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 difference between patience and persistence,
- turtles,
- being time-poor or time-rich,
- having a Momo moment,
- eating mindfully,
- reclaiming lost phone time,
- my new routine of doing nothing for 30 minutes in the morning,
- having richer experiences simply by being more aware,
- the hidden costs of multi-tasking,
- the power of doing 1 thing wholy, and
- how we can let random little items determine our path in life if we lack awareness.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Like right now I’m still, uh, leasing. This
[00:00:05] I’m still dusk about the.
[00:00:11] does, does right. And now I’m like reading, like a story every night out of that. And uh, every night I feel high. I want to read more, but I’m like, no, let’s, let’s, uh, let’s not do an all-nighter here, but like, let that settle in because every story is kind of like shaking.
[00:00:27] I love that. I love it., honestly, he is in my top five. And it’s like, I even enjoy it more than, than Hammond Hesser,
[00:00:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So, you know, it’s funny. I, I, um, read a good amount of that first story in the book and it is weird. I loved the writing. I love the story. It also felt the deeply personal to some [00:01:00] degree, because it was all about like, not having a home and trying to find a home. And there were like things in there that I thought, oh, maybe this story will reveal something important to me or something.
[00:01:14] Right. Like speaking to me, that sort of thing. But for whatever reason, from the first word, I was feeling a resistance while reading,
[00:01:26] um,
[00:01:27] sort of an uphill climb and not a pleasant one. And.
[00:01:32] Okay.
[00:01:32] noticed this with many, uh, books. Uh, it, it took me a good amount of time to find mobile mobile, really like even all of the books from Bukovsky that I read most of them, I was working through them. You know, I was enjoying it at times, but it was never, it was never that magic moment where it just, you know, you’re in the river and it just goes and you just, and the work is [00:02:00] to stop reading. Right? It’s never to read. I never even had that with Bikowski. Maybe the, the one that was the most enjoyable was the woman one, because it was just so fun.
[00:02:11] But all of his books, I really liked reading, but there were work to read. And
[00:02:18] Yup.
[00:02:19] then I started like, I shit, ton of books, like a ton of books, and most of the books were while I was reading them. I knew I’m going to come back and love this book one. Like, but I was just not finding the flow. And, uh, mobile was the first book in a minute where it was just like, you know, I loved it.
[00:02:43] I mean, for me to Momo was again, the one that’s like threw me into the flames of
[00:02:49] Yes, yes. And
[00:02:52] okay. Just burden
[00:02:53] so with this book of this, I didn’t have that, but it was sort of forcing myself because I was thinking it [00:03:00] is going to be good. That is going to be good. Just keep going. But I shifted to reading. Uh and you see, do a sheet is a book where my mind is like, I’ve seen the movie as a child, a number of times.
[00:03:16] I don’t remember everything, but I kinda like, feel like I know this. And I’m like, it said, it’s such a commercial. It was such a commercial movie and books that I’m like, we know it’s kind of a throw away. I don’t care about this. I want to read this other book of this. It’s really good. But you know, it’s like your heart can, you know, you can choose with love.
[00:03:37] You cannot choose which book to love.
[00:03:39] go.
[00:03:39] You just can’t. And so I’ve started reading, doing anything. Cause she said, I’m, I’m too early to really say, but I can already tell that it’s just so much easier. Like I’m just the reading is there’s something satisfying about it in a way that I couldn’t find in the other book, although mentally I was like, [00:04:00] this is great.
[00:04:00] The writing is great. This is going to teach you something important. It’s going to be so great to talk to Rameen about this. You know, a couple of days I was almost, I was like almost forcing myself to read, to get to the end, to be able to talk to you about it. Right. And then I had to catch myself and go, don’t do this.
[00:04:22] Like reading, you know, the thing that was the most powerful about my, one of the most powerful things about last year in Austin was that it was just the time where I started reading dune and I loved reading dune so deeply. And it’s a book that you love to read and it’s not over in a day. Right. So it’s like a lot to love. And then I finished that and then I just read the other fucking five books. We shouldn’t fatalities. I dunno, like it’s like 180 hours of reading or some shit like it’s a [00:05:00] lot of fucking reading and all of the time, I mean the first book I really loved and then all the other ones were ups and downs, but I loved reading and I love losing myself in that world and to read for so much time to have so much time on my own, to read and love every little bit. It was like, it was the fucking best. Um, and so when I started reading I reminded myself, um, like don’t lose yourself in reading. What you think is a good book or what you think while you’re reading is, is going to be useful or valuable. A good, you have to go through the exercise again and again, forever of trying to find the next book you love and you can’t force it.
[00:05:57] You just can’t. No matter how good it is, you can’t.[00:06:00]
[00:06:00] That is so true. That’s a true Momo did that for me too. Like I got into a, into a groove again, where I was like, kind of highlighting a lot and then kind of, you know, you read something and then thoughts come up right. In then taking notes and everything, which is also awesome. Amazing.
[00:06:14] Especially when you then go back and you read your notes again. Right. But, um, it also slows you down and takes you out of it. Right. And with more and more, I had like, you know, it was all there kind of uh Uh, but, uh, but I was like, you know, just enjoy this, just keep reading. Right. And so I, I, I just enjoyed reading this like a kid and not thinking about, oh, this sedan.
[00:06:41] To capture this
[00:06:44] Dude, I read Momo in German. Then I listened to the audio book. Then I told the entire book and I told it in, um, maybe like seven or eight parts each [00:07:00] like 10 to 15 minutes.
[00:07:01] I told the story.
[00:07:03] well,
[00:07:04] Yeah. In memory in detail, like I, of course I jumped a lot, but I didn’t, I didn’t just do like a summary of summaries. I really went through it in a good amount of detail and I ordered it in English because I wanted to read it in English as well. Like this is how much I love it. Just to see how it is in English. I really fucking love this book. Um, and let’s see, do you, in any, you know, the Annette, she said what got me the beginning of the. Is the way he describes that little boy and his experience in school and how books have a thing that gives him shelter and escape and how he reads. There was something that connected with like my younger self, like with the, the time around where I discovered books in such a different way.
[00:07:56] Right. I was reading like he is, and I’m not nothing like [00:08:00] that kid, but still in my soul. That was something that was like connecting with that, uh, in a beautiful way. And I, I love watching that interview with my, uh, Michelle and. Talk about his like creative process. Like I’m so inspired by the way he thought I posted to you.
[00:08:16] That, that part, I found that somewhere else today where I was looking for something about, um, turtles, the way he talks about like, why turtles keep making an appearance in his books? It’s like, fucking love the guy. Like, I absolutely love, love that guy. And he’s the kind of German writer where you read in Germany, your joy, like you distinctly enjoy the beauty that the German language has.
[00:08:44] The unique beauty it has, which is I think with English, I find it to be, I mean, English is a very powerful language, but also very flexible. And it is, you can do a lot with it. Very complicated, very [00:09:00] simple everything. Right. So there’s like never ending was German a fine. It’s much harder in my perception.
[00:09:10] I haven’t read as much in German, but it, it was, it’s been rare for me to find, like to read German away. I feel like the writing is true craftsmanship and creates like unique beauty through that, the German language. Um, and, uh, like, I, I definitely think that how about essay is good, but his writing is not as good as we can end this.
[00:09:36] I, that for like that, I would totally agree with that. Um, this, uh, is a grit is a very powerful creativity in Michelle. I mean, there’s depth. You can tell there’s real, a real deep human being behind these words, but there’s also a likeness, a creativity, a, a playfulness, um, maybe [00:10:00] that is more rare. Um, but yeah. He was fucking dope.
[00:10:07] yeah. And I really love the kind of absorbed and fantastic aspects. Sometimes office stories where it’s just like, oh, okay. Wow, you end up becoming this picture.
[00:10:21] yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:23] It does something with you. And then he has like a lot of things it’s like about time, right? Or about this. There’s another story later where it’s kind of a great, uh, uh, tougher for what, you know, on several levels, maybe working in a large corporation is like, but then also society and this, and it’s, but in a way where it’s not this typical boring thing, but it’s like so fantastic that it’s like, Ooh.
[00:10:50] And because it’s so like visceral and, and, and on a, on an actual human level where it’s about your food and your body and all of that, right. It’s like, whoa, it’s, it has an intensity, [00:11:00] but also beauty with this
[00:11:01] It’s cut. It’s funny because, um, yesterday when I was reading, uh, do an interview, she stayed in the first couple of pages that the kid is reading the book. He stopped at some point and basically is like explaining how. The boy is thinking, thank God. This book is not one of those books that is about people’s lives and people’s problems and people’s solutions because these kinds of books always try to get you to do something or agree to something.
[00:11:39] And it’s always like the kid is like, he hates reading these kinds of books because they always want to make you do something or agree to something. And the boy’s like, and I’m like, I can’t stand that this book is about fucking Fantasia. And it’s like about this like crazy universe and everything. And so it’s just like this beautiful journey I’m [00:12:00] flying, uh, and I’m traveling through.
[00:12:03] Uh, so it’s funny because apparently. Purely based on the interview, one interview I read about him and the YouTube interview that you shared with me. Apparently some of his critics were criticizing for escapism in his writing, which I mean to me is like my book. What, how would you, this is a person that writes, made up stories.
[00:12:28] How, what do you mean escape is insane? Like, what is, what does that even mean? He can write if it’s fantasy writing, like
[00:12:35] bro. Fuck those
[00:12:36] yeah.
[00:12:38] Have they written that we want to write right.
[00:12:41] Who the fuck? What the, that is the kind of criticism I can’t even like compute I’m like, how could you, how could you go, oh, this is escapism because it’s about like, fantastic world.
[00:12:52] And it’s like, fantasy, shut the fuck up bitch. Like, what are you talking about? That’s crazy to me. Um, but. [00:13:00] Maybe all good fantasy. I mean, probably all good fantasy, just like all good science fiction is not at the core about the science and the fiction. It’s like always humanity. This that it must reflect something so deep within us for it to touch us.
[00:13:18] Right. Otherwise it’s got to be something far away. We just look at it and go all looks interesting, but to touch, to move, it needs to be something that is deeply human. There’s something powerful. When you can tell deeply human stories in ways, not told before in creating forms to feel for humans, that they can access on their own. And you do it through a CRE through creative storytelling that, you know, escape. [00:14:00] This planet and, you know, and, and all the rules of physics.
[00:14:05] can, it, it frees you off the attachments and concepts that are in your mind about this country or this kind of person or this profession or the system. Right. And it’s just like a new, kind of warm up more with it. There’s there’s less, less, uh, pre I should. It’s so amazing that I do a podcast.
[00:14:28] Well, you are free of words. You know, you free yourself of sentence structures, you for your word of cadence, rhythm, good tonality, your freedom, all of those things, you know, um,
[00:14:42] that’s also, you know, sometimes what I, what, what I love about. I’m not really well-versed in poetry, but some of the poetry that I recently read from Bukowski or even mean music, most music lyrics or poetry, right.
[00:14:59] They’re [00:15:00] not like literal storytelling when song lyrics are really powerful. To me, they’re powerful because they’re using almost though the sentence is not complete. The words does not always make sense, but you know exactly what they mean. And they say something in ways that you could’ve never, you’ve never heard being said before, because it couldn’t be said in normal ways.
[00:15:30] That’s when it’s really like magical the last song that I shared with you. this rarely works, right? When something like this inspires you it’s really works to actually read it through with another human being, because usually the other human being just goes, yeah, that’s really great. But they don’t feel though it’s hard to fall in love in the exact same thing at the exact same moment.
[00:15:51] Right. But still just for my own sake. Oh, the it’s the song Can’t Complain by JPL in that [00:16:00] song. I mean, it’s also the way beautiful melody and the way he sings it. But he says, when he says it’s in the seas, we come out of there and want to be heard everything’s of beat. You caught in a whirlwind.
[00:16:12] Your head is a mess and you cannot see like, only that little bit, the whole, like it’s in the seas we come out of, there want to be hurt. Everything’s off beat, like a bunch of stuff that he said. Doesn’t connect to me on a logical level. Like the, the actual, um, the whole song, actually, it doesn’t connect. I couldn’t tell you what it’s about.
[00:16:35] You know, there’s some things in that, in those song lyrics that don’t connect at all, but overall, I know exactly what he’s saying. Like there’s a feeling that is so powerful. Um, it’s it, and that itself is also so tricky to feel something and then use words with the freedom, you know, not bound by logic, not [00:17:00] bumped by, you know, and you rules to have the freedom to throw things together in a way that’s still beautiful.
[00:17:08] And then people will able to read and get it or feel it. Um, it’s amazing. It’s magic, it’s pure magic. Um, um, Yeah, Mika landed again. Um, yeah, I mean, there’s not it, once I read the English version, there’s not much more I can do to work with the material. Like I’m consuming in all modalities and, and, uh, throwing it back into the world.
[00:17:45] Um, and I bought it for, uh, bought it for my mom. Cause I thought you would really enjoy reading it.
[00:17:51] Um, uh, some of the things that I’ve been thinking about today, the most [00:18:00] not thinking about the data, most the thing, one of the things that I’ve most intensely experienced today has been connected to more, more middle ended, which is the, the ideal patients. Right. Um, Today, you know, I took some time to go on a kind of awareness, walk like a meditative walk through nature. I did my yoga. I worked as hard as I could to slow down, to be calm, to flow, to digest. And, you know, today I was way more struggling with those things. Then yesterday I could feel a restlessness.
[00:18:55] I could feel more tension in my body. I could feel [00:19:00] more difficulty even like my walk yesterday through nature was just like pure bliss. And then today was a little bit of bliss and a bunch of struggle. Like it just was not the same thing. I could not replicate it exactly the way I wished and.
[00:19:18] Um, so I feel like I started a new thing with my boys, which is that I have one-on-ones with them. So one thing that I always disliked, this is something you don’t even probably have experienced because you have one daughter, but when you have two children and multiple children, one of those tricky things that can happen as a parent is that you always are with both of them, especially like my kids are very similar in age and they’re sort of best friends and always together.
[00:19:47] And so you’re always kind of a group with them, dad and sons, which is awesome and fun and great. But there’s a big difference between when you are with one child, one-on-one giving them [00:20:00] all their attention.
[00:20:01] yeah. Interesting.
[00:20:02] Yeah. I remember even bringing this up oftentimes with my, with their mom, because even as a family, we were always like one group and I was telling her it, be cool to split up in two groups and then be a whole group again.
[00:20:17] And then just one way. But it’s always like when we do something, it’s never, you take one child and the other, and then we are doing something altogether. It’s always all together. And, um, a month ago too, when I was in Germany, I told them my kids, Hey, uh, I want to try something new, which is called, we’ll call it one.
[00:20:38] One-on-one one time where I just take you, take one of you on a walk and we just talk. It’s just, one-on-one, it’s just the two of us. And then I’ll do the same with the other one. And we did that, uh, uh, once and it was, you know, it was a fun, interesting experience. And since I’ve been in Austin now, I suggested to. To their [00:21:00] mom that, you know, let’s find a time during the week where I call and I just have a call one-on-one instead of calling all, both of them basically. Right. And that has been much harder to coordinate, but I don’t want to one with my oldest a couple of days ago. And then through a lot of back and forth today, I had a one-on-one with my youngest, with Leo and as a I was talking to him, see, with my oldest, it was a fairly smooth conversation because you got on the call and then he was like, all right, what’s new with you, dad.
[00:21:35] Here’s what’s new with me. What could we talk about? Should we brainstorm a story? Uh, do you have any secrets you can tell me? No. Uh, all right. I I’m doing this and that. And then it’s like, all right, dad. I think we’re good. Good talking to you. Like this was a good one-on-one, but I think we’re ready. I was like, all right.
[00:21:55] I’m with you. This is good. And it was like a, a 11 minute conversation, [00:22:00] right? That’s all right. That’s fine. With my youngest today, we’ll get on the call and he’s like, you know, we have a little bit of a chat. The first like three or four minutes are sort of very similar. What are you doing? What’s new. How was school?
[00:22:14] How’s this how’s that? And then he’s just like super quiet and I can sense the restlessness in me starting to grow. Right. And so there’s almost this feeling of going, well, this will spawn. Let’s do this again. Dah, dah, dah. And like, let’s wrap this up. We talked for a couple of minutes. This was nice. Let’s wrap it up.
[00:22:39] But then I could also tell that he was not in a rush. And although he didn’t necessarily have things to say he wanted to be on the call. And so I try to [00:23:00] be patient. And at first I was patient in a very, was patient in a way where I am going to hold my breath. I can tell you need a bit more time on the water.
[00:23:11] So I’ll just hold my breath and wait for you. Look how patient I am, but then yeah, exactly.
[00:23:19] Leo I’ve done. I’ve done much harder thing. Still know my mystery.
[00:23:25] But then. I could just tell how the longer the conversation was going on the longer he would take breaks and just like, look at the wall and wonder and think, what should we say? Should we say something else that my oxygen levels were dripping dipping and I needed to come up for air. Right. I had like, uh, an urge to move things forward and eventually awareness caught up with me and I thought, [00:24:00] huh, isn’t this a great moment to practice patience, like to gift him my time to actually listen as well as I can inspired by moments, right?
[00:24:12] Like what if I gave him all the time in the world he needs and I take all the time that this conversation needs for me and just see what unfolds. And as I did that, the energy shifted from me being kind of nervous or impatient or thinking Gail, Gail, Gail. Okay. Let’s uh, let’s wrap this up. We got all the good parts out now.
[00:24:43] We’re just going in circles. We’re wasting time. Let’s go. Instead of thinking of it as like wasting time thinking of it as sharing time, enjoying it actually, um, indulging a little bit in it, [00:25:00] like thinking about time as this luxury. Good. And here’s my son, my fucking blood, my flesh and blood. And I’m going to give him a, you know, an oversized level of my time, a, a useless amount of my time, because he saw worthy of it.
[00:25:19] Right. My time is very valuable and he’s worthy of all things. For no reason, no rhyme and productivity needed. And once I shifted the energy, I, the way I perceived the conversation shifted dramatically and all of a sudden something that turned into a slight torture, right? Like a good torture, like, uh, a parents sacrificing themselves for the good of the child turned into this relaxing, beautiful, loving, calming [00:26:00] connection.
[00:26:00] Right. And that call with Leo, which is not surprising now that I think of it, right. That the call with, uh, George’s my oldest was like a 11 minute. Let’s get all the good juicy facts out of the way. Let’s see what interesting things we have to tell each other. All right. Let’s wrap it up and move on. That made perfect sense.
[00:26:24] And that the call with Leo, once I allowed it turned into a 40 minute call, I’ve never had a 40 minute life call with my children, unless I was telling them a 40 minutes story, but like a back and forth. You asked me a question. I talk, I talked to you, like, usually my kids don’t have, when they’re together, they don’t have the patience because also the oldest doesn’t have the patience.
[00:26:52] I don’t have the patience, but today my youngest, he was alone. He [00:27:00] had me on the phone and he, although he did not know what to say many times he had the patients, he wanted to be on the call. Right. So he was totally fine at times to just sit there and look for 20, 30 seconds before you said something. He was totally okay with that. And I slowly but surely learned to be a bit better with it as well, later six hours later, I had very different, but the exact same experience with my mother, mother writes me a message and says some, I had a very intense, very important dream. I’m a little flustered by it. If you have time, give me a call.
[00:27:50] I’d like you to help me unpack it for me. All right. When my mother wants something and needs something like I’m for sure there. So give her a call [00:28:00] and she starts telling me about her dream. And as she’s telling me about a dream, I find it fascinating. It’s a very, it was a very, very fascinating, very interesting dream.
[00:28:13] And she tells it in a lot of detail and I. The good son and the studious person, I am, I’m taking notes. Right? I’m writing down even little details, things to where I want to go back and ask her more questions about right. I’m like fully there I’m a professional dream interpreter right now. Like coach, like coach of mothers to interpret dreams.
[00:28:35] That’s what I am. And she goes through the whole thing. Once she finishes, she basically summarizes it again. And during the first telling I was very engaged during the summarizing, again, a little bit of impatience started bubbling up, you know? So it’s almost like a little bit of an arrogant part of me.
[00:28:58] That’s like, [00:29:00] yeah, I got everything. I don’t need a summary. I could tell you your dream better than you can remember it. Like, what are we doing here? We’re wasting time. But because I’m a great son, I didn’t say anything. I let her do the summary. And then she was like, well, you know, What do you think? And I said, let’s do a little bit, like, first of all, I cannot interpret your dream for you.
[00:29:25] I don’t believe that that’s a possible, what I can do is maybe help you coach you through some exercises, some things that I’ve learned so that you can interpret it better. And by the way, it’s fine. If this is a process, like it takes time to really start letting your subconscious and your conscious mind understand and translate between the two.
[00:29:48] Well, and when you have not done that, or when you’ve not really been somebody that has merged your intuition and your sensors in your [00:30:00] feelings and your mind in like a harmonious way, then it’s usually very difficult at first. So anyways, we go through the exercise and I pick up the first thing that happened in the dream.
[00:30:14] Right. So, you know, it’s in the. And she’s getting a call and there’s a weird looking phone. I go, all right, let’s talk about the, we we’re looking phone. And she goes into like, yes, exactly. It looked like it. And she, for the fourth time goes through every little detail that she told me twice before. And when that started, I was swimming up.
[00:30:44] I was diving up with all my mites because I was about to drown. Like I was like no oxygen. And I was like, just like trying to get head above water to not fucking drown and die. And as that feeling [00:31:00] bubbled up within me, and I felt this like urge of impatience and I wanted to interrupt her and be glad that, that, that I’ve heard this four times.
[00:31:06] I know let’s stay with the topic. Mom, when you saw this thing, what did they do in that moment? Again, it hit me in the face and it was like, well, what about patient? What about patients? What about, well, here’s the question, right? D do you want to gift your mom the perfect knowledge? So she told you the facts.
[00:31:30] Now you’re going to give her your list of facts and that’s that, or do you want her to heal? Do you want her to process what’s going on? Do you want her to digest? You want her to discover, do you want her to breathe, to have space, to think this through, to get lost, and you’re holding that for her and helping her along. What do you want to do for her? Because apparently she needs to say some of these [00:32:00] things multiple times to process them. It’s a parent. There’s nothing to do with you already knowing the facts it’s that she meets to say it many, many more times, apparently. So do you want to be there for her? Or do you want to just be for therefore her a little bit, right?
[00:32:19] As much as it takes for shorter period of time. And so I caught myself and then I was like, whoa, I’m going to practice patience, I guess, you know, try to breathe deeply and let go. What I want to say and let go of how much, or how little time this is taking. And either fully commit to giving my mother all the time she needs on this call or not commit to that, but be honest, interrupt her and tell her, I only have this amount of time.
[00:32:58] Let’s try [00:33:00] to do whatever is possible in that amount of time, but I didn’t really have, this is the other thing I really didn’t have any other place to be like, I didn’t have another call or something. I had things I like to do. Like, I didn’t end up going to the gym because I ended up having a call with my mom that was like one and a half hours long.
[00:33:17] Right. And I talked to her yesterday for two and a half hours. That’s a separate topic. Right. So,
[00:33:25] you should, you should start a, another podcast with your mom.
[00:33:28] should. Um, but, but, uh, you know, so I didn’t go to the gym, but, but it’s, I, it doesn’t fucking matter. Like I didn’t have to be anywhere. So I decided to fully be there to fully be with her and to give this woman that have given me life and everything, you know, it’s easy to admire your mom in a half, a sentence and ten second summary, you know, like it’s easy to, it’s easy for me to say my mom [00:34:00] is great.
[00:34:00] It’s much harder for me to give my mom three hours of my time. Right. Uh, That takes something else that is actually like making like really sacrificing in gifting her like really investing in her, really honoring her, um, saying that I love my mom and that she’s the greatest, that’s cheap. That’s easy.
[00:34:28] That doesn’t take much. Um, so we, we ended up having a beautiful conversation. She ended up being able to, I think, have a lot of space to explore and talk and think through. And I still, you know, played my role, not just in listening, but also in stimulating giving ideas, being a mirror, being somebody to give feedback. But in both moments, I may be [00:35:00] more maybe with a higher level of awareness that I have in a long time. How powerful my impatience can be like how that feeling, how burning it is. And it’s kind of explosive. It’s like a flame within me that it wasn’t, it’s not there. It’s not there. It’s not there. Then all of the sudden it’s burning high.
[00:35:23] It’s like a very urgent impulse and sensation to want to rush now to the finish line. Right.
[00:35:33] And I thought about the difference between patience and persistence, because, and I thought about that quote. I keep going back to that quote. Um, let me see if I can find, uh, [00:36:00] No, I’m not finding it right now, but it reminded me of that, that quote, that, you know, some animal activist, animal type person, like why life expert person once said that had worked with elephants for like 30 years or something. And he said, if there’s one thing I learned working with elephants for over 30 years is how to be patients, how to be patient.
[00:36:50] And that patience is not how long you can wait, but it is the attitude with which you. Right that I [00:37:00] read that months ago and it stayed with me. It made a real impact. And I kept thinking about it. You know, patients, the attitude with which you wait, not how long you can wait. And I realized that I’ve never been a patient man, never in my life, but I have been able to wait.
[00:37:19] I can be very calm and I can wait very long, but I have never done or rarely done either one of these things. I don’t know why this sucking of the iced coffee with the ice blocks was picked up by the mic so loudly, but it really was. Maybe it’s like testing my patience. I don’t know exactly. I have been able to be calm.
[00:37:56] I’ve been able to be stoic. I’ve been able to wait things [00:38:00] out many, many times in my life, but I’ve never done a very rarely was able to do this with an attitude of relaxation, love, curiosity, openness, trusting enjoyment, right. That’s kind of, that is the attitude that makes waiting into powerful patients.
[00:38:32] Like when you’re really patient you Wade with love, with trust, with curiosity, with openness, the way I have waited most of my life when I had to wait, was with tense, with tension and with, um, Hardheadedness with a sort of, I’m going to, I’m not gonna move [00:39:00] until this continues until this keeps flowing and you cannot break me.
[00:39:05] I will be an immovable object waiting here for the, you know, unstoppable force. And I, you know, that’s, I think also partly how I became world-class in enduring. Like I’m very good and enduring discomfort and enduring is also like, it could be confused for patients. I, you just sit there, you quiet. You know, take it all. And they’re like, wow, look how patient is dealing with a situation, but there’s no real beautiful patients in there.
[00:39:46] It’s during it’s, it’s actually suffering it’s pain, but you just hold it in tightly and don’t let it out.
[00:39:54] take
[00:39:55] You take the suffering, you take your beating quietly. When your patients, there’s [00:40:00] no beating, there is no suffering. You know, there’s nothing you have to endure because you love it because you enjoy it because you trust this trust, this tremendous trust in real patients that it is taking the time it has to take, and it would lead to good outcomes, whatever they are, right.
[00:40:24] Takes tremendous trust to be truly patient. I’ve learned to become more patient over the years, in some aspects of my. In other aspects of my life, I have become more aware of my impatience. I become aware how irritable I can be by seemingly little things. Right. Although I’ve always thought I’m kind of patient.
[00:40:49] I can be very patient I’m like, how are these, my behavior in this area does not connect with the self-image in that area. I wonder [00:41:00] what there is to learn here about myself, something here is wrong and probably, and usually it’s the thing that’s more positive. That’s wrong. It’s not the negative things because, you know, usually not always, but, um, and I was thinking about impatient. Like, you know, I also persistence and patience can be confused with each other sometimes. Right. I have been very persistent. In my life from the get go that’s something I had from birth and I’ve taught people persistence, right? I’ve taught thousands of people to be more persistent and persistent, you know, is, could be sometimes confused for a flavor of patience because good persistence is also positive.
[00:41:54] It also believes in trusts. Right. It believes more than he trusts. Right. And I’ll [00:42:00] explain in a second. What I mean, but by differentiating the two, you have to be positive. You have to believe it has to be, um, it can’t be limited, right? Like real persistence is almost like inhumane and how much of it you can display and you can’t be suffering through it.
[00:42:20] You, it needs to be something that’s energizing. Not that it’s, uh, soaking you of energy every time you do it. But. Persistence is the, I believe that I can get what I want if I just keep going with the same energy and I’m not going to be deterred or, uh, influenced by the resistance I’m meeting, because I know at some point that resistance will fall and I’m actually excited about getting there because nobody gets there.
[00:42:58] That’s persistence. [00:43:00] Patience is completely different because patients, when you’re a patient, you can’t believe in an specific outcome. You can’t know already that this is going to be the way I want it. I just have to wait, trusting, meaning that you, that when you’re really patient you trust that what is unfolding right now is right and good.
[00:43:27] And wherever it leads will be. And it can lead to a totally different place than you want. And then you’ll be open and curious about that. That is the power of, you know, true patience and the love it encapsulates. I was also thinking today that part of what makes a great parent is also patience, right?
[00:43:50] It’s like, how am I? Because you have to have patience when you have children, but most parents don’t have patients. Most parents, you know, either a [00:44:00] persistence with it, very persistent with their children, like keep pushing the thing they want the children to do or to learn or to, you know, submit to or slash.
[00:44:09] And they’re, you know, very good at like enduring things. They’re just like silently, quietly suffering for this thing to stop over this child to start with something. What really is transformative for your children. And one of the most powerful ways of loving your children is real patients like a parent that is really patient and trust deeply and is okay with wherever the thing unfolds. That’s something incredibly beautiful. And also not obviously very rare by patients is rare in the world.
[00:44:43] I was thinking in business, most of the great things that I achieved in the earlier years of my career were all due to persistence. Nothing else, just like relentless persistence [00:45:00] and all the great things that I’ve accomplished in the last bunch of years have been patients like I’ve had a number of huge wins.
[00:45:12] Most of my big wins these days are actually private. Like there, there are things. My co-founders might know about, but nobody else, because I’m not creating content around it. I’m not sharing it with anybody. But most of my very big, significant wins in business in the past five, six years have been patients have.
[00:45:32] And not always because I’m sort of tra like I’ve become a lot more trusting when it comes to life and business, I’ve become a lot more long-term. So if my measurement of time is always 10 X yours and all my competitors, I don’t even have to be that patient because my time is ticking at a much slower rhythm, so I can wait much longer than others by having the exact same personal experience of it.
[00:45:58] Right. Like my time does [00:46:00] move slower the way I think it’s much, much longer term, but I’ve accomplished some really great things by being a lot more patient than it used to be. And by oftentimes using a tactic with one of my co-founders, for instance, Anthony, where he would go. This thing is bad, really need to fix bad thing.
[00:46:21] It’s been bad for a long time. Let’s take out the fucking hammer and brutally fucking bash it away. Let’s just do something. We have to do something. And I would always re like with some topics, I would slow him down and go. This thing is bad. I agree. It’s been bad for a long time. I agree. Funny enough.
[00:46:40] It’s been bad for a long time and nothing. There were no really big consequences, right? Like things have still been pretty good. Although this thing is bad. If we bash it with a hammer, the chances of good things happening next are very low. The chances of it being so sold a 50 50, and the [00:47:00] chances of a bad thing becoming terrible are pretty significant in my mind.
[00:47:07] So why would we do that? Do you have an approach? That has a much higher chance for success than what you just proposed to me, it’d be like, no, but we can’t wait forever. I’m like, well, we’ve waited many years and we’re totally fine. Who says we can’t wait longer. Let’s wait until we have a good idea of what to do about this.
[00:47:23] Because right now, obviously the idea that you propose sucks, the only reason why it feels good is because it feels like doing something. And because this thing makes you fearful right now, like you’re afraid, oh my God, it hasn’t done anything yet, but may have what if tomorrow something happens, but that’s not a good enough reason to do something dumb.
[00:47:40] Like if we do something, let’s do something smart. And one of the biggest of these topics, this is a topic one day I’ll write about this, but it’s too ridiculous and crazy to share it on this podcast. But there was one thing that’s been, was bothering us for [00:48:00] like maybe seven years. It was a pretty big thing. And then last year, and for seven years, maybe five, six times a year, Anthony would get a little bit of a panic attack around it. And I would stop him. And not always because I was wise to be fully transparent. There were at times where it was just lazy or times where it was just afraid of like attacking this thing.
[00:48:26] And then it becomes a huge, big problem that I’ll have to deal with. So sometimes it was just, self-serving like, I don’t want to deal with this right now. It’s not, but, and later years it became more and more true patients. And like long-term thinking and thinking I’m not going to do something dumb just because I don’t like.
[00:48:44] Unless I have a better approach, like a, an idea that will make this better. I’m going to wait and see what happens. And then after seven years of this last year, the problem almost magically solved itself. Something that was like, what happened last year is like a [00:49:00] one in a 1 million thing in business.
[00:49:02] Like nobody, like it’s so rare that any company has been able to pull up what we pulled off magic. Right. I don’t want to push people’s curiosity too much or fantasy too much that they’ll come up with all kinds of wild stories and all of them are going to be wrong. Like you’re all wrong about what it is, but it was a beautiful thing to experience to see the power of patience and time when really there is no great alternative in the moment.
[00:49:32] And it goes back like Warren buffet and Charlie Munger. Amazing examples of teaching people that you really don’t have to be that smart. You just have to never be as dumb as most people are. And if you can do that long enough, you’ll end up looking like a genius, right? Just don’t do the really dumb things.
[00:49:50] When most people will do the dumb things. And if you can do that for a decade or two, you’re going to end up winning in such a humongous way. It’s much [00:50:00] harder to be a genius than to not be stupid, but it takes a lot of discipline. A lot of patients to not be stupid when most of humanity is stupid. Right.
[00:50:09] And so in some areas of business, I’ve learned patience. Although mostly I’ve exhibited persistence, but in my personal life again, I’m like I’m, I’m just recently started. I think, noticing more when and how I get impacted. And even feeling the sensing into the difference between patients and during, and being quiet and being calm.
[00:50:42] And that those are not all the same thing. Although they look the same from the outside, they’re very dramatically different things. And the thing that was beautiful about Mobil the book is how she is such an amazing listener because when she [00:51:00] listens, she listens with all the time in the world. And when you gift somebody that kind of patience, that kind of like richness in time, you empower and enliven and enlightened them.
[00:51:14] And they do that through you in ways that you could never accomplish by giving them the answer or by giving them any point in them to any kind of other vehicle. Like we, people will find the truth within themselves. If they can find the time through somebody else in this case, right through that little girl moment,
[00:51:36] I started thinking about turtles goes in the book, mobile.
[00:51:40] There’s a very special turtle. Cast your payer. And there’s something funny about it because today on my river walk, I saw many, many turtles.
[00:51:50] There are a lot of turtles at lady bird river in Austin, which is kind of cool. Like, I don’t know. I usually don’t see turtles, like just on random, you know, random walks during the week, [00:52:00] but here you almost always can see turtles. Um, and as I was looking at the turtles, I was thinking of Cassiopeia. Uh, that little turtle that could look half an hour into the future, but could not tell you what the future would be. And that would basically communicate in a few simple words on it’s. Um, what is it called? Pensa? Yeah. On its shell. Right. And I dunno now going off the road of normal thinking and I’m going into like just creative exploration, which can often lead to the road of bullshit, but might lead to something interesting.
[00:52:47] So, you know, you’ll have to, you have to follow me into this.
[00:52:50] so it’s interesting. It’s interesting that you think you were on the road of normal thinking.
[00:52:55] That is also true. Um, fair enough to shape two shifts or [00:53:00] two shifts. Um, the, the, I started thinking about Cassiopeia. As I was reading the book. One thing that strike me as weird was that Cassiopeia could only look half an hour into the future. I was like, Hmm, why is that right? Why is that? Now? I told you in the book and I shared it with you today in slack.
[00:53:27] Um, we had ended the author, uh, in an interview, answered why in so many of his books, there are turtles that appear in those storylines. And he talks about this fascination with the turtle. And I think it’s beautiful. Like the things he says there and how he says them. I’m like, I love it. I’ve never thought about turtles that way, but now I love them because of him and through him.
[00:53:45] But when I was reading the book, I kept thinking, it’s kind of weird that this little turtle does magical little turtle can look into the future, but only half an hour. My [00:54:00] first thought was, well, this is probably. Just a convenient limitation to make the story work. Otherwise this is the end of the whole book, right?
[00:54:09] Like just the total turtle shows up, knows everything that’s ever going to happen. Just tell us mobile what to do or not to do. And then just fucks off again and the end. Right? There’s no story. If the turtle knows everything and could tell you all, all of it. So that was one way of thinking about it. But today I thought about a different way of thinking about it, which was this thought of what, when you, when you observe a turtle, you think about some of the things that make that animal, that creature unique, right?
[00:54:43] I mean, they live very, very long lives, right? So they, they sort of having different internal clock, right? We all have an internal clock. Theirs is going slower and longer than most creatures of that. [00:55:00] And when you think about like, you know, all these stories in all these, you know, these children’s stories, these, um, these old, old stories where turtles show up to teach everybody something about patience, something about time as well.
[00:55:20] You know what, what’s the famous story of the, the, the race between the, um, there’s another word for turtle that is often used, but I don’t know why I never use it turquoise or, yeah. I don’t know how to say it. It’s like a weird word, but it is used often. And, uh, that, that, that, that the turtle and the Hare, right.
[00:55:42] That kind of, uh, and they, they race and obviously the, the turtle winds, because, you know, once the time and patient, while the other one’s super arrogant knows it’s, it’s a faster animal, but then like whatever gets into trouble and bullshit and loses. And I thought about. [00:56:00] You know what happens when you have two beings, let’s take two human beings.
[00:56:12] And one of them is able to slow down time in his mind and his body and his being and think much longer term and think things through much calmer and clearer, and think about the very next, like the, the, the next steps, like what needs to happen and what could possibly happen next. And I thought, you know, when you have patients and when you think long-term, when you are calm, it’s sort of gives you.
[00:56:53] A pretty clear picture of what’s about to happen next. Like you cannot see 30 years into the future, [00:57:00] but it’s much easier for you to see a certain amount of ahead of everybody else. Like it gives you a little bit of a, of a longer view and vision of everybody, everybody else just looking down as stress and you kind of look up a little bit and see a bit further of what’s.
[00:57:16] What is probably going to transpire? What are all the pieces and parts of the dynamic and how your next step will influence the next step? And then the next step, it’s almost like cheating, almost like being able to look into the future a tiny bit ahead of everybody else. That’s what happens when you’re able to be more patient than others.
[00:57:37] Slow time down, think things through and thinking things through very fast is only going to call. Labyrinth of the mind, right. When you’re like, oh, this could happen. That could happen. That could happen. Well, this is what about that. And I have to also talk to this person about it in that that is such a, you take like a [00:58:00] marketing, your writing so quickly.
[00:58:01] And so erratically that at the end, when you look at the whiteboard, it’s going to be impossible to now find the answer here. Like it’s just like a bunch of dribble everywhere, just like too many words too much all over the place. But when you think through things calmly slowly, clearly without distracting, without, you know, jumping ahead or jumping to sidelines or, or rushing, then.
[00:58:39] Time slows down for you a little bit, or, you know, you, you get sort of, it’s not forever. You can’t see 30 years into the future. Exactly. But it gives you a little bit of a delay of time in the immediate, almost like you can look half an hour into the future a little bit into the future, just enough to be ahead of everybody [00:59:00] else that doesn’t have time.
[00:59:01] And if you think the main, the main, uh, no opposition that Castillo pious helping Momo to win against the gray man, the gray man that are the Steelers of time, the gray man never have enough time to rush through everything. And they, you know, can’t think long-term, they’re all about like hoarding and stealing every second of every human being they can.
[00:59:33] So. One of the main times that Cassioppi comes and really saves. Mom was the first time all the gray men are in the city, searching for her. And Cassiopeia is guiding mobile perfectly in a zigzag throughout the entire city and the weirdest route, because it knows always exactly half an hour ahead of where all the gray men are going to be in.
[00:59:52] So she just routes her all around the right. And so she has this massive [01:00:00] competitive advantage in the situation against them, because she’s able to see just a little ahead when they can’t. Um, I don’t know if that’s, you know, you know, obviously I don’t know if it’s that, but I started thinking about the, kind of the predictive power or the power of sight, the expansion of sight you win, or you gain with patients with, uh, the ability to be quieter, to go slow.
[01:00:34] To be calmer, to think further. Right. Um, there’s something there’s a very clear advantage you’re getting, and it’s almost like you can look ahead of them. Like you could look ahead of time.
[01:00:49] yeah, it’s a, it’s a trade-off right. You trade one for the other, there’s also value to thinking on your feet being very fast. [01:01:00] Right. And, and doing that in certain situations. it’s almost like you get a, like you said, a wider sense in a long-term sense where if you translate it to a common life scenario, one is like great for being in the game and winning it, making the next right move.
[01:01:21] Right. And the other one is more the, Why even play this game and where does it lead? And, is this what I want, As one example of where this, where this manifests in
[01:01:33] And of course, you know, it’s not like if the whole world and all of nature existed only of turtles and everything would be perfect. Right? I mean, there’s a lot, there’s the beauty of life
[01:01:44] I think, I think that there should be, should we should
[01:01:47] that he
[01:01:47] the totalization
[01:01:48] the term turtled visitation of the world. I like it. Uh, I mean, Miquel Enda was convinced that, you know, turtles existed way before us, and they probably will exist way after we’ve checked out, [01:02:00] um, and was saying how he loves that they are totally and completely useless animals. They don’t help nature in some way.
[01:02:11] They don’t, they don’t serve some kind of a purpose. They have no enemies and they don’t pose any threats. They need very little, right. Just a few, a few pieces of grass, a few of the tiny little bit. And they can get along with that very, very long. And they kind of oppose all of modern thinking of.
[01:02:31] Usefulness and purpose and place, they just exist. Right. They just very peacefully exist without having some greater purpose or some greater skill or some greater place in the ecosystem. That’s important because they do X and Y and they help with, they just, they’re just there. They don’t seem to care about doing a particular job in nature, you know, getting a specific placement in its ranking.
[01:02:58] Um, [01:03:00] but of course, you know, there’s beauty in variety, right. And when you’re in that kind of a state there’s things that are not going to be a frequency that you can capture and consume and enjoy, right? Like probably, you know, um, a, an erratic Jess, uh, a sambal that improvises on stage and creates crazy. You know, art in the moment is a very like jittery energy. It’s very like in this moment, very explosive, very intense. It’s a very different experience and exercise and, and manifestation of life. Then, you know, the example of thinking very long term being patient and all that. And sometimes, sometimes, uh, you know, uh, patients is bad.
[01:03:56] I’m talking about this as an [01:04:00] idea today in a very kind of black and white all in all or not probably like everything else in life. There’s, you know, ranges of this. Um, And, you know, none of us probably can be the sort of boot up patient level where you could just sit there indefinitely. Um, until you fall over
[01:04:22] let’s do more, more patient.
[01:04:24] normal patient is good.
[01:04:25] Like she still, at some point would probably speak or move, but she is, you know, worlds apart from most people in terms of how calmly, openly curiously and lovingly, she will give her time. Right.
[01:04:42] And that’s another thing to be patient means you have to give up a lot, you have to give a surplus of your time to somebody or something right now, if you have to give a surplus of your time to somebody or something, you need to both feel rich in time, you need [01:05:00] to be aware and in touch with your time.
[01:05:03] Well, Right. Everybody thinks they’re starved for time. Everybody senses that they have a lack of time. Although every human being has the same time on earth is great differences in how people perceive their time and their time account. And so if you think, if you perceive your life as being indebted, when it comes to time, like you are, you’re in way too little and you’re, you’re altering everybody time that you can’t pay them.
[01:05:37] And everything time that you’re not giving it to then obviously when something requires something or somebody requires patience from you. So you giving it a lot more time than usual than something a usual interaction would take. That’s going to be difficult for people to do. This is going to be difficult for you to accept.
[01:05:57] Like you think you’re poor and on the street, and I’m asking you for a [01:06:00] million dollars, that’s going to be difficult for you to be like, sure, I, I can do this. Right. So to be patient probably also means to be very aware of the time, you have to be very in touch with your time and to feel rich in time. In many ways, we all are, this is a very difficult concept for people that feel strapped for time to believe.
[01:06:22] And everybody that I’ve talked to that I’ve tried to convince that they have plenty of time. The less time they feel they have, the less they are ever willing to even consider this fucking point. They all like literally they all face. Yeah, you can say this, but mother fucka, you don’t know how it is to be a I’m a starting entrepreneur.
[01:06:55] You’re not already successful. I, my children are younger than yours. I don’t have as [01:07:00] much money. I don’t have a,
[01:07:02] All right.
[01:07:03] The less time people think they have.
[01:07:06] I had, I had a, I had a beautiful, more, more moment actually, exactly about that yesterday where, um, I was, I was going to go into the car and then I was thinking, and I kind of did it in a, in a, okay. This is, this is kind of the, of. Time where it’s just like logistically necessary. Right.
[01:07:26] And there was treating it that way. And then I thought of where the gray man come to. What’s his name? The barber. Right. And then they tell him, oh, you know, they do the calculation. Well, how long do you think you will live? Oh, that’s so-and-so many seconds certain. And they break down, this is the time you work your sleeve, this, that right.
[01:07:44] And say, well, if, and then they go like, well, if, instead of spending 30 minutes with a customer, you just spent 15 minutes, this will free up, you know, 47 million, 378 seconds of your time. Right. And then if you do this and that, and then if you [01:08:00] like, okay, every day you spend an hour talking with your old mom, who’s not even really.
[01:08:05] Fully there anymore. Right? Why don’t you put her in a place and you know, a cheap, cheap caretaking home. And then that frees up 75 million, 489 seconds. Right? And then this girl, are you really going to marry her? No, you’re not going to solve. Why, why spend all this time? Maybe just see her once a month instead of every week.
[01:08:23] Right. And then they do the calculation and they break down how like, oh, you’re going to have so much more time at the end of this. But you also, it’s so obvious that doing all this will make his life so miserable, which is, he actually has a nice life. Right. But once he thinks about what he’s missing and what he could have right into the house, and it’s so beautiful.
[01:08:42] And then I was like, thinking about that and was like, ha funny, I’m the barber right now. And then I kind of changed it
[01:08:49] Yeah. You know, um, I just, this week I started to [01:09:00] mindfully, um, eat again. So that means. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. I eat in silence and I’m just with my food and just, and I try to also, like, I try to make a difference in, I could eat in silence, but be busy in thoughts. And I attempt to not, I attempt to be enjoying and experiencing every spoon, every. Um, that I eat and I haven’t had as great of a dinner as the last two nights in a year.
[01:09:47] Like I was so thoroughly enjoying it and experiencing actually the explosions of flavor in my mouth. And these are dishes that I’ve eaten, you know, 40 times before, [01:10:00] while either emailing or listen to a podcast or reading a book or doing some. And I can’t remember a single one of them. And like the last two nights were like amazing.
[01:10:10] And I’ve also started like finding other places where you know, where my phone for instance has gotten a place. So one is, you know, going to the bathroom, like, I’ll take the phone and I’ll listen to stuff or read things or do things not doing that. Um, walking to pick up coffee, right? Like I I’ve stopped.
[01:10:31] This is something I’ve stopped a year ago. To listen to podcasts or all your books on the way to little to short places. Like when I do listen to an audio book today, then it is something where I go, I will go out to listen to the audio book, right. And I’ll go out for a walk to listen to the book, but I don’t listen randomly unwasted places like I’m going to go to the gym on the way to the gym.
[01:10:56] Let me listen to something on the way to the coffee shop. Let me listen to [01:11:00] something. Getting comfortable with silence, getting comfortable and also more importantly, giving the thing you’re doing all your presence, all your awareness with food, especially it makes such a difference. It makes such a tremendous difference.
[01:11:18] In the mornings now I’ve started to spend, I’m not quite at a full hour, but I would say that the first 30 minutes of the day, I don’t do anything right now. Like the first 30 minutes of the day, I actually just think I might just, you know, get up and go quickly to the bathroom, but I’ll sit on the couch on the chair and I will just be, I would just, whatever thoughts, feelings I have, whatever I just processed.
[01:11:45] And then I’ll do write down my dreams and some of my thoughts and do some, a little bit of writing and then I’ll start my day, but I start with 30 minutes of nothing. And I do have to say that, you know, I got inspired by. [01:12:00] Whatever his name is. I forgot. I always forget the whatever lab guy that’s like killing it right now.
[01:12:06] hold on Monday.
[01:12:06] Huberman lab guy, um, who gave this whole speech about like the first hour of being so important for processing your dreams and processing all the information, like generating all this important insights before you step into the day and utilize your brain to do other things. I’m not at a full hour.
[01:12:26] Even that like, usually I used to last couple of months that into the bad habit of waking up in the morning, the first thing I would do is I would grab my phone and I would spend like 15 minutes of my, for 10, 15 minutes, you know, going through social media, checking a bunch of messagers and then I would like put it away and start like writing down things and starting my day.
[01:12:46] And I always knew this is shitty, but it kind of was like, it’s, it’s almost like. This 10 minutes of phone is helping me wake up, getting like interdisciplinary jolting in its energy. And so I just wanted that. [01:13:00] And now that I do the kind of half an hour of just laying in bed or just like chilling, there are, it’s been many times now where as I laid there, I noticed something about how I feel.
[01:13:15] I notice something that has been bothering me or something else that I think wow. I would have completely missed this. If I had stepped into the day, the way that I used to. Um, so there’s some things that just, it, it makes the morning also so much more peaceful, right? Like, think about this, like waking up in the first 10 minutes, you’re on your phone, which is what I, what I find most people to be doing.
[01:13:40] Like, as I’ve traveled with people and I’ve seen many people now in different places in the morning, most people, first thing they do is they grab the phone the first half hour or whatever they’re on their phone. It is such a difference. It’s the difference between getting up and you’re at the serene viewpoint that you see the sunrise [01:14:00] and you hear a waterfall and you just like get to serenity and peace before starting your day or waking up and being in the middle of, you know, time square.
[01:14:09] And it’s just like, you know, horns and people and ads everywhere. And this is the way you start your day. It’s just like such a drastic. Half an hour. It just starts the day on a completely different quality.
[01:14:24] but through all of this, the craziest difference I’ve noticed is eating like food. Just food started tasting 50% better eating it shifted from a pure chore to pleasure. people are really good at this. Like you’ve always enjoyed, I think food more and be more present with food than I, I never had a good relationship to food in that, in that way. Um, And I’ve learned and forgotten this lesson, plenty of times. Let’s see how much it sticks this time around, but [01:15:00] it is crazy.
[01:15:01] It is not, it’s not even the same thing. It can even be put in the same category. Like it’s just not the same thing. It’s like Kevin having sex while doing your taxes. It’s like, that’s eating while doing something or just eating. It’s the same thing you can’t be compared. Right. Doing your taxes on a deadline.
[01:15:18] Like we had stress, like how could you, how much enjoyment could you have out of that? You know, it’s the same thing. While when you’re eating, while you’re watching a YouTube video and checking your message on your phone, like you’re just not there for the experience at all. And food can be such a powerfully stimulating sensual experience as you for sure know, and I, not so much, but learning right learning.
[01:15:44] Um, it’s crazy. How big of a difference awareness and presence. And focus, like picking a thing, just being like, this is the thing I will do now. Uh, we are so trained. I [01:16:00] am so trained to think doing one thing alone is not enough doing one thing at a time is not good enough. It is a waste of your time. It is too late. You want to always stack the doings? Always you’re going to grab the BN and while
[01:16:28] need more
[01:16:29] yes, you’re going to, I am drinking my beer while eating a cake, listening to a podcast while answering an email. And at the same time, I remembered that I have to, you know, Fucking like, uh, change the batteries in, uh, some of my electronic devices.
[01:16:46] So I have like a bunch of electronic device on the, on the desk and I’m changing the batteries and I’m eating the cake and I’m, and I’m not doing anything at the end of all these activities. I have not done one of these things. I was never present for anything. They were [01:17:00] all meaningless. I’m usually wasting time because I’m context switching so much that I’m really slow at every single one of these things and the pleasurable things.
[01:17:08] I mean, the terrible things I, uh, stretch out. So instead of finishing it in 10 minutes, I work on it for three hours because I only work on it a little bit at a time as a context, switching to other things. It’s the worst thing you can do. I know there’s people out there. I won’t name names, but there’s a good friend of mine that I may or may not have had a podcast with that is convinced that he’s amazing at multitask.
[01:17:38] And it’s a personality thing. And that being greater multitask is a superpower is what makes him unique and great. And I don’t buy a single fucking word of that. I think it’s all a huge pile of bullshit.
[01:17:50] is very common. There’s a lot of people who think they are great and multitasking,
[01:17:55] Falls in the same category as some of the kind of mentored sleight of hand things that [01:18:00] we do right. To.
[01:18:01] well, there are many people that suck less at multitasking than their contemporaries that exists, like there’s ranges. Right? And there are people that momentarily at times. Get like a great level of endorphin rush pleasure of hyper over multitasking. I
[01:18:25] all right. What if they totally, but if they compare themselves the multitasking. Version versus a, uh, kind of mono focused or however you want to call it. Right. If they would actually do a comparison of these two, I mean, and there’s like maybe certain professions or situations where multitasking is more adequate.
[01:18:45] Right. But, um,
[01:18:47] at the thing that you do. Yes.
[01:18:50] Yeah.
[01:18:51] I’ve never met anyone. That is a crazy multi-tasker that once I’ve gotten to know them, well, I could [01:19:00] answer yes to the question. Do you think they live a good.
[01:19:06] Yeah.
[01:19:06] you think they ever have inner peace? Do you think they have, they will die if they die today, they will die without regret saying I’ve given my time and my life to the right people in the right way.
[01:19:21] And I was there for it. It’s always, no, it’s always not always look at these people in there. Like have ghosts rushing around life. Never getting really anywhere that’s worth going to. But, you know, we all tell, we all tell ourselves a good amount of stories that are told bullshit. This is definitely one of them that
[01:19:42] the power, the beauty and the value of doing one thing fully and wholly. And once it’s done choosing what to do next and then giving your all and [01:20:00] your whole self to that thing. That is magic. That is power. And that’s when time slows down just for you. Well, all the world is, you know, a normal second, your seconds last 10 seconds, longer, 10 times longer than the average persons.
[01:20:19] And all of a sudden you become so rich. You have this abundance of taste and smell and feelings and ideas and experiences. And no matter how much of that you have, you always have more time for more. You’re never in a rush, never in a worry, like when you do that, it’s magic. But learning to do that, it’s tricky.
[01:20:47] Even in small things.
[01:20:48] Like one thing that I learned from my mother for instance, was to never walk through the room without asking yourself if there’s something you could get done. You [01:21:00] know, while you’re up. Like, so if I get up now, like I’ve, I’ve had this beer, right. It’s empty. The bottle is empty. If I get up now, the first thing I’ll do is I’ll pick that bottle and I’ll walk to the kitchen to throw it away.
[01:21:17] Before I walk all the way back to my bedroom. And on the way back, I might see something and go, oh, I could fix this little thing, this cushion up. And then on my way back, I’ll ask myself, what are all the tasks I should do? And what is the perfect route of doing them? Like, oh, I’m going to pick up the sock at this corner while walk you over there to do this thing.
[01:21:39] And then walk over there. Maximum efficiency.
[01:21:43] it’s it, it’s a great utilization of the beautiful, amazing miracle of our mind.
[01:21:51] but oftentimes with me and with my mother, it is not. [01:22:00] The mind that serves the man. It is the man that starts being the servant of the mind. You know, how many times I’ve walked the weirdest routes. Like if I showed you the route that he here’s the last 30 minutes, how was walking in this apartment?
[01:22:15] You’d be like, what the fuck were you doing? And I’m like, it makes no sense. But while I walked all the way to the bathroom to do this one little thing, that wasn’t the case. I remember this other thing, that’s in that other, uh, you know, bedroom. And I walked all the way through that other bedroom to pick up that thing.
[01:22:34] And then I remember, and I’m, and now I’m like this little mouse that’s in this, like the, the, the hamster and the hamster wheel, and I’m just running and running and running. And what did I really accomplish? Yeah, I like, I have a, I could give you a list. I threw away three pieces of garbage. I folded some socks.
[01:22:52] I put away, uh, shaving. So, but like, is any of that was any of that important? Did I really need to do that right now? [01:23:00] It’s good. And it’s smart when it’s, you know, measured when you walk. You know, when I walk from the bedroom to the kitchen and there’s five empty plates, I need to get to the kitchen in the bedroom.
[01:23:15] It’s kind of smart to pick them and take them with you. That’s good thinking, right? Why would you not do that? But when that thing then determines what you do the next 15 minutes, like the items randomly, the room, uh, dictating what you’re doing. That’s not good. And that’s how. Uh, lives look like, I mean, not just the items in your apartment, it’s the items on your phone.
[01:23:38] It’s the items on your laptop? It’s the random items in the world that dictate the route you take in your life and in your day, and you never get anywhere. And then you’re like, I don’t have enough time. People don’t understand. There’s just not enough time in the day. Yeah. Well, sure. If you, so five times every hour, uh, you know, from the kitchen to the bathroom and [01:24:00] back and forth to pick up a toothpaste, Right.
[01:24:03] Like, then you’re not gonna accomplish anything. If that’s the way you spend your life, you’re not can accomplish very much, right. Uh, if you’re that wasteful with it, but you need awareness first and foremost, I think awareness slows everything down with awareness. It clarifies everything. And then, you know, while things slow down and Y while things are clarifying, It’s much easier to think and feel, and to then decide and live.