The DC question we’re talking about this week is: Where do you find the greatest peace?

In this week’s episode, Nic and Thomas take some turns to unexpected places when they discuss finding peace… to high up places… to micro-dosing psychedelics… to what that all has to do with working conditions. AND true to our favorite DC discussions so far, Thomas reveals another interesting nugget from his past work experience that you’d never guess…

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

– For someone who travels so much, which environment or place do you find the most peace?

– Why Nic likes places that are high up

– How to put everything into perspective using a technique that stops worry or anxiety: by zooming out until you see the top of the roof of the building you’re in

– Describing an exercise in perspective that is designed to show you how insignificant your problems are

– An epiphany that this may be creation’s “best effort”, even though parts of the natural world are imperfect – are we getting closer to a utopia after many, many best efforts?

– A few micro-dosing insights: why, what, who should NOT try it, and forcing you out of old patterns and into new ones

– Why, ultimately, you won’t find your salvation in a pill or substance

– How meditation comes into play

– Thomas’s experience as a “gamer” working for a company that felt like the “gates of hell”

– Feeling constricted by having an overlord-type boss, micromanaging your bathroom breaks?

– Certain circumstances that Nic and Thomas agree they would rather take their chances surviving in nature than have to endure.

 

The DC question we’re talking about this week is: What gives you hope? 

In this episode Nic and Thomas get into everything from whether hope is necessary to how your thoughts can shape your reality. For Nic hope is about how you find faith that the future will get better even though everything in the game seems rigged against you. While for Thomas, it’s about the present – finding hope in moments, noticing the here and now. Before it ends though, they both have to grapple with the idea that “hope is not a plan”….

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

– Why Nic says “keep the faith” instead of goodbye

– Are hope and faith necessary to this life?

– On how thoughts shape your reality

– What one study revealed about language in an indigenous culture and what it has to do with hope and life expectancy

– On the two kinds of people who seem to be leading the lives they want to live

– Words of wisdom from Thomas’ father: Hope is not a plan. Enough is as good as a feast

– How Thomas views that wisdom now

– How it only takes a little bit of hope to fill you with a tremendous feeling that life can be a gift and adventure

– Find out how Thomas finds hope in moments (from a tremendous meditation experience to remembering “it’s not about me, but about everything around me”)

Mentions

– Carl Sagan quote “survival is the exception, extinction is the rule”

– Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis

– Also interesting: article suggesting speakers of languages without strong future tenses tended to be more responsible about planning for the future.

 

The DC Podcast theme this week: UNRAVELING

Could you choose an unconventional life? Could you go “off the grid”? Would you want to?

Join us as we discuss the process of unraveling thought patterns and the causal roots of certain actions and life patterns.

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

– The Ultimate Freedom and the Ultimate Restriction: Money

– Unraveling thought patterns and the roots of causal actions leading to life patterns

– Thomas describes what it’s like at Day 6 of a 7 Day Fast!

– On treating life like a beautiful ride vs. forcing things to happen

– Breaking down the idea that things must be a certain way

– On “handcuffs” that are related to your sense of place

– How putting roots down has a set of benefits of its own

– Dealing with people who have a different lifestyle

– Nic admits how his lifestyle is ridiculous in many ways

– The importance of life experiences outside of convention

– Some honest difficulties of long-haul travel

The DC Podcast question this week: what is the biggest dream you’ve given up on?

Nic and Thomas discuss the dream that died and whether it was the best thing that never happened. Tune in for more about finding liberation after letting go of dreams.

 

P.S. don’t worry, the background noise doesn’t last the whole time. It gets better about half way through, thanks for not giving up on us.

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

– When Nic’s athletic dreams got smashed

– Nic’s realizations about becoming jiu jitsu world champion at black belt after qualifying for the finals in Abu Dhabi

– why it’s tough to accept letting go of a dream but liberating as well

– Thomas’s dream to make a living as a musician in Austin, Texas

– the break up of Thomas’ band after they had the most potential

– dealing with the sadness when the dream is over, sense of loss after focusing on it so long

– learning to relate after the dream is gone

– giving thanks for what you don’t have

– burdens of one hit song; King’s of Leon, The Doors

– good enough to be commercially viable at your dream, but the risk that you kill all the joy you have towards it

– Thomas the “Polymath specialist”?

– debunking the myth that you should try to make a living doing what you love

– what sucks the joy out of your passion

Mentioned in Episode 16

movies: Get Him to the Greek (Spoiler Alert)

music: The Doors (Light my Fire), King’s of Leon (Sex on Fire)

people: Dorian Yates, Tim Ferriss, Jim Morrison

Books Mentioned In This Episode

books: Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by M.J. DeMarco (Nic is currently listening to the audiobook version)

DC Question this Week: What’s the hardest thing you’ve had to accept?

 

It gets good this week when Nic and Thomas find themselves in disagreement over one’s ability to make the choice to be happy no matter the circumstances. So stay tuned for the colorful discussion and find out what makes you WEAK (in their humble opinions) in the almost-controversial closing.

 

Find out what Nic’s ideal way to die is,

The idea that crushed Thomas at 19 years old

What causes Thomas and Nic to strongly disagree in the last 10 minutes regarding state of mind,

How they approach the ideas of death, mortality, and suicide

And a little about the “just world” theory

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

* Why is that people don’t seem to destroy things or kill each other when they are super happy?

* Or do we just become more aware and less naive as we grow older?

* People intrinsically good vs. people have the potential to be really good

* Nic drinks from a juice-box (apparently almond milk, if anyone was wondering)

* The “just world” theory; cosmic roulette wheel?

* Mortality, reflections on death, suicide

* TedTalk about how the world is actually getting better if you look at levels of war decreasing, disease decreasing, science improving quality of life, etc.

* Karmic retribution, soul lessons, enlightenment and the cycle of suffering

* Competing theories on what the human experience is; life is a gift, a celebration

* How to find balance in the experience of being human when some days are so hard

* What Thomas has discovered in the last couple of years that helps ease suffering and brings freedom from negative thought patterns and spirals

* What’s your brain or body chemistry and does that interfere with making the “choice” to be happy?

* Limited by the human hardware; “the ship’s going to sink someday” and that’s hard to accept… But you don’t have to accept it the way everyone else does

* You are way tougher than you give yourself credit for

 

Mentioned in Episode 15

*

TedTalk – “How Not to be Ignorant About the World”

*

Wim Hoff – Tapping into power that everyone thinks is impossible for the human body

 

Books Mentioned In This Episode

* Abundance by Peter Diamandis

 

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This week the DC question is: What’s your most important ritual?

Nic and Thomas discuss their personal habits, micro-rituals, and what it means to “mitigate the unsustainable” (which the guys agree has been a key to more happiness for them both).

The beginning of this episode is a little dense, but bear with us because it gets lighter as the conversation turns to workouts, meal rituals, eating patterns, and what works best as they’ve gotten older and wiser.

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

– How your thoughts create your reality

– Practicing mental hygiene

– The only prayer you need to say is ’thank you’

– Where’s the fine line between ritual and dogma?

– How rituals give things a sense of power

– Micro-rituals

– Substances: from music to caffeine to MDMA

– Nic’s personal process for expressing gratitude: listening to music to change your polarity, gratitude journal, visualizing images of the things you are grateful for as you write

Second Part:

– the weight room as Thomas’ “church”

– Malcom Gladwell’s 10,000 Hour Expert Rule

– Importance of meal rituals; preparing your own food vs. take out or restaurants

– If you have high quality/fresh food, you don’t have to worry about much else

– Warrior Diet

– 8 hour window of eating

– What it means to “mitigate the unsustainable”

“If you have to carry your food in a cooler on the way to the casino (I’ve done it), or you have to take supplements on the plane, it’s not ideal; it’s fragile; it’s a leash. If your supplements or food own you, you need to change your shit.” – Thomas

“Don’t believe the hype” – Nic

Mentioned in Episode 14

* Warrior Diet

 

Books Mentioned In This Episode

* Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

 

This week the DC question is: What’s the One Quality You Admire Most in a Woman? (and what quality do you notice is important in your best male friendships?)

Get ready for some Digital Communion GOLD. Just kidding. This question gets the guys talking about why more life experience makes you more attractive; the realization that who you think you are is not static but changes with age; whether you should look for a best friend who knows how to hunt, build a house, purify water, or hold an intelligent conversation; porn (again), and much more.

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

* The qualities Thomas and Nic need to find in the people they date

* The number one complaint of dating younger women

* ‘You are the sum of your experiences’

* ‘Work on things that you can take with you when you die’

* The guys discuss the difference of Eastern and Western women

* The concept of feminine energy ‘washing over’ masculine energy

* Thomas and Nic also discuss the qualities they admire most in men

* Do people need to specialise?

How honest are you being with yourself?

Thomas challenges Nic with a tricky question that brings up several dark themes.

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

* Nic admits how he tries not to think about how humans treat animals.

* Thomas shares the difficult things in his career that he just pretends not to know.

* If we don’t ‘filter’ and process everything that’s happening we’ll become too paranoid to act on anything.

* ‘Does it ever get to a point where you can control the effect of psychedelics?’

* Knowing the statistics of relationships and marriage, what do you pretend not to know about relationships?

* Looking for ‘precedents’ to model in relationships, career or business.

* The concept and importance of impulse control.

* Is there such a thing as ‘Porn balance’?

Mentioned in Episode 12

* Heroic Dose

* Terence Kemp McKenna

* The Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Books Mentioned In This Episode

* The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James Fadiman

 

It’s something that we’re all expected to do, but is having kids for everyone?

Thomas and Nic debate the merits and disadvantages of procreation.

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

* Thomas shares how he has changed his mind about having kids.

* Nic argues that there are enough kids on this planet and the Earth has already reached its carrying capacity.

* ‘Does the planet need another one of me?’

* Nic discusses the idea of being a father to a bunch of kids who don’t have one.

* Thomas and Nic shared their experiences with kids – Thomas with his nephews and Nic with his goddaughter.

* Would you date someone with who already has children?

* The power and innocence of a child’s smile.

* Thomas challenges Nic to spend an afternoon taking care of a kid.

“Who Am I?” is perhaps the most important question anyone can ever ask. Thomas asks Nic what his answer is and an interesting conversation ensues.

Watch or Listen below or get the Podcast free on iTunes

Show Notes

* Asking ‘Who am I?’ repeatedly and constantly is apparently a path to enlightenment.

* A human being is ‘just a collection of neurosis and beliefs’.

* The labels that we give ourselves usually happened in the past and bear no resemblance to reality

* Nic wants to be the person that doesn’t respond to ‘monkey mind’.

* Thomas shares that he is a person enamoured with the human experience.

* Thomas discusses how he tries to focus on being a good person and doing good things.

* “You have to go through the selfish phase before being able to give back.”

* Emotions are just trapped energy

* How Ayahuasca can help shorten the process of emotional healing.

Mentioned in Episode 10

* Ayahuasca

Books Mentioned In This Episode

* Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by David R. Hawkins