EP #129: Unlocking Mental Wealth: Exploring the Intersection of Health, Happiness, and High Performance with William Hicks, Co-Founder of Magic Mind

[MUSIC] Welcome back to another episode of Everyday in Dorfins, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host, Stella Stephanopoulos, and this week I got to sit down with William Hicks, who is the co-founder of Magic Mind, the world's first mental performance shot. Magic Mind lives in the fields of neutropics and adaptogens, scientifically designed to enhance focus and thinking, supports mood and motivation, and helps to create a calm, sustained energy. In this episode, William dives into his own background, starting an investment baking, how he navigated high-pressure environments, in his job, in his career, in his life, and how he decided to transition into entrepreneurship, and be one of the co-founders to Magic Mind. A lot of the episode talks about William's own perspective on health and on happiness, and why intentionality is key to balancing all aspects of our well-being, the five pillars of this concept of mental wealth, and how we can think about our wellness through this idea of what it means to build our mental wealth. William shares his perception of the role that peace plays in cultivating greater happiness and joy in our lives, and of course, he shares what brings him a bit of endorphins in his day to day. I had a lot of fun recordings episode, so I'm excited for you all to listen, and before we dive into the show, reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on which ever-listing platform you prefer. You can follow on social media at everyday endorphins on Instagram, to stay up-to-date with episodes, podcasts events I'm doing in New York, and more, and you can follow on TikTok at Everyday Endorphins for some fun, content, stream of consciousness, and then, last but not least, subscribe to my newsletter, which is a sub-stack, called Everyday Endorphins. It's the Everyday Endorphins newsletter, and every month I share out episode recaps, themes that were discussed, things that have brought me joy, and some things in life that I've just been pondering recently, as I build my own perspective on health and wellness and happiness, and how to navigate life when challenges just naturally occur. How to remain level-headed, how to continue to find your endorphins, amidst a very chaotic world in which we all live in. So, that being said, like rate review, subscribe, do all the things, but most of all, enjoy listening. I hope something from this episode resonates with you, and if you like what you heard, shoot me a message. All right, let's get into it. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I'm super excited to get to chat with you. I want to start off with this interview by giving you the opportunity to share a little bit more about yourself and really what sparked your interest, broadly speaking, and health and wellbeing. I think growing up, I always was looking for happiness, just as I think many people do, and I think I noticed that when I was feeling my best physically after physical activities and healthy diets, I was performed and felt my best. I actually went through a chubby middle school phase that was pretty formative for me, actually, in many ways, but that sort of kicked off my thinking of food as something to actually be thoughtful about, and everything that I put in my body took a lot more intentionality from that point, sort of after I came through that phase, and it was actually kind of a challenging phase for me. I think a lot of people go through awkward middle school phases and I was no different there, but I really sort of resolved to be more intentional about what I was putting into my body from a nutrition standpoint, and started with food and then sort of broadened naturally into what else can I optimize for my health with supplementation, and that led into searching through neutropics and sort of discovering that in college. There was this drink I got obsessed with one exam period called Neurosonic, I believe, and my friends and I were drinking those and studying like, oh my god, I can't believe how well my brain's working. This is amazing. Yeah, I've just always been looking for levers to get the most out of my brain and my body and nutrition, supplementation, or sort of the tip of the iceberg. I've since gone deeper into other things, mindfulness, meditation, phenantophylosophy, cold plunges, of course, or sort of the hot thing these days, and I've got one of my backyard, so I'm part of that trend too. So I've always been interested in just feeling and performing my best, and I think nutrition is a foundational part of that. Well, I can completely relate to cold plunges. I'm also part of that trend. Unfortunately, I do not have a cold plunge in my small New York City apartment. Landlord might not like that. He's exactly, but I do try to do cold exposure when I can. And you know, it's interesting that you shared that you went through like kind of that awkward chubby phase in middle school, and that was really the catalyst to like being more cognizant of what you were putting in your body and nutrition. I feel like a lot of times the entry point into health and wellness is when you're realizing that you're not operating at your optimal level. And so I think it's consistent. I've noticed across a lot of interviews and people that I've spoken with that they've experienced some sort of like detriment in their health and well-being to kind of wake themselves up and take initiative towards developing healthier habits and practices in their life. Totally. And I think it also is the same for mental health too. I think a lot of people in middle school sort of in your childhood, your sort of hunky-dory, everything's great, and then any kind of the reality the world sets in and things become difficult in one way or another. And do you really have to confront that difficulty and whether it's failure or an awkward phase or just the reality of pressure of high school and college and the world ahead of you. And so I think that's an interesting time that also coincided with my reflections on sort of mental philosophy and mental fortitude and really reflecting on mental health and happiness sort of went hand in hand with the discovery of sort of attention I paid to nutrition. And like your point about mental health, you know, I find it really interesting because you know this concept around being like in a high pressure environment and how that impacts our well-being, learning a little bit more about your background, working in investment banking, going to Princeton University prior to that. Like you've been in high pressure, what I can imagine to be high pressure environments throughout most of your life. And you know, I went to a really competitive high school, competitive college. And so and now outside of my podcast, I also work in a corporate world. And I've also experienced kind of like the stress that comes with being in a high pressure environment. So can you talk a little bit more about that journey that you've taken in your studies and in your career, like how you've navigated that type of high stress high pressure environment, you know, as it pertains to this idea of reclaiming your brain and like taking care of your mental health and your well-being and finding a sense of focus. And that's been a journey that really played out through my my 20s. I'm now 32 just for context, but yeah, I think it's important to realize that the only pressure that exists is the pressure you put on yourself. And whatever external pressures there are are really just your filtration of other people's expectations of you into your own expectations of yourself. And so once you sort of really grok that and realize that, you realize that it's all within you to relieve that feeling of stress and that pressure. And that was an important realization for me that sort of came about in my mid 20s and it really helped by sort of studying stoicism philosophy and just worrying about that which you can control. And responding to the external pressures and stresses of the world with just your own, you choose your response to the conditions around you. And you can be really intentional about that. And you can sort of convince yourself that it's fun. And I have, like I really, you know, rather be in quote unquote high pressure environments or situations because there's the reasons high pressures, there's a high variability of outcomes that are possible and you have a ability to have a tangible impact on a certain situation or probably like the world. And so I just think that's more fun. And so I'd rather be, yeah, I'd rather have the ball in my hands at the end of the game like speak metaphorically and rather than just being cheering for the sidelines. And so that's been a big personal journey of mine. And so stoicism was helpful and then also the kind of secondarily started getting into a bit more like the Vennanta really Hindu philosophies and sort of treating life as play. Like that's all we can really do and try to live in the moment and see this world for what it is, which is just a short opportunity to connect with people and share love and live in the moment and have as much fun as you can. I love that. I it's part of my studies in college. We're in philosophy and I really need to like refresh my memory on what I was learning in those classes. It's hard to carve out the time to educate yourself on topics that are really fascinating to you and so much of your days taken up by your work. And so one of my intentions for this year is to like dedicate that time to kind of reteach myself a lot of what I did learn in those philosophy classes. So I love how you bring up stoicism and like some of more of that Hindu philosophy. Can you share kind of like the difference between those two without getting too deep into it? Like the difference in approach to living a good life from like a stoic perspective versus more of like that Hindu perspective? Because I think it really does tie into, you know, how you approach this concept around not putting pressure on yourself like creating some sort of like playbook for yourself on how to manage your stress and and keep, you know, yourself feeling mentally and physically healthy. Totally. I'm fed up with what's to be an expert. And either these philosophies are just a book or two. But my interpretation is sort of the things that I took away from my brief sort of study of the philosophies is stoicism is about realizing that your experience as the world are your own and they're on like you to interpret. And like the broad takeaway, I think I said it earlier, but worry about that what you can control and there's no reason if your flight's delayed to be stressed about that because there's nothing you can do about that. If there's something that you can do to affect an outcome, yes, you can, you can be stressed about it. But you know, use that as motivation to go take action and do something and really have high agency. But it is Western and its view of sort of differentiating between the, the self and external circumstances whereas the Dhanta, which is really just the end of the Upani Shads and talks about like philosophies of life. It's an ancient text that we don't even know how old it is, but it contains many wisdoms. This is just my takeaway is really just, there is no difference between external and internal circumstances. You are part of the universe. You're just the universe experiencing itself as Alan Watts said and take joy and gratitude and the little things and realize that all things are connected and you know, you can get worked up about something that seems really stressful to you. But if you zoom out like you're a blip in the long stream of time and the universe and just lower the stakes a little bit, like just enjoy yourself in this moment and try to connect with others in the world around you as you're all sort of an expression of the same, the same life force, the same God, the same, you know, universal spirit, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, I feel like my own personal philosophy kind of draws from both of those and your point around the importance of like cultivating joy, looking for moments of happiness in our day to day life. That's so in alignment with everyday endorphins and we'll get to some of that later on happiness and ways that you look for joy in your life. So we'll talk a little bit more about that later in the interview, but I want to transition into, you know, really why we're here today is to talk about the inception of Magic Mind and really the inspiration behind this company. So can you start by sharing a little bit about, you know, first of all, for my listeners who don't know anything about Magic Mind, what is Magic Mind and more broadly speaking, the field of Neutropics? Of course, I'll tell the full story of just to kind of hit the punch right at the end. First, Magic Mind is a mental performance shot. So it helps you sharpen your mind, decrease stress and cortisol and provide calm, sustainable energy all day. So you can be dialed in, not wired and perform your best mentally. And it's really only my story in part, my co-founder and the creator of Magic Mind James brought this product into the world and he and I together have grown the business. But the story is really history. It is last startup, a Fintech company that came out of Y Combinator back in like 2012 or 13 and scaled quite impressively. It was, you know, the startup was sort of on fire and he was in his late 20s. It got like 50 employees and was under a ton of stress to perform after taking on the ton of investment. It was drinking like seven cups of coffee a day, thinking that was helping him manage the responsibilities of being a first time founder at that level. And it actually sent him to the hospital with a heart condition. He was under a ton of stress and the cortisol spikes caused by caffeine sort of combined with that stress and caused atrial fibrillation. And as hard as actually beating it like 170 beats per minute for two weeks before he went to the doctor and the doctor sort of told him, you know, you've got this condition, you've hurt from beating this fast. But the one thing that stuck with him like a true addict was when they said, with this condition, you should really only be having about half a cup of coffee a day worth of caffeine this caffeine spiking your cortisol and increasing blood pressure and heart rate. Like, you can't be doing this and he's like, how the hell am I going to get anything done on half a cup a day. And the doctor's like, you know, try green tea. It's got less caffeine and alphanine which will just extend your body's absorption of that caffeine. And that was sort of a lipo moment of like, oh, okay. There's like other things you can combine with caffeine to get more out of your morning ritual experience. And James then sort of went off the deep end into the world of neutropics, adaptogens, functional mushrooms, actually wrote, name is on bestselling book on the topic and kind of became the neutropics guy in Silicon Valley. His company was bought by Airbnb and he had pill bottles, powders on his desk and people would come in sort of asking, what should I do to optimize my stack, what should I take? And so here's my book. People like, I'm not reading your book. It's really boring just telling what to take at each say, okay. So he had a Google spreadsheet called James's Magic Potion. I had his 12 favorite ingredients and Amazon links and were to buy it. Dozeages. And he just kind of centered around it went viral, quasi viral and Airbnb and white combinator communities. He sort of left it at that. But then it wasn't until a co-op formed first just a handful of friends who didn't want to mix themselves at a commercial kitchen in San Jose. And then a co-op went from like seven people to 17 to 23. And he all of a sudden there's like 57 people in this co-op drinking James's Magic Potion every day paying for themselves with no involvement from James. He was like, holy shit. I think this is product market fit and like the world might need this. And so he built a brand around it which became Magic Mind and we launched in March of 2020 four years ago. And I joined shortly thereafter as the first full-time employee in my background. As you mentioned, investment making right out of college but quickly realized that was not fit for me for what I wanted to do and joined an early stage snack company. It was on the founding team at Bromney Snacks and ran operations and sales on the East Coast and sort of became a food and beverage guy. And so James and I linked up and I had the industry experience. He had the product and brand expertise and we joined forces and to have grown this business together. Wow. What an incredible crazy story. And to what we were speaking about earlier, this idea of like kind of experiencing a detriment in your health and wellbeing as the catalyst for waking up and being like, I need to make a change. It sounds like that's exactly James' experience having to go to the hospital, having like a way to rapid heartbeat. You know, for what was it two weeks before he realized like there was an issue and caffeine is 100% addictive. I mean, I've tried to like have less caffeine on the day-to-day basis and it's hard because so much of it is about the taste and with coffee in particular and the morning ritual aspect of it, like making my cup of coffee, going to get my cup of coffee. So I can't even imagine like this struggle that it must have been for him to significantly decrease his coffee consumption and his caffeine consumption. Like I did my yoga teacher training in Bali and I remember this Chinese medicine practitioner that I had met with told me to stop drinking coffee and she was like, just have matcha. Like that's a better alternative. I grew to like it but at first it was so hard to make that transition because I was like, I don't have matcha, I don't have green tea. Like it's not the same. And so it's really fascinating to see how he created this like magic potion. Maybe that's where the name "magic mind" comes from because it was magic potion that went viral. James' magic potion turned into magic mind but yeah, it's important to note for him it had to replace his coffee but we specifically position the products not as a coffee replacement. Our whole philosophy is just that too much caffeine is counterproductive to how you really want to feel if you're going to be performing optimally from a mental perspective. Like if you want to do your best work, you actually want to be in flow, presence in the moment, dialed in. You don't want to be bouncing off the wall's heart racing jittery. Like a big dose of caffeine is great if you need to stay awake all night on a long haul truck drive or road trip or if you want a personal record, you're deadlift but if you're trying to do your best and deepest work, you're better served by a lower dose of caffeine and the neutropics and magic mind that's sharp in cognition, the adaptogens that actually combat the cortisol spike in decrease stress in your body because there's actually a lot of scientific literature. Now the cause of procrastination is pretty clear. It's not any black of energy or motivation. It's just anxiety. It's low grade pervasive anxiety that prevents you from starting that task. And so the magic of magic mind is the up and sharpening of the mind from a bit of caffeine from matcha and the neutropics as well combined with decreasing cortisol from the adaptogens that just get you leveled out, dialed in in the zone. So I still, I love the morning ritual of coffee. I still have my big cup. I might add every morning, but then I have a magic mind and it sort of takes me through the whole day and gets me to another level of focus, clarity and alertness. Yeah. There's two things that I want to bring up from what you just said. So the first is that I actually interviewed while I was in college at this point. One of the researchers who kind of pioneered that emerging scientific literature on really what the cause of procrastination is. Oh, fascinating. It was like so interesting for me because at the time I was a college student, my life was revolved around my coursework and exams and like in a testing environment, which is different now working. I mean, it manifests itself differently. But I remember learning during that interview, her research was on how procrastination is not about being lazy. It's about a failure to self-regulate our own emotions and to your point like anxiety that we can experience. And I think there's a huge misconception around procrastination that you don't have drive or that you're just lazy or you don't want to do something. But if you dig a little deeper and realize like it's this failure to self-regulate, if you are able to learn how to regulate your emotions and approach things from a state of calmness, which also is related to being in that flow, like not feeling those jittery moments of anxiety. It's easier to actually accomplish the small bite-sized tasks that you need to do. And then it breeds that feeling of self-efficacy because the more you're able to show yourself that you can do the tasks you set out to do, the more likely you're able to see through those things and actually reach your end goal or goals. So that was the first point that I wanted to make because I did that interview a few years ago, but time and time again, I hear it come up like that research around procrastination and I feel like it permeates in so many areas of life. And then secondly, around this idea of flow state. So can you talk a little bit more about the relationship between neutropics and coming into that flow state and even defining what it means to be in flow from your own research or perspective or how you interpret what it means to be in flow and you're trying to get things done or work on a task? For sure. Just to touch on the first thing you said, I think it's really important and you see the data around this younger generation and the rates of anxiety, reported anxiety, kind of skyrocketing, it's going to lead to far more procrastination and further anxiety because of that. And so this message and your podcast are important around building that mental fortitude. And I imagine we're not claiming to be a end all, be all solution to everything. It's one part of what we call the five pillars of mental wealth, which we can talk about a bit later, but just to quickly say what they are from our perspective in order of importance, its first sleep diet, exercise, stress management, which is sort of what you talked about, sort of techniques to manage yourself, regulate. And then fifth and finally, and least important is exogenous compounds like magic minds, like the ones in magic mind that can help regulate your cortisol levels, improve sharp and focus and elevate your mental wealth altogether. So I think that's the most important context for your second question about flow state because flow state is sort of an expression of state of increased mental wealth in my view. And I think my definition of flow state is just that feeling of being completely present with the task at hands where time doesn't really exist. There are no distractions and you're one with the work that you're doing. And it's often talked about in creative pursuits, musicians, artists, talk about flow state because that's sort of, you can't be creative without tapping into flow. But I think all of us, no matter what your job is, your favorite part of work are those moments of flow. And it's really hard to find it increasingly harder and harder to find it this day and age when you have slack popping on one screen, email inbox on another and then your phone buzzing in your pocket. How are you supposed to find that space to even attempt to find flow? And so we can combat that at magic mind. We have, and we actually have a no slack policy, no messaging apps period. We strictly use email and responses are not expected immediately. It's like 24 hour expectation on responses in email. And if anything's urgent, just pick up the phone and call someone. We kind of lost that really effective communication tool. I feel like in the last 10 years. And then I highly encourage all of our employees and everyone I talk to really to really take ownership of your phone and figure out those do not disturb settings. To my wife's sugar and our throat or whole relationship, I do not receive any notifications for anything but calls on my phone. So I'm optimizing my day around trying to limit distractions, create uninterrupted blocks of time where I can hopefully tap into that flow state because that's when I do my best work. That's when we all do our best work. I need to take your advice and do the same thing with my phone because every time I get a pain, well not every time, but there are many times that I get pings where I just my cortisol spikes and I have all these notifications. I feel like sometimes my attention is being pulled in a million different directions. And it's hard actually because I think there's this perception being young at the beginning or the start of your career, living in a place like New York City that you constantly have to be responsive to everything that's coming at you. But I like what you're saying about like taking ownership of your phone and being extra cognizant about how you actually engage with your devices and how you choose to respond to certain things. I think is really important because it's easy to get lost in that, especially being younger in your career and feeling like you have to be at the back-end call of whoever you're working for or your social obligations. It's very easy to get lost in that. So it's one strategy you mentioned is really knowing your do-not-disturb settings and limiting notifications. I think there's a lot of different strategies around like digital health and digital literacy, kind of like digital wellness practices that we can implement to create more focus and tap into some of those pillars around that you describe with mental wealth. Yeah, completely. I think just so people know just tactically like you can actually allow certain contacts specifically to create a notification for something like a text. So if you're worried about your boss or your partner, you can actually track this so simply. There's screen time. There's also pickups, which people don't talk about as much. You can actually track how often you're picking up your phone throughout the day. And it can be a little shocking. If you're not sort of paying attention, then you look at it. It's crazy. And so I highly encourage you not all jobs, it's not all possible in all jobs to sort of ditch the phone, ditch the notifications. We've been very intentional about creating that culture here at Magic Minds, but certainly wasn't the case when I was at Barclays. But I think there is a space for and the right managers would have an appreciation of managing up and saying like, let's level set our expectations here. You're expecting a lot of output for me. I need time to do that. Here's what I ask from you. Like if it's very important and you need something urgently, call me. Otherwise I'm going to not be looking at my phone at all times because I need to actually do this output that you need to do the best work I can for you and for the company. And so taking ownership and managing up and setting expectations and collaboration with your manager instead of just taking them as gospel. I think first of all, I think the manager would be like, wow, this is a very badass high agency. The person is probably going to be my boss someday. I think it speaks highly of the person to take that initiative. And I think the right managers would appreciate that managing up and that communication. Yeah. I appreciate that advice. And also I think what you're speaking towards more broadly is the importance of setting boundaries. It can manifest in that particular instance, like in a work environment, there's ways you can set personal boundaries. And I think boundaries in general are so important to help you. They play an important role in those different pillars that you're describing as well. You need to set boundaries so that you can have the right amount of sleep for your optimal performance. You need to learn how to set certain boundaries so that you can carve out time for exercise or mindful movement, whatever that looks like to you. And also, boundaries to make sure that you're putting in the right types of food and nutrition into your body to the pillar on diet that you speak towards. So boundaries in general, I think are really important. And I love that you described an example of one that you can set in a work environment. Because I do think a lot of people that are around my age and I'm like 24. So I'm a bit younger than you, like kind of right at the start of my career, speaking on behalf of other young adults in New York at the start of our careers, it is hard to strike that balance of like learning how to take that kind of agency and set those boundaries, but also like kind of putting your head down and just doing the work and like doing what's expected and more of you. But I want to get back to this definition around mental wealth. Can you talk a little bit more about this concept of mental wealth and how can create, you know, a healthier internal ecosystem in our minds? For sure. Our mind is a mental performance shot, but our mission is to elevate the world's mental wealth. And it's the definition of mental wealth is just reconceiving of the notion of mental health from something that's currently only talked about when it's followed by a third word crisis to something that's more akin to your physical health or your financial wealth. You know, we're sort of in the pre like in the to relate it to physical health. We're sort of in the pre 1950s era where you know, jogging wasn't a thing like exercise wasn't a thing and you know, it's amazing. It's a whole other conversation to have about the metabolic health and people were pretty healthy even though they weren't specifically going out of the way to exercise, but the amount of movement that was going on was different. But people weren't thinking about, oh, I need to invest in my physical health. And then now everyone does. We all have a routine of mindful movement or working out or jogging or whatever your practice is. And I think 30 years will look back and these times and be like, wow, no one really had a practice of investing in their mental health. And so mental wealth is just the process of investing in your mental health and treating it as a daily effort that really is incumbent upon you to develop. And as I mentioned, you know, that's part of it is getting the right sleep. And we sort of provide quick little quick little suggestions or tidbits on all five of these pillars. And books written in innumerable books on each of these pillars alone. So there's tons of philosophies out there. But just the key one on sleep is wake up at the same time every day. It makes it super easy to wake up. It sets your circadian cycle consistently. You get to sleep faster and easier as a result. And then, yeah, so just try to wake up at the same time every day for diet. Just try to limit alcohol as much as possible. That will, all these things that will later up alcohol kind of kills your sleep. And that's sort of one easy dietary choice that you can make to improve your mental wealth as well. Now, I'll admit right now I'm not totally sober. I enjoy a few drinks on the weekends. But as much as you can, you know, that wine glass of wine at dinner or beer after work, like kind of unnecessary and is affecting your sleep later. of that day. And it exercised, that one's pretty easy, just at least three 20-minute sessions of exercise a week at a minimum in movements. And that helps. And then stress management, we recommend gratitude journaling. It's super easy. Meditation is great as well, but it's not easy to drop right into that deep practice. So gratitude journaling is super easy to do. And you cannot be anxious if you're feeling full gratitude in your heart. It really changes your day. There you go. Amazing. Gratitude journaling. This is my five-minute journal. I need to get a new one because I've had this for like over the past year. But I've noticed a difference when I take the time to write down things I'm grateful for. And there's research that shows this. Totally. You cannot feel like gratitude brings actual open-heartedness and love into your body. And you can kind of feel it physically. And you cannot feel that and anxious at the same time. So it really sets the tone for your day and is so important. And then exogenous compounds, we made it easy. Just take magic might. That's the fifth pillar. Yeah. I think the concept or like framework around this idea of investing in your mental health as the mechanism to achieving mental wealth is a like a tangible way to look at it. And I think there's you know the different strategies that you list are fantastic. And I stand by all of them for boosting your mental health. And I think a really crucial part of the equation as well. And it kind of can pop into like all of those pillars that you've spoken about are it's infusing joy in your life and finding a sense of purpose and happiness. So as we're transitioning here towards you know the final part of our interview today, I want to ask you a few questions on how you define happiness. Does that differentiate from joy in your perspective? And you know how your perspective on happiness has perhaps changed throughout the course of your life. I used to look at happiness as a goal in and of itself and something to seek in that you know sadness or bad feelings or something to avoid. And I think that's a trap that many people fall into, particularly young people. And what it leads to is blocking out and shutting out the bad, expecting to just feel the good. But you actually emotions don't work that way. You end up completely numbing yourself to both sides of the spectrum. And so it's not about maximizing happiness and minimizing sadness. It's really about opening yourself up to feel the full spectrum of emotions, but positioning yourself to feel as much peace as possible. I kind of borrow Naval Ravi Khan's definition of happiness that happiness is just peace in motion. And when you have a quiet mind and a peaceful, open heart, there's a lot of joy that can and will trickle in. If you just take time to notice the things around you and sort of live in the present moment. And so yeah, I think finding those moments of joy are super important and it's as easy as marveling at the miracles, the small miracles around us, even like gratitude practice is good at unveiling these daily things that you don't think about that are actually amazing. Like the wind, the other day I was grateful for the wind. Imagine a world without wind. What an oppressive, hellish earth. Yeah, exactly. It's like just feeling the wind on your face on a brief walk and just feeling the joy of that experience. And I think the more you cultivate peace, which I sort of try to define as quiet mind in an open heart, those moments of joy will naturally come to you more easily. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of my intentions for this year was to cultivate more inner peace. So I love that you share peace as part of your response to like how you define happiness and how to seek out those moments of joy a bit more easier. I think it's easier to look for those things when you feel peaceful. And in order to feel peaceful, you want to be able to access those flow-like states. So everything is very interconnected and being able to be in flow also allows you to cultivate more mindfulness. Totally. So it's kind of like the cyclical thing where you know, it all feeds off of each other and has like a positive upward spiral. It's a lot like exercise where people probably are more used to thinking in this way. Like the more you jog, the more likely you are to be able to get to that flow-state point of a runner's high that people talk about. And like it's the same with investing in your mental wealth and all these practices and feeling that flow and that joy and that happiness. Exactly. It's like really just about the small, small steps that you can do consistently, I think. There's actually this really great book that I read in college for a creative writing class called The Book of Delights. I'm pretty sure that was the name, but I know it's by Roske. And it's like a series of little essays about things that just bring him joy and make him really happy. And it's like very, very, very specific kind of like what you said with reflecting on how wind was something you were grateful for. Like it's it's very, very small specific details moments in time unique to him and his perspective on like what's brought him joy. And you may enjoy reading that book, just face off our conversation, but for anyone who's listening out there, it's very refreshing to see really the series of delights that we can experience in life. And another way of saying that really is focusing on the endorphins, finding things that bring you joy in your day to day. So my final question for you, William is exactly that. It's a question that I ask every guest that comes onto the podcast, the theme of the show, finding joy, finding moments of endorphins in our lives. So what is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? I think it's this. It's like looking into someone's eyes and having a conversation that goes beyond surface level and talks about deep things and where you sort of learn something about the other person and hopefully something about the world. And you know, I thrive off of connection with other people. Maybe that's the extrovert in me, but it brings me a ton of endorphins. And I think like the biggest shame is just the sort of conversations that don't scratch more than just the bare surface level. And whenever I can form a true connection and a conversation with someone, it brings me a ton of endorphins. So endorphins for the day, check off. And thank you for the amazing conversation. I could not agree more. It's the strength of your connections that really brings so much joy. And then I can also resonate with that. And thank you for coming on to the podcast. This has been so much fun. And I feel like I got to learn a lot, you know, about really the mission behind Magic Mind. And also I appreciate the little refresh on philosophy. This is like giving me homework to do to go and like actually refresh some of the stuff that I did learn back in the day in school. Where can my listeners get their own Magic Mind and also follow you all on social media and stay, you know, plugged into your community? Totally. Well, there's 15,000 subscribers out there. So maybe there's a couple listening. If so, thank you very much. But yeah, we're on MagicMind.com. We're on Amazon. We're in Sprouts nationwide. We're in a bunch of grocery stores in California and expanding rapidly throughout that grocery channel. So I think Amazon and online would be the easiest for most of your listeners unless you're a Sprouts shopper. But yeah, try the product. The website has a 100-day money back guarantee. If you don't like it, we'll just refund you. No need to return the product. It works for, I'd say, 87% of people very well. And it's, you know, just bull and I can't wait to send you some and get your feedback. But hopefully it can help people with procrastination and finding flow and make a difference in your listeners' lives if they want to give it a try. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll link all that information in the show notes as well. So everyone who's listening can can take a look too. And yeah, just thank you again, really. And this was so great. So great to have you here. Thanks, Stella. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for listening to this episode of Everyday Endorphins. If you liked what you heard, make sure to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever platform you prefer. You can also follow along the Everyday Endorphins Instagram account to stay up to date with episodes, future events, and all things related to mental health, wellbeing, and happiness. Don't forget to keep spreading endorphins and find things in life that bring you joy every day. Until next time.