OUR HOSTS: 

Corinne Foxx - @corinnefoxx

Natalie McMillan - @nataliemcm

What we're drinking: Faire La Fête Sparkling Wine

MEET OUR GUEST: 

Catherine Price - Learn more about Catherine’s latest book, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, and sign up for her newsletter at HowToHaveFun.com. Also, connect with her on Twitter @Catherine_Price and Instagram @_CatherinePrice.

ABOUT OUR GUEST: 

Catherine Price is a science journalist, speaker, and author of books including The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again and How to Break Up With Your Phone. When she asked herself what’s something that she's always wanted to do, but supposedly doesn’t have time for, she answered by picking up a guitar. When she started taking lessons and playing with friends, she discovered that she felt more resilient, happier, and creative. This sparked her journey into defining what fun is and how adults can pursue it. 

TOPIC: 

Fun doesn’t have to end when you become an adult. In this episode, we chat with author Catherine Price about how adults can put down their phones, get inquisitive about what true fun means to them and lead more fun-filled lives. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Catherine started researching fun 
• The link between less screen time and more fun 
• The short term and long term physical, mental, and emotional health benefits of having fun
• Questions to ask yourself to help you discover what true fun means to you 
• What are fun magnets and fun factors 
• Catherine’s signature SPARK process for how to create more fun in your life 

END OF THE SHOW: 

Corinne and Natalie introduce Hottie of the Week: Joe Jonas

WINE RATING:

Faire La Fête Sparkling Wine = Joe/Joe

WRAP UP:

To wrap up the episode, Corinne and Natalie play Would You Rather? They choose between being too hungry or too full, and being in jail for 5 years or in a coma for a decade. Corinne is too hangry and Natalie can’t stand the bloat, but they both agree that they could catch up on some extra sleep in that 10-year coma. 

Feel free to DM us @AmIDoingThisRightPod or email us at amidoingthisrightpod@gmail.com for our Random Advice segment and future episode ideas! 

Check out our new website: amidoingthisrightpod.com

Don't forget to rate and review the podcast! It really helps us grow!

Welcome back to another episode of Am I Doing This Right? I'm Corinne Foxx.

And I'm Natalie McMillan.

And we are best friends, confidant, millennials, and the hosts of Am I Doing This Right? A life how to podcast from the perspective of non-experts.

And each week we cover a new topic and we pop open a new bottle of wine.

Yes.

This week really popped it open.

We popped it open because we are talking about how to have more fun.

Which I'm so excited.

I'm so excited too. We have science journalist and author Catherine Price with us to talk about how we can have more fun in our lives. What is true fun, which I'm curious about, and also what is SPARK and how we could use this acronym to live more fun-filled lives.

Enhance our lives.

I'm really excited about this.

I love an acronym.

But Nat, we've got some housekeeping first.

We've got a little housekeeping. If you guys have been listening for awhile, you know, we have a new segment called random advice. So if you need advice on anything, literally anything just feel free to DM us at @amIdoingthisrightpod on Instagram or email us at amIdoingthisrightpod@gmail.com. Completely anonymous.

Yeah.

We will not say who you are, but we will answer your question if you need help.

We give great advice. We've done it before you guys have heard it.

Yeah. We would love to do a full episode too.

Yeah. We'd love to do a full episode. If you guys send us enough, we will do a full episode.

So send them in. And then our real quick little plug here is we had an episode, episode 43, which was how to rise from tragedy with Melissa Bumstead and Lauren Hammersley. And they had a documentary called In the Dark of the Valley, and at the time it was only on festival circuits, but now it is on MSNBC. And it will be premiering Sunday, November 14th at 7:00 PM pacific standard time if you want to watch.

Yeah. I really loved having them on and hearing their story, which is obviously so tragic, but, um, was really inspiring and enlightening.

Eye-opening.

Very eye-opening.

Yes. So it'll be cool to see if more people get their eyes on it if there's some change with the situation.

Yeah, for sure. Um, but Nat let's celebrate right now out fun episode with this, I'm very excited about the, I guess it's a champagne? What is this?

So it's not a champagne because it's not from Champagne, but it is French. It's a Brut.

A Brut

And it just says French sparkling wine. What, how do you say this? You know, she's the French...

Faire La Fete

Which means...

It means like to do the party, like, like to do, I would like to translate it to doin' the damn thing.

We're just doing the damn thing. Ooh...

Natalie brought like very special

little champagne flutes

They say like cheers and celebrate. We're also celebrating cause we're in a new studio today.

We're in a new studio. Cheers. I might have to fill us up again cause of the bubbles. Ooh. Should we talk about this other situation we have here?

So, so everyone who is listening, we're going to be doing a live taste test of another beverage that is sitting in front of us, which is something that I've been hyping up to Natalie for a long time now.

Months.

Months. And I told Nat, I don't want you to buy it for yourself. I will buy it for you. It is these Starbucks ice chai tea latte with pumpkin cream cold foam with oat milk.

With oat milk.

And Nat doesn't like oat milk, but I do think you're going to like this.

In this, in this particular scenario.

You might not. And that's why I said, I want to buy it. Cause I don't want you to spend your own money on something you're not going to like.

Okay. Right.

And there's no offense if you don't like it, you don't like it.

I think I'll probably like it. I don't know.

She's going to give it a shot.

Okay. We're going to give it a shot on three.

Oh my God. I'm like freaking out.

Oh, that's good.

It's good. Wait, wait, get a little, so it kind of move the straw up and a little bit of the pumpkin cream.

Oh, there's cinnamon or something on it.

I don't know. Just get a little bit, a little shot of that.

Oh. Oh, very pumpkin pie.

Very pumpkin pie.

Very pumpkin pie. And I'm not mad at the oat milk.

Oh, it's creamy.

It's creamy. It's a little, if I were to get it again, I would probably get regular milk, regular milk or soy milk, which is like...

Have we talked about the fact that you drink regular milk on the podcast?

I don't think so, but every time I go into a coffee shop in LA and I say, can I just get like regular milk? They're like huh?

That's how I feel.

Let me see in the back, if I have it.

I don't know if that means like I'm so LA or something, but when you say you drink milk, it hits me in my it's like a punch to my stomach. I'm like oh my God.

Well, I've tried every other milk alternative and they just aren't the same.

Here's the thing. The fact that like, I judge you for drinking milk but you exclusively eat vegetables. And I, all the only healthy thing I do is maybe drink oat milk and then I only eat frozen pizza.

Right? Yeah. I eat fruits and vegetables exclusively, almost.

Exclusively. And I'm like, you drink milk. My God. That's going to take years off your life.

Just regular ass milk. Actually I drink lactose free organic milk.

Okay. No, that makes more sense.

But also I need to just specify, I'm not drinking milk.

Glasses of milk.

I'm not, no, I'm pouring like a little bit into my tea in the morning.

I think I asked you this before, but did you ever was like in your household spaghetti and milk a thing?

I mean milk and just any meal was a thing.

But like if my mom made like spaghetti, I had to have a full glass of 2% milk. That was the only way I ate spaghetti.

I don't know that hasn't been a you thing.

That must have been a me thing. I was like, oh yes, we gotta get milk.

You're like, it's a party. It's a party here today, which we're going to keep talking about.

Yes. I'm so excited. I feel like as we get older, we have to learn how to make fun a priority. And we personally, I'm gonna out us here on the podcast, we struggle with feeling guilty for having fun instead of working 24/7. Yeah.

Yeah, it's tough.

And I think I'm really excited to bring on like a fun expert to teach us, literally teach us how to have more fun. And we do a pretty good job sometimes we go on our little tripies. They're super fun, but I think in general, like I feel like I should be working 24/7.

Yeah. Our day-to-day is like I pretty much wake up working and then go to sleep working. Yeah. So it's not great.

It's not great. And I feel like Catherine has thoughts on that.

Yeah. I think Catherine won't approve, but I'm just going to give her a, a brief little intro here.

Catherine Price is an award-winning science journalist and speaker and the author of books, including the power of fun, how to feel alive again, and how to break up with your phone. She's also the creator and founder of screenlifebalance.com, and she helps people to scroll less live more, and have fun. I love that mission for her.

Yeah. It sounds like our type of gal.

She sounds like our type of gal.

So let's bring on Catherine Price.

We are so excited to have you on today. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much for your invitation.

I think it's funny to mention that I had reached out to interview you a while back, but the way I reached out to you, it was an episode on how to break up with your phone, but DMed you, which I realized someone who wrote a book on how to break up with their phone, probably not the best way to get in touch with them is via social media.

I am just horrible, I, I don't like Instagram to begin with, but I'm also just horrible at it. Like I just don't get how it works. So I am pretty sure there's other people I'd like to respond to that are hidden in that app. And I can't like for the life of me I cannot figure out how to access things. I just, when I fling it to the side, so I'm so happy that we did eventually connect them that we're here.

It was just, I was like, of course, she's not going to see this, Corinne. Her whole thing is that she's like enjoying life and not on her phone. Um, that's your whole mission, which I think is so cool.

Yeah. They're all directly connected. I thought I had them next to me, but now I can't find my own. Oh, here we go. Yeah. I'd written how to break with your phone a couple of years ago, which was the result of my realization that despite being, I like to think a pretty self-aware person who's intentional about how I spend my time, I was spending way too much time on my phone. And that really came to a head one night when I was up with my daughter, who at that point was just a baby. And I had this moment where I could see the scene as it would appear to an outsider.

It's like this is what's wrong with you. And there's no solution.

Exactly. I'm like, I don't want that. That's not a good result for people. So that's why, yeah. How to break through your phone has a plan. Second half of the book is a plan for how to take that control. And the first half it looks into the science of why our devices and apps are so hard to look away from and what we can do, what it's doing to us.

Wow.

Wow. That is so incredible. Yeah. We need the plan.

If you guys need it, that's a bad sign because you seem like pretty fun.

Oh my God. Well, we'll get into it, but I'm curious, did you always have kind of a, like a fun filled life before the phones and before all the technology. Like, do you remember just having more fun before that, and then it kind of got lost? Is that kind of where you think we are right now as a society?

I do think I was having more fun before I got a smartphone, which is ironic, considering that they're marketed to us as fun. It's hard to separate exactly the cause and effect because I kind of grew up along with the internet and my college experience was before smartphones.

For a start, my boyfriend would be dead.

But with that said, you know, for example, I did this bike trip after college, which was from Connecticut to San Francisco. We bicycled across the whole country and it was 63 days with 30 people. And it was in many ways horrible, but it also was enormously fun because it was such a fun group of people. And we all were bonded together in this moment with one common purpose, which was just to bike those 80 miles or so that we were doing a day and none of us were distracted.

Yeah. You have to get creative when you don't have your phone, you have to start thinking outside of the box.

Yeah, exactly. So I don't think it would have been as fun. Definitely.

It's kind of like I grew up in a small town and we just had to like make stuff up. In terms of like things to do. We'd be like, oh, we'll go like throw rocks today. You know, you just have to like, get creative on like what we're supposed to do for fun.

Yeah. I think that speaks to the fact that I think another misperception or misconception people have about fun is it needs to be elaborate or it needs to be expensive, but it doesn't. Like throwing rocks in, hopefully not at people, but into the river.

You literally did it. Exactly.

Yeah.

I feel like though, as adults, I mean, we're young adults shifting into our adult life. We're learning how to be adults, that we, we say all the time. Um, we've noticed that as we're working, we struggle with a sense of guilt when we're having too much fun or when we're taking time off work to have fun or off work, to do vacations or things like that.

I think it's definitely true, first of all. And I think it's true culturally as Americans, especially for Americans, because we do have a sense of guilt often associated with pleasure, which is messed up on its own.

I think we're supposed to enjoy our lives, right?

I think so. And it doesn't mean that you're not caring about other people and you're not caring about the world's problems. You actually be more resilient and have more energy to do those things and be better connected with people through fun. But I think another reason if anyone needs further justification, is that fun actually is good for us in ways, way beyond what we might anticipate.

We need to get rid of the term guilty pleasure is what it sounds like. Can you actually go in a little bit more, I'm curious about the health benefits that you're talking about.

Well, so I have type one diabetes and I've always been,

So do I!

So does she! She was just beeping.

No, I've got a tandem. That's so funny. I was wondering that.

That's why I was like, are you okay? Are you dying?

Oh, I literally was like, oh, that sounded sorta like a pump, but it's not my beep. So it must not be a thing. But I heard that beep and I had the question on my mind.

Yeah. Type ones unite. Okay. Now I really need to know how fun and type one come together. Type one type fun.

Type one diabetes is objectively not fun and super frustrating. But, um, but yes, so, okay. That's probably why you asked me that question is that you too are interested in physiology and health and I'm particularly interested. So I used to write a lot more about before I got into technology and I guess it is all connected because it all is about health.

Would that include television screens?

You can define it how you want to. For us, it did. Yeah. We took a full break from screens, but you can adjust the practice as you see fit or experiment with different versions of it. Or start with one night and then build up to 24 hours, actually have suggestions on my website. It was screen life balance.com for how people can prepare for it. But I noticed from our experience and the experience of all these other people I heard from, it was all very similar.

Yeah. Yeah. We saw that. We were going to ask about what, what is true fun.

Yeah. We can talk more about that however much you want. But the short answer is that it's the confluence of playfulness connection and flow. So when you're feeling lighthearted and, um, you have a playful spirit combined with a sense of connection, which usually is with another person, although it could be with, you know, an animal like a dog. Could be with yourself and then flow, which is the psychological state of being very engaged and present in your current experience, like an athlete lost in the game.

Oh, wow. That is insane.

Isn't that crazy? It can change how our genes are expressed, so it can actually affect which genes are turned off and on at what points in time, in a way that can as one person whose work I read, put it act as a fertilizer for other diseases. So loneliness acts as a fertilizer for other diseases, fun by connecting us as an antidote to loneliness. And so I would pause it that it does the opposite. So I think it's, I mean, fun is like, it's not just a, you know, a title like it truly is powerful. And that's one of the things that's the most exciting to me is, oh my goodness. Like it's not just that it's enjoyable. It's really good for us.

Yeah, well, I can even vouch for that. We were just on a little trip together, and we always have so much fun and it is for those three reasons really. But every time we do a trip, I have like low blood sugars. I don't need as much insulin cause I'm not as stressed out.

That's fascinating. Oh man. Yeah, we could have so much to talk about.

I know.

It's so interesting. Like every time I do a public talk with a big in-person audience, even if I don't physically feel stressed, if I don't recognize that I'm feeling that way, I'll look at my blood sugar, it will be spiked and it will be really hard to get it to come down. And just what you're saying, it's because of cortisol and it's because stress hormones are there to keep our blood sugars elevated so that we have energy to, you know, run away from a lion. Like it's really important if it's a short term threat, but the problem now is so much of our stress.

It's true.

And yeah. And I remember hearing through a doctor once he was saying that, or someone was saying they had a patient or a friend whose blood sugar always dropped her in a phone conversation with the particular person in their life. And they were saying it's because it was relieving their stress. I mean, it's fascinating.

Marry that person.

If you prioritize fun you better like cut your insulin dose by a half.

I know. Right?

Well, I know you just mentioned true fun, but I wanted to get into deeper what that means. There is a difference between true fun and not true fun?

Yeah. Thank you for asking that, because I think that this was another thing that really stood out to me as I got into the research myself. The reason I came up with the term, true fun, instead of just fun. First, as I said, there just wasn't a good definition of fun. The best thing I found was that it was lighthearted and pleasure, but that did not capture what I was feeling in the guitar class. And it didn't capture the anecdotes that people told me about when I asked people to share with me.

Yeah. You also, in the book talked about fun factors and fun magnets. Can you kind of define what those are and how that kind of comes into the picture?

So I would argue that there is a universal definition of fun, which is that it is playful, connected flow. Nearly every anecdote people have shared with me about fun experiences matches that definition, which is just really exciting to me personally.

Yeah. Yeah. Much more tangible.

Yeah. And yeah, fun is this kind of like abstract thing sometimes. And it's like have fun, but it's like, I feel like you do have to like ask how, like, how do I do that? And you're kind of creating this list or whatever these lists of things that you could go to.

So I suggest starting with this process of identifying your fun magnets and fun factors. So you have. Awareness and you kind of have these concrete things, you know, are likely to generate fun for you, but then how do you actually incorporate them into your life?

You guys went to a summer camp?

Yeah.

I've been okay. I've seen people do that. And I've been wanting to do that, like adult summer camp.

Yes. Do it.

Oh my God. It sounds like so much fun.

It's so fun. It's on the lake. We did a circus arts class, but I was nervous going into it. Cause I was like, oh God, what if no one, what if no one has fun? Especially the fun person. What if they don't have fun? And I was thinking, oh, well maybe I'll bring some props.

I love doing that.

Right. And it's a way to indulge yourself in a way that feels really good. And actually, as we've discussed is good for us. So I just love that like little ways to rebel in your everyday life, do things a little differently. And then the last thing is just keep at it, which is that, you know, fun is like exercise. Like you can't just prioritize it once and then forget about it. It's an ongoing process, especially with all this fake fun that's being marketed to us and all the other demands on our time. And so that's very much about how do we create a plan for fun? How do we incorporate more of our fun magnets into our lives in a regular basis, and spend more time with the people who are fun and become more fun ourselves and just make sure it's at the top of our priority list. So that's the whole thing in a nutshell or a really long story.

No, I mean, that was so, I mean, it all makes sense and it's like, I love your approach that it's so it's so like scientific. But it's like, yes, it's like tangible. Like this is how to do it. And I think it's going to give our listeners so much inspiration to find more fun, at least for me too. Like, find more fun in our lives.

I want to hear how your interventions go and yeah, the fun to revise a lot more also how to have fun.com, check that out. And I'm going to be doing a funterevention, like a big funterevention challenge in February in particular. Because I've decided February is the least fun month of the year have just decided

That's my birthday month.

We'll make it more fun.

We'll make it more fun. I agree with you.

So if anyone wants to join in on that they can, I actually will be using social media for a force for good during that. I still can't promise that I will understand how to use the direct message feature. Posting challenges there are people want to follow me. And then also, um, I'll be doing some of my newsletter so you can sign up for that and howtohavefun.com and there's quizzes like a fun personality type quiz and the quiz about why you aren't having fun.

Yeah. So happy to have you on. Thank you so so much we'll link to everything in our show notes so our listeners can find you and thank you. Have a great fun-filled rest of your day.

You too. Take care.

Bye.

I know, we have, uh, we have some funterventions to do. Funterventions.

I loved her and I left, like for me, I really need like everything I do. I love like the science behind things. Like meditation. I'm like, oh, there's actual science to support that this is helping me. Same with fun. So we officially have permission from Catherine...

to have fun, to have more fun. In the name of our health.

It's for the sake of our health.

For the sake of our health.

And your type one.

Um, yeah. Can you believe? We've never had another fellow type one.

I know! And I love how it naturally came up.

I know. Wow. That was fun for me. That was a true moment of fun for me.

It was one for me.

We're few and far between out here.

I feel like I have type one at this point, because I get as I'm like, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm like.

Oh, Corrine is my number one like ride or die type one, homie. Like she'll school people. She's like, that is a Dexcom and this is what it does.

If I see someone in public, I almost want to come up, go up to them, but I don't have it. So it's just like, oh, do you have type one? It's like, yes.

We screamed at a guy in Mexico.

Oh yeah. Oh my God.

We were like hey. He was like way down the beach.

He was also with his girlfriend. His girlfriend's like, what the fuck? We're like type one.

And he was like cool.

Um, okay. Well, if you guys want to connect more with Catherine Price or you can, pre-order her book, that's coming out. We're going to link to her and her book in the show notes again in her book. It's how to have fun? The power of fun.

How to feel alive again.

Her book comes out December 21st, and I think it's actually a really great Christmas idea.

Oh, totally. Also she has some quizzes on her website, how to have fun.com and we - there's like personality tests. So it's your fun personality quiz. And we took it. Corrine. You are a...

I'm a fun seeker.

And I am a fun generator.

Which I feel like makes sense. I love to find like fun things to do. Like for our trip we went on. Like, I like to, I don't like to plan, but I love to find things.

I like how she was when she was talking about playfulness, connection, and flow. I was like, that's why we do so well on our little trips. Because we never really have an agenda. We have like one thing where like, do you want to go on a colonial walking tour? Yes.

Yeah. And then everything else is just flow. Whatever we want to do. We really just flow to parks. We just, we just walk. We're just walking around a park.

If we're ever on vacation in your town. We are just in your park.

We are aimlessly walking around the local park.

And that is true fun for us. So.

Okay, Nat, so should we circle back on this oh, Faire La Fete?

Faire La Fete.

Little sparkling wine we're drinking.

Our french sparkling wine. Ooh, I like it's very effervescent.

Well let's, uh, reveal our hottie of the week. I was going to say our futi.

Our fun hottie. Um, our fun Hottie this week is Joe Jonas, because first of all, he just seems like so much fun.

Yeah, no, he's a good time. I feel like he dresses up a lot. Like he actually like wanted to be a comedian. Yeah. He's fun. He's fun and funny.

Yeah. And we just went to a Jonas brothers concert the other day, which was really fun.

Was really fun.

We had a great time. So one to Joe Jonas what are we rating this Faire La Fete sparkling wine?

I really, I mean, I kind of love it.

I'm really like, I'm like, let's get this for new years.

I love it. It's great. Is it a Joe out of Joe?

I think it's a Joe out of Joe.

Cheers to that.

Cheers. Oh my God. I think he's our fourth or fifth.

Yeah, out of like 60 plus wines we've drinking.

We can co-sign for Faire La Fete.

So we'll link it in the show notes. If you guys want to pick up a bottle,

Mine's not like amazing, but it's something to really ponder and that's would you rather be too hungry or too full?

Oh too full thousand percent. Yes.

Oh, interesting. I can see that for you though.

Because my, I mean, I don't, again, I don't have type one, but my blood sugar drops and I become, it's like the incredible Hulk. And Joe's been, he's been the punching bag for a lot of times where I've been too hungry when I'm like, and he's like, oh my god. And then if we, God forbid we can't decide where to eat.

Oh hell no.

So for me personally, too hungry, but I know I'm going to have one for you, but what, which one would you choose?

I would rather be too hungry.

Oh, so okay. You're the opposite of me.

I, yeah, I really hate being too full. I want to throw up. Well, I think, cause I, I hate being nauseous and wanting to throw up so much that I can't do that.

That's fair. That's fair.

Both are torturous.

They're terrible. So, okay, so here's my, would you rather for you, would you rather be in jail for five years? Or in a comma for a decade.

Oh shit.

That's kind of a good one.

Okay. Honestly, I think I'd rather be in a coma.

Okay.

Because here's the deal. I was just, I saw a tweet this morning that was like, I don't have a one-year plan. I don't have a five-year plan anymore. Like once the pandemic happened, like it's all out the window, I'm just trying to get to tomorrow. Okay. So, you know, these next 10 years, I don't know what's going to happen. I might as well just be asleep.

That's fair. That's very fair.

You know what I mean? Cause I could wake up and the whole world could be gone.

And you didn't see it all happen.

I didn't see it all happen or I could wake up and there could be a lot of good change.

The odds not have favor.

The odds aren't in our favor. Um, at climate change.

You never know.

But I think think I would rather do that.

I think that's a fair, a fair decision because again, you're not going to be experiencing. In jail is a lot trauma. It's going to be a hard five years. If you can sleep for 10 years. Oh my God.

I could really catch up.

Could really catch up.

And I need to, although I would probably try to have fun in prison. I would play domino. I love playing dominoes already.

What about the food?

The food wouldn't be great.

But maybe you'd make the most fun generator. You generate some fun.

I could probably do some tattoos, like have a good time, but I'd still rather be in a coma.

That's fair. Very fair.

Yeah.

All right. Well, that's the episode. Um, if you guys liked it, don't forget to rate and review our podcasts. It really helps us grow.

And we'll see you guys next week.

Yeah, we'll be back next week for another episode. Love you guys.

Bye.