Mo Gawdat

And, you know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand this because stuff that freaked me out when I was 20, I managed to deal with in my 30s. I dealt with ease when I was 40. And then in my 50s, I laugh at it. Not because it's easier, but because I started to acquire that. And so she goes like, oh my God, I actually understand this.

And then we come up with the slogan of the book, which is, it's not the events of your life that stress you. It's the way you deal with them that does. And the book centers around that idea that... Life will continue to stress you. We say there are four quadrants of stress. We call them ton, T-O-N-N. Traumas are external macro stresses that hit you so hard.

And then we come up with the slogan of the book, which is, it's not the events of your life that stress you. It's the way you deal with them that does. And the book centers around that idea that... Life will continue to stress you. We say there are four quadrants of stress. We call them ton, T-O-N-N. Traumas are external macro stresses that hit you so hard.

O is obsessions, which are internal beliefs and scripts that really have a traumatic effect on you, but they're coming within you. The first N is noise, tiny little niggles that you annoy yourself with all the time. And the second N is nuisances. So little things like, you know, your alarm clock in the morning or whatever.

O is obsessions, which are internal beliefs and scripts that really have a traumatic effect on you, but they're coming within you. The first N is noise, tiny little niggles that you annoy yourself with all the time. And the second N is nuisances. So little things like, you know, your alarm clock in the morning or whatever.

And then suddenly there is a model in place because now that you understand them, of course, trauma is outside of our control, but trauma is not really the reason for the stress pandemic or epidemic of the world. Trauma, good news and bad news, if you want. The bad news is that 91% of everyone you know will get at least one PTSD-inducing traumatic event once in their life, and many get more. So

And then suddenly there is a model in place because now that you understand them, of course, trauma is outside of our control, but trauma is not really the reason for the stress pandemic or epidemic of the world. Trauma, good news and bad news, if you want. The bad news is that 91% of everyone you know will get at least one PTSD-inducing traumatic event once in their life, and many get more. So

You know, when it comes to loss, for example, I lost so many people that I love. And each of those counts as a traumatic event. It is an amount of pressure on you that is so high intensity in such a short period of time that it exceeds your ability to carry it and so you break. So that's the bad news.

You know, when it comes to loss, for example, I lost so many people that I love. And each of those counts as a traumatic event. It is an amount of pressure on you that is so high intensity in such a short period of time that it exceeds your ability to carry it and so you break. So that's the bad news.

I hope that our listeners will all be in the one out of 10 that don't get that, but likely you're going to be one of the nine, you know.

I hope that our listeners will all be in the one out of 10 that don't get that, but likely you're going to be one of the nine, you know.

Yeah, a bad breakup, a loss of a loved one, an accident, whatever. The good news is, which this is from 9-11 statistics, that 93% of all who get to PTSD, so that's the highest level of stress, recover in three months. 96.7% recover in six months. And all of them, or most of them, 98% of them, experience post-traumatic growth.

Yeah, a bad breakup, a loss of a loved one, an accident, whatever. The good news is, which this is from 9-11 statistics, that 93% of all who get to PTSD, so that's the highest level of stress, recover in three months. 96.7% recover in six months. And all of them, or most of them, 98% of them, experience post-traumatic growth.

So as you put yourself together within the three to six months, you're okay. You're even better than where you were before. So it's not trauma that stresses you. That is the reason for the epidemic of stress in the world today. What stresses you, what breaks you, interestingly, of those external stressors and internal stressors applied in different ways, it doesn't matter.

So as you put yourself together within the three to six months, you're okay. You're even better than where you were before. So it's not trauma that stresses you. That is the reason for the epidemic of stress in the world today. What stresses you, what breaks you, interestingly, of those external stressors and internal stressors applied in different ways, it doesn't matter.

We went into something that we call the three reasons we break, okay? So one of them is trauma, we agree. It's too intense, too quick. But then the other two are very eye-opening. One of them is burnout. which I think most of our listeners will be familiar with.

We went into something that we call the three reasons we break, okay? So one of them is trauma, we agree. It's too intense, too quick. But then the other two are very eye-opening. One of them is burnout. which I think most of our listeners will be familiar with.

And burnout is everything sub-trauma, so you can deal with every day, external or internal, aggregating on top of your head until the sum of all of those forces is too much to bear. So basically, it's the sigma of all of the stressors applied to you, multiplied by their intensity, multiplied by duration of application, by frequency of application.

And burnout is everything sub-trauma, so you can deal with every day, external or internal, aggregating on top of your head until the sum of all of those forces is too much to bear. So basically, it's the sigma of all of the stressors applied to you, multiplied by their intensity, multiplied by duration of application, by frequency of application.

which is actually really interesting to understand. So your commute acts as one of those little stressors. If you do it three times a day, it's more stressful than if you do it once a day. If you do it for an hour and a half, it's more stressful than if you do it for 15 minutes and so on. But here's the interesting thing.