Learning To Live

Most of us know the kind of person we want to become, but actually living that way is much harder. What if the answer isn't another productivity system or life hack, but a 2,000-year-old philosophy? In this episode of Learning To Live, we explore the four core virtues of Stoicism: Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice. We discuss how they provide a practical framework for making better decision...

Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid suffering, but what if that's exactly the wrong approach? In this episode of Learning To Live, we explore one of Stoicism's most misunderstood ideas: suffering isn't something to eliminate, it's something to use. We discuss how discomfort can become a tool for growth, why resistance often creates more pain than the hardship itself, and how ancient Stoic p...

For the past 30 days, we’ve been recording footage of all our ongoing challenges and punishments. Now it’s time for the full transparent results. In this episode of Learning To Live, we break down the footage of our daily meditation challenge, strict diet, limited phone use, and Tiny Habits. We also reveal the outcomes of our punishment challenges. Based on our results, we select our new punishmen...

We picked up Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life because it had thousands of five-star reviews and a pretty cover. We are going to deliver our honest thoughts and criticisms on this book as we try to find what is useful, and what is filler. In this episode of Learning To Live, we break down what ikigai actually is, why the book fails to deliver on its promise, and what the Blue Zo...

This episode, we're breaking down Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. Walker makes a pretty compelling case that sleep isn't just one of the health pillars, it's the foundation everything else is built on. We break down the most eye-opening stats and ideas from the book, including what drowsy driving actually costs, why alcohol is so much worse for sleep than people think, and what's really happening...

In Episode 14 of Learning to Live, we record a message to our future selves. Will this podcast still exist in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? We make predictions about our future careers, relationships, fitness, finances, YouTube growth, and what our daily lives might look like in 2036. Some of these predictions are wildly optimistic. Some are probably completely wrong. But that's the point. This episo...

We live in the safest, most connected, and technologically advanced period in human history. So why does modern life feel increasingly empty? In Part 2 of our deep dive into The Master and His Emissary, we explore a provocative idea from psychiatrist and neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist: that the growing emptiness, anxiety, disconnection, and loss of meaning many people feel may not be random. It m...

For the past couple of months we’ve implemented challenging self-improvement habits into our lives: - No non-essential phone use - 30 minutes of meditation every day - 3 Tiny Habits - A strict “Good Energy” clean eating diet In this episode we sit down to reflect on our journey and rate the results. What actually improved? What completely failed? And why did some of these challenges feel impossibl...

Your brain has two hemispheres, and they don't always agree. This week, we dive into The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist, breaking down what the left and right brain are actually doing, why they're in conflict, and what that means for how we think, feel, and live. We cover the Nietzsche parable at the heart of the book, the left hemisphere's overconfidence problem, how language shapes...

In this episode of Learning To Live we're pulling back the curtain on our full blood work results and using them to build the most ambitious diet we've ever attempted, inspired by Casey Means' Good Energy. We break down our entire dieting history, what worked, what didn't, and why we kept falling off. Then we go through 15 key biomarkers from our extensive Function Health blood test, score ourselv...

As guys trying to take control of our health, we realized we’ve been mostly guessing when it comes to what we eat and how it affects us. This episode, we react to Good Energy by Casey Means. We break down metabolic health, why so many people feel constantly tired, and how the healthcare and food industries may be exploiting you. We give our honest critique of the book, and look ahead to a complete...

As spiritual skeptics, we wanted to learn the science behind meditation. On this episode of Learning To Live, we examine how meditation structurally changes your brain and how a simple daily practice can begin your journey to unconditional happiness. We discuss Living Untethered by Michael Singer alongside various scientific articles on the biological effects of mindful meditation. We hope you enj...

We decided to challenge ourselves to be better. We got off our phones, began Tiny Habits, and started meditating 30 minutes a day. While we started each of these challenges at different times, we have already experienced major benefits from all three. We go over what worked, what didn't, and what we are going to improve. We hope you enjoy our results!

Small things ruin our entire day… but why? In this episode, we break down The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer and the idea that the problem isn’t what happens to us, it’s that we don’t let go of it. We talk about the voice in your head, why you’re not your thoughts, and how holding onto past pain shapes your life. To test this, we craft our new meditation practice, challenging ourselves to explo...

In this episode of Learning To Live, we break down The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. We explore the core themes of the voice in your head, letting go of personal preference, inspiration and flow state, and spiritual experiences. Below is the list of topics and questions we cover, with corresponding timestamps. Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoy! 0:00 Intro 3:15 The Voice In Your Hea...

In this episode of Learning To Live, we break down the book Tiny Habits by Dr. BJ Fogg. We share the secrets we learned about behavior design and habit creation, and create our own Tiny Habits to implement in our lives. Find Tiny Habits here: https://tinyhabits.com/

In this episode of Learning To Live, we dive into the importance of attention. We break down our experimental results of our no phones challenge and social media detox. We discuss our reactions to the "Brain Rot Emergency" episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast, which is centered around attention spans, loneliness, and the growing impact of technology on our lives. We also share our thoughts on "De...

Are phones hijacking your brain? In this episode of Learning To Live, we dive into one of the biggest problems facing our generation: screen addiction. We break down the research behind dopamine, attention, motivation, and the reward systems in your brain, and explore why phones and social media are so hard to put down. From Instagram reels and YouTube shorts to doom scrolling, we examine how mode...

We are Asher and Robert, hosts of the podcast Learning To Live (LTL). This is episode one; our introduction and the beginning of our journey. Each episode will break down different schools of thought across health, performance, philosophy, and personal development to understand what actually works. Our goal is to demystify the black box of “fulfillment” by actively implementing what we learn into...