0:00:04 Well, this is Tim Ferriss recording from the UK, where I’m trying to blend in.
0:00:10 Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where my usual job is to sit down with
0:00:14 world-class performers of all different types, to interview them and tease out habits, routines,
0:00:20 favorite books, etc. There are 700 plus of those interviews in the back catalog, and we’ll get back
0:00:25 to that shortly. But this time around, we have a different format. In this short and very tactical
0:00:29 episode, I share some of my personal approaches, my personal methods for how to get out of a
0:00:36 rut, get unstuck, re-aim yourself at big outcomes, reset and refocus, and make progress on a daily
0:00:43 basis. Despite the self-defeating tendencies and inner voices that we all have, and that applies to
0:00:49 everyone I’ve met, the top of the top in any given field, we all have those days.
0:00:54 The first story I tell is of a three to four-week period when I was beset by all sorts of personal
0:00:59 challenges, and ultimately the approach that saved my sanity. It does not require any heroic
0:01:05 efforts, any differential calculus. It is beautifully simple. But first, before we get to that,
0:01:10 just a few quick words from today’s sponsors who make this podcast possible. If you want to
0:01:15 support the show, please check them out. I use all of these on a daily or weekly basis, and
0:01:19 given that I’m able to test everything under the sun, I think that is saying something.
0:01:25 Regular listeners probably know I’ve been taking momentous products consistently and testing them
0:01:30 for a long while now. But you may not know that I recently collaborated with them to put together
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0:01:44 Creap your creatine for muscular and cognitive support, whey protein isolate for muscle mass
0:01:49 recovery, and magnesium 3-in-8 for sleep. All momentous products are NSF and Informed Sports
0:01:54 Certified, which is professional athlete and Olympic-level testing. So, try it out for yourself.
0:02:01 Visit livemomentous.com/tim and use Tim at checkout for 20% off of my performance stack.
0:02:09 I’ll spell it out. It’s a long one, livemomentos.com/tim. So, livemomentous.com/tim for 20% off.
0:02:15 This episode is brought to you by 8Sleep. 8Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the
0:02:20 pod, and I’m excited to test it out. Pod 4 Ultra. Pod 4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed
0:02:25 as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature. Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an
0:02:29 adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping
0:02:34 positions for the best unwinding experience. And for those snore heavy nights, the pod can
0:02:39 detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees to improve airflow and stop
0:02:43 you or your partner from snoring. Plus, with Pod 4 Ultra, you can leave your wearables on
0:02:48 the nightstand because these types of metrics are integrated into the Pod 4 Ultra itself.
0:02:56 So, get your best night’s sleep. Head to 8Sleep.com/tim and use Code Tim to get $350 off of the Pod
0:03:01 4 Ultra. They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
0:03:31 A few years ago, a creature died in the walls of my home. It was disgusting.
0:03:36 Now, to be precise, it gave up the ghost in the heating system, so the death fumes were conveniently
0:03:42 pushed directly into my bedroom. My ex-girlfriend and I discovered this around 11pm as we tucked
0:03:48 into bed hoping for a good night’s sleep. We could turn off the heat and freeze, that was one option,
0:03:53 or we could bathe in the stench of what I assumed was a raccoon carcass. And the whole thing
0:03:58 made my eyes itch. It was horrible. I imagined it downing its last meal, pig entrails, moldy socks,
0:04:05 fermented beans, who knows, before defiantly jamming its bloated body into my HVAC. Don’t worry,
0:04:10 we are getting to some kind of lesson here. But the kamikaze raccoon was just the first
0:04:16 surprise guest. The opening act, in short order, my dog then got horribly sick unrelated to raccoon.
0:04:21 Overdue paperwork started piling up, popping out of nowhere, and onboarding a bunch of new
0:04:26 contractors ran into trouble. Then I pulled out of a parking spot and scraped the entire
0:04:31 side of my car, and the car next to me. Later that same afternoon, all these Christmas presents
0:04:36 I had ordered somehow had run out of stock and were auto cancelled, so I was sent scrambling.
0:04:43 And on and on it went more and more clowns piling into the clown car for a shit show that lasted
0:04:51 three to four weeks. It was just a 15 car pile up of nonsense. There are the rare times when I
0:04:56 feel like I’m in the zone. Those are great. Those are fantastic. Then there are times when I ask
0:05:01 myself, how in holy hell have I become the janitor of a mountain of bullshit? That happens more
0:05:06 than you might think. Put another way, sometimes you’re the boxer and sometimes you are the punching
0:05:11 bag. We all get our turn as the punching bag. It doesn’t matter who you are. As far as I can tell,
0:05:16 it doesn’t matter how successful you become, you’ve always grabbed a number at the daily counter of
0:05:22 just wait, eventually you’re going to get your ass kicked by the universe. Now during these periods
0:05:27 of firefighting, let’s just call it when stuff is popping up, this whack-a-mole, I get fidgety
0:05:32 and frustrated. I feel like I’m treading water and patience wears very thin has never been my
0:05:38 strong suit. That’s true, especially with myself. And my instinct is to try to fix things as quickly
0:05:44 as possible. And that’s all well and good. But I’ve realized that from a place of what the fuck,
0:05:50 I often rush and create more problems. This is particularly bad, catastrophic sometimes when
0:05:57 I try to sprint immediately upon waking up. The mantra that has saved me and saved me during
0:06:03 that three to four week period I mentioned was very simple and it’s this. Make before you manage.
0:06:09 Make before you manage, that’s it. What this means is each morning, before plugging holes,
0:06:14 fixing things, calling vets, answering text messages, delegating or yanking out dead raccoons,
0:06:20 answering a million text messages, this mantra was a reminder to make something.
0:06:25 You should read Paul Graham’s essays and listen to Neil Gaiman’s Make Good Art commencement speech
0:06:31 for more on all of this. But back to any given day and make before you manage. Even the most
0:06:38 time sensitive items can usually wait 60 minutes. And by make something, I mean anything. It could
0:06:43 be anything at all. You just need to feel like you’ve pushed a millimeter ahead in some creative
0:06:49 direction. For me personally, even a 90 second video of calligraphy could set a better emotional
0:06:55 tone for the entire day, helping me to be more calm as I handle problems, as I execute all the
0:07:00 rest of the stuff later. Or maybe I attempt to jumpstart my writing with an Instagram caption,
0:07:05 right, or an email to a friend to take the pressure off. It’s practically nothing, but it’s
0:07:12 enough. Even token efforts allow me to reassure myself with, hey pal, don’t worry, you did produce
0:07:18 something today. And the psychological difference between zero acts of creation and one act of
0:07:24 creation, no matter how small, is really impossible to overstate. It’s binary, right? Zero to a little
0:07:29 bit. Those are two different worlds. If you’re lucky, sometimes that one idea, that one sense,
0:07:34 or one shitty first draft can turn into something bigger. And that happens when you catch the wave.
0:07:39 But the point is to be able to say to yourself, even for five minutes, “Hark, I am a creator,
0:07:44 not just a janitor of bullshit. Here’s proof that I can and will do more than just manage
0:07:50 the minutiae of life.” And I think, at least personally, I do need that reinforcement.
0:07:55 We all spend time on the struggle bus, happens to everybody. At the very least,
0:08:00 this mantra has helped me to find a window seat when it’s my turn. So, as a reminder,
0:08:04 when in doubt, try it out, make before you manage.
0:08:13 Okay folks, I’ll be back shortly with another story this time from a birthday crisis. Fun,
0:08:19 fun, fun. Ultimately, it has a happy ending. So, stay tuned. But first, just a few quick words
0:08:25 from one of today’s sponsors. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take
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0:09:15 The moment that you feel that just possibly you’re walking down the street naked,
0:09:19 exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside,
0:09:24 showing too much of yourself, that’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.
0:09:27 This is a quote from Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite fiction writers. It’s from his
0:09:33 University of the Arts commencement speech. But let’s bring it back to my story. A few months ago,
0:09:39 I had a birthday party. It was great. Dozen friends and I gathered for a few days of sun,
0:09:45 beach, barbecue, catching up. We do it every year. And then on the last day, I didn’t get up until
0:09:51 1130. That’s late even for me, knowing full well that the last few remaining friends were leaving
0:09:57 about 30 minutes later, around 12 noon. And the sad reality is I was afraid of being alone.
0:10:03 I was afraid of being lonely. So, like a child, I hid my head under the covers, that’s literally,
0:10:08 and hit snooze until I just couldn’t postpone reality any further. But why am I telling you
0:10:13 this? Why am I being so self-indulgent in telling you this ridiculous story? It’s because we all
0:10:20 like to appear successful, a nebulous term at best, and the media like to portray certain standouts as
0:10:24 superheroes, these people on the magazine covers and so on. And yes, sometimes these dramatic stories
0:10:31 of overcoming the odds are super inspiring. But often, just as often, they lead to an unhealthy
0:10:35 conclusion, maybe an inner monologue, which is something like, well, maybe they, whoever they
0:10:40 happen to be, maybe they can do it because they’re incredible. They have no faults. They’re just
0:10:45 karate chopping the day and winning at all moments. But I’m just a normal person. I can’t do that.
0:10:51 The reality is most superheroes, these superheroes are nothing of the sort. They’re just as weird
0:10:57 and neurotic as we are. They’re strange creatures who do big things, despite lots of self-defeating
0:11:03 habits and self-talk. So, to personalize this, let’s bring it home. I am definitely no superhero.
0:11:08 I’m not even a consistent normal, whatever that is. So, let me give you a little laundry list.
0:11:15 Not too long ago, I cried while watching Rudy on an airplane, and that was cause for concern for a
0:11:20 lot of people around me. I repeatedly hit snooze for one to three hours past my planned wake time
0:11:26 because I simply didn’t want to face the day. I considered giving everything away, moving to
0:11:32 Montreal, Seville, or Iceland. Location kind of depends on what I’m trying to escape. I’ve used
0:11:39 gentlemanly websites to relax during the day when clearly having other urgent and important
0:11:45 shit to do. I wore the same pair of jeans for a week straight, just to have a constant during
0:11:51 weeks of chaos. So, listening to all that, you might think it seems pretty dysfunctional, right?
0:11:58 I assume so. I certainly hear it that way. But, around the same time, especially so the later
0:12:04 few weeks of that, I also was able to increase my passive income 20%, bought my dream house,
0:12:09 got to the point where I was once again meditating twice per day for 20 minutes per session without
0:12:15 fail, so not winning any gold medals in meditation, but incredibly helpful and stabilizing. I cut my
0:12:19 caffeine intake to next to nothing. That usually means poor tea in the morning and maybe a green
0:12:25 tea in the afternoon. I’ve had no more than one cup of really strong coffee per week. There’s a lot
0:12:30 to that, but it’s suffice to say, much improved sleep. Signed one of the most exciting business
0:12:36 deals of the last decade, including working on a collaboration that is first of its kind for me.
0:12:40 Completely transformed my blood work, including a few biomarkers I’ve been working on for years,
0:12:47 and I realized, as the next point, once again, that let’s just call it manic depressive symptoms
0:12:52 are just part of entrepreneurship. And last but not least, I have come to feel closer to all of
0:12:59 my immediate family members. So, where does that leave us? So, personally, I suck at efficiency,
0:13:05 which is doing things quickly or doing things super well, but I have a few tricks. So, here is
0:13:10 my coping mechanism. It is an eight step process for maximizing efficacy, which is doing the right
0:13:16 thing. Number one, wake up at least an hour before you have to be at a computer screen. Email is the
0:13:22 mind-killer, so don’t go immediately into reactive mode. Number two, make a cup of tea. I like puer tea
0:13:28 and sit down with a pen or pencil and paper. I like to do it analog. Number three, write down
0:13:33 three to five things and no more that are making you most anxious or uncomfortable.
0:13:37 They’re often the things that have been punted from one day’s to-do list to the next,
0:13:42 to the next, to the next, and so on. And most important usually means most uncomfortable or
0:13:47 very frequently it does with some chance of rejection or conflict. To find those important,
0:13:51 you can often just look for the most uncomfortable with some chance of rejection or conflict. So,
0:13:56 write down those three to five things. Step four, for each item, ask yourself, if this were the
0:14:01 only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day? Also ask, will moving this
0:14:07 forward make all the other to-dos unimportant or easier to knock off later? That’s a nod to Gary
0:14:12 Keller, the one thing. So, thank you for that, Gary. Step number five, look only at the items
0:14:17 you’ve answered yes to for at least one of those. Those are the high-leverage items, if removed.
0:14:23 Number six, block out at least two to three hours to focus on one of them for today. One,
0:14:27 let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide. They’ll still be there tomorrow.
0:14:32 Step number seven, and I’m repeating, to be clear, block out at least two to three hours to
0:14:37 focus on one of them for today. This is one block of time, uninterrupted, no distractions,
0:14:43 no social media. Cobbling together, 10 minutes here and there to add up to 120 minutes does not
0:14:48 work. Step number eight, if you get distracted or start procrastinating, have us to everybody,
0:14:53 don’t freak out and downward spiral, just gently come back to your one to-do.
0:15:00 Congratulations. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. This is practically the only way I can
0:15:05 create big outcomes despite my never-ending impulse to procrastinate, nap, otherwise,
0:15:11 fritter away my days with all sorts of bullshit. And it works. Work really, really well. And I’ve
0:15:16 come to learn if I have 10 important things to do in a day, it’s 100% certain that nothing
0:15:20 important will get done that day. So, you got to pick one thing. On the other hand, I can usually
0:15:26 handle one must-do item and block out my lesser behaviors for two to three hours a day in the
0:15:32 beginning of the day. That’s what works for me. It does not take much to seem superhuman and appear
0:15:38 successful to nearly everyone around you if you learn to single-task. Single, single, single,
0:15:45 single task, one. In fact, you just need a simple rule. What you do is more important than how you
0:15:51 do everything else. And doing something well does not make it important. So, material over method,
0:15:56 the what over the how. And if you consistently feel the counterproductive need for volume and
0:16:00 doing tons of stuff, maybe you should put a few things on post-it notes. Put them in your bathroom.
0:16:08 And the first that you can add is being busy is a form of laziness. Lazy thinking and indiscriminate
0:16:14 action does not mean that more equals more in the positive sense. Being busy is most often
0:16:19 used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions you need to
0:16:24 take. And when, despite your best efforts, you feel like you’re losing at the game of life,
0:16:29 just remember, even the best of the best, feel this way sometimes. It happens to everybody.
0:16:34 And when I’m personally in the pit of despair, I recall what iconic writer Kurt Vonnegut said
0:16:38 about his process, highly recommend his books, amazing guy. And here’s the quote,
0:16:45 “When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” So, don’t overestimate
0:16:51 the world and underestimate yourself. You’re better than you think and you’re definitely not alone.
0:16:55 We’re all in this together and everyone is fighting a battle that you know nothing about.
0:17:01 Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five
0:17:05 Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little
0:17:11 fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter,
0:17:17 my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is
0:17:22 basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I’ve found
0:17:27 or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It’s kind of like my diary of cool things.
0:17:33 It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos,
0:17:38 all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast
0:17:45 guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share
0:17:51 them with you. So, if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before
0:17:55 you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you’d like to try it out, just go to
0:18:02 tim.vlog/friday, type that into your browser, tim.vlog/friday, drop in your email and you’ll
0:18:07 get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep.
0:18:12 Eight Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod and I’m excited to test it out,
0:18:17 Pod 4 Ultra. Pod 4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below
0:18:22 room temperature. Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress
0:18:26 and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience.
0:18:31 And for those snore heavy nights, the pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head
0:18:36 by a few degrees to improve air flow and stop you or your partner from snoring. Plus, with the Pod
0:18:40 4 Ultra, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand because these types of metrics are
0:18:47 integrated into the Pod 4 Ultra itself. So, get your best night’s sleep. Head to eightsleep.com/tim
0:18:53 and use Code Tim to get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra. They currently ship to the United States,
0:18:59 Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. Regular listeners probably know I’ve been taking
0:19:04 momentous products consistently and testing them for a long while now. But you may not know that
0:19:09 I recently collaborated with them to put together my top picks. I always aim for a strong body and
0:19:14 sharp mind and neither is possible without quality sleep. So, I designed my performance stack to
0:19:19 check all three boxes. And here it is. Creeapure creatine for muscular and cognitive sport,
0:19:24 whey protein isolate for muscle mass and recovery, and magnesium 3-in-8 for sleep.
0:19:28 All momentous products are NSF and Informed Sports Certified, which is professional athlete and
0:19:36 Olympic level testing. So, try it out for yourself. Visit livemomentous.com/tim and use Tim at checkout
0:19:43 for 20% off of my performance stack. I’ll spell it out. It’s a long one. Livemomentos.com/tim.
0:19:46 Livemomentous.com/tim for 20% off.
0:19:49 (upbeat music)
0:19:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:03 Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss
0:00:07 Show, where it is my job to interview people from all different disciplines, all different
0:00:10 walks of life to tease out the habits, routines, thoughts, lessons learned, and so on that
0:00:16 you can apply to your own lives. My guest today, one of my favorites, Elizabeth Gilbert.
0:00:20 She is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love, as
0:00:24 well as several other international bestsellers. She has been a finalist for the National
0:00:29 Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Penn Hemingway Award. Her latest
0:00:34 novel, City of Girls, was named an instant New York Times bestseller, a rollicking, sexy
0:00:41 tale of the New York City theater world during the 1940s. You can go to elizabethgilbert.substack.com
0:00:45 to subscribe to Letters from Love with Elizabeth Gilbert. Her newsletter, which has more than
0:00:53 120,000 subscribers, you can find her on Instagram @Elizabeth_Gilbert_Writer.
0:00:59 But first, a few quick words from our lovely podcast sponsors who make products and services
0:01:06 that I use every day or every week. I personally vet everything. And that means that probably
0:01:12 less than 20% of the podcast sponsors who wish to sponsor the show end up sponsoring.
0:01:16 But I’m fine with that. And here are the few that made the cut.
0:01:22 If you ever use public Wi-Fi, say at a hotel or a coffee shop, which is where I often work,
0:01:26 I’m doing it right now. And as many of you, my listeners do, you’re likely sending data
0:01:29 over an open network, meaning there’s no encryption at all.
0:01:34 A great way to ensure that all of your data are encrypted and can’t be easily read by
0:01:39 hackers or captured by websites is to use this episode’s sponsor, ExpressVPN. It is
0:01:45 so simple. It is one click. It is the easiest thing in the world. I use it overseas. I use
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0:02:37 if they’re trying to, it’s going to be very, very, very hard. And as a bonus, I’ve also
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0:03:35 Way back in the day, in 2010, I published a book called The Four Hour Body, which I
0:03:43 probably started writing in 2008. And in that book, I recommended many, many, many things.
0:03:50 First generation continuous glucose monitor, and cold exposure, and all sorts of things
0:03:55 that have been tested by people from NASA and all over the place. And one thing in that
0:04:00 book was athletic greens. I did not get paid to include it. I was using it. That’s how
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0:04:12 and I just packed up, for instance, to go off the grid for a while. And the last thing
0:04:16 I left out on my countertop to remember to take, I’m not making this up, I’m looking
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0:04:44 I just put in a shaker bottle, shake it up, and I’m done. AG1 bolsters my digestion and
0:04:49 nutrient absorption by including ingredients optimized to support a healthy gut in every
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0:06:34 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
0:06:36 Can I ask you a personal question?
0:06:39 No, I would have seen it in a perfect time.
0:06:40 What if I could be out of this?
0:06:44 I’m a cyber-netic organism living this year over a metal endoskeleton.
0:06:48 Me, Tim, and Ferris, show.
0:06:55 Liz, it’s so nice to see you. Thanks for taking the time.
0:06:59 It’s so nice to see you. It’s so nice to be back talking to you. I love it.
0:07:04 We both did something quite similar. You went back and listened to our last conversation,
0:07:11 which I just had a blast recording with you. And I went back and I read all of the summary
0:07:17 notes that I had from that last conversation. And before we started recording, you mentioned
0:07:24 a few things. One, that the very last thing that you mentioned in that conversation will
0:07:27 dovetail nicely into some of what we’ll talk about today. And that’ll be just a bit of
0:07:30 foreshadowing for folks. We won’t go into that first.
0:07:38 But secondly, I asked if you had any particular hopes for this recording and asked what would
0:07:45 make it a homerun or time well-spent. And one of the things that you said, and I suppose
0:07:51 broadly what you said too, is you had no cherished outcome. And I like that phrasing, and I was
0:07:58 hoping to hear you expand on that a bit because I think it might be good medicine for a lot
0:08:03 of what ails me. Oh, God. I mean, it’s already a homerun, just
0:08:08 getting to sit here and talk to you. And I know it hasn’t been easy for our schedules
0:08:13 to figure out when we can do this. So I’m just happy and relaxed to be here. And I’m
0:08:17 also not concerned that you and I will ever have any trouble finding things to talk about.
0:08:22 So that was part of it. But the no cherished outcome is actually a line from a translation
0:08:29 of a Celtic poem. And it’s called The Celtic Poem of Approach. And as well as I understand
0:08:35 it, these are lines that were spoken when you’re meeting new people and when you’re
0:08:40 moving out of one area into another tribe’s area or you’re going to be interacting with
0:08:45 people in a new way, this beautiful poem of approach that I really love. And I’m probably
0:08:49 not going to get the whole thing right, but it says something like, “I will honor your
0:08:55 gods. I will drink from your well. I bring an undefended heart to our meeting place.
0:09:01 I will not negotiate by withholding. I am not subject to disappointment. I have no cherished
0:09:05 outcome.” And how do you apply that then to your own
0:09:09 lives? What led you to hold on to that particular piece?
0:09:18 It’s my highest aspiration that that poem and that spirit is the foundational agreement
0:09:23 of all my friendships. And I say those words, “I have no cherished outcome,” a lot to
0:09:31 my friends. And I hope that I mean it. And when I start feeling hurt or resentful or
0:09:36 excluded or misunderstood, I’m like, “Sometimes the only way you can find out that you had
0:09:41 a cherished outcome is when you didn’t get it.” Sometimes I discover that where I’m
0:09:45 like, “I think I’m just easy breezy and I’m just hanging out.” And then I’m like, “Oh,
0:09:50 I had a secret hidden cherished outcome because something didn’t happen that I wanted and
0:09:57 now I’m all bent about it.” So now I get to examine my resentment and ask myself whether
0:10:02 I really want to honor I have no cherished outcome or whether I want to sulk. I seem
0:10:07 to be better at no cherished outcome in friendships than I am in romantic relationships. Almost
0:10:13 the minute a relationship becomes a romantic relationship, I have a list as long as my
0:10:18 arm of cherished outcomes and all of a sudden I can be disappointed and all of a sudden
0:10:23 I don’t bring an undefended heart to our meeting place. But with friendships which I have over
0:10:29 time discovered to be actually the true loves of my life, I seem to be a little bit better
0:10:33 at taking responsibility for myself and trying not to put outcomes on people.
0:10:40 Why do you think that is that there is such a difference for you between the number of
0:10:46 cherished outcomes you might hold in romantic relationships versus friendships? Is it because
0:10:54 at least culturally speaking, here in the US, there aren’t as many stories or scripts
0:11:02 related to friendships versus romantic partners? Or would you explain it a different way?
0:11:08 I think that my thing has always been, and this is why it’s been so interesting for me,
0:11:13 being single and celibate by choice over the last five years. There’s nobody to blame,
0:11:19 which is so great. And I think that it’s that the minute somebody is attached to me as my
0:11:26 partner, I do this weird outer body thing where I hold them responsible for whatever
0:11:30 mood I’m in. And so if I’m feeling great, it’s because they are the greatest. And if
0:11:36 I’m feeling terrible, it’s because they are the worst. And it’s so unfair. And one of
0:11:39 the really beautiful and educational things about spending a lot of time alone is like,
0:11:45 “Oh, these mood cycles and these depressions and these euphoria’s are happening. This is
0:11:50 like a weather system that’s happening that isn’t related to anybody.” And it turns out
0:11:55 all those years when I was analyzing those poor people in my relationships and holding
0:12:00 them account to account for the fact that I felt kind of not right. It was like, “Oh,
0:12:04 I haven’t been with anybody in five years and I felt not right when I woke up this morning
0:12:09 and there’s no one to pin it on. It’s so great. I love it. It’s like, I love not having anyone
0:12:14 to pin it on. I hate pinning things on people, but I don’t seem to know how to not do it
0:12:18 once we’re in a romantic relationship.” She come with a warning.
0:12:20 Yeah, a lot in life. She come with a warning.
0:12:21 I know.
0:12:24 I have quite a few follow-ups, but I’m going to try to put them in some semblance of a
0:12:30 coherent order. So my first question related to that is, how do you think about responsibility
0:12:34 or ownership for yourself in the sense that, or I should say rather what prompts that question
0:12:40 is I was having a conversation with an executive coach recently, Jerry Kelowna, actually, who’s
0:12:46 I think very good at what he does, former, very top tier investor who has a lot of questions
0:12:50 I returned to, one of which is how are we complicit in creating the conditions we say
0:12:51 we don’t want?
0:12:52 It’s such a good question.
0:12:57 It’s a really good one. It’s a really good one. But the one I wanted to apply here was
0:13:01 more a comment he made to me because I was talking about taking a radical ownership of
0:13:09 things and seeing my role in just about everything. And he said, “Well, taking responsibility for
0:13:13 everything can be as bad as taking responsibility for nothing.” And so I’m wondering when you
0:13:19 wake up and the weather system is dark and stormy, how do you work on yourself without
0:13:21 picking on yourself, if that makes any sense?
0:13:26 Oh, it’s such a good question. God, I love that question. How are you complicit in what
0:13:27 can you say it again?
0:13:31 Yeah. How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?
0:13:37 Wow. Another word for that is, who are you blaming your life on today?
0:13:41 Well, I think the only honest and humble answer that I can give to that question is, I don’t
0:13:49 know. And I don’t know where that line is. But it’s easier for me when I’m not in a relationship.
0:13:56 And it’s simpler for me to say, okay, I can take some accountability for my own weather
0:14:00 system. But as you say, I don’t want to beat myself up about having weather. And I have
0:14:06 to constantly remind myself that, I mean, I think the most compassionate thing that
0:14:12 I say to myself or I hear said to myself all the time from a more loving presence is it
0:14:18 is a very difficult thing to have a human incarnation. This is not an easy ride. Even
0:14:28 a good life is a hard life. And it’s so weird, it’s so profoundly weird to be a consciousness
0:14:35 dropped into a particular body, dropped into a particular family, arriving at a particular
0:14:46 moment in history. It’s so strange. I think I’m sure a lot of you want to project this
0:14:50 on you, but maybe you had this experience as a kid. I haven’t remembered as a kid looking
0:14:56 at myself in the mirror and being like, I’m in here. It’s so weird. What am I doing in
0:15:02 here? And all of that is out there and I’m in here. Something’s inside of this experience.
0:15:07 And it’s really hard. So I think you have to start with that. Who told you you were
0:15:11 supposed to get it right straight out of the gate? Who told you you were supposed to get
0:15:16 it right seven out of seven days or that you’re constantly supposed to be improving like a
0:15:21 Fortune 500 company constantly going in this upward angle direction a certain percentage
0:15:28 every quarter. There’s billions of systems operating within your body alone, hormonal
0:15:34 systems and chemical systems and viruses and bacterias like we’re such a complex mechanism.
0:15:38 So hard to figure how to operate one of these things. And then just when like I do really
0:15:42 well in solitude, like I can get this thing humming, like I can get this machine and this
0:15:48 mind and this heart where it is like we are at a beautiful hum. But the instant you throw
0:15:55 another complex human mechanism into my field, you know, then I’ve got to like adapt to
0:16:00 their chemistry and to their like it’s hard. I don’t know. And I think it’s hard is a really
0:16:07 good way to start with self-compassion. So that it’s hard. You you did a retake a few
0:16:12 moments ago where you said one of the things that I say to myself and then you corrected
0:16:19 then said one of the things that I hear. Why did you change that? Because I believe that
0:16:27 I am loved beyond measure by magnificent, complex, amused God who has given me power
0:16:40 over practically nothing really like very little that I have control over. But what tiny
0:16:44 amount I have control over is extremely important. It reminds me of something a friend of mine
0:16:50 was a physicist said one time that very little of the universe is matter, very little. But
0:16:55 what there is is very important. And it’s it’s like that, I think with control and power,
0:16:59 like I have very little control, have very little power, even over my own mechanism and
0:17:05 my own being. But what little agency I have, I think it’s important to use it well. But
0:17:12 anyway, I talk to that presence all the time. And I am in a nearly constant dialogue with
0:17:20 it and I hear it talking to me. So that’s why I say I hear a loving presence saying,
0:17:24 it’s really hard. It’s really hard. Like I’m not telling you this should be easy.
0:17:29 How long is up in the case? Is that development in the last handful of years, decade? Has
0:17:34 it been true since you were a kid? It’s deepened. I think one of the things I’m so lucky about
0:17:38 my friend, Rob Bell once said to me, you’re so lucky you didn’t grow up with an enforced
0:17:44 religion. And I’m so fortunate about that. I went to church, like a nice little mellow
0:17:50 New England church most Sundays as a kid. But I don’t recall anybody talking about God
0:17:56 that much. Like it was more of a social gathering. Like, I think New Englanders are a little
0:18:02 bit reticent in terms of being too heavy on the message. You know, like we sang songs
0:18:09 and made crafts. And I don’t remember it having very much to do with God. But I had a God awareness
0:18:14 that was very powerful in me. And I remember going to the National Cathedral on a school
0:18:20 trip when I was 10 in Washington D.C. And I grew up on a farm. So I grew up with very
0:18:25 rustic architecture. And to go from, I mean, that cathedral did what cathedrals are meant
0:18:31 to do to medieval peasants to me, you know, like, like I was put me into an awestruck state.
0:18:36 And I remember going, coming home and wanting to replicate that state and trying to figure
0:18:41 out if I could build a cathedral in my bedroom with like stuff for my dad’s woodshed and
0:18:45 my mom’s sewing kit. Like I really did try to, I’m like, how do you make that? How do
0:18:50 you make something that feels like that? And I think writing for me and my pursuit of writing
0:18:54 and the arts was always driven by this sense of awe and wonder and mystery that something
0:18:58 was moving through me. That was probably my first direct communication method. But for
0:19:07 the last 20 years, I’ve had a practice nearly every single day of writing myself a letter
0:19:12 every morning from unconditional love, which is kind of a God presence. It’s a bit more
0:19:16 specific, the unconditional love thing, because I think God is more than that. But that’s
0:19:23 where I also hear direction and guidance and humor. Yeah, I need a very funny God. I’m
0:19:30 not going to do well with a God that’s too serious. I need a God who thinks I’m funny,
0:19:35 like who thinks I’m adorable and funny. Like I need that. I can’t be too beaten up by a
0:19:36 higher power.
0:19:41 How did you start that practice? When did it start or even begin germinating?
0:19:48 It started in desperation when I was in my, going through my first divorce was 30. And
0:19:56 the well laid out planned life that I had created very obediently, like I had done
0:20:03 just what my culture had told me to do. I got married at 24 and worked hard and bought
0:20:09 a house and made a plan to have a family. And then instead of having a family, I had
0:20:13 a nervous breakdown, like quite literally, everybody was moving in this one direction
0:20:21 and my entire intellectual, spiritual and physical system collapsed, which I now know,
0:20:25 I now see that as an act of God. I now see that there was sort of the Dow, you know,
0:20:31 that there was a force that was trying to communicate to me, this is not your path.
0:20:35 I will kill you before I let you do this. I will kill you before I let you be a suburban
0:20:41 housewife. I’m not allowing it. I will make you put you in so much physical pain that
0:20:45 you’re going to have to notice that this is not the life for you. But I was also in
0:20:52 so much shame of failure and letting people down and like, we just bought this house.
0:20:56 Like I just felt like the biggest asshole in the world. I don’t know why I can’t just
0:21:01 get in line and do this thing that everybody’s saying to do. Anyway, that marriage ended.
0:21:06 And then I threw myself into another relationship and that ended. And I was like, I don’t know
0:21:12 how to orchestrate my life at all. And nothing, here I am 30 years old and nothing is what
0:21:16 I had planned it to be five years ago. And I was in the deepest depression of my life
0:21:21 and I didn’t have much of spiritual life at that point. But I remember waking up one night
0:21:27 and just shame and getting an instruction. I mean, that’s the only way I can explain
0:21:30 it. And I’m comfortable with that language because I often have that happen in my creative
0:21:35 life where I’m told what to do. This is what you’re going to focus on. Here’s what you
0:21:40 need to do now. And I was given this instruction and it came in as clearly as I’m talking to
0:21:46 you and it said, “Get up, get a notebook and write to yourself the words that you most
0:21:50 wish that somebody would say to you.” Because there was a great loneliness that I was feeling
0:21:58 to as well as the shame. And that letter began, what that letter said was, “I’ve got you,
0:22:04 I’m with you, I’m not going anywhere. I love you exactly the way you are. You can’t fail
0:22:11 at this. Like you can’t do this wrong. I don’t need anything from you. This is a huge thing
0:22:17 to hear. I don’t need anything.” Talk about no cherished outcome. I don’t need anything
0:22:24 from you. You don’t have to improve. You don’t have to do life better. You don’t have to win.
0:22:29 You don’t have to get out of this depression. You don’t have to ever uplift your spirits.
0:22:36 You could end up living in a box under a bridge in a garbage bag spitting at people. And I
0:22:41 would love you just as much as I do now. The love that I have for you cannot be lost because
0:22:48 it’s innate. It’s yours. I have no requirements for it. And if you need to stay up all night
0:22:52 crying, I’ll be here with you. And if tomorrow you have a garbage day again because you’ve
0:22:56 been up all night crying, I’ll be there for that too. I’ll be here for every minute of
0:23:02 it. Just ask me to come and I’ll be here with you. And the astonishing thing was that even
0:23:08 talking about it now, I can feel the impact that it has on my nervous system to hear those
0:23:13 words even in my own voice. And it was the first experience I’d ever had with unconditional
0:23:19 love. I’d never heard anybody say, “I don’t need you to be anything. You don’t have to
0:23:25 do better.” Like this is fine. This is great. You on the bathroom floor and a pile of tears
0:23:31 and stuff. It’s great. That’s fine. We love you just like that. And that’s so nourishing
0:23:36 because it’s so the opposite of every message that I’ve ever heard. And so I started doing
0:23:41 that practice and it’s taken me through. I’ve never… I’ve had difficult times in the last
0:23:47 20 years, but I’ve never gone as low again as I went at that time because this is the
0:23:54 net that catches me routinely before I can get that low. And that voice doesn’t change.
0:24:02 All right. This is getting into the juicy bits that I love to wait around. And so to
0:24:10 follow up, you’ve helped a lot of people now draft or attempt to write similar letters.
0:24:14 And I’m wondering a few things. You can answer these in any order you want or you can take
0:24:19 it in a different direction. One is if there are ingredients that seem to work better than
0:24:24 others. Because everything seems to take practice. Maybe these letters are no exception. The
0:24:33 second is do you find that people with some religious orientation or spiritual orientation
0:24:39 towards a greater power have an easier time writing this? In other words, if the letter
0:24:46 is from this power to yourself almost versus being from another version of yourself to
0:24:54 yourself, does it differ in impact? I found out that what I was doing, there’s a name
0:24:59 for it. And it’s actually a long spiritual tradition for people to do things like this.
0:25:05 But it’s a practice that’s very common in 12-step recovery and it’s called two-way prayer.
0:25:11 So it’s essentially two-way prayer. So I call it love, but sometimes I call it God for a
0:25:17 lot of people that word God is a weapon. I mean, especially people who grew up in what
0:25:23 are called high-demand religions or who grew up in really oppressive religious cultures
0:25:28 or abusive religious cultures or for whom they simply cannot stomach that word. Like
0:25:33 obviously don’t use that word. But two-way prayer. So one-way prayer is what most people
0:25:39 are taught as prayer, which is a supplication. Get down on your knees. And I had done that
0:25:45 in my life and like beg for help. But sometimes you spend so much time begging for help, you’re
0:25:50 not actually listening. Yeah, too busy saying Marco to hear the polo.
0:25:58 Yeah. I was like, Marco, Marco, Marco, Marco, God’s like, can I just, can I just, there’s
0:26:03 something I want to say. And so I would suggest if people are interested in this, you can
0:26:08 look up two-way prayer because there are a lot of people teaching it and they have made
0:26:14 a sort of, what were you saying? Is there like a practice or like instructions? Like
0:26:19 they have found that certain things work really well. So I’m sort of quoting from kind of two-way
0:26:27 prayer theory on this. The first one is that you can open up the channel by reading something.
0:26:31 So go to a quiet place, although at this point I’ve done it so long, like I can do it in
0:26:39 an Uber, you know? But like go to a quiet place and read something that to you feels
0:26:45 holy. So it doesn’t have to be any official religious text. Poetry works for me better
0:26:52 than scripture. So the poems of Hafiz or Rumi or Mary Oliver or Walt Whitman, you know,
0:26:57 I kept like letters, song of myself from Walt Whitman, which is essentially just a big letter
0:27:01 from love. You can just open that up to any page and you read some of it. And I feel like
0:27:07 those writers had direct access to the divine and they left the door open when they died, right?
0:27:13 So you can just draft in on the sense that they create. So you read something that opens your
0:27:18 heart in some way. And then you ask one question and one question only, it’s not a deposition.
0:27:27 And it’s not a dialogue because the ego always wants a dialogue. Like the ego always wants,
0:27:32 I feel like if I could reduce my ego down to two words, it would be, yeah, but
0:27:38 it’s always got a follow up question. It’s like, well, yeah, but you say, yeah, but you say that
0:27:42 you love me, but yeah, but you know, and it’s like part of the reason that two way prayer is so
0:27:47 beautiful is that you ask the question and then you stop talking. You give your opening statement.
0:27:52 Right. And your opening statement is, dear love, what would you have me know today?
0:27:57 And then the other thing that I’ve seen suggested in two way prayer practice, and this kind of came
0:28:02 intuitively to me, but I see that it’s taught this way when people teach it is the first line
0:28:11 back to you from the divine should be an endearment, an affectionate nickname, my love, my child,
0:28:19 my sweetheart, my little one. I hear little one a lot, my little one, my angel, honey head. I’ve
0:28:25 seen some of my friends have like tiny turtle, penguin cheeks, you know, like some sort of like
0:28:31 endearment stuck imagining with penguin cheeks. They’re adorable, you know, and that’s very
0:28:38 hard for some people because the idea of turning towards yourself as though you are worthy of
0:28:45 endearment can be really hard for especially perfectionists and the most driven among us.
0:28:51 Like you didn’t earn, how did you earn sweet love? You didn’t earn that, but this is a kind of love
0:28:56 that doesn’t have to be earned. So you start with that. And then so the way I did it, the first
0:29:03 night I did it was I literally just wrote what I wish somebody would say to me. And that’s pretty
0:29:07 straightforward as an instruction because you know what you wish somebody would say to you.
0:29:13 Like you know how you want to be loved. You know how you want to be loved. It’s right there. Like
0:29:18 you know what you’re dying for. We all know what we’re dying for, whether it’s mother love or the
0:29:25 missing father or the partner or the like somebody who’s just like, I’ve got you. I see you. I see
0:29:31 you. I love you. You’re amazing to me. I see that you’re suffering. I’m with you and you’re
0:29:37 suffering. And then you just, you just write that. But over time, what I think people will find,
0:29:42 one of the biggest questions people have is like, well, it just feels like it’s just me writing to
0:29:47 me. It feels super artificial. I don’t feel like I’m hearing God’s voice. I don’t feel like I’m
0:29:51 believing that there’s this eternal source in the universe that’s completely loving and
0:29:58 unconditionally adores me. I just feel like I’m doing this exercise of just writing words to
0:30:03 myself. And that doesn’t feel spiritual and it doesn’t feel rich and it doesn’t feel real.
0:30:10 And the question I have heard is, what’s so bad about that? What if it is just you? What if all
0:30:17 it is is just you writing to yourself from a kinder voice within you? Wouldn’t that be worthy
0:30:22 enough to be slightly life-changing besides the terrorist who lives inside your head constantly
0:30:28 telling you how you failed? Like, why not change the channel in your own head? And if that’s all
0:30:34 it is, and what if God is just the most loving voice inside your own head? This makes me actually
0:30:42 flashback to our last conversation because we have some proof for this in a different form,
0:30:48 which is mourning pages from The Artist’s Way and Julia Cameron. Just getting your monkey
0:30:56 mind on paper, even if it’s actually the terrorist, can be incredibly powerful. And one of my friends,
0:31:00 I remember he tried it for the first time for a week and he said he’s very high-functioning,
0:31:05 works with a lot of household names I won’t mention, but he said this is the closest thing
0:31:12 to a magic trick, a real-world magic trick that I’ve ever come across. So that question, what if
0:31:21 it is just the kindest voice in your head, I think, helps to diffuse maybe the pressure that
0:31:26 people would apply to themselves when trying this for the first time. And as you were talking about
0:31:30 the very first example you gave, I was thinking, and I think this might have been Chip Conley,
0:31:34 could have been someone else who said this to me, but that happiness is reality minus expectations.
0:31:39 And I was like, there are a lot of ways to play with that collection of variables,
0:31:45 one of which is saying, hey, you’ve already passed the grade. You could be under an overpass,
0:31:50 and that’s acceptable. That’s okay. You don’t have to be the Fortune 500 company compounding it,
0:31:59 X percent per quarter. Thank God. Because you know those people, and I know those people, and I
0:32:04 don’t know that it’s such a gentle, loving life that they’re leading.
0:32:13 Yeah, I think I know one of them intimately. At least somebody who kind of assumes that’s the
0:32:20 baseline minimal acceptable outcome, right, is life just doesn’t seem to work that way. It’s
0:32:28 not linear. Even if you are improving over time, but applying that pressure, sometimes handicaps
0:32:33 improvement in the first place. So question for you, this occurred to me, and it may be a dead end,
0:32:42 but I’m wondering, have you seen any difference in how men approach this or have challenges with it
0:32:48 versus women or no difference? Is it kind of the ubiquitous set of challenges when you look at the
0:32:54 number of friends, listeners, readers, et cetera, who have attempted this?
0:32:59 It’s hard to know because women tend to follow me more than they do, but I’ve invited a number of
0:33:05 men. So every week, so on my sub-stack, I share a letter from love that I’ve written,
0:33:09 and then I invite a special guest to do it. And I’ve invited a number of men.
0:33:15 I’m thinking right now about my friend, Arshay Cooper, who’s such an extraordinary guy. He grew
0:33:24 up on the south side of Chicago in an absolutely bullet and drug-ridden ghetto, black, underprivileged,
0:33:31 underserved. He’s the subject and the producer of a gorgeous documentary called A Beautiful Thing,
0:33:36 and he wrote a book by the same title. And when he was in high school with no future,
0:33:42 some guy showed up in his high school hallway with a rowing machine and was like,
0:33:48 I want to start like a first black rowing team or the first black crew. Do any of you guys want
0:33:54 to do it? And he was like, yes, I absolutely want to do it. And he now has become this ambassador
0:33:59 teaching rowing all over the world in South Africa. And his letter from love that he shared
0:34:07 is one of my favorite ones that I’ve ever seen. His letter was addressed to that little boy who
0:34:14 he was, who saw more violence before he was eight years old than most people on tours of duty in
0:34:22 Afghanistan had seen and how tenderly that child needed to be treated. And watching him, you know,
0:34:31 this athlete, this motivational speaker, this great leader turned toward himself or have love
0:34:36 turned toward him in such a tender and intimate way was so moving, but he was open to it.
0:34:38 He allowed that vulnerability to come through.
0:34:45 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we’ll be right back to the show.
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0:36:04 There’s something that I’ve learned in IFS, internal family systems therapy.
0:36:07 I was just going to bring that up. The hive mind is working.
0:36:12 It all works within IFS too, but there’s one of the things they say in IFS a lot is a prepositional
0:36:17 change. How do you feel towards yourself versus how do you feel about yourself?
0:36:22 May I just give a little bit of context for folks? So IFS for people who don’t know, it’s
0:36:29 somewhat strangely named. So internal family systems can be thought of as and please
0:36:33 fact check me. I did an episode with Dick Schwartz for people who are interested, but
0:36:39 parts work in the context of different parts of yourself. So you might have protectors,
0:36:44 you may have exiles, these aspects of yourself that you have pushed away or compartmentalized in
0:36:53 some way. And you facilitate dialogue between and among these different parts for the purposes of
0:36:56 therapy and it can be very, very powerful. So I just wanted to give people a little bit of context.
0:36:59 Beautifully described. Yeah, I’ve heard it described as group therapy for one.
0:37:06 And he actually Dick Schwartz who founded it started off as a group therapist. And when he
0:37:10 started doing individual therapy, he was like, Oh, this is just like group therapy. We’ve got
0:37:15 voices yelling at each other inside this person who don’t know how to communicate with each other.
0:37:21 So yeah, that’s a really beautiful subnation of what it is. But the difference between
0:37:26 even I mean, try it, Tim, actually, can you feel the difference physically between if I ask you
0:37:29 how you feel about yourself, and how you feel toward yourself?
0:37:35 They’re totally different, right? Because toward yourself, I’m taking a friendly observer
0:37:41 perspective. There’s an empathy. Right. And how do you feel about yourself also is so
0:37:50 familiar linguistically that it overlaps with a lot of the negative tracks that I already have had
0:37:54 in my head. Whereas how do I feel towards myself? That’s not a construction I use. So it
0:37:59 benevolently hijacks the whole thought process instantly, you know, you ask me how I feel about
0:38:03 myself, I’ll show you a list of everything that needs improvement. You know, and I’m wired to
0:38:08 constantly be self improving. And I’m sure you are too. How do I feel toward myself? I’m like,
0:38:14 Oh, man, you’re tired. Like you’ve got this chest cold you’ve had for seven weeks. You’re finishing
0:38:21 this project. That’s huge. You got a lot on you like honey. Yeah, it’s hard. You’re having a hard
0:38:25 like it’s hard. Suddenly, it’s like I’m a very different person toward myself.
0:38:30 Let’s actually hop from that. I’ll mention one thing that I want to hop to something related
0:38:35 with just self friendliness. And how you think about it, how others might think about it. I just
0:38:41 want to say in connection with IFS and also a number of other workshops and seminars that I’ve
0:38:48 done, I have not written a letter from love in the way that you describe it. Exactly. But I did
0:38:53 write a version of it that sounds actually very similar to the last example you gave.
0:38:58 And this is done in a fair amount of parts work is, you know, what would you say to X, which could
0:39:03 be I’m making this up, but like fear of inadequacy at what age, right? How old are you five year
0:39:09 old Tim? Okay, what would you say to five year old Tim? So I have written letters to a younger
0:39:16 version of myself and found it to be incredibly powerful. I mean, this was years ago that I did
0:39:19 it. And it still sticks in my mind. And I remember a lot of the language that I used.
0:39:25 But the question of self friendliness sort of broadens and includes a lot of what we’ve been
0:39:31 talking about already. Could you speak to self friendliness in whatever way makes sense to you?
0:39:37 Yeah, I mean, we always talk about self love, but that’s kind of lofty. And I think you could
0:39:42 just start by being a little friendlier. You know what I mean? Like, just how about the common
0:39:45 courtesy you would show to a stranger on the subway? Like, let’s start with that. Like,
0:39:52 just common human decency. So there’s a story that I’m so moved and disturbed by it. So Sharon
0:39:57 Salzburg, do you know Sharon Salzburg meditation teacher? So she met the Dalai Lama, and she’s
0:40:03 written about this, she met the Dalai Lama on his first visit to the West. And she was in a group
0:40:09 of people who were the first Americans, North Americans to meet him. And it was at a time when
0:40:14 nobody really knew who he was. He wasn’t like the rock star who he became. He’s the obscure Tibetan
0:40:19 monk. And of course, it took place somewhere in California, and there were some academics in the
0:40:25 room and some spiritual writers and teachers and meditators and this sort of elect group of people
0:40:28 who were coming to meet him. And he was speaking through translator, because he didn’t speak much
0:40:35 English at the time. And somebody in the room asked him, what Tibetan Buddhism and his teachings
0:40:44 have to say about self-hatred and how to combat self-hatred. And don’t you know that man had to
0:40:51 talk to his translator for like 15 minutes and kept asking for the question to be repeated.
0:40:57 He didn’t understand the question. He kept thinking that he was mishearing the question,
0:41:01 because he kept saying, wait, who’s the enemy? Who’s the person that you’re having trouble with?
0:41:07 And of course, being like Calvinistic Westerners in the room, raised on scarcity,
0:41:13 and you’re never enoughness and original sin, everybody in the room was like,
0:41:19 no, I’m the one I hate. And he was like, this doesn’t even make sense.
0:41:25 Like what you’re saying doesn’t even make sense. And when he finally grasped not only that he
0:41:29 understood that person’s question and what they were talking about, but that everyone in the room
0:41:36 shared this problem, he was so devastated. And he said, I used to think that I had
0:41:42 a really good understanding of the workings of the human mind, but this is new to me. And this is
0:41:48 very disturbing. Like this is not okay. And essentially after that, he said, this is where
0:41:54 we’re going to start. And then that’s basically what he became his mission in the Western world.
0:41:58 And it’s interesting, I was talking about it with Sharon Salzburg the other day. And she was saying,
0:42:02 in Buddhism, they say, you know, that one of the things that if you want to evolve is that you
0:42:07 have to be less precious to yourself. You have to think of yourself as being less precious. But
0:42:12 she said, in the West, we have to we haven’t even gotten to the point where we think we’re precious
0:42:17 yet to let go of it. Like first, she’s like, I think we first have to find our preciousness.
0:42:23 And then we can let go of it. And then we can evolve. But if we don’t even know that any of us,
0:42:28 anything about us is precious, that’s already a problem. And when the Dalai Lama started teaching
0:42:32 people how to love themselves, he would say, talk to yourself the way your mother would talk to
0:42:37 you. And then he found out about some of our moms. And he was like, okay, grandmother, like he was
0:42:43 just scratch that he was like, has anybody ever said a kind word to you? You know, like it was,
0:42:49 you know, it really spotlights this sort of terrible dysfunction that we all kind of collectively
0:42:55 have grown up in. Have you found other ways to counteract that outside of the
0:43:03 letter writing? Are there any other practices or recommendations for people who are experiencing
0:43:11 this? Many of whom are experiencing it secularly, right? They may experience it in the absence of
0:43:16 a religious upbringing, as would be the case for me. Any other recommendations or thoughts?
0:43:21 You just made me realize I didn’t answer your second question about whether people who
0:43:26 have some sort of religious or spiritual basis find this easier. Not necessarily, because some
0:43:31 people still are praying to what James Joyce called the hangman God. And you’re not going to get a
0:43:36 letter of unconditional love from the hangman God, you’re going to get a list of complaints about
0:43:40 things that you need to do better. So sometimes those people have a really hard time doing it.
0:43:46 There’s one man I asked to do this, to write a letter from love, and he’s a very well known
0:43:51 figure in the world that I’m trying to think how to not identify. I’m not even going to say more
0:43:57 than that, but he’s somebody who’s very admired and is very good. And he had the most surprising
0:44:01 response of people who have said no. Most people say no because they’re either afraid that they’re
0:44:05 going to ask love to show up and love isn’t going to show up. And that would be more painful than
0:44:12 not asking. Or they feel like it’s too vulnerable to expose themselves like this. He said no,
0:44:16 because he said, I have a feeling I know what unconditional love is going to say to me. It’s
0:44:21 going to say you’re trying too hard and you’re doing too much and you don’t have to try this hard
0:44:27 and do too much. But I don’t want to be let off the hook because I want to keep aspiring to go
0:44:31 further and higher. And I don’t want to hear a voice that tells me that I’m okay just the way I am.
0:44:39 I’m afraid that will make me stop. And I was like, oh, honey, who hurt you? Oh, dear,
0:44:44 you can still do things, but might it not be nice to also hear that something
0:44:49 loves you even as you’re aspiring? Anyway, it was just, that was interesting.
0:44:56 Sorry, but you had a second question. Yeah, the question was, I suppose, related. And that is
0:45:02 outside of writing this letter you’ve described. What other approaches or habits,
0:45:08 anything at all, have you found helpful or seen helpful for others in counteracting
0:45:13 self-antagonism, right? So fostering self-friendliness, in other words.
0:45:22 Boundaries is what comes to mind. And some really hardcore ones. Makes me think of our mutual
0:45:29 friend, Martha Beck, who is not a lot longer than I have. Tell me what made you think of her for that.
0:45:34 Well, the integrity cleanse and just checking in. I know we discussed it last time, but setting a
0:45:39 timer to check in every 30 minutes to see if you’re lying and if you want to even be in this
0:45:43 conversation. Right. If your sister’s like, yeah, you’re coming over for the baby shower and you’re
0:45:47 like, I’d love to beep, beep, beep. Like, no, actually, I really have zero interest.
0:45:56 There are people who I am not skilled. This is how I word it, because I want to keep it
0:46:01 on me. I’m not skilled enough to be able to hold my serenity when I’m around them.
0:46:08 I lose the hard-earned peace that I try to generate every day through meditation and through
0:46:14 two-way prayer and through the way that I live. Like, I’m constantly trying to bring myself
0:46:20 to a level of kind of humming nicely along. And there are certain people who I just can’t do it.
0:46:25 And I think my younger self was spiritually ambitious enough that I was like, if you were
0:46:30 a better human being, then you would be able to jujitsu your way through this, or you would
0:46:35 compassion your way through this, or you would accept your way through this. And I’m at an age
0:46:42 now at 55 where I’m like, no, I just can’t do, I can’t. Like, I come home sick when I’m around
0:46:49 those people. Like, I lose my attainments when I’m around those people. And it’s not friendly for me
0:46:55 to be around people who are cruel. And when I’m around people who are cruel,
0:47:04 I become unwell. And I also then have to use something to, like, I get so disregulated.
0:47:09 Disregulated. Yeah. Like, I get, like, there’s certain people I’m around them and it’s like,
0:47:13 I want to have a drink. Like, I want to have, I want to have a drink, call a phone number,
0:47:19 I shouldn’t dial, like, start smoking and driving fast, you know? Like, this disregulates me so much.
0:47:24 And it’s just, it’s not kind to myself to put myself in those situations again and again.
0:47:33 So how do you, or how have you, created boundaries or put those relationships on probation or
0:47:37 otherwise? I’m trying to, you know, trying to think how to describe it that doesn’t get too,
0:47:45 revealing too much personal stuff. I’m not here to say it’s easy, but I do feel a sense of stewardship
0:47:52 toward myself. And, you know, I mean, it’s hard. I’ll tell you this, I did an event with Rachel
0:47:57 Cargill, the great writer and civil rights activist a couple years ago. And somebody in the audience
0:48:01 asked us, you guys both seem so calm and chilled, you have difficult people in your life. And I
0:48:08 started laughing so hard, I rolled, literally rolled off my chair. And I was like, yeah, yeah.
0:48:14 And she said, no, I don’t. And I was like, wait, what? And I was like, leaning in, I’m like,
0:48:18 wait a minute, break that down. And she said, no, I don’t have anybody in my life currently who’s
0:48:24 difficult, because I won’t do that to myself anymore. And here’s the zinger. This is somebody
0:48:30 with a tremendous sense of self value and self friendliness. She said, the follow up question
0:48:34 in the audience was somebody said, what about people who you have to deal with?
0:48:38 And you have to have them in your life, because like they’re in your family. And she said,
0:48:43 I’m thinking as hard as I can, and I cannot come up with a single name of anybody who is entitled
0:48:50 to be in my life, no matter what their biological relationship is to me. And that’s a radical
0:48:57 position to take. And Rachel Cargill lives a radical life. And that’s somebody who is really
0:49:03 prioritizing her own wellbeing. And she was like, I’ve blocked my mother for several years at a
0:49:09 time, because she was too destructive. She’s like, I’ve got siblings I haven’t spoken to in years,
0:49:15 because they’re too disruptive. And they’re not entitled to have me in their life just because
0:49:20 we were born into the same family. That’s intense boundaries. So I will say only that I’ve done
0:49:26 stuff like that. I’ve decided that not everybody’s entitled to have me in their life.
0:49:30 Just a practical tactical question, since that’s where my brain sometimes goes.
0:49:37 Do you slow fade that person? You just start like first you respond after 24 hours, then it’s a week,
0:49:41 then it’s two months, then it’s never. Or do you have a conversation? Do you text them and you’re
0:49:47 like, Hey, love you, but or is there some approach? I’m going through a list in my head. I’m like,
0:49:51 how did I do that one? How did I do that one? Some have been done, I would say, elegantly,
0:49:59 which to me means honestly. But I think again, you can keep it on the eye and just say like,
0:50:08 I noticed that I become so dysregulated after these encounters that I can’t do this anymore.
0:50:17 This is too dysregulating for me. I can’t do it. I’m out. And at times where I’m super dysregulated,
0:50:22 I will say, I’m not well and I need to go get well. And I’m going to go take some privacy,
0:50:26 because that’s also true. Like I can get so dysregulated that I become unwell.
0:50:33 I’m thinking of a couple other people where I very honestly said like, I’m in a place in my life
0:50:38 right now where I need a lot of solitude and a lot of silence. And if that changes, I’ll let you know.
0:50:44 And then there’s some people who I just stopped responding to, because their being,
0:50:49 I kept running through the scenarios of like, how would an open and honest conversation about this
0:50:55 go and it would be like, not good. I don’t have any reason to think that this would go well.
0:51:02 Like this is going to be a firestorm. And I think I’m just going to leave. But it isn’t easy,
0:51:07 but I’m a lot healthier since I’ve done that. I think it’s easier when you’re older too,
0:51:11 because I think you get used to like, you don’t keep everybody in life, you know?
0:51:16 You think as a young person, you can’t. You can’t, right? There’s an ebb and flow,
0:51:21 even if you wanted to, you couldn’t. And it makes me think of maybe bonsai is not the right example,
0:51:28 because I do think of them kind of as little torture trees, but pruning as opposed to accumulating,
0:51:35 right? Curating as opposed to collecting. And I think as you get older, you just realize,
0:51:41 okay, there is at least as far as we know, in this corporeal body, an end to the story.
0:51:47 Not generating more time. And some people just consume more life energy than they contribute.
0:51:51 I mean, I always say some people are medicine. Like when you’re with them,
0:51:54 when you come away from them, you feel like you’ve gotten a dose of medicine.
0:52:00 And some people need medicine. And when you’re with them, you feel like they raided your pharmacy.
0:52:10 And some people need to be institutionalized. It’s beyond that. It’s just like, I can’t do anything
0:52:17 with this year. You know, one thing I have noticed is that I don’t like holidays. I don’t like the
0:52:24 ritual of big holiday gatherings. And I’ve let my family know that. That I’m like, I love you guys.
0:52:30 And I’m going to come and see you any day of the year, except these days.
0:52:34 So I’ll come and see you in early December. I’ll spend a week. We’ll have a great time.
0:52:38 Like, well, I want to have one on one time with you. I want to sit at the table with you. I want
0:52:43 to go for walks with you. I want to go for bike rides with you. I’m not coming for Christmas.
0:52:48 Why is that? I’m so curious. Just as someone who you picked my one and favorite holiday.
0:52:53 Oh, that’s so wonderful. Which is fine. And great. But I’m curious,
0:52:56 what is it about the gathering? Cherished outcomes.
0:53:00 Cherished outcomes. Meaning that you feel like you need to perform.
0:53:07 Oh, man, I feel like there’s so much on the table. And it’s like the meal. Even as a kid,
0:53:15 I found it so stressful. And like everyone’s so tense. And it’s like, why do we have to do this?
0:53:22 And the answer is, you don’t have to. But the people who love it should do it.
0:53:30 Yeah, for sure. I just sit by the fire with my dog and drink hot chocolate.
0:53:33 That sounds fantastic. It’s not very stressful in my case.
0:53:39 No, I actually like spending holidays alone because they’re quiet days. When you’re alone,
0:53:42 the phone’s not ringing and working emails aren’t coming in. Like some of my happiest
0:53:47 days have been holidays that I spent alone. I enjoy it.
0:53:51 Have you always been comfortable with solitude or extended periods of being alone?
0:53:57 Has that always been the case? To mix. But I love my own company, except for when I’m
0:54:04 in some sort of super disrupted mental state. And then it’s very painful to be with myself.
0:54:10 But lately, like in the last 10 years, it’s my favorite person to hang out with.
0:54:18 And I live alone and I love living alone. And I love waking up and being like, here’s our day.
0:54:22 Like, what do we want to do? How do we want to spend this?
0:54:27 And I’m a writer. I chose to be a writer. It’s a very solitary time. And I love that.
0:54:35 Like my most joyful moments of my life have been alone with my work. And I remember hearing
0:54:40 Michael Sheban one time say, and I’m super social too. Like I have a lot of friends and
0:54:46 a lot of people who I love and care about, but I’m always happy to go back to being alone.
0:54:50 Anyway, I heard him say one time, and he’s got four kids, I think. But he said,
0:54:55 you can love your books, but they can’t love you back. And I thought, oh, my books love me back.
0:55:02 Like, my work loves me. Like, it is a love story in two directions. Like,
0:55:07 it is a beautiful love story writing those books. And I feel that there’s something very alive and
0:55:13 connected in that that isn’t just me. So for people who can’t see, and even for people who can,
0:55:20 see video, your hairstyle has changed since we last spoke. How did that come to be? What is,
0:55:27 is there a significance there? I buzzed off my hair, gosh, about nine months ago. And I have been
0:55:35 wanting to do this for 20 years and dreaming about doing this for 20 years. And I can’t tell you
0:55:39 how many times I’ve sat in my hairdresser’s chair and been like, just take those clippers and just
0:55:45 buzz it off. Just like, just take it off. Just take it off. Like, I just want to be free. I want to
0:55:50 be free. And I never had the courage to do it. And I had a lot of reasons for why I couldn’t do that
0:55:56 as a woman. What if my head has a weird shape? What if I mean, I’m a public figure? What if I’m
0:56:00 out there with a bald head? I just, I always was like, when I get older, I’ll do it. When I get
0:56:07 older, I’ll do it. And then I had this amazing awakening. And it was last year, I went to an
0:56:13 event in New York and there are a bunch of people there who were in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. And
0:56:17 this is New York City. So it’s like one of the most progressive places in the world. And I looked
0:56:27 around the room and all the men, all of the men had clipped, like shaved or buzzed hair. And they
0:56:32 all looked great, like yours. Like they all looked great. Like there’s a bunch of like silver foxes.
0:56:39 They all had lines in their faces. They looked fantastic. And all the women had long or longish
0:56:47 versions of some sort of complicated hair that I, you know, I know hair. So I know what it costs
0:56:52 to have that hair. I know the keratin treatment you had to have for that hair to look silky. I know
0:56:56 the dye job that you had to pay for. I know how much those highlights cost. I know that only
0:57:02 2% of women in the world are blonde and that 45% of the women in that room were blonde,
0:57:06 including me. You know, and I was like, thinking about Dolly Parton’s line where somebody said
0:57:10 to her one time, do you ever get offended at dumb blonde jokes? And she said, no, because I know I
0:57:16 ain’t dumb. And I know I hit blonde. And it’s like, I am blonde and I am dumb, but I’m spending a lot
0:57:23 of money to, and I just had this really reckoning moment where I thought, why are we doing this?
0:57:29 Why do I have to do this? And so many of the most amazing reckoning and liberation moments of my
0:57:35 life have been these moments where I was like, oh, I don’t have to buy into this anymore,
0:57:40 just because I’ve been trained and taught and conditioned my entire life that I have to buy
0:57:45 into this. I’m opting out. I’m out. I’m taking my toys and I’m leaving. And I thought I can just,
0:57:50 like, get mad about the patriarchy and say that there’s an unfair beauty standard for men and
0:57:55 women, or I can just claim the entitlement that these men have and just get some buzzers at
0:58:00 CVS and clip my own hair and never think about my hair again. And that’s what I did.
0:58:02 So you did it yourself?
0:58:06 I did it myself. Yeah. And I do it myself every week. And it’s like, this is the last money I’m
0:58:07 ever spending on my hair. It’s like these clippers.
0:58:10 I was gonna say, now we can trade tips.
0:58:15 I know. It’s so great. And I was like, oh my God, the freedom. I wake up every morning. I’m like,
0:58:20 my hair is perfect. Like I jump in a river, jump in a lake, jump in an ocean, get off, get off a
0:58:27 plane. It’s never not perfect. It’s amazing. And I can’t imagine any reason to ever have hair again.
0:58:33 And it’s part of, I don’t know, I just think it’s part of this amazing thing about becoming a free
0:58:42 woman and a middle-aged. I am culture’s nightmare. I’m a middle-aged, childless, husbandless woman.
0:58:50 Like I’m basically a bog witch, like just like living, rattling around in a house by myself,
0:58:58 talking to myself, watering my plants, shaving my head. And it’s so cool. It’s so exciting because I
0:59:03 never saw a woman like this when I was growing up. And I never heard of a woman like this.
0:59:11 I only heard cautionary tales about how tragic and sad, unmarried, divorced or widowed women were.
0:59:16 And I’m all of those. I’m unmarried, divorced and widowed. So I’m like the trifecta.
0:59:24 And these have been the most creative, spiritual and wild years of my life.
0:59:32 We were exchanging various ideas, potential topics before this conversation in shorthand,
0:59:39 because of course, I want to talk about things fresh without knowing the answers I’m going to get.
0:59:45 Relaxed woman, a relaxed woman, as a radical concept. What is this?
0:59:48 How many have you ever met? Oh boy, in the hot seat.
0:59:56 No, I haven’t met that many relaxed men either. But I think it would be a truly revolutionary thing.
1:00:01 What are the characteristics of a relaxed woman? What does that look like?
1:00:06 Well, first of all, I want to say that this is why I think it would be revolutionary.
1:00:15 So let me start with why. When I think of the words that are commonly used to describe
1:00:22 the women who we all admire, bad-ass, fierce, tough, resilient, brave, strong,
1:00:30 or in the Brene Brown realm, vulnerable, open-hearted. I aspire to be all of those things,
1:00:33 and I admire all those women who are all those things. But none of that feels revolutionary to
1:00:37 me because women have always been all those things. You have to be all those things.
1:00:40 As a woman in the world, you have to be resilient. You have to be strong.
1:00:44 You have to be bad-ass. You have to be fierce to survive as a woman.
1:00:48 My ancestors were all that. Your ancestors were that, or we wouldn’t exist.
1:00:55 So it’s not a revolution. It’s not a revolution. What would be a revolution would be a relaxed
1:01:04 woman because I never saw one growing up. I saw angry, tired women, and I saw some relaxed men,
1:01:10 but I saw angry, tired women. And I was on the pathway to becoming an angry, tired woman.
1:01:13 And that’s when my body revolted and was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
1:01:16 we’re not doing this. We’re going in a completely different direction.
1:01:22 So how do you not be an angry, tired woman? That’s a really big question.
1:01:25 And I think when I talk about this with groups of women, I always say,
1:01:30 I think we have to be careful because there’s some part of us that thinks it would be irresponsible
1:01:38 not to be angry. And it would be irresponsible not to be tired because, I mean, just look at the
1:01:43 world and how much it needs us on the personal level and on the political level and how much
1:01:48 there is to be angry about and how many of us were violated in our bodies at various times.
1:01:53 I mean, there’s a million reasons to not be relaxed. And yet the question I have is if you
1:01:58 were to step in, and this is a question I always ask to women, if you were to think of the biggest
1:02:03 shit tornado going on in your life right now, whatever it is, the hardest thing you’re doing,
1:02:09 whether it’s your activism or your family or your work or a medical issue or a bankruptcy
1:02:13 or an addiction issue, like whatever it is, or a problematic family member.
1:02:20 And if you were to go into that same exact shit tornado tomorrow and not one external thing
1:02:27 changed, but you were relaxed, would you be more or less effective at handling it?
1:02:32 Martial artists know that the most relaxed person in the room wins the fight.
1:02:39 Like actors know this, artists know this, this is where the flow happens, athletes know this.
1:02:47 And so I think for me, I’ve narrowed it down to three things that I need for me, for my system,
1:02:56 to be relaxed. And it’s boundaries, priorities, and mysticism. And if I don’t have those three
1:03:01 things, I’m super stressed. And I would say that the mysticism is the most important,
1:03:04 but the boundaries protect that. So boundaries, what was number two?
1:03:08 Priorities. Yeah, priorities and then mysticism.
1:03:12 And women are not taught that they’re allowed to have priorities. Men are taught that they’re
1:03:17 allowed to have priorities, but women are supposed to prioritize everybody and everything.
1:03:21 And you feel really guilty if you’re not prioritizing everybody and everything.
1:03:27 And I always suggest that you should maybe have like four priorities, like four or five.
1:03:31 And there’s nothing like tragedy to kind of make it clear what your priorities are too.
1:03:36 Like when my partner, Rayo, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, it became very clear to me very
1:03:41 quickly who I cared about and what I wanted to be doing with my time. And I remember opening my
1:03:47 inbox the day I found out that she had six months to live and seeing like this huge list of emails.
1:03:50 And I just deleted them all without responding to them because I was like,
1:03:58 the reason that these emails have been sitting in my inbox for months is not because I’m too busy.
1:04:04 It’s because I don’t care. I don’t care. And those are the three words that women are never allowed
1:04:09 to say. Like a woman is never allowed to say, I don’t care. Okay, you’re not too busy. You just
1:04:13 don’t care. I don’t care. If like, look, if I care, I’ll get back to you immediately. Like this
1:04:20 is what I’ve learned about my inbox. Like same with my text messages, like you will hear from me
1:04:24 immediately if I care. Like if I don’t, it’s because I don’t care. And it’s okay. You can’t
1:04:29 care about everything. Or you just don’t care enough in the hierarchy of your priorities.
1:04:34 Priorities. Priorities, right? So like, who are your priorities? What are your priorities? What
1:04:39 do you actually care about? Do you have the courage to say like, no. So boundaries, priorities, and
1:04:44 then mysticism is the only thing that will actually relax my nervous system. And that is
1:04:50 getting really quiet and connecting through two-way prayer, through a letter from love and
1:04:55 through deep meditation. Because I can’t just live on this plane or I will lose my shit.
1:05:03 The plane of the apparent and the real and the material and the Newtonian physics,
1:05:11 it’s like too stressful. And I need to have access to a deeper perspective to be able to be relaxed
1:05:15 enough to actually say and mean I have no cherished outcome.
1:05:20 Like right to the point of saying like, whether I live or die, I have no cherished outcome.
1:05:25 Can I be that relaxed? Can I be relaxed of not to know what’s going to happen?
1:05:31 Can I believe that some other thing is orchestrating this? And my involvement might not be necessary
1:05:34 in every single moment. This is a hard thing for women to believe.
1:05:39 Is that the key ingredient of the mysticism for you? Because there are different forms for sure
1:05:45 that mysticism can take. I mean, you mentioned Hafez, you mentioned Rumi. You have different,
1:05:49 let’s just call it, subsections of various religions that are associated with mysticism,
1:05:55 like Sufis in that particular case. Is that potential of a larger power orchestrating things
1:06:01 so that you don’t need to be involved in all the details, the key component of this third leg
1:06:05 of the stool, the mysticism? Or are there other aspects to that?
1:06:10 Well, there’s love. So we have to then go back to, you don’t have to win this,
1:06:18 right? You’re not going to be graded. A thing I often hear in those prayers and meditations is,
1:06:22 we’ve got all the time in the world. And that’s the exact opposite of the stress
1:06:27 that I was raised under, the vice grip that I was raised under. Short amount of time,
1:06:33 extremely important to win. No errors can be allowed. So got all the time in the world.
1:06:38 We got all the time in the universe. What’s time? Plenty of time. It’ll happen or it won’t,
1:06:41 like whatever the thing is. And that actually also happens to be true,
1:06:46 that it will happen or it won’t. Like even we know that our best laid plans sometimes,
1:06:50 it’s like, I guess this wasn’t the thing that was supposed to happen. But then there’s also
1:06:56 where my body goes into a deep hum that I used to only be able to get from substances or
1:07:03 love of another person settling me that deep, deep, like, okay, everything is okay here.
1:07:10 The thing that always works for me is a voice saying to me, you don’t even know what you’re
1:07:17 looking at. You don’t even know what you’re looking at. And it just pierces my certainty,
1:07:22 because my certainty is one of the things that makes me so anxious. And this is a very convincing
1:07:28 virtual reality that we live in. You know, it’s very, very, very convincing.
1:07:34 But the mystics and the physicists seem to agree that it might really not be what we see
1:07:39 and what we’re perceiving. I went to an event in Brooklyn a couple years ago and heard two
1:07:44 Nobel Prize winning physicists talk about the nature of reality. And it was so wonderful to
1:07:51 hear this Nobel Prize winning scientists say, the more I look at reality, the less I understand it.
1:07:57 And all I can say after all these years of studying the nature of reality is that nothing
1:08:03 is what it appears. And that what we used to think was natural law is at best some very local
1:08:09 ordinances. We really were like five Einstein’s away from even having the right questions to
1:08:13 ask to even know what we’re looking at here. And just because billions and billions and billions
1:08:19 of people have the same senses and look at the world and come to the same conclusion about
1:08:24 what they’re seeing and agree doesn’t make it true. And that settles me. And it shouldn’t.
1:08:28 It’s kind of like the rugs and the floor and the ground are being pulled out from under you
1:08:34 completely. And that shouldn’t be relaxing. But I find it deeply relaxing. Because then the stakes
1:08:40 suddenly become a lot lower. And it’s like, all right, well, since I don’t even know what this
1:08:50 game is that I’m in, let me do what I can and let the rest of it go. And it doesn’t mean quit the
1:08:57 game. You’re still in the virtual reality game. Play it nicely. But play it knowing that you don’t
1:09:03 even know what you’re looking at. Yeah, I’m still thinking of your correlation that you drew between
1:09:11 certainty and anxiety, which seems very astute, and that most people would steer away from. They
1:09:17 would rather be unhappy than uncertain because uncertainty equals in a lot of minds. And this
1:09:23 is true for me at times too, hidden risks. But it also, depending on how you kind of play the game
1:09:30 and which poetry you read, and so on, it also opens the door to the possibility of
1:09:37 unexpected surprises, good surprises, good things. Make sense to me. I’ve had a similar
1:09:43 settling experience. I mean, it’s sometimes enhanced, so I can’t recommend that to a broad audience.
1:09:49 Well, no, no, no, no, I get it. And that’s why people get enhanced. Because there’s that sense
1:09:55 of like, oh, wait a minute, this is bigger and more complicated. And I’m part of this. But I,
1:10:02 wow, you know, like Steve Jobs’ last words, wow, wow, wow, like whatever he saw in those last
1:10:07 moments, wow, wow, wow. I’m thinking of a relative of mine who I said one time, would you rather
1:10:14 be happy or right? And they said, how in the world could I be happy if I wasn’t right? And I think
1:10:18 that it’s actually quite the opposite for me, like, probably wrong.
1:10:27 Human history in a nutshell. Book title. I mean, just look at my life. I have a long history of
1:10:31 making decisions that are very bad for getting what I wanted and then finding out this is another
1:10:37 thing that I find is really wonderful about middle age. Like, I’ve gotten what I wanted a lot in life,
1:10:44 and it almost killed me. So I’m not so interested anymore in what I want. I’m good at manifesting
1:10:50 what I want, and I’m good at almost dying for what I want. You know, so maybe there’s a better
1:10:56 question to be asking, then what do I want? Have you any thoughts on candidates for that
1:11:02 better question? What would you have me know? What would you have me know? I mean, that’s
1:11:08 a really good one. This makes me wonder how you choose, and I’ve wanted to ask you this for a
1:11:13 while, and I don’t think we got into it in our prior conversation, which is how do you choose
1:11:20 projects? How to spend your time? Where to allocate your limited life force? Because there’s what do
1:11:26 you want, which is where a lot of people would start. Although that’s a pretty, it can be nebulous
1:11:31 in a handicapping way because that could take you in all sorts of different directions. But how do
1:11:37 you choose your projects? Things to spend time on? I’m kind of a hard ass about it. Yeah, great.
1:11:43 So part of the thing I’ve noticed that people tend to get stuck on sometimes is that they get this
1:11:50 inspiration. So inspiration comes first, and inspiration is the breathing in of God. So
1:11:56 something even the most empirical scientific atheist people in the world, when they talk about
1:12:02 where an idea came from, they say an idea came to me. They say that. They don’t even know they’re
1:12:07 saying that, but they’re reporting accurately what the feeling is because that’s what everyone I’ve
1:12:14 ever met who’s had an idea. It’s the eureka moment. It’s like, “Oh, I just heard, saw, felt an inspiration,
1:12:17 and I know the difference between something that comes from me and something that comes to me,
1:12:21 talking about prepositions again.” And I think most creative people do as well. Like, “Oh,
1:12:25 this came to me,” right? And then it can feel like an assignment or it can feel like a challenge. And
1:12:31 it’s like, “Now I want to make this thing.” But a place where I think people get sidetracked and
1:12:37 distracted, it’s very, very, very similar to meditation. Like meditation, spirituality, and
1:12:41 art have so much in common. So this may sound familiar to people who like, maybe you’ve had
1:12:47 this experience. You start working on this thing that was this inspiration and a couple weeks,
1:12:53 couple months into it, a couple days, another idea comes. And that idea seems more interesting
1:12:58 than the one that you’ve already invested some time into. And then you’re like,
1:13:02 “But I want to do this thing. This thing is fresh and exciting. This is the really,
1:13:07 really cool thing.” And then you go and do that one. And then another idea comes. And then you’re
1:13:12 dealing with this melee. So oftentimes, people will say, “To me, I’m working on a book and I’m
1:13:16 halfway through it, but I’ve got this other idea that I think is way better and this book feels
1:13:21 really stale and it doesn’t have any life in it.” And I always say, “Okay, well, I give you permission
1:13:27 to quit working on that first project, but only if you have a proven track record of ever being
1:13:33 able to finish a thing.” That is so smart, yes. Right? Because then it’s legit. It’s like, “No,
1:13:39 I’ve got this better idea.” But do you have 30 unfinished things? Because if you have 30 unfinished
1:13:45 things, now we have a problem. And I have those same things happen to me. I’m a third of a way,
1:13:49 a quarter of a way, fifth of a way in a project. And then something so much more interesting
1:13:54 comes along. And I’m like, “But I know enough to know.” It comes dancing. It’s like a dancing girl.
1:13:57 Like it just comes across the stage. I was just going to say, “The hottest girl at the dance.”
1:14:02 The hottest girl at the dance. Just showed up. Just showed up and you’ve been married for two
1:14:07 months. And you’re like, “Oh, I’ve been married for two months in the hot…” But what I know
1:14:15 is that if I abandon my, let’s call it, wife, this project that I’ve been working on for a few
1:14:19 months to go off with the hot girl in a few months, she’s going to be just as boring and stale.
1:14:24 And then a new hot girl is going to come on. And I’m never going to complete anything.
1:14:28 So, you know, stick with the one you came to the dance with. And if I’ve got multiple ideas,
1:14:33 and I’m not sure which one I’m beginning, I actually have a sort of like a team meeting.
1:14:40 And I make the ideas, make proposals to me about how they want, what do you actually want me to do?
1:14:41 This is like project-based IFS.
1:14:47 Totally. It’s like, I’m the angel investor. And these ideas are like, “We want your time and money
1:14:51 for this.” And I’m like, “What are you? What do you have for me? Why should I invest my money
1:14:56 and time in you?” And a lot of ideas, when I challenge them, like that disappear into the ether
1:15:00 because they’re like, “I don’t know something about birds.” You know, like, they don’t like,
1:15:04 I’m like, “You haven’t thought it out.” You know, and then some other ideas like, “No,
1:15:07 I want to write about this very specific thing and it’s going to take the, you know, I’m like,
1:15:11 okay, so this one’s got their act together.” So when the bird idea is more formed, come back.
1:15:15 Like, come back when you’re ready. Come back when you’re ready to be real and not just to be
1:15:20 tantalizing me with, like, so I’m a real hard-ass about it. I don’t mess around. I don’t let these
1:15:27 ideas push me around. I love it. Are there other ways that you, to quote the late Lord Rabbi,
1:15:32 Jonathan Sacks, he had this amazing line that has stuck with me, which is something along
1:15:37 lines of the key mission is to separate an opportunity to be seized from a temptation to
1:15:45 be resisted. Something along those lines. Wow. And I’m wondering how else you navigate that,
1:15:49 right, with the multiple ideas. Because maybe there are cases because you have a track record
1:15:53 of finishing things. Maybe there are cases where you get three months into something and you’re
1:15:57 like, “You know what? This is not what I hoped it could be. And there’s this other thing and I
1:16:03 want to switch planes midair.” But how would you think about or how do you think about distinguishing
1:16:09 between those two? I’ve never done that. You’ve never done it. I’ve never switched planes midair.
1:16:15 Oh, you haven’t. Okay. So when you start a project, you basically have done the hard-ass due diligence
1:16:21 up front. You’re like, “No, this is high conviction. I never thought of that.” Yeah. I mean, this is
1:16:28 like the mystery of a human brain or a human system because in my personal life, I’m so flaky.
1:16:34 And in my professional life, I’m so clear. It’s amazing. I think the universe gives us
1:16:38 certain things that are easier for us than other things. But yeah, because it takes me so long
1:16:44 to do a project because my projects, whether they’re fiction or nonfiction, are so heavily
1:16:49 research-driven and it can take three or four years to create one of these books.
1:16:55 And so the last novel that I wrote, “City of Girls,” I was thinking about that book for 10 years
1:17:01 before I started it. It was at those meetings for 10 years. And the next novel that I’m planning
1:17:05 to write, I’ve been thinking about for probably 15 years, but it’s coming more into view. So there’s
1:17:09 some that are kind of on the horizon that are coming in, but I’m thinking of air traffic control.
1:17:14 They come in in order. Something is feeding them to me in order. And I don’t know what
1:17:19 that something is, but one at a time. I can’t do two at a time.
1:17:22 What do you think contributes to that certainty in the professional realm as
1:17:28 I’m listening to and thinking about everything you’ve said in this conversation and also the
1:17:33 review of the last conversation? But it strikes me that feeling like you have more than enough time,
1:17:39 a voice has told you there’s more than enough time, relieves you of the perceived obligation to
1:17:45 choose the best thing because you’re running out of time. That’s just pure speculation in my part.
1:17:54 Second is feeling like there’s a source you are hearing from versus having to independently
1:18:01 make an ideal decision may also give weight to the things as they come in, as you put it,
1:18:05 through this air traffic control. I’m just wondering what else might contribute to the
1:18:11 clarity. There may be some interpersonal simplicity compared to dealing with other messy humans.
1:18:16 I don’t know. Anything else that you think contributes to the clarity and the not switching
1:18:25 planes midair? I think part of it is that I enjoy it. I enjoy the work and I never identified as a
1:18:31 tormented artist. I’ve identified as a tormented person, but I’ve never identified as a tormented
1:18:38 artist. Creativity has been the place where torment drops away. The question of course is why,
1:18:44 and I think once again I would probably have to say I don’t know. I’m getting a big smile on my
1:18:49 faces. I’m thinking about this, but I’m thinking why shouldn’t we do the thing that is so pleasurable?
1:18:56 Why shouldn’t that be a clue as to the thing that you’re supposed to be doing? That you’re on the
1:19:03 right track because long before I became a meditator, I had so much trouble meditating for years,
1:19:07 but I would start to write and hours would drop away and I would not be aware of time.
1:19:12 Writing gave me the thing that meditation promised, but I could never have happened in
1:19:17 meditation until very recently where time stops or changes, and I’m here but not here.
1:19:23 That’s just so pleasurable. The other thing is sometimes I feel that it’s a mandate
1:19:28 and I can’t talk about the book that I’ve just finished. It’s coming out next year,
1:19:31 but I can say that it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written emotionally.
1:19:36 When I was doing my two-way prayers every day in the morning during this, especially the really
1:19:41 hard part of writing it, and I have a really loving higher power. I have a higher power who’s
1:19:47 constantly letting me off hook for lots of stuff that I do not have to do. You do not have to be
1:19:53 involved in this. You don’t have to be part of that chaos thing that’s going on. You don’t have to
1:20:00 be part of this family gathering. You don’t have to rescue this person. I get a lot of you don’t
1:20:05 have to do this. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do that. Throughout this entire
1:20:12 process of this book, because I was struggling every morning when I wrote it out on the page,
1:20:17 that voice would say, “I can see how hard this is for you, and I can see what this has cost,
1:20:22 the toll that this is taking on you to tell this story, and I can see that you want to stop
1:20:30 too bad.” I’ve given you 47 hall passes, and this is not going to be the 40 years.
1:20:35 This isn’t one of them, and it sucks to suck. Get back to work. I’ll see you on the page.
1:20:39 I know you’re tired. I know you want to take a day off. You’re not having a day off.
1:20:44 And I think the trust that has built up between me and that higher power over the decades,
1:20:51 largely because of the things that I am let off the hook for, has made me think it goes back to
1:20:55 the original part of the conversation where I said, “I’m loved beyond measure by a God who
1:21:00 has given me control over practically nothing.” The wisdom to know the difference is
1:21:07 one that I cannot find, but I get instructions of like, “This isn’t yours. We don’t need you in
1:21:12 this story. We don’t need you involved in this situation. We don’t need you speaking up about
1:21:15 this thing. We don’t need you doing this. We need you doing this.” However…
1:21:23 Yeah. And the reason I don’t want you up in all this other stuff that’s going on is because
1:21:29 I very much need you in this. And so I want you to bring your full attention to this. And if that
1:21:33 changes, you’ll be notified. You’ll be notified of something that happens a lot on the pages of
1:21:37 Two-Way Prayer for me. I mean, I’ve gone through periods of time where I didn’t have any creative
1:21:43 ideas at all. Early pandemic, I was like, “Wow, this would be a great time to write, but I actually
1:21:47 don’t have anything that’s ready to go.” And I remember writing in Two-Way Prayer and saying,
1:21:52 “Should I be working on something right now?” And instantly came the answer, “When we’ve got
1:21:57 something for you to do, you’ll be notified.” And I was like, “Well, what do I do until then?”
1:22:02 And they were like, “Hang out. Like, hang out. Be present to the world. It’s amazing. Walk around.
1:22:07 Look at stuff.” You don’t have to be on duty at every moment, but when you have to be on duty,
1:22:12 you really have to be on duty. And I think part of the aspiration that I have to both be a relaxed
1:22:19 woman and teach and model that to other women is this is the opposite of what women have been
1:22:24 taught. Wait, what if I’m not on duty all the time? What if I’m only on duty sometimes?
1:22:30 And I have to follow a deep inner voice that tells me when that is and what that is. And
1:22:34 everything else, you all can take care of yourselves. And that’s something that we,
1:22:38 as women, are not taught that we can ever say. Like, “I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”
1:22:47 So, I want to actually ask a question that is following up on something in our last conversation.
1:22:53 And I would say I’ve definitely put it in the category of “me time,” in a sense, which is
1:22:59 related to the artist’s way by Julia Cameron. So, if I remember correctly, I am looking at notes,
1:23:06 so hopefully I’m getting it right, that e-pray love would not exist without the artist’s way.
1:23:10 If that’s a true statement. I’m wondering which pieces of it, because I don’t think we got into
1:23:17 the specifics, but what pieces of it really made that the case? And, for instance, one homework
1:23:20 assignment that I’ve never done from the artist’s way, I’m so embarrassed to say this, but it’s
1:23:25 true, is the artist’s date. I’ve never done that. And so, as an example, I’m wondering,
1:23:28 was that a part of it? You know, is that a part of it for you?
1:23:31 The artist’s day is hard. Yeah.
1:23:36 It’s hard. I still have trouble figuring that out sometimes. So, here, I can tell you exactly
1:23:41 one. I can tell you exactly it. So, one of the things that she does so cleverly in that course
1:23:47 is that she keeps asking you the same question like 90 different ways. So, there are all these
1:23:51 questions each week that you have to answer, and then there’s the morning pages. So,
1:23:54 there are twists and turns on, like, if you could have three talents, what would they be? If there
1:23:59 were three places in the world that you could visit, what would they be? If there was something you
1:24:05 wish you had studied, what would it be? She’s coming at it, like, from 20 different directions.
1:24:09 And then there’s this point that comes late in the process where she instructs you to go back and
1:24:15 read everything that you’ve written and start looking at what keeps showing up. Because I think
1:24:19 one of the mysterious and magical things and weird things about our brain is, like, the secrets we
1:24:25 can keep from ourselves. Where it’s like, I didn’t even know that about me. So, when I went back and
1:24:33 read, Italian was on every page. And I was like, apparently, I really want to fucking learn to
1:24:39 speak Italian. And I would not have said that that was, like, a massive priority of my life.
1:24:46 But apparently, my soul knew that it was an instruction because it was, like, Italian. I kept
1:24:53 seeing Italian, and I was like, “Why Italian?” You know, it’s not useful unless you are in Italy.
1:25:01 It’s not, like, Spanish. Or it’s spoken across the globe. Or why? Why? Why? Why? And why is not a
1:25:06 spiritual question and never brings a spiritual answer? So it’s kind of useless. But I just went
1:25:13 with it. And I was like, “Okay.” And one of my artist states was to sign up for Italian classes
1:25:18 without knowing why, just because it kept showing up on the page. So I did six months of Italian
1:25:25 classes, like night school for divorce ladies at the Y. And I loved it so much. And I started
1:25:29 watching movies in Italian. And I started, I had no plan for anything I was going to do with it.
1:25:35 And then I was like, “Well, wait, I want to use this Italian. Like, I want to go to Italy and
1:25:39 speak this language. But I also have been studying meditation a lot lately. And I want to go to
1:25:45 India. I also want to go back.” And then, like, out of that was born in Aprilov. So it took me by
1:25:49 surprise as much as anything. And maybe you’ve had that experience on your morning pages where
1:25:54 it’s like, I didn’t even know that. Like, I can hide things so far from myself that I can’t even find
1:26:03 them. That’s true for my phone, too. You mentioned that Y is not a spiritual question and doesn’t
1:26:06 give you spiritual answers, something along those lines. Could you elaborate on that?
1:26:15 Okay. Anytime I howl into the void, any question that begins with Y, I do not get an answer.
1:26:21 I will not be answered. I can do two-way prayer from now until God leaves Chicago,
1:26:26 from now until time gets better. And I guess, why, why, why, why, why? And I will not be given an
1:26:32 answer that’s much more satisfying than what an adult would tell the toddler, like, at some point
1:26:37 of just because. Because I said so. Because is. I wrote a poem once called The Shortest
1:26:44 Conversation I Ever Had With God. And it’s God colon, why? Oh, sorry, me. But why? Which is,
1:26:50 again, the ego. And God because is. But there are other questions that I can ask and I do get answers.
1:26:56 So if I ask questions that begin with how instead of why, how do you want me to move through this?
1:27:04 I will be given direct instructions. Who do you want me to serve in this situation? Who do you
1:27:11 want me to be in this moment? Answers, very clear. What do you want me to do next? That’s a really
1:27:15 good one. That’s a big one in AA. What’s the next intuitive action? What’s the next right action?
1:27:20 What would you like me to do right now? Which is often like get a glass of water, you know.
1:27:26 Take a nap. Turn the phone off. But why? And I think that goes back to you don’t even know
1:27:30 what you’re looking at. I think that goes back to we’re five Einstein’s away from even having the
1:27:35 right questions to get the right answers. But why is it, it turns into a black hole that I just
1:27:41 fall into and it’s this great echoing silence. Yeah, I can be stepping into the quicksand of
1:27:47 blame and finger pointing. Even if that’s fingers pointing back at yourself, which it often is.
1:27:52 That makes sense. And I was asking you about choosing projects. I want to ask you about anxiety,
1:28:00 specifically purpose anxiety. What is purpose anxiety? You’re smiling. So I see you already know.
1:28:05 No, I don’t. I don’t. I mean, I kind of right there in the title. Yeah, based on the words,
1:28:09 I can imagine right. You can work it out in context. Yeah, I think I can work it out.
1:28:17 Well, I mean, the story that most of us were taught was some variation of each of you was born
1:28:27 with a one unique offering, a special spark that is only yours and only you can deliver on that thing.
1:28:34 It is your job. It is your job to find out what that thing is that only you can do. Meanwhile,
1:28:39 there’s what almost 8 billion people on the planet. So already here’s some pressure because
1:28:43 it’s got to be something that nobody else can do, which is going to be unlikely because there’s a
1:28:51 lot of us. And you should find out what that is very young. And then you should become the master
1:28:57 of that thing. And you should devote the 10,000 hours way before you’re out of adolescence. You
1:29:02 should already be pouring yourself into this purpose that you are here to serve. And you
1:29:07 should become the very best at that thing. And then it’s not enough to become the best of that
1:29:14 thing. You have to monetize it. And it’s not enough to monetize it. You also have to create
1:29:19 opportunities for others and make sure that they’re also being served by this purpose. And if all of
1:29:25 this sounds exhausting, you are not off the hook even when you die because you must leave a legacy
1:29:31 and you must change the world. So no pressure. But that’s it. That’s it. You must change the world.
1:29:39 And it’s like, I think it’s very male. I think it’s very capitalistic. It’s very self-centered.
1:29:47 It’s very like, yeah, you only must do this thing that only you can do. And the world must be altered
1:29:52 and they must know you were here. You must leave your mark on the world. And I think the world at
1:29:57 this point is like, I wish maybe that you stopped leaving marks on me. Maybe we could use a little
1:30:02 less of that. And I hardly know anyone who doesn’t suffer from purpose anxiety. And I know people
1:30:07 who are living lives that look from the outside like they have achieved tremendous purpose. And
1:30:12 it’s a scarcity anxiety. So they’re up at night wondering if they’ve done enough. Have they done
1:30:16 the right thing? Have they left enough of a legacy? Is this where their energy should have gone? It’s
1:30:23 a theology that is going to leave you unsatisfied because there’s no way to know that you have
1:30:30 achieved it. And you and I both know people who are so admired. And they’re so stressed.
1:30:35 And they’re so unsure about themselves. And they feel like they’ve done it all wrong. And they don’t
1:30:41 know whether there’s a never enoughness to it that feels a lot like capitalism. It’s just how
1:30:47 much it’s up thinking of J.P. Morgan testifying before Congress and them saying how much money is
1:30:52 enough, sir, and him saying a little more. It’s the same with purpose. It’s like, when will you know
1:30:58 that you’ve made a big enough impact a little more? And what would be the opposite of a purpose
1:31:03 driven life would be a, I think, a life of presence. It’s also focused entirely in the future
1:31:10 constantly. And I don’t think there’s any way that you can live a relaxed or really truly rich or
1:31:17 meaningful life if you’re constantly thinking about your fucking legacy. But it’s like,
1:31:22 that’s it. You know, you’re like, how much did I make? How much did I leave? How much did I impact?
1:31:27 Meanwhile, like the world is happening and you’re in it and you’re missing it.
1:31:32 Yeah, I’m reflecting. I can’t recall the exact, you might actually know the attribution here.
1:31:38 And I don’t know if it’s a fictional quote or not, but there’s, I want to say this huge
1:31:44 statue in the desert that has deteriorated over time. And it’s half buried and the inscription
1:31:50 reads something like, “I am Ozzy Medius. Lord, look upon my works in despair.”
1:31:51 “My works in tremble.”
1:32:00 And it’s like, yep, that’s where it’s all headed. On the side of, it’s been along similar lines,
1:32:05 I often think to myself, my hair, I know these guys are talking about legacy and the Gauss too,
1:32:09 but a lot of the guys that I am surrounded by. It’s pretty a lot of guys. Yeah, it’s no.
1:32:13 They’re reading books and so am I about, you know, whether it’s like Alexander the Great or
1:32:19 Genghis Khan or Titan about Rockefeller, whatever it might be, hoping to glean things from these
1:32:24 lives and Alexander the Great. Tell me his last name. Like, what was his full name? Nobody can
1:32:28 tell me. It’s great. Do you know what I mean? His middle name was Thal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:32:33 And it’s like, we’re at the very least thinking about legacy differently. But one thing I am curious
1:32:40 to hear your thoughts on is how do you blend, in your life, do you try to blend presence with
1:32:47 other ingredients for what you deem a life well lived? And I’ll tell you a story. So the story
1:32:51 takes place at Omega Institute. And I love Omega Institute. And I’ve spent time there in upstate
1:32:57 New York. They have amazing classes. The one place that they have consistent Wi-Fi is in the
1:33:03 cafeteria, coffee shop area where people eat their meals or some of them. I can picture it well.
1:33:07 So I would sometimes go because I was spending time in upstate New York, beautiful campus,
1:33:13 amazing groundhogs everywhere. So I would go sit in the cafe and I would write and I remember this
1:33:18 conversation happening next to me. So I wasn’t getting any work done. But I was use dropping on
1:33:22 this conversation. And it was this man and this woman. And the guy asked the woman, “You know,
1:33:26 I know you’ve been looking for a job for a while. Do you find a new gig?” And she’s like, “No,
1:33:33 I’ve been really busy being non-dual.” Oh my God. Oh, that’s like a New Yorker cartoon. That’s so
1:33:41 good. So there is maybe a shadow side of presence, which could be a lot of naval gazing. And maybe
1:33:45 that’s totally fine. And in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t make a difference. But for
1:33:51 yourself personally, recognizing that presence seems to be very additive to one’s life,
1:33:59 are there other ingredients that you weigh? Can I first tell you a story? Yes, please.
1:34:04 Okay. So I want to tell you a counter story about a purpose driven life.
1:34:08 Okay. But I like your question and I think this will lead into it nicely. We’ll see. We’ll see
1:34:13 if this works. So I was in Los Angeles several years ago for a speaking event and I had a free
1:34:19 afternoon and I was wandering around Venice Beach. And I looked across the street and I saw that there
1:34:26 was a guy standing on the top of a ladder painting the awning of his storefront. And I instantly
1:34:32 was able to see that the ladder was not steady. And I have a very severe ladder sensitivity
1:34:37 because I grew up on a farm. And my mom was constantly telling me, “Go hold your father’s
1:34:41 ladder.” Because my dad was always doing Jackass things on the ladder and the farm.
1:34:48 So I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be. And I was the perfect person for the job to
1:34:53 cross the street and just hold the guy’s ladder. And I probably held his ladder for 45 minutes
1:34:59 that day. And he never saw me because he was doing his thing. But I felt better because
1:35:04 I was like, “Just make sure this guy doesn’t fall today.” And I’m here and it’s a nice afternoon
1:35:10 and it was lovely. And then when he started to come down and I felt like he was at a safe level,
1:35:16 I just peeled off and he never saw me and I never saw his face and we never had any interaction.
1:35:20 But we had this beautiful little exchange. And as I was walking away because I was thinking about
1:35:25 purpose anxiety, and I was thinking, “What if that was the entire purpose of my life?”
1:35:25 Just that moment.
1:35:33 Just that moment. Not things like that, like try to be kind to people, but that particular moment
1:35:39 that they were like, “However this thing works, it’s essential that that guy not fall off his ladder.”
1:35:45 So we’re going to need in like sector seven, you know, block D on this date, we’re going to need
1:35:52 somebody to really be alert and notice that and to send them in. Have the proper farm training.
1:35:55 Put her on a farm, have her like grow up with a father who does Jack. How are we going to get
1:35:59 her to LA? Make her a writer, give her a career, have her have her read. Like every single other
1:36:04 thing I was doing in my life was just killing time until the moment when I was needed. And maybe
1:36:08 I’m not needed again after that. And I would challenge anybody to prove to me that that isn’t
1:36:14 true because nobody can because nobody knows what’s going on and nobody even knows what they’re
1:36:19 looking at. So yes, you could go a little too far into that and you could just
1:36:25 smoke weed all day and be like, “Are we just a paperweight in God’s desk?” You know, or like
1:36:32 ask questions like that. But I think presence is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself
1:36:39 and to the world. And I think that that line that I so often hear in meditation and on the page when
1:36:45 I do two-way prayer of you’ll be notified is the very opposite of a purpose-driven life.
1:36:50 Because a purpose-driven life is some sense that I’m going to forge. I’m going to like
1:36:56 hack through this forest and make this trail. It’s going to be named after me and this is
1:37:01 what I’ll be remembered for. And it’s so self-centered. And you’ll be notified is a much
1:37:10 humbler position to take but it requires a great deal of listening and it requires like also lately
1:37:15 I’ve been doing these one day a week without my phone because I want more moments like that
1:37:20 where I notice somebody on the ladder because I’m not on my phone and I’m super addicted to my phone.
1:37:24 It’s like no, I’m not throwing shade against anyone who’s addicted to their phone. We all are,
1:37:29 you know, like at the front that I don’t stare at my phone 90 million hours a day I do. But like
1:37:34 that’s why I take Thursdays off from it is because I don’t want to miss what’s actually happening and
1:37:41 I want to be present to the notification when it comes. How did you choose Thursday? Is it because
1:37:46 you might be social on Friday in the weekend? Yes. Okay. You know, Monday’s like too much going on.
1:37:49 Thursday just felt like a day that the world could maybe operate without me.
1:37:57 So I’m going to play devil’s advocate and defend folks who may be in the purpose-driven
1:38:03 lane for the moment because I agree that at face value, very self-absorbed, self-centered. However,
1:38:08 do you think it’s possible and this is a leading question so it may go nowhere, but that you’re
1:38:15 more comfortable with death and mortality than a lot of people and that insecurity, uncertainty,
1:38:20 fear of death, maybe that others have to a greater extent leads them to think about these things
1:38:25 more than you? Wow, that’s such a… Did not think that was going to be the second half of the question.
1:38:32 And I also want to say here’s the thing about purpose. If you actually are one of those people
1:38:36 who from forever has known exactly what you’re supposed to be doing and you did become the
1:38:40 master of it and you have monetized it and you are leaving a legacy and you have what I
1:38:46 like to call not a problem. Right? Yeah, keep going. Great. You’re doing great. But if you…
1:38:53 The shallow thing seems to be working for you. But if you’re berating yourself because you feel
1:38:58 like there was something you were supposed to be doing, maybe they just need you to hang out until
1:39:03 you get notified of something that could be as small as holding the ladder, I just want to say.
1:39:06 And that maybe the future of the universe depended on that ladder being held that day,
1:39:12 we don’t know. But your question about death, I don’t want to get cocky about like, “I don’t care
1:39:18 about death.” But it’s not a fear that lives in me and I know it’s a fear that lives in a lot of
1:39:25 people, I’m much, much, much more afraid of people not liking me than I am of dying. And that’s what
1:39:29 I have to suffer with more is like to try to figure out how to disappoint people and say no
1:39:32 to people and set boundaries with people that they can survive it and I can survive it. This is
1:39:38 like my work in this lifetime. But death to me, it doesn’t keep me up at night. It’s not… I’m not
1:39:43 in an argument against it. I went with my partner, Rhea, all the way to her death and I wasn’t afraid
1:39:49 of the death. There were things around it that were scary, but… Has that always been the case?
1:39:57 When did that fear drop away? I’m afraid of pain. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not interested at all in
1:40:02 being in suffering. Maybe that’s why I’m not afraid of death. I’m like, “Well, that seems better than
1:40:09 suffering. So what’s so bad about that?” So I don’t know. I come from like really pragmatic people.
1:40:15 My mom’s a nurse. My dad’s a farmer. I saw a lot of death growing up. My mom worked with
1:40:21 the dying a lot. By the time it came, it seemed like it was such a relief for everybody. There
1:40:27 was grief, but also people were shredded by end of life stuff and she sat in a lot of dying people’s
1:40:37 houses for weeks and months on end and dying and struggling and then there was this exhale of death.
1:40:43 Okay, now that person has safely been delivered into death. That’s the feeling I felt when Rhea
1:40:48 died, like those of us who were taking care of her and she had a pretty raucous death, but those of us
1:40:53 who were taking care of her was like, “We safely got her there. We safely got her dead.” I know
1:40:59 that’s a strange thing to say, but it was hard because she was really willful. It was a difficult
1:41:07 death, but then the moment of the death, the instant after the death, there’s such an incredible
1:41:16 thing. Something happens. It isn’t what it was. Something leaves and then the look that was on
1:41:25 her face after she died of absolute delight. We were all aghast at it. Why is she so happy?
1:41:32 She looks so happy, so peaceful. It feels like going home to me. This place feels a lot weirder
1:41:38 to me than death. This planet’s bananas. Having a body, I mean, that’s why I used to
1:41:42 love to do psychedelics so much before I stopped doing all that stuff. It’s like,
1:41:48 “Who wants a body? Who wants to be incarnated? Oh, God, it’s so awkward.”
1:41:57 So, no, life feels scarier to me than death. How did you choose to create your newsletter?
1:42:00 How did that make the cut for you? How did that come in?
1:42:08 Two things. One is, I’m trying to get off of the nicotine crack pipe booze bottle that is social
1:42:16 media. Yeah. It’s not easy to get off it because I feel like social media is a party drug that
1:42:20 started off as really fun. And now, I hear somebody say so beautifully about social media.
1:42:24 I wish I could remember who said it. Everyone’s now, everyone’s abusing it and no one’s getting
1:42:30 high anymore. Everyone’s addicted to it and the high is gone. And I’m looking for ways. I love
1:42:34 connection. I loved that feeling at the beginning of social media that we can all connect with one
1:42:40 another. Yeah. Before everyone started peeing in the pool. Oh, my God. Before everyone started
1:42:45 propping up Putin, and it’s like, “Wait, what pool party is this? What just happened to democracy?”
1:42:49 We’ve just discovered that this thing is very, very, very dangerous and venomous.
1:42:55 And so I’ve been looking for another place to go to be able to have dialogue with people
1:43:01 and sub-stack so far has been a really good spot for that. It’s like a reverse technology.
1:43:05 So could you explain how that works? Because I think a lot of people thinking of a newsletter,
1:43:10 they’re like, “Well, hold on a second. How does interaction work in that type of format?”
1:43:14 You can comment. So there’s like, so I send out a newsletter once a week. It’s essentially like
1:43:20 a ’90s technology. It’s basically a blog. So it’s like a high-end blog. So people subscribe,
1:43:25 and then a newsletter goes out to them, and there’s video attachments and things,
1:43:29 and then you can comment. And people can comment on each other’s comments. So it’s very similar.
1:43:33 It looks very similar to what social media looks like. But because it’s a subscription,
1:43:41 it keeps the haters out because it’s self-selecting. And I’ve been on this thing for a year and have
1:43:45 had not one problem with anything. That’s incredible. I know it’s incredible. I mean,
1:43:49 it’s also like a self-selecting thing because this is a group of really lovely people who
1:43:53 are doing this beautiful project together. So that’s how I decided to go over there.
1:43:59 What could people expect if they went to ElizabethGilbert.Substack.com to subscribe
1:44:07 to your newsletter? Well, every week I will talk to you and I will talk about this process of
1:44:15 learning how to write and speak to yourself, toward yourself, from a place of friendliness and love
1:44:22 in order to combat this just awful virus of self-hatred that we all seem to be so infected with,
1:44:29 that comes also with perfectionism and lack and just bringing a different voice into the
1:44:33 cacophony of voices in your head. And I’ll read one of the letters that I’ve written to myself
1:44:38 from love, and then there’ll be a special guest. And the special guests are really the best part
1:44:45 because it’s everybody from Act like Tony Collette did one and Glennon Doyle did one and
1:44:53 musicians and poets and artists and writers, but then also like random people who I meet.
1:44:59 And I meet them in my travels and I’m like, you are radiating so much light
1:45:07 that I want to ask you, why are you so lit? Why are you so bright and shiny? And what is that?
1:45:10 And what would love have to say to you if it could speak to you?
1:45:15 And people who I meet and find inspiring, there was a young woman who I met in Denmark this year.
1:45:20 I was on tour and so she had read my book Big Magic and because of that book, she was Japanese
1:45:24 and she was an engineer and she worked on a construction site in Japan, but she’d always
1:45:30 wanted to be an artist. And she started making art again after she read Big Magic and then she
1:45:35 took the leap and she quit her construction job in Japan and saved her money and moved to Denmark
1:45:40 and is going to graphic design school and her art is gorgeous. And I was like, hey, will you do a
1:45:46 letter from love? Because obviously there’s something moving through you that’s really special
1:45:52 and I would love to hear what love has to say to you through you. And so it’s like every week you’ll
1:45:57 get a special guest. I’ve had children do it. My friend’s 11-year-old son who was going through
1:46:03 a really hard time being bullied at school, he wrote one and it was beautiful and love said to him,
1:46:06 “Not everybody has to like you. You don’t have to be everybody’s cup of tea.” That was literally in
1:46:12 this 11-year-old kids, “You don’t have to be everybody’s cup of tea. We love you.” He felt
1:46:15 there was a “we.” It’s really interesting. A lot of people when they write the letters,
1:46:24 the voice that comes to them operates as a “we.” It’s some sort of consortium of ancestors and
1:46:29 spirits and guides and it’s like your team. There’s this feeling that people are getting where
1:46:33 they’re like, “Do I have a team? I seem to have some sort of a team that wants to love me.”
1:46:38 So I’ve had developmentally disabled people do it and access love. There’s this amazing
1:46:43 artist named BJ who in my town in New Jersey there’s this arts collective for developmental
1:46:50 disabled people and he did a song about himself called “I Love BJ Three Different Ways.” That’s
1:46:54 like one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard. That’s basically just him talking about how lovable
1:46:59 he is. So that’s what you can expect and then if you’re a subscriber you can post your own letters
1:47:04 from love each week. And what’s happening in that community is that people are creating
1:47:10 collectives and friendships with each other. They’re having meetups in cities around the world
1:47:15 and they’re starting to become like it’s the kindest corner of the internet, I truly think.
1:47:20 And slowly I feel like it’s dissolving and breaking down the walls of self-hatred.
1:47:26 That’s what we’re doing over there. I love it. And people can go to elizabethgilbert.substack.com.
1:47:29 We’ll put that in the show notes as well. That’s the best place to direct people?
1:47:31 Yeah, I mean I’m on social media but who cares anymore.
1:47:37 That’s where my heart is. My heart is in the sub-stack newsletter and
1:47:43 after years of doing this privately in my own space and then starting to gradually teach it in
1:47:49 workshops, I finally feel like I’m ready to really bring this to anybody who wants to try it.
1:47:56 I love it. I know I said that but I’ll say it again. It’s a solid cause, solid mission.
1:48:03 It’s my purpose. It’s your purpose. Purpose that follows the presence.
1:48:09 Is there anything else, Lizzy, you’d like to say, any requests you’d like to make in my audience?
1:48:15 Comments, public complaints about my podcasting style, anything at all that you’d like to say
1:48:18 before we land the point? Yes, thank you for giving me the chance to make the public complaints
1:48:24 about your podcasting style. I’ve been crawling out of my skin. I’ll send you a bunch of notes.
1:48:33 No, I just want to say, can you imagine that something might love you? There’s a quote that’s
1:48:38 often misattributed to Einstein. It wasn’t Einstein. It was this 19th century philosopher named
1:48:43 Frederick Myers and his friend asked him if there was one thing that you want to know more than
1:48:49 anything if you could ask the Sphinx one question. What would it be? And Myers said it would be this,
1:48:57 is the universe friendly? And it’s often misattributed to Einstein saying that Einstein said that
1:49:00 the most important question you could ask about your life was, is the universe friendly or not?
1:49:07 He didn’t in fact say that, but he did answer the question in his own way because he was examining
1:49:13 that as well. And he said, subtle is the Lord, but malicious he is not. I hate to gender God,
1:49:19 but anyway, I think it is a really interesting question to live in for your entire life.
1:49:23 And it’s a really interesting question that I ask myself when I’m in moments of great
1:49:28 trial here on earth school, which as you know, I’ve already expressed my belief is a very
1:49:34 difficult curriculum. And it’s like, is this a friendly universe or is this a malicious universe?
1:49:41 And if it’s malicious, then life is pointless suffering. And if it’s friendly, the suffering
1:49:46 might have a point. And if it’s friendly, what might the point be? And where can I find that?
1:49:52 And how do you want me to move through this now? Assuming that it’s friendly? How do you want me
1:49:58 to move through this terrible looking thing? And so the question I think that I’m constantly
1:50:02 bringing to people, especially when they say I tried it and it just feels really weird and
1:50:06 uncomfortable to say kind things to myself, I’m like, yeah, because you’ve got decades of training
1:50:11 of saying garbage things to yourself. And anytime you try to do something new, it’s going to be
1:50:15 hard and it’s going to feel awkward and it’s going to feel, it definitely doesn’t feel normal.
1:50:21 Because normal is your history’s greatest garbage can, you are just a pile of worthless,
1:50:25 you know, like it’s you have never done enough, you’ll never be enough, you should be ashamed of
1:50:31 yourself. Who do you think you are? I mean, that’s the normal dialogue that Annie Lamont calls
1:50:38 radio K fucked, that’s playing in most of our heads at all the times. And what about our negative
1:50:46 bias thinking is always trained toward worst possible outcome, but could it just as likely be
1:50:52 that you are loved and lovable as despicable and somebody who should be ashamed of themselves?
1:50:57 Why not? And why not try it on, try it on like a pair of boots and take it for a walk
1:51:00 and then do it again tomorrow and see what it does to your mind.
1:51:03 Thank you, Liz. I love spending time with you.
1:51:09 I love spending time with you, Tim. You are such a delight. You are just such a delight.
1:51:11 I never know where we’re going to go. Me neither.
1:51:16 And I’m always so happy about where we went. It’s a fun adventure always talking to you,
1:51:20 so thank you. I really appreciate it. I really, really appreciate the time
1:51:24 and the thoughts and the wisdom and the reflections and to everybody listening,
1:51:28 as always, we will have the show notes links to everything including
1:51:35 Liz’s substack at elizabethgilbert.substack.com. You’ll be able to find all that at tim.blog/podcast.
1:51:39 And until next time, be just a little bit kinder than necessary,
1:51:44 not just to others, but to yourself. And as always, thanks for tuning in.
1:51:51 Hey, guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five
1:51:55 Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little
1:52:01 fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter,
1:52:07 my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is
1:52:12 basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I’ve found or
1:52:17 discovered or have started exploring over that week. It’s kind of like my diary of cool things.
1:52:23 It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading, albums, perhaps gadgets, gizmos,
1:52:28 all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcasts,
1:52:35 guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field. And then I test them and then I share
1:52:41 them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before
1:52:45 you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you’d like to try it out, just go to
1:52:52 tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday, drop in your email and you’ll
1:52:59 get the very next one. Thanks for listening. Way back in the day, in 2010, I published a book
1:53:05 called The Four Hour Body, which I probably started writing in 2008. And in that book,
1:53:12 I recommended many, many, many things. First generation continuous glucose monitor and cold
1:53:18 exposure and all sorts of things that have been tested by people from NASA and all over the place.
1:53:24 And one thing in that book was athletic greens. I did not get paid to include it. I was using it.
1:53:30 That’s how long I’ve been using what is now known as AG1. AG1 is my all-in-one nutritional
1:53:37 insurance. And I just packed up, for instance, to go off the grid for a while. And the last
1:53:41 thing I left out on my countertop to remember to take about making this up and looking right in
1:53:48 front of me is travel packets of AG1. So rather than taking multiple pills or products to cover
1:53:53 your mental clarity, gut health, human health, energy, and so on, you can support these areas
1:53:58 through one daily scoop with AG1, which tastes great, even with water. I always just have it
1:54:02 with water. I usually take it first thing in the morning and it takes me less than two minutes
1:54:06 a day. Honestly, it takes me less than a minute. I just put in a shaker bottle, shake it up and
1:54:11 I’m done. AG1 bolsters my digestion and nutrient absorption by including ingredients optimized
1:54:18 to support a healthy gut in every scoop. AG1 in single-serve travel packs, which I mentioned
1:54:22 earlier, also makes for the perfect travel companion. I’ll actually be going totally off the
1:54:28 grid, but these things are incredibly, incredibly space efficient. You can even put them in a book,
1:54:32 frankly. I mean, they’re kind of like bookmarks. After consuming this product for more than a decade,
1:54:38 I chose to invest in AG1 in 2021 as I trust their no-compromise approach to ingredient sourcing
1:54:43 and appreciate their focus on continuously improving one formula. They go above and beyond
1:54:50 by testing for 950 or so contaminants and impurities compared to the industry standard of 10. AG1
1:54:55 is also tested for heavy metals and 500 various pesticides and herbicides. I’ve started paying
1:55:01 a lot of attention to pesticides. That’s a story for another time. To make sure you’re consuming
1:55:07 only the good stuff. AG1 is also NSF certified for sport. That means if you’re an athlete,
1:55:11 you can take it. The certification process is exhaustive and involves the testing and verification
1:55:17 of each ingredient and every finished batch of AG1. So they take testing very seriously. There’s no
1:55:23 better time than today to start a new healthy habit. And this is an easy one. Wake up, water in
1:55:30 the shaker bottle, AG1, boom. So take advantage of this exclusive offer for you, my dear podcast
1:55:36 listeners, a free one-year supply of liquid vitamin D plus five travel packs with your subscription.
1:55:45 Simply go to drinkag1.com/tim. That’s the number one, drinkag1.com/tim for a free one-year supply
1:55:50 of liquid vitamin D plus five travel packs with your first subscription. You can just learn more
1:55:59 at drinkag1.com/tim. If you ever use public Wi-Fi, say at a hotel or coffee shop, which is where I
1:56:04 often work. I’m doing it right now. And as many of you, my listeners do, you’re likely sending
1:56:09 data over an open network, meaning there’s no encryption at all. A great way to ensure that
1:56:14 all of your data are encrypted and can’t be easily read by hackers or captured by websites is to use
1:56:21 this episode sponsor ExpressVPN. It is so simple. It is one click. It’s the easiest thing in the
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1:56:59 seen that personally. It’s very, very spooky. Don’t like it. So ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is the
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1:57:19 bonus, I’ve also used it many times to unblock content from around the world. If you’re traveling
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1:58:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:04 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss
0:00:09 Show, where it is usually my job to sit down and interview world-class performers of all different
0:00:13 types, to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply to your own
0:00:18 lives. This time, we have a slightly different format, and I happen to be the guest. Here’s some
0:00:24 context. This past April was the podcast’s 10th anniversary, and the platform River, which I
0:00:30 suggest checking out. It’s very cool. GetRiver.io helped listeners around the world organize, get
0:00:38 together. There’s parties in more than 180 cities, more than 4,000 people RSVP’d, and it was one hell
0:00:43 of an evening, and that evening spanned across the world at different times. I was able to join
0:00:48 about 40 cities via Zoom for quick halos and drinks. So huge thanks to Ray and Anna for the amazing
0:00:54 quarterbacking, and I had a blast also surprise dropping in on the Paris Meetup in person, which
0:00:59 I always like to do if I can, and I need to get out more. Maybe I’ll do more of that. Huge thanks to
0:01:04 everyone who gathered for the wine, the celebration, and most important, meeting like-minded people. A
0:01:09 lot of folks who met for the first time at these Meetups have stayed in touch and are doing amazing
0:01:14 things. So that makes me happy. And after all the parties and as a thank you for their hard work,
0:01:19 I invited all of the hosts to a private Q&A where they could ask me anything,
0:01:23 and that’s what you’re about to hear. It covers a lot of ground, a lot of different subjects.
0:01:28 I had a great time, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. But first, just a few quick words
0:01:37 from our fine podcast sponsors, and only maybe 15%, 20% at most of the people who want to be
0:01:43 sponsors for the show become sponsors because I personally test and vet everything. So with that
0:01:50 said, please enjoy. About three weeks ago, I found myself between 10 and 12,000 feet going over the
0:01:56 continental divide carrying tons of weight, doing my best not to chew on my own lungs, and I needed
0:02:02 all the help I could get. And in those circumstances, I relied on momentous products every single day
0:02:07 and every single night. Now, regular listeners probably know I’ve been taking momentous products
0:02:12 consistently and testing them the entire spectrum of their products for a long while now. But you
0:02:17 may not know that I recently collaborated with them, one of the sponsors of this episode,
0:02:23 to put together my top picks. And I’m calling it my performance stack. I always aim for a strong
0:02:27 body and sharp mind. Of course, you need both and neither is possible without quality sleep.
0:02:32 So I didn’t want anything speculative. I wanted things I could depend on and it is what I use
0:02:37 personally. So I designed my performance stack to check all three boxes. And here it is CreaPure
0:02:41 creatine for muscular and cognitive support. The cognitive side is actually very interesting to
0:02:46 me these days, whey protein isolate for muscle mass and recovery and magnesium three and eight
0:02:52 for sleep, which is really the ideal form of magnesium as far as we know, for sleep. I use
0:02:58 all three daily and it’s why I feel 100% comfortable recommending it to you, my dear listeners.
0:03:04 Momentous sources CreaPure creatine from Germany and their whey isolate is sourced from European
0:03:10 dairy farmers held to incredibly strict standards. And I’ve chatted with the CEO about their supply
0:03:15 chain about how they manage all of these things. It’s incredibly complex. And they go way above
0:03:20 any industry standards that I’m familiar with and I am familiar with them. All momentous products are
0:03:25 NSF and informed sports certified, which is professional athlete and Olympic level testing.
0:03:31 So here’s the main point. What’s on the label is exactly what you’re getting. And this is not
0:03:36 true for the vast majority of companies in this industry. So this is a differentiator.
0:03:42 Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think. Visit livemomentous.com/tim and use Tim at
0:03:49 checkout for 20% off of my performance stack. One more time, that’s livemomentous.com/tim.
0:03:56 I’ll spell it out. It’s a long one. Livemomentous.com/tim for 20% off.
0:04:02 This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is the all in one commerce platform
0:04:07 that powers millions of businesses worldwide, including me, including mine. What business
0:04:12 you might ask? Well, one way I’ve scratched my own itch is by creating cockpunch coffee. It’s a
0:04:18 long story. All proceeds on my end go to my foundation, Saise Foundation to fund research for
0:04:22 mental health, etc. Anyway, cockpunch coffee. It’s delicious. The first coffee I’ve ever
0:04:26 produced myself, I drink it every morning. Check it out. We use Shopify for the online
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0:05:47 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
0:05:51 Can I answer your personal question? No, I would have seen it for a good time.
0:05:57 I’m a cybernetic organism living this year over a metal endoskeleton.
0:06:11 First and foremost, thanks everybody. I really appreciate all the hosting.
0:06:18 And amazing celebrations and goings-on around the world. It was super fun for me to be part of
0:06:23 and to watch and to participate in. So thank you very much for all of that.
0:06:33 And what I thought we would do is bounce back and forth between these questions here.
0:06:43 And I’ll improv jazz as we go through. And I’ll pick some questions. And then we will also do
0:06:49 some live questions. So why don’t we start with some live questions? And then I’ll hop in here
0:06:54 and I’ll answer as many questions as I can that were pre-submitted as well. All right.
0:07:01 RJ from Malaga, Spain. Believe it or not, I have some ancestors from Malaga, Spain.
0:07:05 One of them was killed in a bullfight. So be careful with the bullfights.
0:07:11 All right. Here we go. If you had to pick a topic for your podcast that I’d stick to
0:07:18 from now on, topic or theme would you pick? Probably reinvention of different types.
0:07:22 I think I would focus on people who have reinvented themselves instead of sticking
0:07:28 with the tried and true groove. People who have taken the time or the space or just the attention
0:07:35 to step back and reexamine their assumptions, reexamine the things that have worked up to this
0:07:41 point that may not be those things directly that they want to continue pursuing. So reinvention,
0:07:47 I think. Let’s see. Kate and Cody, how do you think about over-optimization? Today,
0:07:50 many of us have the resources to enable us to spend countless percentage of our life tweaking
0:07:55 and attempting to optimize every little thing. I would say that you want to pick very carefully
0:08:00 what you choose to optimize as a very dear friend of mine. I won’t mention him by name
0:08:06 because you might not like that, but very top 1% of 1% in terms of performer put it to me. He’s
0:08:12 like, “You want to be incredibly excellent, the best you can be in one or two things,
0:08:18 and then for everything else, it’s good enough.” Passing grade for everything else. He walks that
0:08:26 walk and it’s got a great family. He’s a great husband and father. He’s very good at the things
0:08:32 he chooses to optimize and for the rest, he’s not worried. Claudine, what has brought me a ton
0:08:37 of joy or fun recently? Archery. I’ve been doing a lot of archery training. I’m not sure if you
0:08:42 can see my forearms. They are all screwed up. I’m shooting both right and left-handed, but
0:08:48 I find that incredibly joyful and meditative. Joel, hello Joel, our group. It’s so much in
0:08:51 common. It was so fun. Everyone wants to stay connected. They asked if there might be more
0:08:56 opportunities for me to facilitate keeping us connected in the future. Greatest joy that I
0:09:01 got from the parties for the 10th anniversary and so on was how many people came together
0:09:08 with some shared interests or curiosities, at least, who then wanted to hang out after the event.
0:09:13 People who wanted to stay connected, that made me super, super happy. That was really the
0:09:19 not-so-secret agenda all along. That made me really happy and I’d like to explore ways that
0:09:26 I can facilitate that without having to manage it myself. Cindy has a question. “Cockpunch,
0:09:32 update please.” Yes, I have a ton of artwork and a lot of material to share with respect to world
0:09:40 building. Frankly, I’ve let perfection be the enemy of good. I’ve wanted to present all this stuff
0:09:46 in this high production value video with all the bells and whistles and I’ve been sitting on this
0:09:54 stuff for many months now. I think that is my perfectionism getting in the way of simply
0:10:00 sharing these things. I have lots of stuff to share and I need to get on that, I would say,
0:10:05 in the next few weeks. It doesn’t need to be fancy. I feel at this point, expediting is more
0:10:12 important than optimizing delivery. All right, I’m looking for questions that I can answer.
0:10:16 Oh god, worst funniest date I’ve been on. Yeah, we’ll need another
0:10:22 live chat to cover that. Irina, how am I today? I’m doing really well. Beautiful day here. It’s
0:10:27 a little warm. I don’t handle heat terribly well. I’m going to go shoot arrows after this Q&A
0:10:33 and hang out with Molly outside. I’ll have her behind the line of fire. She’s a very good archery
0:10:39 dog in that way. I’m a little tired. I’m not sure why. I might have a fever. I’ve been training
0:10:43 really hard, so who knows? Maybe there was a bug in the food or something. I’ve been very tired
0:10:48 today. It’s unclear why because I got plenty of sleep. That’s how I am today, but happy to be
0:10:55 doing the Q&A. All right, I’ll do a few more and then I’ll hop into the pre-submitted.
0:11:00 All right, this is from Andres. Andy from Buenos Aires. What place does Argentina occupy in my
0:11:07 heart today and why? Why a deep affection for Argentina and the Argyz. I would like to get
0:11:13 back down there, honestly. I recently, for the first time in 20 years, basically went to a tango
0:11:18 festival in Austin. I bought new shoes. I didn’t even have shoes. I haven’t done tango in ages,
0:11:23 and I’ve forgotten 99% of it, which is very painful for me,
0:11:28 but had a blast. Just had so much fun. There’s nothing like it. I think at some point it’s
0:11:33 possible. I’ll go back to Argentina and do three to four weeks full immersion, tons of tango,
0:11:41 lots of steak, and probably lots of Malbec at the same time. I would say I’m very eager to get
0:11:47 down there, revisit it, learn of the current events and leadership in particular in Argentina,
0:11:53 which I find very interesting. And we’ll go from there. What type of business/investment
0:11:58 is the most exciting for me right now? Anything that is aligned, I’d say, and this isn’t an
0:12:06 invitation for pitches, but anything that’s really aligned with the ethos that I might be
0:12:12 looking to incorporate more in my life. So, for instance, Maui Nui-Venison from an ecological
0:12:19 perspective, from a founder perspective, husband and wife team, incredibly high integrity, beautiful
0:12:25 family, beautiful people, and also very good operators. It’s a good business, but it’s also
0:12:32 doing a lot for the native ecosystem in Hawaii. So, that’d be an example of something that I feel
0:12:36 very aligned with, even though it’s not the kind of tech multiples that we would be used to in
0:12:41 potential outcomes. Something I feel very good about, also very involved with quite a bit of
0:12:49 climate work. And let’s just call it technology intended to help with many of the extreme weather
0:12:55 and climate challenges that we’re going to continue to face. Let’s see here. Top three snacks I’m
0:13:00 eating right now. Yeah, I mean, I have Maui Nui right around the corner. So, the Maui Nui-Venison
0:13:08 sticks. And then, often, it’s some type of mixed nuts minus peanuts and, let’s say, cans of lentils.
0:13:14 So, boring, but I find that very helpful. There are a number of questions about AI,
0:13:22 I would say. I largely feel unqualified to have strong opinions about this. But if I invest,
0:13:32 and I’ve invested in one or two AI focused companies, they’re very niche and they have some
0:13:39 type of at least intermediate term defensible mode. A lot of the AI stuff that’s trained on
0:13:43 publicly available data is just going to get cloned as soon as it shows any traction.
0:13:49 And, as some people may have noticed, a lot of stuff that was Web 3, at one point, those people
0:13:55 have now pivoted into AI. And I’m trying to be cautious of anything that is kind of the
0:14:01 investment sector du jour. And they’re still interesting things in Web 3, although I think
0:14:05 blockchain is probably a better way to put it. And there are very interesting things in AI. But
0:14:12 I like to invest in what I know, where I think I have an informational advantage, and I do not
0:14:19 think I have an informational advantage with AI. This is a question on a few different things.
0:14:23 I’ll pick two of these. On modern dating, as a public figure, how do you navigate the complexities
0:14:28 of modern dating? I would say slowly and very carefully, what qualities do I look for in a
0:14:32 partner to ensure a meaningful and sustainable relationship? Well, first and foremost, I would
0:14:37 say the smaller the social media footprint, the more comfortable I am. But it also makes
0:14:42 it very hard to find people if they’re not online, since it’s not like I’m going out to bars and
0:14:49 just doing cold approaches. So I would say discretion, someone who prefers a certain degree
0:14:55 of privacy, those are all indicators for me in the positive direction for trustworthiness.
0:15:00 I recognize a lot of people live online, so that’s just the nature of our current day.
0:15:06 But I look for those things, a demonstrated ability to do hard things over longer periods of time.
0:15:12 I want to know that life isn’t always hard for someone. So if they’re able to focus on, let’s
0:15:17 just say, higher education for four years at a demanding university, that doesn’t automatically
0:15:21 make them a super genius who’s perfect for me, but it shows probably they’re able to focus on
0:15:25 certain things that are challenging for extended periods of time. Same thing if they’ve been at
0:15:34 jobs for at least some jobs for more than one or two years. If it’s constantly lily pad hopping
0:15:40 all over the place, I don’t find that to always mean someone is very resilient when things get
0:15:46 hard and things always get hard at some point. So those are a few and then there’s all the stuff
0:15:54 you could guess, beautiful, feminine, all that stuff. But I would say those are a few, also
0:15:59 someone who has an identity where they feel confident in having done hard things. That’s
0:16:05 the other benefit of, I would say, people who have done something objectively to the extent
0:16:10 that it’s possible, difficult, is they have a certain confidence that helps the whole relationship.
0:16:18 I feel like you need to have a certain identity, confidence in your own abilities and skills and
0:16:25 selfhood, self-authoring before you can really be a good partner. I think that’s the case,
0:16:29 as best I can tell. But I don’t think I’m the last person you would want relationship advice from,
0:16:33 but let’s wait until I have it a little more figured out. On self-experimentation, you’re
0:16:38 known as using yourself as a guinea pig. What are the next five things I’m planning to experiment
0:16:44 with? I’ll probably get back, I don’t do as much crazy experimentation as I used to. I am looking
0:16:49 at some regenerative medicine protocols, possibly for helping inflammation and some of the lower
0:16:53 back stuff, which has greatly improved since I started doing a few things. But the jury is still
0:16:58 out, so I’m not going to get into that yet. I don’t want to make any prescriptive recommendations
0:17:03 until I’ve really tested things. And archery training, a bunch of new types of archery training
0:17:11 that I’m excited to play around with. And beyond that, really a lot of it is just putting in the
0:17:18 work with things that I believe will be high leverage, like working on hips, internal and
0:17:25 external rotation, and a few other things that I think directly contribute to overall core and
0:17:31 low back functionality, for lack of a better way to put it. But nothing crazy, in my opinion.
0:17:36 Some of the medical stuff people might think is crazy, but it’s pretty solid research
0:17:40 that’s backing this stuff, 10 to 20 years of research, so I don’t feel like it’s high risk.
0:17:45 Let’s see, what risks have I taken in the last 10 years that have really paid off?
0:17:52 Are there any that did not pay off? Well, the podcast, we could look at as a risk, but
0:17:58 risk for me is a very specific thing. So when people say this is risky, this isn’t risky,
0:18:05 I think definitions matter a lot. For me, risk is the potential of an irreversible negative outcome.
0:18:09 Very few things fall in that category. So the podcast was very off the beaten path for me,
0:18:15 but I didn’t view it as risky because I could always stop doing it. I could always just hit cancel.
0:18:20 It was low cost to get started. I enjoyed the process. So the outcome wasn’t the only measure
0:18:28 of success for me. And that was quite a divergence that paid off, certainly paid off. I would say
0:18:32 that I’ve made some good investment calls and I’ve made some bad investment calls.
0:18:37 So the good ones, fortunately, more than make up for the bad ones. But with, let’s just say,
0:18:44 Web 3 is an example. I went very heavy and hard into a lot of Web 3 and put money into a bunch
0:18:49 of different funds and various things. Cockpunch as an NFT project was successful. And I set
0:18:54 expectations, I think, properly at the beginning. If you go back and read that FAQ, I’ve delivered
0:19:00 on all of those and I’m going to deliver continually beyond that. I have a lot more to share and
0:19:04 everyone else has run for the, not everyone else, but pretty much everyone else has run for the
0:19:08 hills and they’re like, forget about all that. No, no, forget about all that. Sleep. Sleep.
0:19:13 They don’t want anybody to remember. I don’t mind at all. I took all those proceeds and donated
0:19:17 to the foundation. The foundation, SciSafe Foundation is going to do some amazing work
0:19:21 with the whatever it ended up being, $2 million or something, maybe a little bit more.
0:19:27 So a lot of good will come of that. And it was a huge creative catalyst for me.
0:19:33 And I think that without that, I wouldn’t be working on a new book project right now,
0:19:38 as an example. So it checked all the boxes in terms of its objectives, but as a sector,
0:19:45 I would say, took a lot of huge hits on that one. And you live and learn. I wasn’t playing
0:19:50 with money. I couldn’t afford to lose, but it was enough that it was very painful.
0:19:55 So there’s an experiment that didn’t pan out, but there’s a reason they call them
0:20:00 experiments and not guarantees. You got to choose your bet sizing properly so you don’t
0:20:05 put yourself in a bad situation. All right. So that risks that have paid off. That was from Rebecca.
0:20:11 Andres currently in a moment where I don’t know what to do professionally. If you had those moments,
0:20:18 yeah, right now. I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up. And some days it’s really stressful,
0:20:23 to be honest, which sounds silly, I know, but it is. I like having a plan. I like executing
0:20:30 to plan. So the book is really the only thing that is in my sights at the moment that looks clear.
0:20:37 Otherwise, what I’m doing my best to do is try a lot of little things, little experiments,
0:20:44 expose myself to new people, have a couple of exploratory conversations a week,
0:20:47 or read things, listen to things I wouldn’t usually read or listen to,
0:20:53 and have confidence because I figured it out multiple times in the past that I will figure
0:20:59 it out again. I don’t need to flog myself unnecessarily. I’ve yet to find that helpful.
0:21:06 So that may not be super tactical at this point, but that’s what I’ve been telling myself on my
0:21:10 good days when I’m not beating the shit out of myself in my own head. David, what is your
0:21:16 current next project that I’m excited about? How are you approaching it differently? So this is,
0:21:20 I’d say, the new book. I’m actually being much more collaborative with this book than I have in
0:21:26 the past. And that’s proving to be a godsend because I have people to bounce things off of
0:21:31 and to interact with. It’s just psychologically, I think, much healthier, at least at this point in
0:21:37 my life than being a lone wolf on these projects. Because lone wolf, it’s not a thing, by the way,
0:21:45 like looking nature. No lone wolf survives. It doesn’t work. So I am using that as a broad way
0:21:50 to experiment. By the way, Cockpunch was a precursor to that because I worked really well
0:21:55 with what you guys will see soon with the concept art and a lot of the collaborative writing that
0:22:00 was done. And it was awesome. It was a great process, really had fun. It wasn’t just locking
0:22:05 myself in a cave like I’m in solitary confinement. And that is what I’m trying to emulate
0:22:11 also in the writing of this new book. So we’ll see. I mean, I have about
0:22:18 400 or 500 pages drafted. So it’s going to be another big one. But you know, that’s what I do.
0:22:25 We experimented with peptides. I experimented with BMP 157 or BPC 157 like 12 years ago.
0:22:32 Long time ago. So I am at a date with peptides, but I did experiment way back in the day.
0:22:37 But I really need to educate myself before I can have any thoughts on that whatsoever. And by the
0:22:43 way, just as a quick aside, with anyone online, if they only have high conviction statements,
0:22:48 if they really speak confidently all the time, be very wary of those people. People who are being
0:22:53 honest should say, I have no fucking idea all the time. Or they should say, you know what,
0:22:58 I’m not really sure I need to educate myself. Everyone online should have that response a lot.
0:23:02 If they don’t, then you’re not going to be able to separate out the real from the fake because
0:23:06 they’re saying everything with the same high level of conviction. Be really careful about that.
0:23:12 Okay. What mindfulness practices do I use to prepare for high stakes presentation or performances?
0:23:18 I would say I don’t let fear make me afraid in the sense that I really remind myself,
0:23:24 if you weren’t nervous, then it would be a bigger problem. It is normal to be nervous before you
0:23:28 go up like my hands are shaking a little bit. I’ve done these things hundreds of times and I
0:23:33 still get nervous. I still get sweaty. I still drink too much Diet Coke or coffee or whatever
0:23:39 beforehand as a ritual, which just makes me more shaky, obviously. And it’s like, it’s okay.
0:23:44 It’s fine. Anyone who’s going out to perform at a high level or attempting to do it at a high level
0:23:49 is going to be nervous. So just use it like Mike Tyson puke before he went on stage while on stage
0:23:54 in the ring. Dean Martin used to puke before he went on stage. I mean, these, these are legends,
0:23:56 right? I’m not saying you want to emulate everything about them, but
0:24:00 these are people who are at the top of their field. So it’s okay for them. It’s okay for you.
0:24:06 So I just remind myself of that. And I will rehearse my ass off. There’s no mental trick you
0:24:14 can do beforehand if you haven’t prepared. And for me, the preparation is the mindfulness practice.
0:24:18 I mean, with my TED talk, like I rehearsed it so many times and the voice memo on my phone walking
0:24:25 around, I mean, hundreds of times. So by the time I got to the day of the presentation,
0:24:30 on the main stage at TED, I was like, well, I’ve put in the time, the deliberate practice. I’ve
0:24:39 done everything I can do. So I’m as prepared as I will ever be. So let it rip. Let’s see what happens.
0:24:45 I’d say that’s the mindfulness practice. I thought about doing content more geared at
0:24:50 kids teens. I thought about it. I’m not sure what the best venue is, but I am going to be doing some
0:24:55 experimentation for students, probably older students though, kind of university or business
0:24:59 school level. What am I looking to get out of the TF meetups and how can we help? You know,
0:25:03 that was a question. So if some folks have asked like what question came up a lot, some of the
0:25:07 questions are just like, hey, how’s it going? Because the interactions are so short. They’re
0:25:13 like, hey, how’s it going? Where are you? Where do you want to go? And then we’d run out of time.
0:25:16 But one of the questions was like, how can we be helpful to you? And my answer
0:25:24 was and is now connect with like-minded people do stuff in real life. And this ties into AI. If you
0:25:33 want to harness your humanity, do stuff in real life like meet people, man, because the poison’s
0:25:40 coming in terms of information deluge, it’s going to 10x in the next 10 to 18 months. And most
0:25:46 minds and habits are not going to be ready for that. I think it’s impossible to be ready. But
0:25:50 to be more resilient, I would just say do more in real life. Connect with
0:25:56 like-minded people. Try to do meetups. You can do Zoom or something like that. If you can’t do
0:26:02 live, but really seek out your tribe. And if those people happen to overlap with the people
0:26:07 who came to the meetups, which was my hope, then great. Like you just connected with a bunch of
0:26:13 people who might be of similar tribe. So I would say, I would say do that.
0:26:18 All right. Well, I plan any in-person conferences. I don’t have any plans right this moment. Joel,
0:26:22 I see your note on IVS. I don’t have a lot of thoughts on IVS. I apologize. I just don’t know
0:26:27 much about it. What you could do, and I don’t know if this will work, but I mean, you could just use
0:26:31 like Metamucilic Citrus cell beforehand. I mean, it does slow gastric emptying,
0:26:35 and it does also reduce glycemic index. So if you’re going to eat a meal, you know,
0:26:39 it’s going to spike your glycemic index. Side note, you can take like five of these capsules
0:26:46 with fiber just to slow things down so that the release isn’t as intense. But I’m not a doctor.
0:26:51 I try not to pretend to be one on the internet, but I really don’t know much about IVS, unfortunately.
0:26:57 But I’m looking at anti-inflammatory protocols that could have an effect on this
0:27:01 type of issue, but I haven’t looked at it well enough. So I don’t want to give you any opinions.
0:27:08 Let’s see. What are some of my heresies? I mean, I think a heresy that I have
0:27:17 I think a lot of what we try to do in modern life is a very new experiment. So I think if we
0:27:23 look back at older societies and they’re not all rose-colored, it’s very seductive to look back
0:27:27 at Indigenous group X, Y, or Z and say, “Oh, you know, they had it all figured out. They were in
0:27:33 tune with nature.” And it’s like, well, if you go back, you also very often even now see domestic
0:27:39 abuse and lots of alcoholism, other issues. So it’s not ever perfect anywhere. But I would say
0:27:47 if we look at what gives people meaning, I think we’ve been led astray with a lot of kind of
0:27:55 brainwashing and theory that doesn’t map very well to anthropological study or really just
0:27:59 common behaviors that you see around the world that seem to have some durability
0:28:06 and Nassim Talib will talk about this a lot. So I would just say broadly thinking that in a
0:28:12 lot of ways, individually, just in terms of like rugged individualism, we’ve gone off track a bit.
0:28:21 And that a lot of the, I’d say, common ways that we plan our careers and lives are actually at odds
0:28:26 with ultimately what’s going to give us fulfillment, I would say. Can unpack that more another time.
0:28:31 All right, let’s see. So a couple of people asking about conferences. Maybe at some point,
0:28:36 I’ll do a conference. It would be quite small. It wouldn’t be more than 200 people. So if I ever
0:28:43 did it, it’s a lot of work, frankly. And when I did it last time, it was basically not for profit
0:28:48 because I spent so much money on the quality of the event. So I don’t know. I’m not sure I have
0:28:52 the energy to do it as a nonprofit. And if it were not to be a nonprofit, it would just be
0:28:58 stupidly expensive. It would be like 30 grand a person or something obscene, which I would feel
0:29:04 kind of silly putting out there. How realistic is it to consider the health span possibility,
0:29:09 RJ, to get to 150 years old and good health? I’m not really sure how to evaluate this,
0:29:15 to be honest. I’m more focused these days on experiential lifespan and trying to harness.
0:29:20 And I’ve spoken about this before, but trying to organize events, gatherings of friends,
0:29:27 in some cases, very intense physical experiences, like long, difficult hikes or
0:29:34 pilgrimage trails with people I really care for, to basically pack a few months into, say, a week
0:29:41 at a time. I think that’s a reliable, actionable way to extend your experiential lifespan,
0:29:49 to feel like you’ve basically packed 150 years into your, let’s say, 85. Most attempts at
0:29:55 extending longevity in any meaningful way have all failed to date. And maybe we are, in fact,
0:29:59 at this cusp of all these amazing discoveries that will lead us to live a really long time.
0:30:05 Maybe that’s rapamycin. Maybe that’s some type of time-restricted feeding. Maybe that is fallastat.
0:30:11 And maybe it’s who the fuck knows. You know, there’s always something. There’s always some new
0:30:15 Ponce de Leon fountain of youth that people have found, especially on the internet.
0:30:22 I’m not super bullish on that stuff. Here’s the thing I would say for myself. They’re likely to
0:30:28 fail. So I would rather have low expectations and be pleasantly surprised later than to take
0:30:34 all these things and suffer what will most definitely be significant side effects that we
0:30:41 haven’t foreseen with a lot of this new stuff. So like fallastat, for instance, we basically cripples
0:30:46 FSH in animal models. So it’s like, do you really want to be infertile? Can you reverse that after
0:30:51 the fact? Like, yeah, great, you have eight pack and you look younger than you did eight weeks ago,
0:30:55 but now your balls don’t work. So I’m not ready to make that trade. You know, maybe after I have
0:31:00 three or four kids, sure. But I would just be very careful with that kind of stuff. So 150,
0:31:07 I mean, if we’re talking about that in the next, basically putting people on a glide path that
0:31:11 will land them there in the next 10 to 15 years, I’m pretty skeptical. I mean, especially with
0:31:18 increases in environmental toxins and other issues that will besiege humanity over the next 10 to
0:31:24 20 years, certainly. I mean, more weather issues, forced migrations, all sorts of shit. I’m not
0:31:28 dystopian about it, but it should tell you something that I’m not about my personal beliefs,
0:31:33 at least that I’m not doing a lot of that stuff. Yeah, I mean, if you account for infant mortality
0:31:37 and antibiotics, and then you look at, say, my entire family history on both sides, it’s like,
0:31:43 yeah, males tend to die around 85. That’s just the way it goes. So I would love to live longer,
0:31:50 but I’m not going to take a lot of unnecessary risks where I see significant potential downside.
0:31:54 So long answer. I’m interested in it, for sure, like I track some of the science.
0:32:00 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we’ll be right back to the show.
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0:33:25 All right. Andy Bruce, any tips on walking the Kumano Koto, taking your 11-year-old son with
0:33:30 you? That’s cool. That’s fun. There are a million different ways to walk this pilgrimage trail in
0:33:39 Japan, which is the sister trail of the Camino de Santiago in Europe. Those are the only two world
0:33:45 heritage pilgrimage trails. So there are like a thousand different ways you can do the Kumano Koto.
0:33:53 It’s like a tributaries that then filter down to the main shrine and temple because they basically
0:33:59 took Shinto mapping and then put Buddhism on top of it. I would pick one that crosses rivers and
0:34:04 water if you can. That’s just a really pleasant feature when you’re hauling ass and getting
0:34:10 really sweaty and so on. Bring walking sticks for sure, like poles, especially for the downhill.
0:34:18 You’ll be walking on rock a lot. It’s very hard on the joints, so nice thick heels. Hoka shoes or
0:34:22 something like that. I would suggest you will feel it in your ankles and your knees.
0:34:27 My thought is if you’re going to do something longer, because some people will do a week at a
0:34:34 time or 10 days at a time. You could spend months on the Kumano Koto. Do a little bit less than you
0:34:39 think you can each day. Don’t push it super hard because you may be then handicapped the next day.
0:34:42 If your knee really bothers you, you’re not going to want to put a lot of weight on that for
0:34:49 the next 10 kilometers or 20 kilometers. I’d do a little bit less than you think you can each day.
0:34:53 All right. Something about the tweet. If the kettlebell swings is king of the exercise,
0:34:56 where else can you find the king of x? Could your relationships finance anything?
0:35:03 I think a lot about barbell approaches to life. For instance, high-risk angel investing and then
0:35:09 munibond as boring and as stable as you get. It’s one or the other, high-risk high return with
0:35:18 small amounts of money or very stable, predictable, boring and not playing in the middle. As soon as
0:35:22 you start playing in the middle, you’re like, “I’m going to play with tech growth stocks.” Then
0:35:25 you, at least in my experience, that’s how you get your face ripped off. That’s how I get my face
0:35:31 ripped off. I think about barbell distributions a lot in physical fitness and finance and everywhere.
0:35:37 Aside from Richard Feynman, if I could bring back one person from the Dead for a podcast episode,
0:35:42 who would it be? Man, there’s so many. I’m tempted to say like Marcus Aurelius or something, but
0:35:47 Seneca, who knows? I mean, probably Seneca, because I’ve just read so much of his stuff,
0:35:52 and I’m curious if I would find the guy to be an arrogant prick or what the vibe would be in
0:35:57 person, assuming we’re speaking the same language. I would be super curious about Seneca. He gets very
0:36:05 mixed reviews, but I’m once again listening to an audiobook on anger or on Eda, IRA. His writing
0:36:10 is amazing. The guy’s writing is amazing, but what would he be like in person? Would I be like,
0:36:16 “Oh, yeah, this is the uncle who talks too much. God, this guy’s long-winded.” Maybe. Ben Franklin,
0:36:21 I’d be interested, very interested in. Those are a few that come to mind. I could come up with 100
0:36:25 more for sure, but those are two off the top of my head. Do I have any mentors that I contact
0:36:29 irregularly for life advice? This is from Jeff. I found in midlife that I really missed out on
0:36:35 having fatherly mentors in my 20s and 30s. Yeah, there are. I talked to one this morning. In fact,
0:36:42 he’s early 70s, very healthy, really takes care of himself, great marriage, close to his kids,
0:36:47 and I think he has grandkids now. So we did a check-in for about an hour today, caught up,
0:36:55 and this is a good reminder for me to do that more often. So I do feel good about that. Let’s see.
0:36:59 Paula, this is one of my thoughts on ayahuasca and antidepressants. You’ve been doing ayahuasca
0:37:04 for 13 years, only just started taking antidepressants. I’m not sure if I should mix both. This is
0:37:09 from Brazil. You need to be very, very, very careful. So ayahuasca plus certain antidepressants
0:37:14 like SSRIs can cause a potentially fatal serotonin syndrome. So you need to be very,
0:37:20 very, very careful with that. So I would absolutely speak with doctors about that. I would not mix
0:37:26 them until you get the go-ahead from doctors. I imagine a psychiatrist do prescribe the antidepressants.
0:37:32 I’d be very careful with that. Ayahuasca is one of the riskier compounds, at least of the,
0:37:37 let’s call it, classically known psychedelics with respect to combining with antidepressants.
0:37:43 So I’d be very careful with that. And side note, I learned not too long ago that people who were
0:37:48 taking lithium should really not screw around with psychedelics. A lot of adverse events have been
0:37:53 reported, at least with some of the classical, let’s just call it not entirely tryptamine, but
0:38:01 LSD, psilocybin, etc. So if you’re taking higher doses of lithium, now there are some ways that
0:38:04 could be conflated because if people are taking lithium, what are they taking it for? They might
0:38:08 be taking it for any number of conditions that would be contraindicated with psychedelics in
0:38:15 the first place. So who knows? But I wouldn’t mix lithium with these things either. All right.
0:38:21 How can you incentivize someone to mentor you? I’m not sure how to do that. I think you need to
0:38:26 be a really good student. Number one, you said no money possible. I mean, frankly, I pay for it
0:38:32 a lot. I mean, I have friends who learn from me and I learn from them and they’re older than I am,
0:38:38 and I consider them mentors. But at the end of the day, I actually find it in some ways cleaner
0:38:43 to just pay someone. And if you wanted to get mentorship that isn’t expensive, like maybe you
0:38:50 go to Toastmasters or you join the EO, like Entrepreneurs Organization or YPO. It depends
0:38:54 on what you’re looking for. But like mentors don’t need to be expensive at all. I have a
0:38:58 mentor in archery and he’s also kind of a mental performance coach. Doesn’t need to break the
0:39:06 bank. So I would say you can go to your local YMCA and find a coach in some sport. And if they’re
0:39:11 good at all, at anything, they will have life lessons for you, especially if they’re a bit older.
0:39:15 I would say that’s my advice for the moment. Do I babysit sometimes for some of my friends?
0:39:18 I mean, not really babysit, but like I’ll watch their kids for a little bit or
0:39:25 watch a Disney movie with their kids, like young kids. How did I find it? I think I’m a
0:39:30 kid at heart. So for me, animals and kids are, I don’t want to say easy, but especially if they’re
0:39:37 little, I find them pretty easy. I think when, if I have kids, which is the hope at least,
0:39:43 if they get to the point where they’re like petulant, kind of like mean spirited
0:39:48 kids where they’re just being assholes, I think I’ll have a hard time with that.
0:39:52 I think I will have a hard time once they like know which buttons they’re pushing and they’re
0:39:56 just like drilling it in that I’m going to have trouble with. But like little kids who just like
0:40:01 are dysregulated and lose their shit because they haven’t developed their prefrontal cortex.
0:40:09 Like, yeah, I can deal with that pretty well. Let’s see. My opinion of this is from Judy GLP1
0:40:17 medications. This would be like Munjaro or Ozympic GLP1 agonists. I believe they’re in clinical
0:40:21 trials now for depression/anxiety. Yeah, I haven’t looked at them specifically for that.
0:40:28 Did put up a blog post recently from Johan Hari on GLP1 specifically. So if you want to get some
0:40:33 of the science and also a firsthand report of that, I would just go and Tim dot blog and search
0:40:40 Johan, J-O-H-A-N-N, last name, Hari, H-A-R-I. All right. So this piece of artwork,
0:40:47 you know, people love this. I love it too. I bought this for $80 at an antique warehouse in the middle
0:40:53 of nowhere. I saw it and I just loved it and grabbed it and I love it every time I see it.
0:41:00 Maybe it’s less, $60, $60, $80 at an antique warehouse. Yeah, that’s one of my favorite pieces
0:41:04 of art. That’s a turkey tail below it. There are a lot of turkeys around here. Or not tail,
0:41:10 turkey feather. All right. For agents, book agents and stuff, last time I checked, which was a long
0:41:15 time ago, publishers marketplace is a great place to look. Also, find books that are kind of in the
0:41:20 same category or vein as yours. Look at the acknowledgments and you’ll very often see the
0:41:24 agent there. Then you can reach out to them directly through something like publishers marketplace.
0:41:28 Or these days, a lot of these agents or agencies have their own websites.
0:41:32 Thoughts on how to approach making some great in-person connections. Yeah, I would look at
0:41:39 my talk. I gave it South by Southwest, which had the title, How to Build a World Class Network
0:41:43 in Record Time, something clickbaity like that, but it actually delivers. I would check that out.
0:41:49 All right. This is from Dolan. Dolan, okay. The last set was from Claudine. Thank you for those.
0:41:53 This one’s from Dolan, if I’m pronouncing that correctly. Basically, anything that I would
0:41:57 like to talk about that I haven’t had an opportunity to talk about yet. For instance,
0:42:01 my interests/journey in connecting with animals and nature, maybe some insights from my personal
0:42:05 exploration of psychedelic and non-ordinary states of consciousness over the last 10 years.
0:42:13 So, I have probably a thousand pages and notes on all this. At some point, I feel like that might be
0:42:19 the most important book that I write, but it’s going to be a lot to put it together. In a way,
0:42:23 the book I’m doing now, where I’m collaborating, is sort of a possible warm-up for that, because I
0:42:28 don’t think it’s a book that I would want to do by myself. It would just be such a heavy lift.
0:42:36 Yeah, we’ll see. We shall see. But I think if I talk about that at some huge length,
0:42:41 it’ll probably be in a book. I’d want to think about it, because it’ll get so strange. It will
0:42:48 get so unbelievably strange. Number one, first, all the scientific regulatory on the radar above
0:42:54 the line logistical stuff that I want to handle in the psychedelic therapeutics world, I want
0:43:02 to handle first. Because if I ever write this book, it is going to get so weird that at least 20%
0:43:07 of the people who read it are going to think I’m completely insane. It’ll just be so strange. I
0:43:14 wouldn’t want it to damage my current credibility that I have to get things done in those worlds,
0:43:20 including some of the stuff with animals. If you talk to people who’ve been in this stuff for,
0:43:25 let’s just say, culturally for hundreds or thousands of years, it’s not weird. But to most
0:43:31 folks, it’s going to sound pretty fucking weird, which I get excited about. But I’m going to wait
0:43:34 until I’m like, you know what? I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, because it’s not going to
0:43:38 interrupt anything else I’m doing. I don’t care. Then maybe that book, but it’s going to be a little
0:43:44 while. All right. This is from Andres. I’ll paraphrase here. Basically, I’m very rational and
0:43:50 methodical about decision making and so on. Rational approach is admirable, but sometimes
0:43:55 being irrational or spontaneous can inject a lot of energy and fun. Have I found space for
0:44:01 rationality to play a role in my life? The irrational and emotional for decisions? And if so,
0:44:07 have they ever led me to alter my well thought out plans for the year? So I would say yes. I don’t
0:44:13 know if irrational would be the word I would use, because you have like, let’s take moral. I don’t
0:44:20 know what the proper word would be here, but you have moral behaviors. You have immoral behaviors.
0:44:24 And let’s just call those non-moral behaviors. Then you have amoral behaviors that are kind of like
0:44:30 in this no man’s land. So I would say if you have like rational, irrational, the opposite,
0:44:34 then there’s like irrational. I don’t think that’s a word, but somewhere in the middle where it’s not
0:44:39 driven by logic, it’s driven more by feeling. I’m doing more and more of that these days,
0:44:49 for sure. I mean, our sort of evolved system here with lots of valuable apparatus for navigating
0:44:57 reality predates language by at least this kind of language by millions of years. So yes, I found
0:45:03 space for that. Although I’d be very careful about, I see this quite a bit in Austin and places like
0:45:09 it where there’s this like neo, new agey stuff where people are like, I’m just using my intuition.
0:45:15 And I think very often that is used by people who just want a justification for doing what they want
0:45:20 to do or doing something that is easier than the hard thing. And they’re like, well, I’m just using
0:45:25 my intuition, right? Intuition is interesting to me when it points you in a direction you didn’t
0:45:30 expect. Let’s just say you go on a date and on paper, they’re perfect. You’re like, I’m going to
0:45:34 love this person. And then you meet them and you’re like, something’s a little weird here. Like,
0:45:39 I want to like them, but this isn’t right. That’s where intuition is valuable. Or like a business
0:45:44 deal. Everything looks perfect. And then there’s something about it, like, oh, my gut just doesn’t
0:45:49 feel right. That’s where intuition is interesting. If you’re like, this all looks perfect on paper.
0:45:53 And you know what, even though all my friends are telling me it’s a terrible investment,
0:45:57 my intuition tells me to do it. Like, that’s where I’d be like, well, wait a minute here,
0:46:03 is this just confirmation bias? What are my thoughts on blogging in the age of AI? I mean,
0:46:08 look, AI is amazing. It’s really incredible. But writing for me is a way of clarifying my
0:46:13 own thinking. And I do think that taking the time to craft words without the assistance of AI is
0:46:20 helpful. I might use AI to get past the blank page. But I think it’s seductive as a drug.
0:46:25 And just like most people can’t tell direction without Google Maps now,
0:46:31 I think it’s very possible, almost inevitable that people will lose certain faculties that
0:46:37 they currently have by overusing AI. So we shall see. But I plan on doing more writing
0:46:44 to the old fashioned way. I have not used binaural beats. I am very interested in that. And actually,
0:46:51 it just reminded me somebody owes me something on binaural beats. So if you have any recommendations
0:46:58 for what types of binaural beats, let me know. Let’s see. For our dog training. Yeah, maybe.
0:47:04 I never say never. Best thousand dollars I spent lately. I mean, it was more than that. But on
0:47:10 the archery training, it’s always something like that. It’s very rarely stuff. I mean,
0:47:19 sometimes it’s stuff like there’s a I bought an extra so write PSO RIT and a mini rumble roller
0:47:26 that I can travel with. And those have been amazing for just like rolling out my glutes and
0:47:31 piriformis and my legs and stuff before bed really helps to sleep a lot. But that’s like,
0:47:40 I don’t know, 100 bucks, 150. I buy very well, I try to buy very little stuff just ends up causing
0:47:45 me more stress as clutter around my house than the value that adds. So I try to get rid of a lot of
0:47:51 stuff. Good question. It was the last thousand dollars worth of clutter that gave me the most
0:47:57 relief when I gave it away. That’s what I should think about. Am I aware of Javier Millay? That’s
0:48:02 how you say his name in Argentina. I am. I’ve actually listened to some of his speeches. Pretty
0:48:06 interesting stuff. I don’t know enough about him, but a number of my friends are big fans. So
0:48:11 need to do more research. Best thing that I spent an ass load on. But the best thing I spent an
0:48:17 ass load on not to get too technical would be family trip. I took my parents and brother and
0:48:23 his wife on a trip around Europe. And that was definitely an ass load of cash. But I think that
0:48:29 was a good investment. I recommend everyone read something called The Tail End by Tim Urban.
0:48:37 That is a good investment of time. It’s very short. All right. Do I like painting,
0:48:43 not sketching as a hobby? I haven’t learned how to paint. I would like to dabble in ideally
0:48:47 watercolor, I think. But do I have any quick tips for getting up to 10 to 20 minutes on the
0:48:56 acupuncture mat? Yeah. That’s for people who are curious. The Nyoya Acu Pressure Mat, I think.
0:49:03 Or other, there are a lot of limitations that I’m sure just as just as good. I don’t go to 20
0:49:07 minutes typically, but like 10 to 15, if I’m going to do it, the first three minutes are going to be
0:49:11 torture. So you just have to get through the first like three to four minutes is my experience.
0:49:15 Otherwise, I don’t have, I don’t have much to tell you. It can be pretty intense.
0:49:22 Thoughts on dating apps. Oh, man. This is like Warren Buffett covering his eyes and pointing
0:49:28 towards Wall Street because half the people are going to have terrible experiences. I don’t know.
0:49:34 To be frank, I mean, I think Hinge has been one of the better options so far. I think that in
0:49:39 terms of just quality, people have to pass some hurdles and add some information. The league is
0:49:44 pretty interesting also because you can search by interest, which is so critical. I don’t know why
0:49:48 you can’t do it on any other app, but you can search for like skiing or whatever to find somebody
0:49:52 with similar interests. But the league is really only effective in certain cities. It’s not used
0:49:58 widely everywhere, but like in a place like New York City or LA or whatever, you could find people
0:50:03 who are pretty well educated, interesting, but a downside is people tend not to use it that
0:50:08 frequently. So you might have a great match and they don’t see your message for six months. So
0:50:14 go figure. It’s jungle out there, folks. Be careful. And there are a lot of people catfishing.
0:50:18 So watch out for that too. Do a video call before you meet up with someone.
0:50:24 What’s my favorite science fiction movie and why? Big fan of the second Dune movie, frankly.
0:50:28 Exbaquina, I remember really enjoying. There are a lot of great science fiction movies. I think
0:50:33 her was fantastic. And you know, at the time, it seemed insane. And it’s basically already there.
0:50:41 If you look at the latest editions of chat, GPT and so on and things like replica with a K replica.
0:50:46 Yeah, her is basically already here. It’s pretty nuts. Give me a second.
0:50:51 Taking a note. Thank you for the binaural thing. Rainwave smart mind. Okay, I’ll check it out.
0:50:56 With questions about cockpunch, it’ll be more interesting once I release the rest
0:51:02 of the stuff or a bunch of it. Then you’ll have a lot more to chew on. And I’ll give you a foreshadowing.
0:51:06 It’s not really foreshadowing. It is a statement that I hope is a statement of fact. And that is
0:51:14 I will have some fanfiction writing competitions, like elimination competitions. And so that will
0:51:19 reward people who really dig into the details. They also have to be decent at writing, of course.
0:51:27 Claudine, have I let the enormity of 10 years of TFS really land? Not just from a metrics POV,
0:51:31 but from a positive kindness, deepening, et cetera, human level. It’s been such a force for good
0:51:37 and lightens world. Thank you, Claudine. That’s very kind of you to say. I would say that I did
0:51:44 when the celebrations were happening, but I could do a better job. I could do a better job
0:51:50 of sitting with that. So thank you for the reminder. It’s easy for me to just move on. Like, yeah,
0:51:55 yeah, good job. But you just did your jobs and don’t get too happy with yourself. And like,
0:52:00 what’s next? What’s next? Right? Like, yeah, you did your job. And that’s fine. But don’t get too
0:52:05 smug about it or self-satisfied. But I find that can be very self-defeating, right? So I did take
0:52:10 time to celebrate for the 10th anniversary. I had a great time. The in-person meetup in Paris was
0:52:16 great. And it was really fun to in-person hear the stories from people who were deeply affected by
0:52:22 the podcast. So thank you for the reminder. I will take a moment today to revisit that. Thank you.
0:52:28 I should travel to meet girls. Well, I mean, why was I in Europe for six to eight weeks?
0:52:34 Who knows? Maybe it was related to that. Is it possible that my mood improved during this Q&A?
0:52:38 Yeah, it’s entirely possible. I was exhausted, guys. I’m not going to lie at the beginning of this.
0:52:44 But I enjoy these interactions. So it is certainly possible that my mood improved as a function of
0:52:52 my energy going up. So thanks for that, everybody. Where do I see myself in 30 years? Good lord. I
0:53:00 don’t know. Hopefully not six feet under. We’ll see. I’ll be 30 years. I’ll be 40. No, 76? 77? Fuck.
0:53:07 So I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll be doing black diamonds skiing because we found the Found of
0:53:12 Youth. Have you suggested workout routines as mags for my parents? If not, what would it potentially
0:53:18 look like? How would you approach it? Yeah, I would say super slow protocol. Look up Ken Hutchins
0:53:26 and the super slow protocol. Yeah, my dad’s lost, I don’t know, 80 pounds. Let’s call it 40 kilos
0:53:30 in the last year. So he’s made a lot of progress. That’s slow carb diet. It’s all straightforward
0:53:38 from for our body. And then super slow as applied. So super slow in the very basic terms is minimum
0:53:43 five seconds up, five seconds down. So if you’re doing a pressing movement, five seconds slow,
0:53:51 right up, five seconds down. One set, one set to concentric failure. Could be even slower,
0:53:56 could be 10 seconds up, 10 seconds down. But especially in elderly, quite effective for building
0:54:03 muscle mass and increasing bone density without injury. So that is probably what I would,
0:54:09 I mean, that’s what I prescribe to my parents. That plus walking to the extent that it’s possible,
0:54:13 right, kind of barbell, once again, with slow carb diet is the glue that holds everything together.
0:54:24 How do I record a podcast while walking? This right here. This is ATH M50X. It’s an audio
0:54:30 technica headset. It has a USB-C attachment like that into your iPhone. And then you can use Riverside
0:54:36 or some other app. There are a lot of different ways to record. All right, let’s see here. This is
0:54:40 from Mariana. Over the years, I’ve followed and learned from you and your guests. I’ve heard you
0:54:43 say several times that I’m interested in parenting. Have you ever considered being a single parent
0:54:46 family by choice? I too, for many years, was trying to find the perfect partner.
0:54:50 So I turned 41 and my doctor told me it was time to unfreeze my eggs since I was still single and
0:54:54 looked for the partner. Decided my best option was to be a single parent. So I got a non-anonymous
0:54:58 donor and had my son when I was 43. I was 6 now. We traveled the world together. Could not be happier
0:55:02 with the drama free life we have. Just wishing to see you fulfill your parenting dream and wondered
0:55:06 if I would consider this option too. Yeah, I would consider it. I would consider it. I think
0:55:12 for a long time it was no, but I would consider it. I would. I mean, of course, ideally I would have
0:55:19 the partner, but I would consider it. Yeah, it’s not off the table, but I’m still fighting the good
0:55:24 fight, getting back into the dating as much as I’m just like, “Fuck, this is a young man’s game,
0:55:32 doing this online dating bullshit.” Frankly, just the communications burden is so much.
0:55:40 Yeah, so anyway, but to answer your question, yeah, it’s on the table for me. Joel, I see yours.
0:55:44 One of my big goals is to create the world’s first coffee mug to sell for more than a million
0:55:50 dollars. I like that. I like that as a goal. I don’t really have a great recommendation for
0:55:55 how to chip away at it. You could look at, from a PR perspective, at least people who have
0:56:02 sold pieces of the Brooklyn Bridge or sold hamburgers that are gold-plated or have
0:56:08 some type of gold on them for $300 at some piece of joint. The reason they’re doing it
0:56:12 is to get attention for everything else. What I would say is you could think about
0:56:18 selling a million-dollar coffee mug and make that your pass/fail, or you could come up with a compelling
0:56:25 argument for why a coffee mug, a particular coffee mug, should sell for a million dollars
0:56:29 and then use that as a PR hook to bring attention to everything else that you’re doing,
0:56:35 which is probably quite a bit easier. But if you do that and someone buys it, great.
0:56:42 Fantastic. You did it. You sold one for a million bucks. Now, that said, if that is the only measure
0:56:48 of pass/fail, then it’s extremely binary. But if you were to use it as a means by which you draw
0:56:51 attention to everything else that you’re doing, then I think it’s pretty interesting. So there you
0:56:57 have it. Have I been to Brazil? Yes, I’ve been to Brazil five or six or seven times, actually,
0:57:04 all over the place. In fact, how big is my staff? Pretty small. A few people, two, three, people,
0:57:09 four? Yeah, something like that. Three or four, I guess, at this point. It’s from Hussain in Toronto.
0:57:12 After the 10th anniversary, I tried to organize a follow-up meeting. However, I had to cancel
0:57:16 due to a little interest. I’ll try again at the end of the summer. Can you think of a cost-effective,
0:57:21 Tim Ferriss way to make attendance at these events irresistible? Well, you might consider,
0:57:25 I’m just making this up so this is on the fly, but you might consider partnering
0:57:32 with another organization like EO or YPO or whoever who might be looking for membership.
0:57:37 And you could say, you know, I’d love to host this type of events for fans of Tim Ferriss or
0:57:41 however you want to phrase it, listeners of the Tim Ferriss show or readers of such and such book.
0:57:48 And perhaps we can do an event where they come for free, get exposed to these following speakers.
0:57:53 I think having speakers would be helpful. So you could try to do that on your own or
0:57:59 you could make it more of an event, some type of activity. So you could do, I don’t know,
0:58:04 Tim Ferriss show paintball extravaganza and get 10 people to go do paintball or something.
0:58:09 Who knows? You have to make it, what are they considering as alternatives? It’s kind of like
0:58:16 with Molly. Let’s just say my dog Molly. I remember at one point I was working with this dog trainer
0:58:21 and she saw me giving kibble to Molly as the treat, just her regular dog food, but in little
0:58:25 pieces and she goes, what is that? I was like, oh, it’s kibble. She’s like, oh, man, she’s like,
0:58:29 you’re not going to train your dog that way. She said, it’s a crowded bar. You got a tip with 20s.
0:58:33 She’s like, you’re giving her bullshit. You have to have really good treats. You have to tip with
0:58:38 20s. It’s a crowded bar, right? To compete with the squirrels and the dogs and the other stuff,
0:58:45 the smells. So I would say those are a few ideas. But if you have small group of friends, you can
0:58:49 just take their temperature with a couple of different options and see how it goes, right?
0:58:55 I mean, those are a few initial thoughts, but maybe helpful, maybe not. All right,
0:59:00 I think those are the only ones that I can really answer well from the pre-submitted questions.
0:59:10 I’m going to take a look at a few things that are left here. Timothy Keane, this is visualization
0:59:15 or affirmations. I haven’t used affirmations much, to be honest. I don’t think. Actually,
0:59:19 that’s not true. With five-minute journal and things like that, kind of these statements like
0:59:25 I am or whatever, I’ll also frequently have something like, you have plenty of time or there’s
0:59:31 plenty of time, right? So that I don’t feel artificially rushed, which never produces great
0:59:36 results or great feelings for that matter. Or something like, frankly, this is true for a
0:59:40 lot of people on this Q&A, right? Like you’ve already won the game. You speak English. You have a
0:59:46 computer. Hopefully, you’re healthy. You’ve already won the game. So just number one, take a breath,
0:59:52 realize there’s no game on some level left to win. You’ve already done it. You’ve already
0:59:56 crossed the finish line, so everything else is gravy. So just take a chill pill and breathe.
1:00:02 And then for visualization, I use that mostly with athletic stuff. Sometimes if I’m going to get it
1:00:06 on stage for speaking engagement, I’ll visualize how it’s going to go. I’ll run through it visually,
1:00:09 just like I have a VR headset on. I’ll close my eyes. I’m very visual, so I’ll imagine the whole
1:00:13 thing walking out, sitting in the right chair, looking at the audience, how I’m going to hold
1:00:19 the mic, et cetera. And I’ll run through some of that as a rehearsal. Let’s say those are what
1:00:24 come to mind. Yeah, check names. I didn’t realize it. Dinky was check for watches. That’s hilarious.
1:00:31 Yeah, what would this look like if it were easy, Cindy question that I still ask myself all the
1:00:36 time? What do I like to ask my, this is Victoria, ask my fans when I meet them, ask who they would
1:00:40 like to hear on the podcast. If they can only pick one or two guests and they can’t say Elon Musk or
1:00:45 some huge name, no huge names allowed. Who would you like to have on the podcast? That’s a question
1:00:50 I ask. And I actually have had a lot of those answers translate to guests on the podcast. Randy,
1:00:55 if we did a fan meetup, would you endorse it or say it’s okay? I mean, this is where I have to be
1:01:00 careful about taking on too much responsibility with these things. So probably not because if I did
1:01:04 that, then anyone who’s ever hosting a meetup would come to me for the same thing. And it would
1:01:09 just create a huge comms problem for me and my team. So I’d probably need to be hands off
1:01:15 to have a fan meetup. I don’t think you need my permission. You know, if you’re turning into like
1:01:20 some crazy business, then using my name, then it turns into a separate thing. But do I like
1:01:25 electronic music? Yes, I do. I mean, I’m pretty old school. I mean, I listened to Shingo Nakamura
1:01:31 quite a bit for like chill mixes, dead mouse, pretty old school. But I wrote for our body to
1:01:38 a continuous mix like a three hour set of dead mouse. There’s all sorts of stuff. But it’s usually
1:01:42 something that’s going to give me a fair amount of energy. I listen to like lo-fi beats type stuff
1:01:48 when writing sometimes if I need something a little down tempo for God knows where. I listen to a
1:01:54 lot of like heavy heavy metal when I’m writing oddly enough. State story strategy. Yeah, I still
1:02:00 use state story strategy. People can look that up. I got that from Tony Robbins. I would consider
1:02:05 having more comedians on the podcast. But I feel like other people do a better job, honestly.
1:02:09 You know, like Rogan, there’s so many comedy podcasts out there. I want to differentiate myself
1:02:15 in some way that feels authentic to me, category of one kind of stuff. But yes, Austin is now a
1:02:20 Comedy Center. It’s pretty wild. All right, you guys, I think that’s me for now. I’m going to get
1:02:26 outside and shoot some arrows. And I really appreciate everyone’s time. Thank you for the
1:02:31 hosting, first and foremost. So awesome. So fun to see all of these events around the world.
1:02:38 And would love people to stay in touch with anyone they met at those events or look to explore,
1:02:43 explore, see what we can learn from each other, right? It doesn’t have to be limited to anything
1:02:47 I talk about. You know, just find people who have, you know, who are philosophically
1:02:51 values aligned and see what you can learn from each other. Go for some bike rides or something.
1:02:56 It doesn’t have to be coffee and wine. Get out and do something, right? Try something new together.
1:03:04 Anyway, that would be my wish for you all. And I really appreciate everybody being so engaged.
1:03:11 And I hope you have a wonderful week. And to be continued, we’ll do some more meetups.
1:03:17 All right, you guys, thanks, everybody. Bye. Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing
1:03:22 before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email
1:03:27 from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and
1:03:33 two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.
1:03:39 Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to
1:03:43 share the coolest things I’ve found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It’s
1:03:49 kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading,
1:03:54 albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me
1:04:00 by my friends, including a lot of podcasts, guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my
1:04:07 field. And then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again,
1:04:11 it’s very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to
1:04:17 think about. If you’d like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser,
1:04:23 tim.blog/friday, drop in your email and you’ll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.
1:04:29 This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is the all-in-one commerce platform that
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0:00:02 (upbeat music)
0:00:26 – Hello, ladies and gentlemen, this is Tim Ferriss.
0:00:29 Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show.
0:00:32 For this episode, I am doing something very different.
0:00:34 I’m actually featuring a special episode
0:00:37 from a brand new podcast called Altered States.
0:00:39 And I listened to a lot of podcasts.
0:00:42 I test out a lot of podcasts.
0:00:44 I found this one to be particularly impressive.
0:00:47 It’s very well reported, very well researched,
0:00:49 very well produced.
0:00:51 Here’s the teaser for the episode that you’re about to hear.
0:00:54 It’s not a long one, but it is a very nuanced one,
0:00:55 a very powerful one.
0:00:57 Quote, for the last couple of years,
0:01:00 producer Shayna Shealy has been following Israeli
0:01:02 and Palestinian peace activists
0:01:03 who have been coming together
0:01:06 to drink the psychedelic brew ayahuasca
0:01:07 in an effort to heal their collective
0:01:09 intergenerational trauma.
0:01:10 It seemed to be helping them
0:01:14 when suddenly the region erupts into chaos and violence.
0:01:16 Shayna Shealy as background was a fellow
0:01:19 from the Ferris UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship.
0:01:22 That’s how I actually heard about the podcast.
0:01:26 And the fellowship offers $10,000 reporting grants per year
0:01:29 to journalists reporting in-depth print and audio stories
0:01:32 on the science, policy, business, and culture
0:01:34 of this new era of psychedelics.
0:01:35 It’s been going for a few years now
0:01:37 and a lot of amazing pieces have come out of it.
0:01:39 The fellowship is supported by My Foundation,
0:01:40 the Saise Foundation.
0:01:44 You can find that s-a-i-s-e-i, foundation.org,
0:01:46 if you want to see what types of projects and grants
0:01:48 and so on we’ve made.
0:01:50 And it is made possible in collaboration
0:01:52 with Michael Pollan, Molly Awolan,
0:01:54 and others at UC Berkeley.
0:01:56 So thanks to the entire team over there.
0:01:58 Altered States, the podcast,
0:02:00 looks at how people are taking psychedelics,
0:02:02 who has access to them.
0:02:03 They actually have an amazing episode
0:02:05 where they walk through in real time,
0:02:07 someone’s first experience with psilocybin,
0:02:10 how they’re regulated, who stands to profit,
0:02:12 and what these substances might offer us
0:02:14 as individuals and as a society.
0:02:17 It’s hosted by journalist Aril Dumras
0:02:19 and you can find it wherever you find your podcasts.
0:02:23 And now the Peacekeepers episode from Altered States.
0:02:26 (upbeat music)
0:02:27 Welcome to Altered States.
0:02:29 I’m Aril Dumras.
0:02:31 This week, we are traveling thousands of miles away
0:02:34 from where I am in Oregon to the Middle East
0:02:37 to hear about another kind of psychedelic experiment.
0:02:40 This one involves ayahuasca.
0:02:42 Producer Shayna Shealy brings us this story.
0:02:46 So Shayna, welcome.
0:02:49 First off, I know some folks might be familiar with ayahuasca,
0:02:52 but others have probably never heard of it.
0:02:55 Tell me, what exactly is ayahuasca?
0:02:58 Yeah, so ayahuasca, people typically drink it
0:03:01 as a sort of tea and it’s made out of a vine
0:03:04 from South America, which is often brewed together
0:03:07 with another plant, it’s a type of shrub.
0:03:10 And that shrub contains something called DMT
0:03:11 or dimethyl tryptamine.
0:03:15 So what do we know about what ayahuasca does to the brain?
0:03:18 So usually about 30 minutes after drinking it,
0:03:21 some people start having these hallucinations,
0:03:25 others have out of body experiences or euphoric feelings.
0:03:28 There’s often vomiting involved.
0:03:30 For some people, there are visions.
0:03:32 Researchers have found that ayahuasca
0:03:34 can promote what’s called neuroplasticity,
0:03:36 which is the brain’s ability to adapt
0:03:39 and build new connections.
0:03:41 In this case, increased adaptability
0:03:42 is thought to be able to help people heal
0:03:44 from traumatic experiences.
0:03:51 A few years ago, you came across these peace activists
0:03:54 who were using ayahuasca to heal
0:03:56 and eventually you started reporting on that story.
0:03:58 So can you tell me more?
0:04:01 So these activists are Israeli and Palestinian
0:04:03 and they gather to drink ayahuasca
0:04:04 and attempt to heal trauma,
0:04:08 both personal trauma and collective trauma.
0:04:09 And I knew a bunch of them
0:04:11 from previous reporting in the region
0:04:13 and I was really interested just in the links
0:04:16 that these people went to to build empathy.
0:04:21 And then October 7th happened.
0:04:27 Suddenly, the work of healing was interrupted
0:04:30 by this massive shockwave.
0:04:32 And these activists sort of looked to the group
0:04:34 and to one person in particular
0:04:36 to help them navigate it all.
0:04:40 That person was Palestinian peace and justice activist,
0:04:42 Sammy Awad.
0:04:45 – And that’s why your story starts with Sammy
0:04:48 in his home in late summer, 2023.
0:05:02 – In Sammy Awad’s kitchen
0:05:05 near the Palestinian city of Bethlehem,
0:05:08 a small group of people are gathered around a table.
0:05:12 A handful of Israelis, a woman from Brazil,
0:05:14 one guy from Ramallah.
0:05:16 They’re all sitting there around plates of eggs
0:05:18 and zaatar, watermelon,
0:05:21 balls of cured labna and olive oil.
0:05:23 They were laughing, eating breakfast.
0:05:28 Sammy describes his home as sort of an oasis
0:05:31 for Israeli and Palestinian activists from all over.
0:05:33 It’s where they can be together
0:05:34 and find refuge from the harsh reality
0:05:36 of living under forced separation.
0:05:41 Sammy’s home office is filled with hundreds of books
0:05:46 on meditation, yoga, psychedelic medicine, healing.
0:05:47 He’s in his fifties
0:05:49 and he’s been working in the world of peace building
0:05:51 for over 25 years.
0:05:58 Sammy’s peace work started when he was 12 years old.
0:05:59 He was with his uncle,
0:06:02 an influential nonviolent peace activist.
0:06:05 There were planting trees on a Palestinian farmer’s land
0:06:08 that was under threat of confiscation by Jewish settlers.
0:06:09 – I remember Mark was saying,
0:06:12 no matter what happens, you’re here to plant trees.
0:06:14 – The group of activists was mixed,
0:06:16 Palestinian and Israeli.
0:06:18 They were hours into planting
0:06:21 when a group of Israeli soldiers approached them.
0:06:23 – Soldier coming, pulling the tree out of the ground
0:06:26 that I was planting and throwing it on some rocks.
0:06:29 And in that moment, there was the split decision,
0:06:30 what do I do?
0:06:32 Because as a 12 year old, what options?
0:06:36 I could run away, I could hide,
0:06:40 run to my uncle crying, like a 12 year old.
0:06:41 And I was like, I’m here to plant the trees.
0:06:45 And I decided I’m gonna go back and bring the tree and plant it.
0:06:49 And I did that, that sense of feeling, wow, empowerment
0:06:50 and losing the fear.
0:06:55 That action changed my life.
0:06:59 It made me actually want to commit my life to this work.
0:07:03 – The work of peace building through nonviolence.
0:07:06 Days after Sammy went with his uncle to plant trees,
0:07:08 he learned that the land had been confiscated
0:07:09 by Israeli settlers,
0:07:13 that all the trees they had planted were uprooted.
0:07:17 Still, Sammy would go on to plant even more trees.
0:07:18 By the time he was in his 20s,
0:07:22 he was organizing boycotts and peace demonstrations,
0:07:25 sometimes alongside Israeli peace activists.
0:07:28 But his actions kept getting shut down.
0:07:33 He was beaten, imprisoned, put on lockdown.
0:07:37 And then in 1993 came the Oslo Accords,
0:07:39 a deal between Israeli and Palestinian leadership
0:07:43 that was supposed to kick off a peace process in the region,
0:07:46 including limited Palestinian self-governance
0:07:48 in parts of the West Bank in Gaza Strip.
0:07:53 Then President Bill Clinton served as a diplomatic broker.
0:07:57 – Let us today pay tribute to the leaders who had the courage
0:08:00 to lead their people toward peace,
0:08:02 away from the scars of battle.
0:08:05 The wounds and the losses of the past
0:08:07 toward a brighter tomorrow.
0:08:10 The world today thanks Prime Minister Rabin,
0:08:14 Foreign Minister Perez, and Chairman Arafat.
0:08:16 (audience applauding)
0:08:18 – Sammy was optimistic.
0:08:23 – There was billions of dollars of funds coming to create
0:08:27 and sustain that peace that was being created.
0:08:30 And all of a sudden you started seeing NGOs begin to emerge,
0:08:33 begin to rise, money pumping in like crazy.
0:08:37 – He built his own organization, Holy Land Trust.
0:08:41 It became well known for nonviolent activism trainings.
0:08:45 But even with this tireless dedication to peace,
0:08:49 the world around Sammy became more and more violent.
0:08:52 – Both sides committed to negotiating an end to the conflict
0:08:55 and charting a path to Palestinian self-rule
0:08:57 in the West Bank in Gaza.
0:08:59 It triggered a violent backlash
0:09:02 for a religious extremist among both Israelis
0:09:05 and Palestinians, including Hamas.
0:09:07 – We’re beginning to see this continuous loop
0:09:09 of failures in the peace process.
0:09:13 – And in 1995, a right-wing Jewish extremist
0:09:17 assassinated Israeli Prime Minister, Itzhak Rabin.
0:09:21 – This big plan towards peace began to unravel
0:09:22 almost immediately.
0:09:26 Over the next decade, there was the expansion
0:09:29 of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
0:09:33 Deadly attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
0:09:35 – During that time, we began to understand
0:09:36 the need to heal collective trauma
0:09:38 as part of peacemaking as well,
0:09:41 understanding how much the past influences us.
0:09:43 – It was 2007.
0:09:45 Sammy was in his mid-30s
0:09:48 and had begun to take an interest in reading up on trauma
0:09:51 when he was invited to go on a pretty unconventional trip
0:09:54 to the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau.
0:09:59 He spent eight days there, sleeping at the camp,
0:10:01 eating all his meals there.
0:10:04 – So we were there every day, doing our own ceremony
0:10:08 and prayer and visuals, remembering the people that died.
0:10:10 I had like lists of names of people
0:10:12 that we were all given to recite continuously.
0:10:14 So like eight hour meditations we were doing.
0:10:17 I began to really see that, wow,
0:10:20 this is something that is not an incident
0:10:21 that just happened in the past.
0:10:25 This is something that continues until this day.
0:10:31 – Pre-COVID, around 40,000 Israeli students
0:10:33 visited concentration camps
0:10:36 as part of their school curriculum each year.
0:10:39 The trips are sponsored by Israel’s Education Ministry,
0:10:42 typically right before mandatory military service.
0:10:44 While Sammy was there,
0:10:47 he kept seeing school group after school group.
0:10:50 – Israeli kids with Israeli flags wrapped around them,
0:10:53 big flags and they’re walking in and singing.
0:10:57 I heard the Israeli teachers tell these kids,
0:10:59 the Holocaust is not over.
0:11:03 As Jews, we’re always threatened, we’re always attacked.
0:11:04 Many people want to destroy us.
0:11:06 And of course then it’s followed by,
0:11:07 this is why we have to be strong,
0:11:08 this is why we have to be resilient,
0:11:10 this is why security above everything
0:11:12 and this is why we never trust anybody.
0:11:15 What the hell is happening here?
0:11:17 Like how can you be even talking about peace with somebody
0:11:20 when the foundation is we don’t trust them?
0:11:26 – That night, Sammy slept in Birkenau.
0:11:29 In the barracks where children were imprisoned,
0:11:31 he was there with a Jewish person from Israel
0:11:33 and a Muslim person from Bosnia.
0:11:39 – We just had candles and our very thick coats
0:11:40 and sleeping bags.
0:11:43 And just remember, like being in that place
0:11:47 where these children were there and were dying,
0:11:48 but also having these discussions
0:11:50 about this issue of inherited trauma.
0:11:55 I began to realize that this whole peace process
0:11:57 that we were in, that I was in,
0:12:01 that I was even supporting and advocating for,
0:12:06 was embedded from a space of existential fear and threat.
0:12:09 The Palestinians, we have a similar narrative
0:12:11 that our existence is on the line,
0:12:12 we need to do something about it.
0:12:14 If we don’t do something about it,
0:12:16 we will cease to be as a people.
0:12:21 What happened to us is too shameful, too painful,
0:12:22 we don’t talk about it.
0:12:27 Sammy says a lot of Palestinians don’t really acknowledge
0:12:31 the full scope of pain that their families have endured.
0:12:34 Like the 1948 Nakba,
0:12:36 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
0:12:38 were driven from their homes,
0:12:41 are really any other traumatic events.
0:12:42 – We have a generation growing up,
0:12:46 not knowing what happened and listening to propaganda.
0:12:47 And the propaganda is we are resilient,
0:12:50 we are strong, we will return, we will defeat them.
0:12:54 Not acknowledging, like there is grief that needs to happen.
0:12:55 There is pain that needs to be expressed
0:12:57 of what happened to us as a people.
0:12:59 There’s a healing, but to not address these issues
0:13:02 makes us unhealthy in how we’re dealing with things.
0:13:08 – When he got back to Bethlehem,
0:13:11 this is what Sammy wanted to focus on.
0:13:15 Healing, to address the trauma that gets passed down
0:13:18 from generation to generation.
0:13:22 He read books on this intergenerational trauma.
0:13:24 He studied the Rwandan genocide
0:13:26 and the healing journey that followed.
0:13:29 He also met with Israeli-studying trauma,
0:13:32 including faculty at Hebrew Union College.
0:13:35 They developed tools for Israelis and Palestinians
0:13:38 to work through their pain together.
0:13:40 At the same time, foreign governments
0:13:43 were pouring billions of dollars into the region
0:13:46 to advance these peaceful coexistence programs
0:13:48 between Israelis and Palestinians.
0:13:50 There were summer camps,
0:13:52 organizations that raised up the voices of parents
0:13:54 who had lost children,
0:13:57 theater troops, art projects.
0:14:02 And still, around two decades after Oslo,
0:14:04 Sammy felt things were worse than ever.
0:14:06 – You see the wars in Gaza.
0:14:08 You see settler violence towards Palestinians.
0:14:10 Yeah, Palestinians are treating each other.
0:14:12 What do all of this money, all of this investment,
0:14:13 where is it all?
0:14:18 All of this peace process is 25 years of negotiating.
0:14:21 The reality is as messed up as it’s ever been.
0:14:23 Things now are worse than any time before.
0:14:24 All of the peace work,
0:14:26 all of the money that was spent.
0:14:27 And so for me, I was in this place,
0:14:30 we need something new, we need something new.
0:14:33 – That’s when he got a phone call.
0:14:36 It was from an Israeli couple, around 2012.
0:14:40 – When they say we have a peace project
0:14:42 that we want to involve you with.
0:14:44 – Sammy rolled his eyes.
0:14:48 – More Israelis who think they have the answers.
0:14:49 He almost hung up.
0:14:51 – And the woman started yelling at me,
0:14:52 “No, we have to come and we have to meet you.
0:14:55 And it’s very important and don’t bring anybody.
0:14:56 And it’s just you.”
0:14:58 – His interest was piqued.
0:15:00 He went to meet them.
0:15:02 – I said three things came to my mind.
0:15:04 Other, this is some money laundering scheme.
0:15:06 Something to do with drugs,
0:15:08 or something to do with weird sex.
0:15:11 And she just started laughing, laughing.
0:15:13 I said, “It has to do with the second one.”
0:15:15 And then the guy looked at me.
0:15:16 He looked at me straight in the eyes,
0:15:19 and he said, “Have you done medicine before?”
0:15:23 – He was talking about the psychedelic brew ayahuasca.
0:15:24 As the man explained his vision,
0:15:27 all Sammy could think about were the dangers.
0:15:29 Sammy says drugs are kind of taboo
0:15:31 in Palestinian society.
0:15:36 – It’s not just illegal, it’s immoral, it’s legitimate.
0:15:40 It goes against religion, it goes against social values.
0:15:41 – People who drink ayahuasca
0:15:43 have described emotional breakthroughs,
0:15:47 conversations with anthropomorphic spirits,
0:15:49 catharsis of traumatic events,
0:15:52 and connections with ancestors.
0:15:55 So even though Sammy was terrified,
0:15:57 he thought it might be worth trying.
0:15:59 He traveled through checkpoints into Israel
0:16:03 to join the couple for an ayahuasca ceremony.
0:16:06 He downed a cup full of the sludgy tea,
0:16:09 and soon he was vomiting.
0:16:12 – It’s an energy that comes out.
0:16:15 My purging is very loud, for example.
0:16:16 People know me for this.
0:16:20 It’s like moaning and yelling out.
0:16:23 It’s releasing something that’s coming out of your body.
0:16:27 – Sammy continued going to these ayahuasca rituals,
0:16:29 and he felt that the ayahuasca
0:16:33 actually helped him understand his own wounds more clearly.
0:16:37 – For me, my trauma, I would say,
0:16:40 is more coming from my experiences living under occupation
0:16:44 that I had to live through and work with.
0:16:46 – He saw flashes of memories,
0:16:51 confrontations with soldiers as a child, getting arrested.
0:16:53 – Having my oldest daughter born
0:16:56 during the siege of Bethlehem in 2002,
0:16:58 when everything was under lockdown.
0:17:01 – Having to sneak his wife to a hospital
0:17:03 while she was in labor.
0:17:07 Sammy says the experience was like watching his subconscious
0:17:10 being tumbled around in a washing machine.
0:17:13 He felt that maybe something in this extreme vulnerability
0:17:16 could be key to healing.
0:17:19 – I felt there was something in it.
0:17:21 – I would define intergenerational trauma
0:17:25 as the idea that the effects of extreme stress
0:17:27 can be passed to future generations.
0:17:33 – Dr. Rachel Yehuda is a professor of psychiatry
0:17:35 and neuroscience,
0:17:38 and she’s the director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division
0:17:41 and the Center for Psychedelic Therapy Research
0:17:45 at Iken School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
0:17:49 She’s interested in the way trauma affects the body.
0:17:51 Someone whose ancestors experienced trauma
0:17:54 might have a hyper-vigilant response to fear,
0:17:58 both in the brain and the endocrine systems.
0:18:00 – That is some insubstance, really,
0:18:02 of the intergenerational biology.
0:18:04 You got a better threat detector.
0:18:08 – It’s like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop
0:18:11 and you’re not enjoying even the peace and security
0:18:12 that as much as you could.
0:18:16 – When someone, like Sammy,
0:18:18 is constantly in fight-or-flight mode,
0:18:21 always seeing or anticipating danger,
0:18:23 it can be exhausting.
0:18:25 And if you come from generations of people
0:18:28 who have also survived in that kind of traumatized state,
0:18:32 that core fear and anxiety is compounded.
0:18:36 And that’s what perpetuates the cycle.
0:18:41 – You don’t have choices about being able to erase the past.
0:18:45 But you can decide to use all your energy
0:18:48 to make sure these things don’t happen to other people.
0:18:50 You could say never again.
0:18:55 Or you could feel very paralyzed by the very real scars
0:18:59 that are often inflicted as a result of trauma.
0:19:02 (gentle music)
0:19:07 – And by tapping into what Yehuda calls
0:19:10 the reservoirs of inner consciousness,
0:19:14 ayahuasca could offer a way to revisit those scars.
0:19:18 – If you can tap into ancestral wisdom
0:19:20 and not just ancestral burden,
0:19:25 that you can really be in a position to cope better.
0:19:30 – Soon after Sammy Awad’s first ayahuasca rituals
0:19:33 with Israelis, he began bringing other Palestinians
0:19:35 with him into Israel.
0:19:38 Eventually, he brought the brew back into the West Bank
0:19:40 and started inviting Palestinians and Israelis
0:19:42 from his peace activist circles
0:19:45 to join him in ayahuasca ceremonies.
0:19:48 – And then slowly inviting people
0:19:50 and in these spaces to see like what happens
0:19:53 when Palestinians and Israelis are in ceremony together.
0:19:57 – These ceremonies were all underground.
0:19:59 The legal risks were high
0:20:02 for Palestinian participants especially,
0:20:04 but people came.
0:20:06 Sammy doesn’t know the exact number
0:20:09 because all of this was happening informally,
0:20:11 but he guesses around 50 Palestinians
0:20:13 and twice as many Israelis were taking part
0:20:15 in these ceremonies.
0:20:19 And Sammy says that ayahuasca is not some kind of panacea.
0:20:23 The intention of the people drinking it is what matters.
0:20:27 – Ayahuasca is not a peace medicine or a love medicine.
0:20:28 There is abuse of the medicine.
0:20:32 There are people that use medicine to create racism.
0:20:35 I mean, there are neo-Nazis that use medicine
0:20:36 to achieve their goal.
0:20:38 There are settlers not far from where I live,
0:20:42 that drink ayahuasca to receive confirmation
0:20:45 from God that this is their land and it belongs to them.
0:20:49 If you are with Palestinians and Israelis with intention,
0:20:52 you experience that sense of oneness,
0:20:55 of we are one as one community.
0:20:58 The connection, the boundaries that are let go,
0:20:59 the fear that is let go,
0:21:02 the singing, the hearing Israelis sing in Hebrew
0:21:04 and Israelis hearing Palestinians sing in Arabic
0:21:09 and reciting the Koran and like, there is healing.
0:21:12 – These ayahuasca rituals
0:21:16 weren’t solving any geopolitical conflicts,
0:21:18 but compared to the hundreds of peace-building activities
0:21:22 Sammy had led, he felt that the ayahuasca
0:21:26 actually helped people connect across barriers of mistrust
0:21:28 because when people drank it,
0:21:31 they seemed to confront their own deeply embedded fears.
0:21:36 – For the first time I experienced deep, deep healing
0:21:38 in that spaces.
0:21:42 – At the same time, thousands of miles away,
0:21:45 an Israeli neuroscience and psychology researcher
0:21:47 studying psychedelics in the UK
0:21:50 had heard about these underground circles
0:21:52 in Israel and Palestine.
0:21:55 – And there is something funny about it in some ways.
0:21:56 There’s something very hopeful about it.
0:21:59 There’s something maybe even very triggering about it.
0:22:04 – Leor Roseman grew up in a Jewish family
0:22:07 in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
0:22:11 Now he has a PhD from the Center for Psychedelic Research
0:22:14 at Imperial College and works as a senior lecturer
0:22:17 and researcher in the psychology department
0:22:19 at the University of Exeter.
0:22:23 A few years into these underground ayahuasca circles,
0:22:26 a friend put Sammy in touch with Leor.
0:22:28 They met around 2019
0:22:32 and they decided to put together a research project.
0:22:33 They wanted to know if ayahuasca
0:22:37 could maybe help soften people’s national identities
0:22:39 to move beyond these identity groups
0:22:41 and into a feeling of oneness.
0:22:45 It sounds wishy-washy,
0:22:47 but the organizers defined peace-building
0:22:50 as not just a state of harmony,
0:22:53 but as striving for political liberation as well,
0:22:56 for a movement against Israel’s occupation of Palestine
0:22:59 and the oppression that comes with it.
0:23:02 Leor felt ayahuasca had the potential to inspire
0:23:05 some sort of radical political shift.
0:23:08 – Sometimes we think about psychedelics
0:23:11 based on oneness and harmony and acceptance
0:23:12 and all these things that are nice
0:23:14 and we’re all from the Middle East,
0:23:15 we’re all at humus,
0:23:18 we’re all in the oneness of the medicine,
0:23:22 but you dilute the political anger.
0:23:23 So it’s kind of like the risk there
0:23:28 is that they dilute the forces that also bring change.
0:23:29 There are also other experiences,
0:23:31 like especially those of insights
0:23:34 of something that ruptures our consciousness,
0:23:35 that brings something new,
0:23:39 like there’s also this revelatory revolutionary potential there
0:23:41 that excites, can excite people.
0:23:43 It can be visions of collective trauma,
0:23:44 it can be apocalyptic visions,
0:23:46 it can be very painful visions,
0:23:50 and then they inspire people to bring change.
0:23:55 – Bringing change was the goal.
0:23:57 And Samia Wad also felt this wouldn’t happen
0:24:01 without difficult visions or revelations.
0:24:03 – You cannot just jump into it,
0:24:07 sit together and celebrate with each other,
0:24:09 ’cause that will be just a fake thing that will happen.
0:24:11 You have to go through deep journeys,
0:24:13 dark, dark places for many people,
0:24:15 very, very painful places.
0:24:17 – Samia and Lior had this idea
0:24:21 that psychedelics can manifest both unity and diversity
0:24:23 at the same time.
0:24:25 When trauma expert Rachel Yehuda
0:24:27 first heard about the project,
0:24:31 she was curious, but skeptical.
0:24:34 She considers ayahuasca to be an ego-dissolving drug,
0:24:37 and she figured that taking it could help people
0:24:40 confront their inherited pain and fear.
0:24:44 You know, it’s a fantasy, it’s a wish,
0:24:47 and yet it’s probably worth trying.
0:24:52 – But Yehuda says it’s not a pharmacological silver bullet.
0:24:54 – Look, if you wanna know
0:24:56 what I think the magic ingredient of this here,
0:25:00 it’s the fact that you wanted to do this.
0:25:02 It’s the fact that you wanted to come together
0:25:07 in a room with people who were Israeli or Palestinian,
0:25:13 people wanted that intergenerational healing.
0:25:16 Intention is so powerful.
0:25:18 – Samia and Lior decided that the experiment
0:25:21 would take place in the summer of 2022
0:25:22 in the mountains of Spain,
0:25:27 where authorities seemed to turn a blind eye to psychedelics.
0:25:31 They chose 15 Israelis and 18 Palestinians for the program.
0:25:33 There was also a Brazilian medicine man,
0:25:35 a Palestinian medicine woman,
0:25:37 and an Israeli group therapist
0:25:40 helping Samia and Lior facilitate.
0:25:43 One prerequisite for participating in the program
0:25:47 was that participants had to have used ayahuasca previously.
0:25:52 The first few days of the experiment focused on the past.
0:25:56 There was Suli, who was from a town outside of Jerusalem.
0:25:58 – And my family has been living there
0:26:01 like for centuries.
0:26:04 – People answered questions about their personal identities
0:26:07 and shared family stories.
0:26:09 There was also Rotem.
0:26:11 – I have grandparents from Russia,
0:26:15 Poland, and one from Morocco.
0:26:19 They see themselves as like those who established the state.
0:26:21 – And Sharon.
0:26:23 – Everyone was Zionists.
0:26:26 Everyone wanted to be combat soldiers.
0:26:29 – And Mariam, who grew up in a Bedouin township.
0:26:34 – The townships, a lot of shoots, people die.
0:26:38 – Even the infrastructure is not a real infrastructure.
0:26:41 I was scared to speak in Arabic
0:26:44 because they would make fun of me.
0:26:45 And no matter how good and nice you will be,
0:26:47 you’ll always stay Arabian.
0:26:50 No matter what you do.
0:26:52 – People shared their stories as part of an effort
0:26:56 to set the intention of the group for this ayahuasca experience.
0:26:57 The purpose was healing
0:27:01 and envisioning a collective future together.
0:27:05 – Sammy and Lior facilitated and observed.
0:27:06 After a day of fasting,
0:27:09 the study participants dressed in white
0:27:11 and sat together in a dark room,
0:27:14 illuminated by a single candle.
0:27:19 One by one, people stepped forward to drink ayahuasca.
0:27:21 The researchers recorded.
0:27:34 – And I took the ayahuasca and the ayahuasca taste.
0:27:40 Like chocolate with lemon
0:27:44 and with chocolate with like expired chocolate.
0:27:51 Like brown, black, like oil.
0:27:55 And it’s very thick.
0:27:57 So for me, it was really hard to swallow.
0:28:02 And then the first struggle was to keep it inside
0:28:06 because first it get in, then it want to get out.
0:28:08 It just sat on my stomach.
0:28:11 Then I vomited and it was so loud.
0:28:15 It was with like a scream, “Get out of me, Annie.”
0:28:18 – And the song that we started singing there was,
0:28:28 it was very strong.
0:28:30 It was a really strong night.
0:28:33 A lot of crying.
0:28:38 – I can really feel myself melting into the way she sings.
0:28:42 And we hugged like for, it felt like an hour.
0:28:53 – As the sun rose, the effects of the ayahuasca wore off.
0:28:55 People slept or chatted.
0:28:58 The next day, Sammy and Leor and a group therapist
0:29:01 facilitated day-long integration circles,
0:29:05 where they made meaning out of their experiences.
0:29:09 Some people made art, paintings and sculptures.
0:29:13 Others wrote commitment letters with lists of new commitments
0:29:15 to themselves and others.
0:29:19 Not everything fully made sense to everyone.
0:29:21 But people went around sharing takeaways
0:29:25 and trying to put words to their experiences.
0:29:30 – The medicina she just gave me, so many visuals
0:29:35 that really embodied what is the problem with myself.
0:29:39 – One participant, Mariam,
0:29:41 spoke about how the experience helped her realize
0:29:45 that her peace activism came from a place of anger.
0:29:48 – It’s the only way that I know how to work.
0:29:52 – Mariam is a Palestinian Bedouin in her 20s.
0:29:54 She’s the one who thought the ayahuasca
0:29:56 tasted like expired chocolate.
0:29:59 She grew up in Israel, going to Israeli schools
0:30:03 and encountering racist bullying daily.
0:30:06 – It was a horror, like, what are you?
0:30:09 You are a terrorist, you’re anti-Semitic.
0:30:12 – She was first introduced to ayahuasca
0:30:14 in one of Sammy’s ayahuasca circles.
0:30:16 And she’s using a pseudonym for the story
0:30:19 because she feels it’s dangerous not to.
0:30:23 – I need to stay anonymous because what I do
0:30:27 is comes against my religion, my community.
0:30:32 – After Mariam purged, she fell asleep.
0:30:35 – And then I have a lot of beautiful visuals in my uterus.
0:30:39 Flowers, a lot of flowers.
0:30:41 And then when they got to my head,
0:30:43 they turned to be like swamp flowers,
0:30:46 like stuck in my head and like the kind of flowers
0:30:48 that looks very not good.
0:30:54 And then I remembered like visions of memories,
0:30:56 like very hard ones.
0:30:59 – She saw herself as a child.
0:31:02 – Like, actually, wow, I did really good
0:31:05 in the circumstances that I was put in.
0:31:06 And in the moment that I was starting
0:31:08 to feel so much empathy,
0:31:11 and I was feeling mercy for everyone in the room.
0:31:13 I was laughing a lot, I was crying a lot.
0:31:16 And then at some point, I just saw my ancestor
0:31:19 in front of me, and then she was telling me
0:31:24 that I need to go deeper, like to know them more,
0:31:27 like to ask my parents more about them,
0:31:30 and they will lead me to the answer.
0:31:33 And I saw their faces and they go looping,
0:31:36 looping around my head and I was like, God.
0:31:39 – The answer, she says, was love.
0:31:42 – So I take my time like thinking what I want to do,
0:31:44 and my activism now looks
0:31:49 as spreading more love than,
0:31:54 spreading more love for one’s culture first,
0:31:56 like to love himself.
0:32:00 And I think it helps to meet the other.
0:32:04 – Others in the experiment
0:32:07 discovered hidden connections.
0:32:09 – Meeting with the other side
0:32:11 was something that I felt is healing.
0:32:15 My pain that I had from the army,
0:32:19 or my pain that I had in my life and my family.
0:32:22 – Liel is Jewish, grew up in a right-wing Zionist family
0:32:24 outside of Tel Aviv.
0:32:26 During the Second Intifada,
0:32:28 a bloody time in Israel’s history,
0:32:31 he and his family joined demonstrations
0:32:33 against the peace process.
0:32:36 Two of Liel’s grandparents survived the Holocaust.
0:32:39 Others fled Libya in the ’60s
0:32:41 after the state confiscated Jewish property
0:32:45 and Jews were subject to violent attacks.
0:32:47 This was the anxiety that Liel had inherited
0:32:51 and carried with him his entire life.
0:32:56 – The main idea was that the world is an ugly place,
0:32:57 a violent place,
0:33:00 and every people should take care of themselves
0:33:03 because no one else would take care of them.
0:33:05 – This was the wound he was hoping to heal
0:33:09 when he signed up to participate in the experiment.
0:33:11 He had been working on it for a while.
0:33:14 During his mandatory military service,
0:33:16 he had a kind of political shift,
0:33:18 and he eventually left
0:33:20 and moved to the desert to become a farmer.
0:33:22 He later joined various peace groups
0:33:26 and signed up to facilitate dialogue with teens.
0:33:30 – But eventually, when I tried to bring it home,
0:33:31 you feel the displacement,
0:33:34 ideologically, mentally, politically.
0:33:37 There was no place to hold it.
0:33:39 He was hoping the experiment in Spain
0:33:40 would provide something different,
0:33:44 something more sustainable.
0:33:45 When he got there,
0:33:46 one of the first things he noticed
0:33:48 was participants were encouraged
0:33:50 to bring their own songs and rituals,
0:33:53 like this one woman in his group.
0:33:58 (singing in foreign language)
0:34:05 – During the ayahuasca ceremony,
0:34:08 after Liel had drank and purged,
0:34:10 the group sang.
0:34:14 Liel says he just melted into the words of the song.
0:34:16 – And I felt them like I couldn’t feel beforehand.
0:34:21 They feel maybe created the most powerful experience for me,
0:34:24 which is like the fear from the language
0:34:28 or the trauma around their language is being melted.
0:34:31 – The song was an Arabic,
0:34:33 a language that Liel’s father speaks,
0:34:37 but that as a kid, Liel never wanted to learn.
0:34:40 – The wound of my family being expelled from Libya
0:34:42 caused the wound between them
0:34:47 and the Arabic people and Arabic culture in general.
0:34:50 So if we believe in intergenerational trauma,
0:34:53 like needing to hide this language,
0:34:55 it has ingrained in me.
0:34:57 – But ayahuasca presented him
0:35:00 with this sort of instant connection with the language.
0:35:03 – Something that belonged to the past
0:35:07 was connected to a wound of displacement, disconnection.
0:35:10 So for me, being with Palestinians
0:35:14 is a way to heal that historical trauma of the Jews in general,
0:35:19 but being able to feel safe, to trust the world again,
0:35:24 to be in a place of healing and forgiving and for change.
0:35:29 – After the Spain experiment,
0:35:33 Liel went back to his peace dialogue groups in Israel
0:35:35 with a reinvigorated energy.
0:35:38 In the process of bringing people together,
0:35:42 Mariam made plans to start a political art magazine.
0:35:44 The content, she said,
0:35:48 would stem from a place of love rather than anger.
0:35:50 And over a dozen participants came together
0:35:52 to start a new project,
0:35:55 to celebrate and protect a river valley called Wadi Kelt
0:35:59 from being destroyed by encroaching Israeli settlements.
0:36:03 Some participants met for additional integration circles
0:36:05 in the desert of Jericho.
0:36:09 Others met for integration circles on Zoom.
0:36:11 A year after the Spain project,
0:36:14 many of the participants were still meeting regularly
0:36:19 to integrate the experience, but also to just hang out.
0:36:22 They throw parties where they’re living out this new vision
0:36:26 of Israelis and Palestinians just being together.
0:36:30 (singing in foreign language)
0:36:34 In late summer of 2023,
0:36:36 I went to witness this in person
0:36:39 at Liel’s birthday party on a farm.
0:36:42 People spoke English and Hebrew and Arabic.
0:36:45 (speaking in foreign language)
0:36:47 – I think in our first glance,
0:36:49 you see just like a normal party
0:36:52 where everyone like having a good time,
0:36:57 but then you hear Arabic, Hebrew languages almost equally
0:36:59 and you’re not, of course, in a hospital.
0:37:04 – I caught up with Mariam there at the farm.
0:37:06 – And I think for people coming from the outside,
0:37:09 it will be like abnormal, I would say.
0:37:11 Like, is it even impossible
0:37:15 like to be Palestinian and Israelis and so close
0:37:20 and just like normal, not in a normalizing way,
0:37:26 but normal in a very radical way, and a lot of fun.
0:37:29 Being in this community where you’ve always been seen
0:37:33 in the best light you can be seen at,
0:37:37 it’s really helped you to love yourself, actually,
0:37:39 unconditionally.
0:37:42 – This love, she says, is the only thing
0:37:45 that helps her feel hopeful for the future.
0:37:48 – Like, you’re so secure of who you are
0:37:50 so when you meet the other person,
0:37:53 it creates a real interaction
0:37:57 and it will make him automatically or her
0:38:00 to have the same approach.
0:38:02 – Samia and Leor have been compiling their notes
0:38:05 into a research study about the project,
0:38:07 which hasn’t been published yet.
0:38:09 And while they haven’t concluded
0:38:12 that the experiment brought Palestinians or Israelis
0:38:15 closer or further away from peace,
0:38:19 they do say that based on participant surveys,
0:38:23 the project culminated in high ratings of communitas,
0:38:27 a sense of togetherness among the participants.
0:38:28 – We are kind of like in the first steps
0:38:31 of a consciousness shift that’s happening
0:38:33 and maybe others will follow.
0:38:39 – Months after my conversations with Samia and Leor,
0:38:44 Mariam and Liel, violence erupted in the region.
0:38:45 – The Islamist militant group Hamas
0:38:48 launched a surprise attack on Israel.
0:38:50 The assault began early in the morning
0:38:52 with Hamas firing thousands of rockets
0:38:55 from the Gaza Strip into neighboring Israel.
0:38:59 – Shayna’s story continues after the break.
0:39:00 Stay with us.
0:39:07 (upbeat music)
0:39:11 Welcome back to Altered States.
0:39:12 I’m Ariel Zumarass.
0:39:14 Before the break, producer Shayna Shealy
0:39:16 was recounting how she reconnected
0:39:18 with the peace activists she had been reporting on
0:39:20 following October 7th
0:39:23 and the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
0:39:24 Shayna tells the story from here.
0:39:29 – On October 15th, a week after the deadliest attack
0:39:32 in the history of the Israeli state,
0:39:35 followed by deadly airstrikes in the Gaza Strip,
0:39:39 a Palestinian participant from the Spain project, Suli,
0:39:41 sent me this voice note.
0:39:45 – This is exactly the time that we need all the love
0:39:47 and the forgiveness and big hearts.
0:39:52 Like, where is my conscious sitting?
0:39:56 Actually, it’s really to keep my soul,
0:40:00 my heart open for compassion for people.
0:40:02 It’s been no matter which sides,
0:40:05 and I really hate the way it sides to say,
0:40:08 yeah, some people go back to the tribe right now,
0:40:11 a lot of people, even among activists, unfortunately,
0:40:16 they can’t take it and I’m sticking to my…
0:40:18 – Throughout the devastation,
0:40:22 this group of ayahuasca drinkers has continued to meet,
0:40:24 mostly virtually, since movement
0:40:27 across Israeli checkpoints has been limited
0:40:29 since October 7th.
0:40:31 While Sammy has been facilitating these groups,
0:40:35 he also says they’ve been helpful for him, personally.
0:40:38 – There is this continuous intention
0:40:42 to understand hatred towards the other,
0:40:44 and that the moment we deeply understand
0:40:46 where it’s coming from, then maybe we have access
0:40:50 to working with it and to healing it and to ending it.
0:40:54 – Lior, the Israeli researcher,
0:40:57 also went to these first gatherings over Zoom.
0:40:59 He remembers people talking about
0:41:02 just how isolated they felt.
0:41:06 – Because they are a lonely voice, in a way.
0:41:08 They have fights with their own family
0:41:11 and people around them that are close to them.
0:41:16 If you are alone with that idea, it’s uncomfortable.
0:41:21 – And they say that, in general, Palestinians and Israelis,
0:41:23 even those who have been involved in peace work
0:41:27 their entire lives, became more polarized,
0:41:30 blaming violence on the other.
0:41:32 And even though many people from the Spain Project
0:41:34 were in some way holding onto their hope
0:41:38 and commitment to peace and justice, many struggled.
0:41:41 On October 7th, one of Liel’s students
0:41:44 was killed at the Nova Music Festival.
0:41:48 Another close friend lost both of his parents.
0:41:50 He has other friends whose entire communities
0:41:53 were burned to the ground.
0:41:54 Weeks after October 7th,
0:41:57 he met up with some Israeli and Palestinian friends
0:41:58 from the ayahuasca experiment
0:42:01 to process the horror of what was happening
0:42:03 in Israel and Gaza.
0:42:06 It was beautiful also to cry together.
0:42:08 – But the group couldn’t really manage
0:42:11 to come up with any actions to take.
0:42:13 It all felt so hopeless.
0:42:15 – As if we can do something, yeah?
0:42:19 As if, like, you know, the Secretary of State
0:42:22 of the U.S. dying to stop Israel and doesn’t manage.
0:42:25 So, like, our demonstrations in the street
0:42:27 would not do better.
0:42:30 – Liel became more and more disappointed.
0:42:33 I feel him in pain, I’m angry, and I’m, like,
0:42:37 I’m really in a point of, like, this region is rotten.
0:42:39 – When we spoke several months ago,
0:42:41 Liel was in Brazil.
0:42:42 He had left Israel.
0:42:47 – My values do not belong to any of the systems
0:42:49 that are operating there.
0:42:51 And I have many friends there and many people that I love,
0:42:53 but all of them are outsiders to the society.
0:42:58 It feels very sad, melancholic, heavy, energy.
0:43:05 Suffocating with no ability to imagine a brighter future.
0:43:10 – It’s now been nearly two years
0:43:13 since the experiment in Spain.
0:43:17 Some participants, like Liel, have left out of frustration.
0:43:21 Others have disengaged with the project, like Mariam.
0:43:24 She’s living in Israel and hasn’t really had the bandwidth
0:43:27 to speak with me since October 7th.
0:43:30 Sully has been on speaking tours in Washington, D.C.
0:43:33 and Germany, talking about his commitment to peace
0:43:36 and justice in the wake of violence.
0:43:39 Many have continued to meet and talk.
0:43:42 This one Israeli, Rotem, is even gathering with people
0:43:46 from the project for direct action at the Gaza border,
0:43:51 kilometers away from a population on the brink of famine.
0:43:55 – Like to demonstrate there and to try and give brink food
0:43:58 and open the way for the trucks
0:44:01 because the settlers just blocked the way.
0:44:06 – Still, Rotem and many from this cohort feel scattered
0:44:08 and disillusioned.
0:44:12 – I felt like so much unity in Spain and really,
0:44:13 I have never felt so much unity,
0:44:15 but suddenly you come back here
0:44:16 and you are again separated.
0:44:21 And you are in a way like,
0:44:25 you don’t have agency over the reality,
0:44:27 you don’t feel like you can change it.
0:44:32 Reality is so horrific that how can we,
0:44:34 like we support each other, of course,
0:44:39 but at some point, how can you stay sane
0:44:45 when people don’t have food?
0:44:49 Like how can you eat even, you know?
0:44:50 – Yeah.
0:44:52 – And one hour from your home,
0:44:56 like people don’t have food and they die from starvation.
0:45:01 – It’s horrible, I’m heartbroken every day.
0:45:05 – Another Israeli I spoke with, Sharon,
0:45:07 is still engaging with the group.
0:45:10 After standing against Israel’s military violence
0:45:13 for decades, he has similar expectations
0:45:15 for his Palestinian counterparts.
0:45:19 But a few days after October 7th.
0:45:21 A friend of mine was like,
0:45:26 like every resistance is legitimate.
0:45:28 Listen, I know the story.
0:45:30 I understand the power dynamics.
0:45:34 Then I’m like, I’m not surprised, I’m in pain.
0:45:35 In Judaism, we have a tradition
0:45:39 that’s called the shiva when someone dies,
0:45:40 you mourn for seven days.
0:45:44 And I would really appreciate if like,
0:45:46 you let us have that right now.
0:45:51 And yeah, we don’t really talk now, it’s very lonely.
0:45:54 – While the ayahuasca experiment
0:45:57 may have offered participants a temporary offram
0:46:00 from old wounds, their work wasn’t over
0:46:03 after they took ayahuasca together.
0:46:05 Particularly because it was not just
0:46:10 what trauma expert Rachel Yehuda calls ancestral burdens.
0:46:14 New acts of violence and hate were all around them.
0:46:18 It’s confusing because you got used to the idea
0:46:21 that we can be humanistic.
0:46:25 And maybe if we just listen to each other, we can heal.
0:46:29 And then something happens to you
0:46:34 that is a direct violation of your physical integrity
0:46:37 and your people.
0:46:41 And it is because of your race and ethnicity.
0:46:45 And it can become overwhelming.
0:46:47 – Sammy sees that while this kind of healing work
0:46:52 can be helpful, it’s hard to escape when it’s ongoing.
0:46:55 – There isn’t this absolute healing from trauma.
0:46:57 There is a deep understanding of it.
0:46:58 There’s coping to it.
0:47:00 There’s ability to place it in a place
0:47:02 that it doesn’t control you.
0:47:05 But to understand that these things can be triggered.
0:47:06 So you can’t do just one reset
0:47:09 and then think that everything is fine.
0:47:13 – Sammy Awad is still dedicated to helping people heal.
0:47:16 He recently led a ceremony with only Palestinians
0:47:19 and says Israelis have also met on their own
0:47:21 with the intention of working more deeply
0:47:24 within their own communities to heal.
0:47:26 He says that even during this time
0:47:30 when there’s so much hate all around,
0:47:32 most participants from the Spain Project
0:47:36 are still dedicated to the work of a more peaceful future.
0:47:40 Inside themselves, between themselves
0:47:43 and out in the larger world.
0:47:46 And in a way that commitment
0:47:49 was sort of a goal of the ayahuasca experiment.
0:47:52 – I think there’s something that worked
0:47:56 where people are very, very aware of how collective trauma
0:47:59 makes people say things that are very violent
0:48:02 towards the other and have not fallen
0:48:05 for the most part into these traps.
0:48:09 – Within the Palestinians that have been in the Spain Project,
0:48:11 there is a beautiful discussion
0:48:16 that we don’t fall into this sense of deep victimization
0:48:19 and blaming the other for everything that’s going.
0:48:22 And part of it, this is also taking responsibility.
0:48:26 We need change in our political ideologies
0:48:29 and our structures and our leadership and our vision.
0:48:32 – Many Israelis he’s spoken with
0:48:35 are also working through their pain and fear.
0:48:37 – Fully understanding that there would be anger
0:48:40 and frustration and complete despair
0:48:42 that anything will work after this,
0:48:45 especially when you lose loved ones.
0:48:48 But they were able to step out much faster
0:48:53 than like many other Israelis who are still in that loop
0:48:57 of revenge and retaliation and power over the Palestinians.
0:49:00 – Leor agrees.
0:49:02 He says there’s something in this experiment
0:49:04 that worked.
0:49:07 – Something really worked in a sense that they are,
0:49:14 their ethos of conflict was not activated as easily, right?
0:49:17 But it also means that it’s hard for them.
0:49:25 – Sammy and Leor and the rest of the ayahuasca drinking crew,
0:49:29 they pretty much know that ayahuasca is not the key
0:49:32 to solving violence in the Middle East
0:49:35 or anywhere else for that matter.
0:49:38 But they also know that with the right intention,
0:49:42 ayahuasca rituals helps them move towards personal healing
0:49:47 and feelings of interconnectedness in a visceral way
0:49:48 that they hadn’t felt before.
0:49:57 And those things they say are better than nothing at all.
0:49:59 – There was anger, there was frustration,
0:50:02 there was sadness, there was grief.
0:50:04 But at the end of the day, we are people
0:50:06 that believe in peace, believe in justice.
0:50:09 The reason we did this project to start with
0:50:14 is a deep belief that there is a better future
0:50:16 for Palestinians and Israelis.
0:50:18 (gentle music)
0:50:32 This story was reported and produced by Shayna Shealy
0:50:35 with the support of the Ferris U.C. Berkeley
0:50:37 Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship.
0:50:45 Altered States is a production of the U.C. Berkeley Center
0:50:47 for the Science of Psychedelics and PRX.
0:50:50 Adiza Egan is our senior editor.
0:50:52 Jenny Kataldo is our senior producer.
0:50:55 Our associate producer is Cassidy Rosenblum.
0:50:57 Our audio engineers are Tommy Bazarian
0:50:59 and Terrence Bernardo.
0:51:01 Fact-checking by Graham Hayesha.
0:51:03 Rotating BCSP script readers are Michael Pollan,
0:51:06 Michael Silver and Bob Jesse.
0:51:08 Our executive producers are Jocelyn Gonzales
0:51:10 and Malia Wallen.
0:51:12 And our project manager is Edwin Ochoa.
0:51:14 I’m your host, Ariel Zimros.
0:51:18 Be sure to subscribe, rate and review Altered States
0:51:20 wherever you get your podcasts.
0:51:23 Most well-known psychedelics remain illegal
0:51:25 around the world, including the United States,
0:51:28 where it is a criminal offense to manufacture,
0:51:30 possess, dispense or supply most psychedelics
0:51:32 with few exceptions.
0:51:34 Altered States does not recommend
0:51:36 or encourage the use of psychedelics
0:51:38 or offer instructions in their use.
0:51:40 We’ll be back next week.
0:51:44 – Hey guys, this is Tim again.
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0:52:01 called Five Bullet Friday.
0:52:03 Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.
0:52:07 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday
0:52:09 to share the coolest things I’ve found or discovered
0:52:12 or have started exploring over that week.
0:52:14 It’s kind of like my diary of cool things.
0:52:15 It often includes articles I’m reading,
0:52:19 books I’m reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos,
0:52:23 all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me
0:52:26 by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests
0:52:29 and these strange esoteric things end up in my field
0:52:33 and then I test them and then I share them with you.
0:52:36 So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short,
0:52:39 a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off
0:52:41 for the weekend, something to think about.
0:52:42 If you’d like to try it out,
0:52:45 just go to tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser,
0:52:48 tim.blog/friday, drop in your email
0:52:50 and you’ll get the very next one.
0:52:51 Thanks for listening.
0:52:54 (upbeat music)
0:53:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:04 Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show
0:00:10 where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to interview them and tease out the habits, routines, favorite books,
0:00:13 and so on that you can apply to your own lives.
0:00:20 Sometimes I get not just a two-for-one, but a hundred-for-one when I interview someone who also helps
0:00:24 world-class performers, in addition to being such themselves, to get past
0:00:33 sticking points, to redefine themselves, to reinvent themselves, to chart new paths forward, and my guest today, Jared Colonna, is such a person.
0:00:40 He is the CEO and co-founder of Reboot.io, an executive coaching and leadership development firm dedicated to the notion that better humans make better
0:00:46 leaders. But prior to that, he was an operator in many different ways. Prior to being a coach,
0:00:50 he was a partner with J.P. Morgan Partners, the private equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase.
0:00:58 He also led New York City-based Flatiron Partners, which he founded in 1996 with partner Fred Wilson.
0:01:03 Flatiron went on to become one of the nation’s most successful early-stage investment programs. At age 25,
0:01:07 he was editor-in-chief of Information Week Magazine. He’s written a bunch of books.
0:01:12 We’ll mention them at the end of the conversation, but one is Reboot. The other is Reunion, both highly recommended.
0:01:19 You can find his company, Reboot, at Reboot.io and Jerry on Twitter and Instagram @JerryColonna,
0:01:24 and he has been on the podcast twice before.
0:01:29 He is a fan favorite. People always take a ton away from our conversations,
0:01:33 and I recap some of my favorite aspects of those in this episode, and
0:01:39 we cover a lot of ground. There are a lot of stories I’ve never heard. We have a lot of laughs,
0:01:42 almost a few cries on my side.
0:01:50 We dig into his toolkit. The questions that he uses with himself and with clients that I have adopted as some of my favorites.
0:01:56 There is a lot to learn, and it was a hell of an enjoyable conversation.
0:02:01 It was a walk-and-talk, and I have done this before, where I am out in nature today.
0:02:03 It is a beautiful
0:02:06 bluebird sky day in the mountains and to sit in a dark room
0:02:13 staring at a screen seemed like an insult to nature, complete travesty, totally unnecessary, so I have
0:02:17 high fidelity recording equipment. That is what I’m using right now. It is a headset.
0:02:24 I am sitting 10 feet from a beautiful river where I’m watching the eddies swirl around rocks.
0:02:29 So why not get out and move? If you can listen to this while you’re moving,
0:02:32 I encourage you to do so. Audio is a secondary activity.
0:02:38 So if you can walk and talk or walk and listen while I’m walking and talking, all the better for
0:02:40 you, me, everybody involved.
0:02:48 So hopefully that all makes sense, but without further ado, please enjoy a wide ranging conversation, a very tactical, practical, and also funny conversation with
0:02:54 Jerry Colonna. But first, a few quick words from the fine sponsors
0:03:00 who make this show possible. I use all of their products, so this is not me just shilling.
0:03:04 I’ve tried it all, I’ve vetted it all, and here they are.
0:03:12 Okay, this is going to be part confessional. As some of you know, I am recently single and navigating the world of modern dating.
0:03:18 What a joy that is. Sometimes it’s fun, but it’s mostly a goddamn mess, as many of you probably know.
0:03:23 I’ve tried all the dating apps, and while there are some slick options out there, the most functional
0:03:26 that I have found is the league.
0:03:32 Why did I end up using the league? First, most dating apps give you almost no information.
0:03:37 It’s a huge time suck. On the league, you’re starting with a baseline of smart people,
0:03:41 and you can then easily find the ones you’re attracted to. It’s much easier.
0:03:43 It’s like going to a conference
0:03:48 where everyone is smart, and then just looking for the people you think are cute to go up and speak with.
0:03:54 So more than half of the league users went to top 40 colleges, and you can make your filters really selective.
0:04:00 So if that’s important to you, then go for it. It does work, and that is one of the reasons that I use it.
0:04:06 Second, people verify using LinkedIn, so you can make sure they have a job and don’t bounce around every six months.
0:04:09 It’s a simple proxy for finding people who have their shit together.
0:04:14 It’s infinitely easier than trying to figure things out on Instagram or whatever.
0:04:21 Third, you can search by interest and in multiple locations. I haven’t found any other dating app that allows you to do this.
0:04:27 So for instance, I usually search for women who love skiing or snowboarding, have those as interests as I like to spend
0:04:31 say two to three months of the year in the mountains. I’m a rivers and mountains guy.
0:04:36 The UI is a little clunky. I’ll warn you, but it’s incredibly helpful for finding good matches and not just
0:04:41 pretty faces. So you can search by interest and specify multiple cities.
0:04:47 So to summarize a few things that I think make it stand out, features available in the league include multi-city dating,
0:04:53 LinkedIn verified profiles, ability to block your profile from co-workers, bosses, family, etc.
0:05:00 That’s very easy to do. You can search by interest. You can get profile stats and there is a personal concierge in the app.
0:05:04 So there’s someone you can text with within the app as a personal concierge to get help.
0:05:09 So what am I looking for? I am looking for a woman who is well educated and who loves skiing
0:05:16 or snowboarding or both. These are and I’ve used this word already proxies for like 20 other things that are important.
0:05:21 So just I’ll leave it at that for now. Someone who’s default upbeat likes to smile,
0:05:27 smiles often, glass half full type of person who would ideally like to have kids in the next few years.
0:05:33 Her friends would describe her as feminine and playful and she would love polarity in a relationship.
0:05:37 She’s athletic and has some muscle. I like strong women, not necessarily bodybuilders,
0:05:42 but you get the idea. It could be a rock climber, dancer, whatever, but has some muscle, loves to read and loves learning.
0:05:50 If this sounds like you, send #DateTim in a message to your concierge in the app to get us paired up.
0:05:55 So these are all reasons why I was excited when the league reached out to sponsor the podcast.
0:06:00 They even have daily speed dating where you can go on three, three minute dates with people who match
0:06:05 your preferences all from the comfort of your couch. So check it out. Download the league today
0:06:10 on iOS or Android and find people who challenge you to swing for the fences and who are in it
0:06:15 to win it. I found it to be super fascinating. You can really get good matches instead of just
0:06:19 looking at pretty faces and kind of rolling the dice over and over again. Much better.
0:06:23 So download the league today on iOS or Android and check it out.
0:06:28 Message #Tim to your in-app concierge to jump to the front of the wait list and have your
0:06:33 profile reviewed first. So check it out. The league on iOS or Android.
0:06:40 This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. I have been using Eight Sleep pod cover for years now.
0:06:44 Why? Well, by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top like a fitted sheet,
0:06:49 you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed.
0:06:53 Eight Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod and I’m excited to test
0:07:00 it out. Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates automatically. More on that in a second.
0:07:04 First, Pod 4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below
0:07:09 room temperature, keeping you and your partner cool, even in a heat wave. Or you can switch
0:07:14 it up depending on which of you is heat sensitive. I am always more heat sensitive, pulling the
0:07:19 sheets off, closing the windows, trying to crank the AC down. This solves all of that.
0:07:23 Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame
0:07:28 and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience. And for those
0:07:32 snore heavy nights, the pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by
0:07:37 a few degrees to improve airflow and stop you or your partner from snoring. Plus, with the Pod 4
0:07:41 Ultra, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand. You won’t need them because these types
0:07:46 of metrics are integrated into the Pod 4 Ultra itself. They have imperceptible sensors, which
0:07:51 track your sleep time, sleep bases, and HRV. Their heart rate tracking is just one example,
0:07:59 is at 99% accuracy. So, get your best night’s sleep. Head to 8sleep.com/tim and use Code Tim to
0:08:07 get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra. That’s 8sleep, all spelled out, 8sleep.com/tim and Code Tim,
0:08:13 Tim, to get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra. They currently ship to the United States, Canada,
0:08:15 the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.
0:08:45 I was so pleased with how much from our prior conversations,
0:08:52 has stuck with me. I just wanted to tell you that and also to ask you, is there anything that you
0:08:58 have repeated or shared that to you is the equivalent of the four-hour work week in terms of being the
0:09:03 blessing and the curse that you just can’t seem to shake for better or for worse? Because I know
0:09:11 we’re going to talk about legacy. But specifically, I’m wondering, is there a point when you get
0:09:15 tired of hearing some of your own profound questions echoed back to you? Specifically,
0:09:21 can you guess which one? How have I been complicit? Yes, yes.
0:09:28 I don’t get so tired of it. I will tell you that I get tired of the misinterpretation that goes
0:09:35 along with that. Okay. Would you mind laying out the context of this question? What is the question?
0:09:41 And then, would love to hear you expand on misinterpretations of the question.
0:09:46 So, what is the question or what was the conditions that caused me to ask that question
0:09:52 initially of myself? Let’s do the question, because we covered, actually, you know what?
0:09:58 Let’s rewind the clock all the way. Let’s do both. And for people who are like,
0:10:02 “What the hell are they going on about?” This is a question that I revisit a lot.
0:10:04 Maybe I’m revisiting it the wrong way. So, we will find out shortly.
0:10:09 But yes, if you could just explain the Genesis story, then the formation of the question,
0:10:14 and then how people misinterpret it, is that order makes sense to you?
0:10:16 That would be, I think, a great place to start.
0:10:20 And the Genesis story, the origin story, isn’t that complicated.
0:10:28 If we go back in time to my mid-30s, when I was a prince of New York and a former VC
0:10:35 and totally fucked up as an individual, I was knee-deep in the first decade.
0:10:43 I’m now my fourth decade of psychoanalysis. And I had a very tough-as-nails,
0:10:54 nice Jewish lady, psychoanalyst named Dr. Sayers. And what she taught me repeatedly, endlessly,
0:11:01 boxing my ears when she’d say this, is, “How have you been complicit in creating these conditions
0:11:08 you complain so much about?” And you have to picture it, right? I’m lying on the couch.
0:11:15 There’s this, you know, old Jewish lady who’s 30 years older than me, who’s just basically had it
0:11:23 with me complaining. And so, the roots of the question are really a kind of an exasperation,
0:11:33 not just from my analyst to me, but eventually with me about me. And it was really only by
0:11:41 taking that question, “How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?”
0:11:48 That there was a massive unlock for me. Now, you asked about the misinterpretation.
0:11:54 The first level of misinterpretation that people go through is that they assume I’m saying,
0:12:03 “How have I been responsible?” And I am very, very particular. I get very, very angry when people
0:12:09 misinterpret the word complicit for responsible. And it’s not because I want to let people off the
0:12:15 hook, but quite the opposite. I want people to understand that they’ve been an accomplice.
0:12:22 Here’s the thing, Tim. When we get into our mindset that says, “I am responsible for all
0:12:27 the shit in my life,” we’re actually walking away from doing the hard work.
0:12:28 Could you expand on that?
0:12:33 Yeah, sure, because guilt is a defense mechanism.
0:12:38 Right, because some people might say, “Well, that’s extreme ownership,” as I say. “I’m responsible
0:12:39 for all the shit.” Exactly.
0:12:43 That’s the beginning of the solution, but where do they take a wrong turn?
0:12:50 So, I like the kind of ownership. I like the word “ownership.” I don’t like the word “responsibility.”
0:12:56 And the reason for that is because, and the reason I think it can be a defense mechanism,
0:13:02 is because it can be an old structure. So, many people that I encounter, myself included,
0:13:10 spend our childhood pendulating between grandiosity and a sense of worthlessness.
0:13:13 I’m either shit or I am the best.
0:13:16 You got rid of that in your childhood? Man, good for you.
0:13:19 Well, I got rid of it in my adulthood.
0:13:27 This is the point. I got rid of it by actually asking the right questions of myself.
0:13:33 If the word complicit is replaced with the words “even extreme ownership,”
0:13:41 the danger is that I tip over into misunderstanding what actually has been going on,
0:13:46 and I end up in this zone of being responsible for everything.
0:13:50 And the truth is, it’s much more complex than that.
0:13:57 I was just thinking that you’re referring to a pendulum and that not taking any responsibility
0:14:03 for anything is one example, sort of absolving yourself of the hard work.
0:14:10 But I never thought of the opposite if you’re accepting that anything and everything bad that
0:14:17 happens is your responsibility/fault. It puts you in a similar position, it seems.
0:14:23 Exactly. The position it puts you in is unable to actually, with discernment,
0:14:31 diagnose what’s really going on. And you know what? You don’t get to transform stuff
0:14:38 if you don’t really know what’s going on. And so, to understand what’s really happening for you,
0:14:42 you have to understand what your role is and what it isn’t.
0:14:49 So how do you walk, say, a client through answering that question well?
0:14:53 How are you complicit in creating the conditions that you say you don’t want?
0:14:57 Or the conditions of your lives in your lives that you say you don’t want?
0:15:01 How do you walk them through their rough draft of trying to answer that?
0:15:08 Okay, so the unlock on the question is the second half of the question which people skip.
0:15:13 You say you don’t want. So give me an example from your own life, Tim.
0:15:15 What do you say you don’t want?
0:15:17 Oh man, how much time do we have?
0:15:25 I have become better at this. So I’m not dodging the question, but I would say
0:15:33 probably some form of busyness. I’ve got this and I’m over-scheduled and I’ve got this and that
0:15:40 and the other thing that is imposing on what maybe I say I want, which is more locked out.
0:15:44 Space for writing or making.
0:15:50 Right. So you say, “Mr. Four-Hour Workweek.” I don’t want to work more than four hours a week.
0:15:53 Nice turn. Nice turn. I think you said that to me.
0:16:02 Right. So you say you want to be so efficient and so productive that you get everything done
0:16:09 that you want to get done so that you have time to play, take care of yourself,
0:16:16 wear breathe-right strips as you talk to, right? This is kind of like, right? Okay.
0:16:23 Just a quick sidebar. Breathe-right. This one’s on me. Next time you’ve got to sponsor the podcast.
0:16:30 I could recognize them because I’m a breathe-right user. I use them to sleep at night.
0:16:33 Oh my God.
0:16:41 We were both like a lifetime supply, so feel free. Okay. So you say you don’t want to be so busy,
0:16:48 right? And you were asking, how do I walk a client through to understand the role of complicity,
0:16:55 right, in this regard? So how does it feel when you’re not busy?
0:17:02 I would say, and I don’t want to steal your thunder here, but since I’m cheating with a cheat sheet,
0:17:07 right, this is- It’s your show. So it’s your thunder.
0:17:15 And action. So, segwaying to a compliment or maybe a necessary component of the first question,
0:17:19 how are you complicit in creating conditions that you don’t want, which is in what ways does that
0:17:26 complicity serve you? Okay. So to answer your question and that at the same time, I would say
0:17:33 probably, and this is almost a certainty, looking back at some of the scariest depressive episodes
0:17:40 in my life, it’s when I had a lot of empty space. And there is an underlying fear.
0:17:47 Even though I haven’t experienced anything close to that magnitude of desperation and darkness in a
0:17:56 very long time, there is a fear that if I create a void, that is the voice that is the narrative
0:18:01 that is going to come to dominate my thoughts. I would say that therefore,
0:18:09 my complicity serves me by avoiding that. Right. And so if you really want to transform,
0:18:16 when will you be comfortable with the void? That’s a good question. And in my defense,
0:18:23 your honor, I will say that I’m about to go off the grid for a week starting this Friday. So in a
0:18:30 few days, I’ll be going completely off the grid, no phone, no nothing for a period of time. So I
0:18:36 have injected these periods. But let’s get into the messy stuff for a second, since life is rarely
0:18:43 as much of a randomized control trial as you would like. I’ve had an ongoing number of chats with
0:18:51 friends and WhatsApp and different messaging platforms. And it’s been around taking breaks,
0:18:59 creating space, chilling out. Right. So a lot of these friends of mine have passed every hurdle
0:19:03 and objective they could have had. And like goalposts keep moving, right? They want to make
0:19:11 a million, and then it was 10, and then it was 20. And then once it gets indefensible, then it’s
0:19:15 like, what’s your annual compounded growth rate? And this then turns into percentages because
0:19:21 they can’t even with a straight face defend the rest of it. But what they claim to want and what
0:19:28 they believe I need is to chill out, take a break, create all this space. My experience is
0:19:35 as social animals, or at least as a person who benefits from social interaction, I do best
0:19:44 around other people. I just do. And there are, it’s not 100%, but it’s not 0%. There’s a risk
0:19:51 that I do return to some of those dark places or dark narratives. It’s not zero. So I struggle to
0:19:56 answer the question of like, when can I allow space? Because I do it in small doses, sometimes
0:20:04 large doses. I took almost all of October last year off the grid. So perhaps you can help me to
0:20:09 find my way to answering the question you posed. You know, look, Tim, I feel like Uncle Jerry and
0:20:16 that we speak every few years. And every few years, my hell you’ve grown. I know you don’t feel that
0:20:23 way because you’re in your body. But when we first started talking, which was years and years ago,
0:20:29 this was a big struggle for you. This was a tremendous struggle. And there was a sense that
0:20:35 you might miss out. There was a sense of like you being falling behind in some sort of weird little
0:20:43 race, a race to the top. And I think the speed with which you’re able to go right to the fear of
0:20:51 the void, what blaze Pascal identified when he said that all of man’s problems stand from their
0:20:58 inability to sit alone in a room. I think you’ve got, like a lot of us, you’ve got a component of
0:21:09 that. And I also want to say I’m watching you letting go of the need to turn that void time
0:21:16 into productivity time. When I first started promoting the notion of sabbatical, which we’ve
0:21:20 talked about in the past, I remember dealing with a client who would say, well, I’m going to learn
0:21:27 Portuguese. It’s like, no, you’re not going to learn Portuguese in four weeks. You’re going
0:21:36 to learn to breathe without breathe right strips. You’re just going to learn to enjoy yourself.
0:21:45 Now, what I hear you doing is learning to enjoy yourself, which is a really powerful skill.
0:21:54 Yeah. Yeah, it’s going to be a lifelong project, which is okay. A lot of things are lifelong projects.
0:21:59 That’s right. We got here because you were asking about that process, and this is the process.
0:22:09 This is the process. So for you, when you’re off the grid starting Friday, what will that
0:22:14 experience be like for you? At what point might you be anxious? And at what point might you
0:22:19 start to relax? Because are you going to be with friends this trip too?
0:22:27 This particular example may not fit the exercise, but what I’ve done for the last
0:22:33 handful of years is every year I do a past year review rather than setting, let’s just say, blind,
0:22:38 semi-uninformed, overly optimistic New Year’s resolutions. I look back at the past year and
0:22:44 figure out what the highs and lows looked like if I were to do kind of an 80/20 analysis. Places,
0:22:50 people, activities, the most life-giving and the most life-draining, and then I schedule time as soon
0:22:58 as possible in blocks of one week, two weeks, depending on availability to spend time with
0:23:05 energy and people doing energy and things. And this particular week off the grid is going to be a
0:23:13 alpine elk hunt, which I do once every two years or so, with Beau at probably between 10 and 12,000
0:23:17 feet for the most of it. It’s going to get cold. We’re going to be getting a lot of shitty
0:23:27 freeze-tried fruit, hopefully a bunch of trout on route to finding elk. And I have just found
0:23:36 that particular experience and the time dilation that it allows to feel like a month off or two
0:23:40 months off. It has just so regenerated for me that it’s become a core piece of my
0:23:47 annual planning. Not necessarily a hunt, but that type of shared experience with a small,
0:23:53 very small group of people. So that’s what that will look like. And I, in a sense, I don’t want to
0:24:00 say I’m disallowing myself from feeling discomfort because there’s going to be incredible discomfort
0:24:08 physically. Sleep is probably not going to be fantastic. And we will be very, very, very active,
0:24:15 but it’s not the same as doing a silent retreat and sitting there watching your monkey brain
0:24:25 and just contort itself for 16 hours a day. It’s the kind of retreat where layers of your
0:24:31 skin are stripped away because you’re so raw and rugged out in the world. And that’s just going to
0:24:40 drop you into your body and drop you more and more into the land. And that’s a place of nourishment
0:24:48 for you, for sure. Yeah, let me ask you, if I could, how often do you find with your clients
0:24:58 or your team find with their clients that the fixes in the body or in something physical versus
0:25:06 in the mind, even though the symptoms permeate both because the Cartesian separation of mind
0:25:14 and body is ridiculous. It’s not saying. And the reason I ask is that for me, let’s just say,
0:25:24 taking a trip like this, it is such a restorative reminder of how what I want and need is simple
0:25:32 and right in front of me. But that comes through, for me at least, often, not always, but physical
0:25:40 movement, sometimes physical hardship where, as they say in dog trading, a tired dog is a happy
0:25:46 dog. I think humans are pretty similar. Well, we’re both mammals, right? Yeah.
0:25:51 You asked how often I would say 95% of the time. Wow.
0:25:57 I would say you’re finding your way, I’m older than you, Tim, so I get to be the wise one,
0:26:05 but you’re finding your way to that really inherent wisdom. And my take on the Cartesian
0:26:13 Descartes notion is instead of it being, I think therefore I am, I am therefore I think,
0:26:19 and that’s where all the problems begin. What you’re really talking about is getting into the
0:26:28 essence of your existence. The only cautionary note that I would sound is when we start to
0:26:44 invade the productive thinking into that tired dog effort, meaning I’m going to do this so that I,
0:26:49 I mean, the worst case is I’m going to do this so that I lose weight, or I’m going to do this so
0:26:55 that I can look better, or I’m going to do this so that I can, I don’t know, quiet some negative
0:27:02 self-thought. And I think you’re beyond that. But I would say to those listening,
0:27:08 what I have found is when I can let go of even those things and just get dog-tired,
0:27:16 then I’m happiest for sure. It was definitely possible to sort of run towards things, run away
0:27:26 from things. And I think with athletics movement, it’s not necessarily condemnation to be wanting
0:27:33 to quiet something, because you may just have too much inherent physical energy, and it has nowhere
0:27:42 to, has no vehicle through which to dissipate. So it just creates the, yeah, kind of devil on your
0:27:50 shoulder, creating all these fairy tales to drive you insane. And I do think that quieting that by
0:27:55 dissipating the energy through exercise makes a whole lot of sense. But if there’s a persistent
0:28:01 problem that you’re trying to avoid that requires attention, then it’s a different matter altogether.
0:28:10 Let’s just agree that bypassing is not a good strategy. I mean, it is important to take a
0:28:15 vacation and that wise old analyst, Dr. Sayers, used to say to me all the time, “Enough, Jerry.
0:28:23 You’ve figured it out. Now go take a break.” But it gives you insight in what was going on in that
0:28:32 session room. But it’s really important that we let go of those things that are driving us.
0:28:39 And that’s not bypassing. When you go on this Elk Hunt, I mean, maybe you’re avoiding
0:28:44 the conversation that you’re supposed to be having to use one of my other questions.
0:28:50 Maybe you’re not saying the thing that you need to say. But I suspect at this point,
0:28:55 what it’s doing is it’s giving you the ability to come back to the stuff that you’ve
0:29:02 had to confront. But it’s giving you some ground to stand on so that you can confront the things
0:29:07 that you need to confront. That’s how I feel. And it’s also planned so far in advance at this
0:29:16 point that it’s not a reactive. It’s proactively, basically injecting turbo boosters on my
0:29:21 physical and mental well-being so that I can bring that back to everything else.
0:29:29 And you mentioned a few things just a moment ago that I just want to reiterate for folks.
0:29:35 And this, I believe, maybe the same therapist could be a different one,
0:29:38 taught you these questions to ask when in existential pain.
0:29:44 What am I not saying that needs to be said? What am I saying that’s not being heard?
0:29:47 What’s being said that I’m not hearing? Am I getting that right?
0:29:52 That’s right. Well, she taught me the first question. And it was, again, in a moment of
0:30:01 exasperation when I had been hospitalized with a really terrible migraine and spent a week
0:30:06 going through neurological tests only to find out that there was nothing physiologically wrong
0:30:11 with me. And in the first session back, she looked at me and she said, what are you not
0:30:19 saying that you need to say? You need to talk more. So when you see those questions, please
0:30:25 hear that voice. I’ll add, by the way, that those questions have sort of bounded around the internet
0:30:31 the way a lot of my questions do. And one woman wrote back and said, here’s another one.
0:30:34 What are you hearing that’s actually not being said?
0:30:41 That’s a good one. That’s a really good one. That should be on my master mirror. That’s right.
0:30:46 What are you hearing that’s not being said? Oh, that’s good. That’s really good.
0:30:54 Because boy, oh boy, did we tell ourselves stories. What we’re getting at in all four of
0:31:00 the questions. And really, much of this conversation is the importance of not bullshitting yourself,
0:31:09 the importance of not bypassing what’s really going on for you. And I have found in my 61 years
0:31:19 now that that is also a lifelong practice, that my capacity to bullshit myself continues unabated.
0:31:28 And no matter how progressed I think I am and evolved, I think I am. My ability to be diluted
0:31:37 by my own mind knows no end. So I have come to see that as just a part of the human condition.
0:31:43 Maybe when I’m as old as my friend Parker Palmer, who’s 86, I’ll have the wisdom of
0:31:50 not being able to bullshit myself. Parker Palmer, also the author of one of your
0:31:54 favorite books, I believe. Let Your Life Speak. I’m getting that right.
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0:33:22 I want to overlay a few more questions that can be used that I took note of when I was reviewing
0:33:29 our past conversations that I really like. I don’t yet have kids, so one of them won’t
0:33:33 totally apply to me, although it could apply. I guess it could be hypothetical, but
0:33:39 ways of edging into what’s actually going on, circumventing that bullshitting that we’re all
0:33:46 incredibly good at doing, and it may not be, I guess it often isn’t, conscious bullshitting,
0:33:50 where we know we’re lying to ourselves. It may just be a really compelling narrative that
0:33:56 isn’t true. We’re hearing something that isn’t being said. So one is, no, really,
0:33:59 how are you doing? Not just how are you doing, but like, no, really, how are you doing?
0:34:05 And then the little trick of asking people if they want their kids to feel the same thing
0:34:10 that they’re feeling when they get to be the same age. And if they don’t,
0:34:15 it prompts them to start re-organizing their lives and so on, start with a whip. I’m next to a river.
0:34:21 Such things happen. Right. And there are more, of course, but what I was curious to ask you is,
0:34:28 I’ll segue into this by way of an anecdote. There’s an amazing, fascinating sage man named
0:34:35 Bill Richards. And Bill Richards wrote a book called Sacred Knowledge. He is a religious man,
0:34:40 and also, I think he may be an ordained minister, something along those lines.
0:34:44 He also has the distinction of having administered hundreds and hundreds of
0:34:50 psychedelic assisted therapy sessions, both before and after prohibition. And last time I
0:34:56 spent time with him, he kind of looked like Santa Claus. Amazing big white beard, kind of jolly old
0:35:03 elf type of feeling, always smiling with a little twinkle in his eye. And I spent some time with him
0:35:11 probably eight years ago, something like that, near Johns Hopkins, where he’s done a lot of work.
0:35:18 And I was asking him some question about doing the work. This is a phrase that comes up a lot in
0:35:24 personal development circles, dealing with your shadow self and x, y, and z. It can take a million
0:35:29 different forms, doing the work. And he said something to me that has stuck ever since,
0:35:34 and it was along the lines of, well, you know, the tricky part about doing the work. And I was like,
0:35:38 I don’t, what’s the tricky part? He’s like, there’s a very thin line between doing the work
0:35:47 and just picking on yourself. And I was like, and he said a few things to me that day where
0:35:51 afterwards I was like, fuck, I just thought it was funny, but there’s actually a lot to unpack
0:36:00 there. And how do you help clients or how do you think about helping people to distinguish between
0:36:07 the two? Right, because there can be a degree of like trauma fetishizing and past fetishizing,
0:36:13 where people are doing everything and anything to just revisit every mishap of childhood, every
0:36:20 mistake their parents made. And the dose makes the poison, right? And it seems like Paracelsus
0:36:27 said so long ago, not in English, obviously. And how do you think about navigating that?
0:36:33 I think it’s a brilliant question. And I think it’s something I probably, as I’ve slipped,
0:36:43 slide it my way into elderhood, have begun to finally let go of in my own life. And so when I
0:36:53 think about supporting other people, what comes to mind is really, I mean, think about the way
0:36:58 Bill responded to you, think about the way Dr. Sayers would respond to me. Think about,
0:37:06 you know, I think about the conversations I have with my elder friend, Parker, it’s always laced
0:37:16 with humor. And it’s the humor that cuts through it. Humor, forgiveness, and not in this kind of,
0:37:26 I don’t know, self-development, book, bullshit, self-forgiveness thing that’s out there. But
0:37:33 genuine care and concern. I mean, I’ll give you an example. I wrote a book that came out last year
0:37:43 called Reunion. And part of that journey was really reuniting to use language from the book
0:37:51 with the parts of myself that I had disowned. But more importantly, my ancestors. And in this case,
0:38:05 I went into a relationship with my father. Now, my father died 32 years ago. And in unpacking
0:38:15 his story, what I came to have a new relationship with was his own depression, his own alcoholism.
0:38:26 And I unpacked, you know, to spoil the plot, my dad was on his wedding day. His mother was so angry
0:38:33 at him for marrying my mother that she screamed from the back of the church, putana, putana,
0:38:40 putana, whore, whore, whore. Because my mother was pregnant at the time. And then she screamed out,
0:38:47 you’re not my son. You were adopted. Jesus. And that’s how my father, yeah. That’s how my father
0:38:55 found out he was adopted. And I grew up, as we’ve discussed before, my mother was mentally ill,
0:39:04 and my father’s depression and alcoholism really marked my childhood. And I would say that I spent
0:39:11 most of my life being angry with him. And this is to the point of the forgiveness.
0:39:19 And I think that what happened was, in writing this book, I started to really step into his body.
0:39:26 What would it be like to be 18 months old? Because it turned out that he was given up
0:39:33 for adoption at 18 months old. And he was given up and raised by the only parents he knew in
0:39:41 an Italian-American couple. And the reality is, his biological mother was an Irish immigrant
0:39:51 to New York, who gave birth to him when she was 20. And I ended up in Ireland at her grave site,
0:40:00 not only forgiving my father, but forgiving her. And I did that, I tell that story in this book,
0:40:09 but more important to your point. I think that that laughter came about from forgiveness,
0:40:20 where now I actually can feel myself going, he wasn’t so bad. He did the best he could.
0:40:28 And he got a raw deal. And yeah, some of the things he did sucked, but not bad.
0:40:37 Was that incremental 100 different realizations adding up over time? Or were there any flash
0:40:47 points where there were particular experiences or insights that covered the bulk of the
0:40:54 traverse from anger to forgiveness or acceptance in the way that you just described it?
0:40:59 It’s interesting, because we were talking before about the physical being,
0:41:05 the somaticized being. And there was a moment, but it wasn’t an insight,
0:41:12 meaning it wasn’t a thought. And I talk about this as well. My youngest son is named Michael,
0:41:23 and he was a junior in college. And he did a semester abroad in Dublin. And one week for
0:41:30 my birthday, I went to Dublin to visit with him. And we went to visit, his girlfriend was there
0:41:37 as well, she was also taking a semester abroad. And we went to visit the printing museum in Dublin.
0:41:44 Printing. Printing. And we’re walking through the museum because we’re freaking nerds looking at
0:41:53 old print presses. And I’m explaining to him how the machine works. And he’s looking at me
0:41:58 like, oh, yeah, you’re bullshitting me, dad. And it’s like, no, no, no. My father worked in a print
0:42:06 shop. I remember walking through the print shop and seeing molten lead flowing as they would
0:42:13 refire lead type, and that the sparks would fly as they were doing this. I remember all of this
0:42:21 from when I was a kid. And I was explaining all of this. And I look up and they have this replica
0:42:27 copy of the equivalent of the Irish Republican Declaration of Independence. And it was actually
0:42:35 at that moment that I had this profound visceral experience of my father, which was not an insight.
0:42:42 Right. It was, first of all, my father would have loved walking through the museum with his son and
0:42:50 grandson. And all of a sudden, I realized that the folks who had put up that poster originally,
0:42:57 and declared their independence, were the kinfolk of my father, which was a very
0:43:05 different and powerful word for me. And, you know, later, about a year later, when I was in the
0:43:12 churchyard in the grave site and visiting my grandmother’s grave, it’s still weird to say this,
0:43:19 because I never knew her. And I was walking through this tiny little graveyard. I realized that
0:43:27 I was surrounded by the bones of my kinfolk. And Tim, that was not an intellectual experience.
0:43:36 That was not an insight. That was a viscerally felt experience. I look up and I see the light
0:43:42 slanting through the trees. And I swear to God, I felt like I could hear my grandmother at four
0:43:55 years old running down the lane. What a story. To bring it all back, I feel like, because of that
0:44:05 experience, I closed a wound that was transgenerational, transpersonal, and intergenerational.
0:44:11 This brought me to want to ask a few different questions. And I’ll first say that personally,
0:44:18 I’ve found tremendous value in metabolizing a number of things from the past. I’ve had some
0:44:24 horrible things that happened to me as a small child. So it seemed important for me to, at one
0:44:31 point, contend with that or triage it, process it in some way. Now, if I were to take
0:44:38 not necessarily devil’s advocate position, but look at, for instance, many people I’ve
0:44:43 interviewed on this podcast, there are some, and I’m probably misquoting, but it’s not going to
0:44:48 be too far off. I remember chatting with Mark Andreessen, one of the most storied, famous,
0:44:53 and successful venture capitalists of our age, also an incredible technologist in zone right and
0:45:01 coder slash product developer Mosaic being among his achievements. He answered, it may have been,
0:45:07 I think his billboard was raised prices, his billboard answers, so that’s not it. But there was
0:45:11 some type of, perhaps the question was related to if you had to live your life with one mantra,
0:45:16 what would it be? And it was some version of forever forward. And he told this story of
0:45:23 a character in a detective novel who has arrows tattooed on his shoulder pointing forward to
0:45:31 remind him always forward. And many of the most effective people, I don’t know if they’re the
0:45:36 most content people, I don’t have that window into them, have philosophy along these lines,
0:45:41 right? You can change the past, you can change the future, pay attention to your thoughts,
0:45:46 behaviors, habits, those all form your destiny moving forward, right? There’s a very forward
0:45:51 focus to view. And it works for a lot of things. Then let’s just say, on the opposite end of the
0:45:57 spectrum, I’m sure there are very, very successful people who also spent a lot of time metabolizing
0:46:04 the past, I know quite a number of them. But there are also folks who get so focused on the past,
0:46:08 there are a lot of them in Austin, Texas, where I live, that they don’t really seem to be grappling
0:46:14 with the president of the future particularly well. And they feel like their past is this
0:46:21 unalterable, basically shaping of a sculpture they cannot undo on some level, right? They can’t
0:46:26 seem to escape the vortex, the gravitational pull of the narratives they have about their past.
0:46:37 How do you help someone find the right blend of past focus versus present or future focus?
0:46:42 I know that’s a very, very long lead up to the question, but it’s something I do think about
0:46:51 a lot. I think that you are identifying a real challenge in the human existence. And I’ll reframe
0:46:58 it just slightly and take us back to the notion of bypassing. I can argue that those who are only
0:47:09 forward looking with no awareness of the past may be bypassing. As you know from your own experience,
0:47:23 ignored trauma can stay in the body, can affect us forever. But the fear that many people have,
0:47:30 and one of the reasons why we struggle to sit alone in a room is that we’re afraid of our thoughts,
0:47:34 and the thoughts are either about the future or the past that we’re afraid of,
0:47:41 many people fear being trapped in the past. So your question is, how do you balance those two,
0:47:48 which is a great framing of it? And I often think of the Carl Jung quote, which is, “I am not what
0:47:56 has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” And I think that no one would ever accuse Carl Jung
0:48:03 of ignoring the past, but seeing it as, if you will, the source material of what the future is.
0:48:12 The reason we open the closet that is really fucking messy is so that we can straighten it up
0:48:18 and close the closet door and move on, because the stuff in the closet that’s ignored and messy
0:48:27 has a way of busting through the door and messing up our lives. So I think part of your question,
0:48:32 too, is how do we get somebody who is stuck in the past to move forward? Is that a fair statement?
0:48:42 Yes. Yes. I think that the trend seems to, at least in certain places, to have swung pretty
0:48:51 extremely from the sort of Gordon Gekko, let’s just say, pure machine with just enough reflection
0:48:59 on the past to take advantage of new opportunities, but not much more, all the way back to sometimes
0:49:07 what I would say very self-indulgent past reflection and oversharing. And it’s like,
0:49:12 okay, you wrote the script, you’re on your 247th read, right? Maybe it’s time to stop.
0:49:18 Yeah. I’m going to parse things a little bit. Please. I don’t feel comfortable
0:49:27 criticizing someone for being, quote, “for oversharing,” having grown up with the consequences of far
0:49:34 too much silence and secret keeping. I know the detrimental effects of that.
0:49:41 What I really liked, though, is your word “overworking,” and I keep thinking of like dough,
0:49:45 bread dough, when bread dough is overworking. I was actually thinking of clay and play dough,
0:49:48 but then I chose to use the writing because I know it better.
0:49:55 Yeah, there is that tendency to overwork it. What I have found to be helpful is a Buddhist
0:50:02 aphorism, which I’ve used often, which is this being so, so what. And what’s powerful
0:50:07 about that, it’s not so what who cares, it’s so what are you going to do about it?
0:50:14 Which is that forward momentum, whether it’s mere wounds, which we all have, or trauma,
0:50:21 which many of us have. Retraumatizing ourselves by replaying and reworking it,
0:50:28 overworking it, doesn’t release us. But acknowledging what has happened,
0:50:35 and then really empowering yourself to say, “And what will you do about it?”
0:50:41 is I think that’s the unlock. I think that’s the balance point that you’re looking for.
0:50:48 And I’d love to actually say something related to your pushback, which I think is valuable and
0:50:54 valid in the sense that you mentioned being on one end of the spectrum, right? If you come from
0:51:01 a family and a place of withholding in silence and stiff upper lip, not communicating feelings,
0:51:08 experiences, etc. Or worse, secrets. Or worse, secrets, right? It can be very therapeutic
0:51:13 and very healthy to push yourself towards the other end of the spectrum. Recognizing you’re
0:51:20 probably not going to end up at the furthest diametrically opposed point, which is something I
0:51:26 do think is unhealthy, which is performative trauma, right? Literally, I have been at cocktail parties
0:51:31 in Austin where I meet somebody. And this is prior to my divulging my own abuse when I was a kid.
0:51:37 And literally, the fourth sentence out of their mouth is something about extremely graphic trauma.
0:51:45 And I’m like, what are we doing here? Exactly. I don’t think this is for your healing benefit.
0:51:53 And it becomes performative in a sense. So I suppose I just feel like that is unhealthy. Also,
0:52:00 not just to yourself, but to others in a way, it I think can diminish how severely some of these
0:52:06 things impact other people, just because a person happens to have gone to the point where they can
0:52:13 casually drop graphic abuse into conversation does not mean that someone else is comfortable hearing
0:52:18 or saying the same. I’m happy to sit on related topics for a second, but I’m very curious at
0:52:28 Reboot.io. You’re the CEO co-founder. You have lots of clients, right? In the capacity of executive
0:52:39 coaching, leadership development, etc. When did Reboot start? When was it founded? July 2014, roughly.
0:52:47 So 2014, perfect. So it’s almost a decade ago. Just over a decade. You’re right. Just over a decade
0:52:55 ago. Have you seen any changes in the types of challenges people are contending with? Or are
0:53:00 they mostly the same? I’m just wondering, as technology has changed, as social dynamics have
0:53:11 changed, as the world has accelerated, have you seen any problems crop up more and more or less
0:53:15 and less? Or is it kind of the same old stuff that we’ve been talking about for thousands of years?
0:53:22 It’s about both, I would say. I think that there are unique expressions that have emerged. I think
0:53:29 that there is a kind of global tension that exists in the world right now that, sure, there have been,
0:53:37 call it left-right tensions, call it whatever language you want to use, those tensions have existed,
0:53:46 but it feels heightened right now. And you couple that, I think, and this I think is relatively new,
0:53:56 the after-effects of the pandemic. And you have this really complex mix. I think, for example,
0:54:06 of the complexity, I know one company, for example, in November or December, after the Hamas attacks
0:54:15 on Israel on October 7th, ended up having to shut down Slack for two weeks because there was no
0:54:22 discussion. It was all argument. And quite honestly, a lot of the argument from all sides felt
0:54:32 performative to use a word you were just using and not necessarily designed to really move the
0:54:40 conversation forward in somewhere or another. This being said, human nature is human nature.
0:54:47 It’s why coaching is actually a good business model. Much of what happens continues to happen.
0:54:55 I can’t name the company, but I’m at a new client. I rarely take on new clients, but I kind of fell
0:55:01 in love with this kid when I first met him, very, very hot young company. Not quite the clusterfuck
0:55:09 it was six months ago, but pretty close. And as I’m sketching out on a driveway, sport, everything
0:55:15 that has happened and will happen, everybody is like, well, how do you know? Because I’ve seen
0:55:21 this a thousand times. This is what we do. This is called dysfunctional startup, and here’s the
0:55:30 path, and it’s going to be fine. It’s going to take a year and a half to two years. I hope that
0:55:35 addressed your question. I don’t know. I may have gone off on my own tangent. Well, let me hone in
0:55:42 on one particular concept that I’d love for you to expand upon or just riff on. And I may have it
0:55:50 transcribed, noted down in front of me incorrectly, so you can fact check me as well.
0:55:56 But it’s around the discussion of guilt. And part of the reason I think guilt can be such a
0:56:02 powerful driver, sort of a negative driver in a lot of cases. I think guilt and prestige,
0:56:11 often terrible motivators, to quote Maria, or reference Maria Popova, but the guilt, I think,
0:56:25 also seems to be having quite a moment because when you are waterboarded with disaster and crisis
0:56:33 globally 24/7, it’s hard not to feel like you are not doing enough. But this is what I’ve written
0:56:40 down. Guilt is self-focused, whereas remorse is about the other person. So if you find yourself
0:56:45 ruminating in guilt over something, that’s when you bring attention to that and say easy, boy,
0:56:49 easy, or a good man who sometimes fails to live up to your aspirations. The first part is when I
0:56:57 want to ask you about, could you say more about guilt being self-focused versus remorse? I just
0:57:02 wanted to make sure I understood this clearly. I often think of my Buddhist teacher, Sharon
0:57:12 Salzberg, whose line about that is that guilt is self-laser rating, which I find really a compelling
0:57:19 image. And what it does is it kind of keeps us, here’s an old reference, you may get it because
0:57:26 you may have had record players where the needle stuck in the groove. And you just like again and
0:57:31 again and you’re ruminating and you’re spinning and you’re like, oh, shit, why did I do that?
0:57:39 Whereas there’s no opportunity for growth, there’s no opportunity for learning. Daniel Pink
0:57:45 just wrote last year, I think it came out, the power of regret. And as so much of what
0:57:53 Daniel does, it’s kind of a social science take on this question. I prefer the word
0:57:58 remorse to the word regret, but I think for this instance, you can substitute them.
0:58:05 And there’s something very, very powerful that’s embedded in that is the learning.
0:58:13 And I think that that’s what you’re reaching for here is when we allow ourselves to internalize
0:58:24 remorse or regret, we’re opening ourselves up to other people, to knowledge, to growth ultimately.
0:58:28 How do you do that without slipping into guilt? Well, so if you’re talking to somebody and they’re
0:58:33 like, fuck, I shouldn’t have done that, God, if it’s badly and terrible, I always do this.
0:58:39 That’s an exaggerated version, right? But if they’re in a loop of self-lacerating guilt,
0:58:46 how do you move them towards one of these close cousins that is perhaps more healthy?
0:58:49 Exactly. How do you do that?
0:58:55 If you think about the setup, the setup more often than not, if I am often plagued by negative
0:59:04 self-talk, I am going to be more subject to that ruminating guilt, because I tend to see the thing
0:59:12 about which I feel guilty as evidence of my shittiness as a person. And if that’s true,
0:59:26 then the movement is towards decoupling my sense of worthiness as a person from the action. So good
0:59:39 people do bad things all the time. Good people who do bad things who don’t learn are less evolved,
0:59:46 less mature than good people who do bad things who then learn through regret and remorse,
0:59:50 but they remain good people. Does that distinction help?
0:59:57 It does. Are there any problems or exercises that you would potentially assign, it could be
1:00:08 something else, to a client who has developed the habit of negative narratives around self-worth
1:00:13 because they did A, B, and C? That’s just a reflexive habit that they have. Is there any way
1:00:18 that you suggest they reframe things or start training their mind to go in a different direction?
1:00:24 Yeah, I mean, I hate to sound like a broken record again, but how does it serve you to think ill of
1:00:31 yourself? Any patterns in responses? Are there any patterns that any common threads that you hear
1:00:38 in response to that? Sure. In some family of origin structures, for example, the way I can
1:00:46 know that I belong to my family is by turning to negative self-talk. Just like the way I could
1:00:52 know that I belong to a family is by seeing myself as a victim. If I grow up with parents who see
1:01:00 themselves as victims, that might be the way in which I interpret the world. And so by starting
1:01:11 to unpack that and really taking a look at the way to use my phrasing, it serves you to think ill
1:01:19 of yourself begins to raise the consciousness that releases you from having to repeat the pattern.
1:01:29 So let’s hop to a topic that you mentioned as we were brainstorming various directions to go
1:01:32 in this conversation. And I have none of the fleshed out
1:01:38 contacts, which is perfect because it’s kind of boring for me to know exactly what’s coming.
1:01:44 Me too. Legacy. Legacy seems to be something that you’re thinking about. And I suspect
1:01:53 we could have a all needy conversation about this. So I’ll let you kick it off in whatever way you
1:01:58 think makes sense. Well, you know, I was joking before I talked about feeling like I’m slip sliding
1:02:06 into my elderhood, you know, and title of your next book. That’s right. That’s right. Ten easy
1:02:14 life lessons from Uncle Jerry. Well, but that, you know, that’s kind of where I feel like I’m
1:02:20 entering this period. You know, Tim, you know, it’s like I’ve done two books now. I’m starting to
1:02:26 think about what do I want to do? What is next? And I’ve been thinking about these themes of
1:02:35 redemption. I’ve been thinking about themes about legacy. And what does it mean to look at? And in
1:02:41 some ways, very similar to the conversation we’ve been having, to look back on the past in order to
1:02:47 move forward in the future. And I think that, you know, someone asked me last week, well, what am I
1:02:53 thinking about in terms of that legacy? And I don’t really think about it in terms of, say,
1:03:00 what do I want to leave behind? Which I don’t know, maybe that is the definition of legacy.
1:03:08 But I think about it really more in the terms, in terms of three different circles of impact and
1:03:13 influence that I have. The first circle being myself. Am I proud of the man I’ve become?
1:03:21 The second is my children in descendants. How do I want them to look back on me? I mean,
1:03:29 I fucked up royally. And yet, for some unknowable reason, my 27-year-old wanted to spend five days
1:03:35 camping with me this summer. Can you believe that? Because I would never have wanted to spend
1:03:40 five days trapped in a sprinter van with my father. And then the last circle is,
1:03:46 how have I left the world? I hope, for example, all of the work that I have done
1:03:52 made an impact on you, Tim. Oh, no. Wouldn’t have all these notes in front of me.
1:04:00 When’s the birthday case? When we were celebrating your 10th anniversary,
1:04:08 I sent a note, I sent a video, and I was telling you, I’m proud of what impact you’ve had on people.
1:04:14 Yeah, I really appreciate the video. Thank you. I don’t know this to be true, but the story I
1:04:23 tell myself is you didn’t start this podcast to have an impact on some random 22-year-old kid
1:04:30 who’s a little lost. As I experienced it, you started this podcast to answer questions that
1:04:37 you had about your own life. That’s right. But in doing so, you impacted a lot of people.
1:04:45 And I think you should be proud of that. Yeah, it continues to this day, I think,
1:04:53 when I’m doing it right for me to be conversations trying to answer questions I have myself.
1:05:00 Isn’t that interesting? I want to highlight that. Isn’t it interesting that when you lean
1:05:07 into the questions that you need answered in your own life, you end up positively impacting
1:05:13 other people? Yeah, the personal being the most universal, right? Yeah. So what if that’s the
1:05:22 definition of legacy, meaning being so real and so honest as to make yourself a pallet, if you will,
1:05:33 or a canvas where people can work their stories out? That’s pretty cool. Yeah, I like that
1:05:39 definition or that placeholder for legacy because when I’ve thought about leaving things behind
1:05:49 and know a lot of fancy, muckety mucks, often very good people, very soulful people who somehow
1:05:56 get fixated on legacy, maybe because they’ve overshot Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, maybe accepting,
1:06:01 taking out maybe self-actualization and transcendence, but everything else certainly. They’ve
1:06:11 overshot by such an absurd margin that they start thinking about legacy. And I always think to myself,
1:06:19 I’m like, “Alexander the Great, what was his last name again?” Nobody knows. And we are somehow going
1:06:24 to stand the test of time, like the head of the sphinx poking out of the sands in the desert. Come
1:06:35 on. It seems ridiculous, but maybe who knows? What I said about borrowing from Bill Richards,
1:06:41 like Bill Richards told me this thing, or you tell me a question, I pass that on,
1:06:47 then somebody else passes it on. And even though the attribution probably gets long lost along the
1:06:57 way, that is some form of legacy. That continues. Yes, a thousand times. Yes. Listen, I know legacy
1:07:08 as a word can sound grandiose, and I love your self-deprecating humor. Don’t use it, though,
1:07:19 to deny the thing that is true. Because that’s another form of that self-delusion and bypassing.
1:07:27 The fact of the matter is, you have made a positive impact on the world. It may be fleeting.
1:07:36 It may disappear. Who knows? Listen, I’ll tell you a story. About five or six months after my first
1:07:43 book came out, I received a ton of fan mail on the book. I still get mail from people saying this
1:07:50 book really impacted my life. But I’ll never forget this one day. In one day, I got two messages,
1:07:58 one from the CEO of a Fortune 100 company and one from a man on death row. And they both wrote
1:08:05 about the book and said, “In one form or another, your story is my story. I will go to my grave
1:08:12 proud of that fact.” That’s amazing. Also, to have it happen on the same day. On the same day.
1:08:16 And the lesson, Tim, in that is there’s really no difference between those two men.
1:08:22 And that’s what’s really powerful. Can you say a little bit more about that? Because at face value,
1:08:27 of course, you look at their CVs, very different men. But I know you mean something different.
1:08:32 Can you say a bit more about that? I do. I do. And in December of 2019,
1:08:39 well, first, in September of 2019, my first book came out in June. In September of 2019,
1:08:45 I’m doing a book talk. You remember when we used to do things like that. And pre-pandemic.
1:08:48 Back when we were listening to many LPs on the record player.
1:08:54 That’s right. That’s right. And I’m walking to this venue in Denver. And there’s this woman who’s
1:08:59 like clearly in her eighties who comes up to me and she says, “You look like our speaker.”
1:09:04 And I said, “Well, that’s because I am your speaker.” And she laughed and she stuck out
1:09:10 her hand and she said to me, “My name is Margaret. And I grew up in the Dust Bowl.
1:09:18 And I read your book and your story is my story.” And Tim, I did not grow up in the Dust Bowl during
1:09:24 that depression. I grew up in Brooklyn. Like, what the fuck, right? And a few months later…
1:09:29 That was the best follow-up, too. I grew up in Brooklyn, by the way. What the fuck?
1:09:33 I’m sorry. I should have warned you. And the script did it better.
1:09:44 Fuck is a part of our dialect. I’m sorry. No, I have to just a brief aside. I’m not going to
1:09:48 mention it by name, but everybody who listens to this podcast would know. I’m a friend of mine
1:09:55 who grew up in New York City. A lot of Brooklyn influence. And his greeting to me is, “You fucking
1:10:01 fuck. The fuck are you doing?” This is like one of the most sophisticated, brilliant thinkers of our
1:10:07 time. But that’s how he greets me. I don’t understand. Do you have a fucking problem with that?
1:10:13 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Alright, Margaret. Alright, so a few months later, I’m in Dublin
1:10:20 and I’m doing a book reading. And the audience is filled with, not surprisingly, white people.
1:10:28 But there’s this one black woman who’s sitting in the very front row. And at the end of the talk,
1:10:33 and in some ways, you’ve experienced something similar. At the end of the talk, she comes up
1:10:39 to me and she says, “I was really moved by what you were saying, especially the part I had been
1:10:46 talking about, how when we lose a parent at an early age, it forces us into early parentification,
1:10:53 and importantly, that that can often be a signifier of leadership.” She says, “That thing
1:10:57 you were talking about, what that happened to me, my father died when I was 13. And,
1:11:04 you know, I’m kind of dopey and exhausted and I kind of nod my way in response.” And then she says,
1:11:11 “On Robin Island.” And I look at her and I say, “What?” And she says, “Yeah, he was, Robin Island
1:11:18 is where Nelson Mandela was held.” And she says, “Yeah, he was a freedom fighter based in Zimbabwe,
1:11:23 and he was caught on the border of South Africa and beaten to death in the prison.”
1:11:31 And then she says to me, “Your story is my story.” And the thing about that, and her name, by the way,
1:11:40 is Joy Tende Kangari. She is going to be graduating, I think, with a PhD in law in October. She’s one
1:11:47 of the first Black women in the city of Dublin to be a barrister. The thing about that experience is,
1:11:54 to your point, our lives couldn’t be more different. But there’s something very, very powerful about
1:12:02 this notion that your story is my story. Yeah, you peel back a few layers. We’re all people
1:12:07 everywhere in all times dealing with the same things. If you go deep enough, if you go deep enough.
1:12:12 And if you’re willing to be honest, I mean, so, you know, when people come up to you and want to
1:12:20 share their trauma, yeah, there’s a performative element to it. But maybe, too, they’re seeing
1:12:28 their story in your story, Tim. 100%. Just for clarity’s sake, if people do it after I shared
1:12:34 publicly what happened to me, it’s very different from the examples that precede that, where with
1:12:38 no context, it’s clear that they are showcasing their trauma within the first few minutes to anyone
1:12:42 who will listen, which I think can get into dangerous territory. But I agree with you 100%.
1:12:51 And I do, I’d say probably in response to that episode more than any other, but certainly there
1:12:59 are few where I discuss personal challenges with depression and so on, which thankfully are fewer
1:13:07 and fewer and shorter and shorter in duration, but you never know. And I agree with you 100%.
1:13:12 May I ask you a completely unrelated question because it’s stuck in my mind and I need to
1:13:19 scratch the itch. Your son in the Sprinter van five days, you mentioned fucking up a bunch
1:13:25 of stuff like all parents do. Hey, even though one guy, great guy, I won’t mention it by name,
1:13:28 but he said, it’s like, oh, yeah, I’m going to send all my kids to the Hoffman process. He’s like,
1:13:34 I don’t fucking them up. I’m just not sure how. Anyway, so you made mistakes like every parent
1:13:39 does. But what did you get right? Why do you think if you had to try to explain it? And I know
1:13:46 it’s not a laboratory, so nothing is easy to isolate here. But what do you think you did
1:13:51 right or what worked? Maybe it’s your son out of the box. Who knows? Maybe he’s just a very
1:13:55 forgiving guy. But why did he end up wanting to spend those five days with you in the Sprinter
1:14:03 van versus your experience with, say, your dad? The power of that question is two-fold. One is,
1:14:10 I think it’s a really, really important question. And the second is you’re touching upon one of my
1:14:18 most deep and profound fears, which is that I would have fucked it up as a parent. And so,
1:14:23 I want to be clear, I still have the capacity to fuck it up. I think the answer to your question
1:14:29 goes back to something Dr. Sayers used to say to me when I would lie on the couch and bemoan
1:14:37 that I was a terrible parent and I would be wracked by guilt because of this stupid reaction
1:14:42 that I had or this stupid thing that I said or that kind of thing. And she used to say to me all
1:14:48 the time, two things. One, you cannot spoil children with love. You can spoil them with
1:14:54 things, but you cannot spoil them with love. So, love them. And the second thing was, she said,
1:15:04 give them words. Give them words. And I think, I have three children. Sam is 34, Emma is 32,
1:15:12 and Michael is 27. And Michael’s the one that went camping with me, but Emma and her soon-to-be
1:15:18 husband really enjoy the camping van as well. And the truth is, I have great relationships
1:15:23 with each of them because they’re great people. What does give them words mean?
1:15:29 Yeah, give them the ability to talk about what’s actually going on inside of them and listen.
1:15:40 I think that as parents, we can become so afraid of fucking it up and hurting them that we get wrapped
1:15:50 around our own anxiety, our own narcissism. And then we lose the connection, which is the thing
1:15:58 that our children want more than anything else. Did you give your kids words? If so, how did you
1:16:05 do that? Two things. I do think I gave my kids words. I think I also raised the bar on what
1:16:11 they expect from other people. They expect words from other people, which has a mixed
1:16:16 blessing, right? Because not everybody is trained to actually talk about what’s going on. Not
1:16:22 everybody knows how to answer the question, “How are you?” I think I gave them the way I did it,
1:16:31 was I modeled first and foremost. And the second, and I think I’m good at this, I listened.
1:16:38 Now, I also want to give a shout out to their mom because this was not a one and done. I did it
1:16:48 myself by any stretch of the imagination. They had two spectacular parents who each endeavored
1:16:59 to do right by their children in different ways and different styles, for sure. Given your experience,
1:17:05 you have good relationships with your kids. If you had to add a third or four thing to
1:17:14 your therapist’s rules, let’s just say, you can’t spoil a kid with too much love. Number two, give
1:17:21 them words. What might number three end or I guess wouldn’t be or number three if you want to add a
1:17:28 fourth and go for it? But what might you add to that? I think that if I could go back in time and
1:17:34 give myself advice the way she might have given it to me, because she tried to make me feel this.
1:17:41 I spent far too much time feeling guilty and far too much time worried about whether or
1:17:47 not I was being a good parent. I mean, this is another thing that she used to be exasperated
1:17:52 with me about. It’s like, all right, Jerry, they’re going to be fine. But the truth is,
1:18:01 and I’ll give myself a little bit of a break, I didn’t have the context. I didn’t have,
1:18:10 God rest my parents’ souls. Coming to understand that they tried, I did not have role models
1:18:22 for good parenting. I had to piece it together from people like Parker or my therapist or other
1:18:29 mentors and elders in my life as I watched how they were doing it, how were they being the elder
1:18:36 in their life, and learned to forgive myself for the mistakes so that with regret and remorse,
1:18:42 I could pick myself up and try again. Can you apologize to your children? Oh my God,
1:18:50 what a powerful tool that is. Yeah, better start apologizing in advance if you don’t have kids.
1:18:58 Build the muscle. Don’t try to win the World Series as your first baseball game.
1:19:04 Exactly. Exactly. Why are you thinking about kids so much these days?
1:19:14 Man, I’m so bored of this business sage on stage stuff. It’s just like I’m boring myself
1:19:21 so much. I mean, look, I’m being a little facetious here, but beyond a certain
1:19:27 base level of needs, we’re all playing games, right? So the trick is knowing what games you’re
1:19:32 playing and then be very hopefully conscious of the games you opt into. What are the rules,
1:19:39 what’s winning, what’s losing, what’s the ranking, what’s quitting time, what are the stakes, etc.
1:19:49 And I feel like family kids is the next big chapter, the next big adventure. I don’t overly
1:19:56 romanticize it. I have almost all my friends have kids. I know it can be an enormous, enormous
1:20:02 pain in the ass. It can involve a lot of sadness and anxiety and you name it, but then there’s
1:20:08 the other side. Enjoy. Enjoy, of course, then there’s the other side of the picture. And a
1:20:14 sense of completion. I mean, let’s shout out. I mean, the best of all the accomplishments I have
1:20:22 ever done, the best has been becoming the father that I needed as a child without a doubt. Yeah,
1:20:27 that’s a big one. A couple of years ago, before I went to Ireland, I was in Wales. I don’t know if
1:20:33 you know the due lectures. You’re going to ask me if I knew Wales. Yeah, I think I’ve heard of it.
1:20:39 But you’ve been to the due lectures. You spoke at the due lectures. I went to, I think, the first
1:20:46 or second due lectures like 2009. It was amazing. I really enjoyed it. They’re fabulous. And for
1:20:51 those who don’t know it, you should check it out. It’s kind of like Ted without all the
1:20:56 performative shit. And with much more confusing street signs. I remember trying to drive, drive
1:21:02 around Wales. This is no Google maps at the time didn’t have international data. And they’re like,
1:21:07 sure, just turn left at would you walk a walk and I get to the sign and I’m like,
1:21:13 that’s 24 consonants. How do you read this? What do you mean? It’s 24 consonants in a row
1:21:21 without a single vowel. No, that’s what I mean. I’m just like, wow, okay. Anyway, so I was at
1:21:30 the due lectures and I was doing a reading from reunion, the new book. And I was maybe the first
1:21:37 three or four pages. It was just the opening chapters. But it provoked such a powerful response
1:21:42 from the group. And as you remember, it’s like you’re in this like old hay barn, cow barn, the
1:21:50 cow shed, I think they call it. And my oldest son Sam had come with me. And at the very end of the
1:21:56 talk, people were sort of, you know, milling about and you know, oh my God, you know, and telling me
1:22:00 what I’d done wrong and telling me what I’d done right and all that stuff, you know what they do.
1:22:06 Right. Oh, that’s very good. Except it was like, okay, the next time you write a book, you can talk.
1:22:16 Okay. Anyway, I look up and Sam, who’s, you know, six one big guy, he’s a Muay Thai fighter and trainer.
1:22:21 He looks up and he just mouths the words, I am so proud of you, dad.
1:22:28 That’s amazing. What a moment. That’s the moment. That’s what you want. You know,
1:22:34 that’s what you live for. That’s what parenting is. Yeah, I feel like I need to make up for lost
1:22:38 time. I’ve been wondering if I need to go like raise the red lantern style. I have no idea.
1:22:46 Maybe just have, you know, survival of fittest, like 40 women and see how we do. I am, I don’t want
1:22:50 to say desperate, but I’m just like, well, I’m a little surprised you’re talking about this,
1:22:56 because are you going to now be inundated? And then you’re going to call me up and say, Jerry,
1:23:02 what do I do? And I’ll say, how have you been complicit in creating these conditions? You say
1:23:07 you don’t want publishing this to millions of people. Yes, nephew, Timmy, I mean, putting it on
1:23:12 the podcast. Well, I had this, you know, I’ll share this, this I haven’t really said to anybody,
1:23:18 but I was, I was spending time with a number of my really close friends. We do this reunion once a
1:23:27 year. And most of them have kids, not all of them. Most of them have kids. And one was echoing this
1:23:34 lesson or conversation he had with someone far older than he, a grandfather, and he kept saying,
1:23:39 you know, there’s nothing more precious than hugging your grandkids. And I started running
1:23:45 the math and I was like, I’m 47. I don’t know if that’s going to be a thing. I don’t know if that’s
1:23:52 mathematically even remotely reasonable for me to entertain. And that fucked me up. I got to be
1:23:57 honest, not because I’ve really thought about grandkids much, but when he put it that way,
1:24:02 and it happened to coincide with my birthday, which was sort of the cause for the reunion. And
1:24:09 I was just like, wait a second here, I’m no mathematician, but fuck me. That was, that was
1:24:14 a tough pill to swallow. I’m not going to lie. I was like, oh yeah, that may not be a thing.
1:24:21 Well, not for publication on this. So I’ll do it over email, but we have a mutual friend
1:24:27 who is in exactly the same place. You guys should hang out, you know, for sure.
1:24:33 Just drink some whiskey and cry ourselves to sleep. Or put the red lantern out and say, I’m
1:24:39 ready. Oh, God, I’m not ready to switch teams yet. That’s tight.
1:24:46 You know, never, never say never. But listen, what are you willing to do for your kids?
1:24:54 She’s like, I’m no biologist, but yes, exactly. Oh, man.
1:24:59 Well, before we move off that topic, let me give you a poem. You’re ready? This is by
1:25:09 Phillip Larkin. It’s called This Be the Verse. They fuck you up, your mom and dad. They may not
1:25:16 mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra just for you.
1:25:22 But they were fucked up in their turn by fools and old-style hats and coats,
1:25:30 who half the time were sappy stern and half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man.
1:25:38 It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can and don’t have any kids yourself.
1:25:50 Wow. So should I Sylvia Plath myself today or tomorrow? Jesus, Jerry. Well, he’s British.
1:26:00 Good Lord. I know. I’m famous for reading poems, but usually they make people cry.
1:26:10 She’s like, Dr. Suits meets a star is born. Good Lord. Amazing. All right. Let me try to write the
1:26:17 ship here. So three books, I alluded to these. I’m curious. You’ve mentioned a few books in
1:26:22 our conversations before, certainly your own, which I recommend everybody. Also, When Things Fall
1:26:29 Apart by Pema Children, Faith by Sharon Salzburg, Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer. I’m wondering
1:26:36 if any of your kids have been impacted by any of these books or if there are other books you’ve
1:26:43 recommended to your kids, whether or not they’ve read them. Oh yeah. Sam in particular loved The
1:26:52 Wisdom of Insecurity, which is a really, really powerful book. Michael is probably the one who
1:27:00 follows most of my book recommendations. And we go back and forth from novels to nonfiction.
1:27:09 We swap books back and forth. The novel that Michael loved the most was also really powerful
1:27:16 in my life. It’s Call It Sleep by Henry Roth. Call It Sleep. I’ve never really heard of it.
1:27:25 So Henry Roth wrote Call It Sleep in the 1930s. And it tells the story of a young boy, I think he’s
1:27:32 like seven or eight years old, growing up in the Upper East Harlem when it was a Jewish
1:27:38 neighborhood and they’re Jewish immigrants. It was well received and then lost in time.
1:27:48 And it was, I think it was Kazan, the famous book critic who discovered a used copy in The Strand
1:27:58 in Manhattan and then devoured the book in the 1950s and published the first review for a paperback
1:28:06 book in the New York Review of Books. And so the book was rediscovered. Oh, and anyway, I’m going off.
1:28:14 Henry Roth as a novelist was one of the most influential novelists in my life.
1:28:22 It’s a book that I remember when Michael finished it. He sent me the same passage
1:28:28 that I had first read when I was about 17 or 18 years old and was blown away by,
1:28:34 I was like, yeah, that’s the passage. And for those who know the book, it’s the passage where David
1:28:42 is touching a trolley car’s third rail with a soup ladle or milk ladle. It’s really a powerful
1:28:49 passage. Anyway, you didn’t ask about novels. Well, it’s funny that you brought up a novel.
1:28:55 Maybe I incepted you because I was going to ask you actually if there are any novels you
1:29:04 recommend or find, contain and convey a lot of truths that stick out to mine. It doesn’t have
1:29:09 to be the best. But for instance, Zorba the Greek, I think is a standout for me. You remember that.
1:29:14 Good job, yes. So Zorba the Greek, huge standout. I’ve been meaning to read it again.
1:29:20 And some more of the same author’s work. Do any others stand out to you? Because I’ve really found
1:29:26 fiction, which is very closely related to humor, right? Let’s just say Bill Richards or your
1:29:31 therapist, parable. These are all very closely interrelated.
1:29:40 It’s funny that you say this because I just completed volume one of a five volume series.
1:29:45 Do you know the Library of America series? I have either heard of it or come across it. It
1:29:51 does ring a bell. Okay. So Library of America is a nonprofit foundation that seeks to preserve
1:29:58 the writings of amazing American writers. And I think there are over 350 volumes that they’ve
1:30:06 done. Writers like James Baldwin. Anyway, I just finished volume one of Wendell Berry.
1:30:11 And the thing that comes to mind, and I said this to Michael in a text message,
1:30:19 I think this is the first set of novels and short stories I’ve read that have changed my
1:30:26 thinking about writing in a profound way. And what Barry did, and volume one is the material from
1:30:33 Everything Takes Place in the Fictitious Town of Port William, Kentucky. He of course is from
1:30:40 Kentucky, still lives there. And these tell a series of stories, short stories in novellas
1:30:47 and novels, all taking place from the end of the Civil War, in this case through World War II.
1:30:54 And it all involves the same characters or the same extended characters,
1:31:01 but many times the incidents that he writes about are written about from different characters
1:31:06 points of view. And it’s still working on me. I’ve been reading it. I finished it a few weeks
1:31:12 ago, and I’ve been reading it for about three months, because it’s close to a thousand pages,
1:31:16 deeply, deeply moving. I’ll check it out. I have more homework assignments,
1:31:22 which of course I love. I do love my homework. What is the basic thesis of the wisdom of insecurity?
1:31:25 I know this book title, and I’ve come across it multiple times, and I’ve never read it.
1:31:32 It’s Alan Watts exploring, what is that anxiety about? What is insecurity about? What is it that
1:31:40 we are working with? It’s a way of coming to understand the, I guess, you know, if you want to
1:31:45 link it back to what we were talking about earlier, it’s how has it been useful for us,
1:31:48 rather than something that we need to push away?
1:31:54 Got it. How has it been useful, not in a condemning way? How are you complicit way,
1:31:59 but how has it actually been helpful along the lines of the gift of fear by Gavin DeBecca?
1:32:04 That’s right. That’s right. Not something to swat away. It’s not always something to swat away.
1:32:11 How is it a gift? Right. It’s as simple to understand. You know, we’re often told that the
1:32:17 way through insecurity or anxiety is to somehow embrace what’s happening in the moment.
1:32:24 But this actually walks us through. It tells us how to do that. And of course, Alan Watts is
1:32:27 an incredibly important Zen teacher in the Zen Buddhist tradition.
1:32:35 Yeah, he’s one of a kind, that one, and amazing narration as well, the people who want to take
1:32:40 it in, audio format, some spectacular speeches, presentations. Jerry, we’ve covered a lot of
1:32:47 ground here. Is there anything else you would like to mention before we begin to land the plane?
1:32:50 Is there anything else you’d like to say,
1:32:53 ask of my audience, point people to anything at all?
1:32:59 You know, I think I’ve really appreciated our conversation, especially the amount of laughter.
1:33:07 And you actually help remind me of the importance of that. And so let me double down on that because,
1:33:13 you know, it’s kind of a fucked up world we’re in right now. You know, as I’ve been saying
1:33:19 recently, it’s the kind of world where babies get murdered for ideology. And that’s a kind of fucked
1:33:29 up place. And not that that’s material to laugh about, but to understand that there’s a human
1:33:36 connection that can be gotten, even in the midst of all this, I think is incredibly important right
1:33:45 now. So as Dr. Sayers would say to me, you’ve done enough work, go off the grid, go take your time,
1:33:51 go have fun, and laugh your ass off. Good advice. Good advice. I’m going to work on that
1:33:57 tonight. You know something I’ve started doing, and this is related, it’s a bit of a hard segue,
1:34:05 but games, just tabletop games, no phones. Yes. Yeah. Rewind the clock. These things have been
1:34:11 with us a long time. Yeah. Amen. You know what? Can I mention another thing that got stuck in my
1:34:18 mind? What’s up? Which is funny because it was your mention of a stuck record when you were asking
1:34:22 about records. And if I remembered records, the one thing that popped to my mind that I
1:34:28 has been on repeat, which of course, is sort of self-referential in and of itself,
1:34:33 when I was a kid, I had this little, mini, tiny, mini LP. It was the size of
1:34:43 a tiny pancake. It was really small. And it was a song that I played a million times and drove
1:34:49 my parents insane. But they made the mistake of giving it to me. And it’s Disco Disco Duck.
1:34:58 I remember the song. Who wants to be a Disco Duck? And it’s Donald Duck singing the song
1:35:07 over and over and over and over again. Holy shit. What a wonderful song. Oh, and I actually
1:35:13 had some speaking engagement. Like, God, I can’t remember. A year ago, two years ago,
1:35:17 I don’t do too many of them. And they asked me what I wanted my entrance music to be.
1:35:25 I tasked them with trying to find Disco Disco Duck. They were not successful, but
1:35:33 boy can dream. Boy can dream. I mean, what’s frightening is I will not, but I can sing that song.
1:35:42 Everyone, this is my homework assignment to everyone listening. Go find Disco Disco Duck.
1:35:47 That’s right. I’m sure it’s on YouTube. It’s a treasure. Jerry, where would you like people to
1:35:51 find you? You’re @JerryColona on Twitter. We’ll link to everything in the show notes.
1:35:58 They can find a reboot at @RebootHQ on Twitter, reboot.io is the website. You’re the author of
1:36:05 Reboot Leadership in the Art of Growing Up. And also Reunion. Exactly. Leadership and the longing
1:36:10 to belong. You got it. I think tracking me down there on Instagram. I’m @JerryColona.
1:36:16 All sounds great to me. So I appreciate that. Absolutely. And to everybody listening,
1:36:21 we will link to everything in the show notes, including probably some version of Disco Disco
1:36:29 Duck. And the Philip Larkin poem. That’s right. And the Philip Larkin poem. If you’re too happy and
1:36:39 just need a moment of sadness. Tim.plug/podcast. And until next time, as always, be just a little bit
1:36:47 kinder than is necessary, not only to other people, but also to yourself. And thanks for listening.
1:36:54 Hey, guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet
1:36:58 Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun
1:37:03 before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter,
1:37:09 my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is
1:37:14 basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I’ve found
1:37:19 or discovered, or have started exploring over that week. It’s kind of like my diary of cool
1:37:24 things. It often includes articles I’m reading, books I’m reading, albums, perhaps gadgets,
1:37:29 gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of
1:37:37 podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field. And then I test them and then
1:37:43 I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short, a little tiny bite of goodness
1:37:47 before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you’d like to try it out,
1:37:54 just go to tim.blog/friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday, drop in your email and
1:38:00 you’ll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep.
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1:39:45 Okay, this is going to be part confessional. As some of you know, I am recently single and
1:39:50 navigating the world of modern dating. What a joy that is. Sometimes it’s fun, but it’s mostly a
1:39:56 goddamn mess, as many of you probably know. I’ve tried all the dating apps and while there’s some
1:40:03 slick options out there, the most functional that I have found is the League. Why did I end up using
1:40:08 the League? First, most dating apps give you almost no information. It’s a huge time suck.
1:40:14 On the League, you’re starting with a baseline of smart people and you can then easily find the
1:40:19 ones you’re attracted to. It’s much easier. It’s like going to a conference where everyone is smart
1:40:25 and then just looking for the people you think are cute to go up and speak with. So, more than half
1:40:29 of the League users went to top 40 colleges and you can make your filters really selective. So,
1:40:35 if that’s important to you, then go for it. It does work and that is one of the reasons that I
1:40:40 use it. Second, people verify using LinkedIn. So, you can make sure they have a job and don’t
1:40:44 bounce around every six months. It’s a simple proxy for finding people who have their shit
1:40:50 together. It’s infinitely easier than trying to figure things out on Instagram or whatever.
1:40:54 Third, you can search by interest and in multiple locations. I haven’t found any other dating app
1:41:00 that allows you to do this. For instance, I usually search for women who love skiing or snowboarding,
1:41:04 have those as interests as I like to spend, say, two to three months of the year in the mountains.
1:41:09 I’m a rivers and mountains guy. The UI is a little clunky. I’ll warn you, but it’s incredibly
1:41:15 helpful for finding good matches and not just pretty faces. So, you can search by interest and
1:41:20 specify multiple cities. So, to summarize a few things that I think make it stand out. Features
1:41:25 available on the league include multi-city dating, LinkedIn verified profiles, ability to block
1:41:31 your profile from coworkers, bosses, family, etc. That’s very easy to do. You can search by interest,
1:41:36 you can get profile stats, and there is a personal concierge in the app. So, there’s someone you can
1:41:41 text with within the app as a personal concierge to get help. So, what am I looking for? I am looking
1:41:47 for a woman who is well-educated, who loves skiing or snowboarding or both. These are, and I’ve used
1:41:52 this word already, proxies for like 20 other things that are important. So, just I’ll leave it at that
1:41:59 for now. Someone who’s default upbeat likes to smile, smiles often, glass half full type of person,
1:42:04 who would ideally like to have kids in the next few years. Her friends would describe her as feminine
1:42:09 and playful, and she would love polarity in a relationship. She’s athletic and has some muscle.
1:42:13 I like strong women, not necessarily bodybuilders, but you get the idea. It could be a rock climber,
1:42:18 dancer, whatever, but has some muscle, loves to read, and loves learning. If this sounds like you,
1:42:24 send hashtag date Tim. So, hashtag date Tim. In a message to your concierge in the app to get us
1:42:29 paired up. So, these are all reasons why I was excited when the league reached out to sponsor the
1:42:34 podcast. They even have daily speed dating where you can go on three three-minute dates with people
1:42:39 who match your preferences all from the comfort of your couch. So, check it out. Download the leak
1:42:44 today on iOS or Android and find people who challenge you to swing for the fences
1:42:49 and who are in it to win it. I found it to be super fascinating. You can really get good matches
1:42:54 instead of just looking at pretty faces and kind of rolling the dice over and over again. Much better.
1:43:00 So, download the leak today on iOS or Android and check it out. Message hashtag Tim to your
1:43:05 in-app concierge to jump to the front of the waitlist and have your profile reviewed first.
1:43:12 So, check it out. The leak on iOS or Android.
1:43:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]