September 21, 2025 • 15 mins
Is there a point to trying to improve?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Gette. Thanks for downloading the show.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is better than yesterday. Useful tools and useful conversations
to help make your day to day better than yesterday.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Every single week.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is twenty thirteen. My Name'soshi Ginsburg. I'm very grateful
that you're here. I want to take you to a
cold winter's night in twenty thirteen. I'm driving through Surrey
Hills in a delightfully fancy Lexus Higher car that the
production company has rented out for me. While I am
in Sydney for just a couple of weeks to shoot
(00:31):
season one of the Bachelor of Australia. I'm a long
way from home, where I live in Los Angeles. I'm
recently divorced, recently sober. My evenings are usually spent alone
watching TV, trying in vain to stay up late enough
to watch the stages of the Tour de France, or
(00:51):
at work far away and a big mansion counting flowers.
But tonight is different. Rather than eating my dinner in
front of the TV once again, I am serving as
driver to my dear friend and stand up comic Luke Heggy.
He's been on this podcast the number of times by now,
(01:12):
but he and I have known each other since we're
eight years old. And on this night, Luke is testing
out new material for his next festival show. And what
that involves is I will drive him from club to
club and I will stand there and watch him perform
the same five or ten minutes, refining the jokes and
(01:34):
the timing of exactly the same material, depending on the
audience reactions that he gets across the night. Sometimes he
gets up there and he gets huge laughs. Sometimes he
gets up there, he takes it into the face, he
adjusts the joke a little bit for the next crowd.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It's fascinating. Now.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
At one of these places, while waiting for Heggy to
go on stage, at a club called the Cafe Lounge,
which I never understood. Is it a cafe, Is it
a lounge? Sit in a chair like Christine Keeler, or
do I lie sideways on a couch and scratch myself?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I don't understand. But it's comedy club.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And while I'm waiting for he get to go on,
I bump into another great Australian stand up Scott do We,
and I'm chatting with Doels about radio for a little while.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
He was still doing radio here in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
He's in New York now, And when I felt enough confidence,
I said, oh, Heydles, how do you feel about coming
on my podcast next week?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, I'd love that. Tuesday is good for me, brilliant.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I'm living over in Francis Street in BONDI text me
when you're on the way, and I'll come down and
get you because the buzz is a bit busted.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Beauty.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Now, what Scott did not know is that I did
not have a podcast, nor did I own a microphone
or a sound card or any software or know absolutely
anything about how to edit or record or publish a podcast.
But now the clock was ticking because he's going to
be at my house in four days. So the following
(02:59):
morning I went out, I bought a couple of microphones,
I bought a sound card, spent the weekend learning the software,
figuring out the publishing pipeline I needed to do to
put a podcast on the Internet. By the time Scott
arrived had my house on Tuesday morning, when he texted
me and I went down to get him, walked him upstairs,
I hit record, and off we went. Scott Dooley was
the first of what is now well over eleven hundred
(03:22):
episodes of this podcast, a podcast I started because I
wanted to hear the kind of conversations that I needed
to hear when I wasn't doing so well, conversations of hope,
of inspiration, of people who were once where I was
and now they were somewhere I wanted to be. But
it's one thing to start a podcast, but what the
hell are you going to call it? Yeah, I personally
(03:42):
I like things to do what they say in the box.
For example, my motorbike is a all electric Harley Davidson
Live Wire, which is the perfect name for it because
that is exactly what it feels like when you twist
the throttle and unleash one hundred and sixty meters of
talk at zero rpm. I had to dial it back
because I was getting sea sick.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Music is no different.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Black Sabbath sounded like Black Sabbath. Conan there's like a
Liverpool doom metal band that tuned all the way down
to A.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I think.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
They sound like Conan. Daft Punk sounded like daft punk.
There was a name based on a review of the
first band those boys had because he was describing the
kind of music that they were playing.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Called it daft punk. That's a good band name.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So when I published my first episode of this podcast
in twenty thirteen, I called it exactly what it was,
the Osher Ginsburg Podcast.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Hello and welcome to the Osha Ginsburg Podcast. A weekly
conversation with someone that I find interesting and attaining and
inspiring and I hope that you do too.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And that name of that show did the job for many, many,
many years. But over time, the confiscations which were happening
on the show and the kind of things I was
talking about, they started to take a certain shape, shape
which reflected way that I live my life, and being
someone who's not afraid of an aggressive rebrand, I changed
the podcast title to Better Than Yesterday with Loshikinsburg. It
(05:11):
was a risk because I know more than anyone endless
self development can be exhausting, Like fuck, when am I
ever done? How much more rigorous introspection must I carry out?
When do I finally get to where it's just okay?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
For fuck's sake?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
These are all very valid critiques of any kind of
self work. If we're supposed to be fine just the
way we are, why do I need to put in
so much effort it's a valid question, and I've certainly
gone through periods where I feel like this, Can I
just be done?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
What do I have to.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Keep exploring the way I am in my relationship? Why
is my morning routine taking me all away to mid afternoon?
For me, these feelings are usually pretty much always hiding something.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
A little below the surface.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
They're camouflaging a resistance to changing an habitual way of
being which, even though might not serve me, is predictable.
It's familiar and very protective of itself. When I feel
that kind of exhaustion, now I know, Ah, that's my clue.
(06:22):
I mean, I have a deeper look here and see
if there's anything else going on. What's there's so much
resistance going on here? For let me check this out.
I get to ask myself what do I get out
of resisting this change?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Here?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
More often than not, what I get out of resisting
that change is an excuse to behave in a way
that isn't exactly in accordance with my values the kind
of person I want to be. Now, once I uncover that,
it's a little difficult to keep going back and behaving
in the same way. If you've never considered a life
dedicated to not just improvement, but a life of constant improvement. Understandably,
(07:01):
it sounds like an overwhelming thing to commit to, because
on paper, you're never going to get where you're going.
But here's where I say something that sounds like a
quote on a throw pillow in a holiday home. Not
the live love one pillow, the one next to it,
the one that says life is about the journey and
not the destination. There's a physiological reason that that is true.
(07:22):
Once we get started on choosing to improve an aspect
of our lives, our brains and our bodies are wired
to reward and reinforce that improvement in return, offering as
a healthier, happier, longer, and more vital life if we
dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of mastery. So it makes
sense then that the pursuit of mastery is often rooted
in cultural practices all over the world. One of my
(07:45):
favorite examples, a very famous example, comes from Japan. Shokunin
is the name given to the artisan or craftsman in
Japan who dedicates their life to creating one thing, and
one thing only. There's a very famous film made about
one of these people Duro Hono is the chef at
the center of the film Duro Dreams of Sushi. It's
a perfect example of what it means to be a shokunin.
(08:07):
It's not only the pursuit of mastery in your craft,
like I'm just going to get better and better and
better it is. But why they do it is because
there is an obligation to be as good as you
possibly can be at this thing in the service of
your community. So there's great pride in that I am
making everyone in my community better by doing this work.
(08:28):
And I've always been fascinated with how certain cultural practices
ritualize things that unlock positive responses in our physiology. Devotional
practices like prayer and meditation, singing and dancing in time
and rhythm with other people that can bring on states
of connectedness to something bigger, feelings of elation, even moments
of rapture. If religion is your thing, I'm grateful that
(08:51):
exists for you, for.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
People like me.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I'm also grateful that these ritualized practices can be replicated
in a secular way and bringing on an equally powerful
effect without any of the scary stories about the vengeful
sky Dad with a beard who's also his own sign,
but will burn you in a bit of fire if
you so much.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Just think about having a wake.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
The humble quest for improvement of ourselves unlocks a cascade
of wonderful transmitters. Inside is floods those little kinds of
wonderful feelings. Dedicating ourselves to excellence makes us feel really
good inside. And if we remember that our pursuit of
this excellence is in service of a wider community, there's
(09:34):
an immense sense of purpose which doubles down on this feeling.
I've spent the last fifteen and a half years in
my life dedicating myself to be the best like can
be in my work, and that has led me to
some of the most satisfying and wonderful moments.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I've ever had in my career.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
And as you've just heard, some cultures revere this dedication
to craft focused on something external. But what about pursuing
mastery in ourselves and of ourselves. It might feel like
self centered or selfish if we do so. Perhaps even
we're ignoring the needs of others if we do it.
But I would argue that you're ignoring the needs of
(10:12):
others if you don't. What kind of person that they
having to live with because you're not trying to become
better at what you do and how you are with them.
And besides, a dedication to a lifelong refinement of yourself
is way cheaper than something like, you know, chasing a zero.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Handicap in golf.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But it's a very similar prospect people who chase a
zero handicap in golf. If you don't know anything about golf,
it's this incredible level of mastery because they rank themselves
in golf. And you know the people you see on
the TV when they're.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Bringing on microphones and they're coming up to v Fair
right now.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Like those guys, they be very gifted people who have
dedicated their lives to do this sort of stuff. But
if you've got anybody in your life you know, plays golf,
they will try to get their you know, twenty one
handicap to a fifteen and it might take them ten years,
and they'll think that's the greatest thing ever trying to
get their fifteen down to a five. Make of twenty
(11:07):
years to get from five down to a two. They
will not stop because they're just in pursuit of this thing.
This is a lifelong chase. They might never ever achieve it.
But if you ask any golfer, can you what's the
most perfect twing you ever hit?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Their eyes will just go misty. They'll look to the horizon.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
They will get transported to the exact moment that everything
just felt effortless. Just thinking about that will make them
want to Yeah, I'm done here, I've got my clubs
in the car, I'm going to the driving range goodbye,
because they want that feeling again. By setting ourselves on
a course of self improvement, we unlock in our brains,
(11:45):
fuel and motivation to give us so.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Much more satisfaction out of life.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
There's nothing worse than feeling like you're doing the same
thing day in day out. By dedicating ourselves to investigating
how we might be able to improve the way.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
We did thinks to day versus yesterday, what we do
is we.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Give ourselves an experience of life that feels new and
exciting every day. The times when my career ground to
a halt were directly preceded by times where my ego
got involved and insisted that I had better ideas than
anybody else. The times when my relationships fell apart were
(12:23):
directly preceded by the times where I had taken the
quality of those relationships for granted and not put effort
into maintaining the health of those relationships. If you feel
you've achieved perfection, the upward trajectory of your skill set
levels off. If you feel that new ideas, new techniques,
new ways of being don't apply to you because you've
got it all figured out, you're putting yourself in an
(12:47):
incredibly precarious position. You won't be okay for a while
as the go to person in your field, but before
long you'll be overtaken by others who have put in
that constant search for knowledge an understanding at the heart
of their practice. And once they zip past you, there's
it's no way you can catch them with that kind
(13:07):
of momentum behind them.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It might be in the.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Way that your parent, the way you think about politics,
might be, the way you eat, might be, how you exercise,
how you drive, how you listen to your partner, hey,
listen to your kids, whatever it is. If you get
a feeling that you've perfected it and you've got nothing
more to learn. In my experience, that is probably the
quickest way that you can get from here to things
(13:29):
falling apart.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
But it takes.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Humility to understand that you might not have it all
figured out. And as a person who's spent nearly every
day at the last fifteen and a half years or
so wrestling my ego to the ground, I understand that
humility seems like a daunting prospect. But I have come
to learn that by approaching life with what the Zen
(13:52):
Buddhists call the beginners might, it's treating everything as if
it was the first time you've seen it.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The gift I.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Give myself by approaching life like this is a day
full of fascination and discovery and the feeling of newness.
And this is where I stand when I invite a
person to be a guest on this show, to sit
across from a person to explore what new ideas they
have and how they are going about trying to achieve
the exact same things we're all trying to achieve, a
(14:21):
sense of purpose, a great relationship with the family, a
happy doctor, a decent night's sleep. But it's one thing
to listen to this stuff. In the words of my
former manager, you can find him on episode eighty of
this show, Double Figures. The late great John Ferreter. John
used to tell me, only you know how hard you've
(14:42):
worked to make your dreams come true.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
The rest is up to you.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's a bold claim to call your podcast better than
yesterday because it takes work. But I can promise you that.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Work is absolutely absolutely worth it. Thanks for listening. I'll
see you on Wednesday.
Gette. Thanks for downloading the show.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is better than yesterday. Useful tools and useful conversations
to help make your day to day better than yesterday.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Every single week.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is twenty thirteen. My Name'soshi Ginsburg. I'm very grateful
that you're here. I want to take you to a
cold winter's night in twenty thirteen. I'm driving through Surrey
Hills in a delightfully fancy Lexus Higher car that the
production company has rented out for me. While I am
in Sydney for just a couple of weeks to shoot
(00:31):
season one of the Bachelor of Australia. I'm a long
way from home, where I live in Los Angeles. I'm
recently divorced, recently sober. My evenings are usually spent alone
watching TV, trying in vain to stay up late enough
to watch the stages of the Tour de France, or
(00:51):
at work far away and a big mansion counting flowers.
But tonight is different. Rather than eating my dinner in
front of the TV once again, I am serving as
driver to my dear friend and stand up comic Luke Heggy.
He's been on this podcast the number of times by now,
(01:12):
but he and I have known each other since we're
eight years old. And on this night, Luke is testing
out new material for his next festival show. And what
that involves is I will drive him from club to
club and I will stand there and watch him perform
the same five or ten minutes, refining the jokes and
(01:34):
the timing of exactly the same material, depending on the
audience reactions that he gets across the night. Sometimes he
gets up there and he gets huge laughs. Sometimes he
gets up there, he takes it into the face, he
adjusts the joke a little bit for the next crowd.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It's fascinating. Now.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
At one of these places, while waiting for Heggy to
go on stage, at a club called the Cafe Lounge,
which I never understood. Is it a cafe, Is it
a lounge? Sit in a chair like Christine Keeler, or
do I lie sideways on a couch and scratch myself?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I don't understand. But it's comedy club.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And while I'm waiting for he get to go on,
I bump into another great Australian stand up Scott do We,
and I'm chatting with Doels about radio for a little while.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
He was still doing radio here in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
He's in New York now, And when I felt enough confidence,
I said, oh, Heydles, how do you feel about coming
on my podcast next week?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, I'd love that. Tuesday is good for me, brilliant.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I'm living over in Francis Street in BONDI text me
when you're on the way, and I'll come down and
get you because the buzz is a bit busted.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Beauty.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Now, what Scott did not know is that I did
not have a podcast, nor did I own a microphone
or a sound card or any software or know absolutely
anything about how to edit or record or publish a podcast.
But now the clock was ticking because he's going to
be at my house in four days. So the following
(02:59):
morning I went out, I bought a couple of microphones,
I bought a sound card, spent the weekend learning the software,
figuring out the publishing pipeline I needed to do to
put a podcast on the Internet. By the time Scott
arrived had my house on Tuesday morning, when he texted
me and I went down to get him, walked him upstairs,
I hit record, and off we went. Scott Dooley was
the first of what is now well over eleven hundred
(03:22):
episodes of this podcast, a podcast I started because I
wanted to hear the kind of conversations that I needed
to hear when I wasn't doing so well, conversations of hope,
of inspiration, of people who were once where I was
and now they were somewhere I wanted to be. But
it's one thing to start a podcast, but what the
hell are you going to call it? Yeah, I personally
(03:42):
I like things to do what they say in the box.
For example, my motorbike is a all electric Harley Davidson
Live Wire, which is the perfect name for it because
that is exactly what it feels like when you twist
the throttle and unleash one hundred and sixty meters of
talk at zero rpm. I had to dial it back
because I was getting sea sick.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Music is no different.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Black Sabbath sounded like Black Sabbath. Conan there's like a
Liverpool doom metal band that tuned all the way down
to A.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I think.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
They sound like Conan. Daft Punk sounded like daft punk.
There was a name based on a review of the
first band those boys had because he was describing the
kind of music that they were playing.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Called it daft punk. That's a good band name.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So when I published my first episode of this podcast
in twenty thirteen, I called it exactly what it was,
the Osher Ginsburg Podcast.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Hello and welcome to the Osha Ginsburg Podcast. A weekly
conversation with someone that I find interesting and attaining and
inspiring and I hope that you do too.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And that name of that show did the job for many, many,
many years. But over time, the confiscations which were happening
on the show and the kind of things I was
talking about, they started to take a certain shape, shape
which reflected way that I live my life, and being
someone who's not afraid of an aggressive rebrand, I changed
the podcast title to Better Than Yesterday with Loshikinsburg. It
(05:11):
was a risk because I know more than anyone endless
self development can be exhausting, Like fuck, when am I
ever done? How much more rigorous introspection must I carry out?
When do I finally get to where it's just okay?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
For fuck's sake?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
These are all very valid critiques of any kind of
self work. If we're supposed to be fine just the
way we are, why do I need to put in
so much effort it's a valid question, and I've certainly
gone through periods where I feel like this, Can I
just be done?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
What do I have to.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Keep exploring the way I am in my relationship? Why
is my morning routine taking me all away to mid afternoon?
For me, these feelings are usually pretty much always hiding something.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
A little below the surface.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
They're camouflaging a resistance to changing an habitual way of
being which, even though might not serve me, is predictable.
It's familiar and very protective of itself. When I feel
that kind of exhaustion, now I know, Ah, that's my clue.
(06:22):
I mean, I have a deeper look here and see
if there's anything else going on. What's there's so much
resistance going on here? For let me check this out.
I get to ask myself what do I get out
of resisting this change?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Here?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
More often than not, what I get out of resisting
that change is an excuse to behave in a way
that isn't exactly in accordance with my values the kind
of person I want to be. Now, once I uncover that,
it's a little difficult to keep going back and behaving
in the same way. If you've never considered a life
dedicated to not just improvement, but a life of constant improvement. Understandably,
(07:01):
it sounds like an overwhelming thing to commit to, because
on paper, you're never going to get where you're going.
But here's where I say something that sounds like a
quote on a throw pillow in a holiday home. Not
the live love one pillow, the one next to it,
the one that says life is about the journey and
not the destination. There's a physiological reason that that is true.
(07:22):
Once we get started on choosing to improve an aspect
of our lives, our brains and our bodies are wired
to reward and reinforce that improvement in return, offering as
a healthier, happier, longer, and more vital life if we
dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of mastery. So it makes
sense then that the pursuit of mastery is often rooted
in cultural practices all over the world. One of my
(07:45):
favorite examples, a very famous example, comes from Japan. Shokunin
is the name given to the artisan or craftsman in
Japan who dedicates their life to creating one thing, and
one thing only. There's a very famous film made about
one of these people Duro Hono is the chef at
the center of the film Duro Dreams of Sushi. It's
a perfect example of what it means to be a shokunin.
(08:07):
It's not only the pursuit of mastery in your craft,
like I'm just going to get better and better and
better it is. But why they do it is because
there is an obligation to be as good as you
possibly can be at this thing in the service of
your community. So there's great pride in that I am
making everyone in my community better by doing this work.
(08:28):
And I've always been fascinated with how certain cultural practices
ritualize things that unlock positive responses in our physiology. Devotional
practices like prayer and meditation, singing and dancing in time
and rhythm with other people that can bring on states
of connectedness to something bigger, feelings of elation, even moments
of rapture. If religion is your thing, I'm grateful that
(08:51):
exists for you, for.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
People like me.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I'm also grateful that these ritualized practices can be replicated
in a secular way and bringing on an equally powerful
effect without any of the scary stories about the vengeful
sky Dad with a beard who's also his own sign,
but will burn you in a bit of fire if
you so much.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Just think about having a wake.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
The humble quest for improvement of ourselves unlocks a cascade
of wonderful transmitters. Inside is floods those little kinds of
wonderful feelings. Dedicating ourselves to excellence makes us feel really
good inside. And if we remember that our pursuit of
this excellence is in service of a wider community, there's
(09:34):
an immense sense of purpose which doubles down on this feeling.
I've spent the last fifteen and a half years in
my life dedicating myself to be the best like can
be in my work, and that has led me to
some of the most satisfying and wonderful moments.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I've ever had in my career.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
And as you've just heard, some cultures revere this dedication
to craft focused on something external. But what about pursuing
mastery in ourselves and of ourselves. It might feel like
self centered or selfish if we do so. Perhaps even
we're ignoring the needs of others if we do it.
But I would argue that you're ignoring the needs of
(10:12):
others if you don't. What kind of person that they
having to live with because you're not trying to become
better at what you do and how you are with them.
And besides, a dedication to a lifelong refinement of yourself
is way cheaper than something like, you know, chasing a zero.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Handicap in golf.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But it's a very similar prospect people who chase a
zero handicap in golf. If you don't know anything about golf,
it's this incredible level of mastery because they rank themselves
in golf. And you know the people you see on
the TV when they're.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Bringing on microphones and they're coming up to v Fair
right now.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Like those guys, they be very gifted people who have
dedicated their lives to do this sort of stuff. But
if you've got anybody in your life you know, plays golf,
they will try to get their you know, twenty one
handicap to a fifteen and it might take them ten years,
and they'll think that's the greatest thing ever trying to
get their fifteen down to a five. Make of twenty
(11:07):
years to get from five down to a two. They
will not stop because they're just in pursuit of this thing.
This is a lifelong chase. They might never ever achieve it.
But if you ask any golfer, can you what's the
most perfect twing you ever hit?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Their eyes will just go misty. They'll look to the horizon.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
They will get transported to the exact moment that everything
just felt effortless. Just thinking about that will make them
want to Yeah, I'm done here, I've got my clubs
in the car, I'm going to the driving range goodbye,
because they want that feeling again. By setting ourselves on
a course of self improvement, we unlock in our brains,
(11:45):
fuel and motivation to give us so.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Much more satisfaction out of life.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
There's nothing worse than feeling like you're doing the same
thing day in day out. By dedicating ourselves to investigating
how we might be able to improve the way.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
We did thinks to day versus yesterday, what we do
is we.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Give ourselves an experience of life that feels new and
exciting every day. The times when my career ground to
a halt were directly preceded by times where my ego
got involved and insisted that I had better ideas than
anybody else. The times when my relationships fell apart were
(12:23):
directly preceded by the times where I had taken the
quality of those relationships for granted and not put effort
into maintaining the health of those relationships. If you feel
you've achieved perfection, the upward trajectory of your skill set
levels off. If you feel that new ideas, new techniques,
new ways of being don't apply to you because you've
got it all figured out, you're putting yourself in an
(12:47):
incredibly precarious position. You won't be okay for a while
as the go to person in your field, but before
long you'll be overtaken by others who have put in
that constant search for knowledge an understanding at the heart
of their practice. And once they zip past you, there's
it's no way you can catch them with that kind
(13:07):
of momentum behind them.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
It might be in the.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Way that your parent, the way you think about politics,
might be, the way you eat, might be, how you exercise,
how you drive, how you listen to your partner, hey,
listen to your kids, whatever it is. If you get
a feeling that you've perfected it and you've got nothing
more to learn. In my experience, that is probably the
quickest way that you can get from here to things
(13:29):
falling apart.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
But it takes.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Humility to understand that you might not have it all
figured out. And as a person who's spent nearly every
day at the last fifteen and a half years or
so wrestling my ego to the ground, I understand that
humility seems like a daunting prospect. But I have come
to learn that by approaching life with what the Zen
(13:52):
Buddhists call the beginners might, it's treating everything as if
it was the first time you've seen it.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The gift I.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Give myself by approaching life like this is a day
full of fascination and discovery and the feeling of newness.
And this is where I stand when I invite a
person to be a guest on this show, to sit
across from a person to explore what new ideas they
have and how they are going about trying to achieve
the exact same things we're all trying to achieve, a
(14:21):
sense of purpose, a great relationship with the family, a
happy doctor, a decent night's sleep. But it's one thing
to listen to this stuff. In the words of my
former manager, you can find him on episode eighty of
this show, Double Figures. The late great John Ferreter. John
used to tell me, only you know how hard you've
(14:42):
worked to make your dreams come true.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
The rest is up to you.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's a bold claim to call your podcast better than
yesterday because it takes work. But I can promise you that.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Work is absolutely absolutely worth it. Thanks for listening. I'll
see you on Wednesday.
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