Zen Stoic Path Show

Trusting yourself and being self-sufficient are not mutually exclusive from asking for help. But there is a big difference between being someone who asks for help because you’ve become dependent on others for validation, and someone who does their part and recognizes where they need help. Imagine a world where people were self-sufficient AND embraced the interconnectedness of humanity. There is gr...

Zen’s style of action is to enter everything wholeheartedly without having to keep an eye on itself. This is what it is to have trust. There is great value in believing in yourself. If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot really trust anyone. Trusting yourself is not necessarily for the faint of heart. Those courageous enough to do so create a very fulfilling and meaningful life because they beco...

When you are mindful about your own balance in life, you reduce the chance of your mess falling into someone else’s path. Being self-sufficient allows you a greater capability to help others, as you can’t pour water from an empty pitcher. The most valuable investment you could make is in yourself. You only experience life through your own perception. You’re of little use to the world if you do not...

In this episode, I interview one of my oldest childhood friends, Danny Frank. Danny has been on the spiritual path for over a decade and shares with us a wealth of knowledge that will help to illuminate the path.

 Pay attention to the problems in life that stir up unpleasant emotions within you! This is where your purpose can be uncovered. Unpleasant feelings are most abundant in raw material for creativity! They point us in the direction of solving problems in a unique way that may eventually become valuable to others. Pay attention to the activities that feel like play or feel effortless to you. Fall in...

We’re all guilty of this to some degree. In a world where everyone’s business is all over the internet, the temptation to talk about someone behind their back seems higher than ever. But not just talking behind people’s back, sometimes it's directly too while wielding the mighty keyboard via the comments or DMs. As we learn more about philosophy and its place in the world, we start to see people a...

It is so easy for us to miss the forest through the trees. We live in the age of the “selfie.” The widespread perspective has become warped, where everything revolves around our own perception of ourselves. This causes us to put an undue amount of significance on everything we say and do while taking everything personally.  One of the most valuable skills we can cultivate is self-awareness. Self-a...

“He has the most who is content with the least.” -Diogenes  “It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor.” -Seneca  “He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.” -Socrates What if we could find contentment and inner peace right here right now? What if everything you were chasing was just taking you further away from yourself. Imagin...

Micah has been training in martial arts for over 28yrs. Including Muay Thai and San Shou kickboxing, as well as wrestling in high school. After discovering BJJ in 2006 he decided to dedicate the rest of his martial arts career to grappling. Micah has functioned as an assistant striking coach for kickboxing and MMA. He has also worked as a competitive gymnastics coach for the past 12 years, as well...

“We think that the world is limited and explained by its past. We tend to think that what happened in the past determines what is going to happen next, and we do not see that it is exactly the other way around! What is always the source of the world is the present; the past doesn't explain a thing. The past trails behind the present like the wake of a ship and eventually disappears.” -Alan Watts

You don’t have to sacrifice all practicality in order to pursue your creative passions. There is no rule that your creative passions need to become your vocation and that you need to do what you love every day.  What happens to that creative energy when it’s suppressed? Life is full of pain, suffering, and unpleasant emotions. Our creative energy is born out of these experiences, and failing to ex...

“One of the key paradoxes in Buddhism is that we need goals to be inspired, to grow, and to develop, even to become enlightened, but at the same time we must not get overly fixated or attached to these aspirations. If the goal is noble, your commitment to the goal should not be contingent on your ability to attain it, and in pursuit of our goal, we must release our rigid assumptions about how we m...

We all want to feel better about ourselves. Life is difficult, there is pain and suffering and sometimes, we would love nothing more than for there to be a quick fix, or for things to be easier and less difficult. And sometimes we turn to things like excessive positive thinking or pumping up our confidence as a means of making things easier on ourselves.  We’ve become addicted to expediency and ex...

After surviving a few near-death experiences and overcoming addiction, codependency, and anxiety; Kevin has dedicated his life to sharing how he did it and the wisdom he learned in the process.  Kevin is on a mission to end trauma and assist human evolution. He utilizes coaching, visionary leadership, and trauma-informed bodywork to fuel his vision of positively impacting the trajectory of the hum...

We hear people say all the time, “I want to be happy,” or “do what makes you happy.” This advice is hardly useful in any practical way because what we think makes us happy is actually an abstraction of actual happiness. Happiness is not a thing you can go and get, it is a state of being, yet most people associate the concept of happiness with an external result or outcome.  There’s a lot of “I’ll...

"Repeated efforts to be one-up on the universe may eventually reveal their futility. Don’t try to get rid of the ego-sensation. Take it, so long as it lasts, as a feature or play of the total process — like a cloud or wave, or like feeling warm or cold, or anything else that happens of itself. Getting rid of one’s ego is the last resort of invincible egoism! It simply confirms and strengthens the...

“Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own inner resources. The trails we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths. Prudent people look beyond the incident itself and seek to form the habit of putting it to good use. On the occasion of an accidental event, don’t just react in a haphazard fashion: remember to turn inward and ask what re...

When we judge others, we are actually judging ourselves.  Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them or learn to bear them .' -Marcus Aurelius Continuing to judge someone after the moment of noticing their wrongdoing rather than teaching them better or giving them feedback only serves to hold you back from freeing yourself. Silent judgement in your own mind or gos...

1. The time is ALWAYS now. Master your relationship with the present moment. - Do things right away to prevent being weighed down and cluttered by unfinished tasks. Quick decisions. 2. Do less, but do it better. Eliminate unnecessary actions by eliminating unnecessary assumptions. Recognize the difference between urgent and important. Know your outcome. - Take as much off your plate as possible, a...

  Seneca Quotes, “Letters From A Stoic: Letter II”: “You do not tear from place to place and unsettle yourself with one move after another. Restlessness of that sort is symptomatic of a sick mind. Nothing to my way of thinking, is better proof of a well ordered mind that a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass the time in his own company. To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” “Food that is...

Chrysippus The Fighter: Philosophy as “a cultivation of rightness of reason.” Stoicism is “a philosophy of endurance and inner strength- of transcending one’s limits and measuring oneself against a higher internal standard” -Lives of The Stoics, Ryan Holiday "Runners in a race ought to compete and strive to win as hard as they can, but by no means should they trip their competitors or give them a...

If you always live with the future in mind, you’ll miss out on life. The most important moments (and fondest memories) happen unexpectedly and in the process, not the outcome or destination. Sometimes it’s nothing your mind could have even conceived… something someone says to you (a joke, a story, a compliment) or a look someone gives you.  Follow through on what you commit to. Do not simply try t...

In this episode, we interview Eric Duran. Eric is a software engineer, mentor, and content creator. Eric shares with us how he went from humble beginnings to working as a software engineer at the top of his field, at one of the largest tech companies in the world! You can find Eric at @champagnecoder on Instagram for content on life lessons, career advancement, work/lifestyle setup, and technical...

One of the biggest problems we face in society is that we’ve been taught not to trust ourselves. Lack of trust in ourselves leads to a disproportionate amount of overthinking and indecisiveness. So many decisions to make, What if I’m wrong? What if I make a mistake? What if I fail? Indecisiveness and overthinking comes from a lack of clarity on what direction you want to move in. It comes from a l...

      Marcus Aurelius: The 5 Ways The Human Soul Degrades Itself: The Human Soul Degrades Itself: 1. To be disgruntled at anything that happens is a kind of secession from nature, which comprises the nature of all things. 2. When it turns its back on another person or sets out to do it harm, as the souls of the angry do. 3. When it is overpowered by pleasure or pain 4. When it puts on a mask and d...