Michael Ende’s Weird Short Story: Einer langen Reise Ziel

We chat about a surreal short story by Michael Ende named “Einer langen Reise Ziel” (Destination of a Long Journey). It’s the first story in his collection of short stories called Das Gefängnis der Freiheit (Prison of Freedom), and how “search and you shall find” might sometimes mean something very different from what we commonly …

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What’s the Difference Between Presence and Awareness?

I’ve often used the words presence and awareness interchangeably—but they’re really not. They’re two distinctly different things, and in this episode, I discuss the difference, and talk about my recent experiments with awareness. TRANSCRIPT:[00:00:00] what is the difference between awareness and presence? [00:00:04] awareness is the foundation on which you can be present, but it’s …

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Michael Ende, Practicing Patience, and the Power of Doing 1 Thing Wholy

Here’s a conversation we’ve had about Michael Ende, Author of The Neverending Story, Momo, and other great books (like “Das Gefängnis der Freiheit“). We then touched on the beauty of poetry and song lyrics, going on awareness walks, having 1-on-1’s with my sons, how interpreting my mother’s dream put my patience to the test, the …

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Magic Mornings: The Power of the Day’s First Hour

How do you design your optimal morning? Every night as we sleep and dream, we enter a profoundly altered state of consciousness, we process and integrate our experiences of the day. Rather than immediately jumping into tackling tasks for the day, or distracting yourself with social media, build a set of morning rituals that become …

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Embracing Life’s Perfect Imperfection

What you most reject is what holds the greatest potential for growth. Whether it’s a feeling you don’t want to feel, a person with whom you have a challenging relationship—it’s typically what you want to avoid that reveals your deep truths. Which is one of the reasons why I try to embrace life’s perfect imperfections …

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104: Fixing Other People’s Problems Instead of Dealing With Your Own Shit

Imagine having a friend with a drinking problem. You can clearly see they’re on a path that’ll lead them down a bad road. You offer your help and invite them to stay with you in your home. You’ll take care of them so that they can get their life together. Except, that your friend doesn’t …

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The Courage to Be a Degenerate

After 100 episodes of intimate navel-gazing and serious inner work, it’s time so start sharing some of the silly goofing around we do in between. Expect nothing meaningful from this episode. We’re talking Jocko Willink, Charles Bukowski, the courage of degenerates, and the cowardice of choosing to live your life in the safe harbor of …

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The Neverending Story: How We Narrate Our Every Moment

I started paying more attention to the soundtrack of my live—that inner narator that constantly makes up stories about what it is I do. And I started experimenting with it: What if I change the narration? What if I switch it off? What if I give my narration a theme, so that whatever I do …

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The Potato Chip Friendship

Recently while on vacation in Greece I was looking for some more lighthearted literature and picked up Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski. Well, let’s say it wasn’t exactly the feelgood read I sought, but the story of the potato chip friendship stuck with me. TRANSCRIPT:[00:00:00] I’ve been reading Rye on Ham from Charles Bukowski. …

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Kissing My Mother’s Feet

I was recently on vacation with my family and shared a very special moment with my mother: For the first time in decades, I felt like the child of my mother—and her being my parent. I’ve stepped into the role of being her protector, coach, caretaker, and teacher for such a long time that I …

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Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

In this episode I share my thoughts after reading Dostoyevsky’s Crime And Punishment. A much more effortful, and less rewarding read than I had hoped, but I do love how deep it goes into the central theme of the story—which is what happens when we go against our own moral compass. [00:00:00] The book. Crimes …

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Meeting My Inner Endurer

I’ve yet again learned about another part of myself: It’s the part that I call The Endurer, and it’s one of the parts that my core Self hasn’t fully integrated, or even acknowledged enough. I like to highlights other parts of myself that seem more impressive and heroic. But much of inner work is seeing …

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Lying Is a Delightful Thing, for It Leads to Truth

“Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth” wrote Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment. We discuss how you arrive at the truth through lying, and then about the twisted lies of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, how her insistence on denying her own truth eventually leads to her ending her own life. TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] lying …

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The Dangers Of Overcorrecting Your Mistakes

Sometimes we don’t learn from our mistakes at all, and we keep repeating them again and again. And sometimes we overcorrect our mistakes so much, that we just replaced one distortion with another. Doing inner work requires a lot of sensitivity. You have to be aware of your own emotional reaction, but then also be …

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