Eric Zimmer┃How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Small Choices That Transform Your Life

And if you were a director filming that, that would be a really big moment. That's the turning point. And it's an important moment, but it's only important because of the thousands of choices that came after it, right? It would've just been yet another attempt at sobriety that didn't work had I not done all those little things again and again and again.

What if changing your life has less to do with one big breakthrough and more to do with the small choices you make when nobody is watching? Today I sit down with author and The One You Feed podcast creator Eric Zimmer to explore what lasting transformation actually looks like. Eric shares how he went from being homeless, addicted to heroin, and facing decades in prison to building a life centered around recovery, service, spiritual practice, and meaningful work. And why the turning point wasn't a single moment of clarity, but the thousands of choices along the way. We explore why self-compassion may actually make us better at changing, how to recognize the critical choice points where resistance and self-doubt show up, and why learning to coach instead of criticizing yourself can completely alter the trajectory of your life. Eric also reveals why perfection is such a destructive measuring stick for progress and how doing the next small positive thing again and again can eventually become something much bigger.

Eric Zimmer, welcome to the Radical Responsibility Podcast.

Thank you, Fleet. I really appreciate you having me here. It's an honor.

Oh, I've been looking forward to the conversation. You had me on your podcast a couple of years ago, the One You Feed Podcast. So Glad to exchange that here and really looking forward to sharing more about you and your background, your work with our audience. So, thank you very much for being here today. So, I'm going to share a brief bio and just familiarize the audience a little bit, and then we'll jump right in. Sound good?

Sounds great.

Okay. So, Eric Zimmer is an author, teacher, speaker, and the creator of the One You Feed podcast, an award-winning show with over 50 million downloads across 800+ conversations exploring meaningful living. At 24, Eric was homeless, addicted to heroin, and facing prison. The journey from those depths sparked his lifelong journey into human transformation and resilience. Throughout— through his behavior coaching workshops, mentorship, he has guided thousands worldwide in creating sustainable habits that last, not through willpower or epiphany, but through steady change. His approach combines cutting-edge science with timeless wisdom, providing practical pathways to greater integrity and deeper meaning. His story and his work have been featured in the media, including Elephant Journal, the BBC, and Brain Pickings. His new book is How to Become a Lot. How to Become a Lot. How to Become a Lot. That's great. Is that— how recent is that?

It's How a Little Becomes a Lot.

Oh, How a Little Becomes a Lot. You know, unfortunately, my printer printed this out and I can barely read it. How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life.

Yes.

Yes. You got it. When did that come out?

End of March. So, it's been about 6 months. Yeah. Great.

How's it doing?

I think it's good. You know, I haven't been asking about sales numbers because I don't know what I'd really do with that information. I'm just, you know, it's out there. I hear from people that they're getting a lot out of it and I enjoy talking about it. So, I think from that perspective, it's going great.

Great. And, uh, hopefully this will, uh, bring more attention to it, uh, because I'm sure it's a great book. And, you know, so much just in reading your bio, there's so much alignment between what HeartMind is all about and my work and your work. We really share this, that, uh, you know, evidence-based work to create incremental change that leads to really thriving in our lives. And it's not just by having one epiphany. I mean, you can have some fabulous experiences by various means.

Yeah.

But they got to be integrated over time and to create the really lasting change. And so I know that's what your work is about, and, uh, so excited to have this conversation. So we like to start our, our conversations off with a little bit of an origin story. I know that could take the whole, whole episode just to review that, but maybe we can touch it in a, in a nutshell a little bit. I mean, you're, uh, you know, your story, a lot of identification here. I have my own, uh, time of, uh, being really caught up in, in drugs and addiction and ended up in prison myself for 14 years. So we have a lot of, uh, shared background there. And, um, I'm wondering, uh, whether there was a moment or period that you realized that change wasn't going to come just through wishful thinking or through luck, or you shifted maybe from thinking you were in a situation you were in because it was somebody else's fault or the world's fault or your parents' fault. Not that people don't make contributions to our situations, but, but that you embraced what I call this idea of radical responsibility, this idea of ownership to say, what can I do to shift my life? What can I do to move my life forward in a, in a positive way that would really be a better match than what's been going on up till now? So, was there a moment when you had that kind of realization that shifted things for you?

Well, as my book talks about a lot, you know, I think that it's not a single moment of realization. Everything is accumulation. of experiences, right? So, if you were watching the movie of my life, you'd see me walk into a treatment center in Columbus, Ohio. It was an old tuberculosis center in the winter. And, you know, this is when I was homeless. I weighed 100 pounds. I was jaundiced. I was yellow from hepatitis C. And they said, we think you need to go to long-term treatment. And I said, no, thank you. And I went back to my room and I had a moment of clarity where I saw, like, if I leave here, I'm going to I'm gonna go to— I'm gonna die or go to jail, right? I mean, I got 50 years of prison time sitting right out there. And if you were— and so I went back out and said, I'll go to treatment. And if you were a director filming that, that would be a really big moment. That's the turning point.

Wow.

And it's an important moment. But it's only important because of the thousands of choices that came after it. Right? It would have just been yet another attempt at sobriety that didn't work. had I not done all those little things again and again and again. And, you know, I think the wishful thinking for me in addiction was that the day would come where I would pull the ripcord and go to this thing called treatment. And once I did, then I would be sober. And after I pulled that ripcord a few times and went and wasn't sober, that was a difficult period for me because I had to lose the wishful thinking. I had to— I saw like, Oh wait, this isn't just going to go away. Like I'm not going to walk into a treatment center and they're going to fix me like I had sort of dreamt in my in my dreams. It was it's sort of like the myth we often have about therapy. Oh, you just go to therapy and suddenly you'll be fine. And you know, therapy is a wonderful thing, and there's a journey to go on. And so I think for me that was the wishful thinking I carried around in those days. And then the responsibility that. It was a strange responsibility because I also realized that A, I was responsible myself for it, but I could not do it alone. So it was, you know, it was both a recognizing I have to do it, but also a letting go of I have to do it all myself moment. Also kind of both at the same time in a weird way.

That really kind of encapsulates the 12-step philosophy in many ways. The idea of You know, the idea of surrendering and I can't do it on my own, but also I gotta be in there doing it, right?

The blend of your percent.

That's very powerful. Yeah. And so, you know, that you've already kind of shared was moving into my second question, but I know you talked about your book, this idea of the myth of a big breakthrough, which you were kind of pointing to, that this one aha moment is determinant. And I realize this shift can be— it can be precipitous at times, but then it can be gradual. And then to really get grounded is always gradual. But basically, shift from whatever level of kind of— and I don't, I don't mean to say this in a pejorative way, it's, it's just a human condition. You know, it's pretty hard to grow up in any circumstance and not initially feel like life is sort of something that's happening to me. Now, sometimes it seems like it's, it's happening to me in a good way, and sometimes it seems like it's happening to me in a very bad way, but it's happening to me, right?

Yeah.

And either for or against me, as opposed to really embracing the idea that we can have a lot greater sense of agency in how our life is unfolding. And so, and normally when we find ourselves really struggling in life, we very often have developed a lot of kind of victim mindsets where, you know, where we have a lot of circumstances and people and situations to blame for where we are. And at some point, for me, what can really shift how we approach the work is when we do begin to embrace some level of, well, at least I have some part in this.

Yeah.

I can't change everybody in the world out there, and I can't change my past, but there is some part of this I could work on that's available to me. And to me, you know, and that may— we may slip and slide around that for a long— but still, that's a big shift. And where we begin to embrace that level of agency, accountability, responsibility, and focus on what I can do to change, not what everybody else needs to do so that I can be different or have a different experience. So I'm wondering if you see that. I realize it's not a one-and-done big aha moment.

Yeah.

But it is a major shift. And again, that shift may be grounded over time. But I wonder if you could speak to that shift a little bit for yourself.

Yeah, it's been really interesting. When I got sober, this is a long time ago. This is 1994 in Columbus, Ohio. So it was kind of a hardcore AA 12-step thing. And, and it was very much like, this is not— you are not the way you are because of your parents. You are not the way you are because of X, Y, and Z. You are responsible for yourself. It was very— we would, by today's standards, we would think it was very harsh.

Mm-hmm.

And it was actually really good for me. It was really good for me to take that level of responsibility. Now, ultimately, that became a limited position, because I did have to open back up and go, well, wait a second. Right? I am a result of causes and conditions. And I need to understand the role that those causes and conditions have played. I need to understand what happened to me as a child. I need to understand what's going on genetically or chemically or all these different things. But I, but I never really lost, because it was just distilled in me so much, that responsibility element. And the way I often think about it is like, it's not my fault that I'm the way I am. But I am completely responsible for it. Like, no one else can change me. No one else can fix me. No one else can solve my problems. I've got to work within whatever the constraints of my life are, whatever is around me. One of my biggest beliefs is there's always a positive direction I can go. I don't want to pretend everybody has the same degree of choice or freedom or all of that because life is complicated. But there's always a place within that, that I think we can take that responsibility position and say, okay, I'm the only one that can make this better. You know, I'm gonna have to make that decision. And, and I do think that that is a fundamental aspect of what's important. I think sometimes people get lost in one extreme or the other. We get lost in the extreme of like, it's all me, I'm responsible, I make everything happen.

It all—

it's me, or I'm just a victim of circumstances in the world around me. And the reality is we co-create reality, right, with what's around us. It's a co-creation. But, but the part of it that we can control is obviously our, our side of that creation.

Beautifully said. And that's very much at the heart of our model when we talk about moving into that recognition of our co-creative relationship with life, right? And we can't control the whole thing. We don't create the whole thing, but we do have a co-creative relationship with it. And it's not always linear. It's not always immediately visible. You know, it's not—

Yeah.

I think there was a rabbi, Rabbi Kushner, wrote a book years ago, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, right? So, it's not always obvious, but we all know there's some relationship to who I'm being and what I'm putting out there and what's coming back, at least in the long run, right? And So, but you brought up so many important things. So obviously there's all kinds of causes and conditions contributing to where we are at any given moment in time, right? And then there's our part in that, right?

Yeah.

And all the causes and conditions, I think it is important to be aware of that and have understanding around that and not take some hardcore approach of being in denial of that. That has nothing to do with it. No, those are all contributing factors, but what is the part that I can do something about?

Yeah.

It's mostly this part. Now, I can heal some relationships, I can get into therapy, I can go back and write letters to my parents and do— there may be some things, and may that, that may involve other people changing, but that's kind of a side benefit, right? If it, if it actually changes anybody else's behavior. But what I can really focus on is myself. But one of the key things is How do we do that grounded in self-compassion, right?

Yeah.

So radical responsibility, uh, people get pretty quickly. It's not about blaming others, but it's not one iota about blaming ourselves. It's certainly not about blaming victims. It's simply understanding, uh, the relationship between A, B, and C, right? And if I'm— if I'm not happy about it, if I can learn about how I got there and whatever my contribution was to it, as well as all the other circumstances, I can make new choices in the future and get different results. Right. But I have to really cultivate— I wonder about your experience cultivating self-compassion and a sense of my own innate goodness and wholeness, because otherwise we have so much shame and blame in our culture. And there's a lot of wonderful things in our culture too, but there's so much shame and blame and kind of punishment-reward mentality and so forth.

Yeah.

And a lot of ideas that human beings, absent some coercive threat, are kind of risky. We don't have that innate goodness. In fact, we might have some seed of evil down there, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, I think because all that, when we try to embrace radical levels of ownership and sometimes responsibility, ownership, you know, for what's happening and what I can create, that can trigger us into self-blaming.

Yes.

If we haven't really— and self-shaming— if we haven't done some work to develop that self-compassion, to develop a friendlier, more positive— and, and to— for me, the more self-compassion we have and the more connection we have with confidence in our innate goodness, then we can embrace greater and greater levels of ownership for our own destiny.

Yeah.

And so I'm curious if that resonates with you, that relationship between self-compassion How we view ourselves and our capacity to embrace ownership.

Yeah, I mean, I've got a whole chapter in the book that is essentially about self-compassion, and it's it's in there for two two reasons really, right? Reason one is it's probably the biggest besides you know stopping destroying myself with drugs. Learning to be nicer to myself is probably the biggest upgrade I've ever given myself, right? I spend all my time in here with a voice. The less of a you know less of a jerk that voice is, the better my life is. But I include it in a book about change because it's so important to change. Because change is all about learning. Change is all about like, okay, I tried to do this and that didn't work. And I wonder why it didn't work or what I could do differently or what's going on. And that harsh inner voice of shame Doesn't— you don't learn anything when, when your conclusion is the reason that didn't work is because I'm a piece of you know what. You don't learn anything.

Exactly.

Right? You just go, well, the reason is because I suck. Well, okay, we can't do much with that. If we can turn that down, though, then we can ask those learning questions. And so, yeah, I think it's a hugely important point. And I think of self-compassion as sort of a midpoint between self-acceptance and self-improvement.

Hmm.

Right? It's both, right? It's not— self-compassion is not just, oh, anything I do is fine because I'm wonderful. It still allows me to look at my behavior and go, that's not a reflection of who I want to be. That's not the person. I can do better. I can change. But there's also a kindness to ourselves, which is very difficult to develop. Is my experience, and people you know lots of people. I'm sure you've seen this. You've been working with people longer than I have. That self-compassion is a hard one for people to get because that voice, that inner critic voice, is so ingrained. And for me, it's just a matter of continuing to sort of see it and hear it and go, "Hang on!" Like that's not, that's not the way we want to do this. And you know, I think it was probably—I don't know who originally said it. I borrowed it and use it, but I didn't come up with. it, which is the simplest instruction, is just treat yourself like you would a good friend or a child. And that really works for me, right? But it takes an imagination. I have to actually think, like, what would I say to a friend? Which is good because then I can find my words. Because other people's self-compassion words might— like, some people are like, put a hand on your heart and say, sweetheart, it's okay, right? When I— 20 years ago, I would have— that would have made me cringe. Right? But what were the words that I would use? What did I say to somebody I was sponsoring that I cared about who was having a hard time? What did I say? Oh, let me say— let me try and now say that to myself and keep repeating it, despite the fact that that voice kind of keeps going.

Absolutely. And, you know, we speak to ourselves in ways we would never speak to a friend. We wouldn't even speak to a stranger in ways that we speak to ourselves.

Not unless you wanted to get beat up.

Exactly right. You know, so it really— and it is, it's a journey, uh, obviously, to shift that because a lot of that stuff's been deeply ingrained, uh, through our culture. And, you know, I think that's one of the places where that distinction you made between, you know, what I can be responsible for and what are causes and conditions— because that inner critic voice, that's not us. We didn't create that. That, that we, and we inherited that, or we got it from the culture, we got it from our parents. And it's not just our parents' fault, it's in the culture, right?

Yep.

So that got downloaded. We weren't born with that, right? And so, so that developed. So that's one thing we can go, okay, that's not really me, but it's there. And so what's my, uh, approach to change it? Well, I could say, well, I'm just going to do surgery and torch it and get rid of it. That doesn't really work. We actually have to make friends with it, develop a sense of humor around it, and then, and really give it, give it an environment where it'll gradually relax and reduce and become less sad. If we fight with it, trying to fight with these things head-on doesn't work very well in my experience.

Yeah, I think that having a sense of humor about it is so good. My inner critic voice, and I know where I got it, I started, I start the chapter in Self-Compassion in the book about me golfing with my dad and my dad saying things like, oh, hit it, Alice, or, you know, putt, you know, hit it, pussy, you know, and, and he was saying that to himself.

Mm-hmm.

You know, he, I mean, not that he wasn't hard on me, but he was every bit that hard on himself. So I came by it, we all do naturally. That voice is, is gone. But what's left, I still have an inner voice that sticks around. And it's my inner Eeyore. Right? It's the, oh, it's kind of a bad day, you know, it's that voice. And I just now I kind of laugh at it. I take what it says. And I put it in that voice. And I laugh a little bit. I'm like, okay, this is, you know, I know who this is. I see you, Eeyore, you know, like, it's fine. Like, you know, just a sense of humor about all of this is so incredibly valuable. It's one of the things that 12-step programs do so well is that all of a sudden this shame, this thing of yours that has been the worst possible thing, you start showing up and people are just laughing about it. They are just cracking up about stuff that you're like, I never would have shared that with anyone. And that was a bit— that was a really useful instruction. You know, it was a really useful, like, a lot of shame Really, laughter, I do think, melts shame away more than most anything else.

Yeah, there's a model of mindful self-compassion developed by my colleagues Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, and one of the primary aspects is something they call shared humanity. And I think the 12-step groups do a great job of that. You see, it's not just me. It's not just me dealing with all this craziness. We're all dealing with it, right? We can all—

100%.

That's shared. It's very powerful. So, you know, I think another way to articulate this idea of radical responsibility is living a choice. And that's been said, many different people have used that over the idea of living a choice. And I think some people, and I find in my work, sometimes people initially resist this idea. You mean, you know, conceptually, okay, yeah, yeah, but oh, I'm gonna actually be responsible for my choices day in and day out for the rest of my life? That seems pretty daunting, right?

Mm-hmm.

But it's where our power is. And if we can chunk that down and start realizing that the choice— that we're making choices all the time, and, you know, we're not going to get them all right. But if we start making more choices that lead us in a good direction and fewer choices that lead us in a not so great direction, things will change. Right. And so I think that's a big part of your work is those little choices, those day-to-day, moment-to-moment choices that these choices that we can be making that will gradually shift us, our lives in a good direction. And it has a momentum, right? You know, you can be in a non-virtuous cycle where one thing is leading to another, not in a good way. But if you start to develop some momentum with making more positive choices or life-affirming choices or conscious choices, it starts to develop its own momentum, right? So I wonder if you could talk a little bit, because I know that's a big part of your work.

Yeah.

Is focusing on the little choices we're continually making.

Yeah, there's another 12-step phrase that comes to mind that was incredibly helpful, which was just do the next right thing. Now, I don't love that. There's things about that phrase I don't love, like what, like the right thing as if there's only one, right? To me, it's more like do the next good, you know, good thing, but, you know, the best thing you can think of to do at this time, right? Just do the best you can because, yeah, it does get overwhelming to think about like, oh, I'm going to have to make 785,000 more positive choices, which is why 12-step programs, they just keep bringing you back to like the next one, the next one, the next one. But to your point, that is what happens is that these things accumulate over time. That is how a little becomes a lot.

Yeah.

Is that you do positive things again and again and again and again. And overall, those accumulate. And but it's not, as you mentioned, it's not about perfection. Because we don't make all the right choices ever, right? That's just not the way it goes. You know, for me, if it's something like, let's take a positive habit I'm trying to do in my life, like, I try and move for at least 30 minutes a day in some way. And I do that about 85% of the time. So, it means 15% of the time I don't do it. And but my belief is if I'm doing it 80%, 85% of the time, I'm getting the benefit. I don't need to worry about those other times that I don't. The problem is we get so hung up on those times we don't. You know, we focus on the 15%. We go, I see I'm failing. I'm failing. I'm failing, instead of going— But you're doing it 85% of the time. That's good enough. And so, that's the way I think about these choices is the majority of our choices, we want to become better choices, but they're not always the best choices. But when we break it down to just the next one, we don't get overwhelmed.

Absolutely. So important. And, you know, I also— if we focus on that 15% and beating ourselves up, We're less likely to keep going with the 85%. 100% undermine that, right? 100%. There's—

I tell a story in the book, and it's an interesting story because with addiction, the, the, the model that has been well prescribed over years, the 12-step model, is one of abstinence. It is one of 100% no. And there are good reasons for that, right? I mean, the way I often think of it is like alcohol and drugs are like a magnet, and I'm metal. And I just want to be as far away as I can. And that's what abstinence gives me. It's a, it's a worthwhile goal. It's just a lousy grading system. Because how often anything else in life do we do perfectly? We just don't. And so I had this client that I worked with for years. And she was trying to deal with her drinking problem. And she was not able to get long-term Lasting sobriety. She would get six months in and then drink for a day or two, or she would get nine months in and drink for a day or two. Right? So it just, and eventually, but what I kept trying to do with her because the messaging she was getting everywhere else was you're back to zero. You failed. Mm-hmm. And she came up. So I kept working with her on like we've got to see that you are making real progress. And she came up with this idea and she started putting a marble in a jar every day that she was sober. If she drank, she didn't take a marble out, but she just didn't get to put one in. And what she was able to see over time was this massive accumulation of success, of positivity that allowed her then actually to get the strength to go on to get to full abstinence. But her shame was so great That grading herself at 100% was terrible for her because every time she messed up, shame took over. And we had to find a way to lower that and go, you're doing so much better. You're making so much progress.

That's very good.

And that's the way we want to talk to ourselves, right? That's the way we want to talk to yourself. You're doing great, Eric. You didn't move, you know, you didn't move the last couple of days, but you've been doing really good. And let's get out there today, right? We coach ourselves through this stuff.

Yeah, one of, uh, the models that I use a lot in our radical responsibility work is Stephen Carvin's drama triangle, uh, which we see out in the world everywhere, right? It's the hero, the villain, and, you know, the victim— the classic melodrama triangulation. And but for him, these are mind states we all move through, personas, mind states, right, where we feel victimized, so we want to get out of that, so we go try to control, blame, control, persecute. Or we develop an identity around being the savior, the rescuer, which colludes with victims. You know, it's just— it creates endless conflict. Yeah. We can see it in our families and our companies and our communities and on the world stages, endless war and conflict and everything. But what sometimes people forget is we have one of those in between our ears. We're beating ourselves up, we're rescuing ourselves, we're playing the victim vis-à-vis ourselves, right? So, we promote a model of getting out of that into what we call the empowerment triangle, right? Which is shifting the victim mindset to the co-creative that you talked about.

Yeah.

Shifting that to the co-creative. Creative mindset. I have a colleague that has a similar— he talks about the Creator. It's fine, I understand what he means, but some people prefer to reserve that word for the God of their understanding. But also, I think we can't determine reality, but we do have a co-creative relationship. But we also learn to shift from being a persecutor to being a coach. Like, how can we— I'm sorry, from being a persecutor to a challenger. Like, can I learn to challenge myself and challenge others without making myself wrong or making them wrong. That's a very high-level skill.

Yeah.

And if you have— if you get good at that, you can do whatever you want in the world of business or professional work because you're able to coach people in a way that they can receive it. You can. And so, and then we move from being a rescuer instead of rescuing ourselves or rescuing others. How do we coach? Like eyeball-to-eyeball coach, right? So learning to, to do that with ourselves. How can we talk to ourselves the way a good coach would talk to Right? Yeah, right. How come— how can we coach ourselves? How can we be willing to challenge ourselves, or not much is going to happen, but challenge ourselves without making ourselves wrong, and then coach ourselves skillfully? Learn good coaching skills to coach ourselves skillfully.

Yeah, I think the people who know how to make change, or the people that appear to have discipline or appear to have self-control, they have— they know how to coach themselves internally. That's what it is. They know everybody faces moments where they're like, I don't want to do it, right? With everything. It's just that some people have figured out what you say to yourself in order to help you get through that. And, and so that is one of the most important skills. It's something I talk about in the book. I talk about with change that there's this— I love that empowerment. Model also and moving away from that drama triangle. As you were talking earlier, I was thinking to myself, you know what? It's like blame of any sort, ourselves or others. It just isn't a very useful tool. And I love that challenger idea also. But with change, I was thinking about this. I think about like there's 2 core things we have to figure out. And the first is just it's all structural. It's like, what am I doing? When am I doing it? Am I clear? Do I have the It's just, it's all in the planning sort of world. And that is so important because so much of what we might call procrastination or avoidance is lack of clarity.

Yeah, absolutely.

But once we do that, that pushes us to a choice point. It pushes us to a moment where it's like, okay, it's time. I either do or don't do the thing, right? I go the direction I want right now or the direction I don't. I'm right at that choice point. And learning to pay attention to what's happening to us right in that moment. What am I saying to myself? That is so important. Like, I wrote— I mean, I wrote this book and you've been writing books for a long time. You've written some great books. I was thinking as I was preparing to talk to you, I was like, Fleet Maull is a name I have heard for so long. Like, you know, I feel like I probably heard your name listening to like a Jack Kornfield tape back in like the late '80s or something. You know, or the early '90s.

Before that, you saw it on a wanted poster.

But yeah, exactly, exactly. But, but so you've written books and you know the process. When I got the book contract, I was like, this is amazing. Somebody's gonna pay me to write a book. And I was like, uh-oh. Yeah, now I gotta write a book. And I had so much self-doubt. And the time would come to write, I'd be like, all right, I know when I'm writing. I'm writing Monday morning, 9 AM. I know where I'm writing. I know what I'm working on. I'm working on chapter 2, section 1. I had all that down. The moment would come and I just would not want to do it, really not want to do it. That, I think we all know that feeling of just like dread when you think about doing something. And when I slowed down and I paid really close attention, what I realized, it was just all self-doubt. My brain was basically saying, you're not a good writer, you're not gonna become a good writer, this is gonna suck, why bother? In essence, that was what it was. It wasn't happening loudly or consciously, but that's what was there. And so I learned, how do I coach myself in that moment, not to get rid of self-doubt completely, just to get writing? And that's what we learn to do. We learn to pay attention. What is it that's going on inside me in these moments? What am I feeling, or what am I not willing to feel, or whatever it is? And how do I coach myself, or how do I challenge myself in a way that allows me to overcome that friction, that resistance?

Yeah, absolutely. And it very much is a moment-to-moment practice, right, that we're working each moment. And you know what you mentioned before about blame? One of the roots of my work goes all the way back to Professor Edward Deming. Edward D. Edward E. Edward Deming. People may have heard of him. He's often called the father of American manufacturing. He was he helped Japan recover from World War II and and the the boom of the Japanese industrial economy was a lot of his work. And he's the source of things like Six Sigma, total quality control. He was the efficiency guy. And so, he had a model that he used way back then. It was a long time ago. He had a line across the middle of the page and below it, he had blame. I think he had blame. We have a little different, but he had blame, resentment, and shame, I believe, right? And above, he had either responsibility, ownership, something like that. And he had a completely nonjudgmental view of the whole thing. His view, like blaming others and then holding on to resentments. And then what he meant by shame was blaming yourself, right?

Yeah.

So, but he said he wasn't saying you're a bad person for blaming. He was just saying it's an inefficient use of your energy. Yeah. It's just an inefficient use. It may be understandable. We all do it. We don't have to beat ourselves over the fact that we find ourselves doing it. It's kind of in the human nature. But it's inefficient. It doesn't— so his whole model was based on the idea of what's the most efficient use of my energy, and that's focusing on, okay, what can I choose? Where do I have some power? Where can I make a difference for myself and others, right? So it was very interesting that his model came purely out of a kind of efficiency framework, right?

Yeah.

Of that. So I just find that really fascinating. Let's talk about This, the name of your podcast and the traditional story of the 2 wolves, which I believe is primarily an indigenous Native American story, although maybe it exists in other cultures. But I think that's where I've heard it mainly comes from. So if you could just share us a really encapsulated version of what that story is all about and then how you've worked with it.

Sure. I mean, it actually, the origin of that story is deeply debated and almost impossible to figure out because I have tried a lot because I've been doing a podcast podcast about it for 12 years. But the story is essentially, we all have 2 wolves inside of us that are always battling each other, right? And one of them we could call a good wolf, you know, things like kindness, bravery, love. The other we could call a bad wolf, greed and hatred and fear. And, you know, the question becomes, which of these wolves wins if they're at battle all the time? And the answer is the one that you feed. So that's the fast version of that. I stripped out a couple of things.

Right.

There's a grandfather talking to a grandson, about all that. But that's the essence of it, is just that, that very simple choice, that very simple parable of, of, you know, which, which of these things wins. And I love that parable. I don't know, 12 years later, if that's the thing I would use to start my podcast these years later, because it's a little black and white. It's a little, it's a little dualistic. Yeah. But there are parts of it that I still think are incredibly valuable, right? Like, we all get it the second you hear it. And it's that our choices matter and we have choice and they matter. The other part that I love about it, I think it explains, it nails a core human dynamic, which is that I say it, you know, we're motivationally complex creatures. We want lots of different things. You know, 2 wolves is an oversimplification of what's going on inside of us, but that pull, that like part of me wants to do this, part of me wants to do that, that is deeply human. And I love how in the story, the grandfather says, we all have it. And that's really important to me. There's not something wrong with me that I have these desires to be nice and mean and good and bad and healthy and unhealthy and all these things. There's nothing wrong with me that I'm wanting all those things. That is what it is to be human.

Absolutely. And you were just referencing, you know, we're all familiar with that language. Part of me would like this, part of me would like this, part of me sometimes, you know, that's led to the various types of therapy that involve parts, whether it's voice dialogue or internal family systems. People resonate a lot with that because we all have that experience. And I agree with you around the 2 wolves thing. It is a little bit simplistic, but it's also very clear, right? It's very helpful.

Yeah.

It's that virtuous and non-virtuous cycle I was talking about before. Which one of those are we feeding? Which momentum are we creating? Because for me, uh, the 2 wolves puts them kind of on an equal playing field. I feel underneath both wolves there's a grandfather wolf who's ultimately good. Not good versus opposed to bad, but it's sitting there watching the whole thing play out but realizes ultimately it's all good in the end. And, you know, so that's the idea. In my tradition, we call that basic good. Goodness, right?

I love that. That is so good that there's a third wolf who's kind of just watching it all, kind of like, you know, watching, watching, you know, your two kids wrestle with each other a little bit. Like, all right, I got to make sure they don't hurt each other too much. But, you know, okay, go do your thing.

So let's talk a little bit more about addiction. We both had addiction in our lives. I had addiction in my family and alcoholism. And, uh, but, and we often associate addiction primarily with substance abuse, alcohol addiction, drug addiction, but of course, there's all kinds of addiction. And all of us as human beings are somewhere on, on a spectrum of, of, of being involved. We're all addicted to something. We're creatures of habit, right? And we even, even have the idea of creating positive addictions, right? Replacing one.

Mm-hmm.

And man, could we leave— could we live completely free of habits? And I, I don't know, we probably need to depend on having some some habits and so forth. And having some positive addictions is probably better than having a lot of negative addictions. But nonetheless, it's part of the landscape of how our mind works. And there's a loop in there, right? We're uncomfortable, we reach for something to make ourselves comfortable, and then we feel comfortable, we get the reward, right? And if that thing we're reaching for is alcohol or drugs, that could often get us in a lot of trouble.

Yeah.

It could also be, uh, porn. It could be, uh, you know, doom scrolling. It could be too much digital activity. It could be, you know, it could be all kinds of things that are not really going to move our life forward in a good way. And if we can learn to— and there's that whole craving cycle that can— once that thing gets built up, then there's the craving, which is a neurophysiological reality that we're feeling. If we can learn to tolerate that, or some people talk about surfing the urge of And then replace one strategy with a better strategy that's going to relieve whatever discomfort we're feeling but lead to a better result, right? So I wonder if you could talk about how you understand that whole spectrum, how that's played out in your life since you got sober, and how you see that working in the people you work with. Just the whole phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, the propensity towards addiction and habit that's really part of our makeup in some way.

Yeah, well, you did a really nice job of, of laying it out, right? that, you know, we don't think of— back when I got sober, you know, there was this idea that like there was some line, and over that line you were an alcoholic or you were an addict. And I don't think— we don't think that— the people in the addiction field don't really think that way anymore, generally, right? We see it as a spectrum, you know, from like being completely powerless over something that has us completely in our grasp to like, we— who cares? Like, we, we could take it or leave it. And yeah, with different things, we're all in different places. I think I think in general, a good rule is too much of anything becomes problematic. It doesn't really matter what it is. You know, you take anything too far. And to me, addiction is always ultimately about control. To me, it's ultimately about, am I able to decide from a wise part of myself what I want my relationship to this thing to be, whether it's drinking, whether it's spending time on my phone, whether it's exercise, whether it's sugar, whatever your thing is. Am I able, from a wise part of myself, to decide this is how I want to engage? And am I able to engage most of the time within that That boundary. When I can, go ahead.

No, no, you go ahead.

Well, I was going to say, if I can, then you know I'm probably pretty low on the addiction spectrum. I wouldn't really worry about it. But when I can't, when I repeatedly say I will not do X, Y, or Z, and then I do it, to me that's problematic. Call it addiction if you want. Call it substance, call it some sort of disorder. I don't know, you can call it whatever term works for you. But to me, that's the— that's, that's where the problem is, when I'm unable to let the dictates of my wiser self determine my action.

Yeah, and I think we can use— I mean, I think the idea of positive addictions is across a spectrum as well. One common one people come up with, like, Like runners, they pick up running, right? And you get that runner's high, you get the dopamine release, and, you know, you get to the point where if you don't run, you, you know, you're going to feel— you, you, you feel a craving to go run, right?

Yeah, yeah.

It's an addictive cycle, but, you know, it motivates you to run. You keep running, and that's good for you, right? So that's good. On the other end of the spectrum, something might seem simpler, but, you know, just acts of kindness. When we do acts of kindness, we feel better about ourselves.

Yeah.

And we get a neurological, neurophysiological reward for that. So that motivates us to keep doing acts of kindness, to do acts of generosity, right? So any, any kind of behaviors we do that are going to help us feel better about life, about others, about ourselves, there's neurophysiological rewards in there. So it does— it is a kind of addictive cycle in a way. It's based on rewards, uh, but, but it's It's not creating problems. And now running, people could get in trouble with a running addiction if they get too extreme with it, right? Like anything.

Exactly. I mean, and that's why, I mean, I think there's no getting away from we are reward-based creatures, right? Our brain is wired. It's going to be like, oh, that, that felt good. That had a good result. Do more. Right, right. That is just, we are wired up that way. I don't think that's ever going away. And so I think it does become To me, consequences are tricky, right? Because I got sober twice. I got sober at 24. As I mentioned, I was a homeless heroin addict looking at going to jail for 50 years. I stayed sober for 8 years. I never went back to heroin, but I started drinking again and smoking pot. And I eventually— I've been sober from that for 18 years. What I can tell you is that it was a very different experience. My life on the outside was fine. I, I, there's no bottom in the way there was the first time. I was making more money than I'd ever made. I had a good job. I had a nice house. I mean, everything was fine inside though. What I looked at and I was like, oh, I will choose getting high over anything else. I will say I'm not going to do it and I keep doing it. So if I was looking at the consequences to be the judge of my addiction, I could have been misled there because the consequences were very different. First time, it's like hepatitis C, weighs 100 pounds, dying, going to jail. The second time is just got promoted, driving a BMW. You know what I mean? Like, everything's going fine.

Yeah.

But the mechanism of me being completely out of control was the same, right? It was I couldn't decide not to do You know, I couldn't decide not to do it. And your point about positive, quote unquote, addictions is, yeah, it's, it's, am I able to, am I able to decide like, okay, you know what, helping people is good, but I'm doing it to the extent that like, I'm wrecking my health because I'm not sleeping. Okay, maybe I can turn—

Right.

Can I turn that down a little bit? Or runners. Yeah. I mean, look, I exercise a lot. I mean, not obsessively, but it's a mental health thing for me. Mm-hmm. And if I was unable to do it, that would be challenging for me mental health-wise. I would have, in essence, almost a craving to do it. But I don't see that as a reason not to do it. But, but if I, you know, if I kept running to the fact that I had like my third knee replacement, then I might go, well, is this, is this really worth it? Right. But it's tricky because everybody's different.

Yeah. Well, no, your point is there's some very important things that I think are fairly universal, you know, with any of these things. Um, uh, you know, even understanding that we're creatures of habit and we're reward-based and so forth. So the idea of positive addiction and so forth. But it— if we realize and develop the discernment and wisdom That with anything, there's there's a law of diminishing returns that kicks in at some point, right? Yeah. So you know, focusing on you know acts of kindness and helping people all the time, or running, or whatever it is we're doing, there's a point where we're doing so much of it that it's not as beneficial as it was, and that law of diminishing returns. So can we recognize that so that the wiser part of ourselves can discern that you know yeah I'm I'm not getting rid of that reward cycle that still motivates me to be kind. and be run. But I, I recognize when it's becoming too much because I recognize that that law of diminishing return kicks in, right? And so that's developing that wisdom. And part of— part for me, what really helps, uh, develop that— and part of that is that third wolf, or part of it's what I call innate basic goodness, or internal family systems, they call it Self with a capital S. Yeah. The more we do that, develop that kind of integrated okayness sense of who we are as a human being, and we're kind of okay with that, we have have a foundation there that gives us the ability to still work with the brain the way it works with all these cycles, but also have the ability to recognize, okay, that's where this is going to get— this isn't good. I've learned and I feel good enough about myself that I don't let that— that doesn't have to be the only reward cycle driving my behavior.

Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. I mean, I often have said that I think the core thing that is necessary with addiction is the ability to ultimately be able to say, I don't like how this feels, but I don't have to— I don't have to fix it. I don't like how this feels, but I don't have to react in a way that is harmful.

Absolutely.

And once we can develop that, and some of that comes, like you're saying, it's this basic goodness idea of, okay, underneath this, things are okay. And I think that's what my spiritual practice over the years has ultimately developed, is underneath this being all the stuff that's swirling around in my life day to day— could be good, could be bad— underneath that, there's this, there's just this deeper, like, okay, it's okay, it's okay. And that's where I can rest when these, these desires to act in ways that aren't helpful is often, you know, the refuge that I turn to.

Yeah.

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It becomes, you know, it's a sense of coming home and finally having a home. And, uh, and it changes everything. And I think that's what all the great spiritual traditions are pointing us towards, is to get in touch with that level of our being where despite all the stuff that's going on, all the challenges, whatever's going on, on underneath it all, there's some sense it's okay.

Yeah.

Okay, there's nothing wrong with me. I don't need fixing. Yeah, there's a lot that I can always be improving. There's stuff going on up here, but yeah, I have some sense of— and that really changes everything about the game. Because otherwise, if we're not in touch with that, then even if we're trying to change and improve and everything, it's like how that's going moment to moment. We either crash with, oh, I suck, or, oh, I'm really Right? But but we can't. There's no abiding sense of okayness that allows us to do that work with compassion and humor. I feel so grateful that my spiritual practices have really concretized that experience in myself. So today, what goes on in my internal, you know, my brain and my discoursing, all the craziness that goes on there, which unfortunately is a lot less than it ever has been, but I still find it hilarious. I basically. I have a really kind of hilarious relationship with myself. In fact, I think if I could get up on stage and just sort of reveal that inner dialogue, I'd probably be a great stand-up comic, you know, because I find my mind very funny, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

But it's only— I'm only able to have that sense of humor about it because on some level I've developed a lot of confidence that I'm fundamentally okay. And it's not a problem.

Well, and you're one of those people, honestly, that is, again, for me, was an inspiration of that, which is like, I'm in prison. You don't get— your circumstances don't get much worse. I mean, I'm not saying they can't get any worse. You never want to challenge the world.

It can't get any worse.

Never say that. It can't get any worse. Yes, it can. But that's a pretty bad situation, right? And yet, you found some degree of equanimity peace, and the ability to like, okay, I'm gonna react differently in here. And that is the sort of thing that those of us who are like, well, gosh, I mean, things aren't going well, I lost my job, you know, but we look at people like, I mean, on an extreme case, Viktor Frankl, or, you know, Nelson Mandela, but you too in prison is like, oh, even in these extreme circumstances, these people have shown that there's a way. There's a way to, to be— I mean, not, not like it's great, but to be okay in there, to, to, to keep some degree of who we are as people. And, and again, I just find that— I've always found that really inspiring. It, it is the, it is the thing that, like, I think is the, the ultimate fruit for me that I've always looked for, is like, you know, I think from a young man, I was like, life can really suck sometimes. My God.

Yeah.

You know, how do I— what can I do to not be completely at the mercy of that?

Absolutely. I'd like to explore with you a little bit the power of identity. I think for me, and, you know, been working with people for a long time in all kinds of formats and so forth, and to me, one of the biggest barriers to change is the identity that people concretize around you know, being broken or being this way or that way. I don't know how many times— well, that's just the way I am. I mean, I don't know how I could be any different. And change can be threatening because I may not be thrilled with how I am. I may complain about it, feel victimized by it, be suffering, but at least it's known. Like, if that's not true for me, if my whole story, my whole life narrative about all that stuff, if that's not who I am, then who am I? That can be kind of scary. Right? So that shift in identity. So, uh, and for me around addiction, coming back to addiction, you know, when I was, I was trying to— I, I smoked. I started smoking in high school, maybe, you know, somewhere in high school, and off and on throughout my early adult life. And, you know, at some point I realized it wasn't so great for me, and I was trying to quit. But I was somebody, my mindset was, I love smoking, but I want to quit because I know it's bad for me, right? But, oh, I love that cigarette after a meal, you know, whatever. And so, so, you know, I was— I wasn't being very— I'd quit for a couple years and I'd be back at it. I quit for a couple years, I'd be back at it. I find it was actually— I had, before I went to prison, I had not been smoking for a couple years. And when I turned myself in, I decided to turn myself in. I mean, they were after— it was either they were going to hunt me down or I turned myself in. And so I turned myself in and Uh, uh, I have my lawyer, you know, and on the way I bought a pack of cigarettes. I'm gonna need, I'm gonna need something. I gotta, I'm, I'm turning myself in to go to prison for a long time. I, I need a pack of cigarettes, you know. But then once I got into prison, I thought, okay, I'm going to be here a long time. Originally I thought it was going to be 30 years. I don't want to die of lung cancer in here. I want to survive. I want to have a life while I'm here. And if I'm lucky enough, or if I can create the possibility of getting out someday, I want to create a life for myself. I don't want to die of lung cancer. So I became motivated to quit. But what really allowed me to quit was somehow I shifted into seeing myself as a nonsmoker.

Mm-hmm.

And really seeing that smoking is, you know, it's kind of a little bit of a nasty habit. It smells, you have dirty ashtrays around. It's kind of like, you know, what I used to revere as kind of a cool thing, now I found it kind of distasteful. And I, and I became identified as a nonsmoker. And then it was no problem.

Yeah.

So the power of identity, identity can keep— because we all, you know, we're all born in this incredibly fragile state, you know, still in a symbiotic relationship with our mother or surrogate parent. And then at some point, 6 months or so, we have to start individuating and we have to develop some kind of identity to navigate the world. And we'll build that identity out of whatever's available to us. And depending on what's available to us, that identity can be more functional or less functional life. But we kind of, you know, we're not— the life we know from the great spiritual traditions is pretty groundless, impermanent, fluid. But, you know, at 6 months old, we're not set up to be able to deal with that. And as adults, it's not easy to deal with the groundlessness of reality as it is. So we're pretty— we cling to having some kind of identity pretty strongly, right?

Yeah.

Of course, there's a whole world of identity politics. I won't get into that. But identity is a big deal for human beings, right? And so identity can keep us really stuck. Yeah. And a shift in identity can really support change. Yeah. I wonder if you could talk about how you've experienced that.

Yeah, I've thought a lot about identity. And because there are— there was a time that me identifying as an addict and an alcoholic In recovery? Well, first, I identified as an addict in, and, you know, like junkie cool kind of stuff, right? Like, you know, rock and roll, baby.

Right.

And then I identified as a recovering addict. And that was a valuable identity shift. To see myself as a person in recovery, as a recovering alcoholic, was a really useful identity for me for a while. And then it ceased to become as useful of an identity in the fact that there was— in the way that, at least in 12-step programs, what people talked about what that meant about who I was. I'm impulsive. I have an addictive personality. I— all these things. And I looked at my— I had to finally look at myself one day, and I like, I don't think those things are true anymore. I don't think that's, that's true. So I still identify as an alcoholic addict, but in a very narrow way, in the way of like, I should not pick up drugs and alcohol. But it doesn't— I don't feel like it says anything else about me anymore. So I think identity is— identities are useful sometimes until they're not.

Yeah, I agree with you.

And so being able to look at identity and go, is this identity one that is helping me and is useful? You know, I just think usefulness is such a key criteria to so many things. It's like, which identity am I? None of them really, right? It's all made up to a certain degree. So pick the one then, if you're going to do it, pick the one that helps you and then be willing to set it aside when it doesn't. Now, that's easier to say than do. But one of the things I focus on with people right out of the gate when I'm working with them on change is driving home the idea that change is a skill set.

Absolutely.

It is not character-related. It is not personality-related. Like, there are skills that you can learn that help you change. And if we can't get— at least open our minds to that to a certain degree, we can't change, right? We have to be able to believe on some level that we can. Identity is also tricky because you can't bullshit yourself. You can't be like, I'm a nonsmoker, as you smoke every day, right? Like, that's a difficult— it's very difficult to take on that identity. So we have to to begin to change behavior, you know, and I think there's often like, which do I do first, change behavior or change identity? I actually think they move— ideally, they move in parallel. Ideally, they move in parallel. You start to take evidence of, oh, suddenly I am behaving differently than I used to. So maybe I'm not that, maybe I'm this. And we hold it kind of loosely as, as As time, time moves on. It's a fascinating subject.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, even as I began to make that identity shift around smoking, you know, I still relapsed a little bit. But somehow, you know, it was a gradual shift. I really, you know, I was no longer, I was no longer idealizing or glorifying smoking, right? It wasn't a cool thing anymore, right? And so, uh, when I would, when I relapsed a little, I realized, okay, no, I I'm pretty clear about this, but I still have some brain circuits in there that like to smoke. There's a part of me that can, you know, boom. And, you know, maybe that'll be gone someday. But in the meantime, I need to focus on that growing part of my brain that sees a different reality, right? And that's, I think, that gradual shift that we can make. And, you know, I agree with you. I was deeply involved in 12-step work during my prison time, and it was very transformative. informative for me. We had a wonderful combined AA/NA group, amazing sponsors that came in from the outside, and one of them was my dearest friend until he passed a couple years ago. And, um, but one of the limitations I've, I've, I've always seen with that is this permanent identity, right? That I'm, I'm an alcoholic, I'm an addict, and, and some— a bit of a fear-based thing that, you know, I'm one step away from total disaster. faster, right?

Yeah.

And, but I met a lot of— and fortunately I had a sponsor that used to bring in some of the people to our meeting from the outside, who are these people that are kind of, what do they call them, the circuit speakers in, in AA. They're out there, they're the kind of big shots that are out there. And a lot of them are really accomplished people and they're well down their path. They're very spiritually realized people. And you can't tell me they're once, you know, that they believe they're one step away from disaster, right? They've developed a lot of momentum, a lot of wherewithal to not let that take over their lives again. But so I think that identity is very important. I wouldn't want to take it away from any alcoholic that it's keeping them alive. But at some point, I think I've always— I have a lot of friends that are still involved in 12-step work. I said it would be really great if maybe there's like a— and maybe this already exists, but there's a kind of secret advanced AA out there somewhere, and there probably are in private groups, you know, uh, of people that realize, okay, we've— that we love it, this is how we transform, we're not there anymore, but we don't want to, you know, pollute the waters for the people who still need that identity, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm— well, I think there's a lot of us wandering around that are in that camp, you know, you, me. I mean, I talked to a lot of people who— I mean, and Bill Wilson said it himself, he said, you know, it's— AA is like spiritual kindergarten. Right? I mean, like, it's not— again, I— everybody finds their own thing. And I do think that, you know, when I moved— when I started to move away from 12-step programs, I don't know, a decade ago, I was very cautious because I had gone back out after 8 years. And one of the things that happened in that period was I just stopped going to meetings. And I ended up getting drunk. So I was like, well, okay, that's interesting. That happened. So as I, as I noticed this natural desire to start to step back, I was like, well, hang on, I got to be careful here. And I thought, like, what is it that I get? What is it that I'm getting there? And I was like, okay, well, I'm getting fellowship with people who understand me. I'm getting a structured program of change, the steps. And I'm getting the opportunity to help people. And it's all bundled together really easily here. So, what I did was I went, well, where do I— okay, do I have that? Do I have fellowship? Do I have people that I can talk to that understand me, that I can be open and honest and connect with and spend time with? I was like, oh, yes, I do. Okay, good. Do I have a structured program of change? Well, at that time, I was doing deep Zen study. I was like, I do. Right? I do. I'm on a path of change, of improvement, of deepening myself. And then do I help people? Do I have opportunities to help people? And I looked around and I was like, yeah, I've got lots of different places that I am helping people. And so for me, then I went, okay, that's what recovery is for me. I can recover in lots— I can recover in different circumstances if I— for me, if I bring those things along with me. Absolutely, absolutely.

And that, you know, I was about to reflect that I, you know, I'm not literally involved in 12-step groups anymore, but I feel my life is very much a 12-step-oriented life. The way I live my life and the way I resource myself very much follows that path. And actually, when I got out of prison, um, which was in 1999, so it's been going on 27 years, um, I, I went to meetings for a while because it was a huge part of my life inside, right? Huge part part. And not the only thing I was doing. I led a meditation group, I was doing hospice work, I was doing all kinds of inner work and all kinds of work. But the 12-step group really was an anchor. And so I got out, so I started going to meetings, and I, I didn't quite find the meeting that felt, you know, like really home for me. But it was also that, um, I, I was, you know, getting involved back in my life, and, and my primary path is has been for over 50 years, the Buddhist path, and both Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, and very involved. That big song, I'm very— it's huge. I'm deeply involved in it. And so the idea that I'm going to be able to do all these paths with integrity, right? And also that, you know, one of my— my— that sponsor I referenced, and, you know, he had told me early on when I think when I first met him, uh, uh, at the beginning of my journey there, because he, he was coming in when I first got to prison. Just a side note to the dedication of that work. There had been a gentleman who was a local, you know, this is Springfield, Missouri, right? So decent-sized town but surrounded by rural areas. So there was a gentleman that had been coming into that prison as one of the people bringing the program inside for decades. And he was, by this time, he was in his 80s. He was a farmer, just ordinary, you know, guy. And Anyway, he had been training my friend, John, to take over for him, right? And so, the more elderly gentleman was still there. Both he and John were coming in for the first maybe 2 years, and then the elderly gentleman finally retired, and John took over and showed up every week the whole time out of 14 years I was there, along with the other people that would come in, right? But, the level of dedication in those programs is incredible.

Yeah.

But at any rate, I got out. I'm going to MEADS. And I— so he— oh yeah, he had originally told me almost the first time I met him, if you want this program to work for you, be someone who makes it available to others. And I really got that. So I was there in the core of that group for 14 years. I was constantly, you know, people are familiar with the group, you have all these service positions. I was constantly training up people and turning them over and turning them over. But that prison had a lot of turnover. Most people were there for 9 months, 18 months, or somewhere in between there. And so it would keep falling back on me, right? And I'd become a new group of people. So I was always— but I was always there in the background making it happen. I always showed up the hour before it started to help put out the coffee and everything. So I knew I wasn't going to be able to be that involved in, in the 12-step groups on the outside because I had more than that involvement in my other path, right? And so somehow I Like, it was difficult for me to just go to meetings as kind of a consumer, you know.

Right.

Nothing wrong with that, but it was just for me. So for what— for a lot of reasons, it didn't work for me to— I often— I always had that thought, and I still have the thought, if I ever do get in trouble with drugs or alcohol, I'll be kind of grateful because I love the program. I'll be back in the program in a heartbeat. But fortunately, that hasn't happened. But, uh, but I have replicated that path. In my life, in so many ways, like you've described. Yeah, yeah. And you're you're right.

There is something about like being a spectator, like going to a meeting once a week or going to a meeting once a month or going. It just it it I agree with you. I do. It doesn't feel the same to me. I will go to meetings. Like I have a friend. He's gonna listen to and edit this podcast. My friend Chris, and he's more like six years in recovery, and he's still pretty involved. And you know, I'll go to meetings with him if he's like, "You want to go to a meeting?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'll go." You know, and I go, and I think they're so beautiful. I'm so touched. But it just isn't part of my path today.

So this has been really, really fascinating, Eric. And so for people in our audience that you know maybe have some things in their lives they would really like to. to see change. And up till now, they may have tried all kinds of strategies that haven't worked so well. They may feel somewhat, somewhat powerless to change. So in terms of, you know, the whole idea of change, you mentioned before that there's somewhere between self-improvement and— I can't remember what you said, but the whole term—

Self-acceptance.

Yeah, self-acceptance. Some people in the— in, in my spiritual lineages don't like the word self-improvement because they think that implies there's something wrong with you, you need fixing.

100%.

And it can go that way.

Yeah.

But my view of it is we don't need fixing. We're perfectly beautiful and wonderful, intelligent, wise creatures just the way we are. And we're a life form, and life forms are designed to evolve and grow and change and evolve and become the best version of themselves, right? So when I think of self-improvement, that's, that's what I think of, right? That we're not self-improvement from a place that there's something wrong to begin with, but, but just evolution and becoming, you know, the very best version of ourselves, right? But it— but so, but it can— we can create all these— we have to somehow get out of these constellations of I'm broken, I suck, I got to get fixed, and I'm going to—

Yeah, yeah.

But so for people that are feeling that to whatever degree, you know, how do— where can you begin? How can you begin? And then also, how do you kind of begin to think about designing my life to support ongoing positive evolution and change for myself?

Well, if I had a quick answer for that, I wouldn't have had to write an entire book about how you change.

Well, this would be a segue to where can people find your book. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I, you know, things are different. But your point, I think, is the first one is a good one, which is like, I think we have to approach change carefully. Not everything— I end the book with a chapter on acceptance, which is a strange place to end a book about change. And yet, right, changing things is not always the answer to anything. You know, there is times that change is good. There's times to set it down. My experience is I actually end up doing both most of the time. I'm both accepting my life and I'm working to change my life at the same time. Both things are true. You know, the place to start, I think, is I would come back to what I said a few minutes ago, which is to really start to say like, okay, can I start Can I find a way to believe that change is a skill set? How can I really, like, just begin to open my mind to that idea? And what is one small positive thing I can do now? You know, like, what is the next good thing that I can do? You know, I think that's really where it begins. It begins with little steps. So, if there's a particular thing you have wanted to change, then what is a step that you can take towards it? But ultimately, there is a number of skills that we need to learn. And that's, you know, that's kind of what the book is focused on. But my experience is small steps. Find something small. Do it, build on it. You know, we, you and I are, you know, you're, you're, you, you are a highly, you know, you're transmitted Zen teacher and Tibetan teacher. And so you've, you've done, you've logged a few hours of meditation probably in, in your life. You know, and the story that I tell to end is often that, you know, I tried to meditate for so many years and I just, I couldn't do it. It's because it was way before the internet and there were just books and they'd be like, meditate for like 45 minutes or an hour. And I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. I'd sit down, I'd do it, I'd do it for a day, I'd do it for a week, I would quit. I eventually started to just be like, I'm going to do it 3 minutes a day, but I'm going to do it. I can do that every day. And that became 5, which became 7, which became 10, which led to me sitting multiple weeks in Zen sashimi, right? Like that little bit, that little bit bit can be the opening point. You know, start small, find something that you can succeed at and build from there. And people can find me at oneyoufeed.net. That's O-N-E-Y-O-U-F-E-E-D.net. You can find my book there, my podcast, look, book me as a speaker, any of the things you might want to do.

Wonderful. I really encourage people to check out your work and, you know, that idea of, of just making those positive choices, taking those steps, you know. And again, wherever we begin, because, you know, for, uh, for someone who's really in the throes of alcoholism, just making that choice to go to a meeting, just put your butt in a chair, that can be a really high-level skill. It doesn't seem that sophisticated. And maybe I'm not there supporting the meeting or anything. I'm— maybe I'm kind of coming in as a spectator, but probably if I'm sitting in that chair, it's going to lead to better things than if I'm sitting in the bar chair, right? So, you know, just taking wherever we're at, taking steps, taking action, taking— and, and, and being willing to, to start small. I love, you know, is it BJ Fogg's book Tiny Habits?

Yeah.

You know, and so like, you want to start getting in shape, do 1 push-up. I'm gonna do 1 push-up a day. You won't keep doing 1 push-up for very long. You're going to find yourself doing 2, and then you'll find yourself doing 3, and then you'll find yourself doing 4, right? And it's just like Yeah.

I mean, one of the things we know about motivation is that it goes up when we feel good about ourselves and it goes down when we feel bad about ourselves. So, what we have to find is a way to pick something that we can succeed at because that begets more motivation. And so, yeah, find the— and again, it seems insignificant to start, but it doesn't stay there. That is the path.

Absolutely. Well, it's been incredibly valuable. Thank you so much, Eric. Thank you for today. Thank you for your work in the world. And, and, uh, really, people need to find out, uh, more about your book, which is How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life. So check that out, everyone. Thank you so much, Eric.

Thank you, Fleet. It's been a real, real pleasure.

Be well.

Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember, real change happens when we commit to our growth, face our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment. Until next time, stay grounded, stay present, and stay true to yourself. Take care.