“If you don’t have 1 minute to meditate, it’s time to evaluate what’s really going on.”
– Cory Muscara
Cory Muscara is a former monk, host of the Practicing Human podcast, and bestselling author of the book, Stop Missing Your Life. He has taught mindful leadership at Columbia University and is an instructor of Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Oz named Cory as one of the nation’s leading experts in mindfulness (and rightfully so) as Cory’s meditations have been heard more than 25 million times in over 150 countries.
If you’re stuck on the hamster wheel of dedicating your entire life to creative projects that inevitably lead to burnout while trying to chase a dream you are no longer even sure you want anymore, you might be surprised to learn how much cultivating mindfulness will help you build the intuition necessary to create (then follow) a path that makes more sense for you. As Cory will explain, mindfulness and meditation with the specific purpose of building your intuition (aka your “gut feelings”) is a crucial piece in the puzzle of designing your unique path, as well as more clearly understanding which opportunities to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to along the way.
Whether you have never meditated before, you dabble here and there, or you are on your way to being an ordained monk yourself, Cory’s simple methods of connecting to your own intuition and developing the inner strength it takes to follow that intuition will undoubtedly have a positive impact on both your career, the quality of your working relationships, and your life.
Cory Muscara is a former monk, host of the Practicing Human podcast, and bestselling author of the book, Stop Missing Your Life. With over 500K followers across his social media channels, Cory has gained popularity for his down-to-earth, engaging, and accessible teachings on mindfulness, wellbeing, and mental health. He has taught Mindful leadership at Columbia University, is an instructor of Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and for the last ten years has offered mindfulness keynotes, workshops, and retreats around the world to companies like Bank of America, Prudential, Johnson & Johnson, Principal, Travelers, BlackRock, and more. Named by Dr. Oz as one of the nation’s leading experts in mindfulness, Cory’s meditations have been heard more than 25 million times in over 150 countries, and his goal is to share wisdom teachings in a practical and accessible way.
Facebook, Connect on Twitter, Follow our guest on Instagram, Click to visit our guest’s website
Zack Arnold: My guest today is Cory Muscara who is a former monk, a host of the Practicing Human podcast and best selling author of the book Stop Missing Your Life. He has taught mindful leadership at Columbia University, and he is an instructor of positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. And Dr. Oz named Cory is one of the nation's leading experts in mindfulness and rightfully so, because Cory's meditations have been heard more than 25 million times in over 150 countries. That is a lot of meditations. If you are stuck on the hamster wheel of dedicating your entire life to creative projects that inevitably lead you towards burnout while also trying to chase a dream that you are no longer even sure that you want any more, you might be surprised to learn how much cultivating mindfulness will help you build the intuition necessary to create and then follow a path that makes more sense for you. As Cory will explain, mindfulness and meditation with the specific purpose of building your intuition, also known as your gut feeling, is a crucial piece in the puzzle of designing your unique path, as well as more clearly understanding which opportunities you should be saying yes, as opposed to saying no to along the way. Whether you have never meditated before, whether you dabble here and there or perhaps you're on your way to being an ordained monk yourself, Cory's simple methods of connecting to your own intuition, and developing the inner strength that it takes to follow that intuition will undoubtedly have a positive impact on your career, the quality of your working and your personal relationships, and even your life. Alright, without further ado, here's my conversation with Cory Muscara. To access the show notes for this episode with all of the bonus links and resources discussed today, as well as to subscribe, leave a review and more, simply visit zackarnold.com/episode 193.
I am here today with Cory Muscara, who is a former monk. He's the host of the Practicing Human podcast, and he's the best selling author of the book, Stop Missing Your Life. He has taught mindfulness leadership at Columbia University. He's an instructor of positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, you've been named by Dr. Oz is one of the nation's leading experts in mindfulness. And your meditations have been heard by more than 25 have been heard more than 25 million times in over 150 countries would have been great to have a conversation with you today. But I just spent all the time we have available talking about your accolades and your accomplishments. So it was a pleasure. Thanks for being on the show today, Cory.
Cory Muscara: Great to be here, thank you,
Zack Arnold: Really means a lot to me. And I mentioned this to you beforehand. But I wanted to be on the record that somebody that their entire livelihood and what they put out into the world when it's about mindfulness and presence, the fact that you've made the decision that you're going to stop everything in your life. And to be present on this conversation with me a total stranger that randomly reached out means the world to me and my audience. So thank you very much for doing so.
Cory Muscara: Thank you, Zack.
Zack Arnold: Given all of the accolades that I just mentioned, of which were very a very, very brief summary, and I could probably spend another five minutes. But let's just go right to the elephant in the room, and let's give everything right away, give me give it all away. All of your accolades started because you wanted to impress a girl.
Cory Muscara: Good research. Yeah. So this whole journey for me got started because I was trying to impress my hippie girlfriend in college. She was in meditation, I really didn't know much about it at all. I was in fraternity, I was throwing a lot of parties. But she was this cool, earthy, spiritual woman. And I wanted to impress her. So I started meditating. And she broke up with me for a couple of weeks after that. So there wasn't a happy ending there. But the different happy ending was that what started as a superficial undertaking quickly became more genuine, because the practice was actually the only thing that was helping me work with the difficulty of that breakup, and the difficult emotions. I think anyone who's navigated a breakup, but also just navigate anything difficult. It's very easy to get consumed by your thoughts, your pain, your shame, your emotions. And at that point, I was 20 years old, I really didn't have any internal resources to work with these things. They were they were all consuming. And this basic practice that I was doing, which really didn't involve much more than lying on my dorm room bed, put my hands on my belly, and I would just sort of focus on my inhale, my exhale, inhale, exhale. What I was finding was that there was an ability to create some space between the sense of me and what I was experiencing. Previously, when the thoughts were there, the shame was there, and the guilt was there, I was just fully consumed by it, it was like the only thing I could experience. See, the meditation allowed me to zoom out from it, and then still see it as part of my experience. But to see that wasn't the defining piece of it, which, you know, is one thing to say. And it's another thing to experience. And even if someone's never had a meditation practice the listeners here, this is a chance you've probably experienced, like in moments of difficulty or pain, you might have a perspective shifts, or something in you softens, or relaxes, or feels spacious. And it's just like, oh, it's gonna be okay. And what I was finding is that there was a way to train that perspective, and that new way of relating to my experience, on an ongoing basis, and that really captured my interest. And so I started because I was trying to impress a girl. And then a year later, I was in a monastery with a shaved head. And so
Zack Arnold: as an ordained monk, no less.
Cory Muscara: Yes, that's correct.
Zack Arnold: So what I find really interesting about this story is that I think if you were to talk to a lot of people that have really lived life, maybe they're in their late 30s, mid 40s, even in their 50s Kids have left, they're dealing with empty nest syndrome. A lot of people really, and I'm sure you can talk about this even more than I could. They have that moment of clarity of realizing the importance of presence. They are introduced to meditation and mindfulness and they have these aha moments, but what I find really interesting and intriguing is You had it as a 20 year old frat boy in a dorm room? And what I'm curious about it, maybe there's an answer to this, and maybe there isn't. Was there something about your life previously, that allowed you to have this space even give this a chance? Because I think in general, and I'm making a generalization, and I realized that and I say that upfront, but in general, when you picture frat guys scheduling parties, most of them would say, I'm going to do this meditation, mindfulness crap, so I can be with this girl, she broke up with me. Alright, thank God, I don't have to do this meditation and mindfulness crap. Is there something about you the way that you're wired, your family, your background that allowed you to realize the value of that at such a young age?
Cory Muscara: Yeah, of course, you know, there's, there's an infinite number of variables that would lead, you could even say that would karmically lead to that moment of interest. And why was my personality type particularly drawn to going deeper into this, and then subsequently, even, you know, being drawn to meditate in a monastery? 14 plus hours a day? There's, there's something there that you can point to contextual variables in childhood and personality disposition, for sure. And I think there's just something kind of beyond that, that life was pulling me in that direction. But there's an infinite number of things that could have gone wrong on the journey, meaning like, I could have had parents that said, yeah, there's no way you're getting into this. Or when I told them I was gonna go to Burma, they could have been extremely unsupportive and and even my dad, you know, when I came home, and I told him, I was on spring break, my junior year and said, like, I get really getting interested in this meditation thing. And I think I want to understand and study and explore what happiness really is, instead of him shutting that down and saying, alright, that's cute, go get a job. He said, You know, actually, this is, this is something I've been studying myself as well. And he had been looking into mindfulness, the science of it and positive psychology. And so there was just this fortuitous alignment, and it all just helps forge a path that in many ways I can't take credit for. So yes, there's a lot of a lot of variables there. But in terms of like, how it was raised, you know, my brother wasn't particularly pulled into this, my sister, we weren't particularly pulled into this, they all have different access points. And so there's something about it that spoke to me on a, like a pre verbal, non cognitive level, that has just continued to pull me deeper, and deeper and deeper.
Zack Arnold: So the next part that I'm curious about, and then we're gonna get more into, you know, the the different things you talked about as far as purpose and productivity, presence, et cetera, et cetera. I want to get into the weeds soon. But I always like to understand the person and the why before I get into the details. Here's the next piece of the puzzle that anybody on the outside looking in is just scratching their head right now. It's one thing to go from frat boy wants to impress girl tries meditation, everybody gets that. It's another to be like, Oh, that's interesting. It actually sunk in with him and he wants to pursue it. It's another thing that after that you go from I've decided I really want to focus on meditation and mindfulness. And this really resonates with me, too. Dr. Oz is calling you one of the leading experts in mindfulness, you have hundreds of 1000s of followers. Like I think if somebody were to read your bio, and then visually turn on this YouTube podcasts are like I clearly have the wrong episode. Like I'm picturing, you know, this, this old sage and somebody that's really live life and you know that too. So for somebody that's as young and vibrant, to have been Where you've already been and accomplish what you have in this specific field. There's something about you and your journey in your process that made that happen. And I love to dig into how you went from this is a serious thing to now becoming who you are.
Cory Muscara: Cool, it'd be fun to dive into. You know, I I'll just give you the cliff notes of the journey right. Sophomore year started meditating to impress the girl breakup take it more seriously have an experience. I was an economics major. We go to the New York Stock Exchange for some trip meet with the the big time hedge fund manager gives a talk I feel like my soul sucked out of my body realize that is not the direction I want to go to really want to explore happiness, the question of it more deeply. Talk to my dad, their support. My mom's also a social worker, spend senior year of college thinking I'm going to sit on top of a mountain in India somewhere and do my own version of Eat, Pray, Love. Slowly refine that through talking to different people end up in a monastery. there six months of silence and then come back and I'm really inspired to teach and also continue to get answers on to my own journey. And my first student, I went to a chiropractor when I got home, because my back was a little messed up from sitting for so long for so many months. And I was talking to the person at the front desk, and she was asking me about my experience. And I sat down, and this guy next to me, you know, is kind of nervous and anxious. And he leans over. And he says, I heard, I heard you were just living as a monk. He said, last week, I was with my therapist, and the therapist sort of put up his hands, and he said, aside from you, meet you living with monks, I don't really know how to help you anymore. And he said, I think you're my monk. And I don't often tell that story, because it's one of those things that's like, too weird to kind of seem true. But it is we just met with him, you know, like, about 10 years ago, just met with him the other day. And we still talked about that moment, he became my first student and everything sort of snowballed from there. And he was struggling with anxiety, his friend was struggling with depression. And they were the only two people I worked with all that summer. And something in them really transformed. It was the practice and everything I had been through kind of coming through me. And everything really built through word of mouth, I've always had, I've never really done paid ads, it's always just been an organic growth. And the reason I like share that is because the foundation of it has always just been to do to do good work and to share it from my heart and to stay intimately connected to my own learning in my own experience, and basically share what's arising for me. And that has had this orienting quality with the world and students around me, where they've just been curious to learn more about that. And the whole Dr. Oz thing, I'm sure people have mixed feelings about Dr. Oz these days. But I was, yeah, I was 24. When that happened, and I was in my parents basement. Every story has like something in your parents basement, but I was trying to figure out how I could give free talks in schools, like have teachers might let me come into the classroom to talk to the students about mindfulness for free. And I randomly got a call from a producer at the Dr. Oz Show. And they said, we came across your stuff, I just put up a website like two weeks ago, we really liked your story. And we'd like for you to come on. And, and so there were just like all these little things along the way that helped to build it that, you know, if we wanted to talk about it from the business perspective, I could definitely dive into all those details. But from I think the perspective that more people could resonate with, there was there was a deep commitment in me to follow and stay true with the intention in me that was evolving over time and what the current truth was, and there were so many ways where I could have gotten off track, even like my dad who got me into it, he was really pushing me to go into health care and said like, this is where insurance companies are going to be compensating people for mindfulness. He's really going there. And I felt the poll, but I was like, I don't it doesn't feel like that doesn't feel it. And I know everyone listening has probably had experiences where they've felt like they're being pulled towards something else when people are telling them to do something. If there's anything I can give myself some credit for it's, it was a patience, and and really a ruthless commitment to just staying with what feels true and what doesn't feel true. And I was willing to like surrender fully to a life that was very basic, very bare bones. And very simple. If that's where it was all going to take me especially after living as a monk, I was like, I can live with nothing. And I've never been happier. And so if that's what my life looks like in the real world, if that's what's being called for, I'll do that. And things just evolved the way they did.
Zack Arnold: I could build four podcast episodes out of your previous answer entire podcast episodes digging in one question by one question. One of the things that I that you alluded to a little bit that I want to put a pin in and get to later on, we don't need to get into the nuances of the business model and everything else, because I don't think that's relatable to my audience, how you became so consistent to consistently create content, put it out there as a creative, that's relevant, I want to put a pin in it. Sure thing that I really want to point out. Now there are two things the first of which is that the fact that there were all these other things on the outside that could have potentially been quote unquote, opportunities. And we're going to talk a lot about the word opportunities in quotation marks. But you knew that the only way in your mind to make this successful was to focus on the quality of the work and have confidence in the work that I was doing in the impact that I was making. And that oftentimes is the only thing that keeps me from quitting completely. So I am confident that the work that I'm doing at the scale I'm doing it now is making a difference. Having a positive impact Am I aware I'm supposed to be or should be, do I want the numbers to be bigger the followers, who doesn't. But it doesn't get me down. And it doesn't discourage me, it can be frustrating. But it doesn't discourage me because I feel confident in the quality of my work, which is exactly the way that I felt when I was building my career as a Hollywood film editor. Nobody knew that I existed. But I felt confident that I was really good at my craft. So I just had to make sure that people knew that I existed. Once those two pieces came together, boom, it was off to the races. But here's the one that I really want to dig into. Sounds like you just got lucky. And it sounds like it all started with some random guy shows up at the chiropractor office, you've got your first student, that's great for you, I wish you well, but you got lucky. And that's never going to be replicable for me. So I want to talk about something that we call in our program is a woowoo factor. Because there's something woowoo and weird about this, that I can't explain it. And I don't know if you can explain it or anybody can. I don't believe that just happened. I don't believe it was a lucky occurrence. There's something about the way the universe is wired, where you are in your journey where that person was, I don't think it's coincidence that you sat in the same chairs at the same time. Talk to me about your thoughts about how that happened. 100 other things in your life that just can't explain how this stuff happens. But it just kind of comes together? And makes sense. How do you make sense of all of this?
Cory Muscara: Yeah. You know, that one's way above my paygrade.
Zack Arnold: But it's above all of our pay grades, but I want to talk about it anyway,
Cory Muscara: I and I love talking about it too, you know? Yeah, there's one interpretation of it if like, You got lucky and how this unfolded, and then another interpretation of it, you know, and now we could just say, like coincidence that that happened. And that began that could be the beginning from that lens, right? Well, if that didn't happen, then something else might have happened. And it could have created very different paths. Why Does anything happen in any given moment, I think is kind of like the inquiry we're having. And what also specifically happens when you as Henry David Thoreau would say dwell as near to the channel in which your life flows. I think that's where you start getting some some interesting experiences where something is open in you, you're being as truthful with yourself as possible. And you are dwelling in that channel through which like, your lifeforce is moving through you. That's often where these fortuitous events start to happen. But also, sometimes they don't, and it takes you in a direction to a certain point, and then something new comes up that doesn't feel aligned with the storyline that you had. And it feels like oh, I, I surrendered to this, I took a leap of faith and it didn't work out. And I really want to call BS on that pretty quickly. Like I get it. And you could look at my experience and go, you know, easy to say from that vantage point, because so many things worked out in his favor. And I could go into the main details of my journey of like, where it's been complicated. But yeah, for sure, it has worked out in a way that I'm very happy about. But there's been endless things that haven't that I thought were gonna be the thing. And so here's what often happens is, you have these moments of inspiration, moments of touching into a truth in you. And it might be like, I want to start a business or I want to go work in Hollywood. And it's like the energy of that comes through as clean as pure. And it's just a reward unto itself. It's like, Yeah, this is it has the resonance of not being a decision. It's just a receiving. And we have enough faith in that and surrender to go, I'm going to follow this. And then we do. And then what happens, like we start doing the thing, we start doing the business. And it all becomes complicated, because now you go from this inspiration, which is free and open, but you have to kind of employ your mind and your body to bring that into fruition. And often, what happens in those moments of inspiration is you create a storyline of how it's supposed to unfold, and you get more attached to the storyline rather than the ongoing evolution of the inspiration. And so you might end up like, two years later, still playing out like no, this is supposed to unfold this way the business is supposed to be this big, or this many people or I'm supposed to be here, but that is again coming from the mind. And if you really listen, if you take in the truth of the variables of what's happening right now and then go what is most true right now, given everything that's happening, if you just continue to follow that for the rest of your life, you can't go wrong. It's it's, it's your inner compass that is being filtered through all the relevant circumstances of your life and so on That's what I'm most interested in these days, like, what is it like to have the most honest conversation with what is most alive in you. And then, you know, two years into the business, it's like, wow, it's not really working. But something in me still keeps having me pull forward, even though it's taking me away from my family, and I don't know where the money is gonna come, right, if that is really consequential than the inner navigation system is going to adjust and say, like, Okay, this isn't working anymore, let's adjust. But if it's pulling you forward, then there's like a surrender to that. And there's a willingness to just shed what needs to be shed, in order for that to come to fruition. And that's going to change every single person's journey can't be replicated. It's why nobody can look at my journey, and say, I'm going to do that. And it's why I've always been really hesitant to try to help people, even on their journey.
By reverse engineering, anything that I've done, because it just it's it's uniquely mine and you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of trying to replicate it. Just like I don't have a snowball's chance in hell, in trying to replicate what you were doing. So I'm just most interested in Yeah, these were, these were factors and why things happen the way they happen. It can be fun to look at. I think the most magical thing, though, is our ability to really drop in and listen beneath the noise of the mind and go, what is being asked of me next. And then trust, and then do and then trust and listen to trust. And, and then just special things happen from there, even if they're difficult things, but you're getting closer and closer to alignment with yourself.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I love especially this idea that it's just about, you know, listen, trusts do like to me that's, that's a framework or a formula that's very different from a path. So what I want to break down in my own words, and my own interpretation, and you can correct me on anything where you feel that I'm wrong. But I want to function as the outsider, this listening to your origin slash success story. And I want to help reframe people so they can better processes and apply it to their own lives. Because this is an area where I find people get stuck over and over and over. I've talked to well over 300 people about their success, success stories, deconstructing their path, how they were able to make something happen, and finding a way to make a teachable for somebody else. And almost always the responses, that's great, but never gonna happen to me. And like you said, you're right. It's never going to happen to you just like that. But that doesn't mean you can't take anything away from it. So here's what I take away from this one moment at the chiropractor's office. That's kind of the origin story, or the seed for everything that was built after the fact that somebody was sitting next to you that needed an ordained monk, and you happen to have just become an ordained monk. That's just luck. And anybody listening is like, Oh, my God, Zack, but you said luck. Like I call luck, a four letter word. It's not that I don't believe in it. It's that I think people use it as a crutch to make excuses for why other people are successful, and they're not. If it's out of your control, and it's this will factor the universe, whatever you want to call it. Coincidence. It's lucky, you are at the same place at the same time. To me, that's where the luck ends, that exact same conversation could have happened. And your response could have been, this sounds really dumb. Why would I do this? Or it could have been, Oh, I'm not ready for this. No, no, I need to prepare more before I can work with a student or I don't know, I like it. This sounds like it's the right fit, but I gotta pay the bills. And maybe I should become a CPA. There's so many thoughts, like you said stories that you create. But because of the preparation of the hard work, you had done developing presents, you were able to listen to your intuition at that moment. That's your I call it your sliding doors moment. Anybody that knows the really crappy Gwyneth Paltrow movie from the 90s the concept way better than the movie, but hey, go watch the movie if you don't get it. But your your life could have gone in two very different directions based on that one conversation, and then went in a direction because you had the presence of mind to say, I'm gonna listen to my intuition. This sounds interesting. I'm gonna give it a try. The snowball starts rolling downhill. But as you also said, if you hadn't sat next to that person at the chiropractor's office, that same moment was going to happen in a different way, in a week and three months in a year, you always would have been prepared for it with the presence of mind, because you had been preparing to be present for that moment, even if you didn't consciously understand, and that I think people can apply to their own lives.
Cory Muscara: Yeah, yeah. And the only the addendum I would add to that would be if you do feel like you had a moment in your life where there was an opportunity like that, and maybe you feel like you made the wrong decision, or you didn't train yourself well for that moment. Notice how that could condition regret, guilt, fear, shame. And what I would say is what happens from there is like, okay, maybe there was a moment of misalignment or we temporarily abandoned something that was true in us. Everything. Refit reconfigures itself after that moment, and so now you're just given a new constellation of experiences and opportunities for you to show up in an aligned way with you. So I don't view them as lost opportunities. I just view moment to moment, there are more opportunities to get in alignment or out of alignment. And, and so if someone's really wrestling with that from 30 years ago, one I would. Yeah, the main thing I would say is, I hope for you that you can release that and view this moment as the beginning of your the rest of your life.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And the way that I encapsulate that for my students, I've literally had this conversation with a private client for like, half an hour yesterday. And I'm saying this, assuming you're probably well aware of this, but I'm saying it for the sake of our audience. That might not be when was the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago, right, 20 years ago, but when's the next best time to plant that same tree? Right now? It's today, it's right now, and people dwell. So like, we had this conversation, oh, I should have said no to this job. And instead, I said, Yes. And I was so dumb. Why did I do that? And like, can you fix that? No. Right. Today is the new day one, how do you use that experience and learn from it, improve your intuition and prove your decision making and get better at it? But there's nothing you can do about that. But it doesn't mean you failed. You just process it as information. It's feedback, and you can move forwards? Yeah. So that having been said, one of the things that I want to go through a little bit deeper, because I know this is an area where you focus on having specific meditation practices, is becoming better connected with your intuition. Specifically, when it comes to do I say, yes? Do I say no? Is this a good fit? Like you were prepared ish for that moment, at the chiropractor's office, you probably didn't say, the moment you walked in, I'm looking for a student, I'm ready for a student, I'm going to start a coaching practice on meditation. But you were prepared to contemplate whether or not it was a worthy pursuit when that opportunity landed in your lap. But if I'm somebody that is facing, you know, like, either I have multiple job opportunities, or just completely changing career trajectory, or do I want to leave my job to be a mom for a year like just answering these big yes or no questions about major deciding factors. There's an exercise that I take people through, and I want to get a sense of if I'm completely and totally full of shit, or if I'm onto something. And then I want you to talk about what your exercise would be to help people through this because you have way more experience and expertise than I would. But what I do oftentimes, and I'll use the example of I have a job opportunity, I think I should take it, but I'm not sure. And I asked one simple question. Are you feeling nervousness right now? Or are you feeling anxiety? And the response is almost always, I don't know the difference? What's the difference between nerves and anxiety? And I say, it's the difference between this is scary, and I've got butterflies in my stomach, and it's new and different. And to be honest, I'm kind of terrified, versus there's just this black hole of despair and soul sucking, which one is it? That usually is your answer? So talk to me a little bit more about developing that intuition. And what specific meditation practices can make that even better? Or you can just say this the worst exercise ever? Let me give you something totally different instead.
Cory Muscara: No, it's a good one. The way I often talk about that is fear with contraction versus fear with surrender. And you know, if you're let's say you're navigating a relationship and like don't know if you should stay in it or out of it, or let's just say a job and you feel fear in either one you feel fear staying and you feel fear leaving we call that just being in a bind. When it is related to more of an intuitive guidance, the the fear is going to have a quality of surrender to it. It's going to be like oh man, I am so terrified of what's on the other side of this but there's a feeling of like it's just cracking the open into there's just like a trust that yeah, this is what's next versus the fear that comes with like if I go in that direction, something in us like gi actually gets tighter. There's the emotion of fear but then there's like contraction around and and more of a wall. The fear with surrender often has this feeling of like bringing us to tears. It's like it's inviting us into some new evolution of ourselves that we're not ready to let go of but we'd sent is true. This to start to get to this place, also of being able to discern like because in each moment you're making a decision and that kind of boils down to is this a yes? Is this a no or is this an I don't know. The most simple way to start to get in touch with this is to look at experiences in your life that you know are a yes already. Like there's no obstruction to it, whether it's like you're you're into about partnerships, your love for your kids, what you do for work, or even just like, I love having coffee in the morning? Like, there's a yes, that comes through? How does that yes present itself? What does it feel like in your body? What does it bring up in the mind? What's the qualitative experience of it? Same with a no, what is something you don't stand for? You're just clear like, this is a no and me on a deep level, bring that to mind? What does that feel like? What's the experience? And what's something that you're genuinely ambiguous? About? It's like, I actually can't tell if this is a yes or no, that we would call like a waiting period, and then feel that and then apply that to whatever scenario that you're in. And then ask yourself, What should I do here? Or like, is this a yes? Or no? Is this a yes? And see what comes up? Is this a no is this and I don't know. And then you filter that based on the backdrop of what you experienced previously, that's probably the most simple thing you can do. The territory of making decisions and navigating your life through what we could say is intuitive guidance versus childlike and fear, like conditioning is really big territory. And in my experience is a long journey. And I'm happy to go into it. The reason it's complicated is because there's a lot that gets in the way of our intuitive system, including all these ideas that we shouldn't potentially listen to our intuition, and that we should just follow logic and rationality and intuitive guidance doesn't mean that you abandon what's rational and logical, you have to realize like any sort of yes, that's coming through you, is still being filtered through all of the existing aspects of your humaneness, which include your brain and rational decision making and your beliefs and your thoughts. And so it, it's, this is not like abandoning some of that like pro conning your life out. It's more just saying, like, when I really when I let go of that, when I've exhausted trying to figure this out through logic, and I allow that to just be there, I've white boarded it, and I really get still, and I drop in and I asked myself, what feels most true here, then, like we trust, the emergence of that is coming from a free or deeper and more spacious place in us rather than the part of us that's simply trying to make a decision, to be safe to be loved, and to get praise. So as helpful thing to do here, is to actually create a visual form of a guide.
And this really doesn't have to be non mystical. Anyone who's engaged in a meditation practice will quickly see that there's aspects of them related to their thoughts, their emotions, there's fears, and you kind of like making decisions out of that. And there's an aspect of you that is spacious, that's aware that your awareness of your fear is not in fear, your awareness of your thoughts is not thinking. So we all have access to that, then it's why creative insights can often come from meditation. So the idea of creating a cut a guide involves getting still getting grounded and feeling waiting until you feel a sense of openness and connection, and safety. And then from that place, ask yourself, what is something what is a form that represents this experience, it could be a character from a movie, I often get, like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, it could be an adult version of yourself, it could be a different version of yourself, it could be like a shape or color, it's something that represents that, that you can then interact with. And so you take that form, and you imagine it sitting in a chair in front of you, or standing in front of you. And now you can use that guide to interact with to have a relationship to and to ask questions like, Hey, I'm, I'm struggling with this, what should i What should I do in this moment? And the cool thing about that is like, you don't have to take the perspective that this is something outside of you know, you could instead you can just view it as the representation of the deepest and most wise part of you that is not burdened by fear and anxiety, and how do I orient to my life from that place, and interacting with this guide is sort of the the physical manifestation or the visual manifestation of that place in us that we all have access to. And since we're relational creatures, it becomes just it can be way easier to do this with, there's a sense of a separation of another being, rather than just trying to drop into the wisdom ourselves.
Zack Arnold: So essentially, in summary, if I am looking at a job opportunity, I shouldn't have a pros cons list. I should have a picture of Gandalf in front of me with the chair and the staff telling me what to do got it.
Cory Muscara: Actually. Let me just I just want to clarify one thing like I think the pro cons list is okay. In your mind, you often need to give your mind the opportunity to exhaust the whiteboarding, and then bring Gandalf in and say this is what I'm navigating, like, what do I how do we make sense of it, and then have it just filter through all of that.
Zack Arnold: So the addendum to that, after making a little bit of fun of it is that I absolutely love this exercise. And the idea that what I want to add to it is a one of the most fundamental lessons that I learned about succeeding in any goal whatsoever, is that the likelihood of you doing it alone is very, very small. And you're going to need some form of a mentor. And for me, if I were to put somebody like on the chair or the pedestal, so to speak to becomes that externalization of whatever my internal thoughts are, and help me make a decision. No question. It's Mr. Miyagi. Anybody that knows my background knows that Karate Kid is a major part of my background, and I've turned it into my entire livelihood, being editor and producer on the TV show Cobra Kai. So Mr. Miyagi has been a theme of my life since I was six years old. However, what I have done is I have not necessarily replaced Mr. Miyagi. But I put real people in his place. And I'll give you an example of this. When I decided about five years ago that I wanted to go from Dad Bod on the couch to becoming an American Ninja Warrior. I knew I needed mentors to teach me. And I now have two very important mentors in my life. And I'll ask them a specific question, they'll give me an answer. But then when I hesitate, or I have more questions, and I by myself, when I asked the question in my head, they're the voice and they're the image that pops in, which helps me with my intuition, which is similar to what you're talking about. So I have that default. Here's the image of that guide in my life, my Mr. Miyagi, so to speak. But then how can I find real people? Like, for example, if I have those questions, a lot of times I can just send a text message. I'm really struggling with this thing, or I'm afraid of this, or should I do this or that two minutes later thing? Here's your answer. Right. So I think that there's a way that you can have both but in in order to to navigate these difficult challenges, I think it's very difficult to do them on your own. But for me, I think a place to start, if I were to turn this into like, here's a five step checklist to work through the process, because I'm always trying to simplify it. I love everything that you're saying about, you've got a white board, like the pros, cons list, whatever it is, do all the rational logical stuff. And in my mind, that plants, the seeds, for you to open your mind, be creative, and allow your brain and your default network to connect the dots that you don't know how to connect the only the only change I'm going to make to it. I'm not a fan of the word pros cons list. What I like to do with my students is called a cost benefit analysis. Because saying it's a con it's a bad thing versus what does this cost me to take this opportunity versus one of the benefits? I don't, I can't explain to you why that feels better or feel more, right. But when it used to be a pros cons list, well, this is the good this is the bad. I feel like a cost benefit analysis hits the logical place. Now just sit with that. Allow yourself to be present, sit with Gandalf or Mr. Miyagi, or Morpheus, or whoever might be in your life Yoda. I think probably most of the people in my audience are like, Dude, what are you going to mention Yoda? But I think that that's an amazingly important exercise to kind of hit both areas of both logic and emotion.
Cory Muscara: Yeah, I'm just one thing I'm going to add. For people who really want to take on this journey in this new way of relating to your life. In my experience, there's two big to two categories here. There's the one the being able to listen on this deeper level and access some of this deeper wisdom. That's a path in itself. The next one that I often find harder is to actually surrender to it is to actually listen and follow it. Because that's often where our fear based mind is going to come in and go, wait, wait, wait, wait, are we sure? Are we sure? Are we sure. And that can really keep us in circular motions for a long period of time. And in it, it varies based on context as well. So for those navigating this, yeah, I think there's short term benefit to this. And you can drop this in, start a meditation practice, work with a guide. And I think you'll be really surprised of like this new place, you get to access. And if you get stuck, the perspective that I take is that learning to get to this place of listening and surrendering to it is our life's greatest work. And none of it is wasted time. Even if you find yourself in circles, you know, for weeks, months and years. Like it's not the same each time you go through, you're learning, you're softening, you're releasing, you're surrendering. And that is just worthwhile. Time spent, especially on a spiritual level.
Zack Arnold: Agreed. And I just want to put a fine point on that, as I said in one of my earlier podcasts that I think is going to become a regular theme. And the final point I want to put on it is that when I work with the students in my program There's privately small groups, huge groups of people on a call, what I often find when they've worked through it, and I talk about a lot of in the weeds stuff, here's how to create Trello, lists and automations. And, you know, here's how to do your GTD list by David Allen. And here's how deep work we're in New Year's why I use noise cancelling headphones, there's a whole lot of in the weeds practical stuff. But what I tell them is that my goal is for you to learn none of that I want at the end of this program for you to have awareness. That's it. Because once you flip that switch of awareness on, you can't turn it off, and your entire life changes, which is essentially what you're talking about with awareness and presence and developing that intuition. And it's called good practice for a reason, because you constantly and very slowly have to get better at it. Yeah, so all of that having been said, I want to now go even one layer deeper. We're doing this intuitive practice, we've done the cost benefit analysis, the pros, cons, lists, whatever people want to call it. There's a lot of practical reasons why maybe I should do this, but my guts telling me that I shouldn't. But then in creeps, what I believe is the biggest obstacle of all, which is your thoughts, oh, this would make sense. But I'm not good enough. I'm not ready. girls that look like me don't get jobs like this and succeed. I'm too old. All of these limiting beliefs and all these stories that we make up in our head, those can just take intuition and crush it. So let's talk a little bit deeper about how we start to work with our own thoughts, and especially the negative ones, because I know this is an area where you specialize.
Cory Muscara: Yeah, yeah, it feels so deep and multifaceted. I think the first thing I want to just acknowledge is that I think a lot of the thoughts that arise are based in true experiences for people, a lot of their limiting beliefs or things that they've experienced, maybe trying to follow something in them that felt free, but they hit a roadblock, or they were met with a certain response from people or groups of people. And that it can be really hard to work with these negative thoughts, if we don't first just acknowledge that there may be significant kernels of truth in them based on our experience, and how it informs our lived experience in the world. And, you know, with that, one of the things we can start to look at is just like, these thoughts that arise, or the inner critic that arises, is a form of trying to protect us, it has a positive intention. The main thing I see for people, when working with thoughts is this, like, suppress and obliterate kind of mentality, just like, no fear, don't think about it, push forward. And that can work, there can be utility to that. And I, you know, think of certain circumstances where that's more useful than others. But a lot of times, what that ends up doing is just creating more internal fracturing. And we'd get like a temporary burst through something, but whatever was unresolved, or the thoughts that arise now, when we're on the other side of it, we haven't actually learned to work through them other than just like, trying to silence them, pushing them away. And that just keeps our nervous system completely overwhelmed. And so I would first be curious if someone really finds that there's a thought pattern arising for them, to get in touch with the part of them that is thinking that thought. And so usually, if, let's say the thoughts are related to fear, if you were to identify, if you were to give that part of you, like feel into the part of you that's thinking those thoughts, and this is very internal family systems, if you've ever heard of that ifs, this idea that we all have a constellation of different parts within us in the same way that a family has different parts that are playing different roles, managing putting out fires, creating, and these are often in conflict. And usually what we do when we don't like a certain part that's thinking away or in fears, just try to like shut it up, and lead with the good part. But this creates more of an internal war. So I'm always more interested in hearing out that part and learning to bring it into the collective of view. So that it can move forward with us as an ally, rather than this enemy pulling at us in the background. And so if there are these thoughts of, of limiting beliefs, drop in, you know, and dropping in what that could look like is get still close your eyes for five minutes, take some deep breaths. And then and then ask, like, where is this coming from in me? And again, I really liked the practice of giving that a form. Give that up, you know, if it's your younger self, or it's a character, so that you can start to relate to it, and then ask it like, what Where are you coming from? How are you trying to help me What is your intention here for sharing this thought? And it might be something like, Well, last time we took a risk, we failed. And Dad, Dad didn't like us and told us we were an idiot, some version of that.
And it's like, oh, yeah, I totally see that. Like, it totally makes sense that you would be fearful right now. And I'm so glad that you're here trying to warn us that this could happen. And I want you to know that we have new resources. Now, you know, that was 20 years ago, we're an adult. And yet it is possible that this could be scary and negative things could happen. But we know how to work with thoughts differently. Now we know how to work with shame differently. Now we know how to work with failure differently now. And essentially, what you're doing is you're re parenting that younger part of you, because it doesn't want to manage your life. It doesn't want to constantly be anxious, it feels like it needs to to keep you alive, which is which so many of these negative thoughts stem from these limiting beliefs. And so you meeting it and reassuring. It's like, yeah, I totally see what you see. And like, I've got this moving forward, we can move forward, and we have new resources to navigate, it allows you to not get stuck at the initial response of fear and to move forward with the wholeness of you rather needing rather than like having to cut out this side of you to push forward. But there's always something nagging and you're in the background, which is why we can end up in like successful positions, but feel completely empty or disconnected or hollow because of it. So there's so much to be said, for how to work with thoughts, including just like how to redirect your attention, how to just watch thoughts like clouds passing through the sky, so we don't take them so seriously. But I just continue to find myself more interested in less seeing limited thoughts as like something's wrong with your brain. And more viewing it as a part of you that is trying to help you. And you need to meet that part from the adult place in you have a conversation with it, and let it know that you have the resources to navigate this. It's just a one more metaphor on it. It's like having a guard dog. And you're in the other room, the guard dog hear someone coming out the door, and maybe it's just the male person trying to drop something off. And the guard dogs barking barking, barking barking, you're annoyed and you're pissed. And you're frustrated. Like stop. I'm trying to read a book. And eventually you're like, come on what is going on? And you see that someone at the door? And so what do we do? We don't kick the guard dog in the face, because we realize like what it's trying to do is protect us. So we have to assure the guard dog like Hey, it's okay. Like I know this person. We're okay right now. And then once the dog can see that you're safe, that you know what's happening. You see what it sees? And you're okay with it, then it can be tempered and calm. And it's the same. It's the same thing with our internal guard dog, which is those limited limiting beliefs. It's coming up, it's barking saying no, no, no Scary, scary, scary. The wiser self has to come in and say, Hey, I see you. It's okay, though. Like, I know what's here. We have the resources to navigate this moving forward. You're safe. I'm safe. It's okay. Yeah.
Zack Arnold: So I had a huge aha moment epiphany just for myself. And I can imagine if I went through it, there are a few other people listening that may have done so as well, and I want to share it with you. And then I'm gonna follow up with another question to continue this thread. And this is not me for the sake of education or for the sake of this conversation. I literally just had this thought as you were talking. One of my fears as an entrepreneur and a business owner is taking on debt. I don't want to take on any debt. And I just had this conversation three days ago with a team member, you know, we could maybe bring in an investor or we can keep bootstrapping, and I am not taking on any more debt, right? Because I had a horrible experience, rashly building a business about 10 to 12 years ago, taking on a lot of debt. And it did not go well. And the business ended up going under and I had this huge pile of money that I owed people and it destroyed my credit. And I just realized now I'm listening to my 26 year old knows nothing about business in life self that's advising me on running my business now. 15 years later. Yeah. And it just it hit me it was just like a light switch. Like, maybe it's time to rethink this because this time, I have a successful business. I have a business plan and I have a vision. So why wouldn't I want to accelerate that even it means that short term, I might take on a little bit of debt, but I see it as an investment. Because up until now, I've always seen it as emotional baggage. I don't want the emotional baggage where I can't sleep at night because I have debt because I know what it did to me 1215 years ago, and what you just said made me realize maybe I need to stop listening to that guy, huh? Yeah. However, let me add this. One of the reasons I heard that voice is because I have been developing I have the ability to be present, and my awareness. And I have the tools and the resources to have heard that while you were speaking, identify just like you did with a guy at the chiropractor's office and say, maybe that's a voice that I should listen to intuitively, maybe this is something I need to re explore. What if I've gone through whether it's my seven year old self, some kind of trauma, early ages or even an early adulthood, and now I'm at the position where I am as an adult, but I still don't have the resources to be able to better manage and develop this intuition. How do I learn to develop those resources?
Cory Muscara: Yeah, that's where there's, I would say, there's a ton there for for anyone who's genuinely interested in that. I mean, the first low hanging fruit, I don't know if it's the lowest hanging fruit. But a therapist, I think, is someone that is here to intentionally help you build those internal skills to navigate your internal experience. And when we're talking about what those internal resources look like, it's basically how do I stay present to and not completely overwhelmed by thoughts, emotions, sensations, and anything in my sensory experience, there's only so many experiences you can have internally. And it's some conglomeration of those things. So this is where meditation practice is particularly valuable. And it's also free. In that you are, let's say, you just you choose to sit down 10 minutes a day. And just be present to your experience, you focus on your breath, you notice when the mind wanders, you come back to the breath is just a basic practice you could do well, what you're doing there is one, you're learning how to ground yourself. So you're developing the capacity to be still amidst all the different forms of reactivity that typically want to arise, that comes up, you feel like I really want to check my phone or want to go get food, or I need to pee right now. And just like all of that sensation, and discomfort, and you're just learning to relax into that, that is building out your window of tolerance, your capacity, your inner resources to navigate other forms of discomfort that arise simultaneously, you're also learning that, oh, a thought can arise, and I'm able to watch it without immediately reacting to it, and then redirect my attention to my breath. Or I could just allow it to exist there and go, Oh, wow, it's a thought, my mind is thinking about how much I hate myself, or how much I'm an idiot? Or why did I say that thing that that person, and I don't need to take it doesn't have to be so much emotional charge to it, there can be observation, without reactivity. So now you're learning to work with thoughts. And so anytime thoughts arise, you have a different relationship to them. Same way to, you know, emotions, anger, sadness, fear, all of this stuff comes up in a meditation practice, because all you're doing is you're not going to any sort of transcendent realm, you're just sitting your butt down on a cushion with the same body you had before in the same mind you had before and being present for what comes up. But you're doing so from a grounded place and attuned place. And that is teaching you how to relate to your experience differently than you typically would. That builds out internal resources. So anyone looking to build out those resources, the first thing I'd say is most adults have way more resources than they realize, from when they were kids. So even just making it through these various traumas, even if there wasn't big healing, yet, like there were resources that had to get developed to keep moving forward. And so we all have that end, if you sense. And this is a really important point for anyone, especially if you are navigating trauma. If you sense that like whoo, when I get still, I can see that there's some really big stuff in the background for me right now. And I don't know if I, if I can hold it, or I can be with it like it feels like something might unravel. It's it's more rare that it's going to get to the point where you're just going to completely open up and not be able to put back be put back together because the merge, the nervous system has emergency brakes for that. But if you do feel like there's some big stuff there, that is where having some support, like a therapist really comes in and developing that in conjunction with another person. And then it gets internalized yourself.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I'll second all of that. I'll put an exclamation point on the value of therapy. This is something I've talked about in multiple podcasts, we're going to make sure that we link in the show notes to conversations that I've had with other people about this including a psychoanalyst that I work with for six months to work through probably the deepest, most complicated period of my life dealing with impostor syndrome, and procrastination and writer's block and just being totally stuck. That whole thing recorded conversation is available. We'll put it in the show notes. But in short, to summarize, the simplest answer other than looking for these outside resources in therapy is meditate develop a meditation practice and you develop this awareness as a tool. Sounds great, Cory I'm too busy to meditate What else you got?
Cory Muscara: Yeah, yeah. What's that Zen phrase? If you if you don't have a half hour to meditate, because you're too busy, you should meditate for an hour. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: I was hoping you were gonna say that we're on the same page.
Cory Muscara: Yeah. So there's there's that perspective that if things have really potentially accumulated in your life, where you're just in nonstop busyness, I often think that is because there has been some form of abandonment from your center where it got to the point where there's no more time for you. Granted, you may have just had triplets. And maybe you're a single parent, and you're navigating to jobs. And moving all at the same time, there are periods in our life, where it is just the case where it's like, nonstop, from beginning to end. In those more rare experiences, I would say there's still moments throughout the day where you have for yourself, and this is where you just start with one minute. And it could just be the one minute you take in the bathroom. When you have it just like I'm here, I'm going to use this time to breathe to the ground, and to really allow myself to be in first gear. So if you think of like the energy of the day, going from like first gear to fifth gear, sometimes we need to be in fifth gear, and we're just going and we're moving. Right now I'd say like, I'm maybe in third gear interacting with you, Zack, afterwards, I'll have a little bit of a break between another Interviewer And so I'll have five minutes. And it could be easy for me to just stay like sort of more ramped up. But I'm going to let myself just lay down and drop in to first gear for five minutes. And that could be just staring out a window could be breathing for a little bit. So the first thing for the ultra busy people, where's just like, Dude, I have no time. Look for the pockets of the in between pockets, the 32nd pockets, the one minute pockets, maybe even the three minute pockets, and let yourself get saturated with the ease that comes in those spaces. Even if it's just driving and your kids are in the back and five minutes taking them to school, and you get 30 seconds where they're not screaming. I'm characterizing kids in a terrible way here. But like you have these pockets, where it's just like, Oh, nobody needs anything from me right in this moment. Really let yourself surrender into that. For those that are more like, have really developed a very busy life and almost used busyness as an excuse to drop into the vulnerability of being still I see you this, then I would start I would really look at what is what is the addiction to being busy. Why have you created a life that is so fast paced and doesn't have time for space, or this belief that everything else you're doing is so important that there isn't time for you to take five minutes or 10 minutes for yourself. I think that requires a bit of an honest conversation about what the priorities are. And it might also just require a little bit more of a sales pitch from me or Zack about like the value of meditation because sometimes if we haven't prioritized it, it's just because we haven't internalized it. We're integrated into our value system. But if you've gotten a sense that like this is something that would be valuable to you, then then look at like, what are the ways you're subconsciously avoiding it. If there is a ton of busyness then start with one minute. And the beauty of one minute is very hard to argue yourself out of that, you know, if you start saying like, I don't have a minute to meditate, then we got to evaluate some things going on. So most of us, even if it's just like, I'm gonna wake up five minutes earlier, so I can meditate for one minute. Usually what happens is like, it's like, Alright, cool, I'll do my one minute, then I'll go to the bathroom, start my day, you do the one minute, the biggest barrier to entry is that first minute for people. It's the starting point. And it's this idea that like, Oh, I'm gonna have to be there for 20 minutes, and I don't have time for it. It's just like, I just rather get up and get going with my day. But one minute, you're like, Oh, I could do one minute I'll move on. But now you're there. And usually around 55 seconds, you start going, oh, you know what, okay, maybe I could probably do two minutes. I'm already here. So you don't need to two minutes. And it's like as feels kind of good. You'd probably do three threes finds do three, meditation, it's kind of important. Well, let's just do four won't tell anyone. And you see what happens. You start arguing yourself into it rather than arguing yourself out of it, then it's really important from a behavior change perspective because you're leveraging intrinsic motivation rather than an extrinsic motivation. And many high achievers which I know there are many here on this call
are often like will often view meditation as another thing that they have to do. And it just, it can be this like, this task that you integrate in your day that like almost reinforces the very patterns of conditioning that are causing you to want to meditate in the first place. Just like gotta be great at this got to do it X amount of minutes. So make that commitment, the burden of that commitment. Just One minute and then allow it to expand from there. How do you do that? There's a timer on Insight Timer free meditation app, you can set interval bells that go off every one minute. So if you know it goes off for five, it was five minutes, it goes for 10, it's 10 minutes. Because people are like, well, what if I don't have a timer? Like I'm gonna meditate for two hours, I'm going to miss work. One, that's not going to happen. But two, if you're worried about that, you know, just use that timer. And that can help with it.
Zack Arnold: I think I've met my match in somebody that has the ability to take complex ideas and turn them into really interesting metaphors. Because I've been told many times, people like I just I love the metaphors and the analogies. And I love the analogy of the various gears. However, I want to challenge you with a follow up, because first of all, just to kind of go backwards for a second. I this is very BJ Fogg and James clear. So I can tell that you and I read similar books, this idea of just floss one tooth, do one push up, right? This idea of just getting yourself the motivation.
Cory Muscara: For the record, I've been talking about that one minute idea before atomic habits came out, or tiny habits, okay,
Zack Arnold: It's just another one of those things where the universe has an idea that it wants to get out there. And you're one of the many messengers that is sharing a similar concept, right? So I didn't mean to take away from the fact that you said it's just it's so in the zeitgeist because it's so important and relevant, I think, to our day and age. But what I want to not necessarily challenge you, but ask you because I'm curious, in this analogy of first gear to fifth gear, why wouldn't the mindfulness be called neutral?
Cory Muscara: You know, if we really wanted to get nerdy with the metaphor, we could, we could view neutral, we could view Park, and bring all of that in. And sometimes I do. Just to play with this, on this thread. One of the things I'll say is that mindfulness is still an active state that can be present. In all the gears, mindfulness can be there. And when you're in fifth gear, mindfulness can be there, with the exception of sleep. And even some would argue some teachers like Alan Wallace would argue that, with lucid dreaming, you can still bring in that with mindfulness. But like when you're in total Zen, or like super fast paced, it's this awareness, it's in the backdrop of our experience. And it makes me think of the Zen story, I shared this on my Instagram the other day. It says, When walking, just walk, when running, just run, above all, don't wobble. And so mindfulness is less about doing what you're doing slowly or neutrally and more about doing what you're doing fully with full presence. And I think for people who are like interested in high performance and growth, there can be this feeling that when they're working hard, it's in conflict with this mindful present state. And what I would say is like when you're in that, let yourself be in it, if that's where you want to be feel like it's genuine, genuinely moving through you. And then when you're out of it, let yourself be out of it. And that's the whole thing of like giving yourself permission to be in first gear. Fifth gear, is what is neutral, like, could it be laying down and doing nothing, maybe maybe Park is sleeping. But one is not more mindful than the other, that mindfulness can be brought into all of them.
Zack Arnold: I knew there was a reason it wasn't neutral, and I wanted to make sure to get it out. Even if it wasn't a conscious choice. I knew there was a rationale for it. And that rationale was fantastic. So speaking of mindfulness, I made a promise to you of being very mindful of your time, which means you have 60 seconds to answer the following question, define the difference between happiness and fulfillment.
Cory Muscara: Oh man. Semantics, in my opinion, I use happiness almost synonymously with fulfillment, what I will say in the positive psychology space, which is one of the hats I wear, is happiness would be defined more as like a fleeting emotional experience and fulfillment slash well being might be defined more as a subjective well being that comes from a conglomeration of different experiences that include sense of meaning, purpose, positive emotion, self awareness, value values, etc. And so I think for the sake of the distinction, and I do think it's, you know, defining terms is important. We can all have happy moments and not be fulfilled, and we can be fulfilled but not always have like pure elation, but in my experience, you do the work of cultivating fulfillment. Happiness ends up being an extension of that.
Zack Arnold: The fact that you not only answered that in 60 seconds, but you're in answer was that well defined and frankly mind blowing. That was that was awesome because that's a very, very difficult question to answer. The next one I have is much easier for those that you have inspired today. Where do they find you?
Cory Muscara: Thanks, Zack. Well, a handful of places I have a lot of most of my teaching content is free. You can find it on Instagram @corymuscara Tik Tok @corymuscara. I have a daily free daily texts that goes out every day. That's like a thought of the day that you can get by texting, text 'optimized' to 6313052874 have a daily podcast called Practicing Human. And I have a book called Stop Missing Your Life. So those would all be the good starting points and all of my events online and in person can be found at corymuscara.com.
Zack Arnold: Nice. Well, for anybody that's driving go to the shownotes later don't write all that down now. But on that note, Cory has been absolutely mind blowing enlightening. I learned some amazing things about myself on this call. I'm sure other people did. So thank you so much for being here.
Cory Muscara: Thank you, Zack. It was a pleasure.
This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel.
The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).
The term “Psychoanalysis” comes with plenty of baggage, not the least of which is images of Freud asking someone about their relationship with their mother, or on the opposite end of the spectrum someone lying down on a couch expressing their innermost fears and desires only to have a practitioner passively responding with, “and how did that make you feel?” Ugh….shoot me.
Learn from bestselling author and founder of the University of Michigan “Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory” Ethan Kross how we can harness the voices in our heads to overcome limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome.
If you intend to be successful, your secret weapon is your ability to focus and do 'Deep Work.' Learn how with author Cal Newport
If you have any interest in working "smarter" instead of "harder," you'll need a system to get you there…and that system is GTD.
You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”. My guest today is James Clear, an author and speaker who specializes in habits, decision making, and continuous improvement.
Learn from productivity expert Nir Eyal how to better manage your time, your attention, and become 'Indistractable.
Learn the difference between being “busy” and being “productive” so you can define your own version of productivity and set goals that allow you to align your time with your values.
As the recently elected President of American Cinema Editors (ACE), Kevin Tent is leading the charge to make working smarter instead of harder in the edit bay one of his top priorities. He's dedicated to making changes like taking regular walk breaks, adding in meditation, and even taking an occasional nap to enhance your creativity and get you through the day with more energy left over for your family and yourself when work is done. If you want to know how one of the top names in the feature editing game stays sharp and continues to work at such a high level, today’s conversation is for you.
Learn from integrative medical specialist Dr. Dave Jenkins about the many things in our modern lifestyles and environments that are causing brain damage, and the simple and practical steps we can take to reverse that damage.
Ditch the diets, the calories, the macros, and the guilt by learning how to eat intuitively with Melissa Costello of Karma Chow.
If you consistently fail to achieve your goals, the problem isn't you, the problem is that you haven't properly defined your purpose. Let P90X creator Tony Horton get you started.
