Mini Episode: The Elephant and The Rider

One of my favorite books is The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt.

In it, Haidt poses several "Great Ideas" on happiness espoused by thinkers of the past - Plato, Buddha, Jesus and others - and examines them in the light of contemporary psychological research, extracting from them any lessons that still apply to our modern lives. Central to the book are the concepts of virtue, happiness, fulfillment, and meaning.

He uses a metaphor of a rider on the back of an elephant in which the conscious mind is the rider and the unconscious mind is the elephant. The rider is unable to control the elephant by force: this explains many puzzles about our mental life, particularly why we have such trouble with weakness of will. Learning how to train the elephant is the secret of self-improvement.

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This week we talk to Akshay Nanavati about learning to use our fear

Akshay Nanavati is an explorer, volunteer firefighter, former U.S. Marine, and masters graduate in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. He has been mountaineering all over the world, glacier caving in Nepal, skydiving, ice diving, cave diving, scuba diving, and spent one month dragging a 190 pound sled 350 miles across the second largest icecap in the world.

His current project is to run across every country in the world. His website is called Existing to Living and uses the principles of human psychology, neuroscience and a greater understanding of how we function as human beings, to help you master your mind, body, heart, spirit and business.

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 In This Interview Akshay and I Discuss...

• The One You Feed parable.
• The difference between the human brain and the animal brain.
• His goal of running across every country in the world.
• Breaking things down into smaller steps and taking them one at a time.
• Learning to control how we respond to our environments.
• His forthcoming book: The Other Side of Fear.
• How fear and nirvana work together.

For more show notes please visit our webpage

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 In This Interview James and I Discuss...

• The One You Feed parable.
• How money can be an addiction that society rewards.
• How much we over estimate one defining moment versus steady day to day behavior.
• The aggregation of marginal gains- improve by 1% in everything you do.
• Small changes can lead to big results.
• Reduce the Scope, Stick to The Schedule.
• Not letting your emotions drive your behavior.
• The difference between professionals and amateurs.
• It's not the result that matters but the action and habit.
• The 2 Minute Rule.
• How willpower often comes after we start, not before.
• "Start with something so easy you can't say no to it"- Leo Babuta
• You don't have to be great at the start, you just need to be there.
• Learning from our failures and seeing it as a data point.
• Seeing failure as an event, not as part of us.
• How mentally tough people define themselves by their persistence, not failure.

This week we talk to Simon Sinek about leadership

Simon Sinek is an author best known for popularizing the concept of "the golden circle" and to "Start With Why", described by TED as "a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?"'. He joined the RAND Corporation in 2010 as an adjunct staff member, where he advises on matters of military innovation and planning.

His first TEDx Talk on "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" is the 3rd most viewed video on TED.com. His 2009 book on the same subject, Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (2009) delves into what he says is a naturally occurring pattern, grounded in the biology of human decision-making, that explains why we are inspired by some people, leaders, messages and organizations over others.

His latest book is called Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

 In This Interview Simon and I Discuss...

• The One You Feed parable.
• How good leadership is feeding the good wolf.
• How good leadership fills the environment with love, empathy and kindness.
• The four main neurotransmitters that regulate human emotion.
• How oxytocin inhibits addiction.
• The Rat Park experiments.
• The Cost of Leadership is self-interest.
• How leadership does not come with rank.

For more show notes visit our website

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Dan Harris

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Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

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This week we talk to Lama Surya Das about looking beyond ourselves

Lama Surya Das is one of the foremost Western Buddhist meditation teachers and scholars, one of the main interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, and a leading spokesperson for the emerging American Buddhism. The Dalai Lama affectionately calls him “The Western Lama.”

Surya has spent over forty five years studying Zen, vipassana, yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism with the great masters of Asia, including the Dalai Lama’s own teachers, and has twice completed the traditional three-year meditation cloistered retreat at his teacher’s Tibetan monastery.

Surya Das has been featured in numerous publications and major media, including ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The Washington Post, One segment of the ABC-TV sitcom Dharma & Greg was based on his life (“Leonard’s Return”). Surya has appeared on Politically Correct with Bill Maher, and twice on The Colbert Report.

Surya is the author of thirteen books, his latest is called Make Me One With Everything: Buddhist Meditations to Awaken from the Illusion of Separation.

 In This Interview Surya and I Discuss...

• The One You Feed parable.
• The Concept of Inter-Meditation.
• The Us vs.Them problem.
• Furthering a collective awakening versus only individual awakening.
• The process of gazing meditation.

For more show notes visit our website

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Life will always take effort

Most of us have a fantasy that we will hit some point where life won't take effort. We will read the right book, learn the right meditation, rub the right crystal and our troubles will vanish.

I think this is a fallacy. Life always take effort, and I think this is good news. It's our unrealistic expectations that cause us problems and cause us pass over what works and chase more snake oil.

Make the effort, life is worth it.

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This week we talk to Johann Hari about battling our demons

Johann Hari is a British journalist. He has written for many of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Le Monde, the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, the Nation, Slate, El Mundo, and the Sydney Morning Herald. He was a lead op-ed columnist for the Independent, one of Britain’s leading newspapers, for nine years.

Johann was named ‘National Newspaper Journalist of the Year’ by Amnesty International twice. He was named ‘Environmental Commentator of the Year’ at the Editorial Intelligence awards, and ‘Gay Journalist of the Year’ at the Stonewall awards. He has also won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for political writing.

His latest book is called Chasing the Scream, The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

In This Interview Johann and I Discuss...

• The One You Feed parable.
• The origins of the war on drugs.
• Is the war on drugs productive.
• How every culture in the world has looked for ways to become intoxicated?
• The % of people who use drugs who ever have a problem with it.

For more show notes please visit our website

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

Dan Harris

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Randy Scott Hyde

This week we talk to Edward Slingerland about trying not to try

Edward Slingerland is a Professor of Asian Studies and Canada Research Chair in Chinese Thought and Embodied Cognition at the University of British Columbia, and was educated at Princeton, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. His areas of specialty include Chinese thought, comparative religion, cognitive science, and the relationship between the sciences and the humanities. In addition to over twenty academic journal articles in a range of fields, he has written several scholarly books, including What Science Offers the Humanities and a translation of the Analects of Confucius. His first book for a popular audience is called Trying Not to Try: Ancient China, Modern Science, and the Power of Spontaneity

In This Interview Ted and I Discuss...

• The One You Feed parable.
• Trying not to try.
• The tension of trying to relax.
• The conscious mind vs the unconscious mind.
• The ancient secrets of Wu Wei.

For more show notes visit our website

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Dan Harris

Maria Popova

Todd Henry- author of Die Empty

Randy Scott Hyde

Bonus Re-Issue from March 2014

This week on The One You Feed we have Rich Roll.

Rich Roll  is a 47-year old, accomplished vegan ultra-endurance athlete and former entertainment attorney turned full-time wellness & plant-based nutrition advocate, motivational speaker, husband, father of 4 and inspiration to people worldwide as a transformative example of courageous and healthy living.

In 2012, Rich became a #1 bestselling author with the publication of his inspirational memoir Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself.  Taking up where the book leaves off, in 2013 Rich launched the wildly popular Rich Roll Podcast, which persistently sits atop the iTunes top-10 lists.

In May 2010, Rich and his ultra-colleague Jason Lester accomplished an unprecedented feat of staggering endurance many said was not possible. Something they call the EPIC5 CHALLENGE – a odyssey that entailed completing 5 ironman-distance triathlons on 5 islands of Hawaii in under a week. Commencing on Kauai, they travelled to Oahu, Molokai and Maui before finishing on the Big Island, following the course of the Ironman World Championships on the Kona coast.

 In This Interview Rich and I Discuss...

• The One You Feed parable.
• His experience feeding the bad wolf.
• His battle with alcoholism.
• How his sobriety wasn't all he needed for happiness.
• His moment of clarity at 40 that made him change his life again.
• The value of a plant based diet.
• How important it is to be ourselves and be vulnerable in telling our story.
• How nervous he was about sharing his innermost thoughts in his book.
• How he followed his heart and it led to a new life for him
• Why you should stop lifehacking and invest in the journey.
  
• How to push through discomfort.
• The difference between the thinking mind and your higher consciousness.
• Eric taking on a 30 day plant power challenge.

Rich Roll Links

Rich Roll homepage

The Rich Roll podcast

Rich Roll on Medium

Why You Should Stop Lifehacking and Invest in the Journey

@RichRoll on Twitter

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