Speaker 1: Many times in the past, I've decided, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go on a juice clan for twenty days
Speaker 1: and have nothing but juice. And you know, by day one,
Speaker 1: dinner time, I'm having a pizza. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Our guest today is Randy Scott Hyde. He's
Speaker 1: a writer who grew up in a small refinery town
Speaker 1: in southeast Texas. He got the hell out of there
Speaker 1: and went on to earn his m f a and
Speaker 1: Creative writing from Antioch University and a bachelor's of Music
Speaker 1: from the University of Texas. He's also a professional fundraiser
Speaker 1: for San Francisco nonprofits. But we first discovered Randy when
Speaker 1: reading his amazing blog filling My Soul Hole the ongoing
Speaker 1: battle to stick it to Depression. We had a great
Speaker 1: time talking to Randy in spite of the fact that
Speaker 1: he describes himself as a miserable fuck. Welcome to the show, Randy.
Speaker 1: We are glad to have you, Thank you glad to
Speaker 1: be here. So our podcast is based on the old
Speaker 1: parable where there's a grandfather who's talking to his grandson
Speaker 1: and he says, in life, there are two wolves who
Speaker 1: are constantly at battle inside of us. One is a
Speaker 1: good wolf and he represents kindness and love and peace,
Speaker 1: and the other is a bad wolf who represents greed
Speaker 1: and hate and fear. And the grandson stops and looks
Speaker 1: at his grandfather and he says, well, which one wins,
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So this
Speaker 1: podcast is really about how people feed that good wolf
Speaker 1: in their life. So I'd like to start off by
Speaker 1: just asking you what that parable means to you and
Speaker 1: how it sort of applies to you in your life.
Speaker 1: And in your writing. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I
Speaker 1: think before this blog project, had you asked me that question,
Speaker 1: I'd probably say, um, it means that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of self entitled people who have too much time on
Speaker 1: their hands. But after this blog process, I put into
Speaker 1: that very differently. Um, it's I think it's truly speaking
Speaker 1: to that you have a choice, you know. I think
Speaker 1: you know, I've dealt with depression for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I always thought, you know, this is just who
Speaker 1: I am. Sometimes on the son of a bitch, and
Speaker 1: sometimes that just happens. But through this work, like, I've
Speaker 1: learned that that's not so. Like you have choice in
Speaker 1: the matter. So you know, the idea of you know,
Speaker 1: the one you feed is the one that wins, I
Speaker 1: think is pretty spot on. Um. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of how I'm moving forward now,
Speaker 1: is just remembering that in any given situation, like I
Speaker 1: have a choice in my response, have a choice in
Speaker 1: how I see the world. Um, And that that wasn't
Speaker 1: there before. Excellent. And so maybe for our listeners you
Speaker 1: could describe a little bit about, um, the experiment that
Speaker 1: you did. Um, you know, maybe a short short description
Speaker 1: of kind of what it was, and and then we
Speaker 1: can sort of jump into some specifics about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you bet. Um. It started, Um my grandmother passed away,
Speaker 1: UM about a year and a half two years ago,
Speaker 1: and she raised me and she was really my my
Speaker 1: only family. UM. So the passing of her hit hit
Speaker 1: me pretty hard. And I'm someone who already kind of
Speaker 1: deals with depression, so I'd hit doubly hard. And you know,
Speaker 1: at the same time, I was developing a drinking problem,
Speaker 1: having a bottle the two bottles of wine every day
Speaker 1: and just getting on a rut. So um, I a
Speaker 1: friend of mine actually asked me, like, you know, what
Speaker 1: are you going to do to take care of yourself?
Speaker 1: And of course that never occurred to me, to take
Speaker 1: care of myself. UM. So I started thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: what's something kind that I could do for my grandmother?
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, I could take care of myself.
Speaker 1: So it only kind of supported what her advice was.
Speaker 1: And then I saw that Ted talk by um Sean
Speaker 1: Acre and um who really kind of condensed the search
Speaker 1: for happiness down and they really kind of a sick tasks. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm someone who needs kind of clear directions
Speaker 1: like that Uh, you know, I've been going to therapy
Speaker 1: for a long time and just kind of talking things out.
Speaker 1: This wasn't really doing it because I didn't feel like
Speaker 1: I had something solid to kind of really do every day.
Speaker 1: And so his suggestion really resonated with me. UM. But
Speaker 1: you know, I know myself pretty well and I'm probably
Speaker 1: not going to do it every day unless I've got
Speaker 1: someone watching me. UM. So I came up with the
Speaker 1: idea of doing a blog just kind of documenting all
Speaker 1: five of those tasks every single day, UM and doing
Speaker 1: it for thirty days and it, uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: sent it out to just friends and acquaintances and it
Speaker 1: ended up kind of taking a life of its own,
Speaker 1: and UM went somewhat viral and uh I was getting
Speaker 1: probably about five six thousand hits a day kind of
Speaker 1: towards the end. So it was a big deal and
Speaker 1: it was really it was a big deal for me, UM.
Speaker 1: And it was really helpful, you know, have comments and
Speaker 1: encouragement from people and knowing that people were waiting to
Speaker 1: see what I had done that day and if I
Speaker 1: had done it, and uh, it worked, which was the
Speaker 1: crazy thing that I didn't quite expect. But UM, it
Speaker 1: was great. So you spent thirty days then doing each
Speaker 1: of these five tasks, um, which later on in one
Speaker 1: of your you know, in your writings, you started to
Speaker 1: refer to you know, you weren't going to talk about
Speaker 1: them as tasks any longer, but as tools, which I
Speaker 1: thought was sort of an interesting transformation from hey, these
Speaker 1: are things that I kind of have to do a
Speaker 1: task too, these are things that that enable me to
Speaker 1: be to be happy. So did you find it by
Speaker 1: doing those things that you were able to increase your happiness? Oh? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: um enormously. But you know, in very subtle ways. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not like you just wake up one day laughing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's ferent you like, my perspective
Speaker 1: of the world change, my perspective of my brain change. Um,
Speaker 1: you just see things differently. So it's not any kind
Speaker 1: of I don't know, it's it's hard to explain. It's
Speaker 1: just you know, back to that parable like just knowing
Speaker 1: that I had a choice and and how I see things,
Speaker 1: and and could you describe what the five tasks were?
Speaker 1: I think they're their tasks that that that Sean described
Speaker 1: pretty specifically. Can you can you just say what those
Speaker 1: five were that you were doing. Yeah, it's a exercise,
Speaker 1: three new things every day that you're grateful for, journal
Speaker 1: about something good that happened that day, meditate, and a
Speaker 1: random act of kindness. And they all ended up doing
Speaker 1: their own specific thing. You know, there were some people
Speaker 1: who uh kind of joined this this journey part of
Speaker 1: the way through, and you know, some of them are saying, well,
Speaker 1: I'm only doing too or you know, this one's too hard,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to think about that one too much.
Speaker 1: But I think all five of them are important. Those
Speaker 1: seem to be themes. Those those five things, in one
Speaker 1: form or the other, seem to be pretty commonplace activities
Speaker 1: that that you know are are chosen, you know, to
Speaker 1: to increase happiness. So talk a little bit about um,
Speaker 1: you know, you you reference sort of throughout your your
Speaker 1: writing and at the end of different things about how
Speaker 1: much work it is. Actually think you have a quote
Speaker 1: at one point where you said, getting happy is a
Speaker 1: lot of work, which is probably why most people are unhappy.
Speaker 1: It's far easier. Can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, especially when you're depressed, the depression
Speaker 1: kind of has its own its own body state to it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's heavy, it's tired. Uh doesn't want to
Speaker 1: do things. I don't want to participate, so especially I
Speaker 1: think if you're coming from that date, you know, this
Speaker 1: stuff takes efforts. You know. It was surprising to me
Speaker 1: that something as simple as seemingly simple I should say
Speaker 1: is meditation, like just sitting there, ended up being one
Speaker 1: of the hardest things, especially in the first two weeks.
Speaker 1: And you know, like the random act of kindness. I
Speaker 1: think in one blog entry I talked about like how
Speaker 1: that takes a lot of courage, you know, because you
Speaker 1: have to interact with people, you know, and as someone
Speaker 1: who is depressed and introverted, you know, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to reach out to people in that way. Um, But
Speaker 1: the more you do it, it kind of it builds
Speaker 1: on itself. I think it's easier to do. You get
Speaker 1: a little more confident in the action. Um, but you
Speaker 1: miss a day and it's harder the next day, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's just like exercising, you know, if you
Speaker 1: skip a couple of runs around the park, when you
Speaker 1: come back to it, it's a lot harder. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: talked about momentum here. A fair amount which is, you know,
Speaker 1: really that it is very hard to get started, but
Speaker 1: once you can get moving with things, um, it becomes
Speaker 1: it becomes easier. And another phrase we've used a couple
Speaker 1: of times that that I had heard in the past
Speaker 1: was that, um, depression hates a moving target, UM, which
Speaker 1: which sort of is in a line, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of with with everything you said. And I think the
Speaker 1: other thing, you know, in addition to these tasks being
Speaker 1: sort of perhaps hard in themselves, is simply fit in
Speaker 1: that that much stuff in. And you talked about, um,
Speaker 1: that that rigidity could be the the end of you,
Speaker 1: and that you had to you had to learn to
Speaker 1: be flexible and creative, and how you got those five
Speaker 1: things done every day that if you sort of stuck
Speaker 1: to it has to be this way or that way,
Speaker 1: you would never work them in. Um. Can you give
Speaker 1: a couple of examples of of ways in which you
Speaker 1: sort of those tasks were done differently throughout the period
Speaker 1: so people can get some idea of some of the
Speaker 1: flexibility involved. Yeah. Well, um, you know, when I went in,
Speaker 1: I thought about all five tasks very separately, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and in my head, I'm like, I'm taking through these
Speaker 1: chores I gotta get done every day. Um, but because
Speaker 1: sometimes you just don't have time to really kind of
Speaker 1: consider each one separately. You know, it occurred to me
Speaker 1: that I could collapse something, you know, like, um, I
Speaker 1: could do fifteen minutes of yoga, which has a natural
Speaker 1: lead into meditation. So that was like a twenty minute
Speaker 1: grouping if I built in five minutes for meditation at
Speaker 1: the end. Um walking home from work, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: I have to get home anyway, and sometimes the train
Speaker 1: takes longer than actually walking it, so I can get
Speaker 1: an exercise that way. The random act of kindness. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes uh, coworker would have a hard time and I
Speaker 1: would just do something nice to kind of brighten their day.
Speaker 1: So not having to really go out and look for it,
Speaker 1: it's been the energy looking for something specific to do,
Speaker 1: just kind of staying flexible, let it come to you,
Speaker 1: you know. And the interesting thing is that it came
Speaker 1: up all the time. There were always kind of naturally
Speaker 1: easy ways to fit them into the day. Some of
Speaker 1: them are a little harder, like exercise, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. If you don't live close enough to walk
Speaker 1: to works, and that's not an option. But you know,
Speaker 1: walking around a launch or something like that. So, you know,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. I didn't go into it that way.
Speaker 1: You know. I went into it with a very specific
Speaker 1: schedule awake. You know, I was gonna do yoga thirty
Speaker 1: minutes a day, four days a week, and that was
Speaker 1: going to be it. But that's not always possible, and
Speaker 1: I think it sets you up for failure. So I
Speaker 1: think that flexibility compelling is really important. You share. UM,
Speaker 1: there's a there's there's a lot of really funny and
Speaker 1: touching moments and and poignant moments in in your in
Speaker 1: your blog. One that I'd like to spend a minute
Speaker 1: and talk about is it was during one of your
Speaker 1: Raindom acts of kindness where you, um, you went to
Speaker 1: give food to a homeless man, and uh, it sort
Speaker 1: of went a little bit beyond that. Can you I
Speaker 1: think you probably know the one I'm talking about. Can
Speaker 1: you sort of pick up the story from there? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Where I work, there's a there's quite of the homes.
Speaker 1: Population is pretty large outside UM and I've been working
Speaker 1: here for a while, so I get kind of I
Speaker 1: think anyone who works in that kind of environment gets
Speaker 1: really kind of you know, you put the blinders on.
Speaker 1: You don't really look at them because they're going to
Speaker 1: ask you for money, it's going to be awkward, someone
Speaker 1: might hassle you, so you know, you really kind of
Speaker 1: look straight ahead all the time. But with this random
Speaker 1: act of kindness, you know, I mean, the most obvious
Speaker 1: one I could do is just right out. So you know,
Speaker 1: the homeless population being so large, um, just right at
Speaker 1: my doorstep. Um. But this was the first time that
Speaker 1: I really kind of connected with someone. Before. You know,
Speaker 1: there had been other other homeless people I had given
Speaker 1: food too, and it made me a little bolder, Like
Speaker 1: I started seeing these people as people, not as you know,
Speaker 1: homeless people that I need to be afraid of. Um,
Speaker 1: but it really hit home. Um this one time where
Speaker 1: I had picked up a sandwich where I was getting
Speaker 1: lunch for this guy that I had seen on my
Speaker 1: way there. And as I walked back, he was sitting
Speaker 1: in his wheelchair and I gave him the sandwich and
Speaker 1: he started crying, sobbing instantly, and so I touched his
Speaker 1: arm and I said, what's wrong? Are you okay? And
Speaker 1: he said, um, he said yeah, I just didn't think
Speaker 1: anyone saw me today. And even I still get kind
Speaker 1: of weepy thinking about it. But um, it was it
Speaker 1: was so profound. Um Like I knew that man in
Speaker 1: that moment, like I knew him like I knew myself,
Speaker 1: you know, I struggle with the same thing, like I
Speaker 1: want to be seen. Um. And it was just it
Speaker 1: was so human and it was so I don't know,
Speaker 1: above the sandwich, Like the sandwich was meaningless at that point.
Speaker 1: What he needed at that moment was just to feel
Speaker 1: like he was part of humanity. And I need that
Speaker 1: every day too. So it was some greater understanding than
Speaker 1: I think I probably ever had of someone I don't know. Um.
Speaker 1: And it still touches me. Yeah. You sort of talk
Speaker 1: about how there's this reading and talk and sort of
Speaker 1: this you know, we're all connected or we're all one,
Speaker 1: but that you actually had an experience of it in
Speaker 1: that moment. Yeah, and it's you know, I just I
Speaker 1: still feel like I don't do it justice when I
Speaker 1: talk about the experience because there there aren't really any
Speaker 1: words for the profundity of the experience. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was it was kind of beyond language. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: people describe, you know, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: spiritual experiences that way. That it's very difficult to uh,
Speaker 1: to talk about and I I'm reminded of I don't
Speaker 1: remember what I was listening to it where I saw
Speaker 1: it recently, But a guy decided one day that he
Speaker 1: was going to go out and live the day, you know,
Speaker 1: live a day as a homeless person. You know, he
Speaker 1: was going to put on the clothes, and you know,
Speaker 1: his experience was exactly the same. He said that just
Speaker 1: the overwhelming awfulness of it was that you basically did
Speaker 1: not exist. You know, nobody saw you, Everybody ignored you,
Speaker 1: tried to look away. You. Just the complete reduction of
Speaker 1: of you as a human was was far worse than
Speaker 1: any of the physical uh sort of being hungry or
Speaker 1: being cold or any of those things. So I think
Speaker 1: that's that's a you've kind of touched upon something that
Speaker 1: does seem to be common for for that that sort
Speaker 1: of situation. Yeah, and before that, you know, I just
Speaker 1: felt a little guilty about giving homeless people food, you know,
Speaker 1: like it just seems like, you know, I'm the white
Speaker 1: guy with a good job who's doing something nice for
Speaker 1: the poor folk, you know, like and it just didn't
Speaker 1: feel right. But like in that moment, it changed, like
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't the white guy with a good
Speaker 1: job helping the poor folk. Like I was another human
Speaker 1: helping another human who needed it. And by that same token,
Speaker 1: like he was helping me, Like he gave me insight
Speaker 1: to something that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have it, I don't. We live in Columbus, Ohio, so
Speaker 1: we don't have quite the same homeless population that you
Speaker 1: do in San Francisco, and you know, I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit further out in downtown, but I frequently give money
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, homeless people. I'm out there and
Speaker 1: people are always like, you know, that's not doing any good.
Speaker 1: And that's and and my point is always it's really
Speaker 1: you know, send myselfishly it. By giving I sort of
Speaker 1: remember how fortunate I am. It helps me to recognize
Speaker 1: in that moment, like I have the capacity to do that,
Speaker 1: and I'm lucky enough to do that. And and it
Speaker 1: is sort of that that connection to another person for
Speaker 1: a minute. Right. One of the things that I think
Speaker 1: is really interesting about your story is, um, you did
Speaker 1: this thirty day. You did this for thirty days. You
Speaker 1: you wrote, you know, you wrote about it every day.
Speaker 1: Your life definitely got a lot better. Um, let's talk
Speaker 1: about what happened after those thirty days, because I think
Speaker 1: that's equally profound. Yeah, after the thirty days, UM, I
Speaker 1: like I collapsed internally collapsed. UM. I didn't realize how
Speaker 1: much I needed that accountability and how much I needed
Speaker 1: people involved in it with me. UM. And it was hard,
Speaker 1: and I floundered for a good days. I mean there
Speaker 1: was you know, there was a random act of kindness
Speaker 1: here and there, and sometimes I'd get to the gratitudes,
Speaker 1: but I didn't do them consistently, for for for every day. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's so interesting how quickly it can all go away.
Speaker 1: You know, I noticed in two weeks of not doing
Speaker 1: them consistently, like I was quickly heading back to old patterns,
Speaker 1: you know, got off work, picked up a bottle of wine. Um,
Speaker 1: and it just you know, I mean, your your demons
Speaker 1: hold fast for a long time, and anything in an
Speaker 1: opportunity to get back in, they'll take it. UM. So
Speaker 1: I had I had to get back on the blog.
Speaker 1: I mean, the writing itself, I think was the thing
Speaker 1: that was the most exhausting. Doing it every day. You know,
Speaker 1: it takes about an hour and a half to two
Speaker 1: hours out of every day to put those together. Um,
Speaker 1: So I didn't realize like how much that was adding
Speaker 1: to the work. So, you know, having an excuse to
Speaker 1: not do that particular one, I think and correctly gave
Speaker 1: me the excuse not to do any of them. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think it just kind of further
Speaker 1: shows how well that stuff works and how much they
Speaker 1: are tools. You know. Um, I've been back on it
Speaker 1: for probably about a week and a half now, and
Speaker 1: it's the difference is instantaneous. Yeah, It's always amazing to me.
Speaker 1: How you know, we all know on some level that
Speaker 1: doing things like that right or some some measure of
Speaker 1: those things makes us feel better. But yet how astonishingly
Speaker 1: hard it remains to do those things and how and
Speaker 1: it just it it baffles me. Um, And I think
Speaker 1: it is just it's it's this idea I think we have.
Speaker 1: I've been really thinking a lot about the idea of
Speaker 1: comfort versus happiness, and that comfort seems to be the default.
Speaker 1: Like I just I kind of be comfortable. I want
Speaker 1: to be comfortable and as long as we really, at
Speaker 1: least for me, as long as I remain in that
Speaker 1: comfortable place. And I'm not pushing beyond that, I am
Speaker 1: not happy. I am I become listless, and it is
Speaker 1: pushing beyond that, you know, doing the things that you're
Speaker 1: talking about. You know, exercising every day is not comfortable,
Speaker 1: meditation is decidedly not comfortable. And you know, at least
Speaker 1: for me, in a variety of different ways. And uh so,
Speaker 1: I but I always am amazed by how hard that
Speaker 1: stuff is when even you know, with as much experience
Speaker 1: as I have, knowing that those things are are positive.
Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting that you sort of hit
Speaker 1: on for you, you you know, two sort of things. One
Speaker 1: is like a defined plan or a goal, and be
Speaker 1: is that sort of external accountability. And and I think
Speaker 1: I think I'm similar. You know, we've me and some
Speaker 1: friends have done this thing where we have sort of
Speaker 1: like an exercise competition, you know, at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the new year, and it's like sort of a you know,
Speaker 1: who can lose the most percent of body fat. But
Speaker 1: it's remarkable how well everybody does during that stretch because
Speaker 1: there's a clear goal, there's a clear focus. You know,
Speaker 1: we can taunt each other and you know, I mean
Speaker 1: there's a there's a focus in an account an accountability
Speaker 1: to it as my my my co host here shows
Speaker 1: me his rapidly expanding midsection, UM to reiterate how much
Speaker 1: better it is when we're actually on that plane. But
Speaker 1: I'm just astounded by how those two things, an actual
Speaker 1: plan and um, accountability for you know, at least for
Speaker 1: some of us who struggle with that stuff is so important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's remarkable, And you know, I'm not sure where it
Speaker 1: comes from. You know, I don't know if it's some
Speaker 1: kind of you know, focus that you learn early on
Speaker 1: in childhood where you know, retirement and not working or
Speaker 1: something like that, you know, not having to have a
Speaker 1: job as the goal and um, but it's it's just
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. I think work is the key. I agree,
Speaker 1: I have more And I was just I was just
Speaker 1: writing something to somebody recently talking about that, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know where I got the idea that what I want,
Speaker 1: you know, that the best thing is to have nothing
Speaker 1: to do and to just be able to do whatever
Speaker 1: I want, Because that is decidedly not the best thing
Speaker 1: for me. God, it's the enemy. Yeah, there's a line
Speaker 1: that you that you start off very early on, and
Speaker 1: I think it speaks a little bit to this sort
Speaker 1: of having a plan and accountability and a personality type.
Speaker 1: And I'd like to read it because I just enjoy
Speaker 1: it and I think it's good. You say, Moderation and
Speaker 1: I have never really been close. He knocks on the
Speaker 1: door a lot, but I'm typically too buried under access
Speaker 1: to answer, which usually means any new thing I take on,
Speaker 1: I take on hard and then burn out. Today I
Speaker 1: invited moderation in for morning coffee and we had a
Speaker 1: nice chat. So can you talk about the role of
Speaker 1: moderation in in your in happiness for you? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I I went into this, UM, knowing that I have
Speaker 1: that and my personality. UM. And you know many times
Speaker 1: in the past I've decided, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go on a juice clan for twenty days and have
Speaker 1: nothing but juice. And you know, by day one, dinner time,
Speaker 1: I'm having a pizza. So it never it never works.
Speaker 1: Pizza is kind of a juice in some as you
Speaker 1: run the pizza through your juicer. That's a great idea.
Speaker 1: And next time I'm going to try that. UM. So
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't want to fail at this because
Speaker 1: I knew how much I needed it. UM. Sorry, isn't
Speaker 1: going to do it that way. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: back to the rigidity thing too. You know, I'd make
Speaker 1: a plan and if that plan doesn't work, then it's
Speaker 1: an utter failure and I drop it. So my two
Speaker 1: roles going in where be flexible and be moderate. So
Speaker 1: you know, instead of going out trying to run two
Speaker 1: miles my first day of the you know, the exercise work, um,
Speaker 1: instead I started slowly, UM the meditation. You know, normally
Speaker 1: it would have gone in trying for an hour, but
Speaker 1: I went with ten minutes, worked my way up to fifteen. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have been successful had I
Speaker 1: not made sure that moderation was part of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's critical. We had a guest on recently,
Speaker 1: Dan Dan Millman, who's an author of a couple of things.
Speaker 1: But he talks about, you know, just start really small
Speaker 1: with something. I mean he he almost he's exaggerates, like
Speaker 1: just do one jumping jack a day for thirty days
Speaker 1: and then you'll have an exercise routine and you know
Speaker 1: you double it by doing too, which is obviously taking
Speaker 1: it a little bit extreme, but it's the idea of
Speaker 1: start really small and then connect the dots and there's
Speaker 1: that that theme seems to come up an awful lot
Speaker 1: in things, which is, you know, a little bit of
Speaker 1: something is better than a lot of nothing, um, which
Speaker 1: is and it build over time. You know you're you're
Speaker 1: able to do more, you want to do more, um.
Speaker 1: But if you start too big, you want to do less,
Speaker 1: and then it's not at all. Yep. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that you know, I think is, you know,
Speaker 1: is you know, as we talk about sort of feeding
Speaker 1: the good wolf, is sort of how to sort of
Speaker 1: stay consistent with doing that. And I'd like to read
Speaker 1: another thing that you wrote that I thought was really
Speaker 1: interesting and sort of ties a lot of what we've
Speaker 1: been talking about together here. And you were sitting down
Speaker 1: with a friend and you were saying, Hey, a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, as I started to do this,
Speaker 1: I got I heard from a lot of other people
Speaker 1: who said, hey, I'm going to do the same thing.
Speaker 1: And over time it seemed like a lot of those
Speaker 1: oaks sort of dropped off, and you kept going and
Speaker 1: and so I'm gonna I'm gonna pick up from there.
Speaker 1: It says, I don't know why they dropped off. For
Speaker 1: all I know they haven't, but I know why I'm
Speaker 1: still going. I know why I'm still at this almost
Speaker 1: two weeks later, despite all the time it takes, despite
Speaker 1: the frustrations, and especially despite all my failed attempts to
Speaker 1: help myself in the past. It's because finally wanting something
Speaker 1: different is now stronger than my fear of the work
Speaker 1: it takes to get it. Said another way, my focus
Speaker 1: has changed from daily irritations and hardships to the desire
Speaker 1: for something better. In the long run, hope has the
Speaker 1: upper hand and this struggle for Randy's soul, and it's
Speaker 1: riding the train of tenacity and community to get me there,
Speaker 1: which I think is a very eloquently written sort of
Speaker 1: way of summarizing a lot of what we just talked about. Um, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I'm good. You you you are going, You're You're it's
Speaker 1: it's it's true. It's very for you know, all our
Speaker 1: listeners will have links on the page. It is. It
Speaker 1: is a tremendously entertaining and enjoyable read as well as
Speaker 1: you know, at least for me and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people. That's why you've got so many people
Speaker 1: reading it and responding, because it does it's very it's
Speaker 1: you know, we all wrestle with this stuff. We all
Speaker 1: wrestle with how do we make better choices in life?
Speaker 1: How do we do the things that we know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know are good for us versus you know, making
Speaker 1: a ton of choices that feel good right this second,
Speaker 1: but but don't service in the long run. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: it's hard work, you know. And it's it's interesting too
Speaker 1: that the writing component, um, I think for me became
Speaker 1: kind of a sixth task spending time on the thing
Speaker 1: that I love to do. And it's interesting that I
Speaker 1: had spent so much time before working on fiction. Um.
Speaker 1: And then my fiction writing was always a struggle. It
Speaker 1: was always hard to get to the page. I couldn't
Speaker 1: find readers for it. I can getting can publish. Um.
Speaker 1: But somehow, like through this project, have learned that personal
Speaker 1: narrative writing is much easier for me. So that's more comfortable. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was another thing that this project led me
Speaker 1: to that I wouldn't have known before. UM. So I
Speaker 1: would you know, I think i'd say my conclusion that
Speaker 1: I would have a six past all of that, and
Speaker 1: it's do the thing you'll have every day. Yeah that
Speaker 1: I noticed that when you said that in our you know,
Speaker 1: the very first interview he did for the podcast, we
Speaker 1: we brought a guy on he's a musician and an author,
Speaker 1: and we said, what what does feeding the good Wolf
Speaker 1: mean to you? And his answer for it was feeding
Speaker 1: the good wolf for him was making the time to
Speaker 1: do his art. You know, it was that was that
Speaker 1: was how he fed, you know, that was how he
Speaker 1: fed his good wolf. And we talked about the challenges
Speaker 1: of um, of carving out time to do that because
Speaker 1: it is usually one of the first things to go
Speaker 1: in the busy schedule in a crowded life. Yeah, right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: in addition to a good right or you are a
Speaker 1: tremendous artist. The these stick figures, all right, it might
Speaker 1: be I think what they are they are, um, well
Speaker 1: they you know, if art is the you know, conveying
Speaker 1: of emotion, I think they do fairly well. But to
Speaker 1: call them, to call you a tremendous artist, you right,
Speaker 1: might be a stretch. But the stick figures definitely add
Speaker 1: to the to the experience. And hopefully as you do
Speaker 1: your weekly updates, um, you'll you'll keep at them. So
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what things look like
Speaker 1: for the blog and for you moving forward. I know,
Speaker 1: you've got some plans for some upcoming events. Um. You
Speaker 1: know the bike ride. Let's talk a little bit about that. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I was looking for a new a new
Speaker 1: goal that had a specific deadline to it. And UM,
Speaker 1: I work for the h Foundation and it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of assumed that you help out on this ride UM
Speaker 1: in some way. So I could either choose to be
Speaker 1: a writer or a roadie who does all the logistics.
Speaker 1: And you know, it cheers everybody on UM. And it's
Speaker 1: a pretty significant bike race. Um. It's miles from San
Speaker 1: Francisco to l A and you're riding probably about a
Speaker 1: hundred miles a day. You know. The hard part for
Speaker 1: me is just making sure that I'm not solely focused
Speaker 1: on the exercise portion of of these five tools, but
Speaker 1: really doing them all. UM. So whereas I'm the goal
Speaker 1: is focused on on exercise specifically, UM, it's really just
Speaker 1: kind of another I don't know, gold date for me
Speaker 1: to do all of these every day again. UM. And
Speaker 1: my my hope is that this it becomes less like
Speaker 1: work and more like habit um. And and that's and
Speaker 1: the hardest part for me, you know, the thirty days,
Speaker 1: it it did get easier after day, but it was
Speaker 1: still an effort um. And I think, you know, that's
Speaker 1: kind of what I got focused on after the thirty days,
Speaker 1: is doing this effort again all the time um and
Speaker 1: starting back up on it again. It's still an effort
Speaker 1: mode um and probably will be for for some time.
Speaker 1: But fingers crossed that seven months will finally get this
Speaker 1: under my Yeah. I think, you know, maybe you know,
Speaker 1: maybe to some degree, I think though, that we have
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, at some point these things
Speaker 1: will become habit and once it's habit there there won't
Speaker 1: be effort, and I just don't, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I I sort of have started to kind of give
Speaker 1: up on that idea that it will ever be totally easy.
Speaker 1: I agree it's certainly easier at some points in others,
Speaker 1: but but I think, you know, a life worth living
Speaker 1: is is kind of always going to take some degree
Speaker 1: of of effort, and I think I agree with that,
Speaker 1: and I am totally open to the possibility that it
Speaker 1: never becomes habit um. But you know, seven months over
Speaker 1: one month, I've got to hope that least getting down
Speaker 1: some you know, somehow exactly exactly, and it's um, you
Speaker 1: know my challenges and I and I try, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been trying to do some variation of of these
Speaker 1: sort of things for for a long time, and uh
Speaker 1: is is simply you know, it's it's a consistency and
Speaker 1: it's just a time. It just find myself. Exercises the
Speaker 1: one for me that is becomes the biggest challenge. You know.
Speaker 1: The other ones I can kind of fit in, but
Speaker 1: exercise always seems to be the one that that I
Speaker 1: wrestle with. Um and I think, you know you're you
Speaker 1: did you know, I think one of the things you
Speaker 1: did in years which was really good and I should
Speaker 1: probably just adopt. Although I don't live close enough to
Speaker 1: walk to work, which is like, but just go outside,
Speaker 1: just out and go thirty minutes, you know. Actually Chris
Speaker 1: as that a lot. He tends to just put on
Speaker 1: his headphones and and head out for an hour of walking,
Speaker 1: which is which is definitely falls into the exercise category.
Speaker 1: Yeah that for some reason, the meditation one is the
Speaker 1: hardest for me. And I'm not someone I would describe as,
Speaker 1: you know, someone who's scared to be alone with themselves,
Speaker 1: but I don't know for some reason now and just
Speaker 1: always constumps me. I've always struggled with meditation a lot
Speaker 1: until well, and you know, there's no declaring victory as
Speaker 1: as early, you know, but I seem to have found
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a routine and found it
Speaker 1: to be a little bit easier as soon as I
Speaker 1: But I think mine was really about adjusting my expectation,
Speaker 1: which was that there is no writer, you know, there
Speaker 1: is no right or wrong to it. It can be
Speaker 1: my mind can be extremely busy, I can be half asleep.
Speaker 1: I can't. It just doesn't matter. It's the fact that
Speaker 1: I sat there and did it that that matters. And
Speaker 1: I stopped sort of looking for in experience. I kept
Speaker 1: thinking that I should be having some experience, and I
Speaker 1: sort of reframed that somebody I heard, you know, was
Speaker 1: talking about meditation sort of is like mental hygiene. It's
Speaker 1: like brushing your teeth. You know, you're not really thinking
Speaker 1: about how well you brushed your teeth. You're just you're
Speaker 1: brushing your teeth. And once I sort of let go
Speaker 1: of all that, it's been a little bit easier. But
Speaker 1: I agree with you, traditionally that has been the hardest,
Speaker 1: you know, a very difficult thing to stick with and
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not really sure why, you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know either. I think part of it for
Speaker 1: me is that I never know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Like I have no idea what state I'm going to
Speaker 1: be in when I do it. You know, sometimes I
Speaker 1: said and all the things that come up, or angry,
Speaker 1: but I didn't feel angry going into it. Or you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes for some reason I can't star thinking about sex,
Speaker 1: like where did that come from? Um? So I never
Speaker 1: know what it's going to be. Yep, Yeah, it definitely
Speaker 1: has Uh, it can go a lot of different ways,
Speaker 1: and I think that's uh, you know, and you you
Speaker 1: talk about it a little bit sort of You talked
Speaker 1: about how meditation became easier for you when you just
Speaker 1: sort of stopped fighting it to some degree, you know,
Speaker 1: and just you accept it. I'm going to be here
Speaker 1: for fifteen minutes, um, you know, or I'm going to
Speaker 1: be here for twenty minutes. Well, I think we've covered
Speaker 1: most of the questions that I wanted to ask Christie.
Speaker 1: Anything you want to cover, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: I do. You guys covered a lot. Randy, is there
Speaker 1: anything you feel like you wanna we wanna kind of
Speaker 1: wrap up with or anything you want to sort of
Speaker 1: sort of leave us with to put on a spot.
Speaker 1: That was why I wasn't prepared for. Uh No, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think the only thing I'd say is
Speaker 1: this stuff works and if you haven't done it, get
Speaker 1: on it. Excellent And I am thrilled that you are
Speaker 1: back on at least weekly. I've been wondering, you know,
Speaker 1: you and I connected sort of right around you know,
Speaker 1: you had just finished a couple of days days before,
Speaker 1: and we scheduled this interview, and then you kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, we're kind of radio silence for a while
Speaker 1: on the blog. So I'm I'm happy, too happy to
Speaker 1: see you back and look forward to sort of catching
Speaker 1: up with it. Uh every week. We'll definitely put UM
Speaker 1: will definitely put a link to the to the blog
Speaker 1: in our show notes and um, thanks again for your time.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Yeah you too, Eric, thank you,
Speaker 1: and thanks for all the encouragement. Take care, you know.
Speaker 1: Before I get into the final voiceover thing that I
Speaker 1: always do, I just want to say that if you
Speaker 1: thought that interview was as awesome as I did, you
Speaker 1: really should go out to the iTunes store and give
Speaker 1: us a five star review at the one you Feed
Speaker 1: because we would love you for that, and then here
Speaker 1: you go. You can find out more about Randy Scott
Speaker 1: Hyde and this podcast in our show notes at one
Speaker 1: you Feed dot net slash Randy