Speaker 1: The Low and welcome to Mythic Mind. We pursue wisdom
Speaker 1: in the past between primary and secondary worlds. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Andrew Snyder, and I am always grateful.
Speaker 2: For your company.
Speaker 1: Hell and welcome back to what I think is now
Speaker 1: our third or maybe fourth show without skipping weeks. And
Speaker 1: I personally really like this model. I like this frequency,
Speaker 1: and I would love to keep it up, So be
Speaker 1: sure to check out patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind
Speaker 1: and lend support if you would like for me to
Speaker 1: be able to keep this pace. But more on that later.
Speaker 1: For now, I want to go ahead and move into
Speaker 1: this week's conversation. I recently spoke with Chris Jackson, who
Speaker 1: has drafted a book that deals with the ideas of
Speaker 1: legacy and the hero's journey, which are definitely important issues
Speaker 1: for me. I mean, who are we? What's in a name?
Speaker 1: What is the context in which we lead our lives?
Speaker 1: And how ought we to see ourselves within the bigger
Speaker 1: picture of the world around us, as well as of
Speaker 1: course within our families and the lives that they touch.
Speaker 1: When Chris reached out to me to talk about this,
Speaker 1: I was really glad to set up this time to talk.
Speaker 1: And now let's go ahead and get to it. All right,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Mythic Mind. Today, we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: with Chris Jackson, who is well at this point he's
Speaker 1: drafted a book and I'm dealing with legacy and hero's
Speaker 1: journey and all kinds of stuff that we often talk about.
Speaker 1: And so Chris, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me. Andre really appreciate.
Speaker 1: It absolutely, and so I'd love to begin by having
Speaker 1: you just introduce yourself, tell us little bit about who
Speaker 1: you are, what your background is, and what led you
Speaker 1: in this direction.
Speaker 2: Sure, no, thank you, Andrew.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess, you know, pre starting my career,
Speaker 3: I I grew up kind of very much introduced by
Speaker 3: my parents to the great myths and histories of our time,
Speaker 3: I guess. So you know, I grew up very early
Speaker 3: on with the fascination for Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 3: some of the Greek myths. My parents are both very spiritual.
Speaker 3: My my mother's a lay preacher within the Methodist Church,
Speaker 3: so I have that kind of angle as well.
Speaker 2: So again I grew up with a lot of C. S.
Speaker 2: Lewis and the Narnia stories.
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, and I took a huge
Speaker 3: amount of inspiration from those I just found like the magic,
Speaker 3: the words, the underlying.
Speaker 2: Themes just just spoke to me.
Speaker 3: I guess I love them, and so you know, that
Speaker 3: kind of led again. My mother's a historian by training.
Speaker 3: I did a history degree as kind of a result
Speaker 3: and kind of following her footsteps. And when I then
Speaker 3: got into the corporate world, I guess and started my career.
Speaker 3: You know, I came into it with this great sense
Speaker 3: of Wow, this is going to be amazing. I can
Speaker 3: really make a mark on the world. And I guess
Speaker 3: I worked hard, applied myself, rose quickly, rose into leadership roles.
Speaker 3: But throughout the whole period, you know, both for me
Speaker 3: and colleagues around me, it wasn't particularly fulfilling. You know,
Speaker 3: we'd always been brought up with this concept of success
Speaker 3: and a need to kind of if you work hard,
Speaker 3: you'll be really successful, and you know that will solve
Speaker 3: all your problems and things. But the further you got
Speaker 3: into it, the more and more you realize that actually
Speaker 3: most people who were successful, or just even working hard
Speaker 3: towards success, are not very happy, the fairly miserable, the targets.
Speaker 2: The life that.
Speaker 3: You're leading is you know, it doesn't add any value
Speaker 3: to be honest, even to the company quite quite often
Speaker 3: a lot of the time. And so that kind of sparked,
Speaker 3: you know, I kind of took a step back to
Speaker 3: my roots, I guess, and started looking at, well, what
Speaker 3: is it that people that really motivates people, and what
Speaker 3: is it actually speaks to people? And by looking at
Speaker 3: you know, or talking to colleagues, by looking at these
Speaker 3: old inspirations that I'd had, and looking at some of
Speaker 3: the names through history, so well, what is it that
Speaker 3: actually makes people remembered? And that kind of got me
Speaker 3: down this path of looking at legacy and why legacy
Speaker 3: is really rather than looking about yourself, it's about looking
Speaker 3: at other people and making a positive impact on others,
Speaker 3: because ultimately, what a reality is nobody cares about your success.
Speaker 2: Success is inherently selfish. You're just looking about yourself.
Speaker 3: There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it doesn't have
Speaker 3: any value to anybody else. It makes no impact, it's
Speaker 3: not particularly fulfilling. And yet the people who we remember,
Speaker 3: whether it's Socrates through to Gandhi or Martin Luther King,
Speaker 3: they you know, they've really made an impact on what
Speaker 3: they resonates, and you look back at you know, the
Speaker 3: Lord of the Rings and things like that and why
Speaker 3: that resonates, and you start to realize that there might
Speaker 3: be a bit of a common theme there, and it's
Speaker 3: not necessarily about the success, but it's about what they've
Speaker 3: done for other people and that impact, and that kind
Speaker 3: of let me down that path, I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I talked about this a lot with my students.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm teaching a course kind of intro philosophy
Speaker 1: religion called Life, Death and Meaning, which is all about
Speaker 1: how do you live a life of meaning with the
Speaker 1: knowledge of the fact that you're going to die? Right
Speaker 1: that is the fate of all mortals. And so if
Speaker 1: there's going to be a legitimate answer to that, if
Speaker 1: we're going to say that life does genuinely have meaning,
Speaker 1: and I certainly believe that it does, the question has
Speaker 1: to be what is able to stand in the face
Speaker 1: of death? What is the grave not going to wipe
Speaker 1: out and whatever is left? I mean, that's where we
Speaker 1: need to double down. And so it definitely seems like
Speaker 1: you're you're moving in that kind of direction, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, you've talked about you talked about success and
Speaker 1: how a lot of people, I think, just don't really
Speaker 1: ask the question what does it even mean to be successful?
Speaker 1: And so you kind of already hinted at it with
Speaker 1: your intro, But how are you defining success? Or what? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is success? I just asked that as probably as
Speaker 1: I game.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's the that's the interesting thing because actually,
Speaker 3: during you know, as I wrote my book, you start
Speaker 3: to see that success just means whatever you want it
Speaker 3: to mean. And you know, I ask when I do
Speaker 3: mentoring with people or when I when I talk about
Speaker 3: this topic in general. Now I always ask people, will
Speaker 3: you know, in today's society, if you become the CEO
Speaker 3: of a major business, you're pretty successful, right, And they go, well, yeah, cool,
Speaker 3: So how many Fortune five hundred CEOs can you name?
Speaker 3: And the answer is almost none. So these people who
Speaker 3: we kind of aspire to be, they're making no impact
Speaker 3: on us on a day to day basis. And then
Speaker 3: you can look at but the ones that they can name,
Speaker 3: you know, might be Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Henry Ford.
Speaker 3: If you go back far enough there, you can argue
Speaker 3: the toss about whether it was it's a positive legacy
Speaker 3: they're building. But and again we can unpack positive and
Speaker 3: negative legacies shortly if you want to. But the fact
Speaker 3: is that they've made an impact on her lives because
Speaker 3: they set out to do something bigger than just make money.
Speaker 3: And then it's the same. You know, you can look
Speaker 3: at CEOs and why we can name so few of them.
Speaker 3: But then I'd also like to give you know, a
Speaker 3: probably extreme example. Well, yet we all know Rosa Parks,
Speaker 3: and Rosa Parks did a huge amount in terms of
Speaker 3: her life. You wouldn't necessarily call her successful in the
Speaker 3: traditional sense of the word. Yet she changed the world
Speaker 3: by you know, an action on a bus. I mean
Speaker 3: she did more than that, but that's what she's mainly
Speaker 3: remembered for, I guess, or what she's most famous for.
Speaker 3: And so success to me means whatever you want it
Speaker 3: to be. You can wake up and say, yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: I had a successful day to day. I put my
Speaker 3: clothes on so cessfully. But it's it's very personal. It's
Speaker 3: just what you want it to mean. Whereas I think legacy,
Speaker 3: by contrast, is something that's lasting and it actually takes
Speaker 3: it relies on other people. Other people have to see
Speaker 3: value in it and have to want to pass it on.
Speaker 3: And I think you mentioned it in one of your
Speaker 3: articles or episodes back in April. I think it was
Speaker 3: Andrew where you said, you know, for something to endure
Speaker 3: for so long, it has to has more than simple
Speaker 3: entertainment value. It has to speak to us on some
Speaker 3: kind of deep level. And that to me is legacy.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: It can apply across lots of different areas, you know,
Speaker 3: if you're looking at from a business perspective or a
Speaker 3: humanitarian perspective or a philosophical perspective, but it has to
Speaker 3: resonate with people, and it has to has to be
Speaker 3: something that people kind of feel at a deeper level.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think I think it's a good point,
Speaker 1: and I like you emphasizes the fact that success divorced
Speaker 1: from legacy really become self referential. You become isolated. And
Speaker 1: I mean this is exactly how C. S. Lewis portrays
Speaker 1: Hell in The Great Divorce, right. It's radical isolation where
Speaker 1: even the home in which you live is nothing more
Speaker 1: than a projection of your own thoughts. It doesn't even
Speaker 1: keep out the rain. It's just sort of this illusion
Speaker 1: of security. And that's really what self referential success only ever,
Speaker 1: is it's a kind of an illusion of meaning. It
Speaker 1: might be meaningful to you, but again you're still caught
Speaker 1: up in yourself. You have to have that broader What
Speaker 1: impact am I actually making in the world around me? Now?
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we don't see a lot of the
Speaker 1: impact that our lives have, right that the majority of
Speaker 1: our impact is going to happen after we die. That
Speaker 1: it's just as the things that we do reverberate throughout
Speaker 1: time moving forward, And so.
Speaker 2: How do we.
Speaker 1: How do we create a positive legacy? How do we
Speaker 1: work toward that recognizing that, like we don't know what
Speaker 1: the consequences of our lives are really going to be
Speaker 1: in so many levels, Like how do we keep that
Speaker 1: in mind?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a great question.
Speaker 3: And I think the way that I've chosen to explore
Speaker 3: it in my book, or the framework that I've given
Speaker 3: is this concept of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. And I
Speaker 3: think I've chosen that one because it resonated with me
Speaker 3: and I could make sense of it.
Speaker 2: But I think also if.
Speaker 3: You look at a lot of the great stories that
Speaker 3: we love, you know, whether it's the Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 3: whether it's Star Wars Harry Potter, or if you look
Speaker 3: at something like the Odyssey Gilgamesh potentially, and then I
Speaker 3: guess if you look into into scripture as well. You know,
Speaker 3: one of the more famous ones would be Jonah and
Speaker 3: the Whale. But I use that as a framework to say, well, look,
Speaker 3: there's a there's a these stories really resonate with us.
Speaker 3: There's something about these stories that really speak to us
Speaker 3: more deeply that you know, whether they're a fantasy story
Speaker 3: like Lord of the Rings or whether they're a myth,
Speaker 3: or even if it's a person's life. You know, if
Speaker 3: you can take that arc, they really resonate. And so
Speaker 3: why do they resonate? And so I kind of use that,
Speaker 3: you know, backed up by a number of articles which
Speaker 3: I cite throughout the book from modern psychology, even that
Speaker 3: they resonate with us because there's something there that we
Speaker 3: can and potentially should unpack ourselves and use to inspire us.
Speaker 3: You know, the Lord of the Rings shouldn't just be
Speaker 3: inspiring because it's a great store and it speaks to us,
Speaker 3: speaks to us on that manner. The reason it speaks
Speaker 3: to us in that manner to me is that there
Speaker 3: is action that we can take through that, and I
Speaker 3: guess the hero's journey kind of underpins that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, I'm sure a lot of people listening are
Speaker 1: at least vaguely aware of Campbell and the hero's journey,
Speaker 1: and I admit that I'm only aware through secondary sources.
Speaker 1: I haven't actually spent a lot of primary time with Campbell,
Speaker 1: And so can you just tell us what does he
Speaker 1: mean when he talks about the hero's journey? I know
Speaker 1: that's important for your book, So can you just kind
Speaker 1: of give a summary or to kind of unpack that
Speaker 1: a little bit?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, And again I'm I'm a real specialist
Speaker 3: in Campbell, have not done any thesis or anything like that.
Speaker 3: But essentially, Campbell wrote about this idea. His concept was
Speaker 3: of what he called a mono myth. So it was
Speaker 3: an idea that resonated. If you unpacked stories, religious and
Speaker 3: otherwise from around the world, a lot of the most
Speaker 3: famous stories and a lot of the key tenants within them,
Speaker 3: you could ascribe what he called the hero's journey to them.
Speaker 3: Whereby there was a start of a journey, someone would,
Speaker 3: you know, potentially feel a call to action or adventure,
Speaker 3: as he put it, they might resist that call. So
Speaker 3: again with Jonah, you know, he calls it the belly
Speaker 3: of the Whale potentially where Jonah is refusing to do
Speaker 3: what he's asked and he's kind of swept along anyway
Speaker 3: through to what he calls a road of tryals. You'll
Speaker 3: find a mentor who will help you, so you know,
Speaker 3: again in the Lord of the Rings it might be Gandalf.
Speaker 3: In Star Wars it would be Yoda, who will help
Speaker 3: you kind of develop as you go, but they can
Speaker 3: only take you so far.
Speaker 2: There will be.
Speaker 3: Huge obstacles to overcome along the path, and then you
Speaker 3: know there's a major challenge towards the end, there's a
Speaker 3: moment of transcendence and then you kind of come back
Speaker 3: down to Earth. I guess to share the value of
Speaker 3: what it is that you've that you've learned, and I
Speaker 3: think you know again you you've kind of unpacked this
Speaker 3: in certain episodes before, but you know, the task is
Speaker 3: made to be difficult because it's only difficult things that
Speaker 3: kind of inspire you to to really find out who
Speaker 3: you can be and really push yourselves. And that's kind
Speaker 3: of where the nobility lies.
Speaker 1: I suppose yeah, and so that that monomouth idea, and
Speaker 1: it's basically this idea that that is the basic framework
Speaker 1: of nearly any great story. Correct exactly, Yes, Okay, So
Speaker 1: why do you think, like on the psychological level or
Speaker 1: theological or wherever you want to go with this, Like,
Speaker 1: why do you think that is the case that you know,
Speaker 1: you can look at all these great myths, even from
Speaker 1: you know, disconnected cultures, disconnected times and places, and this
Speaker 1: seems to be the basic structure of myth of a
Speaker 1: good story. Why how do we account for that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a really interesting question.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think probably it comes down to something
Speaker 3: that you say a number of times yourself, is like
Speaker 3: that there's a there's a kind of a central truth
Speaker 3: about that. People understand that in order to really live
Speaker 3: a fulfilling life and to really grow as a per
Speaker 3: and to add value and do something heroic, not necessarily
Speaker 3: a sword wielding sense, but you know, kind of heroic
Speaker 3: has in a kind of really valuable, courageous way for
Speaker 3: society demand something demands you stepping out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 3: And I think there's a real degree of truth within
Speaker 3: that that just resonates with people a kind of spiritual
Speaker 3: emotional level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it. As far as modern relatively modern
Speaker 1: psychologists go, I definitely appreciate young who plays a part
Speaker 1: in some of these conversations, who would say that they're
Speaker 1: you know that basically the miss the Greek mythologies, even
Speaker 1: just today modern stories, that they are really the sort
Speaker 1: of like the waking dreams of the geniuses, right, the
Speaker 1: people who are able to make these great myths that
Speaker 1: just as dreams, you know, they don't don't come from nowhere,
Speaker 1: that they come from something. It's mostly our you know,
Speaker 1: unconscious kind of working its way up and trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of what we understand without understanding it, and
Speaker 1: that in large part that's kind of what these great
Speaker 1: miss are. So it's what Homer was doing. And so
Speaker 1: when he's you know, spinning out these great miss he's
Speaker 1: consciously or unconsciously sort of tapping into something real about
Speaker 1: the human experience. Which is why these great stories of
Speaker 1: the past indoor till to today and we can still
Speaker 1: look back on them and recognize that there's something genuinely
Speaker 1: true here. And this isn't something that I really understood
Speaker 1: until I mean, relatively recently. The last few years. You know,
Speaker 1: I was not in a voracious reader growing up as
Speaker 1: a child. It really wasn't until I was nearly finished
Speaker 1: my doctoral degree that I finally recognize that there's truth
Speaker 1: in fiction, like I just as so like Indy dated
Speaker 1: with this modern idea of well, fiction is just make
Speaker 1: believe in non fictions true, And that's just that's just
Speaker 1: a total misunderstanding as to what stories are, what literature is.
Speaker 1: And so that realization I just shifted the whole trajectory
Speaker 1: of my life. And and so a lot of what
Speaker 1: you're saying here I still consider to be like fresh
Speaker 1: and exciting. Now you talk about that there are some
Speaker 1: different pathways to legacy. I mean, obviously we aren't all
Speaker 1: going to achieve the same legacy in the same way,
Speaker 1: and so what are some some of these different routes
Speaker 1: to legacy or if it forms that building a positive legacy,
Speaker 1: what can that look like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of the things I talk about before
Speaker 3: we kind of jump into that is a scale of
Speaker 3: legacy as well. Right, A lot of people can't, oh,
Speaker 3: I want to change the world, But you can leave
Speaker 3: a legacy on your local community. You know, you can
Speaker 3: leave a legacy on your family obviously, but you can
Speaker 3: leave a legacy on your local community rather than having
Speaker 3: to be national or internationally in scope. And a lot
Speaker 3: of the time, you know, it's it's those small, humble
Speaker 3: deeds that don't necessarily get noticed that far more valuable
Speaker 3: than the greatest intentions that never get enacted. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, one thing I would always encourage is, you know,
Speaker 3: to think about the some of the architects of legacy
Speaker 3: that I kind of will talk about in a second,
Speaker 3: but you know, they don't have to be huge grand ideas.
Speaker 3: You can change the life of a person, you can
Speaker 3: change the life of a group. And I think sometimes
Speaker 3: people get too caught up on the grandiose and then
Speaker 3: don't take any action, which is I think that the
Speaker 3: biggest failing of all.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, and that's just I think, in many ways,
Speaker 1: the grain and I'm going to go change the world,
Speaker 1: it's really just a way to you hide from our
Speaker 1: actual immediate responsibility because we say I'm going to go
Speaker 1: change the world. Well, that's such a grand objective that
Speaker 1: there's really no specific entry point, and so we don't
Speaker 1: actually do anything other than maybe rouse up some heroic
Speaker 1: sentiments and you know, post something on Twitter, if you like,
Speaker 1: wal accomplished something. But it's a lot harder to actually
Speaker 1: just take care of your immediate responsibilities in the world
Speaker 1: around you, which is how we're meant to live. Right.
Speaker 1: We are localized creatures. We despite the illusions that we
Speaker 1: get through social media, and you know, just the constant
Speaker 1: connection we have to the world like we are local creatures.
Speaker 1: We are not omnipresent. We are not omniscient. And so
Speaker 1: the path of legacy, I agree, it starts with right
Speaker 1: where you are, clean your room, put your life together,
Speaker 1: take care of your immediate responsibilities.
Speaker 2: Well, and anything else then becomes just ego.
Speaker 3: Really, if you set out change the world, that's that's
Speaker 3: you and you want to look good as opposed to saying, well, actually,
Speaker 3: there's a need here, there's a need there, And some
Speaker 3: people will have those grand ideas. You know, I want
Speaker 3: to land on Mars, I want to create an electric car.
Speaker 2: Cool But a.
Speaker 3: Lot of the time did those didn't start out as well?
Speaker 3: Bang going to make a rocket that goes straight to Mars.
Speaker 3: There's still steps that have to be taken. And if
Speaker 3: it grows, you know, if it if it's ripples in
Speaker 3: a pond and out they spread superb but it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be that. And I think you know, to
Speaker 3: go answer your answer your your initial question Andrew that
Speaker 3: the first step.
Speaker 2: Is is courage.
Speaker 3: Frankly so, and I guess to take a step back again,
Speaker 3: I'll talk about four archetypes. I'm not saying they're the
Speaker 3: only ones, that they were the four that I managed
Speaker 3: to come up with for the book. I'm sure there are.
Speaker 3: You know, people will argue that I argue the value
Speaker 3: of some of them, but some of them will overlap.
Speaker 3: So I think from my perspective, if you have you
Speaker 3: can leave a legacy with a single a single archetype.
Speaker 3: But the more the more attributes you show or you're
Speaker 3: able to to develop, the more likely you.
Speaker 2: Are to leave a legacy.
Speaker 3: In my mind, in in some shape manneral form. The
Speaker 3: first one, as I say, is courage. And I think
Speaker 3: without without courage, you're not going to leave a legacy
Speaker 3: at all. Because the difference with legacy as as opposed
Speaker 3: to success, which is why it's harder to leave and create,
Speaker 3: I guess is that it needs to be different, and
Speaker 3: almost by definition it takes some courage to be different.
Speaker 3: And again, whether that's doing something crazy, physically brave on
Speaker 3: a battlefield, or whether it's just doing something like Rosa
Speaker 3: parks and refusing to give up a seat on a bus,
Speaker 3: all of those things take courage. And I think the
Speaker 3: what resonates with people first and foremost is often courage.
Speaker 3: It's the courage to do something that other people know
Speaker 3: is the right thing to do, but they know deep
Speaker 3: down they wouldn't do themselves. And so if you're unable
Speaker 3: to live your life with courage, you know, when you
Speaker 3: get to these difficult noble ideas or challenges that you
Speaker 3: have to go through, most people will shy away from them,
Speaker 3: as Joanah did with with the whale.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't really want to have to do that.
Speaker 2: You kind of leave it for somebody else.
Speaker 3: And so I think that anybody who is able to
Speaker 3: step above that and kind of transcend the mass, it
Speaker 3: has already taken a step in the right direction. Does
Speaker 3: that guarantee legacy? Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: But I don't think you can leave legacy without without courage. First.
Speaker 1: Now, courage is obviously not easy to come by. I mean,
Speaker 1: most people today don't want to answer their phone in
Speaker 1: a ringu, especially with a number they don't know, and
Speaker 1: so you know, in a I mean I can't speak
Speaker 1: to all cultures, but definitely in our culture, I think
Speaker 1: courage is a rare commodity. And so how do we
Speaker 1: go about cultivating courage? If you know, we're just kind
Speaker 1: of afraid of the world, right, we're all wound up
Speaker 1: in anxiety, how do we step out of that and
Speaker 1: start to cultivate real courage?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's something that I talk about.
Speaker 3: I actually spend a chapter trying to unpack it within
Speaker 3: the book in terms of you know, how might you
Speaker 3: do that?
Speaker 2: And here are some simple things that you can take.
Speaker 3: And actually I draw quite heavily on a martial arts
Speaker 3: instructor who I've been privileged to work with a little bit.
Speaker 3: I spend a lot of time doing martial arts growing up,
Speaker 3: and he talks a lot about fear management. Is a
Speaker 3: guy called Tony Blauer, and he really kind of unpacks it,
Speaker 3: like you need to start small. I mean, there's a
Speaker 3: whole concept that he talks around, but at a very
Speaker 3: simple level. You know, he talks about like just indoctrinating
Speaker 3: yourself slowly on a day to day basis. So it
Speaker 3: even gives the examples of like you know, you're a restaurant,
Speaker 3: you don't really like the meal that you've got, did
Speaker 3: you say, oh, yeah, it's lovely and keep eating. We actually, no,
Speaker 3: I'm going to send that back because it's just, you know,
Speaker 3: created a little bit of friction there that a.
Speaker 2: Lot of people like to turn away from. I'm British.
Speaker 3: The Americans are much more, much more comfortable at sending
Speaker 3: things back than the Brits are. The Brits would would
Speaker 3: eat almost something inedible before they would try and make
Speaker 3: a fuss.
Speaker 2: So it's certainly something for me to work on.
Speaker 3: But little things like that, or you know, if you
Speaker 3: see something that you don't feel is right at work,
Speaker 3: politely challenging it back rather than just accepting.
Speaker 2: It for what it is.
Speaker 3: It's some people are more naturally brave, I would imagine
Speaker 3: that than others.
Speaker 2: But it's not something that you can.
Speaker 3: All that most people can just jump into and go, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do this crazy, wild thing. You need
Speaker 3: to kind of get used to it and build up.
Speaker 3: You know, it needs to be trained in the same
Speaker 3: way that most things need to be trained, and that
Speaker 3: that to me has been very useful and realizing when
Speaker 3: you're when you're scared, and what to do about it.
Speaker 3: You know, again, you're going to find situations where, oh
Speaker 3: I wish I wish i'd done that differently. I got scared, Fine,
Speaker 3: be aware of it, move on and try again. You know,
Speaker 3: coming on this podcast to a degree is slightly nerve
Speaker 3: wracking because it's something I'm you know, I'm talking about
Speaker 3: my book for the first time with somebody who is
Speaker 3: you know, talking about it and critiquing it, and so
Speaker 3: you know, you have an egoes, so well, I want
Speaker 3: this to be good.
Speaker 2: I want this to be good. So start small and.
Speaker 3: Just push a little bit outside of your comfort zone
Speaker 3: and that's where you'll start to find the growth. And
Speaker 3: most of the time you find out that it's not
Speaker 3: as bad as you think it's going to be. Blower
Speaker 3: also talks quite a lot about the concept of fear
Speaker 3: as an acronym false expectations appearing real. You know, a
Speaker 3: lot of the time you get an idea in your
Speaker 3: head about how something is going to turn out, and
Speaker 3: usually it doesn't turn out like that. And there's a
Speaker 3: big distinction between danger, which is very real, and fear,
Speaker 3: which is largely psychological. And you know, realizing that when
Speaker 3: you push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Most of
Speaker 3: the time, it wasn't as bad as you think. Will
Speaker 3: allow you to kind of get some growth and start
Speaker 3: in the right direction in a slightly easier manner.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: basically treating your general fear as a lot of times,
Speaker 1: how horphobians get treated, right, it is through incremental exposure.
Speaker 1: And so you start to get more comfortable with yourself
Speaker 1: in new environments, and you know, it's kind of work
Speaker 1: your way out from there incrementally. And also, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that this is where myths and stories can
Speaker 1: come into view, whether you're reading nonfiction or fiction, read
Speaker 1: about heroic things that's set your gaze on courage, and
Speaker 1: then you'll see that reflected back into your own life,
Speaker 1: I mean, in my life, death and meaning class. In
Speaker 1: addition to have them reading some classical philosophy, also have
Speaker 1: them read stories like Beowulf, which you know, in that story,
Speaker 1: like you have this hero who doesn't spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time asking himself like how he feels about doing things.
Speaker 1: It's just there's a need. He jumps and he does it.
Speaker 1: And I think that looking at that kind of heroism
Speaker 1: and then just sort of almost I think if you're
Speaker 1: mentioned a good story, that's going to become to some
Speaker 1: level part of who you are, where you know, you're
Speaker 1: so used to looking at what heroism looks like, then
Speaker 1: eventually you recognize that you are becoming something like what
Speaker 1: you're seeing, what you're being involved in.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, no, I was gonna say that goes
Speaker 3: back to what you were saying earlier, where where myths
Speaker 3: are often more real than.
Speaker 2: Science.
Speaker 3: So because it creates that role model and it doesn't
Speaker 3: matter whether that person was real or not, or if
Speaker 3: you look at something from history as a legend, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter whether they did it or not. It's inspiring
Speaker 3: to you as an individual, and it's like I want
Speaker 3: to be more like that person. Yeah, so I totally
Speaker 3: agree with you. Yeah, and I think it's that to
Speaker 3: me was the magic of something like Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to be Aragon when when I
Speaker 3: when I grew up, that's someone who I want to be.
Speaker 3: And now you're kind of looking a well, actually maybe
Speaker 3: Frodo was the better person to want to be. But
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's interesting, but as you say, you
Speaker 3: take that inspiration, and that to me is where myths
Speaker 3: can be and stories in general can be so much
Speaker 3: more valuable than reality because reality, particularly if you had
Speaker 3: like the modern way of looking at it, which is
Speaker 3: often very scientific, and you can't well, it wouldn't be
Speaker 3: like bad or whatever, You're right, but it removes all
Speaker 3: of the magic, the romance, Like there's no inspiration or
Speaker 3: emotion there.
Speaker 2: It's the these stories that really spark that.
Speaker 1: And the reality is that anything we meaningfully call reality
Speaker 1: ultimately is it's a narrative. It's a stringing together of
Speaker 1: facts and data. You know, even in the scientific realm
Speaker 1: that we're stringing together these ideas. We're viewing these different
Speaker 1: ideas with meaning, with a narrative structure, and so narratives
Speaker 1: are real. This is why I like how C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis talks about the value of myth in that the
Speaker 1: what's true in a myth is eternally true, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the myths of particular things that we experience in
Speaker 1: the day to day world given over to change. And
Speaker 1: so you know, while we when we look to what
Speaker 1: is eternally true, that then gives some grounding to the
Speaker 1: particular truths that we encounter on a primary world level.
Speaker 1: And I think that, I mean, I don't know how,
Speaker 1: you know, abstract and philosophical, we need to get with this,
Speaker 1: but I think that we need more being to anchor
Speaker 1: our becoming and having that kind of rest in unending realities,
Speaker 1: like recognizing there is something like goodness. I think that
Speaker 1: that is what gives us confidence, recognizing that even the
Speaker 1: word confidence, you know, confide with faith. Right, it's this
Speaker 1: idea that we are able to rest in something that
Speaker 1: is stronger than ourselves, and in so doing we gain
Speaker 1: more strength. In other words, like we're not living for ourselves,
Speaker 1: which again brings us back into that legacy model of
Speaker 1: we're not just looking for personal success, but we're contextualizing
Speaker 1: ourselves within a bigger reality and in so doing we
Speaker 1: ourselves become bigger. And I don't have a conclusion of
Speaker 1: that monologue.
Speaker 2: But no, I completely agree with you.
Speaker 3: It's you know, if you if you only focus on yourself,
Speaker 3: you can't really grow. And if you're really looking at
Speaker 3: as you say, that foundation, it goes all the way back,
Speaker 3: like there's that there's that one single stand of truth.
Speaker 3: Everybody resonates or understands the concept of those stories, and
Speaker 3: we're in a yeah, very very different society now than
Speaker 3: we were two thousand, four thousand years ago, and yet
Speaker 3: there are stories that still persist all the way through
Speaker 3: or that we've essentially rewritten into another story with this
Speaker 3: kind of hero's journey concept that just speak to people.
Speaker 3: And they would have spoken to people four thousand years ago,
Speaker 3: two thousand years ago, just as they would would do today.
Speaker 2: And as you say, it's.
Speaker 3: That that single truth, and there's that understanding that there's
Speaker 3: a single truth, there's a single goodness that kind of
Speaker 3: runs through this that that people just inherently understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's evident to anybody who's
Speaker 1: been engaged with minds of the past that human nature
Speaker 1: fundamentally is not changed, right, culture changes, technology changes, but
Speaker 1: that people are people anywhere, anytime. And that's why, as
Speaker 1: you said, in these stories from thousands of years ago
Speaker 1: still resonate today. And even when people haven't read some
Speaker 1: of these ancient myths, they've encountered them without recognizing it
Speaker 1: in the various ways they've been appropriated throughout our culture.
Speaker 1: They have enduring value because well, again I think they
Speaker 1: speak to eternal realities. Now obviously not all legacies are good. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit here about the dark side
Speaker 1: of legacy. I mean, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: And how do how do we end up in that place?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's it's a good one. I wanted
Speaker 3: to call it out because you know, as you as
Speaker 3: you go through or as I went through my writing process,
Speaker 3: you're always aware that will you want to write this
Speaker 3: is from a positive perspective, and that there are you know,
Speaker 3: I think there are archetypes the underpin why people get remembered,
Speaker 3: but there are just as many people who get remembered
Speaker 3: for for terrible things.
Speaker 2: And how do you therefore account for that?
Speaker 3: You know, Hitler, for example, would be would be a
Speaker 3: fairly obvious one, but you can you can kind of
Speaker 3: take your pick throughout history, and I think again it's
Speaker 3: the counterpoint to the good in my perspective. So you know,
Speaker 3: you remember Hitler because we know that there is We
Speaker 3: know what good is, and therefore, by definition, you know
Speaker 3: what evil is. And therefore Hitler becomes that cautionary tale
Speaker 3: of well, this is what happens if good people don't act,
Speaker 3: you end up with with evil. And so I think
Speaker 3: for you know, each of the archetypes that I look through.
Speaker 3: I mean, you, Hitler was probably brave. I mean he
Speaker 3: did something. You know, it took some kind of warped
Speaker 3: courage to go through what he did. But there's a
Speaker 3: very bad flip side to that. And I wanted to
Speaker 3: call that out because again, it's very easy, I think,
Speaker 3: to just say, well, I want to leave a legacy, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but at what price? Do you want to leave any
Speaker 3: legacy or do you want to leave a specific legacy
Speaker 3: that's positive, that resonates, Because again Hitler will always resonate,
Speaker 3: but as a cautionary tale about what not to do
Speaker 3: in the stock is possible sense. So I think, you know,
Speaker 3: there will always be that flip side. If there's good,
Speaker 3: there's evil.
Speaker 1: Now surely Hitler, I mean we all agree he was
Speaker 1: an evil man did evil things. But that being said,
Speaker 1: surely he didn't see himself as such. You know, the
Speaker 1: road to hell is paid with good intentions, So how
Speaker 1: do we how do we guard against that? And you know,
Speaker 1: how do we know that whatever it is that we
Speaker 1: see as the positive legacy we ought to lead, that's
Speaker 1: not going to be you know, condemned in you know,
Speaker 1: a couple hundred years, like, how do we actually know
Speaker 1: what we're doing is good?
Speaker 3: Well, and it's even that last question Andrew is interesting, right,
Speaker 3: because legacy changes through time. You look at Winston Churchill
Speaker 3: and you know, at the time I think it was
Speaker 3: it was probably when when we hit the year two
Speaker 3: thousands and they were doing all kinds of stuff like
Speaker 3: across the last century, and I think Winston Churchill was
Speaker 3: voted the greatest ever Britain at that point. Now you
Speaker 3: look at it and people are saying, oh, yeah, but
Speaker 3: you know, he was a misogynist, he was an alcoholic,
Speaker 3: he was quite possibly racist. So legacy is going to
Speaker 3: change over time, which does make it tricky because you
Speaker 3: can only act within your time based on the reality
Speaker 3: that you live in at that point. People will change
Speaker 3: their own reality as you go. But for someone I mean,
Speaker 3: Hitler's an extreme example, because I think you would probably
Speaker 3: end up saying that there are psychological issues at play
Speaker 3: there and things too that need to get tracked. But
Speaker 3: if you bring it back to a more slightly more
Speaker 3: manageable level, I guess I think it's making sure that
Speaker 3: you don't get divorced from reality and staying in touch
Speaker 3: and listening to what other people are saying in the
Speaker 3: widest sense, not just a little clique of people around you,
Speaker 3: but actually paying attention to that.
Speaker 2: So there's.
Speaker 3: There's an interesting example I gave in the book, might
Speaker 3: even be in the first chapter where I talk about
Speaker 3: Alfred Nobel. And Nobel is obviously known really today for
Speaker 3: his work with the various Nobel prizes that he does
Speaker 3: not least the Peace Prize, but he became incredibly successful
Speaker 3: and incredibly rich during his lifestyle designing weapons. Essentially, he
Speaker 3: was doing various forms of developing various forms of dynamite
Speaker 3: and explosives, and in his mind he was building a
Speaker 3: positive legacy because the weapons that he was creating were
Speaker 3: so terrible that nobody in their right mind would ever
Speaker 3: want to use them. It was his argument, and that
Speaker 3: was how he kind of, you know, tricked himself, I guess,
Speaker 3: talking about the road to good intentions.
Speaker 2: But it was only when.
Speaker 3: He read an article in a newspaper where his brother
Speaker 3: had died. And his brother was pretty well known at
Speaker 3: the time as well and very successful in his own right.
Speaker 3: But the journalist who wrote the article obviously confused the
Speaker 3: two of them and led with the art with the
Speaker 3: headline that the merchant of death is dead, and it
Speaker 3: was so essentially Alfred Noble ended up reading his own
Speaker 3: obituary while he was still alive and suddenly realizing, well,
Speaker 3: is this actually how people view me? And then basically
Speaker 3: he spent the whole of his life being successful, or
Speaker 3: he spent the vast majority of his life being successful.
Speaker 3: Then he had this epiphany when he read the article
Speaker 3: and spent the rest of his life trying to undo
Speaker 3: the success that he'd built and.
Speaker 2: Completely changed his legacy, which I guess to rade or
Speaker 2: lester extent he managed to do so. Again, I think it's.
Speaker 3: Keeping your head up and not just not just focusing
Speaker 3: on yourself throughout this. There's always a danger, right when
Speaker 3: you're trying to do good for other people and you're
Speaker 3: trying to the ego takes over and that it becomes
Speaker 3: about well, are you actually doing this for other people
Speaker 3: or are you doing this for actually for yourself? You
Speaker 3: just kind of want to look good and it sounds cool,
Speaker 3: and so being able to take those steps where you
Speaker 3: can stay plugged into society in such a way that
Speaker 3: you can accept criticism and say, okay, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to listen to all criticism because you
Speaker 3: just you don't want to be a pleaser. But finding
Speaker 3: that balance where you know, if you're finding enough feedback
Speaker 3: that you have to be able to process that and
Speaker 3: consider that you may not be right and that you
Speaker 3: may need to change change direction. And I think something
Speaker 3: that I try and unpack at a certain stage later
Speaker 3: on in the hero's journey, where you know you've you've
Speaker 3: done all the difficult stuff, as it were, You've fought
Speaker 3: the bad guys, you've been triumphant, you've succeeded against the odds,
Speaker 3: and then you.
Speaker 2: You've made it to the other side.
Speaker 3: But there's a huge temptation at that point, Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I've done it, and I'm gonna I'm going to cash
Speaker 3: in on that, and I'm gonna I'm going to take
Speaker 3: the fame, I'm going to take the glory, I'm going
Speaker 3: to take the girl, rather than continue that journey and
Speaker 3: make sure that it's you know, now imparting what I've
Speaker 3: learned to other people and actually finishing the journey, as
Speaker 3: opposed to just getting distracted by the beautiful trappings that
Speaker 3: that go with earning the treasure. You know, if you
Speaker 3: you can find the treasure, but you've got to take
Speaker 3: it back to other people to share. Otherwise, you you know,
Speaker 3: you've you might leave a legacy, but you've stopped. You've
Speaker 3: not really your legacy is open to to interp rotation. There,
Speaker 3: and you see that, I think you know quite a lot.
Speaker 3: You'll see people like Henry Ford is one as an
Speaker 3: automotive person invests an incredible legacy, but you could there
Speaker 3: are certainly large parts of his legacy that you might
Speaker 3: look at and say, well, they were quite quite dark.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't have to look very far to
Speaker 3: find out some of the things that he some of
Speaker 3: his opinions on race, for example. And so it's it's
Speaker 3: about maintaining yourself as a as a rounded human being
Speaker 3: rather than just focusing on well, this was the one
Speaker 3: strand that I wanted to to unpick and that's all
Speaker 3: I'm focusing on because I think you can become self
Speaker 3: obsessed at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to speak to part of that hero journey
Speaker 1: you're just laying out about bringing the victory back home.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've talked about Lord of the Rings a
Speaker 1: good bit. I mean, and this is why we've got
Speaker 1: the Scouring of the Shire. Is the end of the book,
Speaker 1: it's we need to bring that the battle back home.
Speaker 1: We need to you know, cleanse the evil in outside
Speaker 1: our own front door into you know, it's not just
Speaker 1: when you go destroy the ring, but we need to
Speaker 1: undo the effects of the less of power back home.
Speaker 1: It's not until you go back home. It is the
Speaker 1: journey over, and even then it's not really over because
Speaker 1: that point you have to very least maintain that victiority
Speaker 1: or more likely go out and start winning the next
Speaker 1: whatever you have to do now as part of this,
Speaker 1: you know, not getting lost in your own intentions. You
Speaker 1: talk about the importance of having a mentor. Practically speaking,
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you go about finding a mentor
Speaker 1: and what should that relationship even look like?
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 3: It's It's an interesting one because I think people have
Speaker 3: a certain idea about what a mentor should should be,
Speaker 3: and I try and simplify it in the book as
Speaker 3: far as I can, by talking about almost anything or
Speaker 3: anyone can be a mentor. You can go to your
Speaker 3: library and pick up an inspirational book. You know, you
Speaker 3: can read Lord of the Rings and to a degree
Speaker 3: and go, well, if I want to be more like Aragorn,
Speaker 3: how do I go about doing that. That's only going
Speaker 3: to take you so far. And so I think you
Speaker 3: do need people in your lives, but again, there are
Speaker 3: lots of different ways to do it. You can listened
Speaker 3: to podcasts, you don't have to spend a huge amount
Speaker 3: of money on actual formal formal structure. I'd check in
Speaker 3: once a week and they give me work to do.
Speaker 3: You know, I've been lucky enough to have mentors in
Speaker 3: my life, whether it was my parents and my family,
Speaker 3: obviously my wife, so you can certainly use them for advice.
Speaker 3: And again, if you look at people like Rosa Parks,
Speaker 3: I think she would say that she leant very heavily
Speaker 3: on her husband for support and advice. Not that she
Speaker 3: was beholden to him, but it was, you know, having
Speaker 3: someone you can use as a sounding board. It could
Speaker 3: be a good friend, It could be an acquaintance who
Speaker 3: you trust. It could be someone at work. Yes, it
Speaker 3: could be paid a paid ment, but it could just
Speaker 3: as easy to be a martial arts coach or a
Speaker 3: sports coach.
Speaker 2: Or whoever.
Speaker 3: I don't think you have to overcomplicate it that those
Speaker 3: people are out there if you want to pay for them,
Speaker 3: but you know, starting out, they tend to. I don't
Speaker 3: think you have to just sit there and wait for yoda.
Speaker 3: That's not realistically going to happen, you know. I think
Speaker 3: this concept of you know, the when when the student
Speaker 3: is ready, the mentor will appear take some action from you.
Speaker 2: But you if you go out.
Speaker 3: Looking for a mentor, you can you will find a mentor,
Speaker 3: and you just have to be open to what that
Speaker 3: person may look like at the same time, you know,
Speaker 3: I think in reality there's no harm in having multiple mentors.
Speaker 3: You know, you might have a mentor to to help
Speaker 3: you with fear management, for example, and you might have
Speaker 3: a mentor to help you with public speaking and not.
Speaker 2: The the fear side of public.
Speaker 3: Speaking, but becoming more polished. So that there are different
Speaker 3: ways to look at it. But I think if you're
Speaker 3: open minded, and if you know at the start what
Speaker 3: you feel called to do, and you feel that you
Speaker 3: can you want to set out on that adventure, you
Speaker 3: will find the right person for you. And it's why
Speaker 3: I think you get the call to adventure, then you
Speaker 3: get the refusal of the call, and then the mentor
Speaker 3: comes after that because you realize that actually you can't
Speaker 3: do it on your own, and you become a bit
Speaker 3: more open minded to well, okay, who might be the
Speaker 3: people around me in my life who I could seek
Speaker 3: out and have helped me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's seems like a relagis comes down to humility,
Speaker 1: which you will necessarily have if you're pursuing something beyond yourself,
Speaker 1: because well, that requires a humble disposition. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you're recognizing that, you know you are serving something
Speaker 1: beyond yourself, something bigger than yourself, then well you're going
Speaker 1: to want to seek out the best way of doing that.
Speaker 1: And naturally that leads to looking for wisdom from those
Speaker 1: who know more than you, at least on some aspect
Speaker 1: of the journey. And so I think this is another area,
Speaker 1: probably like a lot of these things we're discussing, where
Speaker 1: people tend to overcomplicate the process, where they think to
Speaker 1: have a mentor is to like have that Yoda figure,
Speaker 1: like some kind of devoted like I need some sage
Speaker 1: to tell me what to do. It's really just you
Speaker 1: asking the question, how do I find out what I
Speaker 1: need to know in order to do this thing?
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly that, And I think, as you say, people
Speaker 3: people are waiting for someone to open the door and
Speaker 3: go come with me We're going on a starship or
Speaker 3: I'm taking you on a crazy adventure hits a sword.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really work like that.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a motif, it's not you know, that's
Speaker 3: where the you have to bring them myth into reality.
Speaker 2: I guess now.
Speaker 1: You know, as you start to move on this path,
Speaker 1: you gain more confidence. You talk about the temptation to
Speaker 1: become overly confident in what you're doing in your hero's journey.
Speaker 1: I mean, how how do you guard against that? Because
Speaker 1: it's easy to do when things seem to be going well.
Speaker 1: It seems like your actions are bearing the kind of
Speaker 1: fruit you're looking for. Lady Fortune spinning her wheel in
Speaker 1: your direction. You know, it feels like you are really
Speaker 1: doing it. How do you maintain humility and shirk away
Speaker 1: from that temptation?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I would say if look, obviously you expect to
Speaker 3: make some progress, right, but.
Speaker 2: If if it's too.
Speaker 3: Easy and you never encounter any hardship, you're not doing.
Speaker 2: It the right way.
Speaker 3: You know, you read any of these stories, you know,
Speaker 3: BeO Wolf as you say, or Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 3: whatever it might be, the hero never just turns up
Speaker 3: and wins.
Speaker 2: Just oh, here we go.
Speaker 3: So if you're going in that direction, you're you're heading
Speaker 3: in the wrong direction. As far as I'm concerning, you
Speaker 3: might need to reconsider who your mentor is because you
Speaker 3: need to find a mentor who's prepared to speak truth
Speaker 3: to you, not just tell you what you want to hear.
Speaker 3: There needs to be development with within that. And therefore,
Speaker 3: if you're if you're not struggling, you're either heading in
Speaker 3: the wrong direction or you're not really trying very hard.
Speaker 3: You're just kind of kidding yourself. And that's why, you know,
Speaker 3: if you look around, you know.
Speaker 2: It's it's very easy.
Speaker 3: If I take my own examples, you can write a book.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh, I felt called to write a book.
Speaker 3: I'm going to write a book about legacy. I've written
Speaker 3: a book about legacy. Well that was easy than I expected.
Speaker 3: I mean, it took me a long time and I
Speaker 3: had to think about it, but you know, I finished
Speaker 3: the book. It wasn't crazy challenging. But you haven't shown
Speaker 3: it to anybody, like you know, you're you're using your
Speaker 3: you're hiding behind your fears to feel that you've achieved
Speaker 3: something which you've just taken one step of a considerably
Speaker 3: longer journey, and so I think either either you're heading
Speaker 3: in the wrong direction or you're you're not really you're
Speaker 3: you're hiding behind something and you're you're kidding yourself that
Speaker 3: you're growing. And you might, you know, probably grew a
Speaker 3: little bit writing a book, but it's when you start
Speaker 3: putting it out there and asking for criticism and even
Speaker 3: asking for attention, and people go, I'm not really very interested.
Speaker 3: That that's where the challenge really starts to kick in.
Speaker 3: And that's why you know you'll see you often see
Speaker 3: one of the motifs with the hero's journey is the
Speaker 3: betrayal of a friend or something like that, because it's
Speaker 3: often the people closest to you, who you think are
Speaker 3: going to be really appreciative and really going to give
Speaker 3: you that lift, who say I don't find that very interesting,
Speaker 3: or I don't find that very inspiring, or I'm just not interested.
Speaker 2: And you see it time and time again. In business.
Speaker 3: You'll see people, generally speaking, your set up a business
Speaker 3: and you think all your friends have been really supportive,
Speaker 3: and you say, cool, let's come and buy something off me,
Speaker 3: and nobody really does. And it will be people who
Speaker 3: you weren't expecting to get support from who will suddenly
Speaker 3: come out of the woodwork. And so I think that
Speaker 3: that would be my advice there is, look, you've just
Speaker 3: are you really growing? Or again of you hidden behind
Speaker 3: your fears? Are you heeading in the wrong direction?
Speaker 1: So the other side of that question, how do you
Speaker 1: guard against the temptation to despair when it seems like
Speaker 1: things just aren't working out well?
Speaker 3: And that's why I kind of draw on the concept
Speaker 3: of the hero's journey, because the idea there is that
Speaker 3: if you can take a step back at those points
Speaker 3: and reframe your life or this phase as rather than
Speaker 3: all I'm just I'm just losing, I should just give
Speaker 3: up and despair, you know, drawing on this story and
Speaker 3: go we actually, no, this is this is like X
Speaker 3: in Lord of the Rings for example, this is what
Speaker 3: was happening, and just that No, this is this is
Speaker 3: part of the process, Like you have to accept that
Speaker 3: when things get really difficult, that's meant to happen. It's
Speaker 3: part of the growth cycle. It's part of that. You know, anybody,
Speaker 3: anybody can be brave when there's nothing to be brave about.
Speaker 3: Anybody can live nobly when you're not challenged to do
Speaker 3: anything different, you know you can. It's only when you
Speaker 3: find things are difficult that you really find out do
Speaker 3: you really believe in this? Is this actually the journey
Speaker 3: I want to go on or not? And I think
Speaker 3: if you can reframe it, it's like, well, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: supposed to be difficult. That that's kind of part and
Speaker 3: parcel of growth and the journey that I'm supposed to
Speaker 3: go on. And if you're not, if it's not difficult,
Speaker 3: then it's not really very heroic. And if you can
Speaker 3: reframe it in that person and say, yeah, this is
Speaker 3: where I'm supposed to be, this is what's supposed to happen.
Speaker 3: At least you're pre prepared for that, and you can
Speaker 3: kind of accept that you're on the right path because
Speaker 3: it got difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I often go back to Boetheis's the Consolation of philosophy,
Speaker 1: in which you said, is that for the good man,
Speaker 1: for somebody who is centered in goodness, all fortune is
Speaker 1: good fortune? Because if you know fortune seems to spinning
Speaker 1: in your direction, everything's going well on a circumstantial level,
Speaker 1: then you can hold that with an open hand, recognizing
Speaker 1: that no particular state of events around you is stable.
Speaker 1: Because we live in a moving world, things change. So
Speaker 1: many things are simply outside of our control. You know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how well you take care of your body,
Speaker 1: you exercise, you eat well, you can still get hit
Speaker 1: by a car exactly. So you know, when things are
Speaker 1: going well, we hold out with an open hand and
Speaker 1: we can use those resources to do good things. But
Speaker 1: when things aren't doing aren't going well for us on
Speaker 1: a fortune level, well that's still good fortune because now
Speaker 1: we can still just double down on the things that
Speaker 1: don't change. We can become more grounded in what is good,
Speaker 1: become more grounded to what is enduring, and then so
Speaker 1: doing gain more strength for the hero's journey in whatever
Speaker 1: form that looks like. And I think that what are heroism,
Speaker 1: what our legacy is? I mean, our vision of that
Speaker 1: very well could change over time, and if it doesn't,
Speaker 1: and then we're probably not being authentic because you know,
Speaker 1: as you said, our vision for how things are going
Speaker 1: to play out, very often is not how things play out.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's because well we need to just keep
Speaker 1: going and learn how to overcome the obstacle. Or maybe
Speaker 1: our vision wasn't right to begin with, and maybe we
Speaker 1: need to amend that as well, yeah, and so a
Speaker 1: great quote.
Speaker 3: I think it might be Douglas Adams where he says
Speaker 3: I didn't arrive at where I intended to, but I
Speaker 3: think I arrived at where I was meant to, or
Speaker 3: something like that. And as you say, a lot of
Speaker 3: it is just setting out. You don't know where it's
Speaker 3: going to lead. But if you feel that, no, I
Speaker 3: want to. I want to make a positive impact on
Speaker 3: other people. See where that takes you. It doesn't really
Speaker 3: matter where you end up. By the end of that journey.
Speaker 3: You may or may not leave a legacy. And I
Speaker 3: kind of jumping the gun a little bit here, but
Speaker 3: that's ultimately my conclusion is you set out with the
Speaker 3: concept of making a great difference and living for other people.
Speaker 2: Doesn't really matter where it takes you. You'll find challenges
Speaker 2: all the way. Along the way. People are going to
Speaker 2: try and tear you down. People are going to tell
Speaker 2: you that you're living for yourself.
Speaker 3: All of the things, some of them are going to
Speaker 3: help shape you, some of them are can help redirect you,
Speaker 3: some of them are going to help you grow. At
Speaker 3: the end of it, whether you leave a legacy or not,
Speaker 3: and whether you're remembered in a hundred years is kind
Speaker 3: of by the bye you've if you've lived positively for
Speaker 3: other people, it would be more fulfilling both for you
Speaker 3: and for society. And it was a worthy worthy trip
Speaker 3: to start out on. Whatever happens at the.
Speaker 1: End of it, yeah, fair enough, And I think that
Speaker 1: if we're looking to just be remembered, I mean, we
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen in the future. We're
Speaker 1: not guarantee any of that. But what we are guaranteed
Speaker 1: is that we have present responsibil and the better we
Speaker 1: execute them, the more impact that we're going to have.
Speaker 1: That's going to reverborate, you know, into how many years
Speaker 1: are left and ultimately into eternity. Like, our actions have
Speaker 1: so many consequences that we simply can't perceive. But when
Speaker 1: we perceive what we can set our vision appropriately, then
Speaker 1: the journey kind of lays itself out to the extent
Speaker 1: that we're responsible for taking it. I mean even in
Speaker 1: you know in Lord of the Rings, right that Frodo
Speaker 1: was never providentially his task actually to destroy the ring.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to take it as far as he
Speaker 1: could take it. Then that was it. Well, is there
Speaker 1: anything else that we have not discussed that. You feel
Speaker 1: like we should discuss.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. No, I mean we could.
Speaker 3: I mean I could talk about this probably for hours,
Speaker 3: as you'd probably guess, But no, I think this has been.
Speaker 2: Very good kind of overview. And as I say, I
Speaker 2: think that the key point to remember is.
Speaker 3: Really if you have the courage to start, and you
Speaker 3: have the courage to live in a different way to
Speaker 3: the way most people will live because they don't live
Speaker 3: with that courage, and you let yourself see where it goes. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: legacy is a great reason to set out. But at
Speaker 3: the end of the day is yeah, when you come
Speaker 3: to breathe your last breath, does legacy really matter? I mean,
Speaker 3: it might matter to other people, but it was the
Speaker 3: it was the reason you left. But beyond that, it
Speaker 3: doesn't really matter. That there's a great quote. In fact,
Speaker 3: I've got the poem the end of the poem because
Speaker 3: I was looking at it earlier, which I think sums
Speaker 3: it up beautifully. I don't know if you've come across
Speaker 3: the poem Ithaca, but it talks about Odysseus essentially. But
Speaker 3: the end of the end of the poem says, arriving
Speaker 3: there is what you're destined for, But don't hurry the
Speaker 3: journey at all.
Speaker 2: Better if it lasts for years, so.
Speaker 3: You're old by the time you reach the island, wealthy
Speaker 3: with all you've gained along the way, not expecting Ithaca
Speaker 3: to make you rich. Ihaca gave you the marvelous Without her,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to
Speaker 3: give you now, and if you find her poor, Ethaca
Speaker 3: won't have fooled you. Why is as you have become
Speaker 3: so full of experience, you'd have understood then what these
Speaker 3: ethachas mean. And that, to me is what you're trying
Speaker 3: to achieve in legacy in life, and that's that's the
Speaker 3: way to lead a good life as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: Well said, and it's a great way to wrap it up.
Speaker 1: I feel like this was a good general conversation about
Speaker 1: legacy and the various things that you've been writing about.
Speaker 1: And maybe at some point in the future we can
Speaker 1: dig into maybe some particular example you talk about and
Speaker 1: kind of dissect that in a more particular form, But
Speaker 1: for now, good conversation. I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2: No likewise, thank you so much for having me, and
Speaker 2: best of luck. With the rest of the show. Thank you,
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I hope that you enjoyed that, and be sure to
Speaker 1: keep up with Chris at his website, a legacylived dot
Speaker 1: com and you can find that link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: And if you've recently written or otherwise made something that
Speaker 1: you would like to discuss on the show, maybe even
Speaker 1: have a podcast of your own, well let me know.
Speaker 1: The odds are that if you are someone who listens
Speaker 1: to the show, it would be a good fit here
Speaker 1: most likely, and so if you want to set something up,
Speaker 1: then send me an email at mythicmindpodcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And now, as a reminder, I've made all content from
Speaker 1: the fiction and philosophy of CS Lewis course available for
Speaker 1: Tier two patrons in higher and that's ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: and once we hit the goal of another ten patrons
Speaker 1: at that level, I'll start releasing content from the Beywolf
Speaker 1: and Bowethia's course at that level as well, and until
Speaker 1: the end of November. I've also maxed out the discount
Speaker 1: for annual subscriptions at sixteen percent, and I just found
Speaker 1: out that you can also gift patronages now, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool, and so if you know someone who would
Speaker 1: appreciate the Lewis material as well as the rest of
Speaker 1: what I have to offer, then I would really appreciate
Speaker 1: your consideration on this front. That you can not only
Speaker 1: buy a yearly subscription for yourself at say sixteen percent
Speaker 1: off right now, but you could also buy one for
Speaker 1: somebody else, and so just keep that in mind. Although
Speaker 1: by the time this release is in the public feed,
Speaker 1: you don't have long before November is over, but of
Speaker 1: course even after November you can still do so with
Speaker 1: just a slightly less slightly lower annual discount. Now, I
Speaker 1: would like to thank all of my Tier two patrons
Speaker 1: and higher by name, and so many thanks to Mark Cliff,
Speaker 1: Aaron with and E, Paul William, Aaron s Andrew g Andrew,
Speaker 1: m Are, Turro, Brandon, Christopher, Emmy, Ian, Jeremiah, Joshlyn, Josh t, Joshua,
Speaker 1: b Landon, Matthew, Sarah and Steele, and of course thank
Speaker 1: you to all of my Tier one patrons as well.
Speaker 1: I really would like to keep up this pace of
Speaker 1: making shows on a weekly basis as well as I
Speaker 1: would like the ability to launch off in some other
Speaker 1: areas as well, but I can only do that with
Speaker 1: your support, and so if you are not already a patron,
Speaker 1: well it was time to come aboard. And if you are,
Speaker 1: I thank you for what you do already, and I
Speaker 1: asked that you might consider going up a tier, because
Speaker 1: you obviously see some value in what we're doing here,
Speaker 1: and so surely you would like to see even more
Speaker 1: value come through, and your subscriptions help me to do that.
Speaker 1: But again, I genuinely do appreciate where you are right now. Now,
Speaker 1: before we go, I have a couple of book recommendations
Speaker 1: for you. I've been reading pretty extensively in preparation for
Speaker 1: the upcoming Lord of the Rings course, and I would
Speaker 1: like to plug The Philosophy of Tolkien by Peter Craft
Speaker 1: and The Flame Imperishable by Jonathan Macintosh. Now, the philosophy
Speaker 1: of Tolkien is great. If you've not studied philosophy extensively,
Speaker 1: it's pretty an intro level when it comes to philosophy,
Speaker 1: or if you just want to get jazzed up again
Speaker 1: about how awesome Tolkien is, how good he is. Not
Speaker 1: just that he's good at writing, although he is that,
Speaker 1: but his writing itself is actually good, and Craft does
Speaker 1: a great job of demonstrating that and so regardless of
Speaker 1: your level of philosophical study, this is just a great book. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to take a deeper dive into Tolkien's
Speaker 1: philosophy and particularly regarding his metaphysics, then you should check
Speaker 1: out The Flame Imperishable, which Jonathan demonstrates the metaphysics of
Speaker 1: Tolkien's universe, particularly drawing on his creation account in the
Speaker 1: Delay to connect Tolkien's thought with that of Thomas Aquinas.
Speaker 1: This is definitely a more dense text than the Grave Text,
Speaker 1: but that's going to be a good thing for many
Speaker 1: of you, and so none of you would really go
Speaker 1: wrong with either option here. You could buy one or
Speaker 1: the other, or ideally both that they're both definitely worth
Speaker 1: your time. All right. Well, that's it for now, and
Speaker 1: so until next time, godspeed. The Mythic Mind Fellowship presents
Speaker 1: a new study led by doctor Andrew Snyder, The Wisdom
Speaker 1: of Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings. This will
Speaker 1: be the first study in the Wisdom of Middle Earth series,
Speaker 1: which seeks to bring an array of companions together with
Speaker 1: the common desire of growing in wisdom while enjoying the
Speaker 1: heartening tales of the Great tale Weaver. J. R. R. Tolkien.
Speaker 1: The Lord of the Rings is a profound tale that
Speaker 1: has literally changed lives, as it has for mine. And
Speaker 1: what is it that makes this story so powerful and
Speaker 1: so compelling. It is because Tolkien's stories are fundamentally true,
Speaker 1: and those who engage with it know exactly what I mean.
Speaker 1: They speak to the way that things are. As Peter
Speaker 1: Crest said in the Philosophy of Tolkien, the Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings is infused with the same light that illumined
Speaker 1: the man who wrote it. And that light is true,
Speaker 1: for it reveals the reality of the world and life.
Speaker 1: So join us on this adventure. Let us grow in
Speaker 1: wisdom together through immersion in the tale, not through cheap allegorizing,
Speaker 1: but by getting a better understanding of the ideas and
Speaker 1: the movements of the heart that bring a tale such
Speaker 1: as this to life. This twelve week study will begin
Speaker 1: with Tolkien's creation account, the Iwindulay, and then move to
Speaker 1: the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring. Each week
Speaker 1: will include assigned reading from The Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: a short side lesson at the beginning of the week
Speaker 1: that addresses a relevant theme, background story, or secondary text,
Speaker 1: and then once you've had some time to do the reading,
Speaker 1: there will be a longer video that serves as a
Speaker 1: guide in these forests of wisdom. Also, we will have
Speaker 1: additional recommended readings, an active discord channel, and weekly live
Speaker 1: meetings which will be recorded in case you cannot attend.
Speaker 1: Whether you are reading The Lord of the Rings for
Speaker 1: the first time or the eleveny first time, I invite
Speaker 1: you to join our company. Prices are currently as low
Speaker 1: as they ever have been, and they are as low
Speaker 1: as they ever will be, So go ahead and join
Speaker 1: today at Andrew Schnyder dot padia dot com, and I
Speaker 1: hope to see you on this road that goes ever
Speaker 1: on