There’s such a stigma that we can’t even talk about it.

Well, hey there. Welcome back.

The Stigma of Private Worry

What are you worried about? No, really. What are you worried about? Maybe you say nothing. Maybe you say, “Oh, the usual, you know, the things everyone worries about.” We deal with life and concerns and we take objective measures to reach goals in public. But then in private we worry and sometimes the worry doesn’t match our outward demeanor does it? Worry has a stigma to it just like suicide does. And I talked about this in my episode called throwing away the container. There’s such a stigma that we can’t even talk about it. We don’t even allow ourselves to talk about it. We wave it off as a few moments of weakness or we just think everyone feels the same way about this that or the other thing, but we don’t really address it for the most part. Now, you may feel that you have a worry about a certain thing and then you decide you’re going to take action. And when you do that, you actually feel a lot better. But it doesn’t happen often, does it? The stigma and guilt prevents you from really exploring it. And if you’ve noticed through a number of episodes and even my books, I tend to push really hard in the direction of, well, no, let’s just do that. Let’s feel that. Let’s let’s see what that’s like. Let’s not hide. Let’s not shove things into the dark recesses and not deal with them. Because that’s how they get their power. That’s how they fester and get stronger because we push them into a corner and we don’t deal with them.

Saying It Out Loud: The Power of the “Third Voice”

It’s typical for someone to feel bad and embarrassed if they say out loud to someone, I am worried about this because it almost feels so unnatural to just say it that way. And if you’ve read three voices, it means you’re saying it in your third voice [https://www.alchemyfor.life/balancecoaching/2022/09/17/new-book-three-voices/]. We like to say it in our second voice [https://www.amazon.com/Three-Voices-languages-communicate-yourself/dp/173366226X/] all the time, which is our inner dialogue and monologue. Because like many other things, fears, paranoia, and so forth, they sound silly when you say them out loud. Well, then why wouldn’t you say them out loud then? If it sounds silly and sort of dispels it. Here’s the contrast.

This does not apply if we’re worried for someone else. If we think to ourselves, “Oh, I’m worried about Susan. And Susan being someone you work with or Susan being your daughter or your cousin or your sister. Now you’re concerned. Oh, that’s so much better. Well, I’m just concerned for her.” Well, it’s sort of silly for you to be worried about that. But I’m sure she’ll be fine. Yeah, I’m just worried about her. Aw, it’s really nice that you feel that way. It’s really nice to have all that empathy towards someone who isn’t you. Do you see how odd that is?

If you’re worried about Susan, you may just have coffee with her and sit down and say, you know, how have you been? What’s going o

How Can I Stop Worrying?

Well, hey there. Welcome back.

Redefining Friction: Physics vs. Process

What does friction mean to you? For most of my life, friction has just simply described a physics concept in which something rubs against something else in some way, causing a slowdown and causing heat. But now, and now is variable depending on what sector of work you’re in. Friction describes the same thing, but it’s metaphorically for processes. And you know, I’m all about systems and processes.

Intentional Friction in App Design

Here’s an example. In the new app I created that allows you to get stuff done. When you add to-do items, you can actually swipe them forward into the future. So, if you swipe it to the right, it appears on tomorrow. There’s also an arrow that you can hit to go to the next day and the next day and the next day. So, if you want to place something, let’s say a week ahead of time, you actually have to hit that button seven times. Friction. And people could say, “Well, Mark, what if I want to push something 25 days into the future? I have to hit that button 25 times.” Correct. It’s friction by design. I want it to feel like you are putting it off all that time because if I didn’t do that, you could just type in a date or use a selector to grab a date and go there. It’s gone for a month and a half. Well, if you’re pushing something that far into the future, it should really be a calendar item. But if you’re pushing something into the future, it should feel like you’re pushing it into the future.

In building this app, I learned a lot about intentional friction. I learned a lot about removing it, which is what I always try to do in any process I create. But I also learned about where it’s actually appropriate.

My Typewriter: Friction to Prevent Failure

I have a vintage Remington number 12 typewriter. I actually wrote my first story on it. And no, I’m not that old because it was created in the 20s and 30s. Every key is connected to a rather slender, thin piece of metal that has a little hammer at the end that matches the key that you hit. When you hit the key, it swings upward and hits the ink tape and creates the image onto the piece of paper. Now, on a piano, the keys do something similar. They have hammers that hit strings. On a piano, though, all those keys and hammers are parallel. You can hit as many keys as you want and they’ll all hit at the same time and not interact with each other. Not so for the typewriter. If you hit two keys at once, they will try to meet each other at the very top and they can get entangled.

There’s an old tale about the design of the keyboard, which is the modern one we use today, being designed so that you would type slower. It actually was a designed to intentionally create a lot of friction and slowing you down. Well, so the truth is it’s not exactly like that. Yes, it does slow you down, but the reason being is they tried to separate certain keys so that you wouldn’t easily hit two of the keys that would smash into each other. Again, intentional friction.

Identifying Unintentional vs. Intentional Friction

One of the most exciting things for me is that whe

What is Friction and When is it a Good Thing?

The beginner mindset makes you a better teacher—and it’s fun too!

Well, hey there. Welcome back… to everyone who is an old pro at this podcast and those who are just beginners because at some point you are a beginner and we tend to forget that don’t we? In fact, there’s a phenomenon I would like to raise your awareness on and then do our usual discussion of.

The Expert’s Curse: Forgetting the Beginner’s Mindset

So, let’s think about this. There are skills and methods and things that you have immersed yourself in, things you’ve gotten better in, things that you have been doing for quite some time, things you take for granted. And one of the interesting things that happens when you are really good at something or you’ve amassed a certain level of skill in something or you may have put together some disperate skills and abilities and created a brand new thing and because of that you forget what it was like to be a beginner. To me, you get so far ahead in your skill, you just completely become out of touch what it even feels like to not be good at it, to be nervous about it, to wonder what you’re doing wrong, to wonder if you’re doing anything right, to even search to find answers to how to be better at it, or to look at someone who’s really good at it and think, “I could never be like that.” If you are someone who’s really good at something, and I know you’re really good at more than one thing,

you may have become out of touch with what it’s like to actually reach the level you’re at, to be at the very beginning stage.

The Excitement of Starting From Scratch

Here’s the interesting thing. Being a beginner in something can be really kind of well, exciting. If you’ve played video games or really any games, including cards or board games, you know what it’s like to sort of reset and start from scratch. Now, board games and card games may be a little bit less intense of an analogy because everyone kind of starts at a at an even playing field, but if you’ve amassed a lot of something, whether it’s wealth or knowledge or skills or experience, it can be sort of exciting to have that voluntarily, let’s underline that, taken away from you. or if you voluntarily decide not to take advantage of it. But see, if you still have the knowledge that you have the skill or the wealth or what have you, it’s not exactly the same thing. Truly feeling like you don’t have something and then needing to go forward with it is the feeling I’m talking about. It’s the beginner feeling. And it’s that beginner feeling that someone who’s excelling in something gets disconnected from.

Why Experts Often Make Bad Teachers

So here’s what happens with that from the position of the let’s say the learner. Let’s say you are a beginner and you’d like to learn something from the master. Well the master can be excellent at what they do but they can be completely out of touch with how to relay that because they may process things very very quickly. And you’re probably thinking about this in in your own world of of whatever it is that you’re really good at. So

The beginner mindset makes you a better teacher

It sounds like I’m talking about the surface dwellers and we’re all the people who live underground. Well, hey there. Welcome back.

The Discomfort of Partial Knowledge

You may have figured out by now that I like to know things and I like to learn things. And I’ve probably figured out by now that you’re the same. You also like to know things and you like to learn things. And I’m honored that this is one of your sources for information. While this isn’t necessarily an encyclopedia, it is a source for you to have thoughts and maybe challenges to the way that you think. It may introduce something that you weren’t aware of and then may challenge you to do something with that knowledge. In my book, Because, I talk about the causes of preferences and desires like this. I I figured out the cause of why I need to do this. Well, let’s talk about what this is. What this is is I don’t like to not know something.

I know it’s a double negative. I also don’t like to partially know something. In fact, I think I my my distaste for partially knowing something is stronger than my desire to know something. And if you want to put that in terms of my book, it means the monster is stronger for me knowing more than just a little bit than the unicorn for me desiring to know something. If you’re the same way, you may find yourself going down rabbit holes all the time. You may find yourself dwelling on something that that other people just pass by.

You may even get accused of overthinking, fixating, and dwelling. And you are doing none of those things. Because if one person says it’s a combustion engine, and you go, “Well, what do you mean combustion? What what’s combusting? Is something blowing up? What does that mean? How did that work? How do the things blowing up make something turn? When did that when did we invent this? Where did this come from? What other versions of that are there available?” You just want to know because a combustion engine isn’t enough. You feel like you just opened up a folder in your brain, but now it’s empty. And that doesn’t feel good. At least that’s the way it works for me. And if it works that way for you, that explains why you have a lot of very full folders in your brain.

Segmenting Your Desire for Deep Dives

Now, there are people who segment this, people who have learned to segment this. In fact, I encounter people like this all the time. They segment it into the thing that they do for a living. Sometimes it’s a job, sometimes it’s a career, sometimes it’s a calling. And there’s a whole podcast on that.

I find people like that very interesting. And maybe you’re one of them. And I apologize. I don’t mean to be offensive in when I say I’m fascinated, but also I can’t relate. When someone in their free time, off time, lifetime stays on the surface of everything, but then for their job they take pretty deep dives into things.

I wonder why they don’t take deep dives into other things. And you could say, “Well, Mark, because we don’t have the time for it.” And I would counter as I always do. No, you mean you don’t have the energy, which is fine because we’re still on

Surface Dwellers and the Pursuit of Knowledge

Transcript

I think I found the perfect question.

Well, hey there. Welcome back.

The Perfect Question

I think I found the perfect question. No, really. I found a question I can ask almost anyone. It will elicit a genuine, honest, thoughtful response. It’s a useful subject. It’s something that they think about regardless of what they do for a living. And it’s something that most people struggle with because they know they haven’t quite gotten it right. And I’m included in that. And the question is, what do you use for a to-do list?

You’re thinking about that now and feel free to pause it and then continue. But the answer typically is well I use a number of things. You know sometimes there’s some frustration there where someone says well this is what works best for me so far and I know it’s not the best. They’ll use a combination of a calendar post-it notes notes emails to themselves. Uh maybe they use an old style paper planner. Maybe they try to go without one and it adds even more stress to them. They put things into a document, but there’s typically not this universal perfect answer. And again, I am one of those people.

Designing the Ideal To-Do List: A Wishlist

So, I thought long and hard and I thought, you know what? I I I miss having a Franklin planner from a long time ago in which I could write down my to-do items and then I could transfer them to the next day, the ones that I didn’t fill out, and they’d be there waiting for me the next day. Plus, I’d sleep better. So, then I got thinking about what my ideal to-do list would be. Like, if I got my wishes, what would I do? Well, I’d want something that was small enough to carry with me at all times. And I already carry my phone with me at all times. So, maybe it should be something my phone can do. I’d want to be able to just make a simple list with really no limits. When I check off an item, it leaves it in the past so that the next day, the stuff I didn’t check are automatically there waiting for me. I would probably want to be able to color code things because you can pick out differences in things with colors far faster than you can in any other way.

I wouldn’t want to prioritize things because I’m already prioritizing things. I don’t want to do master project planning with a to-do list. That’s a whole separate set of software tools and so forth. And as I talk about in my book, because prioritization is something you’re already doing anyway in your head. And even if you put something at number one and you agree with it, you’re still going to scan the list and go, “Well, which one of these is kind of fun and feels good to do and it’s kind of easy? I’ll do that one right now.” So th that’s basically it for my core desire features.

From Core Features to a Fantastical Wishlist

So then I got thinking about, well, what would an ideal to-do list do? Well, besides it automatically carrying stuff forward to the next day, what if I could look back at a previous day and go, oh wait, what did I accomplish yesterday? And it unlike the written planner

I think I found the perfect question

A fan

As a longtime fan of Stargate SG1 and Stargate Universe I’d come to really appreciate so many elements of the storytelling that were done—the continuity, the characters, the character interaction, the dialogue, the growth, the well-done sets, the subtle and non-jarring humor, and more.  As someone who writes, I enjoyed on a whole different level.

So you can imagine that I had both the pleasure in honor of sitting down with Joseph Mallozzi, the Executive Producer and writer for Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe, and Dark Matter in which he is the Show Runner (he literally runs the show).   

Our chat

We covered everything from character development, to his thoughts on music, the untimely cancellation of Dark Matter on season three (a show I’d only recently discovered and thoroughly enjoyed), his journey as a writer, what it means to have a writing partner, the challenges of writing a movie script versus writing for in an episodic series, the difference between science fiction and fantasy and why he is very much not a fan of the latter, 

He was a very kind and energetic guest, and I just keep getting lucky with having people like him on my show.

It was not only informative and fascinating, but some moments were actually touching (e.g. discussing cancellation of Dark Matter and it’s affect on both him and the cast and crew. He clearly is not only passionate about is creative work, but cares about the cast and crew).  I truly appreciated his openness, willingness to share and vulnerability when needed.

There are one million topics I would have loved to cover with him things like AI in both the real world and how it affects writing and it’s use by certain authors as well as its implementation in sci-fi, his loves outside of writing, and who this Sharky person is.  

Hopefully he will return for another episode and even better, I can take him up on his offer to have dinner.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.   

My Patreon will have some video excerpts from the discussion.

Note that this transcript may have errors due to sounds and interpretation variations. I have edited it to add some of the headings as well as links to things mentioned, but editing for accuracy and grammar is not fruitful in a normal conversation. Hopefully you gave this a listen!

Oct 3, 2025

Joseph Mallozzi chat with Mark Bradford – Transcript

00:09:59

 
Mark Bradford: I’m here with Joseph Mallozzi. Hi, Joe!
Joseph Mallozzi: Hey Mark, how are you doing?
Mark Bradford: I am just lovely. I’m so happy to have you. I’m absolutely thrilled to have a chat. So, as I ask everyone that I have on the show, tell us who you are and what you do.
Joseph Mallozzi: Sure. I am Joseph Mallozzi. I’m a writer, uh, producer, and showrunner with,

Joseph Mallozzi – Executive Produce Stargate franchise, Dark Matter

Have you ever noticed that when there’s something you really, really love and really speaks to you that when you look at the backstory for it, the person that created it said that they “selfishly” just made it for them?

Here’s why selfishness, like the comfort zone, gets a bad rap it doesn’t really deserve

Transcript.

Selfishness, like the comfort zone, takes a lot of crap.

Well, hey there. Welcome back.

The Surprising Power of Creative Selfishness

Have you ever enjoyed the work of someone else and thought, “Man, this this really speaks to me. I I love it’s like perfect for me. It’s it’s really well done.” Or you think, “I I couldn’t like this more.” And that can range from anything like a a creative work or movie or or a book or even the way somebody took care of your plans. Have you ever noticed that more often than not when you follow up on this stuff, you hear someone say the phrase, “Well, I kind of selfishly did it for me the way that I would like to have it done.”

A Side Quest: Building a To-Do List App for Myself

So, let me go off on a side quest and continue. So, I had been thinking about the to-do list, and I have a lot of holy grail quests myself, and one of them is the to-do list. It’s one of those things that not sure if you can ever attain the perfect to-do list. It’s something everyone needs. It’s something everyone uses in one way or another, whether it’s on a piece of paper or planner or digitally or in their brain. I missed the days of having a Franklin planner in which you would have this little book and you’d have your to-do lists among other things and then at the end of the night the ones that you didn’t check off you would flip the page and you’d transfer those to the next day and then you would actually sleep through the night. Having recently created my behavioral mapping software that I can use in really cool ways that’s currently patent pending, I had the confidence to sort of do something else. So, I thought, I’m going to make a to-do list. So, I did. I made a little app for to-do list that looks great on my phone and and my desktop. I thought selfishly, what do I want to do since I’m the only person that’s going to use this? I want to do color coding. I want it that when I check something off, it automatically doesn’t go to the next day. I want everything to go to the next day that I don’t check off to be super easy and super frictionless to use. No real login and blah blah blah. So, anyway, I did all that. I ended up showing it to a couple people and a few of them were really interested in using it. So I built it in such a way that multiple people can use it. Every time I described it, I said I selfishly made this for me. Selfish, selfish, selfish. I kept saying that because it was with me and only me in mind. Now is it extremely usable for other people? Yes. But it was made for me selfishly. And once again, it felt like one of those projects or things that someone does that people say, “Wow, that’s really great.” and it’s because it was done selfishly. Do you think that’s counterintuitive?

Why selfish productivity may be the best productivity

The invisible barrier you must cross to switch modes and why it fools you into thinking it would take too much effort to complete a task.

Transcript

Revisiting Multitasking and the Energy of Switching Tasks

Do you multitask? Wait, we we already covered this. In a previous episode, we talked about how energy is really the glue that holds together various multitasking tasks [https://www.alchemyfor.life/balancecoaching/2017/06/25/multitasking-forgotten-glue/] that when you switch between one and the other, there’s a certain amount of energy you have to expend. And the studies recently done add a lot of credence to it and that you’re really not getting more done. You’re in fact getting less done and not as well. So, anyone who’s multitaskked probably found this and and multitasking is one of those holy grails that I look for in my talk and podcast about something called do it to a fault, which is one of my fun acronyms and I love me some acronyms. I explain how people can connect two things together and get a couple things done at the same time. Now, that’s not multitasking per se because it’s really using two different brain systems. Having a conversation on the phone while you’re emptying the dishwasher is not necessarily multitasking because they’re two different modes of operation. Doing your taxes while you’re driving, well, yeah, that’s not a good idea. If you haven’t listened to that one, go listen to it. It’s it’s a good episode. Having said that, I want to talk about something related but different.

The Invisible Energy Barrier of Changing Modes

So, have you ever had something that you need to do and you realize you haven’t been doing it or you forgot about it and then when you remember it, you have a little bit of a a dread or a sigh. But if you examine how much energy it takes to do the thing, it doesn’t really take all that much energy. So, it’s almost confusing as to, well, why don’t I just do that? What you’re feeling is the invisible barrier of energy that’s preventing you from switching into that mode. And that’s kind of what we talk about in in multitasking is that there’s this energy you have to expend to switch and kind of clear your mind and say, “Okay, now I’m a chef. Okay, now I’m a mom. Okay, now I’m a corporate individual like a CFO and I have to speak a certain way and so on and so forth.” And we talked about that a bit in an episode about switching modes. So check that out as well. But getting back to this invisible energy barrier and and that’s what it is. You think about a task and you think, “Oh, well that’s not that.” And then you just kind of feel it. You feel that you don’t want to do that cuz it’s different. You’re in a different mode. And it’s not that it’s a bad thing. It’s not that you don’t even necessarily not want to do it, but our brains like to trick us and we think, “Oh, I’m only not doing that because my wife this is going to happen or this happens with my kids or I’m just so drained from this.” And and you’re not. You’re not drained fr

The invisible Barrier

What’s your learning style?

Do you know what your learning style is? Did you know you have one? For a long time I have known about the diferent ways humans learn. People not only have aptitudes (someone is good with mechanical stuff, or math, etc.) but also differ in the way they learn. Same resulting information, different ways of it to enter your head.

I truly wish we would explore this in the schools because it would make all the difference in the world for kids and people trying to learn. What I have come to recognize any time I am teaching (conversations, consulting, teaching, coaching, workshops) is that I can detect the style just by watching the person as they learn. Here are the styles I’ve come across and what I notice.

The styles

Audio – people who learn this way learn mostly by hearing the information. They are watching you, sure, but they focus mostly on what you are saying. These people may make facial gestures as they listen. They might seem to be staring at you. They really prefer audiobooks instead of regular print books. They might seem to be ignoring what you are putting on your white board. They are waiting for you to tell them something.

Visual – You hear this a lot – “Im a visual learner.” Obviously this means they are watching very carefully and pay most of their attention to what they see. So, your diagrams and text on the board is devoured. They will talk with their hands typically. I’m Sicilian so I do this anyway. Some teachers seem to think that everyone is one of these kind of learners.

Conceptual – The conceptual learner is really inwardly focused on what he/she is processing. I know when I am talking to one of this tribe because they tilt their heads and usually look up at the upper right. I know because I’m a member of this tribe. It’s sometimes disorienting for others as it looks like I might not be listening, or that i m doubting what they are saying. In a way they are right—I am testing the concept they are relaying with what I know, and creating it in my head to see. Conceptual Lerners tend to “take things to heart” immediately. They learn faster and harder, but will be quick to lose interest if they are not engaged.

This list is from experience, anectotal evidence, and a bit of research. Your results may vary, but knowing this can be very useful and not only help you communicate better but prevent misunderstandings between different learners.

Like the love langauges, people aren’t just one of these and can be a mix.

This podcast, unlike most, comes with an article typically. The article is written in an authoritative manner to make the reading and absorbing of the concepts easy. The recording is me speaking in a more conversational tone.

Maybe when I get more patrons I’ll start creating videos as well. They I’ll have all of y’all covered.

Q: Which kind of learner are you?

Q: Have you ever run into difficulty learning because it was presented one way and that way was not a style you favored?

The post

Learning styles and learning right in front of someone

Transcript

What is Apathy? The Answer Might Surprise You

Well, hey there. Welcome back. What’s this episode about? Who cares?

So, many years ago, I was with a few of my friends and one of my friends said, “What’s apathy?” And my other friend said, “Who cares?” And it took a little while to realize that he was actually answering the question.

Visualizing Motivation: The Psychology of “BeCAUSE! [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1733662286/]“

As you may or may not know, I’ve written patent-pending software now that actually can help me to do behavioral mapping. It’s an offshoot of my latest book called Because. And I’m finding there are many, many offshoots of the whole concept of Because, which is based on Freud’s pleasure principle: seek pleasure, avoid pain. The software has allowed me to visualize all of these interesting concepts that might be kind of hard to visualize. And in doing so, it’s allowed me to see things that even I didn’t see while writing the book.

Why You Never Finish Your To-Do List

Let’s talk about your to-do list to make this a little clearer. You can create a to-do list and then you can assign priorities. You can create a to-do list and then you can convince yourself that the one you really want to do is the one you should do. I talk about this in one of the chapters. You’ve probably made many to-do lists. Some of them grand, some of them small.

But like most people, you don’t have a sort of a grand overarching to-do list. Like your life list, if you will. You can get complicated. And on that life list, you can have, “I’m going to climb a mountain.” “Here’s my bucket list.” “Here’s me finding love.” Here is, “Oh, that’s right. I have to get groceries. I have to cut the grass.” Like, all these things are to-dos, and some of them are of a grander scale or not.

If you think about your own list, there might be something that you keep putting on there, but you never do it. And so if we apply monsters and unicorns and we mapped it out, we could probably see that maybe there’s something painful about it, that there’s just too much pain that this thing generates and you feel like there’s no return on investment. Or there’s just not enough pleasure generated, or there’s not enough pain being generated if you don’t do it.

The Unfinished Novel: A Case Study in Laziness vs. Apathy

Let’s take an example. Let’s say you have an awesome life doing what you do. You have your full-time job. You’re invested. You have a career and all that stuff. And one day you’re thinking, “You know what, I wouldn’t mind writing a novel, a fiction.”

So, you put that on your little to-do list and you think about it sometimes. And once in a great while, you write a few words here and there. And finally, after seeing it on your list and looking back on the fact that you’ve been writing this novel for almost a year now and have almos

What’s Apathy?  Who cares.

Recover time energy and resources in your life. Have fun. Understand.

aflpodcast

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