The One You Feed - Julien Smith

Episode Date: August 12, 2014

This week we talk to Julien Smith.Julien Smith is the CEO of Breather, an on-demand space company, as well as the New York Times bestselling author of three books. Two of these, Trust Agents and The Impact Equation, were written with Chris Brogan (a previous guest). The third, The Flinch, has consistently remained one of the top read Kindle books since it was published in 2011.Julien has been an author, a CEO, a professional voice actor, a radio broadcaster, and a consultant and speaker at some of the largest corporations in the world, including Google, Microsoft, American Express, Heineken International, and more. His work has also appeared in Cosmopolitan, GQ, CNN, and a host of other publications. His online work has been read by millions, literally.  In This Interview Julien and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.Building the habits to become the person you want to be.The difference between his life as an author and his life as a CEO of a start-up company.How hard it is to focus on personal development in the midst of a very busy, hectic life.His new company, Breather.The value in changing everything about yourself once in awhile.The Flinch.How often we talk about doing things but never do them.The hidden, unknown thing that stops us from doing things.We learn lessons the best when we are burned by them.Experiencing something is very different than hearing about it.How what we do now reinforces what we will do next time.New ideas come from looking at new things in new ways.Everything we do right now makes us into the person we are.Learning to recognize the flight or flight response as it happens.The power of tiny habits.Breaking things down into the smallest possible chunks.Using the principle of momentum.How we want the glory without the suffering.How there is no courage without fear.Eliminating the pointless, cowardly and habitual in favor of the useful.Making the choice to train ourselves.Remembering that we are making choices every day.Julien Smith LinksJulien Smith homepageBreather Buy Julien's booksJulien on Twitter Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:Kino MacGregorStrand of OaksMike Scott of the WaterboysTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At one point in your life, you should definitely change absolutely everything about you and see what it's like. See how it goes. 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 No 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 reallynoreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Julian Smith, CEO of Breather, an on-demand relaxation company that helps you find beautiful, practical spaces that you can reserve on the go. Julian is also a New York Times bestselling author of three books. Two of these, Trust Agents and The Impact Equation, were written with one of our other fantastic guests, Chris Brogan. The third book, called The Flinch, has consistently remained one of the top

read Kindle books since it was published in 2011. Julian's online work has been read by millions. Here's the interview. Hi, Julian. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm glad to have you. I'm a big fan of your book, The Flinch, and I've read it several times. It's really wonderful. Thank you. I appreciate that. I put enough work into it. I hope that it was good at the end. I'm happy you liked it. Yes. So our podcast is based on the parable of two wolves where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson, and 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 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 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 and writing that you do. Yeah. So i'm familiar with the parable and i don't know uh what does it mean to me i think that i think it's just more about

reinforcing habits at its core like try i'm i'm really uh it's very easy to sort of fall into that kind of magical thinking or whatever but to sort of bring it down to its core message which is really about like like build the habits that you even if you're not that person build the habits so that you can become that person that you want to be right and uh and that's a sort of that's a quest that can last a lifetime and maybe even should uh which is why I think that story is very insightful and true and can be told probably over, you know, we'll still tell that story to our kids and they'll tell it to their kids maybe. Exactly. And so what are some of those habits you think that are important for you that you work to build to help you be the person you want to be? It's funny because you're asking me

so directly and I'm so not used to being asked directly so so the the answer is uh what am i constantly working towards i have a million different habits that i'm trying to build at any given time and i you know if you so and when i wrote that book the flinch it was published in 2011 it's a totally different place than where I am now. So I'll try to explain that difference so that you, the listener, can appreciate exactly what it is that is different and how that sort of impacts your life. So in 2011, I was starting weightlifting, parkour, and a bunch of really physical activities. And basically, the book goes into this detail about how the physical action of flinching is akin to the psychological behavior that we've developed to shy away from challenge. And we do that over a period of a whole lifetime. So what I did then is I wrote books for a living. I got advances from publishing companies, and I would just write about ideas that I thought were really interesting. And my life did not – it only had the challenges that I decided to put into it. into like physical exercise and training and all these things. Also, I was right, challenging myself to write a book that was incredibly difficult and, and, and hard to, to become,

to make it as pure as I could. And I hope I've succeeded at that. To contrast that to what I do now, I run a startup with several million dollars in funding that I started. That was a crazy idea that no one believed in. And now that's, that has a great deal that no one believed in and now that's that has a great deal of its own momentum in the public eye and uh and I have 10 employees and I'm going to 30 employees and so I have a totally different life than I had three years ago and I can just see all of my habits breaking down so I was so good at like I'm so good at taking care of myself and eating properly and all these like positivity things like it was very much in that soul self-help kind of mindset but trying to remove any magical thinking out of it and uh now i still am that person who

cares about those things but i i understand when people are like i just don't have the time and all those things so i'm i'm in this to combat those things i've developed a series of really strong habits which was like certain you know time very rigorous like time to wake up check email certain time inbox zero every day uh you know i have a gratitude diary like all these that are almost like religious rituals to keep me sane and i mean i don't know if i have a bunch of them but uh it just speaks to how under stress you can become a totally different person which is not at all the person that you want to be if you're not careful oh i i. There's nothing like a startup to, uh, to sink all your, your normal, normal good habits. And there is a real, I think everybody that's not, not just

startups or entrepreneurs, but anybody who is working really hard on something, being able to do those other things that are for lack of a better word, more nourishing to our, to our spirit or to our, to our, uh, you to our mental and emotional health and our body, those things fall away pretty quickly. And I agree, there's a lot of discipline involved in trying to stay on top of those things. It's a constant challenge. It totally is. And it really, the great irony of that whole thing actually is that the book that you were talking about at the beginning of this program is a book where you're trying to develop the habit of challenging yourself. and it's become a huge part of my life now. I was like, my God, this is the hardest thing that I could possibly ever think of doing.

It looks like it's doable, but it's incredibly difficult and incredibly arduous, and it's going to take five years or something like that, for sure at least. But I had written the book, and the book said, do the hardest thing that you could possibly imagine doing, and otherwise, what kind of like what kind of person are you really right you know and and so i had no choice but to but to become that person even though i wasn't that person you know turning myself into a ceo and turning myself

into you know like a like almost like a therapist talking to people that i work with and you know like and while maintaining my relationship and all these things. So I was very much like, I like to think that I had some authenticity in being a talker then, but I was really a talker. Now I've become a doer. And the ability to go and just like, that's going to be incredibly hard and it's going to be a challenge, let's go, has really become a way of life for me. let's go has really become a way of life for me. Well, it certainly serves you well in starting a business or being a CEO. Do you want to tell us briefly about what your new business is? I mean, I worked on it for a year and a half. So I mean, you can look it up if you want. It's

called Breather, like take a breather. And we provide like a sort of a network of rooms you can unlock with your phone at any time. I don't want to pitch it, but you can look it up. It's at breather.com. It's doing super well. It's growing really fast. It's definitely one of those things where maybe it speaks to the message of this show, which is maybe listening to yourself and all these things is really one of those things where you're starting something. And everyone was like,

that is totally stupid. And she should not do that. Uh, and really led me from what I had, which was like a super cushy life. Probably it was like, in which I only did things that I want to do versus now where it's like, my life is like a military exercise and precision as much as possible.

And, uh, yeah, you're just like, you should have at a military exercise in precision as much as possible. And yeah, you're just like, at least at one point in your life, you should definitely change absolutely everything about you and see what it's like, see how it goes. Yep, yep, I agree. So let's spend a little time and talk more about the book, The Flinch, and dig into some of those concepts, because I think they're really in line with a lot of what we talk about on the show and a lot of the things that themes that that come up over and over again so could you tell us again you alluded to it briefly but what the concept behind the flinch is okay so here is the uh the quick and easy version of that uh we have it's a really short book and it's actually one of the only

permanently free downloads that you can get from Amazon. It's not possible. No person can put a book on Amazon perpetually for free, but somehow when we published this we figured that out. So you can get it for free even now even though it's been published three years ago.

So go ahead and get that book. It's super short. People should what it's about, it's highly recommended. Thank you. I appreciate that. The book essentially says, here's a bunch of stuff that we claim we want to do. It doesn't matter what it is. It's not what the point is. Like everyone has their own personal, really important list of things. They could be totally trivial. I want to get married and have children. That's not trivial, but it could be commonplace. be totally trivial i want to get married and have children that's not trivial but it could be commonplace uh i could i want to get married and have children and uh or i want to travel to get over to paris one time or you know it could be anything from that to

uh totally otherworldly foreign things that no one thinks are insane or sane at all doesn't matter we're always talking about these things we're always thinking about them and we do not do them. So it is, it is a, and yet we have all the information available to us. And this is really like, we're in the information age and in this age, you can look up anything. Here's how to ride a bike. You can go to wikihow.com or whatever the hell website, Google, it will tell you everything you need to know every single piece of information is there and yet truly if the information were accurate you would have learned to do it by now like if the information was enough i would speak spanish properly but i don't why and so it essentially the book is about this, this thing, I guess, which we call the

flinch in the book. And it is like the, it's that X, which is like that, that unknown thing, which prevents us from doing the things that we want to do. And it's the secret hidden thing in every action we take or don't take. And that flinch is, it's a fear response, right? You're describing that we have this response, like if I were to slap my co-host like I just did there, he flinches. Right, and he doesn't have a choice. He doesn't have a choice, right? It's not really about him so so and uh and you've got these guys right uh that train in this thing called the spear

program s-p-e-a-r you can look it up online but it's like essentially like flinch retraining it does really exist and it's it's studied by police and the military and all these other people and essentially what this response is is like you can never get rid of the flinch, this thing you were born with, that when you fall, that you're going to close your eyes and protect your head. But you can retrain that thing.

Physically, it is possible to retrain it. And so here's a kind of mental retraining that you're going to go through. And in parts of the book, I make people go through very simple exercises that anyone can do in their own house by and large but that are very difficult to do for psychological reasons a number of different psychological reasons so essentially uh i was i'm pointing out almost and the reason that i think this book works and it's it's been read by like

a million people or something now the reason this book works is because it's speaking to you in your own voice that you have in your head if I was out there going hey guys you know yeah you the hosts of this show like you're assholes and and and you're cowards or something I would be I just it'd be a horrible way to talk to some other person but But I wrote that book. And because you're reading it to yourself, it comes off as being you talking to yourself. And so it makes it okay, I think, to say those things. 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 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 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. And the idea is to learn to lean into that fear? Is that the heart of it, that if we learn to lean into fear, then that gets us over doing these things that we're not doing in life? You could say that. I think that it's very easy. You've got to be careful of the cliches, right? Yep. If cliches are cliches, you naturally hear them.

And when you hear them, you go, oh, I've heard that before. And as soon as you think, oh, I've heard that before, you instantly, by and large, you're going to discount it. So you have to be very careful in the way that you talk about an idea. And that's why in that book that we talk about it that way, because we want it to be a new way that you heard it. In reality, everyone has written every book ever. I know this. I've written several of them by this point. I've written 1,000 blog posts.

Every single thing has been said before. But for some reason, one particular message, it hits you in the right way. And other versions of that message do not hit you in the right way. So when I write the book, it's almost like being in a sweat lodge or whatever and you're like you gotta you have to actually go there and be there in that book to feel it because if i were to explain to you what that book is like we're talking about it now it's so trivial that you're like yeah i know that i don't need to read that thing but i actually in actuality you probably haven't solved the problem so you should probably read the book. Even me, I don't know that I can properly explain it.

And that's kind of the magic of that thing. And that's why it was so hard to write, that it requires the experience, having to go through it so you can feel the same way I felt when I wrote it and the same way you felt when you read it several times that you've read it, right? Yep, yep. it in the same way you felt when you read it that there's several times that you've read it right yep yep and i think but i think there are some maybe some some things you say in there that i'll i'll point to specifically that maybe give some of the flavor and point out some of the things that i thought were were particularly um uh interesting in the book one of them that you you talk about is that you say the lessons you learn best by are those you get burned by without the scar there's no evidence or strong memory right adults know what's safe

so we we tend to listen to what's to advice but it's we don't learn lessons that way right you don't uh uh exactly which is actually exactly what I just said. It's like I can tell you something a hundred times, but unless you feel it, it will have no profound effect. Right. And I think the exact thing that I say in there is like you don't need to throw yourself into a fire to figure out that it's bad. But with that in mind, a lot of things do need to be felt in order for the change to really occur. There's another thing that you talk about in the book that I really love. And you say, whatever decision you make reinforces what you do next time. And I think that is such a critical life lesson.

That's the way I think of the term karma, right? It's like wearing grooves into a record. Every time I give in to that bad habit, I make it easier to do next time. I set that thing in motion. what you're getting at there, which is a really profound idea, which is that every moment matters, not just what the impact of, say, let's just use, I'm not going to eat ice cream. Eating ice cream is not just the fact that I ate 500 calories. It's the fact that I've made it easier to do it next time and next time and next time. Yeah, I built a habit. And I don't know, they say the gray matter in your brain is actually affected by the decisions that you make. And the reason creativity is so hard is because the decision process and the way that you think about an idea becomes reinforced over time.

new ideas is by and large by looking at something that they have never done before and looking at it a new way and not knowing whether something is possible just because they have no experience versus people who have the experience and we're like no no no it cannot be done so so with that and the natural conclusion of that idea is everything you're doing right now is going to make you into, this is who you are. You are the person as you act, right? The way that, I don't know if I wrote that in there, but it's like this whole idea, Krishnamurti is like a well-known Indian sage and he has this whole thing where he's like, you can take a rock from the and and you just put it on your mantelpiece and it's just a regular rock right but then over over a period of days if you just practice for 30 days you're just gonna you're gonna like kneel and pray in front of the rock at the end of that 30 days that rock will be like a fucking religion to you and and and you'll just be like i love this rock i i cannot think of getting rid of it it means so much to me because you're behaving in that way and it would be a sin not to walk by the rock and and to and to you know to to bow down to it just because you've done it and you've been

doing it your entire life so uh so with that mind, and it can put this incredible weight to think about this, things in this way, can put this incredible weight on your shoulders where you're like, everything that I do wrong is fucking my life. Yeah, I mean, in a way, like it kind of is. And actually, one of my faults is that I put a great deal of gravitas into everything that I say and think. And it's probably not always a good thing. But I really think that that person that you are is being reinforced or being destroyed by every action that you take. The same reason you could probably, you know, you probably always start going up steps with the same foot every single time. And it's uncomfortable to do it with the other foot.

Simple things like that. All the way down to why I have arguments with my wife and I have the same argument every time. Yep. Oh, I agree. And I think it is easy to be too heavy handed about that, to be constantly every moment freaking out because I just did something I didn't want to do. There's a middle ground to all of that, but it is a pretty fundamental truth that what we are doing is shaping who we are and who we become.

But the good flip side to that is I can change that at any point. Yeah, hopefully. Right, exactly. You have the ability to do it. And the earlier that you begin reinforcing another thing, the easier it becomes for that thing that you prefer to become a habit. And hopefully it will. 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 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. You talk about in dealing with fear, you say you need to start recognizing your fight or flight response. This is the real challenge, what you'll spend most of

your time on because it's such a strong instinct. Every alternative you develop is highly valuable because it opens your options dramatically. Can you talk a little bit more about what you mean there? I think it's a version of the same idea, which is a simple thing that I'm trying to fix right now is that I eat out a lot. And it's funny when you take these like really deep things in this book or whatever that carry meaning, and then you express them in relation to your regular life, right? Because then you're like, oh, this is a boring anecdote compared to the depth of this thing. But actually, the triviality of the anecdote shows just how powerful the thing is. Like, I'm going to keep eating out for the rest of my life, and I'm never learn to cook unless i every day i was like i'm gonna pick up

that knife and i don't know if you know like bj fog do you know about this thing this uh this just method of developing habits which are called the tiny steps habits and basically it's like you get up and you have a series of habits i know i'll tell you what mine is right, it's like, you get up, and you have a series of habits. I know, I'll tell you what mine is right now. It's really, really simple. I will wake up. And if I go to get to my bathroom, and I weigh myself as first thing in the morning, very shortly thereafter, I'm going to floss, I'm going to brush my teeth, I'm going to take a shower. Once I take a shower, I'm going to get out, I'm going to take my shower once i take a shower i'm going to get out i'm going to take my vitamins that's what take out vitamins i'm going to undo the uh i'm going to clean take the dish clean dishwasher out of dishes out of the dishwasher then i'm going to make coffee i'm

going to bring it to my girlfriend like that is what i do if i do not weigh myself none of those things will happen like that's how how you machine-to-machine parts of our brain work, is that we're literally like animals just doing the same thing over and over and over again. So building those grooves the first few times, you don't have to think about it as being like every habit. You think about it as one thing. It's like if you say something like,

when I come home, I take my shoes off, and then I turn left in the kitchen, and I put my hand on the handle of my chef's knife. And then once you do that, you'll be like, well, I guess I have to do something with this chef's knife, right? So that series, it's actually not – people turn – they try to turn, make behavior changes into this really tough thing that takes a lot of effort. Oh my God, I got to cook this five-course meal. No, no, just put your hand on the knife. That's literally all you have to do. That's why in one of my habit things that I have on one of my apps, it says clean for two minutes. And what that really means is, is just start cleaning because two minutes is a non-threatening number.

And then once you start cleaning, it'll just happen by itself. I'm a huge fan and proponent of that concept of, you know, I set the timer for five minutes to get started on things I don't want to do or that I'm stuck on to just get started. And momentum is such a powerful force. If you can, if we can just get moving in the right direction, often that's, that's enough. And, and I agree. I think that we've, we've talked about this on this show over and over, which is doing a very little bit of something is much better than, and doing that consistently is much better than going to the gym once every three weeks and lifting for three hours. You'd be far better off doing some small

exercise for five minutes a day. That's right. Because the habit is there and you can do that seven days a week or whatever, instead of once a month. And I think you get that positive reinforcement by, I said I was going to do this. I did it. I feel good about that versus that negative reinforcement we talked about earlier, which is, I said I was going to do this, I did it, I feel good about that, versus that negative reinforcement we talked about earlier, which is, I said I was going to do this, I didn't do it, oh, God, I'm a loser. Why bother? Why bother? And you can always build from a small base much, much easier. I totally agree. Exactly. And you don't think about those things. And the thing is, so much of it is managing your emotion, which is the other thing that that book is about. Managing your emotion is all about. And that's why the book is so short, because it makes you feel you're going to read it. You read it in like 20 minutes. It's so short. It's like an essay, even and then you've done you're done reading it and then you feel good

and so much of uh of you going i don't know go doing whatever that thing is that you want to do comes from uh the sense of oh i feel good so i'm gonna go do it now and if you never so it's almost like a deliberate here's here's this thing you can hold onto it. It's not a candy bar. It's some other thing. And that thing makes you feel good. And then you feel like, there's almost 400 reviews on Amazon by this point. And they're all like, I feel like I can smash through a wall when I read this thing. Which is why the same, you know, like you're saying, you read it quite a few times. Even I read it sometimes because I'm like, wow, I am amazing. Like I can do anything after you read the book. It's powerful. It's also a very, it's a challenging book to read though.

It's not a feel good. I mean, I think, yeah, you do get a feeling of strength from it. But there are some lines and I'll read one one now, that when I read it, I go, oh, shit, yep, that sounds like me. And most people don't actually want to face the flinch. They just want to be in a movie about it. They want the glory, not the suffering. They don't want scars because they like being soft. They don't want to be humiliated. They want respect.

They just don't want to earn it, which I think is a very good summation, certainly of what my approach has been to things in the past and a lot of people's, which ties a lot to this, I expect everything to be easy, fast, and now. And that's simply not the way life is, and that's not the way change happens. And I really like that. And when I read it, though, it's a sobering reminder that if we want to be people that are worthy of being admired or we want to be great people, there's a sacrifice and there's effort that goes into that. Yeah, there's a quote in there. It's like, it's interesting. Cause I've never, I've never gotten a comment about it.

I don't think I've ever actually talked about it, but it's a quote that comes from the Quran. And, uh, I'm not a religious person, but I, those kinds of old texts are really interesting to me, both religious and non religious ones.

And it says something like, uh, do you think that you will enter into the garden of the light before the suffering that you, that of those who have come before you, you know, like, it's like, well, look at all, you know, cause you just, you will enter into the garden of the light before the suffering of those who have come before you? It's like, well, look at all, because you just look at these people, I don't know, they're on stage, or they have this great relationship, or their dog is just the best behaved dog, or whatever thing it is that you're looking and you're interested in. And you're like, but why can't I have that? Well, it's because you didn't do anything.

It doesn't come by itself. But the movie version of it is much easier to watch than it is to do. And that's why there's so few people like that. So again, it's not about you being this this perfect, you know, Uber mensch or whatever the hell it's really just like, like be the person that you actually want to be, not the person that is easy to, to be. You talk about, there's a line you use and we talk about, again, what I like about the

book is so many of the themes I think come up over and over for us in the show. And that's part of what I'm interested in with this show is what are the things that keep coming up over and over again? Because they really point to some fundamental truths and lessons. And one of them is, you say, if you aren't willing to sacrifice your comfort, you don't have what it takes. aren't willing to sacrifice your comfort, you don't have what it takes. And I think this gets back to that point of being willing to make that extra effort and being aware of needing to make that extra effort. It's the same thing when you start a company. They're always like, well, you're going to have to make sacrifices. They just don't tell you what those sacrifices are ahead of time. And they don't tell you that they're going to be hard for example right and and when you have a when you're getting married and you're like hearing oh marriage is

hard but you don't actually feel those things and then when it comes to it's interesting it was a conversation about loyalty a few weeks ago with a friend of mine and and i think he pointed out and he said something like loyalty is not being loyal when it's convenient to you. Loyalty, the true quality comes from being loyal when it is not an easy decision. That's what loyalty is. It's not just like I'm loyal when I feel like it. It's I'm loyal when it's difficult. I'm loyal at war, not at peace. And so it's really easy to have this rose-colored glasses about yourself.

And again, like talking about it right now, I can only probably talk about it in relation to myself. Because if I talk about it in relation to you or to you know you the listener or whatever and i'm like i'm a dick but it's like let's let's not let's not have rose-colored glasses about ourselves because it does nobody a disservice somebody you know a friend of mine has two kids and he said oh god now i have to be that person that that my kids would admire you know i don't have a choice. Now my kids have to admire somebody, you know. They're going to be judging me.

I better be the person that they want as a dad. I think that that whole thing points to this idea that there's no, like, you know, courage. There's no courage unless there's fear. There's nothing to be courageous about unless there's fear. And in an attempt a lot of times to eliminate all negativity from our lives or all difficult events, we end up in a position where we eliminate all our ability to build those muscles because we're never confronted with anything because we just simply say, I don't, that doesn't feel good. I don't want that thing, or I don't want a life that has this or that in it. But almost all great lives have a pretty healthy degree of struggle, challenge, suffering.

Right, and you can see this in the, what do they call it, the hero's journey, uh in the what they call it the hero's journey like that joseph campbell model 12 steps to get from a touch to from going from regular person to hero with the sword that kills the dragon and the returns from a great quest and all these other things right and uh and you're just looking at the quest and you're like you always be like okay so where am i in this quest right now there's a set step in the in the quest it's called the refusal to the call. So first there's a call which is, here's this great thing, you were called to do it, you know, the lady comes out of the lake,

and she hands you like a flower or some other you know, mythical story. And then part of that 12-step journey, which is not like AA, it's a different 12-step journey, is the refusal to call, which is the hero says, no, I don't want to accept what this means.

So he goes back to his regular life, and he's given a second reminder. And that second reminder says to him, no, no, no, you remember that thing you forgot about? That thing is really important, and only you can do it. And then you go out, and then the hero goes back, and the lady on the lake, miraculously or whatever, is still there, and she has the flower, and she gives you the flower, and then you go out and then the hero goes back and the lady on the lake miraculously or whatever is still there and she has the flower and she gives you the flower and then you go oh

i have to go out and bring this on top of the mountain or whatever so i'm going to read one last quote from the book we can maybe just talk about it for a second and then uh we're near the end of our time so we can wrap up but i i particularly love this one because i think it it ties a lot of different things together a lot of of what we've just talked about. And it says, flinch breaking is all about eliminating the pointless, cowardly, and habitual, and choosing the useful instead. Useful cannot be discovered in the abstract. It has to actually happen. What do you think that's about? Well, I think it covers a little of everything

we just talked about. You can't, you, you can't discover these things via somebody else. Um, you, you have to, you have to go on the difficult journey that you have to eliminate the pointless and the cowardly and the habitual and do all those things in order and search for what, what is useful to you. and only you are going to know what that thing is yeah yeah yeah exactly and just like here's a series of things that i do uh should i really be this person you know and it's weird because there's some versions of it that are like that are that are just about habits and behavior. Like I, I can do it by, by, uh,

putting the hand on the knife so that I can start cooking or something. But other of them are actually mental habits. Like I want to remember to be grateful every day or something, you know, they, so they, there's all these ways that you can just, you just think like I'm really a robot or i'm an animal and i can just be trained

and the one layer the one edge that we have on ourselves that maybe others don't have is that you can actually train yourself right but but whether to do so is a choice you know and uh and and in order to do that you have this layer of thinking that you can hopefully have above yourself to to can convince yourself that it's worthwhile. And you get an opportunity to do that every day. And you can sort of start over every day, which is always a nice thing. Yep, yep. And I love that idea of eliminating.

I love the categories, the pointless, the cowardly, and the habitual, which tends to cover a lot of ground of where we spend, at least I spend time that doesn't mean anything to me. And I agree with the habitual part, and I say this all the time on the show, so much of the reason that we do this show is because we have to be reminded, I have to be reminded all the time that I'm making these choices all the time. I'm making the habitual choice or the pointless choice, and I'm not even aware of it very often. So that's part of why I do this, is to keep reminding myself, yes, these choices, moment by moment, day by day, add up and they matter. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's not a thing that you would just figure out in one day and then just live the rest of your life by yourself that way. It needs to be done constantly. Exactly. Well, Julian, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you are really busy with the new company. Good luck on expanding the breathers. I hope someday there will be one in Columbus, Ohio, and we will talk again soon.

So thanks so much. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. All right. Take care. Bye. Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. You can learn more about Julian Smith and this podcast at oneufeed.net slash Smith.