Timber Hawkeye

We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not 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 wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest today

is Timber Hawkeye, author of Buddhist boot Camp. Timber's book aims to offer a non sectarian approach to being at peace with the world, both within us and around us. Here's the interview. Hi, Timber, Welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me. So our podcast is based on the parable of two wolves, where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always

always at war. 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, and he says, Grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off the pot cast by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that

you do. That parable and most people's lives, gives us an opportunity to reflect within and see if there are twols within us. And immediately we I think back to even in cartoons, you see when someone's torn between making a decision, there's like, you know, an angel on one

shoulder and a devil on the other. And growing up with cartoons, like many other people, I've always been aware of this internal conflict, this dialogue going on within me of two opposing thoughts, and always curious why I choose the one I choose and why sometimes one is louder than the other or easier to follow. And I think, ultimately looking back and applying today, the one we feed, so to speak, the one we answer to more freak wently,

is the one that gets louder and louder. And so if within us, let's say, instead of two wolves or a devil and an angel, there is one side of us that is the ego, which is very concerned with itself and and that's about it. It just wants what feels good but looks good. Um, it's just concerned with its own benefit and and disregards other people. And then the other side of us really truly understands that when we do anything for the benefit of others, we inevitably

benefit because we're all one and the same. So it could be depicted as the Buddha within and the ego within, if you would. So for me, it's always been a practice of realizing that the one I listened to more often gets louder, and the one I honor and I say I hear you, but I'm not going to listen to you anymore, gets quieter. Yeah, that's such a great, great observation, um about how which one we feed gets more,

gets louder. I always think of the annalty, you know, keeping with analogies of animals, is like these cravings or or the bad wolf, so to speak. The less I feed it, um, it's sort of like a stray cat. It just stops coming to the table as often because it just knows it's not going to get fed as often. However, when I do feed it, boy, it's it's right there, relentless exactly. I think of it as if you've watched

the movie Shrek, you know. I think of the ego within kind of like Donkey that's just really annoying, NonStop jumping up a down. Can't get them too quiet down. And the Buddha within is quite literally how we would imagine him to be, just sitting there very quietly and just patiently and saying, you know, thinking, you know what to do, and that's it. It doesn't jump up, it down, It doesn't yell at you, it doesn't you know, it just sits there because you intuitively know what to do.

I think intuitively, innately, we are that Buddha nature. We are that loving, giving, compassionate, kind, for giving person. We've just learned not to be, you know. It's it's kind of like we've were that straight cat that came to the table, and our teachers, parents and preachers all kept feeding us, and so we keep going back for more, not realizing that that which we're actually looking for is

not outside ourselves at all. It's been there all along, but we crave so much the validation from other people that we will do pretty much anything to get it. Do that, so maybe you could tell us um about how your book, Buddhist boot Camp came to be Um, and then maybe even a little bit back further than that, how you got into Buddhism and kind of what your path to the book has been. It's an interesting journe because I never actually set out to write a book.

I do not identify myself as an author in any way. Because what happened was I decided to leave the corporate world, you know, and quit my job, moved to Hawaii, sell everything I own, and just go there with a backpack and a volleyball net and lead a very simple and uncomplicated life. It occurred to me that that happiness and and everything that I'm looking for in life is not going to be attained by staying in that cubicle under

fluorescent lights. So I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew what I didn't want to do, and my friends and my family were all freaked out. Of course, you know, I've been doing this for ten years. There were It's very easy to say you're proud of your child when he lives in a condo downtown with a sports car and the designer of furniture and clothes. But when he gives all that up and moves to an island without a job or an apartment lined up,

you get a little worried. And my friends and my family asked me to keep in touch with them, and so for the first eight years or so, I wrote them an email every month to let them know what's going on with me. And after eight years, a really good friend of mine challenged me to go back and take all those emails and make them public because she felt a lot more people can benefit from what I

was sharing as I was learning. And that's that was the birth of the Buddhist boot Camp blog and Facebook page, which a year later was published into a collection of these essays. If you would um that are really just it's it's my private journal. It's my private diary that I shared with some close friends and almost as a dare published for the world to read. And I had no intention of it ever, um going necessarily far beyond that.

I thought, you know, like anybody else who publishes a book, like my friends and my family are going to read it, and that's that. And before I knew it, it became this international bestseller in multiple languages, and there was so much hunger for the message, and I realized that, you know, this isn't my story, this is our story. We're all in this together. And I don't think I realized just how applicable it is, and how the demons were all battling,

so to speak, are all the same. So that's really the story behind the book. If you wear the name has nothing. Even though it's called Buddist book cap, there's really very little in there about Buddhism. I love the movie Fight Club, which has very little to do with fighting also, and when I thought about my life and

I thought about this internal struggle. I don't know if you're familiar with Fight Club, but it's very much the story of the two wolves, because these two characters are the two wolves inside all of us, that the two voices within are actually portrayed in the movie as two different people, you know, that are literally beating each other up. So when I watched that, I was like, this is

like Buddhist boot camp. This is this is just all the Buddhist principles packed into a very direct, rigid, uh method of delivery, which I was very um hungry for. I guess it really resonated with me when it was that black and white. It was that direct, There was no sugarcoating. It wasn't very gentle, and and that's very much my background. I was raised very military, and you know, I think that drew me to ten years of working

in law firms, which is very rigid. So when I thought about giving my diary and name, the name Buddhist boot Camp seemed like a good fit because that's what my life has felt like. And so how did you arrive at the decision? Too? So you've been it sounds like you've been working in a in a law firm for about ten years and you made the decision that you were going to kind of give that up. What what was going on that that that prompted that? It

was quite simple. Another par le goal at the law firm was celebrating her thirty years at the firm, and the thought that she celebrated thirty years in a cubicle just terrified me. I just it just gave me a glimpse of what my life is going to be like if I don't make a change, and I don't make it quickly. And I knew I needed to get out,

so I did, you know, it's really that simple. And granted, you know, for years, I've been reading a lot of material about simplifying your life, and you know, I've been practicing following that recipe of making a lot of money, driving the sports car, getting the condo downtown, having all the designer everything there. And and I thought, you know, this recipe that we're being sold tells me that I should arrive at a happiness by this point, you know, like,

what's going on? Why am I not there yet? And yet when I visit Hawaii and I, you know, I'm just playing beach volleyball and eating off of paper plates on the sand, I feel more fulfilled and content and happy then I do with my Caribouzier Italian dining table in my condo downtown like and I realized that it's not the table, it's who's with you at day. So so my values changed. I got to look at the

world through a different lens. So the things that used to matter so much no longer mattered in Hawaii just made the perfect sense to me, because in Hawaii nobody cares about design or anything. You know, it's really just leading a very simple life, enjoying nature and being outdoors with with your ohana, your family. So that that was the big shift, is getting a really quick glimpse of what my life is going to be like if I don't make a change. So you talk about um in

the book. At one point you say happiness, and this ties back to what we were just talking about. Happiness isn't waiting for us in the distant future somewhere that will only manifest itself when we reach certain goals. Happiness is available to us right now. And the other thing that you go on to say is that you talk about that this mindset affects how we approach almost everything

else in life. Instead of being grateful for what we already have, we exhaust ourselves with cravings and longing for what we haven't yet achieved. Yeah, it's uh, we have this illusion, especially here in this country, of the pursuit of happiness. That's what we're into. We're not entitled to happiness here, by the way, just the pursuit they're off and that's just exhausting and and it it occurred to me I was at a guided meditation exercise and we were asked to think back to the saddest moment in

our lives. And you know, there's a huge room full of people being guided to the details of that moment, of that really sad moment that we experienced, and everyone's posture in the room changed. We all slatched in our seats, some people start tearing, some people started crying, and we start feeling all those feelings again. And then we were asked to think back to the happiest moment in our lives, and everyone's posture in the room changed again. Their faces

lit up. And the power for me behind that exercise is that we were in complete control of how we felt. You know, Carlos Costaneta said that we can make ourselves happy and we can make ourselves miserable. The amount of work is the same. So it occurred to me that if I'm going to exert any effort um. Why not if if I'm going to believe the stories in my head,

why not make them good stories? And there's another chapter in the book that discusses the difference between a feeling and an emotion, and a feeling is perfectly natural, but an emotion is a feeling with a huge story attached to it. And we create these stories that are not necessarily true, and and we believe them, and they they have everything to do with how happy we are. Am

I making any sense or going absolutely making sense? I have a question for you, though, And I'm going to ask this for one of our listeners because I can. I can already see the email he would send and ask me on this, and he says it all the time. He says, well, it's really easy for Timber to be happy because he's got a charmed life where he went

off to Hawaii and plays beach volleyball all day. But I've got kids, and I've got responsibilities, and I'm still in that cube, and I don't have a good viable option. How do I find happiness within that? Yeah? I think you know that's actually that was my audience when I

wrote those emails. Keep in mind, I was writing this stuff to my friends who were still at the office in the cubicle, and what they found so inspiring is realizing that that life in the cubicle and the kids and all that that's not the end all be all.

You know, I've been there, and the fact that I got out and created a whole new life for me after the act was very inspiring to them that when their debt is paid off, when their kids are off to college, they do get a chance to start all over and it doesn't have to look the way they think it's going to look. And when people would say to me, oh, you're so lucky you live in Hawaii, I'm like, luck had nothing to do with it. You know,

I planned my life this way. I exchanged a lot of things that a lot of us do on a regular basis, like going out to eat, traveling and all that stuff. I exchanged it. Or some people would think sacrifice it for living the life that I can live in a place like Hawaii. You know, it's it's not a sacrifice in my eyes. It's a swap. I swapped, you know, uh, making a ton of money to having a lot of free time and yes, initially it was just for playing beach volleyball. But then I decided, well,

what's a better use of my time? And that's when I started studying both religion and psychology simultaneously to understand better not just what people believe, but why they believe what too. Yeah, And what I think is interesting about that is is the idea of that happiness is available really anywhere, including in the cube. And and I, you know, I as sole with this sometimes this and you know, people who listen to the show will know that I

talk a lot. You know, we talk a lot about this idea of okay, because a certain amount of dissatisfaction is what drove you to Hawaii into that life. And so what's the you know, how do we manage this blend of you know, what I want enough dissatisfaction that

that pushes my life in positive directions? And yet if we're not careful, we'll end up in the trap that you just talked about, which is always thinking, well, I'll be happy when I'm in Hawaii, right, And there's plenty of unhappy people in Hawaii, right, I'm sure, And so we know that it's not just not out there, no I'm not in any ways just thing that people sell everything they want to move to Hawaii. It is not

for everybody. Uh, The idea that happiness is right here available to us just boils down to we make our own choices, we pay our own prices. My sister was complaining to me at one point, you know, she's she was saying, how you know, she's got this house and this mortgage, and her husband's working. She's got these three kids, and she has to take them to gymnastic practice, and then after that she has to take her son to soccer practice. And and I just stopped her and I said,

is this not exactly the life you always wanted? The husband, the three kids, the gymnastics practice, the soccer, the making dinner and all this stuff. And she looked at me and she goes, it exists like it is exactly the life that I've always wanted. This is where I derived my joy. This brings me happiness. And so what I was left with is, then why are you complaining about it? So a lot of time, it's not the things that

are outside of us that makes us unhappy. It's our perspective of we look at our own children or at our own job, instead of I am so grateful to have this job, this cubicle in a world where so many people would die to have this job, you know, or these kids that are so wonderful that I've always wanted to have a family and here I am living my dream. Instead of looking at it like that, we look at it as a detriment to our happiness. Does that make sense. It's a shift of perspective and it

all ties into gratitude. It totally makes sense. And I think the thing and I have that where I've got the kids to get you know, one's got to be here, one's got to be there. And the thing that helps me most with all that, I think it's exactly what you did with your sisters. I just remember, these are all choices I'm making, right. I could choose to not take the kids to soccer practice. I could choose to go to Hawaii and leave them here in Ohio. Those are all choices that are mine. But I like what

you said. You said what you said. You We make our choices and we PRIs. A friend of mine used to say, it pays you money, it takes your choice, um, which I'm not sure it is. The same thing exactly, but makes me happy to say that. Um, but you do say we are the victims of our choice. And I think the other thing that this whole conversation points to is that no life is without some degree of struggle, without some degree of you know, I'm not in the

greatest mood. And that's where we a lot of times get ourselves caught is thinking that I should never feel anything other than ecstatic and if I don't, then there's something wrong with my life. And I I think that's an interesting way to look at it. Yeah, people ask me if I'm happy, I'm always happy, and I'm like, of course, I'm always happy, but I'm not always in a good right, you know. And and that's a big distinction.

As far as struggle. The temple keeper in Hawaii had a sign in the wall that said, struggle is not a requirement, and what it what it entails is I think our biggest challenge is that we identify with our challenges, you know. And even if we experience frustration, we say I am frustrated. If we experience anger, which is a perfectly natural feeling, instead of honoring it as a temporary feeling, that we're just experiencing and it will pass. Instead of saying I am feeling anger right now, we say I

am angry. This is really, really detrimental to our happiness because we are identifying ourselves with a temporary, transient feeling, and when we say I am angry, it becomes part of our identity and we look at the world through that lens of an angry person or a victim of these feelings that we have. You know, it's it's just this really interesting switch, and even vocabulary that can make

a huge impact. You know, our words have tremendous power, and we have to be very gentle with them, and when we say I am anything, it becomes part of our identity, and that could be really I mean, if you tell yourself every single day, oh I'm so depressed, Oh I'm so challenged, I'm so I'm struggling so much,

my life sucks, You're gonna end up believing it. Now, everything we're talking about here, I just want to make sure to clarify you know, these whole You know, happiness is a choice, it is a perspective, It is a way of looking at the world. This does not necessarily apply to those who are challenged with some chemical imbalance, those who actually suffer from depression. That is not something that we can just tell people to snap out of. That's this isn't What we're talking about is not a

blanket statement that applies to everyone, you know. I just want to make sure that that's clear that I'm not in any way minimizing the challenges that some people are most definitely faced with. I'm talking about the suffering that we create ourselves by negative talk in our own head in and I'm clarifying that distinction very very much. And I think that's a distinction that we talk about a lot on the show, is that that there is some

amount of pain and suffering that just comes with life. Right, It's the first noble truth. Um, It's it's what we layer on top of that that we do to ourselves that we are able to, that we are able to control. You know. The the analogy I always make is feeling bad about feeling like that, Right, You've just you've just made it work. That's what the Buddha thought. That's that's the nobles is that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

And it's really important to make that distinction because will experience pain, but if we just honor it as temporary like everything else, it's a lot easier to hold than just say this is a part of who I am. This identifies me that what happened to me in my childhood. While it is important, if I still identify myself as a victim of that rather than a survivor of that, then I will always be a victim. I will use that as a justification for how I'm feeling today, and

though it happened twenty five years ago. So yeah, these stories in our heads that we create constantly, it could be something as simple as we have Buddhist boot camp meetings constantly globally. And you know, we talked about getting really frustrated, especially here in southern California with with traffic. You have a lot of people who get very angry

when someone cuts cuts them off on the freeway. And because we create these stories about oh, you think you're more important than me, or it's all those people in the BM doubles, and then and then you create a story that all BM doubles are evil, and then the next time you see one, it makes you angry even though it's not even cutting you off. It just it triggered that story you told yourself. And this woman raised her hand and said, you know, whenever someone cuts me off,

I just pretend they have to pee, you know. And although that's still a story that we're telling ourselves, it's a much better story. It doesn't it doesn't trigger any anger. It actually, you know, makes you even giggle and go, oh, go ahead, you know, sorry, Like it's something everyone can relate to. It's way lighter, and it doesn't ruin your day,

you know, right. So yeah, I've read about it for years, about the stories that we that we tell ourselves, And as I've practiced meditation more and more, I'm starting to be able to catch those stories getting created, uh a lot sooner. And and kind of what you said a minute ago about not identifying so clearly with I am angry or is I've been the metaphor that I love.

And one of our guests a while ago talked about in regards to meditation is sort of like sitting behind the waterfall, right, and you're the waterfall is your mind and you're you're sitting behind it, watching it, and uh, and that distance is so helpful to think about everything in that way. You know I am, you know, I'm feeling depressed or it's a it's a different it's a

different thing than identifying with I am. And it's getting once you start really, at least for me, once I start really hearing the voice that's in my head more consistently, it's it becomes really illuminating. It as to like, oh, no, wonder, I'm gonna right, because listen to what's been going on for the last thirty minutes, and I just noticed how

fast it happens. It's it's stunning how fast one simple little feeling or or twinge of pain or anything leads to a fairly elaborate story which usually ends with you know, and I'm then I'm missing. And so it's important not to believe everything we think and to remember that feelings are not facts, you know, so when we feel them, we just like you said, observe them rather than identify with them and just sit there and go, wow, look at that story being created. You know, my friend has

a practice of naming her demons, so to speak. You know, if you're prone to anger, give your anger a name. And so when you're in a situation and you feel it bubbling up, we always feel it bubbling up. It never actually sneaks up on us, um, and we can just say, oh, there's anger, you know whatever. You want to name him Andy. You know, there's Andy, you know, and he wants to rear its ugly head. It's like,

I see you Andy. And it's interesting that the minute you see it and acknowledge, it just wants to be recognized. It just wants to be acknowledged. And and you keep it at bay because we always say, you know, something came over me, right, we become someone we don't want to be. We don't have to. We can stay true to who we are, to listen to that other wolf and just say I'm not going to feed you. You know, cat go away, and and it will eventually make it less of a habit to show up. Um. It's it's

not about doing away with our ego. Then we're putting a lot of energy into the ego, which the ego loves, and so it gets bigger. It's about feeding our faith, you know. It's about putting more energy to what we want to grow into our Buddha nature, Christ nature, whatever you want to call it. Um. It's that's my invitation is for all of us to actually make a list of our guiding principles, of our values, and you know, write out of paragraph what kind of person do you

want to be? You know, patient, kind, compassionate, giving, for giving. Write it all out and then that's where the hard part comes in. Cross reference it with the person you actually are, you know, with your actual behavior in the world, and you'll immediately see where you have work to do. You know, you're like, oh, I'm not as patient as i'd like to be. That I need to work on that. And the beauty and that is that you're inviting yourself. No one's telling you you know what your problem is.

You're telling it to yourself. And then it's like, wow, like I can be the best version of me. It's just it's up to me. And and it's not about what I believe, because my you know, your beliefs don't make you a better person. Your behavior does. So, you know, much like in yoga they tell us to set our intention for the day, I invite people to actually set

your action for the day. Go a step beyond intention, you know, ten minutes a day, make take yourself slowly closer, you know, from your from the version of yourself that you want to be bridge the gap between that and how you actually behave in the world. Yeah, with really small really so I mean, never discourage progress and no no amoutter how slow you know, it's just really small. It's not about selling everything you own and moving to Hawaii.

You know, it wasn't that quick. I mean, I guess I could say, yes, it took over a year to actually put everything in order and put that together. It's not about making rash decisions because then you go at what point, at what thought actually led me here? There's it was a series of thoughts. It's a series of steps, right, you can never end that trace backwards. So yeah, very

gradual and being gentle with yourself is really important. You know, if you slip one day and you do get angry, you know for whatever reasons, to say that's okay, I'll try tomorrow. You know, I am only human and I'm just starting out this process. So you know, let's just try better tomorrow and we get better at it. You have a line speaking of anger that I really like, which says, explain your anger, don't express you, and you

will immediately open the door to solutions and understanding. But what I really like about that is that the explain part is there, because I think that's where I get lost, is I go, I'm not going to get angry. I'm not going to express this anger to the people around me. But then I don't do anything, and then I'm stuck with it, right, And I realized that's not that's that doesn't work. That pain doesn't decompose when you bear. Yet, Yeah, it's important to not and people say no, it's important

to express your anger. Otherwise I'm like, Okay, explain it, you know, because the anger is just a way of expressing something. There's some there's some thought that something that is being misunderstood, some trigger that's being pulled or button that's being pushed. And if you just take the time to explain, you know, this is what's going on, you don't have to you don't have to bite someone's head off because just and then go, oh, I understand, you know,

because that's just it. If most of our arguments with other people are due to misunderstanding, right, and the only way out of that is through explanation, And it's yeah, explain your anger. Explain what it is that you're feeling. Don't express it and and yes, anger is not in and all by itself a terrible thing. Anger can actually propel us forward to take action, you know, about something

some injustice that we see in the world. But I mean, compassion does the same thing without the ugly side effects. So explaining it actually gets us more in touch with the underlying feeling behind it, rather than the expression yeah, as a Johnny Rotten or a K. Johnny Lyden says, you know, anger is an energy, um, but I agree that it's just letting it loose wildly does not help.

And it and I more and more have have learned about how any time you get more interested in uh, winning the argument than you are in the original thing, then you've you've kind of crossed that line. And it's amazing to me how quickly into an argument with somebody, most of us cross that line. It happens very quickly that we are all of a sudden beyond the point

of being rationally Yeah. The moment you raise your voice that someone is the moment you're you're no longer trying to make a connection with them, but you're trying to prove yourself right superior in them, inferior. You know, it's no longer about coming to an understanding. It's it's all ego at that point because this and how often does someone get your explanation better? If you yell at them, you know it's not gonna happen. So you know, the point is to remember, Okay, what is my intention in

this conversation? Is it to prove myself superior? And and if that's it, why what other people think about me is none of my business? Why am I so concerned with that? So yeah, remembering our true intention is is really important. And I know it's hard in the heat of the moment, but again, it's practice. That's why it's called spiritual practice. Um, it's ongoing, right, And I think it's I think there's that feel superior, and I think there's just there's so much fear underlying all of that.

When when people get angry, there's I've been able to notice that more and it's a good way to deal with somebody who's really I've found a deal with somebody who's really angry if I can sort of realize, like I think that they're really actually afraid of something what is that thing exactly? And a lot of people are not comfortable with vulnerability. You know, we're taught as a society that vulnerability is a sign of weakness. I believe

it's our greatest strength. And we are scared to be vulnerable with people and tell them what's really going on with us. But we're very afraid of because we're afraid of being judged. So you've got fear on top of fear on top of fear. And in my experience and what I tried to do with the book and online is just be really honest, very vulnerable, and and what I found is that people don't necessarily judge me for it.

They actually feel like they can relate to me more, not judge me that if that makes sense at all, because we're all the same. Really, we're all battling the same demons. Like I said earlier, And when I share it and I say here, this is my insecurity, people aren't gonna go, oh, you're stupid. They're gonna go, oh, I have that too. I just never thought I could say that out loud, right, Yeah, you say that your mind is like a spoiled rich kid, which is a

phrase I really like. It's I love some of these quick phrases. A guest we had a few weeks ago. I keep bringing this up because I just love it. He wanted to title his book The voice in my head is an asset, which is wonderful. But your mind is like a spoiled rich kid, is really good too. You have raised it to think whatever it wants, whenever it wants to, and for however long, with no regard for consequences or gratitude. It's true, it's and and and so it wants what it wants when it wants it.

And you that's and we can't be mad at our mind for that. We've raised it that way, you know. And And somewhere else, I think I'll talk about the mind's like a puppy that you try to train, you know, it just at first it runs after everything that sparks its curiosity. But then you train it to go where you want it to go. And your mind can be your best friend. Um. The voice in your head can actually be empowering and encouraging you to move forward, not

holding you back. And when that other voice jumps in every once in a while, you can I find laughing at it makes it go a lot faster. Yeah, because it's still well, I hope my puppies are not a are not a reflection of my mind because I have not trained them terribly well. Well, they say I love them, but but I I absolutely recognize that some of their behavior. I'm like, I'm totally responsible for that. Oh yeah, we we encourage certain behavior. You know, what you allow is

what will continue. I mean, that's true for every aspect in our life. You know, if someone treats you a certain way, if you allow it, they're going to continue doing it that way. Um, if you allow a certain voice in your head to keep telling you lies, that's what's going to continue. So it's about up to us. That's just it. We're the only things we're victims of

is our own choices. We allow things to take place, and which means we're allowing them to continue, whether it be with the puppies or you know, another depiction of I've heard it said that the state of your kitchen counter is similar to the state of your mind. So

cluttered mind, cluttered desk. You know there's some correlation there, and I don't know how true that is, but you know there's something about clearing our minds, clearing our workspace, clearing our area, um, purging tangible things from our lives and purging old beliefs and philosophies and opinions don't no longer apply because the mind doesn't know the difference. It

just knows not to cling anymore. It knows not to hang onto things that letting go is okay, whether it be of an old you know, desk that has three legs, doesn't stand on to But maybe one day you will find the fourth. Let you know, it's like, just let it go, just move past it, and you'll find it becomes addictive. Actually, just letting go process. And when you start letting go of opinions that are no longer valid,

that's the really good stuff. That's fun. Yeah, I hope that the reflection of my co hosts table downstairs is not a reflection of his mind. Sure, actually today it is. He cleaned it up, but yesterday it was littered with well I want yeah, but but like he's just it

is today. Like you know, there are some days when I go, okay, I need some peace of mind and I can't get there if my desk, you know, And so we do, actually, quite often without realizing it, want to clean up our space because really, what we really want to clean is our our headspace. It's just the tangible is so much easier in a way. Um, but what we're really doing is we're sorting our thoughts. We're sorting our minds, so it's easier for us to stay

focused and clear headed. There's there is a correlation there, absolutely, Well, Timber, this has been really enjoyable. I wish we had more time, but we we Uh, we're about out of our time. Here's everything you want to leave us with related to the parable or anything else. Um, just be gentle with yourself that it's a practice. You know, if you let if you feed that one wolf one day, that's okay. UM, just don't make it a practice to do it on a daily basis. And right at that paragraph, I really

want to go back to that. You know, write out your core values, your guiding principles, the kind of person you want to be, and then cross reference it with your behavior in the world, and you will immediately see where you have work to do. Um. The book I hope doesn't end up sitting on a shelf anywhere. I hope that when you get it, you share it with at least four other people. That's my intention. That's my hope. Actually,

you just gave me a great idea. You sent me a free copy of the book, even though I had a copy of it from before. I'm going to take it into a place that I do some consulting tomorrow and I'm going to leave it on the table and just see who grabs it or it should be an interesting Yeah, and you can write a note and read it and pass it on, you know, and people are

very inclined to do that. And there's even a website forget what it's called, but it's tracking books that way because you put a little track in number and you can watch where your book ends up and it's yeah, it's quite wonderful. So yeah, my hope is that it gets spread and shared with the intention to awaken, enlighten, and rich and inspire everyone to be the best version of themselves. There is all right, Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you coming. Thank you. I very much appreciate

the work you do in the world. Okay, talk later, bye, Thank you. You can learn more about this podcast and tim Hawkeye at one you feed dot net slash timber