing something, whether it's a long walk, working in the garden, et cetera.

[00:20:30] That does two things. First of all, gets them away from their desk. They're no longer just looking at a screen or the blackboard. but secondly. It's something that is physically engaging but not too mentally engaging. And what that allows is time for their creative subconscious, or what neuroscientists now call the default mode network to continue working on unsolved problems, even as your conscious attention is elsewhere, looking at trees or planting something.

[00:21:03] And. The default mode is a set of kind of connections in our brains that involve creativity. It's often very visual and the default mode loves to work on unsolved problems or unresolved issues. And so when you are. You have some bad experience at work and you're kind of ruminating on it sort of at night, that's the default mode.

[00:21:25] Continuing to try and figure out, alright, what could you have done better? you know, another version of it is so is solving. Or answering questions that you haven't been able to solve through conscious effort. So when you're trying to remember the name of the actor who was in the movie, but that other thing, and then three minutes later it comes to you, oh, it was Scarlett Johansen, right?

[00:21:46] That's the default mode. Continuing to work on a problem even while you're doing something else Now. You can, it turns out, get better at tempting the default mode to work on things on your [00:22:00] behalf by doing this kind of layering of deep work and deliberate rest. Because you get up from your desk, you've been thinking about a whole bunch of things, you know how it feels when you've been in the zone and you've got a lot of stuff kind of running around in your brain and.

[00:22:15] We often reach a point after about two hours where, number one, our attention is starting to fail. This is simply the way that almost everybody's brains work, right? You can maintain a high level of focus for about 90 to 110 minutes, and after that, even though you don't necessarily notice it, it really starts to fall off a cliff.

[00:22:34] so at that point, you still, however, have these. Questions that you're still working on. You've got all the parts kind of loaded up in or short term memory, and then if you go off and do something else, then it gives the default mode a chance to keep working on this even while you're recharging some other batteries.

[00:22:54] Now another feature of these creative days often is that they start a lot earlier than most people do. So, even someone like Ernest Hemingway who was, honestly as serious a drinker and partier as he was an author, was generally up by six or six 30 writing. There people are very, very disciplined about this.

[00:23:15] And so the day starts earlier. It only goes for about, you know, four or five hours. And so by the early afternoon, really you're done with your day. Part of the reason the morning turns out to be a more creative time is that, especially if you're not really a morning person, working a little bit against your natural chronotype.

[00:23:38] Helps boost your creativity just a little bit, you know, it's the sort of thing where you may not see a big difference in a single day, but if you make it a regular practice, you know, those small incremental benefits can really pay off. Another thing is it forces you to be more systematic about your work, so having a morning [00:24:00] routine.

[00:24:00] Often is, scaffolded on top of a bunch of decisions that you make at the end of the day. So for example, I'm working on a book or some other big project, I will end the day by Writing down, you know, two or three things that I will be working on the next morning because at 5:00 AM I do not wanna have to make any decision at all.

[00:24:22] So far better to have the question of what I'm gonna be doing already settled. I will set out the clothes I'm gonna wear, I leave my laptop just open so that I can just get right to work. And. The other thing that happens when you do that is that. Again, it invites your default mode to continue working on these questions, on kind of tomorrow's work, even after you've left the work for the day.

[00:24:51] John Cleese has this great story about when he first started writing with Monty Python, he had a sketch that, he co-wrote and then he lost it. so, you know, he had to write it again several days later. had to write it again, and then he found the original draft and he discovered that in the second version, the jokes were funnier, the writing was sharper.

[00:25:14] There was just certain things that were crisper about, that work. And he realized that even though he hadn't really been thinking about it. That, you know, consciously, clearly some part of his mind had continued working on this even while he was doing other stuff.

[00:25:30] so part of using the morning is it gives you an opportunity to kind of harness this. Part of your, default mode to help you have ideas that might be very difficult to have otherwise now. If you start work at five and you're done by about, you know, one or two, that's why it's time for a nap.

[00:25:52] very few of us really use naps as a kind of creative tool. Though Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison among others had [00:26:00] these particular techniques that they used for, trying to remember ideas that they had as they were falling asleep.

[00:26:07] But for most of us, it turns out that the, naps are just great as a way of recharging and rebalancing Our energy levels and helping make sure that, we get enough sleep across the day. everyone's heard of the 10,000 hours rule, right?

[00:26:23] This is Malcolm Gladwell talking about, it's based on the work of of Swedish American psychologist, Anders Erickson and his study of violinist, sort of Berlin Conservatory. Ericson was interested in the question of what is it that sets top performers apart from everybody else?

[00:26:40] Right. And he argued that the big thing was deliberate practice. the top students practiced about 10,000 hours in specific ways. Right. you know, working on particular parts of their performance, getting clear feedback so that they, you know, they weren't just practicing scales.

[00:26:57] They had, plans for improvement. Everyone knows about the 10,000 hours. But one of the other things that Erickson found was that the top students actually slept more than the merely average students. Partly because they took naps during the afternoon, but they also. Were more thoughtful about how they spent their leisure time.

[00:27:21] They didn't have more leisure, but they were more deliberate about it. And so those students didn't just practice for 10,000 hours. They also slept, for 30,000 and had about 12,500 hours of deliberate rest. it's not just the 10,000 that made them great. the sleep and the leisure also turned out to be really important for making them who they were, for turning them into world class performers.

[00:27:52] And I think there's a lesson there for all of us.

[00:27:55] Kristina: I couldn't agree more. I think, if there's one thing to fix in [00:28:00] society's sleep, because then I think we all, we'll all be kinder people as well, which is, which would be a nice thing, um, right now what's happening in the world. So, and another thing that you mentioned is the nine, 90 minutes to two hours, I, I kind of.

[00:28:13] Plan my day that way. I do 90 minutes focused and I kind of set it up. So I focus on my kind of categories that I work on all the time. And then I, I just go into that 90 minutes and try, I'm not, not in a perfect way 'cause I'm a, a sidetrack like everyone else, but, uh, but it's, it works really well and it's something that I actually now, teach as part of my coaching program because it's just, it's been so beneficial for me because I can't do like a nine to six focus, focus, focus. I am very much focused on the the, and then I have like 20, I put like a timer for 28 minutes where I can do anything else, um, which is often work, but it's not really focused work. So yeah, it works really well for me. So. I really, uh, really resonated with so many things in your book.

[00:28:58] So, um, let's then move on to part two of your book, which is a one all around recovery exercise, which I love because again, I, uh, I do yoga quite a bit and I just feel like a lot of my, Great ideas comes after that and I just feel so good and deep play, which I'm not so good at. And then sabbaticals, which, uh, is an interesting one as well.

[00:29:20] So I'd love for you to talk about that as well.

[00:29:22] Alex: Sure. So, exercise is one of those things that, first of all often falls by the wayside when we're really busy. Right. It feels like something that's disposable It is not right that even for those of us who are maybe not world-class athletes, there still are immediate and long-term benefits to doing any kind of exercise that you can stick with that, pays off both immediately and in the long run.

[00:29:50] There was a wonderful study of. Scientists in Southern California that followed their careers over close to 40 years. Right. over the course of those [00:30:00] decades, there emerged a group of people who included four Nobel Prize winners and several other sort of really very, very distinguished scientists.

[00:30:09] And then a second group that was Much more kind of run of the mill psychologically. They all looked the same, same IQs, et cetera. The big difference between them was that the top group exercised more than the bottom, and part of what that meant was that the top group was better able to manage stress.

[00:30:28] they had to be better at managing their time, and they also felt like they were more adventurous. felt like because they did all this organizational work, that they had more time for hobbies. Whereas the group that was down at the bottom, talked about not having enough time to go and exercise.

[00:30:51] so that, for me was one of the studies that confirmed that this is super, super important. Now, deep play is something that, and you can think of these as really serious hobbies that, provide some of the same kind of psychological satisfaction as work when it goes really well, but in a different kind of medium and a different timescale.

[00:31:14] Winston Churchill for, for example, talked about painting as, you know, his favorite hobby because, as he said, painting is like politics. Well, how is that? Both. You literally need a clear vision of what you're going to do. You have a limited time in which to work and you have to be kind of thoughtful about how you structure your, argument or, apply uh, brush to canvas, however it got you outdoors.

[00:31:41] It was visual rather than, you know, verbal. And also you didn't have the Labor party standing over your shoulder trying to erase what you were doing as you painted. And so it was all the stuff that he liked about political life without the frustrations. And over and over again, I see people you know, who are [00:32:00] entrepreneurs or are.

[00:32:02] In like a race to make a Nobel Prize winning level discovery who will take long weekends or you know, a week during the summer and go mountain climbing or go, you know, sailing for 10 days. And you think, why in the world are these people wasting their time doing that? Well it's because this kind of deep play not only provides like exercise does it has a sort of forcing function that makes you be more organized and more focused when you're working. but by reconnecting you with what you love most about your work, when it goes well, I think it serves to rejuvenate you in a way that few other things can. And then finally with sabbaticals, right?

[00:32:47] These are, these are breaks that can be anywhere from a couple weeks to. Several months or, the year. And if you can do them, and in particular, if you can go someplace that is a little different, but not too alien so that you are not having to deal with regular work stuff. Right. Not having to sit in on, or of launch meetings while you were trying to think about like the next stage of your career.

[00:33:16] If you're in an area that is different and interesting, but you don't have to like learn the language or adjust yourself to radically different customs, that exposure can provide a creative impetus and push that can sometimes sustain you for years.

[00:33:37] So, we see this in everything from. scientists and engineers who have, you know, who make discoveries when they're on sabbaticals that turn out to be incredibly important, or fashion designers who, you know, go from, working in London to spending a year in Milan or Tokyo or Singapore, you know, who for [00:34:00] several years after that.

[00:34:02] Produce work that is more creative as judged by their peers than their classmates or friends who stayed at Central St. Martin's or, you know, or wherever. so, as a way of not just having. Sort of good creative days, but having long, sustainable, creative lives. I think exercise and deep play and sabbaticals serve both to help you maintain. Your intellectual and your physical abilities over the long run allow you to stay in touch with what it is about your work that you love most, so that when things are challenging, you're still in touch with that and will be a little more resilient in facing those challenges and.

[00:34:52] You are working on things or maybe exploring new avenues that are not just the same stuff you've been doing over and over again, but follow an intellectual line or a line of creative inquiry that.

[00:35:10] Is relevant to you now that engages you now and that is, you know, more likely to guarantee that the work you do going forward will be work that you can love and be proud of.

[00:35:25] Kristina: Mm, I absolutely, I've taken so many notes here. If you are looking, if I'm looking down, it's because I'm taking so many notes. I, there's so many things, you know, I just realized that deep play for me is trouble because I, I just love traveling. I love exploring new cities, and I love, like, as I said before, I love finding, you know, new restaurants, coffee places.

[00:35:46] You know, bookshops, I just love bookshops and libraries and things like that. So, so that's kinda me, my deep play. And the other thing that I realized is, um, so I'm an introvert, but I do a lot of public speaking. So obviously when you're [00:36:00] speaking, you, you give a lot. And, uh, when I. Always do is like, I reward myself after a keynote.

[00:36:07] I'm now doing so many, so I don't always do it as much, but when I didn't do as many, this is what I did. I used to book an extra night away somewhere. So if I was, you know, speaking in, in London or in Sydney or Melbourne or wherever it was, I would then book another extra night as my reward and I, and that was like turning off the phone, you know, journal books, go for a walk.

[00:36:30] All the fun that I, you know, and with a good coffee, that's what. I love and people got really curious about that. So I started then having, um. ' cause they all said, what do you do? And is a lot of people, which I can't relate to, but a lot of people tell me that they are really nervous about going away on their own because they are scared of being with their own thought, which is another challenge.

[00:36:52] They probably need to read your book and have some rest. But, um, I then started to do solitude retreats, which is basically I take 10 people and I rent a house and we just. Journal and go for a walk and things like that. And it's only for a day. So it's a day retreat and uh, people just walk away feeling like new people.

[00:37:13] So sometimes, you know, I think, bill Gates were really famous for Heath Think week, and that's what got me really inspired to start taking time off. But, um, that was really resonating with me. And another thing is I, um, This year I went to Bali to speak and uh, I said to my girlfriend, why don't you come over? And we just did a week of work and we worked like in the morning, and then we just went and had massages and explored the island. So there's so many different ways. And I think, and another thing that I really got me was, but when I had my first business, which was, you know, a lot of employees and a lot of meetings, I used to travel the world all the time.

[00:37:52] And then as soon as I landed, I needed to be back. Online to be with businesses, you know, big people back in the office. And [00:38:00] uh, in my new business I don't actually do that. I often say when I travel, there's no meetings because I wanna be present where I am. And that makes a massive difference because, because if you travel across the world and to do some work and then you sit in all these meetings, kind takes away.

[00:38:16] First experience, but also I don't think we are as effective if we have to always go back. So I think that's, that was a really good point as well.

[00:38:24] Alex: No, I think that is, that is brilliant. You know, we confuse. The fact that we can now be always on and always available thanks to, you know, effectively carrying our offices around in our pockets or our backpacks

[00:38:41] with an imperative that therefore we must always be always on and always available.

[00:38:47] And we're all familiar with Jonathan Hari or other work on sort of the impact of sort of smartphones and sort of social media on our attention and sort of empathy and so on. But I think that it also, does a brilliant job of disconnecting us from potentially great and novel experiences in these new places.

[00:39:12] Kristina: Yeah.

[00:39:13] Alex: I mean, I will sometimes be at events where you have some fame, a famous person who comes in and they show up at the venue five minutes before their talk and they give their keynote and then they disappear and it's back to the airport.

[00:39:28] I have to wonder, you know, what kind of life is that, first of all, assuming that sort of. You're the most interesting person at this event, and therefore have nothing to learn from anybody else there. But second, you've flown for however many hours to get to, you know, this place.

[00:39:43] there may be something interesting or inspiring here or, or of something that you can take back that you will use later on. And I.

[00:39:51] think that the recognition. That, taking that little bit of extra time, whether you're treating it [00:40:00] as a kind of day long sabbatical, which I think is great.

[00:40:02] or, you know, think of it some other way that in a sense provides fodder for your creative mind for yourself that is likely to pay off in ways that you can't anticipate at first, but which will deliver something to you that is much more valuable than whatever you get.

[00:40:27] parachuting into an event, doing your thing, and then, getting on the transporter and beaming back to somewhere else.

[00:40:35] Kristina: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And you know, as a speaking now myself, I actually love hearing other people speak because I just get so much inspiration. Again, I just always there with my, my journal. So I, um, this has been so inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. I wanna finish with three quick question.

[00:40:56] One is, Do you have a specific morning ritual that you practice or do you change it, or how do you, how do you set up your morning ritual?

[00:41:05] Alex: my morning ritual is set up the night before, I mean, I set up everything I possibly can and my morning ritual?

[00:41:13] really is to get up, pour the coffee. Sit down, start writing, and then not have to think about anything or make a decision for at least an hour. If I'm gonna get up that early, I'm not gonna be on Facebook or distracting myself, whatever.

[00:41:31] Also, nobody else is gonna be awake. Not even the dogs are gonna bother me. So this is core time to really get stuff done. So, you know, I'm not gonna be exercising or anything until later on in the morning. but. I think that as Anthony Trop, who wrote 30 odd books, said that he owed his entire professional life to the discipline of early mornings, and so do I.

[00:41:57] Kristina: Yeah.

[00:41:58] Yeah, Absolutely. And I, I think it [00:42:00] was, John Grisham who was, uh, a lawyer he had. I think if I, if I remember right, young children, so he went to the office really early at his law firm and then wrote for a, for a couple of hours before, you know, his day start.

[00:42:14] And I think it's a, it's a brilliant way of, of doing it. If you, if you're able to, another question I have for you. Is, and this is a hard one because I can see behind you that you are an avid reader and obviously a, a researcher as well. So this will be a hard one. But is there one book, that comes to mind for you that had, is your favorite or had the biggest impact on your life?

[00:42:38] Alex: You know, I would have to nominate Miha Jem High's book flow. it came out, what, in 91 or so, and I didn't read it until I was, at Microsoft. But it felt to me when I was reading it like it unlocked. all kinds of sort of ideas and was an amazing description of what I spent my life chasing.

[00:43:03] the downside to. The book is that here in Silicon Valley we've taken what are a great set of philosophical ideas and precepts about how to live a good life?

[00:43:16] and boil them down into things that you can use in order to make websites and video games stickier. Right? flow is not a way to live as far as product designers are concerned.

[00:43:26] It's a way to boost engagement, which is. Deeply profoundly immoral, but still, you know, if you had to read one book, I would read flow. If you don't have time to read, read Virginia Wolf's a Room of Her Own, because that is also a phenomenal, fantastic defense or creativity and a vision of, or of how to live that.

[00:43:50] life.

[00:43:50] Kristina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both great books. Couldn't agree more. Thank you so much for sharing. Last question I have. Knowing what you know now, what [00:44:00] kind of advice would you give to your younger self? Uh.

[00:44:05] Alex: that's a really interesting question. I mean, assuming that I could like. Puppeteer some aspect of my earlier life. Honestly, I would meet my wife 10 years earlier. I mean, we were both in school on the east coast. we could have met a lot earlier.

[00:44:20] there was nothing, nothing else that happened in my own life that was more important than meeting her. So being able to roll the clock back on that would be the one thing that I would do if I if I had to make a choice. closer to our conversation, I would tell my younger self To take rest more seriously. But my younger self probably wouldn't believe it, that, one of the things that I see very consistently is people kind of have to learn about rest the hard way a lot of people come to the book or in the book itself discover its value after a health crisis or some kind of breakdown or you know, something that happens maybe.

[00:45:03] you know, usually not in their twenties when you're still kind of energetic and dumb and you can live, you know, and you can live on four hours of sleep a night and take out food. But at the point where you have kids where you know, the romance of 90 hour weeks has worn off, you reach a point where you can no longer assume that Long hours and panicked work at the last moment in an all-nighter is gonna be enough. And it's at that point that you realize that either you can burn out or you can find a more sustainable way of working. maybe my younger self would've, listened to me saying, be more serious about sports.

[00:45:48] Like whatever one you choose, be more consistent about it. Because my kids have been more consistent and they have, they have had much better lives as a result. now [00:46:00] maybe I would've listened to that.

[00:46:02] Kristina: Mm. I love that. That's good. Some good wisdom for all of us there. And I couldn't agree more. So many people. Um, and this is how I see with, I want to help people live their dream life, whatever that is for them. And, um, that often comes when someone, you know, diagnosis of, of some kind of illness or sickness or, Losing a business or losing a role or divorce or whatever. And, uh, I often say let's, um, let's get on with it before that. And, uh, and I think that's exactly the same for rest, of course, that we should all prioritize that. So thank you so much first for taking your time to come on the podcast and share your wisdom with us, but also for taking your time to write this incredible book.

[00:46:45] I'm so excited to read it with my book club and I have no doubt you will hear from us with, um, all the, amazing no doubt feedback. So thank you so much.

[00:46:55] Alex: Well, thank you and thank you for making this one of your, your readings and I hope it lives up to expectations and if people enjoy it.

[00:47:03] Kristina: Uh, absolutely. We will. Thank you.

[00:47:05] Wow, that was so inspiring. I could have spoken to Alex for hours. I hope you are leaving this conversation feeling a little lighter, a little clearer, and a lot more inspired to weave rest into your days, not as an afterthought, but as a beautiful, essential part of creating your dream life.

[00:47:24] remember, you don't need to overhaul everything at once. Just start with one small shift, one moment of stillness, one deep breath that reminds you that you matter too. And and if you would love the support in bringing these ideas to life gently, your. Joyfully and in the most amazing community.

[00:47:45] I would love to welcome you into Grow My Book Club in December as we read rest together. It's a perfect way to close out the year, slowing down, reflecting, and getting ready for the fresh, exciting chapter ahead. I cannot [00:48:00] wait for 2026. As always, I will be back on Monday with another Monday morning motivation episode.

[00:48:07] Until then, keep dreaming. Keep taking those small, meaningful steps and be kind to yourself along the way, especially this time of year. I'll see you on Monday.

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