Rainn Wilson on Meditation, The Sexy Nostril Exercise, and Acting as Therapy (#123)

Awesome! I hope Steve Carrell’s next.

Please tell me Steve Carrell is up next.

QOTD- setting a ginormous goal has worked for me. One that people told me I had no chance of achieving. Example, I wanted to become an F-16 pilot in high school. With 20/200 vision everyone from my eye doctor to best friends said it was impossible. The day I took off solo and looked out at the missile on my wingtip, I nearly broke down in tears. Keep your goals big and seemingly impossible, so you have a chance to prove everyone wrong. Also, when it feels like life has gone down the shitter, you can look up and see that mountain of a goal in the midst of the horizon.

Tim’s best episode in a while!

Hi Tim

In the end of your podcast on Rainn Wilson you advertise ‘wealth front’, which is a super-exciting product. Problem is its only available to someone who is a legal U.S. resident or a U.S. citizen (with a permanent U.S. address)!!

Could you please remember you have international listeners and mention when you recommend great life-enhacing automation services if we will be excluded from using them, this would save us time and disappointment upon researching your recommendations.

Thanks from Ireland and keep up the good work

Slainte/health

Stephen McPhilemy

Dear Tim,

I will produce your podcast for free and ill even make you dinner. Just pay for travel and ill cook anything you want. Dont take this as an insult but, i can teach you how to make a professional sounding podcast in less than 4 hours! I only say this because i respect you and i want to continue listening yo your podcast. Like you i was introduced to Tony Robbins at a young age. My brother gave me 4 hour work week about 6 years ago. You have helped me. Now let me help you. To an audio nerd your podcast sounds just awful. but for less than $1000 i can make it sound as good as it gets. I dont need money. I just want you to have the production quality your show deserves. Give me a reason to check my inbox. We’ll talk.

Thanks,

Joe Mormann

Hey Tim,

I really enjoy listening to your podcast. You engage your guests in a very intellectual fashion. I listened to this Rainn Wilson interview and have one comment: At the end, Rainn mentions that he got a mouthpiece from his dentist that helped with his snoring and you then respond by saying “you can get something at a sporting goods store.” You seem like a guy who likes to provide accurate information for his listeners. As a dentist I wanted to let you know that a mouthgaurd and an oral appliance that helps with sleep apnea (snoring) are two different things. The latter device provides some form of mandibular (lower jaw) posturing that creates the open airway that Rainn mentions in the interview. This jaw posturing is necessary if the intent is to address obstructive sleep apnea, whereas a traditional mouth gaurd from a sporting good store simply provides protection for teeth (athletics, some clenching/grinding cases). Many people suffer from obstructive sleep apnea and taking the proper approach to address their problem can literally change their life. Hope you find this helpful and can guide your listeners in an appropriate fashion.

Thanks for a great podcast!

Meditation really does work to clear your mind and to think positive.

Hey Tim! I love the show and all the work you do. I just read about your challenge to students to try and contact unreachable people and get them to answer 3 questions. Well, I thought who better to contact than you?

-What advice would you give to an ambitious highschool student who is deathly afraid of becoming bored and comfortable?

-What are your must see destinations in New York?

-In your opinion, what is the most important thing to understand before starting a business? (Or a summer company in my case..?)

Great interview, thanks.

Some interesting, positive ideas discussed here. Like the idea of using tenets from faiths or philosophies other than your own and applying that to your own life. For instance, I grew up religious, but currently am not. However, a lot of the generic principles from the religion I was raised in still apply to me today. This is probably in line with the idea of the Family Virtues Guide discussed in the interview (must get myself a copy); that religions and philosophies don’t have the market cornered on virtuous living.

Don’t forget the head kick video 😉

Hello great post! I use a task management (gqueues) to write down my agenda and goals, what has worked is when I put timing to the task, for example during the day for the list of things I decided to do I write the hour and expected period of time to perform the task. What has not worked is that I do not have the discipline to open my task management in a daily basis.

I too suffer from snoring wish I knew the mouth device he uses that has changed his life.

Hey Tim,

To say I am a fan of your work is an understatement. The majority of your shows are spot on and relevant to my life and what I believe in. Thank you for that.

Recently, your interview with Rainn Wilson struck close to home when you both spoke about the future of education. I work for an organization that is empowering children though mind body education. We focus on the brain and empowering children by educating them through mind body activities that focus on strengthening their physical bodies, stabilizing their emotional bodies and stretching their cognitive abilities. We believe in strengthening a child’s foundation in order for them to take on the challenges of not only learning, but of everyday life.

I see you are an advocate for our kind of work and I was wondering if you would be open to learning more about our organization. We believe we are the future and we have already won several grants through prestigious institutions one of them being Microsoft. Currently we have our sites set on the XQ Super School project, but we need all the help we can get educating and spreading awareness to people about our objective.

I was wondering if you would be open to discuss any opportunity to help our cause.

Thanks so much for reading and thank you so much for the work you do!

Peter

Tim, love that you hit on the value of a regular stillness practice. It is like you say about “coming back” again and again. Tim. I learned a “Rolls Royce” of meditation techniques for “householders” with busy lives + busy minds, like you and I, from a 40 year master teacher in West Hollywood back in 2006. It’s a style of meditation that’s been scientifically validated by hundreds of studies. Most notably by a major health insurance co. and a major medical university. Been getting daily benefits from doing it every since. Now I’m training to become a teacher of this technique and am the manger to a protegee of my meditation teacher, Peter Vroom. If you’re interested in having a masterful meditation teacher as a guest on the podcast, we’d love to entertain a conversation on this subject so central to happiness and the spread of peace and progressive evolution. [Moderator: email address removed]

QOTD: I actually teach a lesson on goal setting at the US Air Force Officer Training School, and I focus on a few different areas: (1) a big vomit-it-all-out brain purge session paired with regular revisits of lifetime goals, (2) distinguishing between Everest and SMART goals, and (3) putting your goals in reasonable categories.

It’s helpful to have a big session once and feedback sessions regularly.

Big session: I sat down and listed everything I ever wanted to do (go skydiving) or be (always fast and strong), which comes out to 100 or so items. Then I hone that down to the top 10, top 5, top 3 and number 1. I keep an index card in my pocket every day to remind me of the top 5, so the urgent doesn’t crowd out the important in my daily agenda.

Little sessions: Maybe once a month, but at least once a year, I revisit my list. I’ll add new items or tick off the ones I’ve done or become, re-check my priorities, and then I develop a plan of action.

Some of my goals are “Everest” goals, like something I dream of, but might not be realistic. Others (the ones that I focus on most) are the SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-oriented). For example, I have a long-term goal to always be strong and fast, so my current SMART goal is to run sub-6:00 miles by May, along with some other lifting numbers appropriate for my current post-hernia surgery situation.

In addition to big/little sessions and Everest/SMART distinctions, I categorize my goals in a few areas: faith/spirituality, education, fitness, wealth, and travel. Those are just logical categories based on my long list of lifetime goals. I used to follow the big three of health, wealth, and wisdom, but I find these categories increase the resolution just enough without confusing things too much.

I have a lot of detail I provide to my cadets to inspire action in each of those categories, but this is the overall framework I present — and it’s the system I’ve used for years to great success. I hope it’s helpful.

“As if” works really well and there is some permanency so be careful who you pick to be “as if.” Picking someone who is depressed is a very bad idea! When you do it, go through various scenarios (imagined, past, future expected using all of your senses) to get the best effect.

Tim, big fan of your work and what you put into world.

However, around min 25, big mistake. He wasn’t talking about a mouthguard but a device to treat Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). Without getting enough O2 to the brain cortisol levels spike along with release of epinephrine and other negative consequences. Definitely not an otc device as it needs to be titrated to effect. The science behind OSA is not known by the general public but a huge life changer when identified and treated.

I hope this does some good.

Cheers!