Hello and welcome to the stomp cast of me Dr. Alex George. This is the podcast where I go for a walk with a guest to find out how we can use their expertise to help us become a healthier version of ourselves mentally and physically. It's the last stomp of the year guys and to see out 2024 I'm stomping with David Larby.
David is a content creator and writer with over 1.4 million followers. He's been named one of the five Tiktokkers changing the face of entertainment and now he's releasing his first book frequently happy. 52 mindful moments to bring hope and joy which is out on the 2nd of January.
In a book that combines poetry, topics of self-reflection and journal prompts, the aim is to help readers find a joy all around them. This has been a fantastic episode. This is a wonderful and wise human being. I know you're going to enjoy this one. Before we start, I just want to say as well a huge thank you to everyone for supporting the stomp cast. I really appreciate you.
In fact, during this recording, some of them walked past us that was listening to the Stompcast while we were recording the episode, which is always kind of a special moment for obvious reasons. But I just want to say, like, I'm so grateful for you all. It means the world to the whole team. So thank you from producer Charlie, from Susan, my team, from Abby, and both Abby's. We all appreciate you. A lot of work goes into this, and I'm grateful to everyone in my team for doing all the work they do, because I believe this podcast makes a difference. I believe that the conversation we have
on this podcast platform make a difference to people's lives. So yes, I'm glad that we make this podcast and we'll keep doing it for as long as we possibly can. Maybe forever, as long as I can physically stomp. For as long as I can stomp, we'll keep recording. As soon as it's getting tearful, I think. As soon as it's getting tearful. Is there anything you'd like to say, Susan? Why are you tearful? Is it? It's lovely.
We're keeping this in, thank you. We're emotional human beings, we're getting me crying as well now. Guys, I love you all very much and on that note, because we've been so emotional, make sure you review the podcast on a full of Spotify review list and it helps us and enjoy this episode, whatever you are on whatever you're doing. Let's get started, it's a wonderful one.
This is so exciting. You know sometimes when you think about all the logistics involved in doing something and you forget how fun the doing of the thing is actually going to be. I see what you mean. Yes, all I was thinking about waking up on time being here on time leads, etc. And I'm actually here or walking and talking. I'm like, wow, which is going to have a really nice conversation. Yeah, I guess life is kind of like that, isn't it, that we kind of get caught up in the kind of things we need to do and pressure and stress that sometimes you forget to enjoy the thing. Yeah.
that you get to and that you do. Well, it's fantastic to have you on the stomp. First of all, start with Happy Birthday. Thank you. Because as this episode goes out, it's your birthday and you're turning. 27. 27 years old. How does it feel to turn 27? I feel really happy. I think aging is a joy to privilege. There's a chapter in the book.
where I talk about being the age I am and really enjoying the age I am, looking at the people I look up to in my life and being excited for the ages that I'm yet to be and all the unexpected things that come with every age. So I feel like when you're younger, you get told, you'll understand when you're older and I'm older. I really do understand. That's interesting. What are the things that over the last few years, do you think that you've kind of gained in terms of, yeah, like knowledge or experience? What things do you go, ah, yes, I understand.
On a more surface level, things like going to bed at a good time. When you're a kid, that's the worst thing ever to be sent to bed. When you're an adult, you can't wait to go to sleep and have a good night's sleep. Same as any time I find that.
I feel like I'm losing control then I feel a little bit or I feel like I'm losing my way. The first three things I look at is how am I eating? How am I sleeping? How am I exercising? And usually, if I get those three things into a place where I feel better, automatically everything else seems a little bit better. And it seems so boring, but it just works nine times out of 10. So yeah, that's one of the things.
and actually on that point of like life and like busyness and control and like all the pressures you know there's a video that you did you were talking about sometimes you feel that you've got like options and they're not great options and you have to sometimes choose between different less than perfect options and how you can kind of view that and perhaps change your mindset right now I wonder if you could start off by just I just think it was a really amazing point that you made I wonder if you could talk about that of course I think
Quite often one of the hardest things about going through a difficult time in life is feeling like you've got no choice but to suffer through the things that you're suffering through. But I think that everything we choose is for a reason. One of the most precious things that we do have generally is free will. Don't be wrong, sometimes options are objectively poor options. Sometimes we're in a situation which means that nothing that we do is something we particularly want to do. But we do have a choice between options.
It's just that one option might seem, one option is just not viable at all. I think about when I used to go to school, for example, I moved to school quite often. And there was one morning I was sitting on the bus, and I was on the way to school, and I was thinking, I hate the fact that I'm going to school. I don't want to go to school today, but I've got no choice but to go to school. I kind of realized, actually, if I got off this bus right now and went home, that's actually an option that's available to me. I know it could physically force me into school. But if I did that, again, a lot of trouble, but I don't want to get in a lot of trouble. So, ultimately,
I do have options here. It's just one of them is clearly the only option that I'll take. And when I look at things like that, it's like, OK, I might not like both of these options. But one of the choices that I make leads me to a place where I have better options. I go to school, get qualifications and I can do more of the things that I want to do. I'm one of them leads to a place where I don't particularly want to be. So all we can ever do really is assess our options.
pick the option that will give us better choices and change our overall situations and make us feel hopefully a little bit better. It's true isn't it and trying to have that. Sometimes we feel like we lose control or that we don't have any control or say in our path. It makes the whole thing so much more stressful. Then you realise actually what is the micro decisions or macro decisions I can make that give me a sense of control and that brings back that autonomy I guess.
That's the perfect way to put it together. Some micro-decisions. Some kind of sense of control. On the point of decisions and taking options, you've had a really interesting kind of career so far. Doing lots of different things. You're a creator, you're a writer, you write poetry, some of your amazing videos you often do outside of nature, which I'm a big fan of, and you're releasing your book now on the 2nd of January isn't it, right?
So what led you to this place? Your name was TikTok, one of the big stars that was shaping entertainment. I was kind of looking at the background in that sense. How did you end up in this position? What were the choices that led you to, well, nicely here today, but right here in this podcast? It's this part of it. I've always wanted to do something creative. I've always loved writing, reading English. I studied English in French at university.
and I've always wanted to do something creative that connects me with people and words happen to be what I enjoy most and why I feel like I'm best at. So, initially it just started with like a lot of people during the pandemic, during lockdowns. I was kind of searching for connection online and I started sharing a lot of the things that I was writing and thinking and talking about. Even before they're actually at university, I used to have a blog that I'd write every two weeks. I used to publish it on WordPress, about 15 people would read every week, but I wrote it every week for about two years.
And I used to call those kind of my thoughts of the week. Then when I started sharing on social media, I started sharing in the form of poetry, specifically poetry about things that put me in a good mood and made me happy. And what I really loved about that was, obviously, I was sharing things that put me in a good mood, which would make other people happy, which would put me in a best mood, which meant that I felt more like writing. And it just got into this really positive cycle. And it meant that I just started noticing the small things that made me happy in my day to day life.
And the more I noticed the small things that made me happy, the happier I was getting, you get that was another positive cycle. And it just got me into a place where I really wanted to put something together or write something that...
Yeah, could do that for other people and create this space for other people to feel when they go through a rough time, when they're really enjoying life. Just create a space for people to feel and feel connected to someone else who's thinking and feeling the same kind of thing as them, which is kind of how it came up with frequently happy. And I love the title frequently happy because
A, it's positive, it's uplifting, but it gives this idea that in life we are looking for moments of joy or happiness, like in our days and our time. So I thought in this first part, we talk, especially as we're looking forward, this is the last episode that goes out before 2025 starts. I think it's a great time to think about some of those concepts.
How can we look for a bit more joy or happiness? How can we create a bit more joy and happiness in our days and in our weeks, especially going into this new year? I also really love this house of the book. It comes from one of my favourite poems in the book. And the last lines of that poem are, I always pay attention when a small joy grabs me. Some say easily pleased, I say frequently happy. Nice. And one of the things that has really improved my general wellbeing day to day is the realisation that there's nothing
too small to be happy about, if that makes sense. Like, every day might not have the most tremendous
occurrences of really big, happy things. Like the big, the big, happy things that we get to do in life, forget to feed in life, kind of a big holiday or special occasion, those are special because they don't come around very often. But that doesn't mean that we're not allowed to be happy about smaller things, which might not seem worthy of attention or joy. But they really are. I mean, the first, I drink a glass of warm water first thing every morning. And the first sip of warm water, especially on a cold morning like this, is the very first moment I get to feel happy in the day.
And when you're kind of looking out for things on that micro level that can make you happy, they just tend to, you feel like you're happy more often because those are the ones that do appear most frequently. I mean, what's the smallest thing this week that's made you feel happy or just give you just a moment of joy?
Honestly, having a cuddle with my dog, I think having that feeling of gratitude, I'm lucky to have you kind of thing. And it's just a simple thing. Really, just having cuddled with the dog, but it just brings
it brings that joy and I guess it's an interesting thought that perhaps we for various different reasons we should probably talk about we as as people or society we kind of like look over all the things the little things are happening each day because we're thinking about the big stresses or the big winds and therefore we're not really focusing on lots of little good things that happen that the day passed and god what a stressful day or god it's been a rubbish day but what was in that day was actually positive
Yeah, there's a phrase that completely changed my life. I don't know who to attribute it to directly because I came across it online, but it was, you know, every day might not be good, but there's something good in every day. I love that. And that is, I mean, that's that's pretty undeniable. Like even even on the very worst days of my life, of course, I was. I actually need that right now. So thank you. Oh, of course. Thank you. Well, that's really special, actually.
It's a really, really lovely thought. And it kind of, it returns me to things like on school days. I don't know if you ever had school days where you went in, you're like, you know what, I'm gonna be in a bad mood today. And then by first period, you're laughing because one of your friends just says something funny. Like even on the days where we feel determined, we feel like there's nothing but a bad day in store, there'll be a couple of things or there'll be a few things that give us the opportunity to feel a little bit lighter, if not completely happy, if that makes sense.
And also there's some, this is, we're going really deep pretty fast, but that's good. There's also some, sometimes the things that we think that are bad within our days end up being massive blessings. Yes. All they provide you lessons that later on protect you from something else. Or even even better, they bring you, it brings you joy in a later decision. You make your left or right decision based on a lesson that you've had. And we were talking, we started talking at the beginning about like,
age and what that kind of teaches you. And I don't necessarily always believe that age is a guarantee of wisdom. It's always true, you know, sorry. But elderly people also make bad decisions. I remember my granddad making many of them in the 60s and 70s, but different story. But the kind of point is that you do as you go through your experience in life, they do shape you. And if I'm honest, a lot of the experiences that shape me most have been the more challenging things.
And when I look back at those challenging times, there was still joy. There were still good things that were happening, where I was like, oh, actually, you know, within that, like, for example, the, during the pandemic, I was working in Lewisham, A&E. And even if I think about how, like, mad that, bad that time was,
We still have moments of like joy with a colleague who obviously use like a lot of humour to get through difficult times and like there's this moment of closeness or actually one thing we used to literally love was that for a little while for a few weeks Nandos is like sending like like food to us because like it's really hard to actually get food when we're working in a hospital because all the shops everything's kind of closed
If you go out there's huge queues, you don't have time to get food and there's all restrictions. So they're like sending food and the joy I was getting from like a medium chicken thighs and chips was outrageous. And like you said, even in times like that where obviously super high pressure there are a lot of, one of these that rightfully feel down about.
The positive moments almost stand out even more in that landscape. It's the bright spots in kind of that dark canvas. Stick out even more, pinholes of light in kind of a dark sky. Stick out even more. And especially so in retrospect, one thing that I always think as well is that if
You know, I might fail or fall short or find things difficult, but I've never ever wasted my time because whenever I reflect on what I was going through at the time or things that have been difficult, there's always something that I'll be able to see in there that, as you said, may serve as a lesson or even, yeah, gave me something that I didn't realize it was giving me at the time.
As we're looking forward to 2025, could you share some of the kind of things that you've talked about in the book that you think that people could incorporate in their own thinking or their own lives as they kind of go forward thinking and looking for these kind of mindful moments? Yes, absolutely. One thing is that obviously the book is coming out at the beginning of the year by no means has to be read from the beginning of the year. You can pick up any time of the year and there will be things that suit what you're going through at the time. But one of the big messages in the book is
literally about finding the ways to be yourself in any way that makes you comfortable. One of the big takeaways I want to be from the book is that it's okay to be the person that you are in whatever way that means. And a lot of the time I feel like external influences make it difficult for us to feel like we're enough as we are. The whole point of the book is that you are enough by virtue of your existence alone. Everything else on top of that is a bonus. But you exist, therefore you deserve to be frequently happy.
So one of the chapters, for example, is called Relax You Can Be You. And in it, I talk about the concept of, have you had the word Sondra before? Yeah, I love it. Right. And I've talked about it a lot on the podcast. It's one of my favourite words. Perfect, perfect. So Sondra was actually coined fairly recently by someone called John Cooney. He wrote it for his blog, which is called The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. You'll really like that.
which has loads of words like that. It's literally what it sounds like. It's words or feelings that don't have words assigned to them, but we've all felt so Sunday. This is a recent word. It's recent 2012. I only heard it like a couple of years ago. I heard it. It's just, again, it just is like a moment of like, oh my God.
Yeah, absolutely. And that goes back to what we were talking about before, about, you know, these things that we felt and didn't necessarily realize that we felt, or that other people didn't even felt as well. And that's the power of words, articulating that, all of a sudden, this makes sense. I think that's what it is, words make feelings make sense. They reify our feelings. That's so true. That's so true. Oh, yes. So, so, so under that every passerby has a life as rich and complex as your own. And it's a thought that's
both humbling and empowering at the same time, humbling because you kind of realize, you know, everything's not about you, but at the same time, the things that I'm worried about, the ways that I'm worried about being perceived, the fact that I feel like, you know, I might not be that important, I might not matter, those aren't things that anybody else is thinking about, because they're all thinking about their own lives. And the journal prompt of that chapter is, if you knew for a fact that nobody else was thinking about you, how would you express yourself differently?
Wow, that is incredible because so much of how we act and what we do and what we decide to do and not do in our lives is often based on how we're perceived or like our fears or what will other people think. And then you realize, I've heard it before, people talking about the idea of like, you go to a social party, you go to a house party or something and you go in and you're anxious because you're like, you've arrived and I've got people like, how do I look? How am I appearing? Am I coming across? I'm introducing myself confidently.
and you realise that everyone in that room has similar equivalents or if not exactly the same concern as they arrived in that room was if everyone in this room was like you know what we're all for some reason worried about whatever else is thinking let's just worry about what we're thinking enjoy the moment and just be ourselves you realise I'm not judging you for being you you're probably not judging me that deeply for being who I am you're too busy worried about who you are
Let's just all be ourselves. It's sometimes really hard to do, and also in the sense of like when you're worried about something, so you're going through something in your own life, you're going through a difficult time. The cruelties that you often then end up thinking and feeling that you are not in like a self-absorbed way, but I guess in a sense the brain tells you you're the one that's going through this, the universe, this you, the universe is you and you're suffering. And that is where I think somber can also be very helpful because it just
gets you to look out with more. Yes, I think that is the big thing and it's not you matter as so does everybody else. So I personally find that quite freeing because as you said, sometimes it can be very easy to be at the universe, the universe is you and your suffering is the perfect way to put it and it can be very easy to sit and stay in that space.
without looking outwards and realising that, you know, the things I'm going through, they are obviously still important. They still matter a lot, but I'm missing out on a lot of other things that would come from connecting with other people and putting my stuff aside for a moment.
So a big part of what you're trying to do is encourage people to kind of basically realise that they are enough and that they, you know, it's kind of, I guess it sounds a bit like soft vu or whatever you want to call it, but it's loving who you are, right? And just appreciating who you are.
What, I guess, would you say, are the benefits of doing that? So we can see some of the downsides of the challenges of worrying and thinking, oh, these things. But what do you think are the positive effects of if someone was able to actually encapsulate that and be like, OK, I am good enough? Because people are something like, well, if I think that I never look for self-improvement or actually me thinking this way, it keeps me in line, and so on.
I think it's just a release of tension. I think there's enough externally that will make life difficult that we don't need to add on to it from inside ourselves, if that makes sense.
Everyone's got, you know, a multitude of concerns and worries and things that rightfully they care about. And I just think if we're more able to be compassionate to ourselves from inside, it makes those things easier still with. And also just relieves some of the tension that naturally comes with, you know, existing and being human. So there's so many thoughts that go through our heads every day. And a lot of the time I thought so that only things that we are in some level of control over.
So if we are able to guide our minds to a place where, as I said, we have some compassion for ourselves, we understand what we think, we understand what we're feeling. I think we're just able to treat ourselves and treat others better. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think we then almost becoming more realigned as to who we really are at that point as well. Like who am I and who do I want to be? Because it happens a lot at the start of each year because of new year and so on. And people kind of look and go, well, where am I in life?
literally, but also kind of like, you know, am I living the life that I want to live? And I guess it can cause a lot of distress if you're like, well, why am I not where I want to be? And some of that is that you might be expecting, you know, you're putting too much pressure and thinking I have to achieve these milestones or milestone anxiety as people talk about, but also it's kind of like, well, am I being true to who I really am?
What do I want to do, or am I living my life? Because my parents think I should live this life this way. You know when you're on a really long journey, and you're thinking about the length of a journey, and the journey's passing all the slower for the fact that you can't stop thinking about how long it's taking to get there.
and all the verses when you're on a long journey and say you get a book out or you're watching a film, say you're on a long play journey, you're watching a film, whatever, and you're distracted, you're so distracted by the film, or so entertained by the film either, or entertained by what you're doing, that time passes quicker.
I feel like, especially Master Exactly is definitely something I've suffered with a lot. There's a chapter in the book about separating our achievements and self-worth. I think especially when it works both ways, when you haven't achieved the things that you've wanted to or when you have achieved the things that you've wanted to. It's so easy to feel like.
The things I'm doing don't matter. My general resistance doesn't really matter unless this is the standard of what I'm doing right now. This is unsustainable. You can't go through your life every single day achieving something massive otherwise those things wouldn't be special. But I just think...
Being able to focus on what the majority of life is, which is the daily, the so-called mundane, if you can enjoy yourselves in those times, you enjoy more of life on the whole than you do the big achievements and milestones. And then, to close the longevity and energy, you actually find yourself arriving at those milestones anyway. It's just that you've taken better care of yourself in between them.
and actually try to enjoy them because so much of it when I look at, you know, again we started just looking at thinking about like what we've learned in life and I look back at so many different things where, you know, there's been plenty of failures but the safe example and things that have succeeded or like the milestones or big moments.
Usually even within that, the actual moment itself of arrival, if you like, wasn't really the most important or joyous part of it. I think about one children's book of the year for a better day, and that was amazing. I don't get very wrong, it was incredible to have a nibi and to have that moment, but actually my favourite part of that whole book
from start to like that award was probably or two or three parts. One was the school tour we did, going into all the schools and meeting all the kids and stuff. That was just so much fun and just was just really rewarding because you're like, oh, you know, young people like they really want to learn about mental fitness, they care about it. It's like an inspiring thing. But also like the little moments like we, when we did the school tour, for example, we were going to stay in different parts of the country, so on the road, like road tripping,
And then, you know, being at the factory, seeing the books printed, they're like little, just like flash moments almost, that I think are actually, those are just such nice moments. So sometimes we put too much expectation on the outcome, like you go to university to study degrees, like the big moment is getting there, graduation, getting the degree, but most of my moments of like the best moments are actually just like sitting in the, you know, in whatever student house I was in, just chatting nonsense with my friends.
It's just like up until one in the morning chatting away and just putting the world to rights. It's not actually always the big things. No, it's not at all. Not at all. And I feel, or I find myself, when I chase the big moments or get into a path to chasing the big things.
All I end up doing is not so much chasing an achievement. It's chasing relief. By the time you get there, it's just a relief that, OK, this has happened. You feel better for a second than that. It's like, OK, what's the next thing? And at no point throughout the process have I been able to be present. And if anything, it kind of deprives me of what that achievement should have been in the first place, the feeling that I should have had from that achievement.
was really what I should have been feeding in the process to getting there, especially going through this at this time where my book's about to come out. Everyone quite rightly is super happy about it. I'm super happy about it. It's one of the best achievements of my life generally. And you should be part of it. It's an incredible thing. Thank you.
And one of the questions that I've got is, what's next after this book? And I'm very proud of myself because every time that question has been asked, I've gently shouted down and be like, this book is what's now. And this is really what I'm going to think about and talk about. And during this process, I mean, one of the best things, literally like you say, it's the really small moments, even like today, being on this podcast, seeing you walking up outside the cafe and shaking hands with your team.
Maybe feel really happy or warm inside and that's one of the things I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna think about for the rest of the day. So Yeah, I mean as I said, there's no thing that's too small to be happy about because when you can be happy about the small things you just find yourself Feed those moments of joy more far more frequently than you would if you were only looking out for the big moments about happiness all the things that you feel like you should be allowed to be happy about that makes sense
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for saying that. And likewise, you know, it's kind of, that's why love is like coming onto stomp carts and it kind of, with everything else that's going on, it grounds again and like, we're going to have a great conversation with someone that's really interesting, that's passionate about their craft and what they're doing and we're going to learn from that person. I think it's just a moment that makes, it always makes me grateful.
Happy, so thank you so much for joining us. As we come to the end of part one, I might just ask you just for a parting tip on the thought of, you actually shared one there where you were saying, you're thinking, oh, you know, what next? What's the next thing? You're like, nope, in the now. So kind of any other tip like that where people can help themselves to be in that mindful moment, in that happy moment, in the place that they are, or to look out for that little glimmer of joy, for example.
I would say I would say actually to try and schedule that in for yourself every day which I know I feel like as well with happiness it feels like if I'm making effort to do it I'm doing something wrong whereas I actually really disagree I feel like if you're making efforts to do that well first of all that actually shows a level of care for yourself
immediately, like there's an expression of view, if you're trying really hard to love yourself, it means you already do, which I really love. That is actually amazing, yeah. So, yeah, trying to schedule in a moment every day where literally you can just close your eyes and think, what is one thing that's made me happy today, or one thing that I think is gonna make me happy today, and making sure to take note of that every day, because the more you practice that, the more it will come to your mind without you having to try. Same as anything, practice makes perfect. That is a fantastic tip, because it is kind of like,
We often schedule in time to do specific things like go into the gym or whatever but actually what about taking a moment just to acknowledge something that you're joyful of or really appreciate that moment that you're in or that day or to reflect on the joys that you've had that day. It's actually in a way when you say it, it makes just so much sense to say I'm going to schedule going to the gym.
Yeah, that's a read, that's what he's put actually. Great advice. Thank you. We'll come to the end of part one of the stomp cast there. We're going to come back in part two and we're going to talk about how the approach to mental well-being has changed if you look at millennials, Gen Z and what the future holds for well-being. We'll see you all very soon in part two. Goodbye.
