The One You Feed | Personal Growth, Emotional Resilience & Purpose

[powerpress]  
This week we talk to Chris Guillebeau
Chris Guillebeau is a New York Times bestselling author and modern-day explorer.
During a lifetime of self-employment that included a four-year commitment as a volunteer executive in West Africa, he visited every country in the world (193 in total) before his 35th birthday. Since then he has modeled the proven definition of an entrepreneur: “Someone who will work 24 hours a day for themselves to avoid working one hour a day for someone else.”
Chris’s first book, The Art of Non-Conformity, was translated into more than twenty languages. His second book, The $100 Startup, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, selling more than 300,000 copies worldwide. His latest book, The Happiness of Pursuit, was just released today.
Every summer in Portland, Oregon, Chris hosts the World Domination Summit, a gathering of creative, remarkable people with thousands in attendance. Chris is also the founder of Pioneer Nation, Unconventional Guides, the Travel Hacking Cartel, and numerous other projects.
 In This Interview Chris and I Discuss...

The One You Feed parable.
What is a quest?
Finding adventure and purpose.
How a quest add meaning to our lives.
How effort can be it's own reward.
How an emotional awareness of our mortality can be motivating.
Developing a sense of urgency and opportunity.
How misadventure builds confidence.
 The difference between a hobby, a passion and a quest.
 How depressed people tend to have more generalized goals.
How quests don't always wrap up cleanly.
Creating meaning in our lives.
Eric's free ticket to World Domination Summit.

Chris Guillebeau Links
Chris Guillebeau Homepage
World Domination Summit
Chris Guillebeau on Twitter
Chris Guillebeau Amazon Author Page
The Happiness of Pursuit
The $100 Startup
The Art of Non-Conformity
 

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:
Kino MacGregor
Strand of Oaks
Mike Scott of the Waterboys
Todd Henry- author of Die Empty
Randy Scott Hyde

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[powerpress]  

This week we talk to Chris Guillebeau

Chris Guillebeau is a New York Times bestselling author and modern-day explorer.

During a lifetime of self-employment that included a four-year commitment as a volunteer executive in West Africa, he visited every country in the world (193 in total) before his 35th birthday. Since then he has modeled the proven definition of an entrepreneur: “Someone who will work 24 hours a day for themselves to avoid working one hour a day for someone else.”

Chris’s first book, The Art of Non-Conformity, was translated into more than twenty languages. His second book, The $100 Startup, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, selling more than 300,000 copies worldwide. His latest book, The Happiness of Pursuit, was just released today.

Every summer in Portland, Oregon, Chris hosts the World Domination Summit, a gathering of creative, remarkable people with thousands in attendance. Chris is also the founder of Pioneer Nation, Unconventional Guides, the Travel Hacking Cartel, and numerous other projects.

 In This Interview Chris and I Discuss...

The One You Feed parable.

What is a quest?

Finding adventure and purpose.

How a quest add meaning to our lives.

How effort can be it's own reward.

How an emotional awareness of our mortality can be motivating.

Developing a sense of urgency and opportunity.

How misadventure builds confidence.

 The difference between a hobby, a passion and a quest.

 How depressed people tend to have more generalized goals.

How quests don't always wrap up cleanly.

Creating meaning in our lives.

Eric's free ticket to World Domination Summit.

Chris Guillebeau Links

Chris Guillebeau Homepage

World Domination Summit

Chris Guillebeau on Twitter

Chris Guillebeau Amazon Author Page

The Happiness of Pursuit

The $100 Startup

The Art of Non-Conformity

 

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:

Kino MacGregor

Strand of Oaks

Mike Scott of the Waterboys

Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

Randy Scott Hyde

This week we talk to Chris Guillebeau

 In This Interview Chris and I Discuss...

Chris Guillebeau Links

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:

Eric explores rumination and how damaging it can be to our mental health.

What is it?
What's the difference between rumination and self reflection?
Hebb's Law and the role it plays in rumination.
How to escape rumination.

Rough Transcript:
 
A few weeks ago I was at one of the local meditation centers and people were doing walking meditation. There was a guy walking incredibly slow and everyone was backing up behind him because no one but a disabled snail can move at that pace. So people weren’t doing walking meditation they were standing and looking at this guy with a grouchy look on their faces.
So I decided to stop him and explain that no one else could enjoy the meditation experience and it would be helpful if he could go just a bit faster.
A few minutes later we sat back down for sitting meditation and my mind began racing. Should I not have said anything? Was I rude? Was this guy angry? So I decided that when we got up I would go over to him and explain myself and make sure we were good. Problem solved….except not for my mind. On and on it went re-playing the scene and thinking about the upcoming conversation.
This is commonly know as rumination or brooding.
Rumination is the compulsively focused attention on the symptoms of one's distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions. Rumination is generally considered differently than self-reflection. Self-reflelction tends to offer new insights wheras rumination is just playing the same negative thoughts and feelings over and over.

You will never plow a field by turning it over in your mind-
Irish Proverb

The challenge with rumination (or brooding) is that it feels like we are doing something about the issue or problem by continuing to think about it and ponder it. However rumination is extremely destructive and has been strongly linked to deep depression and anxiety. In fact a The UK's biggest ever online test into stress, undertaken by the BBC's Lab UK and the University of Liverpool, has revealed that rumination is the biggest predictor of the most common mental health problems in the country.
The tricky thing is that worry and rumination can seem essential part of coping effectively. The idea of letting go of rumination and worry can be frightening. The ironic thing is that rumination tends to increase anxiety and effectiveness in problem solving goes down as anxiety increases.
In addition a mind that ruminates becomes more likely to continue to do it. We have talked on the show about how we create pathways in our brain that become every easier to fall into the more reengage them. This is not a fanciful idea or silly positive thinking. Neurosccience has something called Hebbs Law. The phrase, “neurons that fire together wire together”  The meaning of Hebb’s axiom is that each experience we encounter, including our feelings, thoughts, sensations, and muscle actions becomes embedded in the network of brain cells, that produce that experience. Each time you repeat a particular thought or action, you strengthen the connection between a set of brain cells or neurons.
Think of it like taking a walk in the woods. Your thoughts are like hikers. The first hiker has to blaze her own trail. But over subsequent trips a trail gets worn in to the ground and more and more hikers will take that trail. The more hikers that take the trail the clearer it becomes and the more likely that future hikers will take it. It takes much more energy to go off the trail. Our brains work the same way, there is a need to conserve energy. Our brains use about 25% of the body’s total energy so the brain is going to default to the neural circuits that take less energy.
So it’s important to determine whether we are ruminating or problem solving.  If the thinking does not lead to a course of action within a reasonable period it is probably rumination.
Back to my story above, the first few minutes while I thought about the situation and came up with a plan of action was useful self- reflection and problem solving. Everything after that was useless rumination.
in our interview with Dan Harris he talks about the difference between useless rumination and what he calls constructive anguish . The question he asks himself is “Is this useful?”  If it doesn’t lead to meaningful effective action then it is useless rumination.
If we are ruminating the most important thing is to come to a hard stop. As soon as the ruminative thought begins – that one that doesn’t lead to new insights but is the same path – you immediately have to distract yourself with something that requires concentration. The key at this point is to stop the cycle. We have to stop the brain cold, we need to stay off the path. So anything that distracts us and requires concentration will work. Play a game, solve a puzzle, anything is better than the rumination.
So a quick summary, brooding is the process of playing negative thoughts and emotions over and over. It is also extremely destructive. It is a key indicator of depression, anxiety, high blood pressure and heat disease. We need to interrupt the brooding as soon as it begins. The best way to do this is to immediately switch the brain to something that requires concentration.
Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:
Kino MacGregor
Strand of Oaks
Mike Scott of the Waterboys
Todd Henry- author of Die Empty
Randy Scott Hyde

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric explores rumination and how damaging it can be to our mental health.

What is it?

What's the difference between rumination and self reflection?

Hebb's Law and the role it plays in rumination.

How to escape rumination.

Rough Transcript:

 

A few weeks ago I was at one of the local meditation centers and people were doing walking meditation. There was a guy walking incredibly slow and everyone was backing up behind him because no one but a disabled snail can move at that pace. So people weren’t doing walking meditation they were standing and looking at this guy with a grouchy look on their faces.

So I decided to stop him and explain that no one else could enjoy the meditation experience and it would be helpful if he could go just a bit faster.

A few minutes later we sat back down for sitting meditation and my mind began racing. Should I not have said anything? Was I rude? Was this guy angry? So I decided that when we got up I would go over to him and explain myself and make sure we were good. Problem solved….except not for my mind. On and on it went re-playing the scene and thinking about the upcoming conversation.

This is commonly know as rumination or brooding.

Rumination is the compulsively focused attention on the symptoms of one's distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions. Rumination is generally considered differently than self-reflection. Self-reflelction tends to offer new insights wheras rumination is just playing the same negative thoughts and feelings over and over.

You will never plow a field by turning it over in your mind-

Irish Proverb

The challenge with rumination (or brooding) is that it feels like we are doing something about the issue or problem by continuing to think about it and ponder it. However rumination is extremely destructive and has been strongly linked to deep depression and anxiety. In fact a The UK's biggest ever online test into stress, undertaken by the BBC's Lab UK and the University of Liverpool, has revealed that rumination is the biggest predictor of the most common mental health problems in the country.

The tricky thing is that worry and rumination can seem essential part of coping effectively. The idea of letting go of rumination and worry can be frightening. The ironic thing is that rumination tends to increase anxiety and effectiveness in problem solving goes down as anxiety increases.

In addition a mind that ruminates becomes more likely to continue to do it. We have talked on the show about how we create pathways in our brain that become every easier to fall into the more reengage them. This is not a fanciful idea or silly positive thinking. Neurosccience has something called Hebbs Law. The phrase, “neurons that fire together wire together”  The meaning of Hebb’s axiom is that each experience we encounter, including our feelings, thoughts, sensations, and muscle actions becomes embedded in the network of brain cells, that produce that experience. Each time you repeat a particular thought or action, you strengthen the connection between a set of brain cells or neurons.

Think of it like taking a walk in the woods. Your thoughts are like hikers. The first hiker has to blaze her own trail. But over subsequent trips a trail gets worn in to the ground and more and more hikers will take that trail. The more hikers that take the trail the clearer it becomes and the more likely that future hikers will take it. It takes much more energy to go off the trail. Our brains work the same way, there is a need to conserve energy. Our brains use about 25% of the body’s total energy so the brain is going to default to the neural circuits that take less energy.

So it’s important to determine whether we are ruminating or problem solving.  If the thinking does not lead to a course of action within a reasonable period it is probably rumination.

Back to my story above, the first few minutes while I thought about the situation and came up with a plan of action was useful self- reflection and problem solving. Everything after that was useless rumination.

in our interview with Dan Harris he talks about the difference between useless rumination and what he calls constructive anguish . The question he asks himself is “Is this useful?”  If it doesn’t lead to meaningful effective action then it is useless rumination.

If we are ruminating the most important thing is to come to a hard stop. As soon as the ruminative thought begins – that one that doesn’t lead to new insights but is the same path – you immediately have to distract yourself with something that requires concentration. The key at this point is to stop the cycle. We have to stop the brain cold, we need to stay off the path. So anything that distracts us and requires concentration will work. Play a game, solve a puzzle, anything is better than the rumination.

So a quick summary, brooding is the process of playing negative thoughts and emotions over and over. It is also extremely destructive. It is a key indicator of depression, anxiety, high blood pressure and heat disease. We need to interrupt the brooding as soon as it begins. The best way to do this is to immediately switch the brain to something that requires concentration.

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:

Kino MacGregor

Strand of Oaks

Mike Scott of the Waterboys

Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

Randy Scott Hyde

This week we talk to Mishka Shubaly
Our guest today is author Mishka Shubalay. After receiving an MFA from Columbia University, Mishka promptly quit writing to play music. He lived out of a Toyota minivan for a year, touring nonstop, and has shared the stage with artists like The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Decemberists.
His Kindle Singles for Amazon have all been bestsellers. He writes true stories about drink, drugs, disasters, desire, deception and their aftermath. The Long Run is Mishka’s mini-memoir and details his transformation from alcoholic drug abuser to sober ultrarunner. His latest Kindle single is called Of Mice and Me and details him finding an orphaned baby mouse and the life lessons it brought to him.
Also at the end of the interview we have a pre-release of a song from Mishka’s forthcoming record.
 In This Interview Mishka and I Discuss...

The One You Feed parable.
Watching the wolves battle since he was a kid.
Nihilism and self defeating behaviors.
How he celebrated his 5 years of sobriety.
The ebb and flow of life.
Remembering and forgetting our life lessons.
How running is his meditation and prayer
Doing the hard thing and embracing the challenges remind him that he wants to be alive.
 How its harder to train for six weeks than to run 10 miles at once.
 That smaller changes can be more difficult to maintain.
Changing the default posture of our mind.
How his mantra went from Fuck It to Try Every Day.
Success being built on a series of failures.
Learning to recover from our mistakes
Extending the benefit of doubt to ourselves.
The negative voice of the bad wolf.
How we won't recover from addiction unless it is the most important thing in the world.
His fear of AA.
How there are no magic bullets.
His public promise to attend an AA meeting.
How it's worth trying anything once, expect maybe crystal meth.
Our communal desire for having a lot of pain over a long period of time versus a brief intense pain.
How following our dreams is not always the right approach.
Playing music for the love of it.
How the only thing that makes us happy is happiness.
How getting everything we want doesn't always make us happy.
Posting a picture of the The Strokes guitar player's ass all across Manhattan.

Mishka Shubaly Links
Mishka Shubaly Homepage 
Misha Shubaly Amazon Author page
Mishka Shubaly on Twitter
Of Mice and Me
The Long Run
Beat The Devil
 

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:
Kino MacGregor
Strand of Oaks
Mike Scott of the Waterboys
Todd Henry- author of Die Empty
Randy Scott Hyde

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we talk to Mishka Shubaly

Our guest today is author Mishka Shubalay. After receiving an MFA from Columbia University, Mishka promptly quit writing to play music. He lived out of a Toyota minivan for a year, touring nonstop, and has shared the stage with artists like The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Decemberists.

His Kindle Singles for Amazon have all been bestsellers. He writes true stories about drink, drugs, disasters, desire, deception and their aftermath. The Long Run is Mishka’s mini-memoir and details his transformation from alcoholic drug abuser to sober ultrarunner. His latest Kindle single is called Of Mice and Me and details him finding an orphaned baby mouse and the life lessons it brought to him.

Also at the end of the interview we have a pre-release of a song from Mishka’s forthcoming record.

 In This Interview Mishka and I Discuss...

The One You Feed parable.

Watching the wolves battle since he was a kid.

Nihilism and self defeating behaviors.

How he celebrated his 5 years of sobriety.

The ebb and flow of life.

Remembering and forgetting our life lessons.

How running is his meditation and prayer

Doing the hard thing and embracing the challenges remind him that he wants to be alive.

 How its harder to train for six weeks than to run 10 miles at once.

 That smaller changes can be more difficult to maintain.

Changing the default posture of our mind.

How his mantra went from Fuck It to Try Every Day.

Success being built on a series of failures.

Learning to recover from our mistakes

Extending the benefit of doubt to ourselves.

The negative voice of the bad wolf.

How we won't recover from addiction unless it is the most important thing in the world.

His fear of AA.

How there are no magic bullets.

His public promise to attend an AA meeting.

How it's worth trying anything once, expect maybe crystal meth.

Our communal desire for having a lot of pain over a long period of time versus a brief intense pain.

How following our dreams is not always the right approach.

Playing music for the love of it.

How the only thing that makes us happy is happiness.

How getting everything we want doesn't always make us happy.

Posting a picture of the The Strokes guitar player's ass all across Manhattan.

Mishka Shubaly Links

Mishka Shubaly Homepage 

Misha Shubaly Amazon Author page

Mishka Shubaly on Twitter

Of Mice and Me

The Long Run

Beat The Devil

 

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:

Kino MacGregor

Strand of Oaks

Mike Scott of the Waterboys

Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

Randy Scott Hyde

This week we talk to Mishka Shubaly

 In This Interview Mishka and I Discuss...

Mishka Shubaly Links

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:

Eric starts to respond to a negative review and uses as it a way to explore the negativity bias and steps to work with it.
 
Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:
Kino MacGregor
Strand of Oaks
Mike Scott of the Waterboys
Todd Henry- author of Die Empty
Randy Scott Hyde

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric starts to respond to a negative review and uses as it a way to explore the negativity bias and steps to work with it.

 

Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:

Kino MacGregor

Strand of Oaks

Mike Scott of the Waterboys

Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

Randy Scott Hyde