The One You Feed - Dan Millman

Episode Date: January 22, 2014

This week on The One You Feed we have Dan Millman. Dan is a former world champion athlete, university coach, martial arts instructor, and college professor as well as a best selling author.After an intensive, twenty-year spiritual quest, Dan's teaching found its form as the Peaceful Warrior's Way, expressed fully in his books and lectures. His work continues to evolve over time, to meet the needs of a changing world.Dan's thirteen books, including Way of the Peaceful Warrior, have inspired and informed millions of readers in 29 languages worldwide. The feature film, "Peaceful Warrior," starring Nick Nolte, was adapted from Dan's first book, based upon incidents from his life.In This Interview Dan and I discuss...The One You Feed parable.The choice we face every day.What does window cleaning have to do with spirituality?How to get moving in the right direction.How life always comes down to whether or not you take the action.Starting small and connecting the dots.That a little of something is better than nothing.The danger of the all or nothing mentality.That knowledge alone is not enough.Life purpose.A definition of wisdom.Skillful versus unskillful action.The Four Purposes of Life.How life is a perfect school and the lessons get harder if we don't learn.The conventional realm and the transcendental realm.The process of writing a book with his daughter. Dan Millman LinksDan Millman homepageDan Millman author page on AmazonDan's latest  book with his daughter Sierra: The Creative CompassSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,

and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the show. Our guest this week is Dan Millman,

former world champion gymnast and the author of 13 books, including The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which was made into a feature film starring Nick Nolte. His most recent book, written with his daughter, Sierra, is called The Creative Compass, writing your way from inspiration to publication, and is available in bookstores everywhere. You can find more information on Dan and this episode in our show notes at oneufeed.net slash Dan. Hi, Dan. Thanks for joining us today.

Hi, Eric. Glad to be here with you now. I'm very excited to have you. I read The Way of the Peaceful Warrior probably a long time ago. I'm older than I think, I guess. But it's probably been at least 25 years ago. And it was probably the first book, I'd say, that exposed me to a lot of ideas that, you know, that are relatively commonplace now. But for me at that time, it was pretty eye-opening. So I thank you for that book. Well, you bet. So our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the old parable where there is a

Cherokee grandfather who is talking to his grandson and he says, in life, there's a battle always going on inside of us. It's between two wolves. One is a good wolf who represents kindness and love and joy. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents hate and sorrow and any other negative thing you want to add. And the grandson looks at his grandfather and says, well, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one that you feed. That's sort of the theme of our podcast. So I'd like to start off by just asking you, sort of how does that parable relate to you, your life, your work, and kind of what does it mean to you? I could probably write a long essay on that topic. It's a wonderful parable. It applies to so much. What comes to mind first is the idea that at the end of our day,

when we are about to go retire for the night, or even when we get up in the morning, our day when we are about to go retire for the night or even when we get up in the morning we have a choice if we want to look at polarities we can sit down and write all the lousy things that happened to us that day the person who cut us off in traffic someone who wasn't fair someone who said an unkind word or we can count our blessings and this is obvious but very few of us practice it we can sit down and think about the good things that happened today, to sort back through our day about the beautiful sunrise we saw or the good breakfast we had or a friend we met we didn't expect to see. And that will give us,

you know, that's how we feed one wolf for the other. That will give us a perceptual filter through which we look at our world and we'll tell ourselves, I want to remember what good is going to happen to me today. I have to make a note of that. Or, boy, I'm going to remember the bad things that happened. So that is one clear parallel. It's probably not something original. I'm sure you've heard different versions of it before, but it did come to mind when you mentioned which wolf do you want to feed? Because we don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. We all see the world through a perceptual filter based on our associations, beliefs, opinions, meanings. And it's like a muddy window, a distorted window. And part of what we call spiritual work, personal growth work, psychological work involves noticing that the window is there,

first of all, that we're not seeing the world as it is. And we begin to consider how we might clean that window, not to make it pink or any pretty colors, but actually just to clear it so we see life as it is. So those are the first thoughts that came up to me. I hope that wasn't too long a monologue. No, it was great. And that is a, you know, that's a, that's a theme we certainly, that keeps showing up in, you know, in the conversations we're having. We had an interview last night with a gentleman named Oliver Berkman, who wrote a really interesting book called The Antidote, positive or happiness for people who hate positive thinking. But we spent a lot of time talking about exactly sort of that it's such a fundamental step when you can recognize that your thoughts are just

your thoughts. They're not, they're not necessarily accurate. They're not necessarily a real reflection of the world. And you have some degree of ability to choose which ones you focus on. One of the things I've always really liked about your work and some of the talks I've seen you give is you talk a lot about, though, however, that, yes, thought is important. a lot about, though, however, that, yes, thought is important. Yeah, maybe we've got some degree of where we focus our attention, but the thoughts are going to come to us, and of all sorts. And that what really matters is kind of what you do, the action that you take. Can we talk a little bit about that? Sure. And I'd like to give credit where credit is due. I've had different mentors in my life. I didn't make this up.

It was actually a revelation that came to me through the work of a humble man. He's still alive. His name is David K. Reynolds. He wrote a book called Constructive Living. He pointed out the teachings of a Japanese psychiatrist named Shoma Morita. Morita had a lot of wisdom. For example, once he said, when running up a hill, it's okay to give up as many times as you want, as long as your feet keep moving. In other words, we can give up inside. We can say, I can't, I can't do this. I have doubts.

I'm unable to do it. All this stuff's going on in our heads as long as our feet keep moving. So this is the focus on what we do. And Marita had three guidelines for living wisely and well. One was accept whatever thoughts or feelings you have at the moment as natural to you. You don't have to fix them, change them, obey them, run from them, resist them. Just accept them as natural to you. They're like weather passing through. The second thing is focus on a constructive goal in your life. What do you want to accomplish right now?

For example, we have a goal right now that we're all focusing on. And then the third guideline is do what needs to be done in line with your goal. It's a very practical way to function in life despite the storms of emotion and thought that led Mark Twain to say, I've had many troubles in my life, most of which never happened. most of which never happened. We sometimes think we have to be in the mood to do something and that we have to feel like doing something, and that poses a real challenge versus just doing something. Do you have any insight for people on how,

when they're sort of in that stuck spot where everything inside of them is sort of, you know, I guess procrastination, right? I don't feel like it, I don't want to do this. For actually just getting moving? Well, first, yes, I do. But first, let me underscore what you just said. Because, look, most of us grew up with role models that look a lot like a soap opera.

We have a feeling or a thought we acted out, as if compelled, as if a feeling or a thought, we act it out, as if compelled, as if that feeling or thought compelled us to act it out. We get angry, we say an angry word, or we strike out at somebody. That's what you see when you turn to a soap opera on TV, people having a feeling or thought and acting it out. Boom, just like that. And the consequences are messy. So I often remind people to progress toward our goals and turn what we know into what we actually do. There are two basic methods to do that. The first one I'd like to recite to you now, which is very popular. Most people, this is what they pursue when they're interested in personal and psychological growth.

So here's what you can do to turn what you know into what you do. Find a way to quiet the mind, create empowering beliefs, raise your self-esteem, and practice positive self-talk to find your focus, affirm your power, and free your emotions to visualize positive outcomes so that you can develop the confidence to generate the courage to find the determination to make the commitment to feel sufficiently motivated to do whatever it is you need to do. The second method which I recommend is you can just do it because life is always going to come down to are you going to do it or not. Now, people say, well, that's fine, Dan, just do it. But how can I get the courage to just do it? How can I find the confidence? How can I get the motivation? And I go back to, you can be not motivated.

How many of us have taken out the trash or gone to school or gone to work when we weren't motivated to do it? We did it. We just did it. And that is what life comes down to. And that's what makes the difference. Now, you may say, but give us a little help. Come on, Dan. My listeners would still like to know if there's an easier way. And I would suggest, in principle, that it's fine to dream big, but best to start small and then connect the dots. So if someone wants to exercise every day, I recommend they do one jumping jack every morning at the same time.

At least they have their exercise period defined now. They can double their workout by doing two jumping jacks the next month. So start small. If they want to learn to meditate, meditate every day for 15 seconds. But at least you're doing it every day. Get your foot in the door. Rather than a big resolution, I'm going to the gym for an hour and a half to work out. You know, for 28 years I've done a workout myself every day, no matter where I've been in the world.

Some odd places, too. It's a four-minute, what I call the Peaceful Warrior Workout. And that's available on, you know, there's a course. People pay whatever they want for it. A dollar, a hundred dollars, whatever in between. But the point is there's a course with video on my website where people can learn the Peaceful Warrior workout. But that's one example of simple is powerful because we're more likely to do it. So that is a how in terms of just doing it. Just start small. Don't radically change your diet because people do, then they go back.

Just eat a little less of what's bad for you, a little more of what's good for you. Just start small and connect the dots. Get some momentum going, get some positive progress and build from there. Yeah, you said somewhere, and it's something I say a lot too, which is a little of something is better than a lot of nothing. I find myself, I like to go to boxing and I go to, you know, the class is half over. I'm like, I'm still going, you know, because half of this class is better than none of this class, which is which is a big change from a all or nothing mentality that that I certainly in the past would bring to things. And I think a lot of people do. If I can't do this exactly right or I can't fully commit to this or I can't, you know, nothing happens.

And, you know, little steps make a make a big difference, as you say. You know, it's funny. I was doing a consultation yesterday with someone, and it came down to that one thing that was really affecting his life. For him, it was all or nothing. I'm good or I'm bad. If I'm not pure and the perfect, peaceful warrior, then I'm falling off the path. And he was caught up in this all or nothing mentality, and so many of us can be. So that's why these

shades, to start to see the shades in a little bit better, that's so important. You know, one of the things that I like about your work, and a lot of times is sort of similar to, you know, about your thoughts, is also you say, you know, knowledge alone does not suffice. It has no heart. Or, you know, elsewhere, you say that no amount of knowledge will nourish or sustain your spirit. So it's, you know, you're describing sort of the same thing. How do we, that knowing this stuff is great, but, you know, if I had meditated, you know, 10 minutes for every hour I had read about meditating, I probably would be far better off. And I think a lot of people fall into that camp. It's a lot easier to sit on the couch eating cheese that's reading about spiritual growth than it is to do

some of the work. Well, many of us know all the terms and the jargon. We can talk about the chakras and all the sophisticated ideas, but you're right. You know that old story about the young scholar who was being pulled across a raging river in India by a brave ferryman, and they were going across gradually this river. And the young scholar was telling the ferryman all the things he'd studied and the degrees he'd earned. And the ferryman said, that was very impressive hearing this. But in all your studies, did you ever learn to swim?

And the young scholar said, well, no. He said, that's too bad because this raft is sinking. So yes, practice, practice. Daily life is a practice. It's a form of spiritual weightlifting. And it's not about succeeding every day and having everything work out right. It's about how can we grow stronger. That's why St. Augustine said, I pray not for a lighter load, but for stronger shoulders.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a floor? We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer.

We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you, and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too?

Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really.

Yeah, Really. No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Several of your books talk about and reference sort of life purpose.

Can you share a little bit about what that means to you and sort of where you go in your work on that area? When I do write and it is a central interest of mine, I like where you're leading, but I'd like to jump back just for a moment first, because we started out with the parable of the two wolves, the good wolf and the bad wolf. And I'd like to offer maybe a little more original perspective than the example I gave. I think it's an important one about, you know, sorting for blessings or what happened negatively. But there is another more original approach, the idea of that there's no actually good or bad. You know, Rumi said, out beyond wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. And of course, what he meant was there's a way to look at life not from a moralistic view of good or bad, but of action and consequences. So we don't make moral judgments.

That was a bad thing. People make the best choice they can. They see at the time their friends may say, how can you make this choice? But to them, it's the only choice they have or the best one they have available. So I've stopped really judging whether someone's good or bad, right or wrong, moral or not. But I do point out that certain actions may be more likely to lead to certain consequences. And that's one definition of wisdom, being able to get some sight into the potential consequences of our actions, and that's more likely to guide our lives. And by the way, the brain, with two sides of the brain, there are not

just two wolves inside of us, but there are also these polarized characters inside of us. Each of us have the Puritan and the Hedonist, someone who practices self-denial and someone who practices self-indulgence. And a lot of our lives are balancing those two and finding out when it's appropriate to celebrate and expand into life and be more of a Hedonist. And other times, maybe that Puritan being, you know, maybe leaner and following the rules, that may be more useful as well. We have inside of us a callous person and a very sentimental person. And again, there are moments where each is useful. And then we also have inside of us a peacock and a chicken. The peacock is very, very, they have a sense of self-respect and dignity, whereas the chicken lacks self-respect. But there are times even that is appropriate,

those different roles to play in life. So those wolves just represent one aspect of our being. And I love the story. And that's why I wanted to just relate to it in that way. That's one of the things I've always liked about at least some of the Buddhist readings I've done, is it moves away from good, bad, moral, immoral, and talks about things that are skillful and unskillful. And that's a term that resonates a lot more, but describing a skillful and unskillful wolf takes the teeth out of the analogy, so to speak. Well, in a way it does. You know, we want the drama because when we tell a story, what makes a good story is dramatic conflict. If you have a story that has no conflict, people just walking here and then doing this and doing that as a writer, a writer, there's no story there. It doesn't pull you in.

So the idea of a good wolf and a bad wolf, for the sake of the analogy, I think is still appropriate, but I did want to comment upon the idea of that within us there. Yeah, I like skillful or less skillful. That's a nice idea. Okay, life purpose. Okay. Nice idea. Okay.

Life purpose. Okay. Well, Robert Byrne, the quote master, said the purpose of life is a life of purpose. And I already indicated in Morita's advice to know your purpose and then do what needs to be done. You know, in the Peaceful Warrior movie, some of your listeners may have seen that movie with Nick Nolte. The character, my character, Dan, says, you know, he comes to a realization that what makes us happy is the journey, not just the destination. And there may be a certain wisdom to that because most of our life is spent on the journey, not reaching the destination. And it's useful psychologically if you're going up a mountain, not to feel like a failure because you haven't reached the top,

but to enjoy the journey on the way. Okay, that's fine. But the idea that it's just about the journey, that doesn't make sense in a way because without a destination in mind, there is no journey. If we're at point A, we have to have a point B and we're hardwired goal seekers anyway. Look at a young baby. We have a five-month-old granddaughter now, little beauty, and she's not yet crawling, but when she starts, I can promise you if she sees something she wants, she's going to be crawling purposefully toward that object.

And so even when we're babies, we're always moving towards some goal, something we want. So I think the idea of having a purpose is quite important. One of my books is called The Four Purposes of Life. And, you know, I had some friends come up to me when I was writing that book and they said, Dan, I know the purpose of life. It's learning to love, you know, whatever the question, love is the answer. And I couldn't argue with that. It sounds very good to me. But then another friend said, no, no, we all know the purpose of life is illumination, God realization, unity, you know, whatever we want to describe it, enlightenment.

And then another friend said, yeah, but that's all kind of philosophy. Those are mental ideas. We know our biological purpose is to reproduce and, you know, keep the species going. And another friend said, but there are as many purposes as there are people. And again, all those have a lot of wisdom. But if we look at our lives through the spectrum of, well, just like we can look at the year and divide the year into four seasons, and just as we can divide the points on a compass

into four primary directions, by looking at our lives from the filter of four purposes, it gives our lives a sense of order and structure. We have a context. Instead of just waking up here on planet Earth wondering, what is this about? So in the book, I go into the four purposes, which I hate to even summarize them because people think, oh, I've heard that already. But no, they haven't. Not really.

The first is learning life's lessons. heard that already, but no, they haven't. Not really. The first is learning life's lessons. You know, daily life is a school, a perfect divine school where lessons repeat themselves until we learn them. And the second purpose is finding our career and calling and noticing the difference between a career and a calling and what that's about. And the third purpose has to do with another book I wrote called The Life You Were Born to Live, which helps us to find our life path, a certain pattern we're here to work out in this life. And the fourth purpose may be the most important one of all, because it brings them all down to earth, which is our purpose arising in this moment. We may not know our cosmic purpose,

but we can know our purpose right in this moment. You know yours right now. Right, you and Chris do, I do. It's very clear to us. So the more we focus on our purpose in this moment, it could be said whatever the question, now is the answer. You said there, we talked about sort of the life as a school and lessons to learn. Could you give us just a couple of those lessons and also elaborate on something

I've heard you say, which is that the lessons get harder until you learn them, which I think is interesting if I apply that to certain areas in my life that you might say are challenging. Are they getting more challenging because there's something that I'm not learning? Well, if we don't learn the easy lessons, they tend to get more dramatic to get our attention. So that's why I say it's a perfect school. Yes, someone might say, okay, fine, Dan. Yeah, the idea makes sense to me that life is a kind of school, and I know more than I did, and I understand. I had better perspective than when I was 14 years old.

But if life is a school, what courses do we have to pass in order to graduate? And that's a fair question. And as it turns out, from what I've seen, I would propose that there are 12 different courses every one of us is already working on through our relationships, the work we do, our health and physical issues. Through the challenges of everyday life, we're gradually starting to see those 12 areas. And essentially, to recite them very briefly, and by the way, there is another online course at my website called Master the Path of the Peaceful Warrior, which goes through all these 12 areas. Each week, people get a new lesson on each of these, and they are in a list. Discovering our worth, which tends to help us avoid self-sabotage.

The second class we're here to learn about in daily life is reclaiming our will and learning what that's about. The third is energizing our body, a major element for many people. And those form the foundation for all that follow, including managing our money, taming our mind. And I have a very different take than the traditional say Buddhistic approach the sixth area is trusting our intuition which really is about balancing our brains because we tend to be left brain heavy in our culture and we need to start to trust our intuition and feel our way sense our way in life as well as a boxer you, you know that. You can't think what's going to happen.

You know, Mike Tyson said, first you make a plan, then you get hit. And then the last six courses are accept our emotions, face our fears, illuminate our shadow, which is about self-knowledge. Then comes embrace our sexuality, then awaken our heart, and the final one is serve our world, which brings all of them full circle. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer.

We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. does tom cruise really do his own stunts his stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's going to drop by mr brian cranson is with us how are you hello my friend wayne knight about jurassic park wayne knight welcome to really no really sir bless you all hello newman and you never know when howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really. No really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So if life is a school and, you know, those are the classes, what is graduation? Is there graduation? Is there a, in your sense, a reason behind, you know, I'm teaching my son to drive and, you know, the reason is so that he will be successful on the road and he can drive himself around. Do you, does your work go into why?

Or is that really, is that more sort of life purpose and everybody's to figure out? Well, whenever anybody asks me an either or question, I usually answer both. But I'd have to say that, I mean, you're asking a very fundamental question in a philosophical sense of what does graduation represent? Of course, I'm drawing an analogy, and no analogy is exact. And in some traditions, look, we live in two worlds. We live in a conventional world of daily life, doing the duties and things we do and playing our roles in everyday life. But there is a transcendental realm as well, that many of the writers and teachers from the Taoist masters to

the Buddhists to the Tibetan masters to people like Thoreau, Emerson, the transcendentalist writers, Chuang Tzu, Lao Tzu, the Greeks and Romans, Epictetus, Plato, Socrates, they were all pointing toward the transcendent. And people move to religion when they are genuinely pulled into it, not just raised in a particular religion, but when they gravitate toward a religion or a spiritual practice, it reflects a yearning for the transcendent. To not rise above, but to see through and completely surrender to the world, but to start to see the divine realm shining through, We start to see the divine realm shining through, that sense of okayness, as a profound reminder that it is all right, that wherever we step, the path appears beneath our feet. And each of these realms has its own truths.

For example, in the conventional world, death is absolutely real. We've seen it. I've seen my father die. I know the before and after. And we grieve those we lose, depending on how old they are and so on. In the conventional world, we are separate, individuated beings. If I bang my toe, it doesn't hurt you, unless you're highly empathic. And if I have a feeling or a thought, you probably don't have the same one at the same time. So emotionally, mentally, and physically, we're separate, individuated beings. We could

also say that accidents happen in the conventional world. We knock a glass of liquid over because we're not paying attention. But from a transcendental view, there are no accidents, only lessons. From a transcendental view, we are all one because we're the same consciousness or awareness shining through all these different eyes. And from a transcendental view, death is an illusion because who we are was never born and never dies, which is pure awareness or consciousness. Now, saying these words doesn't make it true. The challenge is realizing it, realizing it as a living truth where it penetrates us. And often we burst out with laughter when we get the joke, the punchline to the cosmic joke, you know.

So these are two realms in which we live. And that's important to understand when we talk about what does graduation mean. So from a conventional view, graduation is maybe success, a sense of fulfillment, functioning well in life, feeling happy as a default mode, even though all kinds of emotions come and go naturally. That represents a full and mature human being. But from a transcendental view, graduation is absolute, nothing less than realization, the complete transcendence of the usual beliefs, thoughts, and ideas that create suffering and attachment and clinging and resistance. But talking about it is one thing, as you pointed out,

and living it and realizing it is another. Some people use psychotropic substances to get a preview of coming attractions. And others, and that's fine for those who go that path. I've never recommended drugs as recreational activities, but as a sacred practice, it can be extremely useful, depending on the person, the place, and the time. But others do spiritual practices and contemplate and meditate, do inner work to clear what's in the way of that obvious truth that's right in front of our nose. And I think it's interesting that, you know, I've, you know, you've said, and a lot of other people have said this, sort of, even once

you, should you get far enough down the road or grasp that transcendental truth, that life is still life right after that. You know, it's sort of, you know, before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. I think you have a good story in The Peaceful Warrior to some degree about that. So it sounds like what you're saying is even with that full realization, you still remain in this other realm. Exactly. And again, conventionally speaking, enlightenment makes almost no difference. You might feel a bit less stress. You might be a

little more relaxed, breathe a little deeper, smile a bit more, have a good sense of humor, not take yourself as seriously. But except for those qualities, it's not visible. It's not obvious. People think someone is going to be shining and glowing and have mysterious powers. No, it doesn't make much of a difference conventionally speaking. Transcendentally speaking, everything changes. It makes all the difference in the world. And those who've had a glimpse of it say this is the most important thing in life, period. But on the other hand, you talk about a path. We tend to picture things in a journey. We're here, we want to be there, but the seeking only reinforces the sense of dilemma

that set us seeking in the first place. In truth, there is no journey. It's a journey without distance, coming back to exactly who we are right now, the simplicity of it. Great. Do you want to spend a minute and talk about, uh, the, your, your latest book that you wrote with your daughter? I'd love to mention it. Uh, it's been a real labor of love on many levels. Um, the creative compass is certainly for writers, any writer, and there are many, many books on writing. Let me acknowledge that. Uh, the feedback we're getting is this is, this covers it all. Um, and it's And it's not a huge book, but it really does touch upon the entire creative journey. So even if people don't see themselves as writers,

we all write, we all tell stories every day. And this helps us to understand when we create anything, it goes through these five stages of dream, draft, develop, refine, and share. And the creative compass takes people and guides them like a compass along that journey, along that whole path. And I learned a lot writing the book myself. And so it's been a, you know, I think Sierra and I combined wrote a better book than either one of us could have written on our own. I think Sierra and I combined wrote a better book than either one of us could have written on our own.

So quite proud of it. And we're doing book signings and so on regarding the book. And there's a link to it on the website as well. And she has a wonderful blog on our journey together, creating this book at her website. But I link to it on my homepage. So there we are. But thank you for letting me mention that. Yeah, maybe just share a second. I mean, I, you know, having having kids, I can imagine how wonderful it would be to sort of create something like that with your child. Can you just share a

little bit about what that experience was like for you? Not so much what the book's about, but but what it was like working with your daughter? Sure. When she was young, I would edit her work. I would review it and make comments and suggestions. And as she got older, her writing got stronger and stronger and she took in much of the advice that I gave her and that other people gave her. And she had a very good education at Stanford, Medill Journalism School, a master's in journalism, lived in Lebanon and became proficient in speaking,

reading, and writing in Arabic. Phi Beta Kappa. She was, again, a very good educational foundation. And so I'd been thinking about doing a writing book for some years that I might be able to write something original that hadn't been said. Um, but it was still kind of a vague, but sticky idea. Uh, it stayed with me for a decade. And finally I decided, yay, it's time to write this book.

And it was a perfectly natural thing to ask Sierra on this particular book, if she might collaborate with me. And we were both glad that it turned out that way. We have very different processes in working, but that helped us appreciate the process of every writer, that it may be different. So that's why the subtitle is Writing Your Way, subtitle is Writing Your Way, From Inspiration to Publication. Excellent. Do you have anything, Dan, that you feel like we should cover that's relevant to our podcast and our theme that we haven't talked about? You know, I feel like we've covered an immense amount of material, actually, and I hope any listeners might want to go back and listen to it a second time because many of us, it's like we're listening, but we're not necessarily hearing.

We can only hear through perceptual filters the way we see the world. And so little by little, it sinks in. We don't just learn something, we learn it deeper and then deeper until it penetrates us. So there have been some, as I think you appreciate, some seminal ideas we've touched upon today. And, you know, they say you teach what you need to learn. I must have needed to learn a lot after 17 books. So I think it's important. I just leave your listeners with the importance of trusting the process of their life unfolding and where they are right now. And wherever we step, the path is going to appear beneath our feet. Exactly. And I think we did cover, you know, I think we covered about three or four books of your material very quickly. So I would also encourage listeners to go out and

read some of that stuff in more depth. And we'll have all that, links to all that on our show notes on the site. Dan, thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to have you on the show. I've been, like I said, your work meant a lot to me a long time ago, still does. And I'm really happy we could get you on here. I do many interviews, Eric. This is one of my favorites. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. You can find more information on Dan and this episode in our show notes at oneufeed.net slash Dan.