The One You Feed - Tom Asacker

Episode Date: April 26, 2017

[powerpress] Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Tom Asacker Tom Asacker, a popular speaker and acclaimed author, is recognized by Inc. Magazine, M.I.T., and Y.E.O. as a past member of their Birthing of Giants executive leadership program. He is a former General Electric executive, recipient of the George Land Innovator of the Year Award, and a former high-tech business owner. Asacker has been a strategic adviser to startups and Fortune-listed companies. He is the author of critically acclaimed books including his latest, I Am Keats.  In This Interview, Tom Asacker and I Discuss... His book, I am Keats: Escape Your Mind and Free Yourself John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge That once you have a story, that's the end of any change How limiting a story is That we are spinning stories all of the time The difference between fact vs truth How attached we are to our perception of the world That technology promotes the myth that we are in control The truth that you can't learn about life by merely reading about it, you can only truly learn about life by living it Our reasoning mind that differentiates us as animals That life is a journey of paradoxes and ambiguity The importance of being empathizing and being mindful throughout this journey The desire for meaning How everyone is looking for meaning externally in their lives How that won't work because our culture is broken That it is a personal discovery journey to live life How we always have the opportunity to make other people's lives better but we have to be awake in life to do so The importance of control and certainty in our lives How to differentiate the voices in our heads That the end result of anything that we're seeking is a feeling Human nature is to be curious, compassionate and creative What would happen if characters in movies could control their scenes? The result would be crushingly boring movies. Can you see the correlation between this idea and life itself?     Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once you have a story, that's the end of any kind of change in thinking. 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 No 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 Tom Asacker, an artist, writer, inventor, and philosopher. He writes, inventor, and philosopher.

He writes, teaches, and speaks about radically new approaches and ideas for success in times of uncertainty and change. His new book is I Am Keats, Escape Your Mind and Free Yourself. If you value the content we put out each week, then we need your help. As the show has grown, so have our expenses and time commitment. Thank you. 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. Hi, Tom. Welcome to the show. Hi, Eric. It's great to be here with you.

You are a guest that I got two recommendations for in a very short period of time next to each other. You know, like somebody asked me one day and then a couple days later, somebody else asked me. And so, and then somehow I think we came across each other on Twitter. So it worked out very fortuitously to have you on the show. You've got a new book called I Am Keats, Escape Your Mind and Free Yourself, which we will be talking about more here in a minute. But we'll start like we normally 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. That's a great story. It's a wonderful metaphor of our two competing selves. And if you think about it, all wisdom teaching uses metaphor because it bypasses our rational mind and connects directly at a gut level. So what I'm trying to do

and we're trying to do with I Am Keats, is to employ a modern day analogy of movies and stories to try to connect with people the same way that story does, viscerally. And instead of using two wolves, and we can talk about this in a little bit, we chose two 19th century romantic poets as our metaphor. But let me use the wolves for a moment to try to compare it to the poets. So what we're saying is that inside of each of us is a spiritual wolf. It's our essence. It's a conscious, improvisational inner voice that wants to approach new life experiences with curiosity, compassion, and creativity. In our vernacular, we call that Keats, the poet Keats. And then the other self is this worldly wolf. It's a conditioned wolf

who's living, for the most part, unconsciously in a scripted story. It's not our essence. It's our manufactured identity. It's an external voice of the world, of avoidance primarily, It's an external voice of the world, of avoidance primarily, which is constantly seeking certainty, control, comfort, anything designed to protect the self. And we call that Coleridge. And if and when that scripted self feels that it's losing its certainty, its sense of control and comfort, that's when we think you see the bad wolf. Because that fear makes the self angry, which leads to hate and all of its manifestations. So that's kind of our take on the wolves. You play the two poets off of each other, and it's a very interesting way of looking at things. I want to back up a step or two and talk about something that you say very early on. And you have a TED talk that is about why watching TED talks doesn't change your behavior. But the main point of that

talk, and you really start this book with it, is that, and I'll just, I'll quote you here, we embody our roles, our values, our stories. We live in those stories and we live according to them. So talk for a second about what you mean by that and maybe phrase up where we get those from. So look, when I gave that talk, which was probably about, I don't know, three or four years ago, I actually thought that that was an empowering statement, that we should create the story of who we are and live into that. And the more I started to think about that after I gave that talk, the more I realized that these stories are beliefs and those beliefs are limiting because once you have a story, once you have a belief, that's the end of any kind of change in thinking.

So these stories and these beliefs come from nowhere else than our memories, our minds. our minds. Everything that's in our mind, in our memories, creates our beliefs about the world, ourselves. It is really a powerful illusion that's up there that directs our lives, frankly. And it's a really strange illusion. I do work, corporate work, and I see it with organizations where they start believing that this is who we are and this is what we do. And by doing that, it limits your perceptions of what the world needs. And it prevents you from going out there and doing what needs to be done. Both on, like I said, on an individual level and organizational level. So even though I did say that stories were powerful, I meant it in a good way four years

ago when I gave that talk. And I realize now that you don't want to be living in a story. It's limiting. Yeah, it's interesting because I read the whole book and then I was like, I better watch the TED talk. And then I was like, okay, well, I want to talk about how to reconcile these two things. So I think we kind of just did it there. But I think it's important to spend, we talk on this show a lot about the fact that we are spinning stories. All the time. That we're making so much up. And you make a good point about fact versus truth that I think is still a valuable insight that comes from that talk.

Yeah, listen, when I tell people that they have a real issue with the difference between a truth, which is perception based. It is what we feel and think about what's happening. That's our truth and objective reality, which is a fact. And I typically bring the point up with audiences. I say, look, so I said, it's a fact that we are an outgrowth of a living sphere that's rocketing through space right now faster than a bullet shot out of a gun

around another ball of fire and we're spinning while we're doing it right i said now how many people feel that how many people is that your truth because if that was your truth my goodness all your anxiety about if you know your oil needing changing in your car next week goes away it's If you feel that you're an outgrowth of a living sphere rocketing through space around another ball of fire, the last thing you're going to feel anxious about is the fact that you've got to change your oil in your car. So our truth is much, much different than objective reality,

than the facts. That's a great example. You also say there's a world of difference between knowing that humans think in narratives to form beliefs and make sense of their lives and seeing through that illusion to feel that one's life isn't a story. And I agree with that so much because we talk about stories a lot. I think most people who've listened to the show are like, yeah, some part of what's going on in my brain is a narrative that I'm making up. But boy, it's hard to go past that sort of

intellectually getting it to really seeing it in its depth, how attached we are to our perception of the world. No, you're right. Listen, stories in life are really, really close. And I know you play guitar, but it's like guitar strings. They don't ever touch. Telling stories about various scenes and lessons learned in your life, that's fine. Stringing them together into some kind of coherent narrative, a life story, Eric, I got to tell you, that's completely bullshit. I mean, every movie that's ever been made about any type of character, they have to cut all kinds of things out. They start with the end. They do everything they can to keep the audience's attention glued to the screen. But that is not the truth at all. That's not what happened. There were a lot of things that

happened that were just random, that were serendipitous, luck, mistakes, all of these things. People take that out and they try to make life look like it's something that was planned and orchestrated. It doesn't work like that. Yeah, we are very attached to trying to make meaning out of things. I've heard different people refer to our brains as meaning making machines. Like that's what the brain is trying to do all the time. And I agree with you. I think things are much more capricious and random than any of us are really comfortable with. And you talk so much

about how Coleridge, the poet, is so much after certainty. Everything that happens is kind of trying to figure out the next thing that's going to happen and trying to orchestrate that. And it can be terrifying when we realize that how little control we have over things is it can be stunning. Mark Nepo is a poet he had on. He calls it the awful truth, right? The awful truth being that any minute, it could be over. It's true. Listen, so you're right. The mind is a meaning-making machine, but it's a meaning-making machine because it's an expectation creation machine. So that's really all it's doing. It wants to be aware of what's coming next so it can prepare and be safe. And that's not to say that that part of the mind, that Coleridge planning part is a bad thing, right? Talk about the fact that these things can just happen randomly. Six weeks ago, I went out

to my car just to put the key in my car when I left my office and I slipped in the ice and my quadricep muscle detached from my knee. So you'll look at this random thing. And when I went into surgery the next day, did I want my surgeon to know how to, you know, process information and make expectations? And absolutely. But what made my experience great is that the surgeon who performed my operation, he had this giddy gleam in his eyes. He was moved by this. He was passionate about this stuff. That's the enthusiasm of Keats.

Yep, it is interesting that you need both these things. I tend to be a proponent of the middle way on a lot of things. Listeners to the show will know that. I'm like, well, it's not that or that. It's a little of both. And I think your point, though, is that by and large, we as a society and as a, as a people are much more on the afraid planning, trying to seek certainty, trying to find meaning side

than we are on the beauty side, which is what, you know, Keats talked about the inspirational power of beauty being more important than the quest for meaning. Absolutely. And I'm going to tell you, it's going to get worse. Because technology is giving us this idea that we have control, right? I mean, we've got a computer in our pockets all day long. So we now start believing that the information that we need in order to move forward in life is at our fingertips. And all we have to do is find that information and manage that information. And then we don't have to worry about anything. And that is an illusion. It's dangerous. And it's,

frankly, I'm a little bit worried about what's going to happen. If all of life is about seeking some type of emotion, because that's what we're after. We're after some feelings. If we can get those feelings by sitting on our couch and putting on virtual reality headsets, why venture into the world at all? Would that be a bad thing in your mind? Yeah, it's a bad thing. Because listen, it's experience. It's funny because people say things, and again, I love literature. I mean, I've got a thousand books in my office

that I've read. So I love writing, reading. But I hear people say, you know, you can learn about life by reading it in great literature. I don't believe that. I do not believe that for a minute. You want to learn about life, experience life. You want to know what love is? Don't go read a love story book, fall in love. You'll find out how complex it is. You'll find out how deep the emotions run. You want to understand somebody whose belief systems are different than yours? Don't read a book that somebody wrote about that. Go out and have dinner with these people. Go to work with them. So I really think that experience and empathy and compassion, we're lacking these things. We're trying to understand the world through these mediated

platforms, whether it's the internet, television, whatever it is, that's not going to work. 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. 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. Hi, everyone. We just want to give you a heads up that we will begin a new

round of enrollment for the One You Feed coaching program, Monday, May 1st through Friday, May 5th. So if there's some changes you want to make in your life, starting with a new habit, working through a difficult spot in life, or getting unstuck from where you are, then consider working one-on-one with Eric and make sure these things can happen. Go to oneyoufeed.net slash coaching program before Monday and sign up to receive the enrollment info emails. And there will be exclusive discount offers sent to you that will not be available to the general public. Again, go to oneufeed.net slash coaching program and sign up today to get more information. And here's the rest of the interview with Tom Asacker. You bring up Leonard Cohen and he was the guest I most wanted on this show, and obviously that did not work out.

So any opportunity I get to invoke him, I will take. And you start the book with a quote from Leonard Cohen, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold, and it has overturned the order of the soul. And then you use that phrase to sort of make this Keats and Coleridge comparison. Could you go off that? Yeah, yeah. Listen, somehow we've turned this idea, and Aristotle started the whole thing, right? By saying that, you know, what makes us better and different than animals, and we're animals,

but what makes us different and better is we have this reasoning mind, this powerful reasoning mind. And frankly, Eric, we don't use that powerful reasoning mind very much at all. We don't use logic, philosophers' logic. We don't use logic, philosophers' logic. We don't. We approach the world through our own belief systems, through our own perceptions. If we're going to use this powerful mind that we have in a positive way, we need to be more conscious of what we're doing because we're not.

We're on autopilot. We're being pushed and pulled around by others by our environment by the media and we are not aware of this and and it is really interesting to watch and when i think when leonard cohen was saying that the blizzard of the world has overtaken us that blizzard he's talking about is this illusion that we can consciously plan and think our way to a better society when in fact that all comes from compassion it comes from love it comes from tolerance it comes from ambiguity and uncertainty all the things that we don't like is where it comes from. But instead, we're trying to use logic and planning and objective analysis, and that's not going to work. Yeah, I find it very interesting. We've had

plenty of people on the show, and we talk about the idea of trying not to try, right? And there's this paradox where, on one hand, we are, as you say, moving pretty unconsciously through life. We're not paying a whole lot of attention on one hand. And yet, on the other hand, the things that you just talked about, the love and the meaning and the deeper perception really comes when parts of our prefrontal cortex actually give up and kind of settle themselves down a little bit. You know, it's the brain is an amazing thing because it's you're trying to be less unconscious on one hand, and you're also trying to be more unconscious on the other hand. You know, it's just a it's an interesting way the brain is set up. You're right. I mean, listen, I think about the middle way as well, right? I've got I quote a lot

of Buddhist philosophy in the book, and it is a journey of paradoxes and contradictions, life. But the challenge is, can I pursue a life of curiosity, compassion, creativity, while dealing with those challenges? I can certainly be mindful sitting on the top of a mountain by myself. I can do that. Can I be mindful with children running around the house when I have bills to pay and leaky faucets? So the idea is in the middle way, you're not compromising. You're constantly struggling.

You're interrogating these two selves and you're making sure that Keats is leading your life. This compassionate soul, this curious person, this is leading your life. And that's how you truly make a difference in society, through that example and those actions. I agree 100%. Let's talk about the desire for meaning. Coleridge, in your book, is the guy who's looking for meaning. And a lot of people who are attracted to shows like this and books like yours are asking the question, what is the meaning? What is the meaning of life? What's this all about? And you quote Kierkegaard, who says, life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Talk a little bit about, do we we find meaning and if so, how? This is a big deal, right? Because everyone is looking for meaning, typically looking for meaning externally. We're becoming other directed in our search for meaning. I think we're looking to the culture for meaning. We're looking at our workplace for meaning. It's not going to looking to the culture for meaning. We're looking at our workplace for meaning. It's not going to work because the culture is broken. It's just broken. I mean, look at people. They're hooked on the hustle, right? Everybody's Coleridge all of a sudden.

If you call someone, they want to know what's in it for me. That's how their mind is spinning when you talk to people all the time. So the culture is not the place to look for meaning. Inside of yourself is the place to look for meaning. And if you look at your life and you say, wait a minute, my life is about self-discovery. That's what my life is about. I've got to find this inner self. That's my journey. That's Dorothy going to Oz to find herself so that she comes home and says, there's no place like home. Home is the self, is the true inner self. It's not Kansas. So now she can be comfortable in her own skin. Careful, we got Kansas listeners on here.

Okay, it can be Kansas as well. All right. So it's this idea of it's all a personal journey. And see, some people have a problem with that. They have a problem with the idea that spirituality should be self-directed. But listen, I'm a proponent of Gandhi. Sweep in front of your own door and we'll make the whole world clean. Yeah, Voltaire, tend your own garden. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that the meaning thing is really interesting. I like the way you put it.

You say that it's an insoluble puzzle. And I've talked about meaning a little bit. And I think where I finally have landed, at least for now, is that I can't get there through the Coleridge brain, right? To use your analogy. It won't work because with that way of viewing the world, every single, well, that's important because I can go, why? You know, and at the end of the day, it's pretty difficult to convince yourself that like one life on one planet in the middle of all this immensity for this brief flash

of time is cosmically significant. You know, intellectually, I can't get there. No, and listen, Zen Buddhists know that, right? Right. That's why they give you koans. Exactly. They say, go ahead, use your logical mind and figure this out. That's right.

And I think, you know, the Kierkegaard quote gets to it. I think Joseph Campbell has a quote similar. It says, you know, I don't think what we're looking for is meaning in life so much as the experience of being alive. And that's what you're getting at in this book so much. And I think is so true is that meaning, I think comes from a different part of our brain, a different part of our heart. We'll never get there intellectually. You have to feel it. The analogy I've used before is like, if I walked outside right now and there was a dog that had just been hit by a car in front of me, there's no philosophy or theory or anything you could tell me that would convince me that that dog's suffering was not important.

I would absolutely know it in every fiber of my being, but I could never defend it logically that why one dog out of all this is important. But in that moment, I just know it is. Yeah. Listen, I think that's a perfect story because, you know, I don't typically in the book, I don't reference a lot of the negative. And I mean, John Keats experienced a lot of pain and suffering as a poet in his very short time on the planet. But I look at life and I say, okay, look, if you were plopped down in the middle of this amazing carnival or something, and it was just sights and sounds and people and rides and food and all of that stuff, if I told you that the purpose of life was to experience

all of that, that is the meaning of life. Experience it. Then what would prevent you from interacting with people and making it enjoyable? It's really puzzling to me that people can go to work so a group of people can get together and make each other lives miserable and then go home. If life is meant to experience with other people and to bring joy and fun and all of that, then what are we doing? We are so confused because we think what we need to do is we need to plan and survive and stock up money and stock up food. And that is the thing that's going on. And it's all based on our genetics, its evolutionary biology at its root, because that's how, that's why we're here. It's a consumption-oriented society also, right? You put those two things together and, you know and it's no surprise that we get what we get.

Absolutely. I think that's interesting, too, the point you make about a group of people go to work and make each other miserable. Because, again, a lot of people who are going to listen to this show or read a book like yours are really looking to have impact in the world, right? And it's very easy for us to get caught up in how big is that impact? Well, I can't have any real impact because I'm working at a job that isn't saving children in Africa. And I'm always struck by how much positive impact we can have in our lives right

where we are with the people that are right around us. If we are willing to sort of engage at that level and be satisfied at that level, at least as a starting place. No, listen, you're absolutely right. Listen, I met a guy and he looked down. I was talking to him at the gym. Nice guy. And I said, what's bothering you?

And he opened up a little bit. And it was the strangest thing that was bothering him, Eric. It was things like dishes in the sink at home when he came home or toys scattered around the house. And I looked at him and I said, when you have company at your house, how does your house look? And he says, oh, my wife's amazing. It's beautiful. The food's beautiful. The house is perfect. And I said, so who's seeing the toys on the rug besides you? And why is that making you crazy? Did your mother have everything all perfect when you were a child? Yes, she did. Do you know, we talked and talked and it finally struck him. And from that day forward, his life going home, not only did his life improve, so did his wife's and his children's life. So we always have the ability to make other people's lives

better at work, in any type of conversation we have. But we've got to be conscious about what's going on. Because like I said, he was living unconsciously in some scripted story about how things should be, which made no sense whatsoever. It hits me a lot of different ways because it is that, and you talk about it in the book, it's that, that's a desire for control and certainty. And we can get, I mean, I do it, get very attached to like this particular thing. If this thing is in the right place, if I got this kind of lined up, then everything's okay. And when it gets out of whack, right, I start getting a little out of whack. And so, you know, I kind of think of that. I also think of whenever I hear like being upset about how the house looks, I think of something Jonathan Field said where he did a little essay about how he went from seeing all that stuff like the kids toys and his wife leaving stuff from like there was this sign that there were things wrong and there were problems all over to like they were little reminders of the love that he had in his life. Yeah. And I thought that was a really beautiful

way to sort of transform that way of looking at it. Well, I look at it anytime I get that kind of feeling. I start looking at it and I say, who's talking to me? Who's making me feel this way right now? Is this Coleridge or is this keats talking to me because coleridge is going to talk to you to try to direct you to stay in control and comfortable you are never going to get rid of this guy he is going to be talking to you forever so the question is can you ignore him it reminds me of the movie, A Beautiful Mind. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie. Wonderful movie.

But he never got rid of those voices, those people that he saw talking to him. But what he finally realized is they're not real. So I don't have to listen to them. I don't have to do what they say. I don't have to be affected by them. them. I don't have to do what they say. I don't have to be affected by them. And I think that's the key is to differentiate these wolves, these voices, these poets, whatever you want to call them, and understand what they're trying to do. 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. I'm preparing for an interview coming up with somebody who practices ACT, acceptance and commitment therapy, and we had somebody on before. And I find that to be a brilliant approach to the world.

And that's one of their big things is like, stop trying to make your negative thoughts and your voices and all that stuff go away, because that's probably not going to work. Just accept that they're going to be there. But focus on the other voices, focus on the other things. And I noticed that when I was walking in the woods the other day, my brain just kept going, planning, planning, planning. And I was like, I guess it's not going to shut up. Right. But I'm going to just keep trying to go to the observing part of my brain and pay attention to what's around me. And it's a challenge, but it's a completely different way to approach it versus trying to banish parts of your brain, which doesn't really work. problem where I think it falls short. I don't think anyone teaches anyone where these voices originated from and what they're trying to do, what their purpose is. So when you hear something talking to you that's trying to keep you safe, comfortable, in control, prevent you from having

new experiences, because remember, one of the worst things about new experiences is you don't know what to expect. So this Coleridge mind does not want you to have new experiences. It wants you to be safe, right? Ride your bike in the neighborhood. Don't leave the neighborhood because I know this neighborhood. So it will prevent you from doing things, from stepping out of your role and having these serendipitous encounters because it says, no, no, this is who you are. Do this, don't do that.

We know this, this is safe. We know what to expect. Okay, everything's all right. And as soon as you start thinking about doing something differently, that's when this voice comes in and says, hold on, you're going to do what? You're going to spend money on what? Wait a minute. What do you know about that? I don't think you should be doing that. I might need more of that voice. My not spending money voice doesn't seem to arrive very often. Good for you because that's a big one.

Listen, that's a big one for a lot of people. I've got something that's sitting right in front of my face right now that stares at me all day long. I was, I don't know where I was. I was in a store during Halloween or something, and I saw this skull. It was like this Mexican painted skull, and it was like $4.99. I said, let me have that crazy skull. It was like this Mexican painted skull. And it was like $4.99. I said, let me have that crazy skull. And I took it and underneath the nose, right above the smile, the teeth smile, I wrote soon. And I have it staring me in the face. So anytime I want to do something, anytime I'm being compelled by my inner spirit to do something, to go

somewhere, to call someone, to try something, as soon as that voice of the world comes in to protect me, don't do that. This could happen. I turn and I look at this skull and it's talking to me. It's saying, dude, you don't have a lot of time. You should be doing everything that your inner spirit is telling you to do. Don't listen to that other voice. That's what I use. I mean, some people call it morbid, but it's not morbid. Well, no, it's not at all. It's, you know, reflecting on yourself. I think

the challenge that a lot of people that I know myself and people know is that I've had an addict as an inner voice, right? And so it's like, you know, it feels like my heart and my soul is telling me, go do that thing. And yet, and so there comes this sort of caution of having to like, listen to which voice is it? How do you sort of tell that apart? Like your authentic inner voice and maybe a voice that is driven by darker causes. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Because listen, you could, some people misconstrue this voice that I'm talking about, this Keith's voice, this curious, compassionate, creative voice. That's how I differentiate it, right? So people will say to me, so you're saying go do anything you want.

I say, no, I'm not saying that at all. Because a lot of people will say, well, I, like you just said, addict or whatever. A lot of people will say, well, then I, listen, I feel like just going gambling or going to the bar or doing drugs. Listen, I understand what that's all about. You're looking for a feeling. That's the end result of anything is a feeling. And to me, I've run into these periods of depression and all that. And I'm telling you, I think that what causes this is that Keats is locked up in some kind

of cage, right? You put a lion in a cage and you leave it there. It's going to become depressed because it's prevented from expressing its true self, its nature. Its nature is not to be in a cage. What is human nature? It's to be curious, compassionate, and creative. So if you're depressed and you're not getting your emotions through being your true self, it's because you're caged. You've put yourself in a cage. You're not expressing your true self. If you do that, you don't have to get these emotions from somewhere else, some artificial way that, by the way, is safer. It's safer to get the emotion from a mediated source or from an artificial source than it is to risk going into the world

and engaging with other human beings. But that's where the true source of that feeling that you're looking for will come from. It's leaving the cage and getting out there and interacting with others. Yeah, I like that idea of the compassionate, curious, and creative voice. Because for me, I'm kind of listening and looking internally like, does there feel like there's some compulsion behind this, right? Does it feel like I'm being pushed in some, like, I need this way versus what I have a lot of and when I'm in a good space is a very natural curiosity. And I can actually now tell the difference between those things,

at least I think. No, listen, it's easy. It's easy. no listen it's it's easy it's easy i can talk to you when you're doing something that that is turning you on that you're curious about right that you're being creative this is creative what you're doing i guarantee you when you're doing any of that and i say hey eric you depressed you'll say no you will never be depressed when you're doing these things that you're curious and compassionate and creative about. You just won't.

It's when you're sitting by yourself, ruminating, wondering about this, that, and the other thing, which you can't control anyway. That's when all that's Coleridge stuff starts flooding into your head, making you feel like you need to get control over everything. Yeah, yeah. I think depression can be a little bit more nuanced than that. But in general, I agree with you 100%. And I think a lot of the depression that I've suffered has come from exactly what you said, which was putting certain things away way too often, you know, putting myself in a cage. This has been a wonderful conversation. I want to wrap it up with something I found really interesting in the book, allow you to kind of

comment, and then we'll wrap up here. You mentioned an American screenwriter, John August, who says, if characters were allowed to control their scenes, most characters would choose to avoid conflict, and movies would be crushingly boring. I just thought that was a fascinating way to view things. I think it's a hundred percent spot on and that's exactly what we do in our lives. Yeah. And that's, see, that's why we like movies because we can live these emotions in this pain free way by watching these characters on a screen live life. And we don't understand that we're not doing that because we don't want all of that pain and uncertainty and problems.

It's so interesting. That's why, listen, this whole book basically originated because while I was writing this screenplay, I started to see that human beings are scripted in roles just like these screenwriters write people's characters. It was the most puzzling thing to me because my writing partner and I, we were writing this and we had these characters developed. We had a backstory, everything. And one of the characters, she said, we should have this guy do this. And I said, what's wrong with you? He would never do that.

He can't do that. And then I thought about it. I said, wait a minute, this guy doesn't even exist. We can make him do anything we want to do. We can make him fly if we want to. can make him fly if we want to. But see, the mind says, stay consistent, stay coherent, stay comfortable. Don't break out of this role that you're living. Stay a cliche of what you're supposed to be. And that's what these screenwriters realize. That's what John August realized. If I don't write these problems into the script, it won't be an exciting story. It'll be crushingly boring. Yep. I thought that was great. So don't be boring. Yeah, exactly. Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming on. I really enjoyed reading the book,

and this has been a very fun conversation. Thanks, Eric. I've had a great time. Thank you very much. Okay. Goodbye. Thanks, Eric. I've had a great time. Thank you very much. Okay. Goodbye. Bye-bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support.