Eric Brown and Jon Brooks discuss what self-mastery asks of a person who keeps taking on too much. Eric describes learning to set boundaries, reading Essentialism, and committing to a practice long enough to notice his own patterns. The conversation keeps returning to the commitments he is willing to make room for.
Recorded on 28 December 2023 and released the following day. Hero100 dates, prices, availability and personal circumstances in the transcript are historical. This page does not advertise an open cohort.
When saying yes becomes the problem
Eric describes a habit that can look generous from the outside: keep accepting requests, keep finding another hour, keep assuming you can carry it. He had treated boundaries as a sign that he was not strong enough to cope.
By the time of this conversation, that explanation was wearing thin. He could see the cost in the attention he gave his work and relationships. Saying no to a project, or shortening a meeting, could leave room for something he already cared about. He also wanted some time he did not immediately fill with another commitment.
We talk about Greg McKeown's Essentialism because it meets that problem directly. Eric had already spent years reducing possessions. The harder question was whether he could stop replacing each cleared space with another obligation.
Stay with a practice long enough to see yourself
Eric calls part of this the discipline of surrender: allowing a chosen practice to teach you something, including something inconvenient about yourself. That is his modern description, not the name of an ancient Stoic exercise.
In his account of a hundred-day programme, a missed day can expose perfectionism. The thought is familiar: I've broken the streak, so the whole thing is ruined. He also describes learning to permit a break and then return. Those two experiences belong in the same account of discipline.
You do not need to reproduce his programme to ask the useful question. When you miss a commitment, what do you tell yourself happened? Write that sentence down before deciding what to do next. Illness, exhaustion and responsibilities to other people still count.
The recording discusses cold showers, meditation and intense exercise. Its personal reports do not establish a suitable routine for everyone, or show that running can replace therapy. Journalling does not guarantee that a fixed share of anxious thoughts will disappear. Adapt or stop a practice that makes you unwell; use qualified support for treatment decisions.
Give yourself advice you can actually use
Our conversation starts with a review of the year. What went well? What would Eric change? The useful answers are specific enough to affect the next decision: fewer commitments, time for himself in the morning, more care over the work he keeps.
Seneca describes examining his conduct at the end of the day, following Sextius. Our year-end version is a modern adaptation of that kind of review. You could try it on one commitment this evening: what did you do, what got in the way, and what would you change tomorrow?
There is room to care about an outcome while admitting that you cannot guarantee it. That is where the Stoic reserve clause helps: make the effort, and allow for circumstances to change. The conversation's language about inner and outer life should not be read as a claim that people cause every event that happens to them.
For the question of what to leave out, listen to Essentialism: Making Trade-Offs When Time Is Tight. For the Stoic distinction between intention and outcome, read the reserve clause.
Sources: the interview discusses Greg McKeown's Essentialism, reading, journalling and Eric's own programmes. The ancient anchors above were checked against Seneca's On Anger and Of Peace of Mind. Quotations recalled in conversation, including remarks attributed to Jung, Bruce Lee, Sam Harris and ancient philosophers, are not a verified quotation collection. The unnamed heliocentrism-and-execution anecdote is not established and should not be repeated as historical fact. The historical plant-medicine discussion and therapeutic claims are personal accounts, not recommendations or clinical evidence.
Full transcript
Lightly edited for readability. Speaker changes follow the published transcript, with obvious merged questions separated. Two brief interjections remain labelled “Speaker unclear”.
Jon: EB, super honoured and excited to chat with you again. I find our conversations are always super fulfilling personally, and people seem to love listening to them or watching them as well, which is nice. So I appreciate you being back and chatting to me.
Eric: Couldn't be happier, man. I always get like selfishly excited because I always walk away from this like, dang, I didn't consider that. I didn't think about that before. So only hoping that I can I can return the favor, you know.
Jon: We're having this conversation the 28th of December. People listening, will it be a little bit later by the time we publish it, but it's kind of closing off the year. And whenever we close off the year, there's usually a lot of reflection that comes, and I do want to get into some reflection with you in this conversation in more pointed ways. Want to make a quick note to the listeners. I have just published a productivity manifesto course that I did with EB, and there are seven chapters on that. So it's all about meaningful productivity and some of the productivity traps that we fall into.
So that'll be available on the YouTube channel, and I'm gonna link to it. so that's just like a really good place to get more familiar with EB's thinking as you make your way through the episode. but yeah, I just want to start with just what's been going on for you? What's a life for you? What are you focusing on right now? since the last conversation, what's been going on in your life?
Eric: Oh man. the past few months, I'm currently sitting in my house in Argentina. yeah, end of December. I've been here for about a month. The two big things that have both actually happened and come to a close since I think we last spoke. One is we ran and closed the Warrior 100. We ran a hundred-day kind of initiation into the warrior archetype. The other thing that came and went actually in the course of the hundred days of the warrior 100 was we ran our last two iterations of the apotheosis plant medicine retreats, which were incredible.
And actually, the combination of being in the kind of warrior dojo and going into deep medicine work and coming back out into that was honestly phenomenal. happy to talk anything about that. Looking there there are two equal, equal things in my life that I'm looking forward to. in about, geez, we're getting up there, about two weeks from now, mid-January, we're releasing the second version of the Hero100. I think we spoke on that last time we spoke. So we're coming in hot and heavy with version two, iterated a whole bunch, leveled it up a whole lot.
I am really excited for that. And my partner Chloe and I are actually planning on moving in wow, the end of February. I think we're gonna try to put down roots in Costa Rica. So that is very exciting, but it's now in the kind of logistical part of packing up our whole life, trying to figure out how to get our cat across an international border. so there's a whirlwind going on, man.
Jon: Yeah, who'd have thought? issues with cat travel. What's it been like for you working with your partner? Yeah, because some people say it's the best thing, some people struggle with it. How's that been for you? Because Chloe is working on Hero100 with you, right? And Warrior 100.
Eric: Yes, yeah, we've been building the hundred days out together. yeah, beautiful and challenging. I mean, half the time you can't even separate those. I am it's actually revealing to me. I already kind of knew this, but it's certainly revealing to me how much of a kind of lone wolf work archetype I am. Like for so many years, it's just been me, myself, behind the computer. Like, yes, I've worked with people, but all my work has always been, you know, on my own time, in my own way, done how I want it.
And man, entering into a work dynamic where we can literally sit across from each other and talk this through has been it's been revealing, and it's been it's been tough for me because there's a part of me that wants to open into deeper collaboration, but almost doesn't even have like the skill set for that yet or the communication techniques for it yet. but at the same time, we also get a very, very tight feedback circle, right? Because we live together, yeah, we go to sleep together. So yeah, we can give praise and critique really quickly, and it helps us level up just day by day rather than week by week or month by month.
So beautiful and challenging initiation.
Jon: Yeah, wow, that sounds great. over the years that I've known you, I've noticed a pattern with you. It's like you often have sort of like acute cycles of being interested in specific things like that maybe I'm unexpected about. So like mace training, maybe an example of that, or like team meditation, right? There's like often this like new phase, this new area that you're tinkering with, experimenting with, practicing serious play with, if you know, if you want to use the newsletter and blog, which is like a core philosophy of yours. What have you been playing with seriously like recently?
What is your areas of interest in that way at the moment?
Eric: Oh, amazing. yeah, this one is actually really really top of mind for me lately because I mean we are you know we are on the precipice of the new year very much in the resolution season, also starting to think about what my own one of the challenges in the Hero100 is a personal ritual, something you add into your life and do every day. So I've been really thinking about that, but just to add a bit of context, I'm actually releasing a post about this tomorrow because it's been so exciting for me.
There's this guy, there's this guy named Jesse Itzler, I've started listening to a lot. I absolutely love his his philosophy, his view on life, but he introduced to me this concept called the Masogi, which he frames as like every year you should do something so big and so challenging that it sets the tone for your entire year. Right? Another way, another framing of this is like you should be able to look back on your year and just be like, this was the year I did X. Like I did this, it was this thing.
For him, it's I mean, I watch these guys more than I actually do it, but for him, it's been like ultra marathons, 50 mile, 100 mile races. He's like, you know, 2020, I did this, 2021, I did this. I say all of this because I was like, I am I always fall into the overcommitted, under-delivering trap, always doing way more than I probably should be. And so I'm really trying to lean the other way. We were also speaking a couple days ago about essentialism and what that book is currently doing to my psyche.
I say all of this, the thing I am wanting to actually commit to for the Hero100, commit to next year, and commit to for myself is actually yoga. I've been really reinvigorated in the currently actually the physical practice of yoga. I actually really got into yoga from the more metaphysical philosophical part of it, which is part and parcel with my life, much more philosophical, conceptual, academic than I am physical embodied practice. And but yeah, the thing I am playing with the most, the thing I'm studying the most, and the thing I really want to like just go in on over the next year is actually yoga.
Jon: And what does that look like when you say go in on? Does that mean like just a daily practice or attending classes or becoming a teacher? What does that mean for you to go all in on it?
Eric: Oh, actually a little bit of everything. the one of the things that I've come across that it's actually really easy to overlook in yoga philosophy. I brushed over it really quickly. There's actually, you know, if you read, if you read some of the thinkers, if you read some of the yogis in the space, they actually make a recommendation of timing for the practice. The recommendation that they make is sunrise, or if you can't do sunrise, sunset, the idea being like it's essentially a transition time in the day, and yoga is a transitionary process from essentially the external to the internal.
I was like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm actually gonna I'm actually gonna pay attention. I'm actually gonna do that. So the first way that taking it seriously looks is my ritual for the Hero100 is gonna be a sunrise yoga routine. I did sunrises the first time, just actually getting up, and it was it was phenomenal. It was really hard to actually do the kind of discipline of getting up at that time every day, but man, so part of taking it seriously is I want a daily practice of it. The second part of taking it seriously is it's kind of painful and frustrating to admit this, but I have had a teacher training sitting at like 36% completion on my computer for like three years now.
I'm pretty sure I did it like right in the middle of the first wave of lockdowns in COVID. I was like, look, whatever, we're gonna be locked down, I'm gonna do something with my time, and then of course, here we are several years later, and it's still sitting there. So I both want to achieve an actual milestone by getting through that, yeah, and actually just ingrain it more into a daily practice.
Jon: Wow. Sounds awesome! Yeah, that sounds brilliant. I wasn't expecting that, but that sounds really good. And I love that idea of finding like an epic big goal for the year. That is just as soon as you said that, I was like, yes, that sounds so good to me. and when you were talking about essentialism, which we're gonna come back to like in more depth a little bit later. but the idea of essentialism is sort of focusing on the essential few instead of getting caught up with the trivial many, right? It's like a form of minimalism.
A lot of us at the beginning of the year like to focus on like the 35 books that we want to read, right? And it's like, why don't you choose three books, three movies, three video games, three habits, three like goals, right? Just like a few things and just aim at doing those. But choose the key is choose the right ones. You know, like what are what are three books that you could read this year, for example, that you've been putting off for a long time, you know, but you just know it's something in your heart says, like, if you just read these three books that you've been putting off reading, it's gonna change your perspective, right? because I'm culprit for just coming up with like the 50 books a year at the beginning of the year and trying to read one a week. so I'd like to take a little bit of inspiration from Seneca.
And you know, he's famous for recommending, he didn't come up with it, but I think he made it famous the idea of the nightly review, right? So looking back over your day, what is something that you did well? What is something that perhaps you didn't do so well, and what is something that you would like to do better tomorrow? But I'd like to extend this to like the year view, right? So we can just take a look at your last year. I know it might be hard to remember everything, but let's just say like what is the thing you're most proud of, or the thing you know you're happy about.
You can choose a couple if you like, that you're like, yeah, damn, I really I'm glad that I did that, I'm glad I acted in that way, or I'm glad that I created this thing. Like, what is the win for the last year for you, 2023?
Eric: Oh, I had like I had like my initial answer come up, and then I had like the real answer follow that very quickly afterwards. Super frustrating. yeah, hopefully, hopefully this lands without too much background context, but the thing I think I'm actually most proud of myself for doing this year is really maybe having the courage to look at a very deeply ingrained pattern in my personality, which might be best summarised as something like the martyr archetype. The martyr being you know, the one who always takes on everything, who always falls on the sword first, who always says that they'll do it, kind of has residue of people pleasing, yes men tendencies.
And I had I had gotten feedback in my life from people I respect, from Chloe and my partner, about this before, but I kind of like shrugged it off. It got to a point this year that I actually either couldn't ignore it or was finally willing to face it. And honestly, it was painful. It was really painful to look at because it I don't know, it really felt like it was demonstrating some layer of self-love that actually hadn't been accessed before. That like I didn't I was I was and still am.
Like it's still something I'm really trying to reorient around. But very I'm very good and very quick to show up for other people, but often at the expense of myself, at the expense of my own health, of my stress levels, of my satisfaction, of my work-life balance. Like it all it all fits kind of under that martyr archetype. And honestly, I think if I the way this kind of landed is like what would I be most happy 10 years from now that happened this year? And honestly, it's probably looking at that.
Like, I'm really proud of the hundred days and the experiences that we built there, but I think over the next five, ten, twenty years, I think actually taking a really hard look at myself and making some difficult decisions around yeah, how to take care of myself, how to love myself more, how to put myself first, is really important. So yeah, oh yeah, probably that.
Jon: Yeah, that's epic. And I'm sure there are a lot of people listening to this now that maybe you have to relate to that as well, you know, working hard and showing up for others at the sacrifice of themselves. I'm actually reading a book right now, and the topic is on being a caretaker, and that's something that a lot of people fall into as well, just sort of like you know, like caring for others is like becomes your job in relationships and the destructiveness of that. so yeah. okay, that's really beautiful.
What about something that you are there's no guilt associated with this ideally or shame, but it's sort of like, hmm, you know, like I could you know, that wasn't ideal, like that's something I could an area of improvement, let's say. Something that you've maybe a failure or something that you could learn from.
Eric: Yeah, I mean it's related because the all all of these things are so it's almost it's almost reasonable to say they're not even like parts of my personality. It's like they're the vast majority of my personality. Part of the realisation and the exploration and the discovery of this kind of pattern and this kind of archetype was actually the way. So the long and short answer I'm trying to get to is essentially the thing that yeah, I really look back on and I'm I see as an opportunity or I'm frustrated about is like real overextension, like real over-commitment.
But the reason it's coming up for this answer is because I can see much more clearly now how it actually prevents me, or maybe it's actually a safety mechanism from actually showing up fully for the people that I care about and for the things that I care about. And so it's actually now just become this lens of like, oh yeah, this is why I don't show up for my friends the way I want to, this is why I don't talk to my family as much as the way I want to, because I'm either too distracted, too focused on kind of worky projecty stuff.
And yeah, it's either an unwilling distraction or a safety mechanism from like fear of I don't even know. Fear of like, am I not good enough for these guys? Should they be spending their time with other people? But you know, I think one of the things it's actually one of the things I value most, strangely, in myself and in other people, is when you can tell that someone is really like showing up for it. Like there's just something beautiful of full commitment, your total energy, your full being going into something.
And yeah, I just have really come to terms with how I or the way I have set my life up is actually keeping me from showing up from my partnership, my relationship, my the teams that I work with, the people I work with, the things I say I care about, including my own like goals and rituals and habits and stuff. And yeah, so that is hard to like pin that down on like a single action, but I think that's kind of the point. When when I zoom out on the year, it's just like, oh man, this isn't only affecting me, right?
That might be the way to say it. It's not that this affects me, it also affects my family, my friends, people I work with, things I care about. And yeah, that just that hurts.
Jon: And based on the these two things, something you did well, something that an area you can improve on, have you made like an internal commitment to yourself for the next year that's to come? Something that you're just more mindful of, or something that you want to start practicing with?
Eric: Yeah. So one of the one of the really pointed I started talking to people about this pattern. I started talking to ChatGPT about this pattern. I started reading a whole bunch about this, and one of the one of the things that came up actually across the board was one of the problems that the martyr archetype has is actually an inability to set boundaries. And I'd always kind of laugh that off. I'd always laugh that off because actually there's a way it still exists in me. I was just talking about this a couple weeks back.
Like the way boundaries have always felt for me is essentially a sign of weakness. Where it's like you're just not strong enough to handle all of this, so you need a boundary. Yeah, and oh my god, dude. So there's so many things wrong in that, but that was the honest way that I felt where it's just like, oh, you're just not capable enough to do all these things, and you just don't have your own solid foundation to you know handle all the requests of you, handle people, you know, asking a lot of you. so the maybe the theme for this year, the in the intention for sure, this actually relates to the essentialism stuff, is just essentially saying no, essentially reclaiming time.
And it can be small ways, right? Trying to cut meetings from my calendar. It's also bigger things, too, like saying no to entire projects, even saying no just to things so that I have free time, not even so that I can replace it with other stuff, just for actual unstructured, free space in my life. so yeah, the change, and it feels like part of the healing step is actually both learning about setting up and enforcing boundaries, emotional boundaries, energetic boundaries, time boundaries. boundaries like just all of it because I don't I don't think there's ever been an actual moment in my life where I've done I've done that which sounds sounds weird to say but you know yeah I don't really have examples I can point to and that if anything is just a signal of like ah that is where the work is to be done
Jon: So beautiful yeah that's a really really good one that's a really really really good one so yeah we've kind of mentioned a few times already essentialism but do you want to talk a little bit about your experience so far of reading that book and how it's impacting the way that you're thinking
Eric: Yeah I think it's just coming at a very good time contextually for me I mean like some some background context I think the actual not even I think I know that the actual catalyst in my life that really got me on the path of whatever you want to call it growth self-improvement healing self-mastery that whole space it was actually minimalism like I started reading the minimalist blog by JFM and Ryan and doing some of their challenges I was in university at the time and so every time I would go back to my family's house for summer break or for winter break I would pack up all my stuff and I would use it as a as a way to jettison everything like anything that didn't make its its way back out of the luggage was was just let go of and it was the first time I actually had this like embodied like visceral example in front of me of doing something and feeling substantially better after it like so much more mental clarity so much more appreciation for my yeah my the things in my life and then minimalism just honestly it's just grown and evolved got very into Zen got very into some of the Eastern religions which have minimalism probably as both the way they operate and the outcome of how they operate and so yeah all of this all of this actually kind of led I think it's why I've put the book off for so long because it felt it felt like it led to this kind of arrogance where it's like dude I already know all of this like what is this thing actually going to teach me but whatever.
So I picked it up and it really just it's really been I mean the way I would like summarise the thesis and I think you nailed it as well is like learning really how to be disciplined in the process of saying no to just the trivial everything to make room and energy for the absolute like absolute essential few. Again I had a decade plus in minimalism both with relationships with physical possessions with commitments but it felt like I was actually getting rid of things so that I could just keep saying yes to everything that came that came up for me.
This is the whole this is the flip side of the martyr thing right like oh I just got to get rid of the extra stuff so I can keep saying yes look at this opportunity and let's go talk to this person let's go out and do this and let's go here and do that. It was still never a it was never a discipline in the sense of like a way of study and that is just really landing for me. I think maybe I'm at the time in my life I think I've built enough of my own skill set I really know myself enough and I know about the things I care enough that I'm really starting to see very clearly how putting my putting 10% of my energy into 10 different things versus putting 100% of my energy into like one thing is really hurting me and it's really hurting the quality of work that I can do.
It's it's hurting how I can show up for relationships. So it is just really really pointed in that fact and just making that like egregiously apparent to me then yeah so I'm super thankful for it.
Jon: Yeah wow yeah that's that's that's nicely said and for me as well essentialism is not just a set of ideas it's a practice so even though I'm familiar with the ideas of essentialism I can still find myself falling off track and becoming someone who's not an essentialist and then it's like oh okay I need to sit down and create space and go through all of the thought processes and ask questions like if I only had three hours a day to do what I wanted to do, what would I do with those three hours you know like the week ahead you know what are the absolute most important things for me to do this week you know that like if I could only do these things like I'd be happy with them.
You know what are the hobbies or things that I want to study the most because I fall prey to trying to do too much at once. You know I want to have 10 books on the go at one time and with self-care as well there's some funny Instagram reels that are going around where people are parodip parioding people that like to practice different self-out practices such as you know I wake up at 5 a.m and do 25 minutes of a cold ice bath and then I do a sauna and then I do weight and then I do like fast you know and it's kind of like okay this the world is becoming a bit crazy with the whole self-care thing and people are doing like a little bit of everything in a way and then they get a bit anxious if they miss one of those things but then if you actually look at the masters they usually just go all in on one thing you know so you're choosing yoga to be that thing for this year.
Find an advanced yogi or an advanced meditator or an advanced ice bath practitioner or an advanced breathwork practitioner they will usually have way better insights and understanding than someone who's doing like all of them at once. You know have you noticed that like the person who's doing like a bit of everything kind of like stays the same but just gets a mood boost. The person that goes all in on one thing usually like has some form of deep transformation. I think David Gorgon's pointed this when he talks about doing the ultramarathons you know and how like one long run is like years of therapy you know you get to know yourself way more in that dark deep like place inside your own psyche than if you were to kind of do like a bit of this and a bit of that and mix it up.
Jon: So yeah after reading the book are there any things that stand out to you as being like oh these are absolutely essential components of my life like I can't be letting these things go
Eric: There's so much good stuff here one of the biggest things that is coming up for me and it's been building right it was also getting up with the sunrise was also my my ritual the first time we ran the Hero100 but there's a there's a symbolism to that in me that actually feels very important which is I'm actually going to put my own interests in my own life as the first thing that happens in my day because part of my whole you know way of operating for a long time has just been I essentially just wake up and like get to work.
Right? You know sure I might like go for a walk or make some coffee or something but at the end of the day the way it really looks is like wake up and essentially start giving my energy towards other things. And I've been fortunate enough and actually I think this is the thing that has made this pattern go on for so long I've been fortunate enough that the things I work on I absolutely love. Like I do deeply enjoy just where my energy actually goes but yeah seeing viscerally how little of it is actually going to me as a priority was was really eye-opening.
So there's a there's an actual like there's some fundamental relationship I'm seeing between how my day actually begins and how that actually reflects priorities in my life. And it's like dude if I can't do a morning for myself without work like what kind of life am I actually making for myself and really really coming to terms with that there are there are a couple smaller ways I think another way to view essentialism or perhaps the way it's surfacing for me is what are you willing to let burn? Like what fires are you willing to let just continue because you actually are over here yeah and there's smaller ones like you know I write a newsletter I write serious play and I've been sitting with that of like well can I actually change can I decrease the subheading of essentialism this one is actually again it just it resonated with me so deeply because it's a philosophy I already I appreciate so much in the philosophy already but he says less but better like fewer things at much higher quality and I mean I've already gone through and I'm like so what if I actually committed to only sending my newsletter once every three months and I just made that thing like an actual like experience where someone was actually sitting there like oh my god it's the third month this thing is gonna come I'm so excited and actually that felt both freeing because I was like oh well then I don't have to publish at any level of consistency.
It's it's more controlled but actually it made me feel so good because I was like yeah you know those would actually be substantially better than what I put out right now. Like I actually want to do something at at greater quality. So all to say I think there are a lot of ways it's currently rippling both from like loftier priority things just to also like here's how I yeah plan my day the things I want to do and yeah saying no to a lot of things. You know I had I looked back about this time last year I released a big post called Reclaiming Healthy Ambition and it had in classic EB fashion it has like I'm gonna do like seven different things this year.
You watch me it's gonna be it's gonna be amazing super high energy most of them are incomplete right now. Right most of them are just sitting there staring back at me like you thought you were gonna do this so yeah it's also perhaps the biggest the biggest thing is permission to say no or like permission just to like really defer something where it's like I can get to this later in my life period or maybe never maybe I'll find out by leaving it that I actually just don't even care about it that much at all both of which are actually fairly good outcomes.
Jon: One of the issues I think with the long-term goals and planning is that we have no idea what the person we are in the future is going to be like what they're gonna think. So for you to create the next year of goals what you should really do is be able to have a conversation with EB in 12 months from now and to negotiate what works for both of you but you can't do that right so you're like choosing like all of these things that EB in 12 months might be like like why are you doing that I don't like I like I don't want to do that anymore.
I have these other things that I'm interested in and that's that's one of the issues as well with you know doing a pros and cons list with something like marriage you know like should I get married shouldn't I get married the version of you that is married like two years from now is not going to have the same pros and cons list as the person you are writing that pros and cons list now. So it's like you can't give too much trust in that list and I think having like shorter timeframes is a bit better for that reason. but I'd like to just talk a little bit about the Hero100 experience because you yourself and the participants of these programmes are committing to 100 days of something and forgetting the individual practices what has that been like just to commit to something and then to experience what I'm talking about where maybe your personality and your tastes and your passions may change or fluctuate in that 100 days and I guess it's like a real exercise of integrity at that point where it's like you know maybe I'm not as passionate right now about meditation or something like that, but I've committed to it so I'm going to keep showing up for it.
Jon: Yeah so what what are some of your reflections on that element of the programme
Eric: Yeah so we make people essentially commit to six different things takes about an hour a day to do it's a cold shower meditation session journalling item elimination so getting rid of something every day a personal ritual so whatever that is wake up early practice a language and then we're doing an abstinence challenge this time so just stop doing something and yeah yeah I like you're really pointing at the thing that is more exciting to me I you know I'm happy to wax poetic all day about the actual value of each of those I call them disciplines like each of those disciplines is deeply valuable for an individual but the true the true power of the experience that I both felt and that I believe in is just watching yourself go through the hundred day commitment like that journey brings up so much by design that is that is actually hard to get I think at smaller timescales.
One of the ones that comes up for a lot of people fairly early on is overcoming perfectionism. Because there's a moment you know maybe it's day six maybe it's day 64 where you actually miss your first day or you miss your first weekend because you had a previous commitment or a wedding or something like that. And just because you're because you're already in the container because you have the intention for the hundred days and because you have practices like meditation like journalling like your ritual you just can't avoid watching this narrative in your head of like oh yeah I've done it may as well just give up but you're immediately also presented with the opportunity of like man it was one day or maybe it was even just one practice like we just missed one practice.
Is this really that big of a deal? But unless it I'm fairly convinced that unless you have this the structure and that container and that shared intention it's very easy to miss those moments of like wow perfectionism was really central to me or negotiating with yourself right we actually there's not a lot of room for negotiation in the Hero100 it's like you are committing to do these six things every day for a hundred days period we have we even have like the minimum level of success like you have to take a three minute cold shower it is a 20 minute meditation session.
If you want to do more be my guest but again you're now you now have this vehicle that actually surfaces to you like oh it's eight o'clock I'm kind of tired maybe maybe we can just pass today and yeah honestly the opportunity to see that because it really gets you down it gets you down to those much more like core personality justifications or quirks or characteristics like I actually think for me and for several others there was a very big one of the biggest experiences I had a few times in the first Hero100 was actually giving myself permission not to complete a day like bro don't worry like take a break we're in this for a long game you've got like two months left like recover rest whatever you need reorient yourself and let's let's get back better and just because you know you're missing a day because you're not gonna get that check because the streak's gonna be broken you actually have to make that choice like very very consciously and that was freeing for some people right oh okay right I can give myself permission to take a break to not aim for this I don't have to go so hard but at the same time I'm gonna get back at it tomorrow right so just learning a lot of this like what healthy discipline can look like what personal integrity means how to honour your commitments to yourself how to honour your commitment to the group right this is a group experience and that dynamic plays into it a bit yeah I mean there are a lot of things but I mean we literally call them the Hero100 the warrior 100 for a reason like the hundred days is very much I think I think in many ways more important than the actual challenges you do each and every day
Jon: Yeah an idea that I had for you just now as you were talking about this whether you implement it as a practice or like a supplement would be you know down to you but schedule in some kind of self-coaching ritual where you know because it's that idea like Sam Harris says wisdom is the ability to follow your own advice a lot of people doing Hero100 are probably really good at giving other people counsel and guidance but then fall prey to things like perfectionism themselves.
Jon: But if you sit down and you're like hey I'm gonna coach myself for 10 minutes now on today and kind of coach myself of what I should do tomorrow you'd almost always find the advice of like hey you know it doesn't matter that you've missed the day today right like it's like in the grand scheme of things it doesn't make a big deal like what counts is that we recommit tomorrow. But just having that time where you kind of you're guiding yourself you're almost like writing a like a letter to yourself to kind of give yourself some some guidance there's something super powerful about that.
Because like a lot of CBT journalling is basically that you kind of yeah you have these different kind of setups where you write down your automatic thoughts and your distortions but it ends with find a more balanced perspective find a more balanced version of that thought. So when someone feels like oh like I've messed up there's no point going on well what is a more balanced version of that thought they'd be able to give that advice to someone else in the team but we struggle big time to give it to ourselves you know it's crazy.
Eric: Oh yeah yeah I love that completely that is tried and true for me as well that Sam Harris line you can do so much work just off of that it's really incredible
Jon: Yeah and I think Marcus's meditations even though it's this like widely regarded masterpiece in the self-improvement philosophy literature how many people do you know that have written a self-improvement book for themselves like none it's like it's there like just do that you don't need to buy one just write write your own for you'll be amazed what you find you know do you do much journalling at all at the moment or like kind of writing practices or anything like that
Eric: On the best of days on the best of days yeah yeah and I mean it's part of the hope like I believe I believe in the actual challenges we put in the 100 days but in both of them and I mean the journalling sessions in the Hero100 are there for a reason. It's one of the other things I mean you know selfishly and generously I also wanted to design these experiences for myself because it was just like what do I if I had whatever if I had infinite time if I had infinite money like how do I actually just want to spend a good average day and I was like do do do do do journalling is always one of them meditation's one of them doing something I care about is one of them.
And that's the other thing about the hundred days is I've heard from a few people like That length of time is also needed to actually have it become a normal part of your life. Where it goes from the really subtle but really important shift that happens is it goes from this is something I have to essentially make myself do every day to oh I actually it now feels weird when I don't do it. That is a really subtle but really powerful distinction. And so yeah, the journalling practice has stayed. I mean, we had a study section in the Warrior 100 as well.
So I mean I spent you know 200 days last this year just straight up day in, day out, doing 20 minutes of journalling. And it's honestly amazing. I think the one that sticks for me, like I love I love a good prompt. You know, I love when there's a really like incisive or cutting question, but honestly, just sitting down and you know, I feel X, you know, I feel happy today because of this. Like, really just stream of consciousness journalling is unbelievably underrated in our day and age. Like just getting things out of your head.
Like, because yeah, half of the half of the anxious, awkward thoughts that you have consistently would actually go away if you just wrote them down. Like literally, just you don't have to refer back to them, they don't have to be wise or intelligent, they don't even have to make sense, like just write it out. And it's such a cathartic process that yeah, on my best of days, like yeah, journalling is journalling is a cornerstone.
Jon: You know, you said there's a lot of power in just getting stuff out of your head, right? But when you journal, you're you're you're getting stuff out of your head, but it's in a structured way, which is a very important difference between like rambling at someone. Right? That might help a bit, but by journalling, whether you like it or not, you have to follow kind of certain rules. Like, you know, you have to write in thoughts, you have to do some kind of correct spelling, right? Some kind of sentence structure.
Even if you do it very sloppily, you are still kind of following some kind of structure. And I think that's one of the reasons why expressive writing for trauma is shown to be very effective. It's because you can't help when you write about something to make it coherent and to kind of give it some kind of narrative and therefore make sense of it in a way that when we're rambling and emotional, it just doesn't work like that, right? When you write something, you're turning it into a story, you're making it ordered.
Eric: Yeah, and it sounds it sounds so trivial, but when you write, you actually have to essentially declare how you feel about the thing. Right? Because if when when it's in your head, you know, it can live as like feelings in your body, images, just strange, half the time it's jumbled and doesn't even make sense. But you know, if you start writing, like, oh yeah, I had an argument with my brother today, and it makes me feel like you actually have to pick a word to continue the sentence. Like, and that is can be profoundly revealing.
Like, do you feel angry? Do you feel disappointed? Do you feel insecure? Like the word that actually comes out of your head there is extremely revealing. Because you might look back at that line and be like, I didn't realise this was bothering me so much. Or actually, oh, I guess that I guess that wasn't actually that big of a deal. But it's because writing actually it sounds silly, it forces you to actually pick words, and man, that can yeah, that can reveal as much about the situation as it does about yourself.
It's it's incredible.
Jon: And also let's not forget that people like to talk about technology, right? Like an iPhone. If you could go back, you know, like a hundred years and show someone a phone, they'd think it was magic and they'd be like they'd blow their mind. If you went back 20,000 years and you showed someone a book and you showed them that you could read from it, that would also blow their mind. Like writing is a technology that hasn't always existed, right? We've created it. We but we take it for granted now. But like it is arguably more of a magnificent technology than even the coolest piece of tech because civilisation is founded on it.
Nothing could be no businesses could exist without language. the written word. Like it just like civilisation would collapse.
Eric: I actually I don't even think it's helpful. There's something up the slowness of writing is actually a feature and not a bug. It's not an obstacle to be overcome, it's actually an opportunity because you are literally sitting with each sentence and each word for so much longer. Like I can type so fast that I can barely even think. Like thinking like slows me down when I type. And if you're actually trying to do a level of self-awareness activity or process something, like you're just half in, half out. You're you're not even fully paying attention to it.
Or like voice dictation, like it's not, it's not, it's literally not the same as when you are just sitting there word by word, letter by letter, like really sitting with the thing. so yeah, I actually think written journalling is part of why it is powerful, is because it is so slow, it is so intentional, it requires much more presence, much more just conscious effort on your your part. Like that's a feature, that's that's a benefit of doing that. That's not like, oh, this is slow, I wish it could be done faster.
Like, no, it's part of the point.
Jon: Yes. I also think there's an overlap with reading as well. So I've a long, you know, one a long time ago, I bought a few books on speed reading, I started practicing it, the different techniques, and it was useful. It kind of helped me learn how to skim a little bit, and it was just it was just interesting to kind of learn about reading and like the different methods of reading and sub-vocalisation and things like that. But I think what would have benefited me more was a book or a course on slow reading, but there aren't many of those about because when you find that like dense philosophical paragraph and you're used to just reading quickly, you're just gonna miss everything.
That's one of the big reasons I started the Stoic Handbook, similarly to you, selfishly, because I was like, I want to be able to really look sentence by sentence at the Stoic texts. You know, I want to have a reason to do that. And so I just started taking the Encaridian and kind of really thinking about it and opening it up and expanding on it. and I'm still I still need to work on that because I think it's you know the ability to really look at a sentence and question it and have dialogue with it and speak to the author is like a really high-level skill. before this conversation, you mentioned one of the things you're interested in at the moment is the topic of rereading.
So, would you be able to explain what you mean? Because we haven't actually spoken about that yet.
Eric: Oh, yeah. I know, I know at some point in our relationship over the past few years we have spoken about this because it's so good. There are two two quotes maybe we can start this off with. this is a this is a cheeky take on an old Bruce Lee quote, but I just wrote this the other day. It's like, I don't fear the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks one time, I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. Same thing with books. Same thing with books, honestly. the other way to frame this is there's a quote, there's another quote that's like no man can enter a river, the same river twice, because he's not the same man and it's not the same river.
Same thing with books, particularly very profound books that have stood the test of time. Like you will literally always get something different from it. and it's actually funny, it's really interesting if you go back to a book that you yourself have previously like highlighted or underlined or like made notes on, because you look at some of the highlighted chunks and you're like, I don't care about this at all. The important stuff is on the next page, like it just lands so differently because you are in a different context. Maybe you've already metabolized a lot of the early stuff that you got from it, and you're ready for a different perspective, a richer take.
And so, yeah, I actually have I have I just this is super fresh for me because I just released a post about this literally yesterday on the six books that I reread every year, as like they're kind of like pilgrimage for me, and three of them, I mean, are the Stoic, I call them the Stoic trilogy, the Stoic trifecta meditations, letters from a Stoic and the end Caridian. the other the other few for me are the Tao Dejing, it's like the Bible of Taoism, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which is like the Bible of Yoga.
And there's another book that digs into the Tao Dejing a bit more, but those things are like it to me to me they're they're like the view from above exercise, essentially. They're like moments in my life where I actually pull far, far, far back and just really rest in a much broader perspective, like what am I doing here? Do I like my life? Do I feel like I'm putting my energy into things that I care about? Because all of those books, in in some way, they're all essentially like to use a crude term, they're all essentially like Bibles of a school of thought.
Speaker unclear: Yeah.
Eric: Right? The the Stoic trilogy is all Stoicism, the Tao Dijing is Taoism, the Yoga one is yoga philosophy, but it's all just like they're all essentially like how should one conduct themselves in life? How do you live in alignment with your values? How do you bring yourself into coherence with nature? And yeah, I return to them like an annual pilgrimage because I get so much from them every time. It's it's insane, actually. Like it's just truly incredible. So yeah, if there are books that someone that really speak to someone, like you should absolutely revisit them.
Because you'll just keep getting more and more. They're just absolutely infinite in the depth that you can go and in the ways that they can speak to you. and yet I feel like we do the exact opposite. I feel like most of modern culture or most of like books to gram is just like, yeah, run your numbers up, right? It's a kind of like literary materialism. Like, you know, how many books can I get? But like, dude, I wanna I want to talk to the person who just has their core four books and they've been reading them for three decades.
Like, why? What speaks to you about them? So yeah, yeah, it's just a very important practice in my life.
Jon: I also love the idea of seeing books as like energy feels in a way. so instead of seeing them as just like like nuggets of knowledge, I kind of see see it more like you know, I've learned this a lot from reading parenting books, right? Because I'm not necessarily reading parenting books for like the tips, I'm reading them so some like parenting expert can just put a hand on my shoulder and be like, We got you. We understand, we are there with you. And that is so soothing just to feel like understood, like someone is like telling you what's going on in your own life like perfectly, and you're like, Thank you, I'm not going crazy.
Like, this is actually normal, this is all part of the plan. and you know, maybe you read Mark Sorelius and he's talking about betrayal or meeting like ignorant people, and you're like, You got it too. Like, thank you. Like, I appreciate that, and you're handling it well, like, nice, nice. So it's almost like this energetic exchange that can happen that can be very therapeutic that goes beyond just, oh, here's some knowledge for you.
Eric: Oh, I absolutely love that. There's a parallel here to what we were talking about earlier, right? You brought up you brought up goggons and how long runs can mold you. I have this, we might have spoken about this last time. I have this term I love called the discipline of surrender, which is basically just like if you actually submit yourself to a practice, that will it will literally just mold you like a cookie cutter. Like it will just burn away the things that aren't aligned, it will, it will give you the skills and wisdom that it has to teach, but it needs time to do that.
It actually needs a depth of relationship with you to mold you in those ways. And so, yeah, like the hundred days and sitting with meditation, like I don't even care if you don't want to meditate, do it for that long, and it will mold you into something I would argue that is beautiful and positive and transformative. Staying with a school of thought for a long time will do the exact same. It will it will get into you, it will mold you, it will shape you, it will support you, right? The supportive hand on the shoulder.
And honestly, books are the same thing. Like if you stuck with, if you stuck with that piece for years and years and years, like it will actually support you, guide you, mold you, influence you, shape you in ways that are both obvious and extremely subtle, but it's all dependent on depth over time, like actually staying with those things. And yeah, if you're just you know blinkist speed reading, you know, one after the other, or again, my you know, my classic thing of like pick up a practice, try it for three weeks, drop it, go on to the next shiny thing, like you never actually get to access the true transformative potential that really is most dependent on time.
Like it really just needs time to work on you and get into deep, like subconscious material. So, yeah, it applies to books, it applies to practices, it applies to learning skills, like surrender into it over time, and that is when you really do like very core, like fundamental change work.
Jon: What is your reading process? What does it look like? What does it look like when EB reads the specifics of that?
Eric: Oh yeah. I can, I try to get a physical book. I spend way too much time behind screens. I've been living in Argentina for a long time, so I can't actually do that. There aren't many English bookstores here, and the ones that do exist here don't have the books that I want to read. so yeah, highlighter in my hand when I can, but most of the time it's just on the Apple Books app and I the thing the thing I try to do if I'm really trying to get something from the book is take notes along the way.
I think the thing that's actually been most helpful for me is trying to write a reflection on it afterwards. Not not really even necessarily like pulling back quotes or just like, and in chapter four they said this, but actually in your own words, like what is this thing trying to tell me? What stands out to me most? How do I express this in my own terms? I mean it's almost it's a kind of like basic stance of what would you what would you do if you were actually trying to study the book?
Yeah, like if you're actually about to be tested on it, what would you do? Like, yeah, take notes, go back, highlight key terms, you know, put it in your own words, space repetition, like come back to it. to be fair though, you know, I've read far, far, far more books than the six that I come back to consistently, right? A lot of them, a lot of them aren't like that. And yeah, I mean, I just a lot of my reading is casual. If I'm being completely honest, it's yeah, time before bed, time between calls, time on flights. yeah, if there's something that really speaks to me, it's revisited and it's reflected on.
That might be the way to say it.
Jon: Yeah, and what about audiobooks or [unclear], like do you ever do audios? Or just
Eric: Honestly never.
Jon: You never do audiobooks. Interesting.
Eric: Literally, literally never. I don't I think it's because I don't actually listen to too many I was listening to podcasts a lot a couple years back, and I think it just got into me, or maybe it's just a like a self-awareness thing, but like when I'm listening to something, I'm doing other stuff and I'm only listening to it, so I can like zone out of two things at the same time. and yeah, honestly, like the things I read I actually want. Like it just feels like it just feels like actually reading, whether it's on a phone or on a book, is at least a level of engagement.
It's at least the level of engagement I want. Because if I was just listening, I would be doing eight other things and you know, I'd be rewinding 18 times. And yeah, it just feels like it hasn't landed.
Jon: Yeah, totally. So I'm I listen to a lot of audiobooks, like a lot. and I think it depends what kind of lifestyle you have, but I think there are certain activities that can like lend themselves to listening to audiobooks without really impairing to a substantial degree. I don't think it's as good as reading a book, but it's like not terrible. and then you've got to turn the audiobook off when you're doing one of those like demanding, cognitively demanding tasks, and some people don't, and I'm like, I've learned the hard way.
So if I'm just driving a road that I've driven like a thousand times before, it's like I can listen to an audiobook. Right? If I'm walking like 10 minutes on a boring road, like I can listen to an audiobook and enjoy that audiobook. If I'm like I don't know, trying to go to the gym and do a weightlifting session while I listening to an audiobook, not really. You know, it's like too much stuff going on, so then I should turn it off and maybe switch to something like music or nothing at all.
So I've kind of I kind of pick and choose where I listen to them. And also not all books, I don't I don't think all books work well. that there are certain types of books that are more like, oh, you know, just get some like nice like tips and pointers, you know. Like I've already read Essentialism, so re-listening to that, you know, just for like, oh, I'm just gonna remember some of the key points on audio, that would work well. Reading Friedrich Nietzsche's Will to Power on audiobook, probably not gonna be so good, right?
So it's like, yeah, like right, like that's for reading very slowly. So I kind of I kind of think there's like a nuanced way of doing it, but I think it's great that you've made that commitment and you're like, I want to give my full attention to reading. I think that's admirable. Nice work.
Eric: Yeah, and dude, I totally agree. It's contextual. I don't have a car, I don't yeah, everything in my like I live in Argentina, everything's five-minute walkable. Like, I just don't have the extended like commute times. I listen to a lot of YouTube on my computer, behind my computer a lot. And then, yeah, for stuff like if I was doing yoga or something, or if I'm doing exercise, this is actually something I had to kind of train out of myself. But I actually don't want to be. I personally started to use things like podcasts as a way to kind of escape the sensation of yeah, exercise or yoga stuff.
And it that actually just I had to reorient. It's actually like, no, I want to be precisely in this, so I actually only do music or silence for stuff like that. So yeah, it's totally contextual, but yeah, no audiobooks for me.
Jon: Nice. I recently interviewed Dan Munro, who is very focused on honesty, and I did like another interview with him. I've done a few like kind of bringing back the OGs to the podcast lately, and I'm really enjoying it. So I've spoken to Justin again, speaking to you, I've spoken to Dan. and these are actually conversations that I want to have, you know, rather than oh, I should speak to this person because it will help me grow the podcast. It's like, no, I actually want to talk to these people because I like talking.
To you, and you know, we always have a good rapport. so that's I'm privileged to be able to do that. But what is your view on honesty? I guess like Dan is very, very focused on honesty, you know, like does not want to lie to his child about Santa Claus and doesn't really think there are such things as pro-social lies, and you know, he does ground that viewpoint in the idea of being powerful with your honesty and not weak, you know. So like seeing honesty as something that you can do well or do badly, and to not you know be the type of person that's like abusive or mean or cruel or lacking empathy when being honest, right?
So there's like a certain kind of responsibility that comes with honesty. So I just want to kind of like explain that part as well. But he's very focused on honesty. What is your view on honesty? Do you focus on it a lot? Do you ever think it's okay to tell little white lies? Like, yeah, what is your view there?
Eric: Oh man, I'm in the process of actually consciously trying to lean far more onto the extreme side of the spectrum of just there is no option other than honesty. because yeah, if I'm being honest, I'm there's a cultural thing here, right? I was born and raised in Canada, and you know, Canadians are very polite. Chloe, my partner, actually said this to me once, and it actually shattered something in me because I had never heard it said this way. She was like, and this it was like an offhand cheeky comment, but it just it smacked me.
She was like, and this is why you can never trust a Canadian because they're so polite, because they will do whatever the polite thing is, not necessarily what the truthful thing is. And that actually smacked me. Because this is this again, you can see you can see there's roots in the in the martyr and the people pleaser part here of just like, oh, yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. Like, so yeah, I actually unfortunately I don't think I've had the biggest embrace of honesty, or perhaps the broadest definition of it in my life, but man, in the we just closed out the Warrior 100 like a month and a half ago, and one of the four challenges in that was this integrity audit where we had people at the end of the day just straight up look at everything they did, their actions, their thoughts, their d their words, and like, where was this out of integrity?
Where were you lying? Whether by actively lying, like telling dishonesty, or by holding back the truth and just really, really doing this audit every single day for a hundred days straight. And yeah, I'm just funny, strange timing for this call because I actually just reread Lying by Sam Harris. It's not it's not quite a book, it's like a kind of 50-page essay that he writes, which I it seems like he shares almost the exact same stance as Dan, which is like there is no acceptable case for lying. It actually erodes the foundations that civilisation is built on.
So yeah, my my stance now is at the conceptual level, I am totally sold on both the like individual, like warrior-level integrity, like absolute truth at all costs, and the collective civilisational level of like you cannot build a healthy collective on a foundation of lies, however big or however small. Like, that's just you just can't do that. And now I'm you know trying to build the muscle and cultivate the skill of like no, I'm going to be honest with how I feel, with how with feedback that I have to give.
And yeah, it's awkward. It's it's really tough, particularly for me, to be like, no, I'm not okay with this, or I don't have the energy for this, or what you said is really bothering me, or you know, that it's been really hard. The the Warrior 100 was helpful to start with that, but yeah, so maybe a long way of saying, Yeah, I am really consciously trying to get myself into the like absolute integrity, honesty at all cost.
Jon: Dan's book, The Naked Truth. I just want to shout out that book because that is an actual like 300 plus page book, not just like a 50-page essay. And he doesn't just talk about the value of honesty, but how we could actually become more honesty in the real world, like actually the process that you're gonna go through, some of the pitfalls and mist and the mistakes, what it means to be honest, and like how to actually become this fully honest human being. he walked you through that in the book. I had one of my clients read that book recently, and it's not an understatement to say that it like shook his world completely upside down to the point that it was like as if he did like a bunch of ayahuasca or something when he was reading that book because he was just messaging me saying like I'm fake, and it was just like he was just like, whoa, like he was just seeing all of the ways that he wasn't being real in the world, you know, and that's that could be a wake-up call.
Eric: Oh yeah, it's very it's very bitter medicine for sure. There, one of the ways it started manifesting in me, or not manifesting, but one of the things that has opened me up to this a lot more is I like it feels like there's a part of why people are dishonest because they are just fundamentally afraid of reality or like afraid of what the truth will do. And yeah, so we're in we're in the you know, we're doing the study curriculum of the Warrior 100 on like courage and bravery and honour and integrity.
I'm just like, man, am I actually just afraid of what will happen if I tell people my own truth? Like if I said no, or actually I don't care about this thing at all. Like, I'm you know, I consider myself fairly willing to face the truth in in various formats. And yeah, sometimes it's as simple and as difficult as actually just saying what you actually think and feel. So I yeah, and it's actually yet another one of the disciplines that will mold you over time is just an absolute commitment to speaking the truth.
And you can always, you know, you can always deliver the truth in a respectful manner. Like the argument that you're just gonna become an asshole is not not true. You can always do it with skill, but it will mold you over time. Yeah, committing to just be absolutely honest to the best of your abilities.
Jon: Dan says that he had at one point like hundreds of friends, and then after he started being more honest, he probably ended up with 20 or 30 friends, but those friends were the real, real friends. And I think a lot of us are afraid of losing those friends and losing those relationships and right, and like losing those opportunities because we've usually created a world around not being fully honest, being a bit polite. You know, maybe there are people that have liked you, EB because of that kind of Canadian culture, because you just like you're agreeable, and they like you because of that reason, and as soon as you start like telling them the truth, they're gonna be like, what's your problem?
And that's part of the process, right? You've got to just go with that.
Eric: Oh yeah, and it's the it's the double-edged sword, right? Because while it's true that expressing your truth might cause you to lose people who don't actually resonate with that, you will never you will never let yourself truly connect. You'll not even let yourself, you'll never be able to truly connect with people because you will know that they're not actually connecting to you, they're connecting to the carefully constructed, slightly dishonest persona that you have expertly crafted for them. And so you actually keep yourself removed from life. So, yeah, while you may not go through the pain of losing potentially, you don't even know, maybe everyone will just like it, but potentially losing people, you'll also never get the true joy of people who respect you and love you for literally actually who you are, and that is robbing yourself of such a fundamental human experience, like it's really a tragedy.
Jon: Yeah. Nicely put. I have a big question for you now. So I hope you're ready for this. What does self-mastery mean to you, and how do you measure your progress in it?
Speaker unclear: Oh wow. Incredible.
Eric: So the framing that came up is the ability to live by choice and not by chance. maybe a different way to say it is something like your life is your own intentional creation rather than the chaotic, unconscious kind of pinball bouncing around from external forces or traumatic patterns from the past or constructed personas like you are actually the sovereign author of your existence, essentially. Measuring that is challenging. I think it's a kind of oh my god. There's something from Young coming up in my head right now, which is it's this is gonna be butchered.
But it's something like you can never truly access the self, you only kind of circumambulate it, like you only kind of dance around it. It's like how self-mastery feels like how the sun actually moves through space and kind of pulls all the planets along with it, like it's just this gravity that pulls it closer. So maybe maybe measuring isn't the frame, but like a moving towards or a dancing with, because I think the thing that actually excites me most, I love that you brought this up. Self-mastery is my favourite thing right now, but I actually like it because it doesn't feel like a destination, it feels like a continued process. and I think insofar as you can be radically honest with yourself and actually identify to the best of your abilities, like, yeah, am I choosing this?
Where is this coming from? What is the intention? Is this what I intended? I think you're well on your way.
Jon: Yeah, I really like that, and it's sort of this. I think, you know, like people say, How do you know if you're in love? Right? There's no measurement for that. People say you just know, right? And it's maybe there's a certain kind of flavor to being aligned where there's not much distance between your potential and your embodied experience, right? It's kind of like it kind of comes together. You're not going through life going, if only I was this like other person with this other life, and with you know, with these other, it's just like the distance closes, and then there's a lot of alignment there.
The Stoics would argue that self-mastery would be purely internal, you know, and based on the virtues, you know, like can you exhibit virtue basically in all circumstances? Discipline, courage, fair kindness, practical wisdom. and they probably wouldn't be focused on like, hey, is your job the right job? Like, that's a good sign if you've you know got self-mastery or something. What do you think about that? The kind of the tension between the external and the internal when it comes to self-mastery.
Eric: The external world is only relevant in so far as it's an opportunity to use. Like it's a vehicle, it's a tool, it's a technique, like it just does not. I don't quite want to say it does not matter. I will say that I wholeheartedly agree. Like when I how I relate to self-mastery is an entirely internal process because someone's because it's an entirely individual process, it's not something that you can just say it's gonna look the same for everyone else, which is actually why the external is almost irrelevant. Because for someone's someone's flavor of mastery might be, you know, going to a tea hut in Japan and they just become a tea master, right?
For someone else, it might be becoming the greatest break dancer, like the Jabbawalkies. I don't know if you know who the Jabbawalkies are. They're this like breakdance group, and their mastery is actually getting like a dedicated show in Las Vegas, like that might be their version of self-mastery. Like, and actually, I think oh, maybe maybe this is this is the framing. Your external world is kind of a lagging indicator of your own internal self-mastery. Like the more you change yourself, the more you come into yourself, the more you welcome, embrace, and cultivate who you are, your world, the world around you changes to reflect that, to honour that, to mirror that essentially.
So it's not that yeah, the lagging indicator might be, I think, a better way that I think about it. But yeah, it's mostly just an opportunity.
Jon: A slightly contentious point, just to throw the spanner in the works here with this topic. in the spiritual space, you and I both kind of dabble in and create content within at times. There seems to be this idea that the external world is often a manifestation of the kind of garden that you're cultivating on the inside. And obviously there's a correlation, right? Like if you think certain things and act in certain ways, it has an effect in physic, physical reality. But then what comes up for me is if you think through history, many great masters of different disciplines have been assassinated, murdered, like burned at the stake, right?
And so, like, what what comes up for you with that? Like, what is it are you know, because they were clearly aligned, they were on the path of mastery. there was that guy, I can't remember his name, like who kind of was the first person to kind of realise that the earth goes around the sun rather than everything else going around the earth, you know that, and I think they were executed for like, oh my god, like the earth is in the centre of the universe, are you crazy? yeah, what comes up to you when I bring these individuals up.
Eric: Completely agree. the example that comes in my head immediately is I don't know why it took me so long, but I just read Man's Search for Meaning like a month ago. Nice, had never touched it yet, and in a roundabout way, he actually I think Victor Frankel and his his stories in the concentration camps actually demonstrate kind of the point that I think I'm pointing to. Like it's not these these guys were in some of the most just desolate, disgusting circumstances that a human could be put in, literally, and literally the thing it truly demonstrated the character of the individual, how they showed up for that.
Like some people were actually able to whatever remain calm, be a support for other people, just keep it together, right? And like that, that's kind of what I point to when you know the external situation doesn't matter because you always this might even be the essence of the Search for Meaning book as well, is it's just like you can choose how to respond to the world and the circumstances that are in front of you. That is like perhaps your most like fundamental freedom as a human being. It's like you have the power of choice in front of you. yeah, so I don't yeah, I also have a I also have a mild allergy to the kind of yeah, the manu the manifesty, create your own reality, like everything you see is a fictional illusion in front of you.
I have a slight allergy to that, but like even ah, so it's you have the power of choice and your choices have consequences. I think that's that's how I would respond to this, because you know, when I make the decision to bring my life into alignment with my values, at some point, three, six months, a year down the line, a lot of things in my external world look different. Half the time the work I'm doing looks different. Certainly the possessions that I have around me look different, the way I spend my time looks different.
So, like that's what I mean by like the ripple effect and how it actually the world kind of lags behind where you're coming from. And the art of changing where you're coming from is essentially the process of self-mastery. Like, where what state do you want to come from? Because you can essentially choose it, irrespective, like the mastery part of self-mastery is can you continue to choose despite X, you know, despite being in an argument, despite losing your job, despite winning the lottery? Like, can you continue just to be the arbiter of your experience regardless of the situations around you?
Jon: Yeah, wow. I think referencing Man Search for Meaning was perfect. Like that was like really on point reference there. And yeah, I think I think like Marcus Aurelius he has this line to bear misfortune nobly is good fortune. So like the ability to handle anything life gives you is good luck. And Seneca says something to the effect of the wise person wants nothing to be different from how it is, and it's kind of brings up, you know, the matrix. I love the matrix. Morpheus says to Neo when they're in the dojo, Neo is panting, like collapsing, his heart rated through the roof, and Morpheus is like, You think that's air you're breathing?
And it's like and it's almost like the Stoics are saying, like, you think the external world is giving you like happiness? Like, really? Oh dear, okay, like, alright. It's kind of like, but nobody wants to accept that. People want to cling to this idea that they're out of breath. You know, and it's like there's this other paradigm that can exist if you let it. but yeah, that was like that was a great reference. I think that's also a good place to sort of wrap up all the main kind of threads of this conversation and tie it all together with something that's more future focused, and that is where where do you go from here?
You know, like where do like what are you going to be working on? You've already mentioned the next iteration of Hero100, or is it what Hero100? One hundred two, the second one. Yeah. Can you get some details about that? and also like whatever else you're gonna be working on in the coming weeks.
Eric: At the present moment, that is the current focus. I'm there's something there's something about the hundred days structure that is really that feels like really pure from my end. I get to avoid a lot of like the teacher-student dynamic, the almost the guru disciple dynamic that can happen in some of these containers. it's given me so much, and I know at this point that if there is something giving me a lot, then it's like I just feel onto something. So and also, you know, to come full circle to close this off, you know, in the spirit of essentialism, in in the spirit of saying no to the to the many, to really invest on the few, I am I am really trying to put my focus on the hundred days, putting it in front of people, and really just actually making it something that is truly, truly yeah, transformative for people.
And it's quite it's quite beautiful because like my own I have no shortage of things I still need to work on, right? We we spoke to many of them in this conversation, like still a lot of people pleasing, still a lot of martyr tendency, still a lot of boundary setting. The the you know, the positive flip of those is like I'm really excited about essentially bringing discipline back to my own like spiritual practices. Like instead of just studying, like really drilling in, like really going deep, and you know, I'm kind of fortunate that at least from my perspective now, it's like, well, actually, the way I would want to do that is in the hundred days container.
Like, it's got all the practices that I'm trying to focus on right now, it's a commitment I'm making to myself. So yeah, the both personally and professionally, like the 100 days are are the focus. And yeah, the Hero100 coming on the 14th of January, trying to do a the line that's been coming to me is like trying to give people a resolution that actually works instead of the insane failure rates of traditional New Year's resolutions. Give something that actually works and actually delivers. The deadline to join is the 10th. We're gonna close doors on the 10th because yeah, we have we have a couple apps and like orientation stuff that we've got to get people into and through.
So we need a couple days for that.
Jon: To the people that are listening after the 10th, right? So there may be somebody like this like, oh, it's the 25th of January. What can they do? Like, what's the what's the plan for those guys?
Eric: Two things. one is you go to hero100.org, you can get put on the wait list. I mean, you can raise your hand for. I think if I had to make a decision right now, I honestly think we're probably only gonna run two a year. Do the what do the Hero100 and do the Warrior 100, and just make them continue to really refine them. I mean, the other option is you there's nothing, at least at the level of the challenges themselves, there's nothing proprietary here, right? You could actually do this, you could do your own adventure of it.
Three-minute cold shower, 20 minutes journalling, 20 minutes meditation, get rid of something every day, a 15-minute or so personal ritual, and abstain from something every day. Like I do, I believe that the power for our experience is that we do this collectively, everyone gets put in their own accountability groups. Like, I think the community is part of it, but you can you can DIY this, and I'm certainly not interested in just keeping it behind bars.
Jon: Yeah, I would probably add a little bit of a cautionary note with that piece of advice. I think if you are know yourself to be just like highly disciplined and you just very good at sticking to things, sure go and DIY it. But if you feel like you have a track record of falling off, feel free to DIY it if you're listening to this after after it, but also don't get disheartened if you fail, right? I mean, part of the reason you've created this course is for that additional level of support, right?
Where you do it as a cohort. So, you know, like things are easier and more fun when you do it with others. That goes for nearly everything in life, including practices like this.
Eric: Oh, completely. It changes the game. And yeah, I mean you nailed it, right? It was part of it was born out of my own pain and personal frustration of just why do I always start from day one again? Why am I always dropping these? What do I need to do? What needs to change? And one of the biggest ne things that needed to change was I needed to get out of the lone wolf mentality. Needed to get out of doing doing everything by myself and actually start doing it with friends and peers and people I respect.
Jon: And most coaches have coaches for a reason, you know, like it kind of goes back to that, right? Even though you might be a good coach yourself, it's so useful to have other people kind of guiding you, pointing things out. yeah, that's unanimous. the people that I often go to for health and nutrition advice, they themselves have coaches who they go to for health and nutrition guidance. They may know the answer, but when your emotions start getting high, maybe you have a bit of self-doubt, a bit of perfectionism comes in, that's when it's useful to have other people around, right?
That can kind of calm you down and get you focused. So yeah. Eevee, it's been an honour having this discussion with you. I'll include links to all of the relevant places. Any links off the top of your head that people should know about? Maybe if they're not gonna go check the show notes.
Eric: No, I write at seriousplay at substack, seriousplay.substack.com, hero100.org. That is the vast majority of where my time goes right now. Yeah.
Jon: Cool. That's easy to remember.
Eric: Nice.
Jon: Appreciate it.
Eric: Of course. Jon, man, thank you. I actually honestly, I said at the beginning, I always love these, I always get so much out of them. Thank you so much.
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If you want structured practice, the 7-Day Stoic Challenge is free. Nine audio lessons and a 42-page workbook.