IFYL2GO: The Talk Test; Nude Cruises; Dumb Phones

In this episode we discuss:

Learn to Cook.

Memory Grip.

Slow Blinking Confidence.

And many more topics.

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Our Hosts:
John Tesh: Instagram: @johntesh_ifyl facebook.com/JohnTesh
Gib Gerard: Instagram: @GibGerard facebook.com/GibGerard X: @GibGerard

Transcript

Unknown: 0:46

Gib, hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm Gib Gerard, and yes, we are back at the end of last year. In addition to the holidays, I also had some personal stuff that happened to me, so was dealing with that. But we are back. So I apologize for a couple of weeks without a show. But here we are back in 2026 ready to hit you with one of my favorite things that we do if y l to go This is intelligence for your life from the radio. Show me and John talking about the latest information that makes you live your life a whole lot better. I'm done describing it. Just put it in your pocket. Take it with you and enjoy intelligence for your life to go. Here's me and John Tesh. Here's something fascinating. Mr. Gib Gerard, experts say slowing down your blinking can make you appear more confident in conversation, so we look a little weird, but, but my wife does this, and it makes me crazy. I'm talking to her and she and I know she's thinking about something else, right? Guy slows it down, and I'm like, stop the slow blinking. So she goes, Stop telling me to stop the slow blinking. Let's put a pin in your doesn't look make her look more confident. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm talking about my relationship. Go ahead. We can dive in your relationship anytime you want. Your eyes are closed, but we'll put a pin in your guys's communication style for a second, where I totally understand, where you just gave myself the chills. What? What you have to understand the way lie detectors work, the way that our unconscious mind looks at people and judges their trustworthiness is all looking at stress responses, right? A lie detector is just a stress response meter. It just, it just checks to see are you, is your body working overtime in order to lie? So if you want to appear more confident and trustworthy, you need to do things that indicate the opposite, that show that you were a person who is calm, collected and not overly stressed. And slow blinking shows that you are connected. Same with slow talking and allowing pauses. It shows that you're not nervous, which makes you feel more confident, makes you feel more trustworthy, yeah, but it makes me nervous. She looks like a serial killer. I want to put a pin in your relationship and just talk about what's going on with the unconscious mind. With a white van the eyes called closing, get therapy. Okay? I Gib, I am such a big fan of what I'm about to tell you, and I'm in the majority, apparently, because according to Pew Research, 77% of adults say they believe they should always be allowed to order off the kids menu, because menu always has the best stuff. It's got the it's got plain stuff, some maybe you're maybe you're coming off a stomach bug. Maybe you know, you're not so hungry, and you want you guys stomach. I want plain pasta with a side. Oh, you know, maybe I, maybe I'm not in the mood for foie gras. I just want the chicken tenders. But also, and I don't want mac and cheese with lobster. I just want mac and cheese. Mac and cheese. And maybe I want a small portion of it. I don't want the, you know, the the giant, jumbo barrel size thing. I just want a little why don't they let us order off? I get told no. Every time, you know, a lot of comedians do bits about this, where they're like, they go with a kid and like, All right, well, then he'll have that, and then they take it from the kid. Look, if you have it on the menu and it's at a certain price, allow people to order it. I understand where the I understand where the restaurant's coming from. But sometimes I just want the smaller portion, the simpler dish, yeah, and I'm gonna order a bottle of wine so you can make some money. All right, yeah, margins on wine are crazy. All right, so you can Gib me the plain pasta and a bottle of wine. Yeah, I'm not driving. We Gib, we have a Bible study on Thursday nights, as you know, and it's up at the up at the church, and there is a woman there who is, who is the receptionist, and she is always there. I mean, she has is so dedicated, but she is surrounded by more Tootsie Roll pops I've ever seen in my life. Okay, she's got the, she's got, she has donuts. I mean, it's, it's amazing. And so she's the most popular person, yes, okay, her dentist has a lot of job security, apparently. Security, apparently. So, so it is. We love these studies, right? So in a recent study, over half of people surveyed say they think much more highly of people who do bring donuts to the office. 100% Yeah, 100% become that person. You become that person. And look, anytime you we talk about this, if you hand somebody a warm mug of something. If you bring food, you want to see hunter gatherer instincts. Go on vacation at a resort, and look at all the dads who get up in the morning and go to the coffee shop and then walk back into the hotel with the coffee and the hot chocolates for the family. That's the hunter gatherer instinct. Well, the same thing is true with the donuts. You're at the office. There's only vending machine stuff, and somebody brought in fresh donuts. That's the hunter gather. That's the new chief. You want to get a promotion show everybody, you're the chief with your Hunter gather instincts. You know what I hunt and gather when we're on the on vacation, right? You Hunter gather, coffee and seats and everything, the chairs, yeah, I have to have, it's like, I'm in the ice cream business. I have to have, like.$101 bills, tip everybody. Then there's some rich jerk that comes along starts handing out$50 bills. You're like Steve Martin in my Blue Heaven gets all the shares. What were we talking about? I forgot. Donuts make you more likable. Thank you. Well, look at this. Gib, the travel company bare necessities, say they're enjoying a booming business these days. See if you'd like to get in on this, they're called vacations. Oh gosh, vacations at sea, nude cruises. Okay, here's the thing. Do we need this look? I'd say this, but I mean travel companies, yeah, that's your thing. If you are a nudist, by all means, do it? Having it on at sea is nice, because nobody's going to happen upon you. You are going to be out there in the middle of the ocean, and nobody has to be any the wiser. There's nothing weirder than going on a walk and then you come across a nude beach, and all of a sudden you're looking around. You're like, Uh oh, you know that that happens, and your five year old is old is like, Yeah, we're gonna go, Well, you know what happened to me? I make so many mistakes. The dates work. They've got the cabin that I'm looking at, we're booking a cruise, and then you get there, John, what's vacation? I don't know. Maybe it's like a band. He knows. Man, I am not allowed to book any vacation. I can't even book cars anymore. Accidentally booking a nudist cruise sounds like the plot for an Adam Sandler movie. And I think let's write it. I booked transportation once in New York, and it was a rickshaw pedaling. Did you get there? You got there, but it was so expensive. He's more expensive than calves. Oh, time for some therapy. Gib marriage therapist Corin voler has checked in with us, and Corinne says the number one complaint she hears from married women is that their husbands are always waiting to be told what needs to be done around the house. Man is this? She calls it passive responsibility, but she says women want someone who takes active responsibility when it comes to chores and childcare. Now, what's her name of Corin? Let me just tell you. And I think Gib is with me on this. A lot of times I'll do stuff, and my wife will say, why'd you do that? You didn't do it right? Well, so you've just hinted at and gotten to a core issue. Did I hint very directly? Gotten to sorry, my apologies, which is a lot of men feel paralyzed by the fact that they're they don't fully understand their wife standards. I will also say that sometimes, you know, my wife wants things, certain things done, and I I'm doing something, I'm just not doing the right thing. So there's an underlying communication issue there that has to be worked on. But I will say, in general, if you want, she's got a point. If you want to be a if you want a happier life at home, and you are, and you know you haven't had the longest day and you have a little bit of energy left, do a thing, as my, as my middle school football coach, used to say, find somebody in the opposite jersey and hit somebody. So you see the kitchen's not clean. Just start picking up around the kitchen. Do a few dishes. Help get the kids ready for bed. Do a bath time, whatever it is, hit somebody. Pick something that has to get done and hit it. I know my wife, if she if she had her way, she would do the you do the thing with the five year old when they go to school. She would pin all the things I have to do, pin, pin it to my shirt? Yes, yeah. But first of all, it's a very old system, the pinning, but I know what you're talking about. And yes, I understand that is a very specific woman with a very specific husband, though. All right, Gib, as you make a lot of meals for your for your family, I want to so you're an outlier on this, but I want to know what you feel, what you think about this, because you have a lot of you have a you have a you have friend groups on friend groups in your texting and all the rest of that stuff. So anyway, 42% of adults under the age of 30 tell us they do not know how to make a spaghetti dinner. What's insane? What's that's insane. Look, I recommend this for everybody, anybody and everybody you know, man, woman, single, married, family, whatever. You should know how to make a handful of meals and make them well, if you're trying to date no being able to make a quick spaghetti dinner is a great way to ingratiate yourself. Also, also just being able to regularly make your own food, you know, all of the ingredients, you know, everything that's going in. And spaghetti dinner could not be easier. There's like, there's nothing else that's easier. You can get the Gerard sauce, and you get the and you just all, you gotta just boil water. So bottom line is, you should learn how to cook just a little bit. And I promise you, like for me, for example, I started cooking a lot during during covid, during the lockdown, as I was home more, and my kids were always asking for stuff. So I just started cooking. And now I do all kinds of cooking, and I absolutely love it. So I think you may find that you have a passion for it, but you should be able to make a few, a small handful of meals. It's cheaper, it's easier, and it's healthy. But what about al dente? Okay, so al dente is my chiropodist. Now, al dente is means, literally means to the teeth. So I don't time my pasta. I take my pasta out. Out and I check it, and if it sticks to my teeth, that's when I turn the water off. That's how I figured. There you go. Let's talk for a moment about about exercising. How can you tell if you're doing a good job, if you're actually, if you're actually training to the point where your heart can, your heart is going to be better, and your lungs and all that, if you can carry on a conversation while you're exercising, you're not growing hard enough. According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin, you got to take the talk test. It's a perfect gage of lung function that's going to help you live longer. If you can speak comfortably, you're you're at less than 80% of your maximum heart rate. If you can get a couple of words out before you have to take a breath, but not complete sentences, you're between 80 and 90% of your maximum heart rate. That's where you want to be. That's where you want to be. That's where you're that's going to make the biggest impact. Look, if you are serious about working out, and you want to check your and you know you've been doing it for a while, and you realize, like, oh, I want to really make sure that I'm getting the most bang for my buck while I'm exercising. You can invest in a heart rate monitor. The best ones are transcardio. They go across there, across the heart. But if you are just getting into this, and you want to know, if you're really pushing yourself, this is a great test. And it's always better to have a workout buddy anyway, because he'll keep you motivated. So if you have that workout buddy, you can try the talk test, and if you're struggling to talk, that's the that's the heart rate you want to maintain, whether it's on a treadmill, a jog outside, a bike ride, whatever it is, you should be pushing yourself to that point where it is difficult to have a conversation, but that where you have to stop to take a breath between only a couple of words. That is key if you want to be saying what the cool kids are saying, that is zone two exercise, and that's going to get your VO two Max up. If you want to get nerdy. Now, we're nerdy. Gib, here's the latest research on beating blue moods and depression. Do what your kids are doing every day at that Waldorf school, you find a hands on hobby. Oh yeah. Neuroscientist Dr Kelly Lambert says that baking, gardening, woodworking, and other activities that use your hands release the natural antidepressant serotonin and dopamine. It's a holdover from the days when our ancestors had to use their hands to eat and survive. This is interesting because we just came from our family trip to colonial Williams, yes, yeah, where everybody was working with their hands all the time, right? Making shoes, by hand, all that stuff. Look, it doesn't matter what you do. You see surgeons do this too. Surgeons who do woodworking because they have to be to be moving. I have a daughter who is very smart but very add and has a hard time calming down, sometimes has a hard time sitting there and focusing. And one of the things that she does, and she knows about herself, is she has some sort of tactile hand on hobby, whether it's knitting or drawing or something, that kind of gets her brain into that flow state, and then she's able to do all kinds of other stuff. So whether I mean, for me, cooking works like this. I also do stuff outside. I have, you know, power tools where I can see my hands building stuff, that process is so good for getting me into that sort of flow state. You need to find something like that. You need You need it in your life. I love your eldest daughter, and I really had to stop myself from laughing when her younger sister had to sleep over, over at our house, and then she went, your eldest went and told them scary stories. Oh my god, all the kids wanted to go home. Oh my gosh. We're still unpacking the parent conversations from that. She really needs to do more woodworking. Brought some yarn. We're gonna save some awkward conversations. Let's talk memory here, Gib for a moment. And I've seen I've seen this. We've talked about this, actually on our coaching calls on Tuesdays. If you want to improve your memory and recall, then you should be trying some grip trying some grip exercises. So in a recent study, people who clench their right hand before memorizing something and then their left hand before recalling it, increased their memory scores by 15 to 20% researchers say squeezing your right hand activates parts of the brain's left hemisphere responsible for memory formation, and then when you squeeze the left hand, it activates the right hemisphere regions needed for recall. Yeah, I look it's a great way of tricking your brain in order to, in order to get the to stimulate different parts of your brain. So, you know, right goes to left and left goes to right. They kind of go to the opposite. But, yeah, anything that you can do, we do the same thing with with sense, where anything you can do that reactivates your brain and gets you into the space you were when you're studying, helps with recall, helps deal with the otherwise, the parts of your brain that get shut off because you're stressed out in an exam situation. So try this, squeeze the right hand while you're studying, and then squeeze the left hand when you need to recall. It is a it's a huge boon for being able to trick using the neuroscience that we, that we that we report on to get yourself better grades, to get yourself better recall in that next big meeting, anything you need. That's a good tip. I have seen some of this with some of the young adults now, Gib, it's switching to the to the dumb phone, so an estimated 25% of consumers who go into the store have now expressed interest in switching back to a minimalist, dumb phone with no texting and no apps, becoming very popular. I would do this. I would do this with with in a heartbeat, if there weren't like three things that I needed my phone. Before, and honestly, what I should do is only have those three things on my phone I do, having email, having access to my email, which I know is not always the healthiest thing, is really important with my children and all of the volunteering stuff that I do and work, it's very important. And then alternatively, I feel like I need to be able to call a car, you know, call a car, service when we travel, we go on the road, and then that extra bit of availability for my kids. I feel like I can't I can't quite do it, but I eye it so longingly, because, look, we've said this before. If you are not paying for a service, you are the service, right? Meaning that your attention, your eyeballs, are being sold by these tech companies, with the smartphone in your pocket, your location, all your information, dumb phone gets rid of that. Let me just say, in your life right now, you're a fireman, you're you're an emergency medical technician, you are a chauffeur. So I don't think you should get a dumb phone, I know, but I really do 33 hours of radio a week. I really want one, though it sounds like Okay, sounds great. Okay, yeah, just keep the other one for me. What's the point? Thank you. That's it for the show today. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate comment and subscribe on Apple podcast. Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. It helps us out a lot. When you do that, we also try to respond to every mention the show, every DM about the show. You can tell us what you think about it, because ultimately, we do the show for you guys. So thank you so much for listening. You.