Greg Marcus

just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good Wolfe thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Greg Marcus.

Gregg has a BA in biology from Cornell University and earned his PhD in biology from m I T. He worked for ten years as a marketer in the Silicon Valley genomics industry, after which he became a stay at home dad, writer, life balance coach, and biotech consultant. Gregg's first book, Busting Your Corporate Idol self help for the Chronically Overworked is a five star Amazon bestseller. His latest book is called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions Finding

Balance through the Soul Traits of Mussar. If you value the content we put out each week, then we need your help. As the show has grown, so have our expenses and time commitment. Go to one you feed dot net slash support and make a monthly donation. Our goal is to get to five percent of our listeners supporting the show. Please be part of the five percent that make a contribution and allow us to keep putting out these interviews and ideas. We really need your help to

make the show sustainable and long lasting. Again, that's one you Feed dot net slash Support. Thank you in advance for your help. And here's the interview with Greg Marcus. Hi, Greg, welcome to the show. Heir pleasure to be here. I'm excited to have you on. You wrote a book called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions Finding Balance through the Soul Traits of Mussar, and I'm really excited to get into more of that. There's a lot in the book that falls right in the heart of what we talked

about on the show. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,

which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well. The first time I heard that parable, I was I was just blown away. I think it is great, and it is so similar to one of the core and fundamental moss A teachings, which is that inside of us there's a battle between the good inclination and the evil inclination, and those are

translated from Hebrew terms. And the evil it's not like the kind of terrorists sort of evil. It's more like selfishness and fears and those things that come from our reptilian brain. And the good inclination are those parts of our personality that come from the prefrontal cortex, like generosity and caring about others. And all the time we were on the crux, and there's a battle that takes place

between the two. And part of our job and Mussar is to train the good inclination to guide the evil inclination. There's a famous teaching in the Talmud that says that once the rabbis trapped the evil inclination, and everybody rejoiced until they noticed that nobody went to work. The chicken stopped laying eggs. So it's really a fundamental part of who we are. It's just when the evil inclination runs

a mock that's where we really get into trouble. And you gave it away a little bit there by mentioning the Talmud. But what is mussar? So Mussar is a is a thousand year old Jewish spiritual practice that teaches us how to find those things inside that caused us to get stuck in the same situation again and again. And it offers a path towards balance and healing through

mindful living and taking mindful actions in everyday life. And so I'm going to summarize it very briefly here and then we can get into it in a lot more detail. You can correct me with what I get wrong. But what you do is you come up with a series of what you call soul traits um another term for them might be virtues or good characteristics that you spend

a certain amount of time on. In your case, in the book, you talk about doing each one for two weeks, one for two weeks, the next for two weeks, and you sort of meditate on and reflect on and act upon those, and then you repeat the whole cycle again the next year. An analogy is similar, and you made it in the book yourself, to to Ben Franklin, sort of tracking of his virtues on a calendar. Yeah, that's right, that's exactly correct. And not only is it similar to

Ben Franklin, it's actually derived from Ben Franklin. So there. Moossar itself goes back a thousand years, but for most of its history it was kind of a branch of theoretical study or Jewish philosophy on how to live a good life? And rolled his anger having a good life? And what rolled his jealousy? Or when is there too much patience. But in the nineteenth century in Lithuania, Rabbi Israel Salinter started a Moossart movement, which was how can

we actually practice this in community? How can we tie this theoretical study towards kind of a systematic discipline. And one of the key books that he referenced was called Accounting of the Soul, and that book was basically a Jewish version of Ben Franklin's system and autobiography. So it was Ben Franklin who invented the morning mantra, and he invented this idea of journaling every night, and this was adopted into this larger Moossar framework and philosophy. I didn't

glean that from the book. I recognized the similarities, but I must have not followed it carefully enough that Ben Franklin actually had a direct influence. One of the things that I loved the most about the book. Besides you already touched on the the fact that right at the heart of it is this this battle between two forces. Is that when you talk about a soul trade. So

I'll give an example. One might be humility. That you guys are looking at it from a perspective of what I call the middle way where I didn't call it, the Buddha calls it the middle way. Right, this sense that too much humility or too little humility gets you in trouble, too much courage, too little courage gets you into trouble. And so you're searching for that midpoint along the line, which I am always so attracted to because I just found for myself there's so much wisdom in

that trying to find the middle way. It was a real eye opener for me. And when I look at the soul trade, like truth, for example, I mean, my natural inclination is to kind of be truthful to a fault. And I felt like, hey, as long as I was telling the truth, you know, I was gonna you know, I was in the corporate world for many years. I'm gonna be blunt, I'm gonna tell it like it is. But the problem is when you get into too much truth is that you can lose sight of kindness and

that you can really hurt people. And it can actually be kunter productive to be too truthful. You know, just because it's true doesn't mean you need to say it. One of the things to follow that idea of truth a little bit that I was struck by in the book was the idea within Judaism that sometimes not telling the truth, if done for the right reasons, is okay. Can you elaborate on that a little bit. I just thought it was I was kind of struck by it.

I believe it, but I just hadn't seen it espoused before. It's funny. I was just happened to be at a at a bot Mitzvah and the teenager gave a little Tara teaching and she talked about this, and the way that she summarized was that if you're going to be untruthful, it can't be just for yourself, you know, being untruthful

to just spare yourself embarrassment is not okay. But if you're looking to spare someone else's feelings, then it can be okay if you're trying to keep Like a traditional teaching is is that if you're trying to keep peace within your house, it's okay to be a little bit untruthful. Yeah, I agree with it, And it's such a slippery slope, it's such a well. I just won't mention that because it will make somebody uncomfortable. And I've gotten myself into trouble by if I tell him that, it's just gonna

upset him. So I won't tell him that, And so I've gotten myself in trouble with that. But I do believe there's some truth in in the core idea, and I think, like you said, it really comes from what's the real intention. If we're really honest and dig deep in ourselves, what's really the intention here? It is a slippery slope because we're very good at rationalizations and something where we can rationalize it to ourselves. It's like, oh,

it's just gonna upset the other person. It's like, well, yeah, maybe they're going to be upset because I did something where I really messed up. Like there was once when I was as you said and moss Are, we practiced as soult trade for a couple of weeks at a time, and there was once was practicing truth And I was supposed to drive my daughter and a friend of hers to a play and I'm I'm so embarrassed. I can't

believe I'm going to share this example. But I was Candy Crush and I was so addicted to that stupid game that I looked up and I was late picking up her friend and we were actually late to the play and I was mortified, and I'm like, you know what, I'm practicing truth. So I was honest and like, you know, girls, I am so so sorry. I was playing the stupid video game and I lost track of time and now we're late, and I really let you down, and I'm sorry.

But at least by telling the truth, I could give them a lesson that it's like, hey, you know, you get too into video games that can have negative consequences. And so I deleted it from my iPad. I never played it again because maybe some other time in the future if I had kind of gotten away with it, so to speak, and I could have gotten an even more trouble by making that same mistake again. So at least I I took my medicine and learned my lesson.

Now you're on the farmville for eighteen hours a day, that's right, my kids. I was like, why don't Dad, why don't we get video you know, a wee or something, And I'm like, because I'll play it all the time. That's why we're not going to get it. Oh. I can barely mess with Solitaire as a game. I mean,

no joke. I had a break. I had a week off after the holidays, and I was like, you know, I'm just gonna relax a little bit, like I work all the time, whether it's on the show or other things, like I go, go go, and I never really play. So I'm just gonna play a little solitaire. And I put it on my phone and I swear, but I had to take it off. I was like, this is ridiculous, Like it's solitaire, but for whatever reason, to use the

Mussar term, it's the evil inclination. Not really evil, like you said, but certainly not further in the direction I want to be going in. I gotta find the middle way with solitaire. One of the things that you talk about in the book is this concept of choice points. Can you tell us what a choice point is? You know, as we go through our life again, it comes back to the evil inclination of the good inclination, or the

the white wolf and the dark wolf. You know, some parts of our lives we're generally just gonna be on automatic pilot and we're going to do the right thing. And in other parts of our lives are going to be on automatic pilot. We're going to do the wrong thing. You know, I'm in the habit of cutting corners, or maybe I'm gonna spin the truth for the customers or something,

and I don't even think about it. But sometimes there are certain parts of our life where we can go either way, and then we're at a choice point and we can do the right thing or we can do the wrong thing. And a big, big part of MUSSA is trying to become more present and more awake and creating more choice points so that we can really decide. And you know, if you're going to do the wrong thing, at least you might as well be conscious about it, and you might as well go on with your eyes open.

But the more awake you are, the more likely is that you're going to do the right thing. Hey. Everyone, this episode is sponsored by the kind folks who have made a donation to the show, So thank you very much for making a donation that helps make the show available to everybody. If you would like to join that select group of people, you can make a small donation right now at one you feed dot net slash support. This allows us to keep bringing you interviews with expert people.

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the rest of the interview with Greg Marcus. I think that's part of what makes the system so great is if I'm focusing on a particular soul trait or again a virtue or or or a character trait. If I'm focusing on it, I'm more likely to see those choice

points than I would if I wasn't. And I won't begin to try and pronounce the rabbi's name who said this, but the rabbi said that Mussar helps give us more time by opening the space between the match and the fuse, which is a great line, the one I usually use as another great Jewish man Frankel, who said between stimulus and response. You know, how do we increase that time between the match and the fuse, or between stimulus and response, so that those choice points become more evident and we

do have more choice? That's right. And one of the things I also talked about in the book is is free will. And one of the things that I like to teach is that we all have free will that's not always accessible to us. And if like my wife and my kids do something that kind of makes me mad and I start yelling or I get angry. Like in theory, I have free will, but the stuff is out of my mouth before I even think about it.

And so this idea of increasing that time between the match and the fuse just just being able to slow it down and avoiding or it's like that, you know one email you send at night and then it upsets somebody and you spend your next day kind of digging yourself out, you know that I used to do when I was in the corporate world. Like those kind of things where you just get a little more impulse control

can make your life a lot better. Yep. And for me, that's one of the things I think meditation has done for me is allowed that space to increase just a little bit. There seems just to be a little bit more pause between you know, something happens to me and I react, not all the time, And I think you're absolutely right. I'm fascinated by the idea of free will, both in the way that you just said it, which is, once I get to a certain emotional state, I'm kind

of beyond that. I've heard it described psychologically as being flooded. You're just at a point where whatever part of your brain that's going to act rational is offline, and all you can do is is de escalate. I'm also really interested in free will. We had a Dr gab or mate on the show who basic ideas that most addiction is a result of trauma, and depending on the extent of trauma, how much free will is really there with what has happened to the mind up to that point.

I just think it's an interesting concept to think through. It is fascinating, and I think, you know, there's a temptation when people write about free will almost to get in these kind of argument. It's like, well people have free will or they don't have free will, And even people who believe in free will, it doesn't mean you always have free will. It's just, you know, we all we have instincts and we have things that are hardwired biologically.

That's right. I agree. I read people who, you know, insist we have complete free will, and I have read people who insist there is no free will at all. Scientifically it's not possible. And I tend to come down like I do on a lot of things, like I think it's somewhere in between those two things. Yeah, it's interesting stuff. What I like about Moussa and what's been so powerful and life changing though, is it puts it in a context that makes it relative to everyday life.

I mean, we've all lost it, you know, we've all lost our cool, and we all know that, all things being equal, we're probably better off keeping our cool, right, So having a practice there's something to do to help you keep your cool or to help you to kind of proactively be a really good person too. Like part of Mussar is like this whole trade of enthusiasm. It's like,

how can I go the extra mile for somebody? You know, how can I do that extra thing where it's not like yeah I did the minimum, but wow, I could really do something nice for somebody if I'm just kind of keep my eyes open and pay attention. Well. I was struck by in the section about kindness how an a rabbi was saying, well, if you're going the same direction that somebody is already going and you help them carry their heavy load, that doesn't really count it all

accounts if you're going the other direction. I was like, boy, that's a high standard, you know, that's really going the extra mile. That's a very counterintuitive teaching for a lot of people. And part of what the Rabbi was teaching us there is that, well, if you're not going to help the person who's going in the same direction, then you're kind of a jerk. You know, you should. Of course, you're going to help the guy who's who's going in

that direction. But to do um what's called loving kindness. The Hebrew word is called has said, and it's mentioned like two sixty three times in the Torah. It's like this very high standard, and the idea is that the whole world is built on these these acts of loving kindness. I had an example of that where I was in the library and this young woman came up to me and she said, um. It was in December, and she says, you know, I'm taking my final exams on my computer

and I'm about to run on of power. Can I borrow your computer card? So I said, sure, no problem, but I'm leaving in five minutes. So I thought about it, and I was feeling very awake, you know, and very aware, and I said, well, I only live a couple of blocks away. Just take it, give it to the person at the front desk and I'll come back later for it. And I gave her my card and um so I came back in an hour and her computer was all

charged up and she was really happy. And I don't share this only to tell you, like, what a really cool guy, because I was. I just had an opportunity to really make somebody's day. And there would have been many, many times, you know, this week, I might not have even noticed the opportunity. I would have been like, oh geez, sorry, I gotta I gotta go. But that's the kind of thing where you totally make somebody's day and you totally

bail them out. And that's what really makes the world a better places, those kind of above and beyond acts. I have a list of things that I know are good for me to do on a semi regular basis, and I just try and check them off a list each day. You know, what did I do? Meditation? And one of them is an act of kindness? And I often find myself at the end of the day going did that count? Like I kind of stumbled into that one, like exactly like you said, Like, if I hadn't done that,

I think I would just be a jerk. I don't think I get kindness points for just doing the bare minimum, so you know, I usually I'm like, no, I have to actually initiate or go out of my way a little bit in order for me to get credit. Not that credit matters to anyone except me and my little system,

but it makes me think about it. Thank you so much for sharing that, because that is a really great example, because you know, one of the most important things is that you do think about it, and yeah, maybe you don't get kindness points, but it's still okay that you

did it. It reminds me a lot of kind of the most are journaling because then at the end of the day, you know, we're focusing on our trade, and then we would sit in journal about that and you might say, okay, well did I do everything I could? Does that count? Does that not count? And it's just by that act of reflecting. Each time we reflect changes our soul a little bit and helps move more towards that direction of the good inclination or to use the parable,

we're feeding. We're feeding the white wolf when we do that. I referenced it very quickly at the beginning sort of the practice of of mussar, but can you walk through sort of how you do it at a high level real quick. So one of my friends calls muss are extreme spiritual fitness, And the idea is that the soul is something that's really hard to understand, so to kind of get our arms around it, we we look at soul traits where it's just one part of the soul and we focus on that part for two weeks at

a time. So it's kind of like going to the gym and today I'm going to work on my arms, and the next day I'll work on my legs. So when we're focusing on a soul trade, it's something like humility, patients, what have you. Will begin in the morning with like a mantra or it's also called a recitation phrase, like for example, for patients, I think the mantra is this two shall pass and I have the strength to get by until it does. And he would say that out

loud for a couple of minutes, and it's funny. Saying it out loud is really important because usually after about a minute, I start to feel the resistance coming up, like why am I still doing this? And that tells me okay, I'm actually making an impression on my subconscious And then as you go through the day, you look for what are the things that challenge my patients, and you look for opportunities, and you might pick like one

specific area that you're going to work on. Like one of my students when she was working on patients, she was a cut you off, curse everybody out, New York City type of driver, and she said, you know what, I'm going to let everybody merge in front of me. So she let everybody merge, and she said, like almost within a day or two, she became like calm and

happy whenever she was driving to work. And then at night you journal about it, and it could just be a couple of sentences and you say, okay, well, where was I challenged? That I meet the challenge, that I not meet the challenge, And over time we make small gradual steps and that direction of balance. That practice can be so helpful. I think I do it less consciously

now and less formally. But being in a recovery program, there's the idea of the tent step, which is at the end of the day, you sort of take a look at how you did today on these things and you you make amends for anything that you messed up, and so doing that every day in a sense of sitting down and writing about it for for so long has it was such a huge thing to me, almost to the point that those things happen a lot more

naturally now. But I really like the idea in Mussar of digging deep in one particular area for a period of time versus sort of maybe looking at a higher level, looking at a bunch of traits, you know, every day. I think there's something to be said for that deeper view. It really does help to be specialized, and we kind of start to notice patterns. And sometimes there's a trade where going in I'm really trepidacious about it, and then

it turns out to be really rewarding. And other times there's a trade where I think it's going to be no big deal and it turns out to be really challenging, just because that's where I happen to be at this

point in my life. So there's also something to be said for just having a cycle that you always go through, because then you're going to come across some area where you have an issue very quickly, and it's almost mystical the way sometimes like just whatever soul trade I'm working on seems to be the one that I really need to be working on at that time. So that's kind of interesting too. Earlier you reference that there are three assumptions in Mussar, and you talked about one of them.

It's assumption number three, which is we all have free will, but it's not always accessible. Can you talk about the other two? And the way you did this was these assumptions sort of underlie a lot of the soul traits also, So to step back, Judaism has been around for thousands of years, and there's many and now there's there's so many writings, and there's a lot of really good Moosear

books that are out there as well. But I wanted to make this super accessible and so someone who either wasn't Jewish or was Jewish but didn't have a lot of literacy, I wanted them to be able to get started pretty quickly. My background was in the business world, and when we'd make a financial forecast, you would make assumptions. So you'd say, okay, well, this number of customers come in and on average they're going to spend this amount

and therefore I can expect these outcomes. So I said, well, why not create assumptions around mooss Are so people can maybe they agree, maybe they don't agree. But if we just say, all right, let's just assume this is true and see where it takes us. So the first assumption is that we all have a divine spark, which is included by our baggage. Now, for people who are unsure about the divinity, you can think of this is like

the core goodness of being human. But we all have the same spark of goodness, and from a spiritual perspective, we're all equal in that regard. And we also have baggage. We have those those hurts that happened to us during our lives, and the baggage kind of blocks this light, It blocks this divine spark. And in Mossar we try to move the bags a little bit and we let our goodness shine through, or we learn to recognize the

goodness and other people. So that's the first assumption. And then the second assumption is is that we all have the same soul traits, but we have different amounts of each. So you might think of someone who's very miserly, they still have the soul trade of generosity. It's just very much out of balance. And then there are actually four assumptions. So the third assumption is that we have this inflict

between the good inclination and the evil inclination. And so then our fourth assumption is that we all have free will and it's not always accessible. So that third assumption, that's the one that I talked about with the parable, where we have this conflict between the good inclination and the evil inclination. I'm not even trying with these rabbi's

last names, but yet another rabbi. He said that the evil inclination works not only to lures to do the wrong thing, it also works to prevent us from doing the right thing. And I find that so true. So often, at least in my life, it's been much less grievous things that I do in my behavior. I start to

worry more about sins of omission versus commission at this point. Yeah, and that can function on a number of levels, Like it's very tempting to look at the biggest instance of that, like, um, oh, yeah, I need to be out there marching or doing social justice or fighting poverty or something like that, and we can site of just really small things that we need to do, like getting flowers for a loved one, or cleaning up after ourselves or you know, these these small

kindnesses and opportunities to really connect with or to help other people, those are the things that can make a difference between like a whole home life and a life of just love and joy and connection. I agree, I think that makes such a big difference. One of the themes of the show, I think is that a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. Do something, Start where you are, do what you can.

That's right. Also, um, that is so important because you know, I'm always hesitant to give examples, Like I give a lot of examples in the book, but I also try to keep them really small scale because if you think that you need to like suddenly become mother Teresa in order to be a good person, that's that's too big a jump, that's too big a change to make. But if you can find one small action just starting from

where you are today, you know you're working on generosity. Uh. Instead of giving the bariset Starbucks cent tip, give a fifty cent tip. Just make a step, Just make a conscious step in that direction towards generosity, and that's all we're required to do, is to take that next step. In the book, one of the salt traits is patients. And you say that patients is the cure for helplessness. Help me understand that a little bit better. Okay. So sometimes in life we are just hit with things that

we have no control over. Um, we get cancer, we get an illness, we are just stuck in traffic, and no amount of honking on the horn or tears is going to change that reality. And so patients is a is a gift from the divine when there's nothing else that's left, when we can't take any actions, we can still exercise our patient to help us get through that situation.

The war word for patients in Hebrew has the same route as the Hebrew word for the guy who carries your luggage in Israel or it's Um says in the Torah that God delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, and it was the same idea of bearing the burden. So it's just like being able to endure the situation until it passes. Interesting. I haven't explored it a lot, but I've always been incredibly impressed every time I dig into Judaism a little bit about how much wisdom and

very practical wisdom is there. And one of my very favorite things that I've heard is the idea that our mission is to repair the world. That's right. Can you talk a little bit more about that, what role that plays and how that applies for you. Yeah, so thanks

for asking that. Because there is this idea that it's our our mission is to make the world a better place, and there are some very mystical and esoteric teachings about that, and there are also some very very practical ones, so you can look at it on an ultra local level. It's like, how can I repair the hurts within my family? How can I make my community a better place? You can go all the way to how do I make the world a better place through lobbying the government or

just volunteering. There's sort of another teaching which is less well known, which is also repairing the self. And that's what Mussar is all about. It's it's about the Hebrew phrases are very similar. It's like repairing the soul traits. And the idea is that if we can't take care of our own issues. If we can't come to our own point of balance, we're not going to be showing up in the world. Is like a mench this this person of outstanding character. And the more that we can

show up is a is a really good person. The better job we're going to do repairing the world excellent. Well, I think that's a great place to wrap up. Greg, Thanks so much for coming on. I really did enjoy the book. Like I said, every time I've explored Judaism a little bit more, I I walk away more impressed and wanting to learn more. And I love the Mussar idea and how practical and simple it is to try and make steady improvement in life. So thanks for the

book and thanks for coming on. Oh you're so welcome. It was my pleasure. Okay, talk to you later. Bye. You can learn more about Greg Marcus and this podcast at one you Feed dot net slash Marcus. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the one you Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot Net slash Support