Speaker 1: Nothing good in life comes without discomfort. We humans loathe discomfort.
Speaker 1: We want to be comfortable all the time. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Chris Brogan, publisher and
Speaker 1: CEO of Owner Magazine, a great new business publication. He
Speaker 1: is also a sought after keynote speaker who has addressed
Speaker 1: crowds of thousands. Chris is a New York Times bestselling
Speaker 1: author and his upcoming book is called The Freaks Shall
Speaker 1: Inherit The Earth entrepreneurship for weirdos, misfits and world dominators,
Speaker 1: which we think is a great description of our podcast.
Speaker 1: Hey Chris, welcome to the show. Thanks so happy to
Speaker 1: be here. As you know, our show is called The
Speaker 1: One You Feed, and it's based on the old parable
Speaker 1: where there is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson
Speaker 1: and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 1: of us who are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 1: good wolf who represents bravery and kindness and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf who represents greed and hate, fear,
Speaker 1: Name your poison. And the grandson stops and thinks and
Speaker 1: he says, well, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start the interview off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in your work. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny because in preparation for this show, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it, of course, as I was instructed to do.
Speaker 1: And um, my girlfriend Jaqueline and I were just having
Speaker 1: this conversation where in which I was explaining how I'm
Speaker 1: nervous about this upcoming event that we're both going to
Speaker 1: be participating in where it's sort of her Bailey Wick.
Speaker 1: But I'm a lot out of my league there. And
Speaker 1: as I'm explaining it all, then I started thinking about
Speaker 1: the wolf I feed, and I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm obviously feeding the wolf that has fear and you know,
Speaker 1: envy and all those other things and ego and all that.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh crap, I just like fell right
Speaker 1: into Eric show and um my thoughts on the on
Speaker 1: the parable. So, first off, I guess this is probably
Speaker 1: because of my conversion to Buddhism, but I never think
Speaker 1: of them as good or evil. I just think of
Speaker 1: them as a set of choices. And so when I
Speaker 1: think of when I feed the envy and ego one,
Speaker 1: what I really end up thinking is that sometimes you
Speaker 1: just that's all you can do. Sometimes you just can't
Speaker 1: help it. That's the one you're gonna feed right now.
Speaker 1: But what I try to think is, but every time
Speaker 1: I do that, that out of those two wolves, one
Speaker 1: of them leaves smellier, worse poop, And it's that it's
Speaker 1: that darker one. And so, uh, if I feed the
Speaker 1: supposedly good wolf, if I feed the wolf that you
Speaker 1: know gives you better results, one would say, um, I
Speaker 1: know that the poop is easier to clean, but that
Speaker 1: other wolf, you know there is gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: dog diarrhea. I have a bad case of diarrhea if
Speaker 1: I feed that bad wolf, yeah, exactly, And that that
Speaker 1: idea of good versus bad is it doesn't resonate with
Speaker 1: me exactly. But you start talking about a skillful or
Speaker 1: unskillful wolf, and it sort of lose the teeth of
Speaker 1: the analogy, right. I'd like to talk to you a
Speaker 1: little bit. I've I really, um, you know, I've taken
Speaker 1: one of your online courses, mastering the Digital Channel, and
Speaker 1: and that's really what you're known for, is your online
Speaker 1: marketing and that sort of thing. But I'd like to
Speaker 1: spend more time talking about your book, It's Not About
Speaker 1: the Tights, which is a book on bravery and courage,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a lot of great stuff in
Speaker 1: there that really um relates to what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off, because you spend some
Speaker 1: time in there talking about confidence. Could you elaborate on
Speaker 1: what confidence is and how you get more of it? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, in a lot of ways, confidence is one
Speaker 1: of the sexiest of all the drugs, you know, because confidence,
Speaker 1: once you have it, and once you feel it, you're
Speaker 1: suddenly a lot taller than you used to be. You're
Speaker 1: somehow slender too, you're very uh good of color, of
Speaker 1: your of your healthy skin tone, and all that. Everything
Speaker 1: to do with confidence comes with this incredible plus sign
Speaker 1: to everything else that goes on in your life. What
Speaker 1: else is need about confidence is once you feel it,
Speaker 1: you're obviously a lot better at everything you set out
Speaker 1: to do. You are suddenly a much better a singer
Speaker 1: and a much better performer of uh stage in theater.
Speaker 1: When you're confident, you tend to be much more successful
Speaker 1: at surgery and landing planes. So it's amazing to me
Speaker 1: that we don't really work on improving that set of
Speaker 1: skills that gets us there, and that we don't learn
Speaker 1: about how to take simple, small jump risks so that
Speaker 1: we can keep building on that confidence, and that we
Speaker 1: don't remember to take bigger ones every now and again
Speaker 1: so we can keep expanding it. It's a lot like
Speaker 1: going to the gym. Really, uh, if you don't go
Speaker 1: to the gym for nine weeks, you really aren't likely
Speaker 1: gonna you know, pick up the weights and just do
Speaker 1: what you did last time. You're gonna lose something out
Speaker 1: of that. But confidences like that too. If you don't
Speaker 1: work at every single day, if you don't really kind
Speaker 1: of keep stretching those muscles, you're you're going to be doomed.
Speaker 1: So to me, there's just a lot of opportunity in
Speaker 1: figuring out what you can get out of. Confidence is
Speaker 1: going to grow every other opportunity in your life. You
Speaker 1: talk about the way to get confidence is by taking
Speaker 1: you sort of to it their small risks and practice.
Speaker 1: Can you share a little bit more about that, well, sure,
Speaker 1: I mean anything you can apply to that too is
Speaker 1: a daily kind of experience. So for instance, maybe you
Speaker 1: want to maybe you're having trouble meeting somebody that you
Speaker 1: want to have a romantic experience with. And so the
Speaker 1: way most people deal with that is that they stay
Speaker 1: at home and play more Halo and just sit around
Speaker 1: going that's strange. I still haven't met a girl, uh
Speaker 1: in my house playing my Xbox and you know, it's
Speaker 1: really weird. I keep looking behind the couch and there's
Speaker 1: still not one there, which, by the way, they should
Speaker 1: be grateful. But the other way you can work on
Speaker 1: that is you could, you know, go to the bookstore
Speaker 1: and just talk to one person and just say all
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. All I need for today's wind is
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go up to that girl and say, oh,
Speaker 1: you're reading a book on Jeffrey Dahmer. I think that's
Speaker 1: a fascinating subject. And then what No matter what they
Speaker 1: say back, just call that the wind that you open
Speaker 1: your mouth and said something to somebody else. The more
Speaker 1: we practice that, then we're like, we find we could
Speaker 1: start a conversation with anyone and then suddenly, oh, now
Speaker 1: I can do something. So to me, the practice is
Speaker 1: always going after something that's small on the way to
Speaker 1: the big thing. And then the other thing is to
Speaker 1: to sometimes go and risk risk a few fewer chips
Speaker 1: on the way, meaning do something a little less vital
Speaker 1: before you have to do something vital. The other thing
Speaker 1: a lot of times we do crazy with confidence is
Speaker 1: you know, we're waiting to ask our boss for a raise,
Speaker 1: and we think that's the only way we can practice that.
Speaker 1: But no, you can go to a restaurant and you
Speaker 1: can order really oddly on the menu, and the more
Speaker 1: you do that, the more confident you get, because you
Speaker 1: have no problem telling the wait staff you're going to
Speaker 1: change the whole process of how the food is prepared,
Speaker 1: and you know that that lets you warm up to
Speaker 1: asking the boss and saying, I think I'm totally worth
Speaker 1: the rays, let's get this done. So that's that's how
Speaker 1: I see it. That ability to sort of step out
Speaker 1: of your comfort zone in anything sort of translates then
Speaker 1: to the other areas. You begin to get practice in
Speaker 1: being uncomfortable briefly while you through it. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: and we humans loathe discomfort. We want to be comfortable
Speaker 1: all the time. If someone could say to you, you
Speaker 1: know you want a really big significant change in your life,
Speaker 1: don't work. It'll be smooth and comfortable the whole way.
Speaker 1: That's what we want to hear. But that nothing good
Speaker 1: in life comes without discomfort. I mean, birth is supposedly
Speaker 1: one of the most painful things in the world, and
Speaker 1: yet it keeps happening every single day, it turns out.
Speaker 1: So I think that we have to really look at
Speaker 1: what we're willing to sacrifice to earn that confidence and
Speaker 1: to earn any other thing that we really want. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems to come up over and over again on
Speaker 1: the show as we talk with people about improving their lives.
Speaker 1: Is that if we just settle for comfort, we really aren't.
Speaker 1: We may be comfortable, but we're not going to be happy.
Speaker 1: Another area that I wanted to talk about. You say
Speaker 1: that a lot of our efforts to change fail because
Speaker 1: we're missing two important systems, feedback and reward systems. What
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Well, so in everything in our life,
Speaker 1: we need some sense of feedback and or some sense
Speaker 1: of reward to know how we're doing. It's so evident
Speaker 1: in video games, like when we play a game, you
Speaker 1: know if you I'll use Halo because that's a good
Speaker 1: easy example. If I hide behind things that don't shoot
Speaker 1: at anything, I don't get any points, and at the
Speaker 1: end of the adventure, you know I have the lowest
Speaker 1: score out of all the other players. Uh So I
Speaker 1: learned that I have to go out into the world
Speaker 1: if I want to get anything. But that comes from
Speaker 1: the feedback of knowing that if I don't get any points,
Speaker 1: then I see myself at the bottom, and it comes
Speaker 1: from the rewards of once I get points, it tells
Speaker 1: me what actions that the world wants me to take.
Speaker 1: Everything is set up this way, but sometimes it's not
Speaker 1: as explicit, especially if it's a change we want to make.
Speaker 1: So for instance, you know, when anyone says I'm starting
Speaker 1: to work on my health and my fitness, someone will say, great,
Speaker 1: how many how many pounds have you lost? But that's
Speaker 1: only one possible method of measuring, and sometimes it's the
Speaker 1: worst method because if if you're gaining strength and building muscle,
Speaker 1: muscle weighs more than at so you could be losing
Speaker 1: size off your waist and still be you know, you
Speaker 1: could be adding pounds on the scale. So you have
Speaker 1: to find, you know, a better feedback system and and
Speaker 1: then a better set of rewards. I have this other
Speaker 1: strange thing that people tell me, I'm on this great diet,
Speaker 1: I really can't wait until I have a big piece
Speaker 1: of cake, and I feel like, well, that's strikes me
Speaker 1: is that the reward you're saving up for here is
Speaker 1: the opposite of the choices that you're making in your diet.
Speaker 1: Don't go together to me. Maybe your reward would be,
Speaker 1: you know, the next fifteen pounds I lose, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: end up needing some new clothes. Anyway, I might as
Speaker 1: well planned to buy a nice outfit every such and
Speaker 1: such a marker or something, so um, when we are
Speaker 1: trying to make changes, we forget that we need some
Speaker 1: kind of measurement system and it needs to be a
Speaker 1: lot more incremental than we think it has to be.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing. People say to me, Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: a horrendous public speaker, And I'll say how often do
Speaker 1: you practice? How often you go out and speak? And
Speaker 1: they'll be like, never, that's I'm so scared. I don't
Speaker 1: ever want to do it. I'm like, well, you're batting
Speaker 1: perfectly then, because if you've never gone out to speak,
Speaker 1: then you must be an insanely successful speaker, because you know,
Speaker 1: you've never been booed off a stage. And so it
Speaker 1: turns out that you know, we need to come up
Speaker 1: with ways to increment and build our reward systems. Another
Speaker 1: key thing to making change seems to be accountability. If
Speaker 1: you get if you get the right feedback and reward system,
Speaker 1: and you tied that to some sort of accountability with
Speaker 1: other people, always seems to be to be very successful.
Speaker 1: And I think you're you seem to be doing a
Speaker 1: fair amount of that these days. I know you're very
Speaker 1: focused on on fitness and you're you're posting a lot
Speaker 1: of different pictures and things that I'm assuming that's really
Speaker 1: from an accountability perspective to try and bring your support
Speaker 1: system into the loop on that. Yes, and no, um,
Speaker 1: I try hard not to. I mean it's I think
Speaker 1: it's important to have a group of support, but if
Speaker 1: it depends how you use it. So I find that
Speaker 1: I'm trying mostly to telegraph the work that I'm doing.
Speaker 1: But most of those pictures I take and stick online
Speaker 1: are or for me, so I do it for myself
Speaker 1: to say I'm still at it. And um, and you know,
Speaker 1: also my girlfriend is on and spends time, and when
Speaker 1: she says nice things to me, I always get an
Speaker 1: extra boost. So that's I try to limit the amount
Speaker 1: of people I care what they think. And you know
Speaker 1: it's down there about like one and a half. So,
Speaker 1: but I think that when accountability is really important, I
Speaker 1: think to having some sense of a system. The other
Speaker 1: thing is sometimes we do need to support really badly,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we have such negative feedback going on in
Speaker 1: our closest relationships that you know, it would be really
Speaker 1: important to have some kind of a system somewhere in
Speaker 1: the space. So, for instance, Jacqueline is working on this
Speaker 1: coaching program and one of the things we were building
Speaker 1: into it. When we're talking about it was just the
Speaker 1: whole notion of Uh. You know, sometimes your significant other
Speaker 1: doesn't want you to get healthier or more fit for
Speaker 1: some reasons, you know, related to their own psychology. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you know your parents. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: there's a lot of cultures where food is very important,
Speaker 1: the consumption of the food, and if you don't need
Speaker 1: mom's cooking, you must be bad or you must you know,
Speaker 1: not love her, etcetera, etcetera. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: times when our local, closest support system doesn't help us.
Speaker 1: The other is if somebody has, you know, really ambitious
Speaker 1: goals and it's surrounded by the you know, the cubical
Speaker 1: farmers of their world. You know, if you have aspirations
Speaker 1: of being something that's outside the norm, you're the freak. Uh.
Speaker 1: No one's going to really know how to quickly you know,
Speaker 1: support you. You Know, if a kid says nowadays in school,
Speaker 1: I think I'd like to grow up to be an entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: I mean they're gonna end up with the guidance counselor's office. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that there's a lot to finding
Speaker 1: your freaks, and I think that if anything, sometimes those
Speaker 1: kinds of things, like putting those pictures online is sort
Speaker 1: of like the bat signal, and I'm saying, Hey, other
Speaker 1: crazy people doing their own thing, unite. Yep. The Internet
Speaker 1: is so amazing in that way that it does allow
Speaker 1: you to expand beyond your sort of geographical limitations with people.
Speaker 1: The in the book, you also talk about about mind reading,
Speaker 1: this sense that I do something and then I'm watching
Speaker 1: the people around me for their reaction, and how often
Speaker 1: we get that wrong. It's a it's pretty astounding once
Speaker 1: you clue to that, once you realize that you can't
Speaker 1: read other people's minds, and once you realize that when
Speaker 1: you're waiting for this absolutely unreliable mirror, uh, and how
Speaker 1: silly that is to take that kind of feedback. It
Speaker 1: changes a lot, Like once you really cue to that
Speaker 1: and say, oh, I really shouldn't wait for someone else
Speaker 1: to say what I think. And and by the way,
Speaker 1: I fall into it all the time, and I'm and
Speaker 1: I'm very conscious of it. So it's not the easiest
Speaker 1: thing to shake. But uh, Ever, since we're little, tiny kids,
Speaker 1: all we really want in life is feedback, right, I
Speaker 1: mean when we're a little baby and we start running
Speaker 1: away from our parents. We look over the shoulder, like,
Speaker 1: do you see me leaving? Because I'd like you to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that I'm trying to leave right now. And when
Speaker 1: we're you know, five or six, we w look what
Speaker 1: I can do. When we're nine, look what I can do.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, every single day in my inbox is
Speaker 1: stuffed with people telling me look what I could do.
Speaker 1: All day long. They just want me to say, good,
Speaker 1: you're a good person. I would like to praise you
Speaker 1: because you are such a good kid. Um, we're starved
Speaker 1: for it. All humans are. Human kind's greatest need is
Speaker 1: the need to feel wanted, and so part of that
Speaker 1: is when we sort of use these mirrors. When we
Speaker 1: when we use other people to give us feedback and whatnot,
Speaker 1: we're we're really throwing a lot of our psychic you know,
Speaker 1: psychic energy into somebody else's hands to to accidentally use
Speaker 1: as a devastating weapon. All the time. You know, it's
Speaker 1: amazing the things that you could feel but heard about
Speaker 1: that the other person has no idea because they're not
Speaker 1: mind reading you either. So as much as you think that,
Speaker 1: oh well, she must really not care enough about me.
Speaker 1: If she's not running over and liking my Instagram photos
Speaker 1: within five minutes of me posting them, you know, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: That's you know, quoting one of the most philosophical movies
Speaker 1: of all time three hundred, this is madness, right. I
Speaker 1: think we we tend to only see it from our
Speaker 1: perspective and totally and you talk about this in the book,
Speaker 1: totally miss that they've got a world going on inside
Speaker 1: of themselves, that that is what's real to them. So
Speaker 1: I may be may be in a meeting with somebody
Speaker 1: and they're reacting poorly, and it's it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with what I'm saying. It has to do with
Speaker 1: that had a fight with their wife that morning and
Speaker 1: their mom's sick, or they feel you know, they they
Speaker 1: ate something bad for lunch. And I'm reading all this
Speaker 1: into it, and like you said, it is it's madness
Speaker 1: because there's no there's no reality to it. And yet
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of us, it is one
Speaker 1: of the most real realities if we're not careful. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and that whole point about, you know, trying to remember
Speaker 1: how everyone else's day is in any way tied to yours,
Speaker 1: is so vital, and it's easier to try to give
Speaker 1: strangers that benefit. We always forget that the people closest
Speaker 1: to us also deserved the same benefit. It turns out
Speaker 1: the ally, the person who might even be in your
Speaker 1: bed every night, actually has a life outside of you know,
Speaker 1: your greater well being, and they may or may not
Speaker 1: have other problems or challenges on their mind or whatever.
Speaker 1: So sometimes even they can't give you exactly what you're
Speaker 1: looking for. Yep, what's permission in regards to bravery? What's
Speaker 1: that you use that term? What? What do you mean
Speaker 1: by that? So? Permission is important because what I've come
Speaker 1: to learn is that so many people are waiting for
Speaker 1: someone else to tap them on the shoulder and say
Speaker 1: you are now knighted. You may now go free and
Speaker 1: do these things that you're supposed to do a lot
Speaker 1: of I mean, there's this I met this young guy
Speaker 1: at an event a little while ago, and like a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, and he says, I really want to
Speaker 1: start doing entrepreneurial things. I can't wait till I get
Speaker 1: that opportunity. And I said, I'm sorry, but who's coming
Speaker 1: to give you that permission? Who's waiting to say to you.
Speaker 1: You go forth and be entrepreneurial. Now, I said, little
Speaker 1: kids take that permission away all on their own. They
Speaker 1: start lemonade stands, whether or not Mom and dad, I
Speaker 1: think it's a great day to do a lemonade stand.
Speaker 1: So who are you waiting for? And so to me,
Speaker 1: it's almost that scene where Napoleon takes the crown right
Speaker 1: out of the priest's hands and says, I'll king myself,
Speaker 1: thank you. Uh you basically have to do that because
Speaker 1: the amount of people who say to me, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: well I'm not Chris Brogan. I say, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: Chris Brogan. You know, no one came to me and said, hey,
Speaker 1: it's your turn. Time to go be awesome. You know,
Speaker 1: I just started doing stupid things that had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with my day job, and that's my entire career
Speaker 1: is based on that. So, uh, to me, permission is
Speaker 1: one of the one of the hardest ones because we're
Speaker 1: all just sitting around waiting for someone to tap us
Speaker 1: and say, okay, get in the game. But we are
Speaker 1: all that really important part of the universe that needs
Speaker 1: to be expressed. We just a lot of us are
Speaker 1: still waiting for that that phone call yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think that that ties to another another idea that you
Speaker 1: talked about, which is you are where you are, you
Speaker 1: want to be over here, build a bridge. And I
Speaker 1: think that exactly what you said. You weren't always the
Speaker 1: Chris Brogan we know now. I mean, you didn't always
Speaker 1: have what you had. You started from the same place
Speaker 1: everybody would start, and I think people tend to lose
Speaker 1: sight of that and and get very easily discouraged by
Speaker 1: where they are. You know, I can still walk into
Speaker 1: pretty much any restaurant, or any grocery store or any
Speaker 1: mall and scre amount do you know who I am?
Speaker 1: And most times no one will say yes. You know,
Speaker 1: you're pretty safe to realize that, you know sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought about this the other day. Somebody rather famous
Speaker 1: was asking me, how do you think I can get
Speaker 1: in front of such and such a person? And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, I consider you far ahead of the scale
Speaker 1: on me on this one. But evidently you know you
Speaker 1: think you still need some help. And that's true of everybody.
Speaker 1: Sir Richard Branson, when I interviewed him, this man owns
Speaker 1: an island. He is knighted, he has four plus companies
Speaker 1: and a lot more dough than me, still has things
Speaker 1: he's not so secure about. UM. We all have these
Speaker 1: opportunities to realize this, and you know, to me, it's
Speaker 1: just it's interesting. It's that that famous ancient song that
Speaker 1: him uh sang by seal and a sky full of
Speaker 1: people and only someone to fly? Isn't that crazy? Yep?
Speaker 1: And that idea of sort of starting where you are?
Speaker 1: Uh is you use that phrase? And I think I
Speaker 1: don't know how you and I originally started talking about it,
Speaker 1: but we that's a book by Pemma Children. Do you
Speaker 1: want to share a little bit about your experience with um?
Speaker 1: The Shambala lineage? So it all comes in a really
Speaker 1: strange way. One day, Julian Smith, co author of a
Speaker 1: couple of books with Me and Friends, says to me,
Speaker 1: Seth Golden said, I should read Pemma Children if you
Speaker 1: ever read her? And I was like, no, So I
Speaker 1: download a bunch of kindle books or whatever, and I
Speaker 1: think I bought a paper book or something. So that
Speaker 1: was kind of neat. And then Jacqueline and I were
Speaker 1: talking about it. I think she had already download or
Speaker 1: read some of her books before and was kind of
Speaker 1: into her too. But we kind of both rediscovered her
Speaker 1: a little bit together. And then a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: Jack says, Hey, Pemma is going to be at this event,
Speaker 1: this Shambala event up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We should go.
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, sure, you know, in my
Speaker 1: mind sort of like yeah, definitely we should go to that.
Speaker 1: That'll be great and uh and she said, oh good,
Speaker 1: I booked the tickets and I was like, oh, all right,
Speaker 1: so we're going. Yeah, and uh. So we went and
Speaker 1: it was the It was the funniest thing in the world.
Speaker 1: So it's in this very big space and lots of
Speaker 1: people are going to be there, and they're all very
Speaker 1: Shambala Buddhists, and there's hardly a newbie in the crowd,
Speaker 1: it seems, and they all seem to know what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and we're just there as fans of Pemma, like we
Speaker 1: don't even know this the sack young, we don't know
Speaker 1: anything about this faith per se. Uh. And we go
Speaker 1: there and we choose a seat somewhere near the back
Speaker 1: in case we have to leave, and Pema children ends
Speaker 1: up sitting diagonally behind us, like twelve feet away, and
Speaker 1: like Rite and I vision contact or whatever, and Jack says,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go over and say hi. I was like, what,
Speaker 1: you can't go over that. You can't just go over
Speaker 1: and say off? She goes. Next thing, you know, they're hugging.
Speaker 1: They're like kissing and crying and like signing books and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and they're like little BFFs and none.
Speaker 1: Like eight minutes into the day, it seemed we end
Speaker 1: up spending a lot of time that we have a
Speaker 1: great time. Um. We at the very end, they sort
Speaker 1: of very not not to not too pushy, say hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to convert the Shambala Buddhism, you know,
Speaker 1: getting this line and you could do that, and really
Speaker 1: that it's like the sack Young wax you on the
Speaker 1: shoulders with a pencil and you get a stupid piece
Speaker 1: of thread and you're now a Buddhist and that's about
Speaker 1: all that you do. You do right, Like there's there's
Speaker 1: no written tester and I didn't have to pee in
Speaker 1: a cup. Um. But then after that, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just weird how it kept going. A year or so later,
Speaker 1: I end up getting the opportunity to interview the Shock
Speaker 1: Young and we do a skype video together and all that,
Speaker 1: and just I don't I never go to the Shambala temples.
Speaker 1: You know. We went to the Boston one and it
Speaker 1: was nice, but it just kind of couldn't compare with
Speaker 1: hanging out with the shock Young and hanging out with
Speaker 1: Pemma Scholdren. So I just breathe and sit and do
Speaker 1: all that meditation and stuff and work on that, and
Speaker 1: I read Pemma's books and I try to, you know,
Speaker 1: be mindful every day, and that's all I really do. Um.
Speaker 1: But what I liked about the Shambala lineage was I
Speaker 1: liked that it wasn't especially complex, and that there wasn't
Speaker 1: a great deal of theology that you had to know.
Speaker 1: You could just kind of read into it a little bit.
Speaker 1: And it's a pretty low barrier to entry, I guess,
Speaker 1: as religions go, or or philosophies go, it's a pretty
Speaker 1: easy one to say, Okay, yeah it is. It's very
Speaker 1: it's very straightforward, and and uh, Pema Children was enormously
Speaker 1: helpful to me when she's got a book called When
Speaker 1: Things Fall Apart, and when my first marriage fell apart,
Speaker 1: that book, you know, it was sort of a lifeline
Speaker 1: to some degree. So I think we're getting near the
Speaker 1: end of time. I want to end with asking you
Speaker 1: to to talk a little bit about a quote of
Speaker 1: yours that's one of my favorites, which is that a
Speaker 1: setback is not permission to abandon your plans. And I
Speaker 1: want to ask that in general. And also I want
Speaker 1: to ask it because it was a couple of months
Speaker 1: ago you were talking. You were very excited about something
Speaker 1: that didn't happen, um, and i'd like to I'd like
Speaker 1: to hear you say sort of how you applied that
Speaker 1: to yourself. Well, I get to apply it a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's so funny if you look at
Speaker 1: this the sphere of the sphere of a like a
Speaker 1: an egg or something like that. You look at the
Speaker 1: outside of an egg, it looks nice and smooth, but
Speaker 1: of course as you zoom in, it's very porous and
Speaker 1: there's giant, huge fissures in it and all that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I mean, all life was like that or
Speaker 1: the other way. I look at it as a duck swimming.
Speaker 1: You know, ducks look look great on top. You look
Speaker 1: under the water and it's a big crazy mass. Um.
Speaker 1: Life is full of setbacks, But it's really how we
Speaker 1: approached them. It's how we you know, observe an orient
Speaker 1: and decide what we're gonna do with them that makes
Speaker 1: the whole world of difference. So, for instance, this big
Speaker 1: thing I was thinking I was going to take to
Speaker 1: go into, you know, I had sort of a couple
Speaker 1: of toes out of that water. I had every part
Speaker 1: of me into that water except for a few toes
Speaker 1: because something just wasn't right and I was really pursuing
Speaker 1: it with with some some wrong intentions. Uh, even though
Speaker 1: it would have probably been a neat project and having
Speaker 1: said no in the end or having you know, it
Speaker 1: all not worked. Just so you know again, I have plans,
Speaker 1: I have things I need to do, and what they
Speaker 1: allowed me to do is really double down on all
Speaker 1: the other work I want to do. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times, you know, it's funny. I was
Speaker 1: on a different interview just a little earlier in the
Speaker 1: day and I said to somebody that, you know, we're
Speaker 1: addicted to distraction. We don't have we don't have a
Speaker 1: d D. We just love distraction because it's so much
Speaker 1: easier than focus. And I'm ridiculously guilty of that. And
Speaker 1: so as far as which Wolf I'm going to feed.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try really hard to feed the one that's
Speaker 1: all about focus, and that's all about really sticking to,
Speaker 1: you know, my set of core values and my goals
Speaker 1: and not allowing the shiny things to sparkle and maintan
Speaker 1: run away um. But with setbacks, I mean anything including fitness.
Speaker 1: For instance, people will say, oh, you know, I totally
Speaker 1: fell off the wagon. I ate a know, I had
Speaker 1: a cake and a pie on top of it, and
Speaker 1: I accidentally tripped on a bag of M and M
Speaker 1: s and eight those two. So I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go to the gym for a month because I feel
Speaker 1: so guilty. Well that seems a pretty you know, tumultuous
Speaker 1: and and by the way, you know, it's so funny
Speaker 1: that it feels like that's over an exaggeration, of course,
Speaker 1: but it's not that far from how certain people behavior act.
Speaker 1: And I hear the strangest stories like that. You know, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I missed a date at the gym, and
Speaker 1: then I felt bad about that, so I missed a month.
Speaker 1: You're sort of giving yourself compound interest on your own
Speaker 1: choices of sins. So I guess if I were you,
Speaker 1: I maybe would you revisit your plan and jump back
Speaker 1: on it. I think it's this idea of all or
Speaker 1: nothing your perfection, Like, if I don't do it exactly right,
Speaker 1: then I'm just not going to do it um, which is,
Speaker 1: as you said, a fairly ineffective way to to get anywhere,
Speaker 1: because you are going to have setbacks in anything we do.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I haven't really seen perfection. Doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: exist a lot of my life except for the love
Speaker 1: of my life. You know, there's not a whole lot
Speaker 1: of perfection in this universe. Yep. Well, Chris, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for for joining us. I enjoyed the interview
Speaker 1: and I've enjoyed getting to know you over the last
Speaker 1: period of time online, my honor pleasure. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for having me and for such a refreshing and interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, we didn't even want to talk about sweating
Speaker 1: or anything. We did not. We did not, we avoided
Speaker 1: all that. Well, thank you very much, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you soon. Bye bye. You can learn more about
Speaker 1: Chris Broken and this podcast at one you Feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash Chris Broken. Oh hey, listeners, this is Chris
Speaker 1: from the One you Feed and you know, Eric just
Speaker 1: left the room. Um. You know, I can tell that
Speaker 1: a lot of people listen to this just because we
Speaker 1: get thousands of downloads every week. But Eric's a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a stats junkie, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: just to make him feel better, I'd edit this end
Speaker 1: to the end of the podcast. Um, we'd really like
Speaker 1: to hear from you if you could just email him
Speaker 1: at Eric at one you feed dot net. Just make
Speaker 1: him feel better, Just say something nice you don't really
Speaker 1: even have to mean. And if you don't want to, thanks, Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, why you're out there emailing Eric since
Speaker 1: you're already on the internet. Uh, we also kind of
Speaker 1: want you to go on the iTunes store and just
Speaker 1: you know, give us a great review. If you would, thanks,
Speaker 1: I'll let you go out by