Speaker 1: Giving people the benefit of the doubt is a really
Speaker 1: good way to leave a positive final oppression. And if
Speaker 1: you want to have influence over how that person is
Speaker 1: seeing a situation, guess what. You're going to have way
Speaker 1: more influence if you help them feel seen and heard
Speaker 1: versus the person who cuts them off, dismisses their point
Speaker 1: of view as nonsense and makes them feel stupid.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen.
Speaker 1: Or empower us.
Speaker 2: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 2: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 2: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 2: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 2: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 2: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 2: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 2: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 2: episode is Light Watkins. He has been a meditation teacher
Speaker 2: and spiritual teacher for more than twenty years. He's the
Speaker 2: author of The Inner Jim Bliss, More and Knowing Where
Speaker 2: to Look, and also hosts a weekly podcast called The
Speaker 2: Light Watkins Show. Today, Eric and Light discuss his book
Speaker 2: travel Light Spiritual Minimalism to Live a more Fulfilled Life.
Speaker 3: Hi Light, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks man, good to be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to be discussing your book, travel Light
Speaker 3: Spiritual Minimalism to Live a more Fulfilled Life, and whatever
Speaker 3: other topic come up. But we'll start like we always do,
Speaker 3: with the parable. And in the Parable, there's a grandparent
Speaker 3: who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life,
Speaker 3: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 3: at battle. What is a good wolf which represents things
Speaker 3: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 3: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 3: and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it
Speaker 3: for a second. They look up at their grandparents. They say, well,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandparents says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I've been writing a lot about this
Speaker 1: idea of following your heart voice, which is how I
Speaker 1: identify the voice of your spirit. And obviously there are
Speaker 1: a lot of other voices in our awareness. There's the
Speaker 1: voice of fear, there's the voice of our past traumas.
Speaker 1: There's a voice of our parents, teachers, coaches, preachers, name verse, news,
Speaker 1: cultural and doctrination, all of these voices. And what I
Speaker 1: encourage my followers and my readers to do is to
Speaker 1: split tests which one is the voice of their spirit,
Speaker 1: because that's the one that's going to encourage you to
Speaker 1: do the right thing when you don't feel like it.
Speaker 1: That's the one that's going to cheer you on when
Speaker 1: you want to give up. That's the one that's going
Speaker 1: to want to make you more compassionate, more generous, more empathetic,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And if you follow that voice enough times,
Speaker 1: then that's how you turn the volume up so it's
Speaker 1: not just a still small voice, but it can actually
Speaker 1: become a loud and knowing voice. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like that good wolf. You know, it's right in your ear,
Speaker 1: and it's louder than the bad wolf. And if you
Speaker 1: can hear it and experience it. In that way, it's
Speaker 1: easier to follow the good voice. The problem is we
Speaker 1: follow the voice of fear so much that that's the
Speaker 1: default one that we oftentimes hear. And that's why it's
Speaker 1: easier to follow the fear voice than it is to
Speaker 1: follow the still small voice of your intuition.
Speaker 3: Well, as a guy who spent the early part of
Speaker 3: his career in software testing, right, I'm very familiar with
Speaker 3: the idea of split testing things, right, but not everybody
Speaker 3: might be. And so basically what you're suggesting is, well,
Speaker 3: say more about what you are suggesting. How do you
Speaker 3: split test that? I mean, I love this idea of
Speaker 3: like see which voice brings about which results, but say
Speaker 3: a little bit more about that.
Speaker 1: Well, that's essentially it, you know, Like we may have
Speaker 1: two voices, a good and a bad. There may be
Speaker 1: a neutral voice, there may be another instigating voice, you know,
Speaker 1: and there may be another shame voice. And so there's
Speaker 1: all these voices, and if we want to turn up
Speaker 1: the volume on the one that we feel supports us
Speaker 1: the most, and that leads to the result that we
Speaker 1: want the most, which I'm assuming is we want to
Speaker 1: feel like the most authentic version of ourselves. We want
Speaker 1: to feel the most expansive. We want to feel the
Speaker 1: most creative. We want to be able to tell the
Speaker 1: best stories. Right. I think about it not in terms
Speaker 1: of what's happening right now, because I get that what's
Speaker 1: happening right now could be very chaotic and there are
Speaker 1: lots of things that need to happen right But let's
Speaker 1: fast forward and project to our final moments and maybe
Speaker 1: even beyond that. Let's go to our funeral, and let's
Speaker 1: say we're now in spirit form, we've left the body.
Speaker 1: We're at the funeral, and we're watching people come up
Speaker 1: to the podium to talk about us and to report
Speaker 1: on their experiences with us, and what sorts of testimonials,
Speaker 1: what sorts of reports, what we be proud of at
Speaker 1: the end of our days when people go up there
Speaker 1: and talk about us. Do we want to hear people
Speaker 1: talk about how we always paid our bills on time,
Speaker 1: and how you know we got that promotion that one time.
Speaker 1: Probably not. Probably we want to hear about how we
Speaker 1: were a good person, We gave people a second chance,
Speaker 1: We were the one that listened when nobody else would,
Speaker 1: you know, These kinds of more altruistic exchanges in dynamics,
Speaker 1: and so if we play that little game with ourselves,
Speaker 1: then we can just reverse engineer back to this moment
Speaker 1: where all this chaos is happening and there's not enough
Speaker 1: time to do anything, and then we have a clear
Speaker 1: idea of how we want to move through this moment.
Speaker 1: So split testing is just another way of saying, don't
Speaker 1: put so much pressure on yourself to try to figure
Speaker 1: out which one is the good wolf or the bad wolf.
Speaker 1: Just follow the one you think it's the good wolf.
Speaker 1: And if you do that enough times, you're not going
Speaker 1: to get it right all the time. You know, the
Speaker 1: ego is really good at disguising itself as that good wolf.
Speaker 1: But if you do it, say one hundred times or
Speaker 1: five hundred times, you have a pretty decent idea of
Speaker 1: which one is the voice that you ultimately want to follow.
Speaker 1: Because there's a feeling tone that's a so asociate it
Speaker 1: with it. There's a little sense of anticipation, there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of fear perhaps around what's going to happen next,
Speaker 1: because there's no certainty related to following that good wolf.
Speaker 1: But if you follow it enough times, you'll see that
Speaker 1: on the other side of it. There's this feeling of
Speaker 1: expansion that is very consistent, and it's something that helps
Speaker 1: you sleep better at night. It's something that helps to
Speaker 1: make you wiser, and it's something that you ultimately will
Speaker 1: be proud of at the end of your days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that idea, and you know, I often
Speaker 3: in certain groups that I've led, we've done that sort
Speaker 3: of funeral exercise.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It's a very clarifying exercise like what is really important?
Speaker 3: What do I want people saying? You know. And the
Speaker 3: other thing is, depending where you are in your journey
Speaker 3: and path, right, you may get very good feedback relatively
Speaker 3: quickly after you follow a certain voice. Right, at a
Speaker 3: certain point, there is a sense of being in integrity
Speaker 3: with ourselves, you know, of our actions matching up with
Speaker 3: who we want to be and to be out of that.
Speaker 3: Oftentimes we really know it, you know, Sometimes we don't.
Speaker 3: Your point is well taken. Sometimes it's confusing and on big,
Speaker 3: you know, confusing decisions. But there's a lot of feedback
Speaker 3: that I'm able to find pretty quickly, you know, after
Speaker 3: I do something like how okay, where do I feel inside?
Speaker 3: What I'd like to ask you is I find this
Speaker 3: idea of an authentic self inside of us a little
Speaker 3: bit of a confusing idea. And what I mean by
Speaker 3: that is you listed a lot of ways we've been conditioned.
Speaker 3: You gave a long list, and we could add to it.
Speaker 3: We could spend the next hour right laying out all
Speaker 3: the factors that have conditioned us to be the person
Speaker 3: we are today. So that makes this idea of like
Speaker 3: an authentic self a little bit harder to tweeze apart, right,
Speaker 3: because we do have all this conditioning. Talk to me
Speaker 3: a little bit, you know in your mind about what
Speaker 3: that authentic self is? Is it different in me than
Speaker 3: it is in you when you get down to that truest,
Speaker 3: deepest level.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you made that distinction because I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of defining concepts that people just take for
Speaker 1: granted that everybody understands and we're all on the same page.
Speaker 1: And the reality is that actually that's not the case
Speaker 1: at all. And so I'm happy to unpack this idea
Speaker 1: of authentic self and just to keep it really simple,
Speaker 1: the way I define authentic self is in a range
Speaker 1: of behaviors that we do.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 1: It's different for different people, but we act upon what
Speaker 1: we feel like, as you said, is most in alignment
Speaker 1: with our own personal integrity. But let's just talk about
Speaker 1: it generally speaking. Let's just say generally speaking, as a
Speaker 1: heterosexual man, right, we've all had the experience where you
Speaker 1: see a pretty girl out somewhere and it may be
Speaker 1: clear that she is not in a relationship, she doesn't
Speaker 1: never ring on or anything like that, and everything in
Speaker 1: the U says, go up and talk to her, Go
Speaker 1: up and say hi, go and strike up a conversation.
Speaker 1: Just take a leap of faith. Just see what happens,
Speaker 1: you know, say efitt or whatever. We're saying it in
Speaker 1: our minds. And we've all had the experience of not
Speaker 1: doing it. And when you don't do it, what ends
Speaker 1: up happening? You think about it. It bothers you, right,
Speaker 1: and you keep playing the scenario out in your head
Speaker 1: over and over and over, maybe for hours, maybe for days.
Speaker 1: You're hoping you're going to see the person in the
Speaker 1: same place again. Now you're sort of stalking the place
Speaker 1: hoping that she's going to walk in. In those moments,
Speaker 1: which are probably more rare, those moments where you did
Speaker 1: go up, you did say something, even if it doesn't materialize.
Speaker 1: In anything, you always feel like, you know, this sense
Speaker 1: of expansion. Yeah, and you feel so good that you
Speaker 1: at least did something, and it's easier for you to
Speaker 1: move on to whatever the next thing is and without
Speaker 1: thinking about whatever could have happened or should have happened
Speaker 1: had you behaved differently. That would classify your authentic self
Speaker 1: as you making choices more in alignment with that expanded
Speaker 1: feeling where you knew that you did what was a
Speaker 1: little bit nerve racking, a little bit scary, a little
Speaker 1: bit you know, anticipatory, but it was something that made
Speaker 1: you feel like the best version of you, the story
Speaker 1: that you ultimately want to tell. If you're the superhero
Speaker 1: of your life and you're just breaking your life down
Speaker 1: into these moments and the question is what would the
Speaker 1: superhero do in this moment, Well, the superhero would certainly
Speaker 1: go up and talk to the person. The superhero would
Speaker 1: certainly stand up for people who can't send up for themselves.
Speaker 1: The superhero wouldn't be in the room gossiping about anybody.
Speaker 1: They'd be the person, you know, shutting down the gossip
Speaker 1: conversation and saying, hey, this person's not all that bad.
Speaker 1: You know, they have these and that great qualities. So
Speaker 1: when we think about our own personal hero, what the
Speaker 1: qualities are of that personal hero, those are qualities that
Speaker 1: we deep down want to embody for ourselves, yep, right,
Speaker 1: And so when we can operate in alignment with those qualities,
Speaker 1: that is our most authentic self. And that's different for everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's interesting that the example you gave is
Speaker 3: a good one that the example that came to my
Speaker 3: mind is extending kindness to strangers. You know, there are
Speaker 3: moments where it's like I see an opportunity to extend
Speaker 3: to kindness. It could be any number of different things,
Speaker 3: but I'm anxious to do it, Like does the person
Speaker 3: want me to extend to kindness? Do they just want
Speaker 3: to be left in their little bubble? And I know
Speaker 3: that the best version of me does the kind thing,
Speaker 3: and if it isn't received well, then it isn't received well.
Speaker 3: But I know that I was acting from the part
Speaker 3: of me that knows that that's something I really value, right,
Speaker 3: is to try and be kind to everyone. And so
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, we all have this sense of expansiveness,
Speaker 3: and I love that idea. I've often thought about just
Speaker 3: that very idea expansion versus contraction, you know, as a
Speaker 3: really good guide for how to make decisions and how
Speaker 3: to orient you know, does this feel like it makes
Speaker 3: me a bigger, more open, better version of myself? Or
Speaker 3: do I feel like this closes me down and causes
Speaker 3: me to contract? And for me, that's almost been the
Speaker 3: best way of thinking of certain things is in that
Speaker 3: sense of expansion versus contraction.
Speaker 1: And I think when you look at it that way
Speaker 1: with feeling tone as opposed to even semantics and trying
Speaker 1: to come up with language for just see how you feel.
Speaker 1: How does it make you feel? Does it make you
Speaker 1: feel a little bit more expansive or does it make
Speaker 1: you feel like a smaller version of yourself? And if
Speaker 1: you just follow those expansive feelings, you know, just like
Speaker 1: with eating French fries or donuts. Look, I love French fries.
Speaker 1: There's a time and place for a donut. But absolutely
Speaker 1: if you eat these things all the time because the
Speaker 1: idea of it makes you feel expansive in the moment,
Speaker 1: but then twenty minutes later you feel shitty, that's an
Speaker 1: indication that this is not taking you in the direction
Speaker 1: of your most authentic self. Eating these kinds of foods
Speaker 1: you know, going to work out may make you contract initially,
Speaker 1: but then after what happens. No one ever walks out
Speaker 1: of the gym or an exercise class having killed it
Speaker 1: and feel like a smaller version of yourself. You feel
Speaker 1: like the superhero version of yourself. And so you know,
Speaker 1: you got to look at it in a broad spectrum
Speaker 1: of activity as opposed to how you're feeling in the moment.
Speaker 1: And then again, once you have enough of these types
Speaker 1: of experiences and you have a point of reference, then
Speaker 1: you can make those decisions easier and easier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny. I've interviewed a bunch of behavioral scientists
Speaker 3: on this show, and I always ask them, I'm like,
Speaker 3: explain something to me. Every single time I have ever
Speaker 3: worked out, and it's thousands and thousands and thousands of times. Right,
Speaker 3: I'm not a young person, right, every single time I
Speaker 3: have left going, I'm so glad I did that. You
Speaker 3: would think I would run to work out every single
Speaker 3: time time, and yet it's still difficult. No one has
Speaker 3: ever really satisfactorily been able to answer why that is.
Speaker 3: I think it just has something to do with an
Speaker 3: inbuilt wiring to conserve energy as a living being. I
Speaker 3: think we just have some degree of that. But it's funny.
Speaker 3: I could have that kind of track record one hundred
Speaker 3: percent success and still still have to talk myself into it.
Speaker 1: I mean, but look, let's expound on that further. Let's
Speaker 1: say you're looking at doing Navy seal training, but then
Speaker 1: you're like, there's no way, I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: just don't want that sort of stress in my life.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But you know that after you get through hell Week
Speaker 1: and all that crazy stuff, you're going to feel like
Speaker 1: a freaking super machine, right, even though you know it's
Speaker 1: going to take you to the brink of your potential.
Speaker 1: And so we all kind of have that. It's just
Speaker 1: a matter of to what degree do we feel it,
Speaker 1: you know, and challenging ourselves, but we know that getting
Speaker 1: to the other side of that challenge is going to
Speaker 1: feel amazing. But you know, it's just a matter of, Okay,
Speaker 1: what sort of challenge do I want today? And you know,
Speaker 1: maybe working out presents what seems to be a very
Speaker 1: steep obstacle for us, but we know that once we
Speaker 1: get to the other side of that obstacle, it's going
Speaker 1: to feel great. But do we want to take on
Speaker 1: that level of obstacle that day, or maybe there's a
Speaker 1: smaller obstacle that we're satisfied with because we know that
Speaker 1: it's not going to stop. It's going to just be
Speaker 1: the same thing the next day and the next day
Speaker 1: and the day after that, et cetera.
Speaker 3: There's an absolute art to get in that right, you know,
Speaker 3: not too much, not too little, sort of threading the
Speaker 3: needle on that. Before we get into the book more specifically,
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about a recent Instagram post
Speaker 3: that you did, and you said in it, look at
Speaker 3: happiness is income and stress as debt say more about that.
Speaker 1: So that post was referring to this idea that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people find themselves stuck in, which
Speaker 1: is the acquisitive approach to happiness, which is happiness that
Speaker 1: comes from the outside to the inside, which means as
Speaker 1: soon as I I get the promotion, as soon as
Speaker 1: I get the better job, as soon as I get
Speaker 1: the better spouse, as soon as I move to the
Speaker 1: better house, the better car, better city, better this another
Speaker 1: zero my bank balance that I'm going to be happy
Speaker 1: and let me do whatever it takes in order to
Speaker 1: make that happen. And the opposite of that is what
Speaker 1: the Buddha and all of the stages and gurus over
Speaker 1: millennia have said, which is happiness. There's no way to happiness.
Speaker 1: Happiness is the way. So, in other words, happiness is
Speaker 1: an inside out proposition and therefore it requires some sort
Speaker 1: of inner practice that will help to cultivate the happiness
Speaker 1: that you ultimately want. And now you know, science has
Speaker 1: backed this up, and the research has said that in
Speaker 1: American society, at least beyond you, you know, having your
Speaker 1: basic needs mat and you making a salary of like
Speaker 1: seventy seventy five thousand bucks, making more money is not
Speaker 1: going to increase your baseline level of happiness.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that you can't be any happier than you
Speaker 1: were at seventy five thousand dollars. It just means that
Speaker 1: making more money is not the thing that's going to
Speaker 1: increase it. What will increase it, though, is having strong friendships.
Speaker 1: What will increase it is being of service, having a
Speaker 1: greater purpose in your life. And what's also been shown
Speaker 1: to increase the happiness is cultivating more of the chemicals
Speaker 1: that are responsible for happiness, serotonin, dopamine, oxtetosin, etc. And
Speaker 1: the practices that can do that very effectively are gratitude
Speaker 1: and meditation. So the thing that stops us from feeling
Speaker 1: happier than we would be at that threshold, that seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars threshold primarily lack of those chemicals. And
Speaker 1: so what does the body do that prohibits us from
Speaker 1: feeling those chemicals. It reacts to demands, pressures, and changes
Speaker 1: of expectation. So that's another way of saying stress. It's
Speaker 1: experiencing stress. Stress depletes the body of serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin,
Speaker 1: so it makes us want to run away from whatever
Speaker 1: the experience is or fight that experience. Meditation gratitude helps
Speaker 1: to create those chemicals, which makes us feel more present,
Speaker 1: more fulfilled, and happier inside, more content with whatever it
Speaker 1: is that we're experiencing. Just to put a definition to happiness,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people think happiness is me walking
Speaker 1: around with a big smile plaster on my face all
Speaker 1: the time, and that's not the reality of what happiness is.
Speaker 1: Happiness is being in a state where you don't need
Speaker 1: other things to be happening to make you feel more
Speaker 1: fulfilled as a person. That's what true happiness actually is.
Speaker 1: So when we can get the body addicted to those
Speaker 1: happy chemicals, then our body will respond by making us
Speaker 1: crave those experiences that are responsible for those happiness chemicals,
Speaker 1: which makes us wake up in the morning. You know
Speaker 1: how some people wake up they can't wait to have
Speaker 1: their coffee, or you know, they can't wait to turn
Speaker 1: the television on, or they can't wait to start scrolling
Speaker 1: on social media. Well, those are not arbitrary experiences. You've
Speaker 1: programmed and conditioned your body to be dependent upon the
Speaker 1: chemicals that are associated with those experiences. And the good
Speaker 1: news is that the same thing can happen with more
Speaker 1: positive experiences like meditation, like gratitude, like being of service,
Speaker 1: like operating from a purpose. And so as you go
Speaker 1: throughout your day, your body is actually prompting you, Hey, hey, Eric,
Speaker 1: is time to sit down and meditate? Or hey Eric,
Speaker 1: you haven't really thought about anything you're grateful for in
Speaker 1: a moment. What are you grateful for right now? You know?
Speaker 1: And you start having these kinds of experiences from the
Speaker 1: inside out, and you fulfill yourself being more present and
Speaker 1: more fulfilled, and as a result, you're not sitting there
Speaker 1: thinking to yourself. Oh, I'm very present right now. I'm
Speaker 1: very happy, I'm very fulfilled. No, you're just completely engaged
Speaker 1: in whatever the activity is. And as you're walking around,
Speaker 1: you're noticing things. You're noticing the birds, you're noticing the sounds,
Speaker 1: you're noticing the colors, you're noticing the breeze on your face.
Speaker 1: And when a demand is placed on you, you don't
Speaker 1: jump right into scarcity go oh my god, I don't
Speaker 1: have time for this. No, you're able to be present
Speaker 1: with that and to be the person that stops and
Speaker 1: helps the old person across the street because you have
Speaker 1: the time. In fact, you're a time billionaire because that's
Speaker 1: what presence does. So it's not that you need to
Speaker 1: even be aware that any of this is happening. It
Speaker 1: becomes who you are, and that's what that means. The
Speaker 1: more of those happiness chemicals you gets kind of like
Speaker 1: that's the true wealth that you're actually looking for. And
Speaker 1: the more stress you have, it takes away your ability
Speaker 1: to feel that. And that's why we want to start
Speaker 1: to see stress as a debt, as a liability, and
Speaker 1: not this thing that we need in order to find
Speaker 1: our edge or whatever it is that we're telling ourselves.
Speaker 3: As we drop into the book and this idea of
Speaker 3: spiritual minimalism. I want to talk about what you describe
Speaker 3: as one of the principles of that, and it's the
Speaker 3: fewer options you have, the more freedom you have to
Speaker 3: make decisions, and the more present you become. Say something
Speaker 3: about that, because we tend to want to maximize our optionality, right,
Speaker 3: We tend to want to give ourselves the widest range
Speaker 3: of options, right, because then we can make the best choice.
Speaker 3: And we know there's a paradox of choice out there
Speaker 3: that if you have way too many options you get overwhelmed.
Speaker 3: But even well, short of that, I think you're talking about,
Speaker 3: you know, short of that, So why is less options
Speaker 3: often more beneficial for us in a spiritual minimalism sense.
Speaker 1: You're referring to principle seven of spiritual minimalism, which is
Speaker 1: celebrate the freedom of choicelessness. So there are a few different,
Speaker 1: seemingly contradicting truths in that statement, right. One truth is
Speaker 1: that having options is actually a good thing. Like, if
Speaker 1: we have the option to be well versus the option
Speaker 1: to be sick, we're going to choose the option to
Speaker 1: be well. We want that option a hundred times out
Speaker 1: of one hundred. And at the same time, let's say
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, we're not in a situation where we
Speaker 1: can be well, we don't have what it takes, we
Speaker 1: don't have the money, we don't have the resources, we're
Speaker 1: in a weird physical location where we can't get access
Speaker 1: to care right. So then there is a freedom that
Speaker 1: is associated with that, And what that means is that
Speaker 1: we can either focus on what's not happening, which again
Speaker 1: yanks us out of the present moment and it actually
Speaker 1: makes the body sicker, it doesn't heal the body to
Speaker 1: be in that mindset, or we can accept where we
Speaker 1: are and what's happening, provided we've done everything we could
Speaker 1: right and this is where we are, so we accept that. Now,
Speaker 1: just through share acceptance, we're able to anchor ourselves more
Speaker 1: in the present moment. And then it's through that present
Speaker 1: moment awareness that we're going to be able to see
Speaker 1: and detect and feel things that we would not have
Speaker 1: had access to otherwise. One of my spiritual teachers used
Speaker 1: to say, if you want to know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen tomorrow, then you better get present today because the
Speaker 1: richest information about what's happening tomorrow is only found in
Speaker 1: the present moment right now, So otherwise you have to
Speaker 1: use speculation and guesswork to try to figure out what's
Speaker 1: going to be happening tomorrow. So both of those things
Speaker 1: can be true. You know, I like options, and I'm
Speaker 1: recognizing that I don't have a lot of options for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, and so I'm just going to do the
Speaker 1: best that I can right now. If you have time,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a little story about that.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: I used to teach yoga back in the day, and
Speaker 1: I remember I had a yoga class. It was like
Speaker 1: at ten o'clock in the mornings on I think Wednesdays
Speaker 1: and Fridays in Los Angeles, and I lived about ten
Speaker 1: minutes drive from the yoga studio, and I had my
Speaker 1: commute time down to the minute. I left fifteen minutes early.
Speaker 1: It would take me, you know, seven minutes eight minutes
Speaker 1: to drive their park, go upstairs, go to the studio,
Speaker 1: set up my room, and I had to have an
Speaker 1: extra five or maybe seven minutes to greet people as
Speaker 1: they were coming in. And I've done this, you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of times. There was never any traffic, and one
Speaker 1: morning I get in my car, and I'm well, you know,
Speaker 1: right within the timeframe that I always gave myself, and
Speaker 1: there was all this traffic on the main road going
Speaker 1: in the direction of the studio. So like any good
Speaker 1: LA driver, I zigzagged my way down to the next street,
Speaker 1: and I hit another pocket of traffic. And this is
Speaker 1: highly unusual. There's never traffic on one of those streets,
Speaker 1: much less both of those streets. So now I'm recognizing
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be late, and I hate it
Speaker 1: being late, but there was nothing I can do about it.
Speaker 1: So I tried to like breathe and calm myself down
Speaker 1: as I'm inching through this traffic. And then I finally
Speaker 1: get to the main intersection that crossed both of those streets.
Speaker 1: And if there was going to be anything causing this traffic,
Speaker 1: it would have been at this intersection. But I didn't
Speaker 1: see anything. I didn't see anything struction. I didn't see
Speaker 1: the obstruction, no accident, There was no reason why there
Speaker 1: would have been traffic on those streets. And then eventually
Speaker 1: the traffic just kind of spontaneously cleared up. I arrive
Speaker 1: at the class ten minutes late. I'm embarrassed, right because
Speaker 1: now I'm sending the message that it's okay to show
Speaker 1: up late to my class. And as I walk into
Speaker 1: the room, the actual room, I have flip flops on,
Speaker 1: and I feel all this crunching underneath my flip flops,
Speaker 1: and I look down and there's like there's a million
Speaker 1: shards of broken glass all over the floor. And I
Speaker 1: look up to the front wall, which is a wall
Speaker 1: of mirrors, probably about ten feet tall. Each pane of
Speaker 1: mirror was about three feet four feet wide, and in
Speaker 1: the very middle of the room there was a missing
Speaker 1: panel ten feet tall by four feet wide. There was
Speaker 1: no mirror there. And so what it happened was apparently
Speaker 1: about ten minutes before I came in the room, right
Speaker 1: at the top of the hour when the class was
Speaker 1: supposed to start, that panel of mirror somehow dislodged and
Speaker 1: came crashing down right where I would have been sitting
Speaker 1: had I arrived at the class on time. So evidently
Speaker 1: that phantom traffic jam that I was secretly cursing on
Speaker 1: my way there was actually saving me from having a
Speaker 1: very unlucky start to my day. And the reason I
Speaker 1: like that story is because it tells the flip side
Speaker 1: of the freedom of choicelessness, right, which is when you're
Speaker 1: being rejected from something, when you're losing something, and you
Speaker 1: think to yourself, oh my god, if only I had
Speaker 1: done XYZ, If only I left earlier, if only I
Speaker 1: hadn't made friends with this person, if only I had
Speaker 1: put more money into it, then it would have worked
Speaker 1: out better. That's how we play it out in our
Speaker 1: minds without realizing that although the situation was bad, it
Speaker 1: could have been a lot worse and I would have
Speaker 1: had a very unlucky start to my day had I
Speaker 1: gotten there when I wanted to get there. So the
Speaker 1: universe or nature, whatever you want to call it, was
Speaker 1: gifting me with a freedom of choicelessness. And after that happened,
Speaker 1: whenever I'm inconvenienced, it doesn't bother me anymore. When I
Speaker 1: miss a flight, when there's traffic, when someone's not texting
Speaker 1: me back as quickly as I think they should be,
Speaker 1: I think back to myself, phantom traffic, jam, broken mirror. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know this is not what's meant to be happening
Speaker 1: now Again. It doesn't mean I'm sitting on my hands
Speaker 1: waiting for things to happen. I'm still doing everything I
Speaker 1: can do. But when the thing is not happening beyond that,
Speaker 1: then I have an easier time saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: this is fine? Let me keep focusing on what I
Speaker 1: can control and let go of what I can.
Speaker 3: Does meditating feel like a che or another to do
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Speaker 3: always seemed to me there are situations in which there's
Speaker 3: something I can do about this, and I absolutely do it,
Speaker 3: or there's nothing I can do about it, so I
Speaker 3: let it go. And then there's all that middle ground
Speaker 3: where we're like, you know, I don't you know, I
Speaker 3: don't quite know. You know, I've got a job that
Speaker 3: I don't love. You know, Do I accept that? Because
Speaker 3: by accepting it, I might start to like the job more.
Speaker 3: And I'm not resisting it. You know. It's that middle
Speaker 3: ground that's always so so confusing, and like we talked about,
Speaker 3: you know, there's an art to finding, you know, what's
Speaker 3: the right response and what situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think one way to kind of navigate
Speaker 1: that is to again remind yourself of what are the
Speaker 1: most important things that you want people to say about
Speaker 1: you at the end of your life and just narrow
Speaker 1: that down to like three things. I'm the person that
Speaker 1: gives people second chances. I'm the person that leaves the
Speaker 1: world more inspired. And let's say I leave places better
Speaker 1: than I found them. So that gives you a different
Speaker 1: point of focus in these moments where the outcome isn't
Speaker 1: what you think it should be, and therefore you can
Speaker 1: now become more process oriented and guess what the value
Speaker 1: that you ultimately want from the experience is going to
Speaker 1: be found from the process of it versus from the
Speaker 1: outcome of it. Going back to our earlier example of
Speaker 1: you know, going through Hell Week as a Navy seal. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful to say that you're a Navy seal, but
Speaker 1: let's say you had to hook up Eric. Let's say
Speaker 1: you know somebody in the Navy who could just make
Speaker 1: you a Navy seal without you having to bother with
Speaker 1: Hell Week? Right? Would anybody want that? No self respecting
Speaker 1: person would want to have Navy seal status without going
Speaker 1: through all of the things that you have to go through,
Speaker 1: which is advertised it's hellish. It's just going to be
Speaker 1: hell to go through these things. But that's what makes
Speaker 1: you into the person, that's what gives the experience is
Speaker 1: inherent value. And so as a Navy seal, you're the
Speaker 1: kind of person that does things beyond the point where
Speaker 1: most people give up. You'll go through whatever you have
Speaker 1: to go through to make sure you protect your fellow seals.
Speaker 1: You're the kind of person that doesn't come up with
Speaker 1: excuses about why you can't make things happen. Instead, you
Speaker 1: find solutions. So when you put yourself through that experience,
Speaker 1: you actually become that person, and then twenty thirty fifty
Speaker 1: years later when you look back, that's what you remember fondly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't give up, right, and yes I went beyond
Speaker 1: where most people would quit. And yes I do protect people,
Speaker 1: you know, just because I expect them to protect me,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And that becomes a part of who you are,
Speaker 1: and that shows up in everything you do, and you realize, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the journey, it wasn't the destination. That was
Speaker 1: the most valuable part of the whole experience.
Speaker 3: Yep, you touched on there one of the key elements
Speaker 3: of spiritual minimalism that you talk about. I find it
Speaker 3: just to be a good all purpose intention in life,
Speaker 3: which is just to leave every place better than I
Speaker 3: found it. Like that just to me almost encompasses, right,
Speaker 3: so much of what I value, because that could look
Speaker 3: a thousand different ways based on what you mean by
Speaker 3: that and where you are and all that. It is
Speaker 3: a way of rigor towards all of your situations that
Speaker 3: I just have found to be, like I said, a
Speaker 3: good all purpose intention. It's one of my fallbacks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a story in that principle in that chapter
Speaker 1: called final impressions. And I talk about how we're really
Speaker 1: good at making first impressions, putting our best foot forward,
Speaker 1: but we're really bad when it comes to final impressions.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is, you know, if
Speaker 1: anybody could say these things about you, they didn't show
Speaker 1: up to the meeting that I set up for them,
Speaker 1: and they never notified me, or they broke up with
Speaker 1: me over text message, or they ghosted me, or they
Speaker 1: didn't do what they said they were going to do,
Speaker 1: so I just stopped screwing around with them. You know,
Speaker 1: these kinds of little things to us, they're like little things.
Speaker 1: They can become these really big moments that we get
Speaker 1: known for if we do it enough times. And you know,
Speaker 1: when people are gossiping, usually they're not gossiping about the
Speaker 1: first they're gossiping about your final impression. How you left
Speaker 1: the situation, you know, and then you start to hear
Speaker 1: the grapevine version of how you left. This is never
Speaker 1: it's never like what actually happened. It's the exaggerated version
Speaker 1: of what happened that you have to then give context
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life and have to explain
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life, and it could be distracting,
Speaker 1: and people don't want to have anything to do with
Speaker 1: you because now it's blown up into this whole thing,
Speaker 1: and these would be, you know, ridiculously simple situations to correct,
Speaker 1: maybe just by giving a little bit of clarification, maybe
Speaker 1: giving an apology, maybe just giving someone a chance to
Speaker 1: feel seen and heard, you know. And so I try
Speaker 1: to remember that in my day to day life, everyone
Speaker 1: that I'm encountering, that's an opportunity for me to leave
Speaker 1: a positive final impression. And that could just be listening.
Speaker 1: That could just be acknowledging what someone just said or
Speaker 1: what they're going through. I've experienced this recently. I don't
Speaker 1: want to make this, you know, time sensitive, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's some international conflicts that are happening right now, as
Speaker 1: they almost always are. There's something happening somewhere in the world.
Speaker 1: But you know, having these conversations, especially if you feel
Speaker 1: strongly about one side or the other side, is really
Speaker 1: easy to dismiss someone who doesn't agree with you. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's an opportunity from a spiritual minimalism
Speaker 1: point of view, to help people feel as seen and
Speaker 1: as heard as you would like to feel, even if
Speaker 1: you think they're wrong, even if you feel like they're misguided,
Speaker 1: they're not seeing the full thing. Well, guess what, they
Speaker 1: probably feel the same about you. Yeah, So, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, who's right who's wrong? We don't
Speaker 1: know because we're all being propagandized, we're all being indoctrinated
Speaker 1: by whatever our echo chamber has been conditioning us to believe.
Speaker 1: And that's been repeated throughout history, where we thought things
Speaker 1: were one way but actually turns out or a different way.
Speaker 1: And so just exercising the benefit of the doubt, giving
Speaker 1: people the benefit of the doubt is a really good
Speaker 1: way to leave a positive final oppression. And if you
Speaker 1: want to have influence over how that person is seeing
Speaker 1: a situation, guess what, You're going to have way more
Speaker 1: influence if you help them feel seen and heard versus
Speaker 1: the person who cuts them off, dismisses their point of
Speaker 1: view as nonsense and makes them feel stupid because nobody
Speaker 1: wants to feel those ways. So some very powerful work
Speaker 1: that we can be doing on a daily basis, And
Speaker 1: that's what that principle of spiritual minimalism give what you
Speaker 1: want to receive actually means.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you kind of segued us into another of
Speaker 3: the principles. We were sort of talking about leaving every
Speaker 3: place better. But you've kind of named it here, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, give what you want, you say, give what
Speaker 3: you want to receive. It doesn't matter how much or
Speaker 3: how little you have. If you want a friend, you
Speaker 3: must be friendly. If you want love, you must be loving.
Speaker 3: You know, you've talked in the book about if the
Speaker 3: community that you want isn't there, start creating it. So
Speaker 3: talk a little bit more about this. You know, give
Speaker 3: what you want to receive. When I turned forty, I
Speaker 3: had an epiphany. I was like, man, I'm not really
Speaker 3: going out very much. And I reflected on that, and
Speaker 3: I realized the reason I wasn't socializing was I had
Speaker 3: stopped drinking when I was about twenty five twenty six
Speaker 3: drinking alcohol and I never had a problem.
Speaker 1: I just kind of did the math in my mid
Speaker 1: twenties and just realized it didn't really add up, didn't
Speaker 1: make me feel like a better version of myself when
Speaker 1: I was drinking, is expensive, you know, all the things.
Speaker 1: So I decided to experiment with not drinking. I'm just
Speaker 1: not going to order any drinks and just see what happens.
Speaker 1: If I miss it, I'll go back to it. If
Speaker 1: I don't miss it, then great. I've liberated myself from
Speaker 1: feeling like I need to drink in order to be social.
Speaker 1: And so I never missed it, and I just stopped.
Speaker 1: I just stopped drinking over the course of like six months,
Speaker 1: and then I just didn't really think about it much.
Speaker 1: But yeah, when I turned forty, I thought, okay, well
Speaker 1: I want to be more social. But then I was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, well where would I go? And all the
Speaker 1: places that I was thinking of were places that were
Speaker 1: centered around drinking, either directly or indirectly. So I thought, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll create an experience. There's got to be other
Speaker 1: people out here who also want to socialize without having
Speaker 1: to feel pressure to drink. So I started hosting these
Speaker 1: gatherings once a week at this little dance studio in
Speaker 1: West la It was costing me fifty dollars each week
Speaker 1: to rent this place out for like an hour, hour
Speaker 1: and a half, and I would be in my kitchen
Speaker 1: making honey lemon ginger tea, which I really loved from
Speaker 1: when I visit India. I would have a question of
Speaker 1: the night because one of the things I hate is
Speaker 1: going to a social event as an adult and you
Speaker 1: don't know anybody and you feel like everyone's in there
Speaker 1: little click, and then you have to kind of get
Speaker 1: out of your shell. So I was like, how can
Speaker 1: I create an experience where people feel naturally inclined to
Speaker 1: approach other people? Right? And I said, Oh, let's do this.
Speaker 1: Let's have a question of the night, something like who's
Speaker 1: your personal hero? Or where would you like to go
Speaker 1: on vacation next? Or what's a book that changed your life?
Speaker 1: And instead of writing their name down on a name tag,
Speaker 1: write the answer to the question of the night on
Speaker 1: your name tag and wear on you. And that way,
Speaker 1: when people come in and they write their answer, you're
Speaker 1: going around and you're seeing everybody's answer and it's a
Speaker 1: natural conversation starter. So we said we did that, and
Speaker 1: then I led a meditation because I thought, why not
Speaker 1: have meditation at a social event. And we had someone
Speaker 1: else come in and give like a quote's ted talk.
Speaker 1: So I would have like my SASA teacher come in
Speaker 1: and talk about like the principles of teaching SASA. And
Speaker 1: I had like someone else come in as a coach,
Speaker 1: a life coach come in and talk about that, and
Speaker 1: it was a really cool little experience. You know, we
Speaker 1: only got like twelve thirteen people coming out, and it
Speaker 1: was a free event for them. But it just it
Speaker 1: really lit me up inside. And I didn't know what
Speaker 1: was going to happen with it. I was just happy
Speaker 1: to have something to do every Wednesday. It was like
Speaker 1: a purpose driven thing for me. It wasn't even about
Speaker 1: making money. But then I had this volunteer and one
Speaker 1: day she said, as we were straightening up afterwards, she goes,
Speaker 1: why don't you start taking up a collection. Since you're
Speaker 1: paying for it out of pocket, just take up a
Speaker 1: collection and just you know, at least you can pay
Speaker 1: yourself back or use that to pay for the rent
Speaker 1: of the space. So the next event, we took up
Speaker 1: a collection and there were probably thirteen fourteen people there,
Speaker 1: and we collected fifty five dollars. So now I was
Speaker 1: a little disappointed, honestly, Eric, because I was thinking, Man,
Speaker 1: fifty five dollars, that's it. After all this work I'm
Speaker 1: putting into this. It's like I got to see how
Speaker 1: the market value this experience, and it wasn't as high
Speaker 1: as I was hoping. And so I got home that night,
Speaker 1: and I had my fifty five dollars in cash, and
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, you know, I could spend this
Speaker 1: fifty five bucks paying for the next rent, I said,
Speaker 1: Or I could give it to somebody at the next event,
Speaker 1: and I could task them with the mission of using
Speaker 1: it to help somebody in some positive way, and then
Speaker 1: have them come back and share what they did with
Speaker 1: the fifty five dollars. Obviously it's not enough money to
Speaker 1: make a huge difference in someone's life, but that's the point, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't need a lot of money to make a
Speaker 1: positive impact in the world. So let's see what someone
Speaker 1: creative can do with fifty five dollars. So we randomly
Speaker 1: awarded someone at the next event the fifty five dollars.
Speaker 1: They come back to the following event and they say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I put this kid through a summer art camp. I
Speaker 1: added fifty bucks of my own money, and this is
Speaker 1: the kid's name, and this is how the summer camp worked.
Speaker 1: And everybody was so inspired, and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this is the missing component of the event.
Speaker 1: And so that night, we probably still had fourteen people,
Speaker 1: but we collected like one hundred and twenty something dollars.
Speaker 1: So the donations went up, and that became a sort
Speaker 1: of pivotal moment where we saw hockey stick growth in
Speaker 1: the amount of people who were coming. Because when people
Speaker 1: would share the story of what they did with the money,
Speaker 1: everyone was inspired. And I would tell people, you don't
Speaker 1: have to win the money. You have fifty five bucks
Speaker 1: in your checking account. Probably pretend like you want it,
Speaker 1: and go and do something about it, and come back
Speaker 1: and tell us what you did, and we'll share the
Speaker 1: story together. And so it got to the point where
Speaker 1: we were getting hundreds of people. Man, we had events
Speaker 1: with like three hundred and four hundred people coming six
Speaker 1: months later, and we had to charge because we started
Speaker 1: serving food. It became this whole thing. We were doing
Speaker 1: them in New York, we were doing them in London,
Speaker 1: We're doing them in Germany. They were all over the world,
Speaker 1: and we started getting written up in the New York
Speaker 1: Times and NBC and all the different outlets. And I
Speaker 1: ended up getting a girlfriend from that experience, you know,
Speaker 1: because she was volunteering. So basically everything that I was
Speaker 1: lacking in my life came into my life as a
Speaker 1: result of that event. I got my first publishing deal
Speaker 1: which was like a six figure publishing deal, and even
Speaker 1: though I didn't make a dime on the event directly,
Speaker 1: But that's the message behind giving what you want to
Speaker 1: receive instead of sitting around thinking about how no one
Speaker 1: is doing what I think they should be doing, and
Speaker 1: you know, this world is screwed up. You give that,
Speaker 1: Give that to people in whatever small way you can,
Speaker 1: and if it's authentic and if it's an integrity with
Speaker 1: you know, whatever your heart is having you do, people
Speaker 1: will respond to it and they'll come to it. And
Speaker 1: so on my own podcast today, I just launched the
Speaker 1: episode of me with one of my childhood friends who's
Speaker 1: become the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and he has a wonderful story of being an outsider
Speaker 1: and you know how that all worked with him getting
Speaker 1: into politics. But I think that's another area that people
Speaker 1: complain about a lot and criticize a lot. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: these are just people just like you and me. So
Speaker 1: if you want to see something different, throw your hat
Speaker 1: in a ring and you know, give it a run
Speaker 1: and see if you can make a difference if you
Speaker 1: feel like no one else can.
Speaker 3: It's a great story on so many levels. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think the lesson I would take from that is
Speaker 3: I think sometimes we think if we do something, it
Speaker 3: has to turn into what that turned into for you,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't have to write. If what you want
Speaker 3: is a couple more friends, If you start hosting gatherings
Speaker 3: and you get a couple more friends, you've succeeded. It
Speaker 3: doesn't always have to turn grandiose to be valuable. And
Speaker 3: that's one of the things I see in a lot
Speaker 3: of people that I work with, is this idea that
Speaker 3: things have to be grandiose to be meaningful. And that's
Speaker 3: a trap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I tell people in the book, I say,
Speaker 1: you know, don't be distracted by all these things that happened.
Speaker 1: You know, even if you just cook the home cooked
Speaker 1: dinner for people everyone loves a hunk home cook dinner.
Speaker 1: Or if you want to walk and you want company,
Speaker 1: to start a walking group with your friends from church
Speaker 1: and it could be three or four of you, or
Speaker 1: movie night, or just keep it really small. I mean,
Speaker 1: you never know where it's going to go. But right, yeah,
Speaker 1: my intention wasn't like built this big event. My intention
Speaker 1: was just to create an experience that I actually wanted
Speaker 1: to have that I wanted to see and it grew
Speaker 1: from that and in the process, you know, it forced
Speaker 1: me to have to be a leader, because leading people
Speaker 1: who are getting paid is one thing. Leading a bunch
Speaker 1: of volunteers is a whole other skill set. And you
Speaker 1: have to keep a motivated and inspired all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, indeed, it is. Principal Number six is find comfort
Speaker 3: in discomfort. And I want to read something that I
Speaker 3: believe one of your teachers said to you, which is
Speaker 3: the most dangerous place you can be is in the
Speaker 3: ever repeating moment and the safest place is to be
Speaker 3: moving towards the unknown. So talk a little bit more
Speaker 3: about finding comfort and discomfort or that particular line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we have our comfort zone, which we all
Speaker 1: heard about, right, that's the zone where you kind of
Speaker 1: know how things are going to go. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of surprises, there's a lot more certainty, but yet
Speaker 1: you're not really stretching yourself, not really growing into your potential.
Speaker 1: And just to use an analogy that we're all familiar with,
Speaker 1: it's the gym, right. Imagine if you go to the gym.
Speaker 1: A lot of people do this. You go to the
Speaker 1: gym and you do the same exercises that you know
Speaker 1: you're good at. You stay away from the ones that
Speaker 1: you know you're you're weak in those areas. You know
Speaker 1: you're weak because you don't like feeling weak. Nobody likes
Speaker 1: feeling weak. Nobody likes feeling like they can't do something.
Speaker 1: So left up to our own devices, probably we're going
Speaker 1: to do more exercises that we feel stronger in skill.
Speaker 1: What happens when you hire a trainer. Yeah, when you
Speaker 1: hire a trainer, the reason you're hiring a trainer is
Speaker 1: to push you beyond whatever your comfort zone was, and
Speaker 1: so that trainer may immediately see, oh, you're weak in
Speaker 1: this area that area after doing their little diagnostic assessment
Speaker 1: with you. And yet they're listening to your goals. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to have a stronger back, I want to
Speaker 1: have a bigger butt, whatever the goal is, and trainer
Speaker 1: is like, Okay, well, this is what you have to
Speaker 1: do if you want to achieve those goals. And probably
Speaker 1: the reason you haven't achieved those goals is because you
Speaker 1: haven't been doing the kinds of exercises that you need
Speaker 1: to do in order to achieve those goals. And that's
Speaker 1: going to make you very uncomfortable. So the moment you
Speaker 1: start getting uncomfortable, now you're moving towards your growth zone.
Speaker 1: And the growth zone is almost always uncomfortable. So if
Speaker 1: we want to grow in whatever area of our life,
Speaker 1: then that means we have to start making friends with discomfort.
Speaker 1: And that's what finding comfort means in discomfort, is that
Speaker 1: is an essential part of the process of getting stronger,
Speaker 1: accessing more of our potential, becoming the person that we
Speaker 1: ultimately want to be, etc.
Speaker 3: Etc. It really is interesting. I think we hear that
Speaker 3: and we know that, you know, get outside of your
Speaker 3: comfort zone, and yet we very often don't. I know,
Speaker 3: is I've gotten older. I do think this is one
Speaker 3: of the things that happens as you age, if you're
Speaker 3: not careful, is that we begin to prioritize comfort more
Speaker 3: and more. And this goes back a little bit to
Speaker 3: this idea of choicelessness. Right, Like I'm a Zen student.
Speaker 3: It's very rigid, it's very formal, you know, like you
Speaker 3: do these exact things a certain way, which is against
Speaker 3: my very nature. But the fact that I just give
Speaker 3: myself to the form I just here it is stop
Speaker 3: your endless debate about how you want things to be
Speaker 3: this is how you're going to do them for this
Speaker 3: period of time. I find that helpful. But this idea
Speaker 3: of discomfort is it's hard to keep pushing yourself outside
Speaker 3: your comfort zone. And like we've talked a bit about
Speaker 3: in this conversation, right, there's an art to finding like
Speaker 3: how far outside your comfort zone you can go and
Speaker 3: still maintain it and continue to do it. You go
Speaker 3: too far and you're like huh huh, huh uh, you
Speaker 3: run back in. So but no, you don't go far enough.
Speaker 3: You don't grow. And that's what a good trainer does, right,
Speaker 3: a trainer, a good one knows I can push him
Speaker 3: to hear anymore than that and he's going to you know,
Speaker 3: he's not going to come back right and push him
Speaker 3: to hear. And so I think that's the other piece
Speaker 3: of this is finding like what way outside of our
Speaker 3: comfort zone and how do we maintain being there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that that is associated with spiritual maturity. Right.
Speaker 1: So when you're young and you want to change, you
Speaker 1: tend to go a little too far, too fast, and
Speaker 1: you end up getting the pendulum effect. But as you
Speaker 1: become more spiritually mature, you understand the value of discomfort,
Speaker 1: but you also understand the value of taking the tortoise
Speaker 1: approach as opposed to the hair approach, and so that
Speaker 1: becomes the new gauge through which you approach change because
Speaker 1: you realize that everything is just different forms of change.
Speaker 1: You're changing, they're changing, circumstances are always changing, and there's
Speaker 1: less of the whole binary this is good, this is bad.
Speaker 1: There's a good and everything, and there's you know, negative
Speaker 1: aspects to everything depending on what perspective we're looking at
Speaker 1: it from. And so if we can kind of condition
Speaker 1: ourselves to stay engaged in the process, and that's where
Speaker 1: the discomfort really is. I think the greatest is being
Speaker 1: just in the process and maybe not understanding how it's
Speaker 1: all going to turn out, but just knowing that being
Speaker 1: in the process is the goal. It's not about reaching
Speaker 1: the outcome, it's not about the destination. The destination will
Speaker 1: be whatever it is. But again, the more process oriented
Speaker 1: we were, the more we will extract the value from
Speaker 1: the experience. And I have this thing that I've written
Speaker 1: as well, which says, you know, when you're seeking advice,
Speaker 1: should you seek advice from people who've done what you
Speaker 1: want to do, or should you seek advice from people
Speaker 1: who haven't done and they've lived with the with the regret,
Speaker 1: with the pain of regret from not having done it.
Speaker 1: Who should you seek advice from? And I say, seek
Speaker 1: advice from the person who has been the most consistent.
Speaker 1: They've consistently put themselves out there with whatever they were
Speaker 1: trying to do, and sometimes they've succeeded, and sometimes they haven't,
Speaker 1: but they keep going back again and again and again.
Speaker 1: And if we can just adopt that approach of being consistent,
Speaker 1: even if it looks like it's not going to happen,
Speaker 1: or if it looks like it's a sure thing, we're
Speaker 1: still showing up as if it's not going to happen. Right,
Speaker 1: That's the ultimate habit that we're cultivating is consistency, which
Speaker 1: means I'm not attached. I'm not rigidly attached to the outcome.
Speaker 1: Sure I have preferences, Sure I would like for it
Speaker 1: to go in this direction or that direction, but I
Speaker 1: understand that the real value is just me showing up
Speaker 1: every day and I'm giving my best and I'm letting
Speaker 1: the chips fall where they may, right, so the outcome
Speaker 1: will be whatever it is. But if we have the
Speaker 1: consistent ability to show up. Then we can apply that
Speaker 1: to anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean my spiritual Habits program is based on
Speaker 3: one key idea, and that is little by little, a
Speaker 3: little becomes a lot, Right that That's how real change
Speaker 3: tends to happen and stick. Is it's just a little
Speaker 3: by little, you know, a little becomes a lot, and
Speaker 3: it's that consistency and that really does add up and
Speaker 3: that does really lead to change. It's just not as
Speaker 3: fast as what we might wish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another spiritual guru, I can't remember what it is.
Speaker 1: He says, what are you rushing towards death? Like, what's
Speaker 1: the big hurry? If you keep extrapolating it, what's the hurry? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ultimately you're going to die, So you know, there's no
Speaker 1: real point to all the rushing around if that moment
Speaker 1: is going to be fleeting anyway, I think the better
Speaker 1: approach is to just enjoy whatever little moments you have
Speaker 1: right now and extract whatever presence you can right now
Speaker 1: from those moments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we are at the end of our time.
Speaker 3: You and I are going to in the post show
Speaker 3: conversation talk about meditation. You've got a way of meditating
Speaker 3: that you believe leads to making it the most enjoyable
Speaker 3: and sustainable. So we'll talk about that. Have you lead
Speaker 3: us in a guided meditation listeners if you'd like access
Speaker 3: to that other post show conversations AD free episodes. Episode
Speaker 3: I do called teaching Song and a poem and the
Speaker 3: deep internal satisfaction of supporting something that you love. You
Speaker 3: can go to one you feed dot net slash join
Speaker 3: and become a member of our community. Light Thank you
Speaker 3: so much, such a pleasure to have you on and
Speaker 3: I've really enjoyed our conversation absolutely.
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