#16. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
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Hey everybody, Justin here. Welcome back to The Honest Drink. We just did some studio upgrades, so hopefully you'll notice the difference once we get into the episode. Thanks to you, this podcast is growing each week and we just wanted to provide the best audio quality that we can.

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Today's episode, I really enjoyed a lot. It's Howie, Eric, and myself. And we talk about the book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson. It's a very popular book. I'm sure a bunch of you have read it already. But if you haven't, it's a real quick read. And basically to summarize, the book is about defining core values by stripping away false values.

to learn not to give a fuck about the things that shouldn't be important to you, which is easier said than done, especially when you're convinced something is important when it really isn't, and it's just holding you back. So today we talk about the book and what each of us took away from it, and how we're applying what we took away in our own lives. So please enjoy, and without further ado, episode 16, here we go.

Cheers guys. Cheers. Cheers. Welcome back. Thank you. Cheers.

wow that is that is 58 for sure oh oh my god hitch in the gut oh my god it's like evaporating out of the bottle it's a nice taste though tastes like chocolate it yeah it does have a chocolatey taste actually it's strong as shit though my chest feels warm now that is very strong all right um so what you guys been doing what's new

Well, I mean, personally, me, work-wise, I've been very crazy. And recently I was listening to...

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Oh, yeah. Which I remember you guys mentioned before. Yeah, yeah. I read that book. Did you finish that book or are you still reading it? Almost finished. Okay. Almost finished. But I mean, I would say like 85%. He didn't give a fuck about finishing it. He didn't give a fuck about finishing it. It's a fun book. It's a fun book. It's interesting. I think it's interesting. I think the points that he makes...

could be done even quicker. I think he kind of like that. It's a pretty short read though. It is short. It is short, but I mean the concepts of what he's saying is, I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Right. Um,

So, I mean, what do you guys think? I mean, you guys read the whole thing already. Well, I went through it twice, actually. Oh, okay. And the second time I went through it, this is why I'm saying this, because maybe if you read it twice, the first time I read through it, I kind of felt the same way you did. I'm like, yeah, it's kind of straightforward. You know, I kind of know this. Like, you know, it's kind of like blah, blah, blah, almost like preaching to the choir kind of deal. But the second time I read it, I found it a lot more...

And it made me think a lot more. There were a lot of things I didn't notice. And if you look deeper into what he's saying and scratch the surface deeper, it's actually very compelling, a lot of his chapters. There are a few of his chapters that hit me, that struck me very profoundly the second time I read it. So it was like a whole new different book. It felt like I was reading from a whole new different author the second time. So let me ask you, if you were to, for the listeners out there that don't know this book, if you were to sum it up,

In one or two lines, what would you say? Oh, damn. Okay. Putting me on the spot. I think Eric could do this better, but I can give you the facts. Okay. So Mark Manson is the author. Book is called The Solo Art of Not Giving a Fuck. It's a hugely popular book. I'm sure a lot of our listeners have read it before too. And basically at the top of the book, he is talking about really kind of values. Like what are the values you're going to decide are important to you and which ones are you going to reject? Yeah.

And he's talking about the not giving a fuck is not like, oh, I don't give a fuck about anything. The lesson is you have to choose what you want to give a fuck about and don't give a fuck about anything else but those things, right? And don't give a fuck about anything that gets you in your way of achieving those things. Don't give a fuck about the adversity. So that's the angle he's talking about. It's not like blah, blah, blah, I don't give a fuck about anything.

He's not right. So and then he's talking about kind of how do you get there and how do you start rejecting values that are unimportant to you and why you should. Right. So he paints this kind of whole lesson and he talks. He has anecdotes from his his own personal life.

And I just, there are some chapters I think were very profound the second time around. The first time I didn't notice it. I think maybe because I was just commuting most of the time when I read it the first time. So I wasn't really paying attention to a lot of things. I was just kind of like, I was hearing it, but I wasn't listening. You know what I mean? And the second time around, I was listening to it at home. So I think that made a difference where a lot of the things he said really kind of struck me. If you think about what he's saying,

and read in between the lines of what he's saying. They're very profound. So one housekeeping note.

We've gotten some feedback from our listeners that our beautiful voices all sound the same. So to help people acclimate, this is Eric. They call me the barbaric. They also call me epic sometimes. So we'll introduce ourselves so that you can really fall in love with our voices. And maybe one day, you know, you'll be able to tell the difference without us telling you. People have been saying that. And by the way, I'm Justin.

You guys probably are most familiar with my voice just because of the intros. And it's so good. It's buttery. And what about you, Howie? And I'm Howie.

I'm the one with the buttery voice. Yeah. I feel like we all have, but I have the least buttery voice. I don't know about that. I have the least buttery voice, I think. Of the most buttery voice. We're all going to get more and more buttery as we go. I would say that Justin is sort of, for those of you who listen to podcasts, he's kind of like the Joe Rogan of the Asian world. That's high praise. Yeah. That's high praise. And Howie, well, words cannot describe Howie. He is the Steven Spielberg of the Asian world. Yeah. We call him How-How.

Yeah, a lot of people call me Hal. Yeah, we're still waiting for some of your feature-length films. And Eric is the Tim Cook of the Asian world. That's a little bit of a stretch. That's a little stretch. If you guys were wondering what his employment was. No, Siddhar Pinchai.

Anyway, let's get back to it. Let's get back on track, guys. So I have a question for you, Justin. It sounds like this book, you got a lot more out of it than Howie did, obviously. I wouldn't say that. We haven't really gotten to that. I haven't even said what I got. Have you read it? He kind of dismissed it. Eric, have you read the book? I have read it. Okay. I enjoyed it immensely.

You talked a little bit about what the values are that are important to you and which ones are you going to reject as one of the key themes of the central themes of the book. Why is that important?

I believe, and this is one of his chapters. I'm paraphrasing, obviously the chapter isn't named this, but I'm just using my own words. Kind of less is more, right? We're distracted by the paradox of choice, humans, right? And the more things that I think we assign value to in our day-to-day lives, the less value and depth we can go on each one of them, right? And the more distractions we'll have,

And we realize that a lot of the things that we're assigning value to are actually unimportant to us at the end of the day, if we really kind of dig in and be honest with ourselves. And from my perspective, I think from a broader perspective of looking at society, I think this is true everywhere.

for a lot of us, almost for everybody, I think. And it's not just trivial things like I'm assigning priority to that I'm talking about. It's not like, oh, I'm a prioritizing, like partying with my friends. Like, no, that stuff is very surface, trivial stuff. I think most of our listeners and us, like we're at a place in our lives where we know how to differentiate those type of values, right? Those are the easy ones.

What I'm saying are like the ones that are really hard. It's a simple thought, but it's really hard to execute, to reject. I'm talking about values like ego. I'm talking about values like pride, face, like saving face, right? These kind of things, these are all kinds of things on the surface we know we shouldn't

be too hung up on, but it's human nature to care about these things deeply. Whether or not we want to admit it to ourselves or not, these are things that deeply affect us, right? A lot of people, especially a lot of people out here, you know, and even Asians in general, I think are just more competitive, right? So it's like the whole means of thing, the whole saving face thing is very important. It's always a theme, right?

And I think these are the values that with like going back to this book that I'm trying, it's a work in progress. So it's not like saying, oh, I've done this and done. No, it's hard. It's a work in progress that I'm trying to reject. I'm trying to reject these values or I'm trying to reject these things as values, right? And focus on more important things, right? Because I think when you reject, um,

When you reject the idea or the importance of my ego, my pride, face, then you start, then you have a chance to lessen your fear of failure, right? Because where does fear of failure really originate? I think it originates for most people, the people's, like your reputation, right? How people see you, right? Because if you were the only person on earth

there would really be no fear of failure in the sense of our everyday stuff, right? Obviously, there'll be a fear of failure if you can't catch your food or you can't escape a predator, right? Like, I don't know. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking in like daily modern society, right? And so I'm trying to get away and reject these things and to be able to lessen my fear of failure and be able to free myself because I don't want to live bound and shackled, right?

to the laws or confines of living my life based on success and failure. I think that's a prison. And I think that's a prison we all live in, right? We all live in between the lines of success and failure. And that's how we measure everything. Every achievement, everything that we do, every venture, every decision is based on this success and failure. And if we can do away with that,

And this is why one particular chapter in the book really struck me the most. And it's the chapter, what was it called? It was the chapter called the do something principle. The do something principle by far was my favorite chapter. And basically what he's saying, the do something and do something principle is his do something principle is if you're stuck, just do something.

It can be big. It can be small. Just do something. Just keep staying in motion. Do not be stagnant because once you're stagnant and you're still and you don't do anything, you're dead, right? Before in our previous episodes, we always talked about connecting the dots, right? Well, you're not what you don't know where the dots are, but you know, they're not where you are right now. You need to go somewhere to connect that dot, right? And the dot is not a fixed location either. You create your own dots, right?

And you can only find those dots for yourself by actually doing something. And you can only do something once you start really not, if you feel, okay, I don't want to put this. If you feel that failure feels unimportant to you, then you free yourself to do things. And just the act of doing something becomes a measure of success for you, right? Yeah.

just the act of doing something becomes the measure of success. So by doing something, whether you succeed or fail, it's progress. So by that definition, even progress, even failure can mean progress because at least you took action. So that's what I, in short, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to measure my life and my values based on my actions and

and actually making progress and doing things. Instead of just living by this Bible of success and failure, I have to succeed. I have to succeed. Failure is not an option. Failure is not an option. Well, then you don't really take any chances. Then you don't really do anything. Then you don't really, you're not really free to really propel yourself ahead. So that's, you know, that's what I took away most from this book. So I think that was, so first of all,

I think that was a really insightful analysis of some of the book. And I'll share sort of one reflection I have, and then I have a question for you guys. The reflection is that, you know, as you read the book,

as you go through and digest the material a second and third time, you connect more dots, you find more ways to apply it. And your mind is able to create some space to really think through things. And there are nine chapters in the book. And then there's a lot of sub chapters. My initial takeaway when I read it was that there was a, like, he's a great writer. He truly, it's interesting because like he's a blogger. And so you kind of think there's so many modern authors who,

and they're writing books to kind of capitalize on their fame. I actually think he's a really, really good writer. And every chapter and every subchapter, there was something unique about that particular chapter. You just broke down like one or two subchapters. Yeah. And there was a lot of meaning in what you said. And I took...

And you don't remember everything you read, of course, right? And so I really enjoyed what you just said because essentially what you're saying is you don't want to live on the lines of success and failure based on someone else's definition. You want to be able to define things based on your own values. So my question for all of us is,

maybe we kind of flip the coin a little bit and say, what are your values? What are the things that you want to hold on to? And then maybe we can talk about what's holding us back. But I love to kind of get a sense of when you go through this exercise, what are the values that are important to you? - Are you asking me? - Yeah, or any of us. Like it's a great question. - Well, for me, I'm taking the approach because I actually thought about this because the second time I read the book, I started asking myself a lot of these questions, right?

And to be honest, I don't have all the answers. I don't know yet, right? And so if you ask me like, what are all my values? I don't know yet, but I think I'm getting there. And my way of getting there is by way of deduction.

So the way I go about it first is first, let's identify the values I'm going to reject. And by rejecting those values that I'm going to deem unimportant to me, I think what's left are going to be the values, are going to be my values, and they're going to reveal themselves, right?

So that's what I'm in the process of doing. I'm in the process of finding what I'm going to reject. What do I feel is hindering me the most? What are the big boulders in my way? And I think...

For me, and even really for a lot of people, I think it goes back to that sense of failure, that failure thing, right? And there's another quote. I don't know the quote exactly, but there's another saying in his book. He's basically saying like, look, we're all going through life without knowing what the fuck we're doing. All of us.

It's just by progressing, we know a little bit more, but we still don't know, right? We just know a little bit more, right? And that really struck me too, because it all goes back to this fear of failure. And I think that is at the core of what a lot of people...

around us and even ourselves kind of have to deal with, right? Even in society, like if you look at social media and people posting, I think it's this fear of like people feeling like, look, it's never okay to suck. I have to be great.

every second of the day. And I have to be great and people have to know I'm great. - You have to be special. - Exactly. I have to be outstanding, right? I have to be fucking, everyone has to know I'm the fucking greatest or else I'm not doing my job. I'm not being the best me, quote unquote, the best me, right? And I think that all originates from this fear of failure that people are convinced that it's not okay to suck sometimes. And Mark Manson talks about this too. Like,

We're humans. We're gonna suck sometimes. Everyone's gonna suck sometimes. It's okay. The key is keep pushing forward, keep moving on and learn. But don't pretend like you don't suck sometimes. Don't pretend like you're perfect. And don't try to convince other people you are too because the more we do that, the more of a society that we create that everyone feels it's not okay to be okay anymore.

And this is more poignant today than I think ever before because of things like social media and everything like this that everyone feels, especially teens. Like we're mature enough to kind of have to deal with it even though we face issues with it ourselves. But think about the kids. Think about if we were to grow up in today's age, man, I'd be fucked up in the head. I really think I would, right? So I feel for like the youngsters growing up now. I feel for the teens that have to grow up in this world.

in the respect that they are dealing, I think, with psychological and societal pressures that we didn't have to face in our youth. And that it's not okay to suck. You have to be fucking great for society to even care about you. Because all the social media, all these platforms, they only broadcast the most outstanding people. So you base your worth on that, on that metric.

How much are you broadcasted? How much do people know about you? How many likes do you have? How many views do you have? That becomes your metric of success, which is insane, which is fucking insane. So I think those are all the symptoms, all the layers. But if you backtrace it, backtrace it, and backtrace it to its origin, it's this fear of fucking failure. And if we stop looking at it from that perspective and just look at it from...

my action? Am I going to do something? And by doing something, anything, that just by doing something, that is success for me. And by doing another thing, that is success for me. No matter how it turns out, that's success. And if you keep on with that mentality and keep doing something, keep doing something, then you keep moving. You keep making, you keep walking, you keep taking steps, wherever these steps may lead. But one day, these steps are going to lead somewhere and it's going to connect you to your next dot in life.

And then you keep going on and you keep going on.

I think that goes back to something that I remember Eric mentioned on a previous podcast where, like you were saying, social media, you're always comparing yourself to the best of the best, the cream of the crop. Or even the people around you, they're only showing their best side. But you should only be comparing to yourself yesterday. Are you better than you were yesterday? Are you improving? You should only be comparing yourself to yourself.

because that's the best metric, you know, the most realistic metric for you to keep improving. Because otherwise, if you're only, you know, looking at the best of the best and you're so far away from that, it may become daunting. You won't even make that next step. You know, so, I mean, I'm speaking in generalities, but...

The idea is still, you know, still there. I mean, that's so true because everyone to get to the point and whatever we're talking about, let's say it's like weightlifting or boxing, no one has the luxury to kind of skip steps. So everyone that's great at something either just started earlier or put in more time or whatever it is. And so they're at a certain point. It's kind of like imagine it's like a mountain, like Mount Everest, right?

Or Mount Kilimanjaro. So they've climbed to the top and you're kind of looking from the bottom. They've taken that snapshot at the top. They also had to go up. It's not like they took a helicopter straight up to the top. They had to hike up. And by comparing us to the end result, we bypassed the whole process. And that does make it daunting and that does make it seem hopeless. Yeah.

But there was actually step-by-step a path that they took to get to the top. And the only thing you can really compare is sort of where you are in that path because you can advance beyond where you were sort of the previous day. And Justin, you mentioned...

I like what you said earlier, this notion of you have to be great for society to care about you. That is a super dangerous thing because in your self-worth and how you feel about yourself is defined externally. And that's not a...

Exactly. It's defined externally. And the very definition of greatness that we're using might be misplaced. Like what is great, right? We're defining great by how many people know of you, you know, kind of in today's world. Like how many people know about you? How much are you broadcasted? Oh, then you must be great.

If we don't know about you, you're not great, which is insane. And if that's driving what you're doing, it's not driven by your inner values and going back to your original point, what are the values that are important to you? If the value that's important to you is other people judging you through their own criteria, then you can't control that. You can only control what's important to you.

So I think what we should probably do is get rid of all these microphones and all this fancy equipment, and then just kind of go back to some, you know, I think we're letting society judge us. Well, this is for our own fun. It does sound pretty fucking good though. But, but going back to where you, but you just touched on something that just made me think of how it relates to us. This is a specific example of what I'm talking about. Even this podcast, um,

If we're going to be really honest with ourselves, even in the beginning, before we decided to actually execute on actually doing this podcast, we were a little hesitant. I think, honestly speaking, I think each of us was a little hesitant. We're like, oh man, we're kind of putting ourselves out there. People like, what if we say something stupid or if we just come off like sounding stupid, which we might, right? Which we did. Which we are, I guess. But so we were letting...

we were placing a lot of value and a lot of importance on people who we may or might not even know on their judgment and their outlook on like our voice or like how we come off. We don't even know us. We don't even know us, a lot of them, right? And that almost hindered us from even doing this podcast. But I think what I'm proud of, I can't speak for you guys, but what I'm proud of is like,

we kind of were like, well, we don't give a fuck, right? We don't really give a fuck. We're going to do this podcast anyway, cause it's fucking fun and we want to do it. You know what I mean? And I'm so glad we did because this is doing something. This is a something. It's small, but it's a something. And we're doing it and we're having a blast doing it. And I don't regret it. And I'm so glad we did this because this is so much fucking fun. Right.

And, and it even goes to like, um, potential guests, right? Like I've talked, I've spoken to some people and just in casual, like kind of like very casually and very, um, you know, almost half jokingly is like, oh, I don't know if you're, if you want, you can come on our podcast anytime as a guest and, you know, we can shoot the shit, you know what I mean? Whatever. Right. And some people are hesitant because then they're like, oh man, you know, I don't,

I guess they're afraid of putting themselves out there on front street, right? - And the voice is imprinted on the web forever. - Forever, and it's a record and they have to be accountable for what they say, I guess, right? So a lot of people are afraid to be put on front street like that. - And why? - Well, I think it's a pride thing, it's an ego thing, it's a face thing, it's a fear of failure thing, right? It's a fear of judgment. And a fear of judgment ultimately means you're afraid of failure because you don't wanna be judged for your failures.

Or what if as a professional they're afraid they're going to say something wrong that's going to affect their profession then? I mean, that's a different perspective. That's nothing to do with

With, you know, but I yeah, OK, true. There's a valid point there. But I think that's easy to curve. Like, I mean, you just don't have to talk about anything that really relates or affects your profession. I mean, as human beings, as smart human beings, you can I think you can easily avoid those things. Right. I mean, it's just like having a casual conversation, but it's just recorded. Right.

And yes, maybe it affects your career, but I think most people that we talk to are smart enough to avoid whatever that would affect their career and just be able to have a normal conversation. And this is fear of like, if you look at it, it's ridiculous because it's a fear of having a normal conversation. It's a normal conversation that we're having. This is a very normal conversation.

All our podcasts are pretty fucking normal conversations. The only difference is that it's recorded. And that's the only variable. That's the only difference. They know that in the back of their minds, they know that it's recorded. And because they know that it's recorded, they know that they're going to, it's like you said, it's imprinted forever. They're going to have to be held accountable for what they say. And it's this fear of accountability that drives me crazy. It's one of my pet peeves when people are afraid of accountability. I can't stand it. I feel it's weak.

That you're afraid of accountability. You should embrace it. Embrace accountability. Embrace what you think. Don't shy away from it. If you think something, if you feel something, don't be afraid to voice it. Don't think it inside, but then outwardly, you're like, okay, I don't know. And hide from it. I think that's cowardly. And I think that's weak. Don't be weak from Justin.

So I have some thoughts here. I like the way the conversation is going and I like some of the comments here and how we're applying this to this process. So just like personal revelation, not revelation, reflection and disclosure. Before coming on the show, and you guys know this, and we all felt this way,

- We were, I would say, kind of like scared about just listening to ourselves. There was that embarrassment factor, right? - And there still is. - There still is. - Like we cringe at our own voices still. - Yeah, I mean, now that you've got these like, you know, super fancy microphones, I'm cringing every second now. Thank you very much.

And then you remember all of the hesitation I had with being filmed and I'm like, are we on air? We're not on air, this and that. Yeah. And definitely there was that kind of like a little bit of hesitation and self-consciousness. Exactly. There was definitely a lot of self-consciousness and even potential guests. So I want, I'm trying to get Han on the show. So for, for the benefit of the, the audience, Han is a,

good buddy of ours and he's in the creative industry like how he is but he's also a fanatical uh workout kind of fitness junkie fitness fitness junkie so we've been doing some spartans together so we're trying to get on the show he's very proud of how he's kind of taken a group of misfits and we've completed a few spartans i was asking him he's like oh i don't know i'm kind of busy so normally he's super confident and he's like yeah like you know we're gonna make we need to make a name for ourselves and i'm like well why don't you come on the show and he's like oh

Oh, you know, right? He's calling you out, Han. He's calling you out. All right, Han Lin. Get your ass over here. Bring your ass out here. So definitely that fear of failure, putting ourselves out there. But I've definitely gotten more comfortable and it feels great. It feels great to be able to listen to my own voice and not be as insecure about it and say, hey, that's me. It's cool. Like people...

you know, think I'm fine. It's liberating. It's liberating. It's really, really, really liberating. And it also does the accountability thing. I'm not quite as hardcore as you are, but I do feel like, yeah, let's, you know, whatever we say, whatever we think, it's me. It's fine. Right. I think the other piece that's kind of ironic is that, you know, this whole notion of the honest drink,

So we are hiding ourselves sometimes. And when we put together the show, when we were brainstorming of what values we wanted to represent, we were like, it's about friends, it's about getting together, and it's about being honest, completely 100% honest. And we have to remind ourselves every episode because we can get into that spiral where we're just doing it for this or that or people. I mean, even at the beginning of this show, before the show, we were talking about, oh, such and such a person said that, oh, they really like this.

And that was sort of like determining our feeling of like if the show was, you know, being good, right? So I think this is a struggle that we face. And so it's something we need to remind ourselves. And then think about even the notion of like drinking. It's like the whiskey kind of just helped us get over the fear. I mean, to be completely honest, I think the whiskey was actually sort of our way of like putting ourselves out there and just be like, fuck it, I don't remember what I said. Yeah.

Which is real true, right? Sometimes when we listen, we're like, wait a minute, we said that? But you're right. Truth serum. Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. And on that note, because I've been drinking this whiskey, right? This whiskey is fucking strong, dude. It is. I'm fucking buzzed. That was fast. Think about this, right?

Can we get to a point where we don't have to drink a whole damn bottle to finish a show? It's very costly, right? It's costly, but it's fun as fuck. It's like we feel like we need to finish the bottle just to do the show. I mean, the majority of the shows, they get finished. Yeah. Maybe what we can do at some point, maybe like what are we on episode 17 or 18, whatever? Maybe when we get to episode 117, we can do a show completely sober.

I don't think that's going to happen. It'll be like the most boring show ever. No one's going to... Half of it will be silence. But, I mean, you're right. You know, like, we... Going back to the theme of the show, and the fact that we're even doing this show, I think, is related to the theme of this book. Is that, in a way, because we were just normal people. We're not, like, broadcasters. We didn't work in the public eye at all. You know, it's not like this is natural for us. We're just three guys...

who were not in the public's eye in any way. I was hardly even on social media. I don't even have a Facebook for crying out loud. - You didn't even have a name, right? We just gave you that name Justin randomly, right? - And we were like, hey, fuck it. Let's just do it. And for those of you that don't know, this show is actually recorded on video as well. We have cameras set up. We're in a studio.

We just haven't started releasing the videos of the episodes. We might do that in the future. But going back to the original, like we were decided to do audio. We're gonna record ourselves on video. And we were just like, fuck it. Like, we just don't give a fuck. Let's just do it 'cause this is something we wanna do. This is a project that we're gonna find fun. That's gonna be meaningful to us and hopefully meaningful to other people. That's the hope, that's the dream, right?

But we're like, fuck it. Let's just do it. Despite of all our self-conscious thoughts, despite of all our insecurities, we were going to do it. And we're going to put ourselves on video doing it too. So that is a proud moment for us, I think, in terms of just being like, you know what? Let's fucking do it. You know what I mean? And we were doing this. And I think the... I mean, we were trying to do this because...

We just wanted to, there were conversations, I think you brought this up in the very beginning. You said, okay, I've known you guys for a long time. There are conversations that I've always wanted to have with you guys, but we didn't really have like a forum and a space where we could be intentional about it. And so, yeah, we want to share and we're open with our thoughts to the outside world. But part of it was we were just doing this for ourselves. It's kind of like writing a book. Absolutely. Mostly for ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, because in the...

First of all, before we started doing this podcast, at this stage in our lives, we started seeing each other less and less. Just because each of us, we have different priorities in life, right? We're getting older. We have different priorities. So we started seeing each other less and less socially. And even when we did see each other socially, it wasn't a good place or time or atmosphere or platform, whatever you want to call it.

to actually really talk to each other and really connect with each other again and really get to know each other again. Because we're all changing as people. With every year that passes, we change. With every new event and experience in our lives, we change and we evolve. So the Howie, the Eric that I knew five, 10 years ago is not the same as the Howie and Eric today. And you don't know that unless you really can have

a time and place to really sit down and have a long form conversation like this with each other and get to know each other, right? And because we were out and we would socialize or we'd be at a bar or a restaurant or having dinner or whatever, but then there'll be other people too. And you get distracted and it's just not the place.

So this was a very meaningful thing to us personally, well, to me personally, in which that was the driving point. It was, okay, that's the value I'm going to place. My value is on the people I care about. My value is going to be put on my friends, the people I love in my life. I want to reconnect with them. I want to get to know them better. My family and my friends, my close friends. I know that's going to be one of my core values, right? So I decided on that.

And it was like, okay, well then fuck it. What's gonna bring me closer? Well, doing this podcast will, and it's gonna be fun, and it's gonna be a cool thing to check off on our list, right? So it's like, so that kind of pushed us over the hump in terms of, okay, despite all those other insecurities that we may have, this we know is a core value of ours. So that was the driving force of us even doing this. And then eventually it branched off into like, okay, well, we should expand our network. We should...

What we're doing with each other, we should do with other people maybe we don't even know that well. So that brought us onto the idea of getting guests onto the show. Getting people we actually want to learn from, talk to, inspire us. So that branched into this kind of whole thing that we're in the process of doing now. And it's beautiful. It really is. It's beautiful. I 100% agree.

And I got to say, going back, I was probably one of the most hesitant out of us three to be on recording and on camera.

As a matter of fact, I don't know if you remember when we first brainstormed this podcast, I was like, I'll be behind the camera. I'll just like, you know, help you set up. Yeah, you want it, you know, because you're in the film industry. You're like, OK, I want let me let me direct it. I'll be behind the cameras. I'm like, fuck you. But but I mean, going back to what you just said, that's one of the reasons why I decided to say, fuck it. Let's just let's just do it together, because you're right. It is a chance for us.

to be together and talk meaningfully, record it, always have something to go back on as we get older. And at the same time, and I think this is one of the big core values of the show that made me go all in, is maybe we can positively affect people.

In some way or another. I hope so. You know, and that's why like we try to keep topics sort of in a positive way, whether it's through improvement, whether it's through learning, you know, or just sharing experiences just to let people know that, you know, you're not alone. I think that is very important to me. And I think it is for you guys as well. And that's why I'm glad that we're doing this kind of stuff. And then in going back to the book,

I think the key aspect of this book that I'm taking out of is just basically focusing. It's just honing in because if you don't focus or hone in on values, on what's important to you, then you're just going to be wasting too much time on things that are irrelevant or things that will only hinder you or things that are just going to keep you down.

And like Eric said, there are a lot of different topics that Mark went through in this book. Mark. Yeah. You know him on a first name basis. Yeah. Mark and I go way back. Yeah. Howie. When he was living in Southeast Asia. So anyway, yeah, he goes through a lot of different elements. But I feel like if it was one thing to take away from it is focus. Yeah.

Because not giving a fuck is about focusing on what's important. So is there a particular process you have in terms of finding your focus or honing your focus? Well, I guess I would break it down to two parts. One part is a general life focus. And that to me, I used to think I was pretty clear on...

my focuses, but it was not until like past 30 that I maturity started kicking in and naturally. Right. And then I started being able to make those core decisions to be focused on, for example, career, for example, relationship, you know, I'm not playing around anymore. I'm, I'm dedicating myself to a woman. I'm not, uh, you know, uh,

jumping around jobs i'm dedicating myself to a career path i'm not gonna spend all my time you know out drinking i'm gonna dedicate myself to learn uh to always learning you know for for example these are the general this show is called the honest drink and he's like i'm not gonna spend all my time drinking cheers my time drinking now is with you guys with this fucking podcast that's true we're only we're really only drinking once a week now what was what about last week

Let's not talk about last week. I wasn't there. I was working. But... No, just this... Okay. This whiskey. He's going to go back to this whiskey again. It's like drinking three weeks in a row because it's fucking really strong. We will...

This will be the first show where we didn't finish the bottle. Because if we did, there would not be a next show. Justin, why don't you top it off again? Because Justin's the first one to drink it all the way through for the first glass. Yeah, I just finished my glass and I am buzzed. For real. Can you guys please catch up? Yeah, yeah. Like, honestly. To the listeners, if the show quality deteriorates, we don't give a fuck. Yeah. No, but...

That is insightful what you said. I mean, I think, yeah, like that's my approach too. It's like this, first of all, finding what, how are you going to go about, okay, let me word this correctly. The struggle is because just saying I'm going to reject these values is easy to say, but it's really, really hard to do. Of course. It's really, really hard to do because a lot of these values have felt so important to us for so long.

Because we've lived by them for so long. Be specific. Do you think that it's important to us or it's just sort of like this negative habit that we've built? So it's an algorithm that our bodies are running. Yes. But by repetition, it's become important. Not in the sense that like intellectually we feel it's important, but it's important because it's been such a big part of our lives. Like smoking a cigarette.

- Well, like if it's like a habit like that, sure. But that's a physical thing, right? I'm talking about like psychological things, right? Psychological things like, again, going back to like your ego, your pride, your reputation, things like this. Like I'm repeating those things because that is what's most apparent to me. Now for other people, it can be a lot of other things, but it's not like intellectually I'm thinking, yes, that's important to me, no.

It's the hard part is because number one, the first step is admitting that those things are an issue for you. It's, it's, it's admitting that. And for a lot of people, they can't admit that or they don't see it or they won't, they don't want to see it. So the first step is admitting, look, I deep down inside, I am letting these things affect me because I'm placing value on these things. So that's number one, admitting it, facing the facts. Number two is, okay, now that I know that,

how do I start rejecting these things? How do I start rejecting these things that have been affecting my behavior and part of my psyche for so long, for as long as I can remember? So how do you, going back to step one,

how do you identify these deep rooted, almost unconscious ways of your psychology? Like how do you, do you need other people to help you identify these things? - That always helps. That definitely helps, but I think you have to be careful on who you ask, right? It has to be people who really know you, like really, really know you. But to answer your question, for me, it's about reverse engineering it.

So you start with like, what are the symptoms of the problems? What are like the bubbling surface day-to-day things that you feel are keeping you back, right? What are your issues psychologically and even physically or career-wise, socially, whatever it is. And then you start reverse engineering those issues and trying to find the genesis, the core, the origin of these things. And I think for a lot of people, typically what you'll find is that

you may identify like 10 symptoms, right? And then you'll realize by reverse engineering and backtracing,

you'll realize that most of these symptoms are all linked to the same origin, same cause, same root theme. - As long as you can be honest with yourself. That's the key. - And that for most people is the toughest thing. - Yeah, because I think for most people, if they start backtracking, like you're saying, right? Backtracking and seeing what's the problem, where's the root?

And then maybe they'll get to that root and they'll think that root is not themselves. It's the other person or it's that other circumstance or that's what happened to me in the past or this one issue or my boss or whatever, right? That's the root of the problem. No, but what if you stop and you say, no, you're the root of the problem. You being yourself, right? You're your own root of the problem, right? And face yourself in the mirror, right?

It's not the boss. It's not the event that happened to you in the past, right? It's not your ex-girlfriend or boyfriend. It's you, right? That's what's keeping you back. And that's what's preventing you from moving forward, right? And I think that's the biggest issue that most people cannot face. That's the hardest thing. That's the hardest thing. What are... I think that's brilliant. What are some... You mentioned like...

looking at these symptoms that happen day to day so that you can kind of identify that because the root could be really really deep you can't you don't have like an x-ray machine to be able to see the root directly you kind of need to look at the surface level thing and then kind of dig yeah what do you think are some common symptoms that you know of impact all of us and could be a way for us to kind of you know look at these things and go a

I don't know. I think anything that... First of all, I think you need to... Everyone for themselves. For themselves. You can't do this for other people. But for yourself. And this is the toughest thing. Going back to what you were saying, Howie. This is the toughest thing. The toughest thing is for people to be truly, truly honest with themselves. Because why? It's really fucking hard to admit to yourself you're not as fucking awesome as you think you are. That's the toughest thing. That's probably the most...

the biggest fear I think most people have. It's a fear I have for sure that I deal with every day is that I have to tell myself, and it's a struggle to do this. And it took me a while to be able to do this. I'm not as fucking awesome as I think I am. I'm not, I'm not as fucking awesome, but I can be, I can be, it's possible.

I just got to work towards it. But I'm not as fucking awesome. I wasn't born on this earth that fucking great, that fucking awesome. I'm not entitled to that awesomeness. You know what I'm saying? I got to work towards it. I got to earn it. And it's earnable. It's doable. But you know, it's funny you're saying that because you have all these self-improvement theories and whatever. And a lot of it is about...

- You're awesome. - Staying positive. - Right, staying positive. I'm amazing, I'm the best. But actually, that's a fucking cloak, man. - Well, there's a chapter in the book that Mark Manson writes about that directly talks about this. And I'm paraphrasing again, but it's basically what he's saying is that being constantly positive is a form of avoidance, right?

And this is really hard for a lot of people. So going back to you, Eric, and your question, like how do we find this, right? We don't have an X-ray. Like what are the symptoms and what are the patterns here that we can find? And I think going back to that question, first for yourself, you have to analyze all the things that reconfirm to yourself in your head that you're fucking great and you're fucking awesome.

double check those things, triple check those things. Right? Because some of those things might not be true. - It's not productive to think that way. - And you might just be telling yourself a narrative that's not true. So it could be true. I'm not saying it can't, it won't, it isn't. But check those things because those are usually gonna be the things that you're reaffirming to yourself that you're fucking awesome, you're so great at this, you're so great at that. Those are gonna be the hardest things to notice, to find and to admit.

A lot of people, everyone knows intellectually they're not perfect. So you ask somebody, oh, do you have issues? Of course, everyone's going to admit they have problems. No one's going to be like, I'm perfect. No, no one's going to say that. But those things that they are admitting are issues are the easy things that they can admit are issues. Things that really don't hurt their true ego.

Things that really don't stab at the core of who they are. They're just issues like, oh, I got to quit smoking. Oh, yeah, I go out too much. Oh, I work too hard or whatever it is. Things that don't affect their ego, but they're not going to say and they're not going to admit the things or maybe they just don't know. I think for most people, they don't know are the things that

are holding their ego up, that they don't realize are issues for them and basically lies or misplaced values, right? And those are the hardest things to find. And you have to be so completely, unrelentlessly

honest with yourself to even have a chance of finding those things. And some people will never, like, even for me, for you guys, there are going to be things that I'm never going to realize about myself that are misplaced values or, or things are untrue. That's just true. That's just human nature. There are going to be things like that, but you can try to find one and then you can try to find another and try to fix and work on these things.

and use these things to your benefit and filter down and boil down to, okay, what are the real few things in your life that are truly meaningful, truly important to you? Can we all give an example of personally, just a little story or an example of that? You mentioned the way you framed the question or the way you framed this concept, Justin, was that we think that we're great or we think that we're awesome at something, but we need to take a deeper look

to really understand the reality. And when I step back a little bit, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, why is it so important for me to be awesome or great? To even have the basic premise that this is something, this is a value of mine. You know, so being, you know, whether or not you're great at something, true or not,

Like, I think that's one thing. But why do I place so much value of needing this to be great? Because like, if your whole value structure kind of crumbles and you say everything that I was fighting for and I want to be great at, I mean, isn't that the premise of what we've been talking about is that a lot of times the way we define greatness is based on these external factors and it's not even really based on what we want. So how does that factor into this conversation? I mean, I think...

I mean, that's a big question. That's a big question. And my answer is, I don't know. I don't know how it really... I'm not smart enough to be able to connect that dot to that question. But what I can say and what I do believe, I think one of the lessons in this book is that

Why do we need to find what's important to us and what's not important to us? What's the why behind it all? And I think the why behind it all is that you need to start, like if you're laying on your deathbed and you're thinking back on your life, you're about to die and you're thinking back on your life.

And how are you going to feel about your life, right? And you want to be sure that you've lived the life that you really wanted to live, not the life that you were convinced you wanted to live. And I think most of us are trapped in this life that we're convinced we want to live or goals that we're convinced we want to achieve because society deems those things important.

puts those metrics in place and we play by their rules. So all of a sudden we're playing by those metrics, we're playing by those rules and we're convincing ourselves and we're convinced these are the things I want to achieve. These are the things that are going to indicate a successful life to me. These are the standards in which I'm going to base my value and my life on. Instead of if we can do away with the whole paradigm that we've been living in.

the matrix that we've been living in. Are we gonna find that our values and the life we really wanna live may be drastically different than what we think right now? Maybe, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to say yes or no, but it could be. - Yeah, it's like the one question that I've had a recent conversation about is why do you wanna become rich? - Yeah. - You know, why does anybody wanna become rich? You know, why is money so, so important? - 'Cause I wanna drink good whiskey and have good microphones. Shit, man, that's obvious.

And then what? Right. That's what I'm saying. Right. And then what? Yeah. Yeah. Like I want to be rich because I want to have nice cars. I want to have a big house. I want to be able to afford anything that I want to do. Okay. But it's like, so then you're placing values on these material things. Then that means that money is a means to an end. And that end is having a nice car, having a big house, having,

Is that what it is? Or is it security, right? People want security in life, right? But why do they call that security? Why is having a big house? Why is having a lot of fancy cars? Why is having a lot of money security? It's because of the standards that society has put in place, the metrics in which we deem success and failure by. It's because almost only money can buy those things, right? Yeah.

In this world that we live in, in these rules that we all play by, money reigns supreme because money brings the success that we all define as success. But that's just a definition. That's groupthink in many ways. But it's funny because I'm just thinking right now, if I'm going to compare my current, let's say, financial situation

to 10 years ago and to 15 years ago, let's say like five year increments. Right. And let's say right now I'm more comfortable than I was, you know, 15 years ago, let's say. Right. But my happiness level or my like, you know, contentment level, neither is higher than the other.

right so and financially when i was in my early 20s i was poor as like i was eating tuna cans for lunch and like that was like the pineapple slices that was my meals and ramen because i couldn't afford pineapple slices no seriously because i was doing the rock band thing i was doing like this i know go on go right fruit no seriously i i chose that because i liked it so so i mean i was doing the whole rock star thing right so i was like you know starving artist

But was I happy? Was I unhappy? I was actually okay. Like, I was enjoying playing my music. And I was playing, you know, and I didn't need money. I remember, like, having a birthday and I bought myself a CD. And I'm like, or a DVD or something like that. One. And I'm like, all right, I'm splurging. I made it. No, no, no. Not made it. Like, I'm splurging. It was his own CD. I'm treating myself. He bought his own CD. It was free.

I'm treating myself. I'm splurging. Right? I'm spending the money. Yeah. Because every other day, I'm not. Right? So, now let's compare now where I don't think about what I spend. Like, what I want, I buy it. What I want to eat, I eat it. Where I want to go, I go. You're buying things that are worth

way, way, way, way more expensive than a CD, but it has so much less impact on you. The meaning is gone. And it's funny because if you think about it, it's like the value. We're talking about values, right? The values are so different now. And money did not buy that happiness. Money did not buy that value. It's because I knew how

Hard it was for me to spend that money, that that value of that DVD became. The money was just the currency. It's what you put into that particular thing that determines what you get out of it. Yeah. Well, even money itself, right? It's just paper. Yeah. But we all collectively as a society deem a value to it. Yeah. And hence it has value. Yeah. Right. And that's the thing even with psychological things.

things, psychological ideas, mental things, is that it's the same thing. As a society, as a group, if you deem this important, then it becomes truly important to you, right? Just like physical things like money,

It's the same with things that are in your head and psychological factors and societal norms, quote unquote norms and standards and definitions of success. It's as a group, we deem these things, okay, these are the things that we're going to deem successful. Everyone hop on board. This is what it looks like to be successful. Here you go. Here's an example. Here's a template. Now everyone go. Everyone ready, set, go.

Try to reach those things, try to reach that goal. And then we all just race towards it without even a second thought. - Run, run, run, run for us, run, run for us, run. - And then we're just racing and people are chanting, like you're saying, they're chanting. We're just fucking, and we think we're fucking killing it racing towards these things. Without a second thought of like, well, is this something I really want? If society wasn't around and didn't tell me these things from birth, would I still want these things?

Are these things still going to be important to me? Maybe, but maybe not. This show is just one big mind fuck right now. Because I don't even know if I want to do this show anymore. This is just society telling me. Wow, really? This is Justin telling me, I need to do this show. So, you know, maybe going back to...

There is a certain level of self-reflection that's important to really root out some of the root causes. But there is a, you know, obviously there is a possibility of overthinking things. So we are a product of our environment and the people around us. And so we can't really escape the frame that we're in. But, you know, maybe we can try to not be so sort of like caught up and obsessed about it. So going back to our values, what are values that we should be living by?

Okay. Well, as first going back to what you just said as disclaimer, yes. And this goes back to the last episode we published, hurry slowly, is that there is a disparity between the ideal and the reality, right? And we have to be realistic. So we're being, we might be being a little over idealistic right now, but that's the point of the conversation is to pull out and get that 10,000 foot view of like, okay, well, what is it? And have that ultra idealistic conversation where,

And then work from there. Because naturally, after this podcast, we get into our own lives, we're going to be plummeting down to reality right away, right? So having said that, we realize that a lot of things we're saying are very idealistic, but that's the point of the conversation. That's the point of the exercise, is to think that way, to really pull out and really think, okay, well, what is really important?

And then, and then from there you work towards whatever your goals are and whatever your values are. So I just, I, you know, I didn't mean to cut you off, but I, I just wanted to say that. Yeah. Yeah. What are those things? Cause I think that is the biggest question.

When you peel away everything, what are the things that are really important that really stand the test of time that whether you're 10,000 feet up or whether you're zoomed all the way in, that these things are the things that really are important to you. As an example, when I've talked about this a lot in previous episodes, I still feel that exercising every day and running every morning has been life-changing and that's a core value at this point.

That's great. I mean, what else? I told you that I don't have an answer for you yet, like earlier, because my process is still just trying to identify the misplaced values first in my life. I'm still trying to weed out and find all the misplaced values that I have in my life. And a lot of them are hidden maybe. And rejecting those first and just seeing, okay, well, what's left?

And so I can't tell you right now, like what are like the core values or the things that I'm going to find important in my life. I mean, I can tell you the things that are obvious, like family, close friends, right? My relationships, basically. That is something that's a core value of mine is to be honest to that, is to be loyal to that, respectful to that, and to...

And to be caring towards that. So that's a core value. But I think that's a core value for a lot of people, right? So other than that, I cannot tell you, to be honest. I cannot sit here and just make up something. I don't know. And I wouldn't do that. So my process is a process of elimination. I can tell you one of my core values that came within the past five years that I've been constantly trying to work on.

Basically just constant self-reflection. Because before I would always, before I would not, I mean, obviously everybody self-reflects to a certain extent, I guess. But I mean, I would never do anything about it, right? Or I would not really face it.

And now I just basically am very honest with myself. And going back to what I was saying about facing yourself in the mirror and being really honest with yourself. The ugly truths I admit now. Or I can really...

be face to face with and constantly ask myself how can i do this better how can i treat this person better how can i treat myself better you know how can i approach the situation better as opposed to thinking i know everything instead of thinking oh i know what's best right because i feel like that's a very dangerous route to go down you know no thinking you know everything

Right. Yeah. That's been a basis of a lot of my conflicts in my relationships because I think I know best or I think I know what is right. And if it's not my way, then, you know, we're going to have an argument. Right. So part of that is trying to step back a bit and listen a little bit more and ask myself, OK, well, what if if I what I always do now, for example, whenever I'm in an argument or if I'm in a conflict, right.

My natural reaction is going to be pushing my perspective, of course. But then I'm better now where I'll stop myself. And then I'll be like, okay, for a second, I'm just going to put myself in their shoes. I'm wrong. Why am I wrong? And I found that that has helped me calm down. So in my relationship with my wife,

We used to fight a lot, right? And it was because she was very stubborn and I'm very stubborn, right? And I always be like, you never step back. It's always, you know, your way or no way. And then meanwhile, I'm pushing my agenda on her. And it was not until I stopped. And then when we have a conflict, we have a fight, which we haven't had in a long time now, is because the minute something happens, I'll stop and be like, why is she reacting that way? Did I do something?

As opposed to being like you, you, you, you, you. Yeah. You know? And I think that's a huge revelation for me to help cope with stress, like my own stresses and anger, but also like just how to be a better person. I love that. I love that. I was going to ask you a question, but you answered it. And the question was that, so one of your core values that you talked about is to really do more reflection and to...

Think about situations that you've been in. And I was going to ask you, so what question, what filter should you use in those situations?

And you brought up, how can I approach this situation better? I think that's a brilliant question. So whenever, because self-reflection can be, we can also go the other extreme and beat ourselves up and get into this really negative spiral and have all these expectations. But if we frame it in a positive way and say, how could I have approached this better? What can I do a little bit differently? Then you're always sort of moving forward. So I love that. In terms of the relationship, it makes me reflect on

We have to live with other people, right? I mean, that's like a reality. Like I am a normal person. I don't like being alone all the time. I can be alone some of the time, but I enjoy being around other people. So that is truly a core value. And it doesn't matter. That's not a societal expertise.

so much as a genetic expectation that I've just been programmed and you guys are the same, I'm sure, that we have to be around other people some of the time, right? And so how do we have better relationships and how do we grow together, learn together and have these relationships

not just harmonious relationships, but relationships where we're changing and evolving together. So that has to be a core value. That's really kind of independent of any kind of external judgment. We want to- Like growth has to be a core value. Growth and having better relationships. Like you don't want to be like arguing and yelling at each other and having conflict

all the time. But you don't want to not have any conflict because you do, because conflict, without conflict, you have no improvement. You don't want to have the trap of avoidance. Yeah, and you don't want to have, you know, you don't want to just like be all like one kind of matrix where everyone's thinking sort of the same thing. So, Howie, you mentioned another great, I think, action that we can take to approach the value of better relationships is that we step back and we listen more and then what you said was actually quite

I think it's brilliant. And I've heard it from other, you know, really smart people as well as what if I'm wrong? So,

So you asked the question going into it. It's not about I'm right, you're wrong. What if I'm wrong? And if you can pause and ask that question, it really changes the tenor of the whole conversation. Huge change. I'm proud of you, Howie. You've grown a lot. Well, there's a saying. I don't remember who said it, but there's a saying that a mark of a truly intelligent and reasonable person

is a person that can have a conversation with people that they disagree with, right? And I mean, in many ways, that's actually pretty relevant to today's society, especially in the West, right? You have these like social justice warriors, you have cancel culture, you have like the really like far, far progressive left that are like trying to like suppress anything, any kind of,

that may not be aligned with their extreme progressive views. And that's a form of like, look, well, you can't think from both sides. You have to put yourself in the other's shoes to have an intelligent conversation, right? And you have to put yourself like, okay, well, what if I'm wrong?

And I think that stems back to the theme of, well, what if I'm not as awesome as I think I am? It's the same thing. If you can admit that, well, not admit, but even if you can think for a while, like, okay, well, I'm going to pretend I'm wrong for a second. And I'm going to truly, honestly try to find a reason or try to find out what's happening here. Maybe I could be wrong.

And actually adopt that as a true possibility and not just saying it just for the sake of appeasing the other person or whatever, but actually truly adopting that position for a second. Like, okay, well, what if I really am wrong? And asking yourself that question.

And that all goes back, I think ties into, well, it's asking yourself the question of what if I'm really not that awesome as I think I am? What if I'm not that awesome as I think I tell myself I am, right? And what are the real hidden truths, right?

Behind that. Can I add something? Because I feel like if you only ask yourself, what if I'm not as awesome as I think I am and end it as that, it could be kind of like a depressive negative route. But if you don't follow up with another question is, what if I'm not as awesome as I think I am, but how do I become more awesome?

then you can at least switch it to be more positive. Because if you're only thinking about, or if you're only like, let's say, admitting, oh, what if I'm just really stupid? Or I'm just not creative, and that's it. And then just quit what you do. No, it's like, okay, what if I'm not creative, but I want to become better at creativity? That's a really good point. How do I get, how do I move forward with that? But I think what's important with that exercise is you first have to find the lies you're telling yourself.

Otherwise, if you don't do that, you're gonna be building your house on a foundation that is not stable. - Yeah. - Right? You're just gonna be building yourself up on more lies. So what you have to do first is, like you said, if I'm saying, okay, well, what if I'm not as awesome as I think I am, and I can't end it there, so how do I get there? Well, first I have to identify what are the hidden lies that I'm telling myself? What are those lies?

And you have to weed them out before you can start building yourself back up again. And this is why we're stuck. This is why we can't do this. This is why it's so hard. Because to do this is so fucking hard. It's really hard. And to be able to find those lies and then be able to omit them and then be able to tear them down and then to be able to build yourself up based on that teardown is

- I mean, that is probably the hardest thing to do. But you have to do it if you wanna go. If you wanna do this exercise, then you have to do it. If you wanna go through with this project, you have to do that. Otherwise, you're building yourself up on false assumptions, false truths, right? So you gotta weed out those lies first before you can build yourself up. - Absolutely. - And so for a majority of that time, it's gonna be depressing.

And that's what's so sad about it. If it was all like positive and I mean, it'd be easy, right? Like it's hard because it's depressing to have to deal with those truths or those lies for such an extended amount of time, because it is gonna be an extended amount of time. It's not gonna be one or two days you can do this. It's gonna be years, if at all, you know, it's gonna be a lifetime maybe. - Well, that sounds a little bit depressing.

You know, maybe there's an alternative, right? And that's what makes it hard. Yeah. But maybe there's an alternative. And I get that some things take years to kind of tear down and build back up. But a lot of this, to the extent that stuff is in your head, to the extent that this is mental, right?

When you wake up in the morning, you can make choices. So there's certain physical and there's certain concrete things that you can't change, like your financial situation or what job you're in or where you live. There are certain things that will take time for you to address those issues. But mentally, you have the power to tomorrow morning, you wake up and you can decide what you want to do.

And to a large extent, you can decide how you wanna do it. And ultimately you have the power to decide why you wanna do these things. And so part of it is deconstructing yourself a bit and peeling away some of the things. Once you're aware of it, I think it's a little bit easier. It's really the blind spots, it's the ego. It's not being aware of these things and kind of going and these things that have been in motion for a long time. Those are the things, if you're not aware of them, you won't be able to change them.

I think it's also important to kind of practice these positive values. So tomorrow morning, you know, you wake up and what are the things you want to do? You know, and so for me, going back to the values a little bit, you know, being kind, I think is an important value. Just going through life and not being a dick.

Right. I think that's really important. We get caught up. Right. Because we think we're so awesome. We think we're great. We think we're right. We think we have all the answers sometimes unconsciously. And that's that's one of the lies. Right. We don't we don't have all the answers, but we sometimes act as if we do. And once we come to that reflection, it's like, OK, like, don't be a dick. You know, you don't have all the answers. Be kind. Don't be righteous. Right.

I think that's also very closely linked to this notion of reducing your ego. Cause you, cause you live in your own shell, right? Like you, I, I, I don't, you know, I don't have any experience other than living in my own body. So I think you have to step out, step back, do different things to kind of refresh yourself because when you're in the same body in the same shell over and over and over, it really limits your thinking a little bit, you know? So I think just kind of like reducing your ego a little bit. Um,

And so I think there's certain positive values that you can start. Like if you want to tomorrow morning, you can just choose one and you could just try it, you know, and you might not be able to change your whole life, but it's kind of like what you said, Justin, in reference to the book, you do something, right?

And you make sure that one thing is a positive thing that aligns with your values. So being kind, for instance. So it's really like something like super uber simple, like being kind. And if you could just practice that one thing, that one habit the entire day, that might just be the domino that changes everything. So being kind, I think, is probably some things that I'm working on. I was just in a cab yesterday.

Don't worry, guys. I was just in a cab and coming into the neighborhood. And, you know, I was like, I was debating, should I have the guy come into the neighborhood so I can save myself a little bit of a walk and kind of get here on time? Like the gated community? Yeah, the gated community. But then I'm like, that's kind of my fan, you know? And then the guy, maybe he's, you know, he's going to be irritated, you know, this and that. But that was all in my own head. So he drove up and...

And unfortunately, on the side that you would normally drive in on the right side, there was a little, you know, there was kind of like don't drive in sign. And so I'm like, oh, great. What are we going to do? Right. And so then the security guard, you know, was standing there. Right. And then he, of course, has to get out of his little guardhouse. So he's pissed.

So this whole thing could, you know, it's a powder keg. And, you know, knowing me, this could have exploded into, you know, you guys play it out in your head. You've done it before. So my driver goes and drives into the other side, which clearly you can't do. And the security guard literally blows up and is like, what the fuck are you doing? And the guy's like, well, there's a sign here that says I can't drive in. I need to drive in. And he's like, well, all you, and then security guard blows up and is like, what the fuck? You can't drive on the left side.

You just need to drive on the right side. And the guy's like, but there's a sign there. He's like, well, all you have to do is ask and we take the sign off. Right. So at that point it was a pivotal moment and I could have been, you know, the kind of the previous me, uh,

So I said, you know what? This is a tough situation, right? I've got a podcast to go to. I've got friends to meet. So I said, you know, I looked at the situation to Howie's point from different points of view. So the driver is the one that has to help me. So I said, you know what? That security guy is being a dick, clearly. There's a thing that says you can't drive in. He's coming up to you and giving you shit. That's not cool. That's totally not cool. You know what? Like ignore that guy. It's all good.

He's gonna remove the thing. He should have been nicer about it, but he's just being a dick. It's fine. Thank you for driving me in. So the security guard does his thing. We didn't blow up at him, so we didn't escalate. We deescalated. We drive in. The guy's super cool. And I said, hey, thanks so much. You can drive out the back, so that makes it easier for you. See you later. I get out of the car. Now, nine times out of 10 in the past, I would have escalated the situation. I would have felt bad,

But my reflection was that I feel great. I'm going to give you guys positive energy. And that driver is going to be like, man, most customers are dicks. They would have given me shit. This guy was pretty cool. I'm going to be nice to my next guest. So then all of a sudden, like, you know what? Maybe two or other three people will benefit from me just being like pretty chill. It's like pay it forward. Yeah. And I felt good about it. And then, you know, I was on FaceTime with my girlfriend and

And Anne was like, nice job. I think that is a very good one. Be kind. If more people were kind. It's simple. Well, a friend of ours, John, shout out to John, by the way. John is getting married to Julia, our friend Julia. Oh, nice. And he listens to this podcast. And we were having a text conversation. This was like a couple weeks ago. And he was talking about

kind of what you're talking about in terms of like

"Well, what's the goal?" And before in a previous episode, Eric, you were saying like, "I don't really believe in happiness. "My goal is not happiness. "I think happiness is a byproduct, "but happiness is not the end result." And he was kind of saying the same thing. He was saying like, basically what you're saying, it's about once you achieve a certain level, it's about spreading that happiness because everything is connected. Because it comes back to you. It's about we don't live in a vacuum individually.

We live in a society and everything is connected and everything we do has a ripple effect that we cannot measure.

So it's about emitting as much happiness and joy and kindness, like you're saying, to other people so that they can be joyous, that they can be happy, and they can spread that ripple. And if you live in a pond that are full of ripples of happiness, you ultimately get to benefit from that because you live in it and it all comes back to you, right? But if you live in a pond and you're spreading ripples of like,

of hate and anger and this, well, that's gonna come back to you ultimately too, 'cause we all live in the same ecosystem together. But a lot of us, we just don't notice it 'cause the world is so big and we feel so detached in public all the time. But that's not the truth of the situation. The truth of the situation is everything is connected. All the energy that we output is all connected 'cause it affects everyone and everyone affects that person, that person affects another person, and ultimately it all comes back.

Well said. Well said. Well, cheers, guys. Cheers to that. I think that's a good positive note to end the conversation on. You guys are saying I was too negative. I'm just really excited that Eric's going to start being kind. Love it. Wow, yeah, that's going to be a big change. Yeah, I don't know if I can get used to that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. The world might change. The world might change. Yeah, the world might change. Kind Eric? That is... That's an oxymoron. Yeah.

Get ready, everyone. Your lives are all going to be changed by my kindness to cab drivers. All right, everybody. See you. See you next time. Bye. Hope you liked it.