The One You Feed - Greg Marcus

Episode Date: January 25, 2017

Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Greg Marcus about the spiritual practice of Mussar Greg Marcus has a BA in Biology from Cornell University, and earned his Ph.D. in biology from MIT.  He worked for ten years as a marketer in the Silicon Valley genomics industry, after which he became a stay-at-home dad, writer, life balance coach, and biotech consultant. Greg’s first book, Busting Your Corporate Idol: Self-Help for the Chronically Overworked, is a five star Amazon best seller. His latest book is called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions: Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Mussar In This Interview, Greg Marcus and I Discuss... The One You Feed parable His book, The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions: Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Mussar Mussar: A Thousand Year Old Hebrew Spiritual Practice Soul Traits That you can be too truthful and it can  be counter productive That being untruthful to spare yourself embarrassment is not ok That being untruthful to spare someone else's feelings can be ok And the intention is the most important determiner of whether or not to tell the truth Choice points The evil inclination and the good inclination Mussar helps us by opening the space between "the match and the fuse" That we all have free will but it's not always accessible to us What qualifies as an act of kindness Mussar = "Extreme Spiritual Fitness" Morning Mantra, Daily observations and practices, Evening journaling Mussar helps you specialize and deepen your knowledge and practice of the Soul Traits The four assumptions of Mussar: We all have a divine spark that is occluded by our baggage We all have the same Soul Traits but we have different amounts of each We have a conflict between the good inclination and the evil inclination We all have free will and it's not always accessible to us That patience is the cure for helplessness Mussar: repairing the Soul Traits within us and how it can help the world     Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just because it's true doesn't mean you need to say it. 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.

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Greg Marcus. Greg has a B.A. in biology from Cornell University and earned his PhD in biology from MIT. He worked for 10 years as a marketer in the Silicon Valley genomics industry, after which he became a stay-at-home dad, writer, life balance coach, and biotech consultant. Greg's first book, Busting Your Corporate Idol, Self-Help for the Chronically Overworked, is a five-star Amazon bestseller. His latest book is called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions, Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Musar. Go to oneufeed.net slash support and make a monthly donation. Our goal is to get to 5% of our listeners supporting the show.

Please be part of the 5% that make a contribution and allow us to keep putting out these interviews and ideas. We really need your help to make the show sustainable and long-lasting. Again, that's oneufeed.net slash support. Thank you in advance for your help. And here's the interview with Greg Marcus. Hi, Greg. Welcome to the show. Hey, Eric. Pleasure to be here. I'm excited to have you on.

You wrote a book called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions, Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Musar. And I'm really excited to get into more of that. There's a lot in the book that falls right in the heart of what we talk about on the show. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.

He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, the first time I heard that parable, I was just blown away. I think it is great. And it is

so similar to one of the core and fundamental Musar teachings, which is that inside of us, there's a battle between the good inclination and the evil inclination. And those are translated from Hebrew terms. And the evil, it's not like the kind of terrorist sort of evil. It's more like selfishness and fears and those things that come from our reptilian brain. And the good inclination are those parts of our personality that come from the prefrontal cortex, like generosity and caring about others. And all the time, we're on the crux, and there's a battle that takes place between the two. And part of our job in Musar is to train the good inclination to guide the evil inclination. There's a famous teaching in the Talmud that says

that once the rabbis trapped the evil inclination and everybody rejoiced until they noticed that nobody went to work, the chickens stopped laying eggs. So it's really a fundamental part of who we are. It's just when the evil inclination runs amok, that's where we really get into trouble. And you gave it away a little bit there by mentioning the Talmud, but what is Musar? So Musar is a thousand-year-old Jewish spiritual practice that teaches us how to find those things inside that cause us to get stuck in the same situation again and again. And it offers a path towards balance and healing through mindful living and taking mindful actions in everyday life. And so I'm going to summarize it very briefly here,

and then we can get into it in a lot more detail, and you can correct me with what I get wrong. But what you do is you come up with a series of what you call soul traits. Another term for them might be virtues or good characteristics that you spend a certain amount of time on. In your case, in the book, you talk about doing each one for two weeks, one for two weeks, the next for two weeks, and you sort of meditate on and reflect on and act upon those, and then you repeat the whole cycle again the next year. An analogy is similar, and you made it in the book yourself, to Ben Franklin sort of tracking of his virtues on a calendar. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly correct. And not only is it similar to Ben Franklin,

it's actually derived from Ben Franklin. So Musar itself goes back a thousand years, but for most of its history, it was kind of a branch of theoretical study or Jewish philosophy on how to live a good life, and what role does anger have in a good life, and what role does jealousy, or when is there too much patience. But in the 19th century in Lithuania, Rabbi Israel Solentor started a Musar movement, which was, how can we actually practice this in community? How can we tie this theoretical study towards kind of a systematic discipline? And one of the key books that he referenced was called Accounting of the Soul. And that book was basically a Jewish version of Ben Franklin's system and autobiography. So it was Ben Franklin who invented the morning

mantra, and he invented this idea of journaling every night. And this was adopted into this larger Musar framework and philosophy. I didn't glean that from the book. I recognized the similarities, but I must have not followed it carefully enough that Ben Franklin actually had a direct influence. One of the things that I loved the most about the book, besides you already touched on the fact that right at the heart of it is this battle between two forces, is that when you talk about a soul trait, so I'll give an example, one might be humility, that you guys are looking at it from a perspective of what I call the middle way, where I didn't call it, the Buddha calls it the middle way, right? The sense that too much humility or too little humility

gets you in trouble. Too much courage, too little courage gets you into trouble. And so you're searching for that midpoint along the line, which I'm always so attracted to, because I just found for myself, there's so much wisdom in that trying to find the middle way. It was a real eye opener for me. And when I look at the soul trait, like truth, for example, I mean, my natural inclination is to kind of be truthful to a fault. And I felt like, hey, as long as I was telling the truth, you know, I was gonna, you know, I was in the corporate world for many years, I'm going to be blunt, I'm going to tell it like it is. But the problem is when you get into too much truth is that you can lose sight of kindness and that you can really hurt people. It can actually be counterproductive to be too truthful. You know, just because it's true doesn't mean you

need to say it. One of the things to follow that idea of truth a little bit that I was struck by in the book was the idea within Judaism that sometimes not telling the truth, if done for the right reasons, is okay. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? I just thought it was, I was kind of struck by it. I believe it, but I just hadn't seen it espoused before. It's funny, I was just, happened to be at a bat mitzvah, and the teenager gave a little Torah teaching, and she talked about this. And the way that she summarized was that if you're going to be untruthful, it can't be just for yourself. You know, being untruthful to just spare yourself embarrassment is not okay. But if you're looking to spare someone else's feelings, then it can be okay. If you're trying to keep, like a traditional

teaching is, is that if you're trying to keep peace within your house, it's okay to be a little bit untruthful. Yeah, I agree with it, and it's such a slippery slope. It's such a, well, I just won't mention that because it'll make somebody uncomfortable, and I've gotten myself into trouble by, if I tell them that, it's just going to upset them, so I won't tell them that. So I've gotten myself into trouble by, if I tell him that, it's just going to upset him, so I won't tell him that. So I've gotten myself in trouble with that, but I do believe there's some truth in the core idea. And I think, like you said, it really comes from what's the real intention, if we are really honest and dig deep in ourselves. What's really the intention here? It is a slippery slope, because we're very good at rationalizations and something where we can rationalize it to ourself.

It's like, oh, it's just going to upset the other person. It's like, well, yeah, maybe they're going to be upset because I did something where I really messed up. Like there was once when I was, as you said, in Musar, we practiced the soul trait for a couple of weeks at a time. And there was once I was practicing truth and I was supposed to drive my daughter and a friend of hers to a play. And I'm so embarrassed. I can't believe I'm going to share this example, but I was playing Candy Crush. And I was so addicted to that stupid game that I looked up, and I was late picking up her friend. We were actually late to the play.

And I was mortified, but I'm like, you know what? I'm practicing truth. So I was honest. I'm like, you know, girls, I am so, so sorry. I was playing this stupid video game. And I lost track of time. And now we're late. And I really let you down. And I'm sorry. But at least by telling the truth, I could give them a lesson that's like, hey, you know, you get too into video games that can have negative consequences. games that can have negative consequences. And so I deleted it from my iPad. I never played it again because maybe some other time in the future, if I'd kind of gotten away with it, so to speak, I could have gotten in even more trouble by making that same mistake again. So at least I took my medicine and learned my lesson. Now you're on to Farmville for 18 hours a day. Now you're on to Farmville for 18 hours a day.

That's right. My kids are always like, Dad, why don't we get a Wii or something? And I'm like, because I'll play it all the time. That's why we're not going to get it. Oh, I can barely mess with Solitaire as a game. I mean, no joke. I had a break.

I had a week off after the holidays. And I was like, you know, I'm just going to relax a little bit. Like, I work all the time, whether it's on the show or other things. Like, I go, go, go, and I never really play, so I'm just going to play a little solitaire. And I put it on my phone, and I swear, I had to take it off. I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, it's solitaire, but for whatever reason, to use the Mussar term, it's the evil inclination. Not really evil, like you said, but certainly not furthering the direction I want to be going in. I got to find the middle way with solitaire. One of the things that you talk about in the book is this concept of choice points. Can you tell us what a choice point is? You know, as we go through our life, again, it comes back to the evil inclination or the good inclination or the white wolf and the dark wolf. You know, some parts of our lives, we're generally just going to be on automatic pilot and we're going to do the right thing. And in other parts of our lives, we're going to be on automatic pilot and we're going to

do the wrong thing. You know, I'm in the habit of cutting corners or maybe I'm going to spin the truth for the customers or something. And I don't even think about it. I'm going to spin the truth for the customers or something. And I don't even think about it. But sometimes there are certain parts of our life where we can go either way. And then we're at a choice point.

And we can do the right thing or we can do the wrong thing. And a big, big part of Musar is trying to become more present and more awake and creating more choice points so that we can really decide. And, you know, if you're going to do the wrong thing, at least you might as well be conscious about it. And you might as well go on with your eyes open. But the more awake you are, the more likely it is that you're going to do the right thing. Thank you. 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 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. 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. Brian Cranston is with us tonight. 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. Hey, everyone.

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lot of you buy their books, just go to our show page for it first, click the link there, and we'll get a few cents of it. And that does add up over time. So thank you everybody so much for all the support that you've given us. We appreciate it and talk to you later. And here's the rest of the interview with Greg Marcus. I think that's part of what makes the system so great is if I'm focusing on a particular soul trait or again a virtue or a character trait, if I'm focusing on it, I'm more likely to see those choice points than I would if I wasn't. And I won't begin to try and pronounce the rabbi's name who said this, but the rabbi said that Musar helps give us more time by opening the space between the match and the fuse, which is a great line. The one I usually use is another

great Jewish man, Frankl, who said, between stimulus and response. You know, how do we increase that time between the match and the fuse or between stimulus and response so that those choice points become more evident and we do have more choice. That's right. And one of the things I also talk about in the book is free will. And one of the things that I like to teach is that we all have free will, but it's not always accessible to us. And if like my wife or my kids do something that kind of makes me mad and I start yelling or I get angry, like in theory, I have free will, but the stuff is out of my mouth before I even think about it. And so this idea of increasing

that time between the match and the fuse, just being able to slow it down and avoiding, or it's like that, you know, one email you send at night and then it upsets somebody and you spend your next day kind of digging yourself out, you know, that I used to do when I was in the corporate world, like those kinds of things where you just get a little more impulse control can make your life a lot better. Yep. And for me, that's one of the things I think meditation has done for me is allowed that space to increase just a little bit. There seems just to be a little bit more pause between, you know, something happens to me and I react. Not all the time. And I think you're absolutely right. I'm fascinated by the idea of free will, both in the way that you just said it,

which is once I get to a certain emotional state, I'm kind of beyond that. I've heard it described psychologically as being flooded. You're just at a point where whatever part of your brain that's going to act rational is offline, and all you can do is de-escalate. I'm also really interested in free will. We had Dr. Gabor Mate on the show, whose basic idea is that most addiction is a result of trauma, and depending on the extent of trauma, how much free will is really there with what has happened to the mind up to that point. I just think it's an interesting concept to think through. It is fascinating. And I think, you know,

there's a temptation when people write about free will almost to get in these kind of arguments, like, well, people have free will or they don't have free will. And even people who believe in free will, it doesn't mean you always have free will. It's just, you know, we all, we have instincts and we have things that are hardwired biologically. That's right. I agree. I read people who, you know, insist we have complete free will. And I have read people who insist there is no free will at all. Scientifically, it's not possible. And I tend to come down like I do on a lot of things. Like I think it's somewhere in between those two things. Yeah. It's interesting stuff. What I like about Musa and what's been so powerful and life-changing though, is it

puts it in a context that makes it relative to everyday life. I mean, we've all lost it. You know, we've all lost our cool and we all know that all things being equal, we're probably better off keeping our cool. Right. So having a practice or something to do to help you keep your cool or to help you to kind of proactively be a really good person too. Like part of Musar is like this whole trait of enthusiasm. It's like, how can I go the extra mile for somebody? You know, how can I do that extra thing where it's not like, yeah, I did the minimum, but wow, I could really do something nice for somebody if I'm just kind of keep my eyes open and pay attention. Well, I was struck by in the section about kindness, how another rabbi was saying, well, if you're going the same direction that somebody is already going and you help them carry their heavy load, that doesn't really count. It only counts if you're going the other direction.

I was like, boy, that's a high standard. You know, that's really going the extra mile. That's a very counterintuitive teaching for a lot of people. And part of what the rabbi was teaching us there is that, well, if you're not going to help the person who's going in the same direction, then you're kind of a jerk. You know, you should, of course, you're going to help the guy who's going in that direction. But to do what's called loving kindness, the Hebrew word is called chesed, and it's mentioned like 263 times in the Torah. It's like this very high standard, and the idea is that the whole world is built on these acts of loving kindness. I had an example of that where I was in the library and this young woman came up to me and she said, it was in December, and she says,

you know, I'm taking my final exams on my computer and I'm about to run out of power. Can I borrow your computer cord? So I said, sure, no problem. But I'm leaving in five minutes. So I thought about it and I was feeling very awake, you know, and very aware. And I said, well, I only live a couple blocks away. Just take it, give it to the person at the front desk, and I'll come back later for it. And I gave her my card. And so I came back in an hour, and her computer was all charged up, and she was really happy. And I don't share this only to tell you like what a really cool guy I am because I was, I just had an opportunity to really make somebody's day. And there would have been many, many times, you know, this week I might not have even noticed that opportunity.

I would have been like, oh geez, sorry, I gotta, I gotta go. But that's the kind of thing where you totally make somebody's day and you totally bail them out. And that's what really makes the world a better place is those kind of above and beyond acts. I have a list of things that I know are good for me to do on a semi-regular basis. And I just try and check them off a list each day. You know, what should I do? Meditation. And one of them is an act of kindness. And I often find myself at the end of the day going, did that count? Like, I kind of stumbled into that one. Like, exactly like you said, like, if I hadn't done that, I think I would just be a jerk. I don't think I get kindness points for just doing the bare minimum. So, you know, I usually am like,

no, I have to actually initiate or go out of my way a little bit in order for me to get credit. Not that credit matters to anyone except me and my little system, but it makes me think about it. Thank you so much for sharing that, because that is a really great example. Because, you know, one of the most important things is that you do think about it. And yeah, maybe you don't get kindness points, but it's still okay that you did it. It reminds me a lot of kind of the Moosar journaling, because then at the end of the day, you know, we're focusing on our trait, and then we would sit and journal about that. And you might say, okay, well, did I do everything I could? Does that count? Does that not count? And it's just by that act of reflecting, each time we reflect changes our soul a little bit and helps us move more towards that direction of the good inclination. Or to use the parable, we're feeding the white

wolf when we do that. Yeah. I referenced it very quickly at the beginning, sort of the practice of Musar, but can you walk through sort of how you do it at a high level real quick? So one of my friends calls Musar extreme spiritual fitness. And the idea is that the soul is something that's really hard to understand. So to kind of get our arms around it, we look at soul traits, where it's just one part of the soul, and we focus on that part for two weeks at a time. So it's kind of like going to the gym, and today I'm going to work on my arms, and the next day I'll work on my legs. So when we're focusing on a soul trait, it's something like humility, patience, what have you,

we'll begin in the morning with like a mantra, or it's also called a recitation phrase. Like, for example, for patience, I think the mantra is, this too shall pass, and I have the strength to get by until it does. And he would say that out loud for a couple of minutes. And it's funny, saying it out loud is really important, because usually after about a minute, I start to feel the resistance coming up, like, why am I still doing this? And that tells me, okay, I'm actually making an impression on my subconscious. opportunities. And you might pick like one specific area that you're going to work on. Like one of my students, when she was working on patients, she was a cut you off, curse everybody out, New York City type of driver. And she said, you know what, I'm going to let everybody merge in front of me. So she let everybody merge. And she said like almost within a day or two,

she became like calm and happy whenever she was driving to work. And then at night, you journal about it. And it could just be a couple of sentences and you say, okay, well, where was I challenged? Did I meet the challenge? Did I not meet the challenge? And over time, we make small gradual steps in that direction of balance. That practice can be so helpful. I think I do it less consciously now and less formally, but being in a recovery program, there's the idea of the 10th step, which is at the end of the day, you sort of take a look at how you did today on these things and you make amends for anything that you messed up. And so doing that every day in a sense of sitting

down and writing about it for so long was such a huge thing to me, almost to the point that those things happen a lot more naturally now. But I really like the idea in Musar of digging deep in one particular area for a period of time versus sort of maybe looking at a higher level, looking at a bunch of traits every day. I think there's something to be said for that deeper view. It really does help to be specialized. And we kind of start to notice patterns. And sometimes there's a trait we're going in, I'm really trepidatious about it. And then it turns out to be really rewarding. And other times, there's a trait where I think it's going to be no big deal. And it turns out to be really challenging just because that's where I happen to be at this point in my life. So there's also something to be said for just having a cycle that you always go through because then you're going to come across some area where you have an issue very quickly. And it's almost mystical the way sometimes like just whatever soul trait I'm

working on seems to be the one that I really need to be working on at that time. So that's kind of interesting too. 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. 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, 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.

Earlier, you referenced that there are three assumptions in Musar, and you talked about one of them. It's assumption number three, which is, we all have free will, but it's not always accessible. Can you talk about the other two? And the way you did this was these assumptions sort of underlie a lot of the soul traits also. So to step back, Judaism has been around for thousands of years.

And there's many, you know, there's so many writings. And there's a lot of really good Musar books that are out there as well. But I wanted to make this super accessible. And so someone who either wasn't Jewish or was Jewish but didn't have a lot of literacy, I wanted them to be able to get started pretty quickly. My background was in the business world, and when we'd make a financial forecast, you would make assumptions. So you'd say, okay, well, this number of customers come in, and on average, they're going to spend this amount, and therefore, I can expect these outcomes. So I said, well, why not create assumptions around Musar? So people can, maybe they agree, maybe they don't agree, but if we just say, all right, let's just assume this is

true and see where it takes us. So the first assumption is that we all have a divine spark, which is occluded by our baggage. Now, for people who are unsure about the divinity, you can think of this as like the core goodness of being human. But we all have the same spark of goodness. And from a spiritual perspective, we're all equal in that regard. And we also have baggage. We have those hurts that happen to us during our lives. And the baggage kind of blocks this light. It blocks this divine spark. And in Musar, we try to move the bags a little bit and we let our goodness shine through or we learn to recognize the goodness in other people. So that's the first assumption. And then the second assumption is that we all have the same soul traits, but we have different amounts of each.

So you might think of someone who's very miserly. They still have the soul trait of generosity. It's just very much out of balance. And then there are actually four assumptions. So the third assumption is that we have this conflict between the good inclination and the evil inclination. And so then our fourth assumption is that we all have free will and it's not always accessible. So that third assumption, that's the one that I talked about with the parable, where we have this conflict between the good inclination and the evil inclination. I'm not even trying with these rabbis' last names, but yet another rabbi, he said that the evil inclination works not only to lure us to do the wrong thing, it also works to prevent us from doing the right thing. And I find that so true. So often, at least in my life, it's been much less

grievous things that I do in my behavior. I start to worry more about sins of omission versus commission at this point. Yeah, and that can function on a number of levels. Like, it's very tempting to look at the biggest instance of that. Like, oh yeah, I need to do, like getting flowers for a loved one or cleaning up after ourselves or, you know, these small kindnesses and opportunities to really connect with or to help other people. Those are the things that can make a difference between like a ho-hum life and a life of just love and joy and connection. I agree. I think that makes such a big difference. One of the themes of the show, I think, is that a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. Do something. Start where you are. Do what you can.

That's right. Also, that is so important because I'm always hesitant to give examples. I give a lot of examples in the book, but I also try to keep them really small scale. Because if you think that you need to suddenly become Mother Teresa in order to be a good person, that's too big a jump. That's too big a change to make. But if you can find one small action, just starting from where you are today, you're working on generosity. starting from where you are today, you know, you're working on generosity. Instead of giving the barista at Starbucks a 25 cent tip, give a 50 cent tip. Just make a step, just make a conscious step in that direction towards generosity. And that's all we're required to do is to take that next step. In the book, one of the soul traits is patience.

And you say that patience is the cure for helplessness. Help me understand that a little bit better. Okay. So sometimes in life, we are just hit with things that we have no control over. We get cancer, we get an illness, we are just stuck in traffic and no amount of honking on the horn or tears is going to change that reality. And so patience is a gift from the divine. When there's nothing else that's left, when we can't take any actions, we can still exercise our patience to help us get through that situation. The word for patience in Hebrew has the same root as the Hebrew word for the guy who carries your luggage

in Israel. Or it says in the Torah that God delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. And it was the same idea of bearing the burden. So it's just like being able to endure the situation until it passes. Interesting. I haven't explored it a lot, but I've always been incredibly impressed every time I dig into Judaism a little bit about how much wisdom and very practical wisdom is there. And one of my very favorite things that I've heard is the idea that our mission is to repair the world. That's right. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What role that plays and how that applies for you?

Yeah, so thanks for asking that, because there is this idea that it's our mission is to make the world a better place. And there are some very mystical and esoteric teachings about that. And there are also some very, very practical ones. So you can look at it on an ultra local level. It's like, how can I repair the hurts within my family? How can I make my community a better place? You can go all the way to how do I make the world a better place through lobbying the government or just volunteering. There's sort of another teaching which is less well-known, which is also repairing the self. And that's what Musar is all about. It's about, the Hebrew phrases are very similar, it's like repairing the soul traits. And the idea is that if we can't take care of our own issues, if we can't come to our own point of balance,

we're not going to be showing up in the world as like a mensch, this person of outstanding character. And the more that we can show up as a really good person, the better job we're going to do repairing the world. Excellent. Well, I think that's a great place to wrap up. Greg, thanks so much for coming on. I really did enjoy the book. Like I said, every time I've explored Judaism a little bit more, I really did enjoy the book. Like I said, every time I've explored Judaism a little bit more, I walk away more impressed and wanting to learn more. And I love the Musar idea and how practical and simple it is to try and make steady improvement in life. So thanks for the book, and thanks for coming on. Oh, you're so welcome. It was my pleasure. Okay. Talk to you later.net slash Marcus. If what you just heard was helpful to you,

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