Paleomodern Polymaths 23: Ryan’s Message to his Ex, Guiding Principals, NLP, Realizing You’re Awake

On this shorter episode Ryan and I catch up and share the ideas we’ve been tossing around in our heads recently. This one is jam-packed with actionable advice including: the guiding principles we use to improve and simplify our lives, how to be more authentically yourself, how to make progress towards the things that are important to you, and the importance of actually working hard at something. We let things get juicy as Ryan publicly reveals what he’s been wanting to say to his ex-girlfriend, we share stories of how we’ve gone overboard on certain things that have been detrimental to our lives and we recognize that our insecurities often reinforce our bad behavior. There’s more in here too, if you want to hear something in particular, just check out the chapter markers below. Thanks for listening.

Chapters:

• Intro [0:00]
• Being Yourself/Not Conforming [5:30]
• The Guiding Principles we base our lives on [12:00]
• Meta-Principles [15:30]
• Realizing We’re Awake [17:15]
• Stories of Ruts We’ve Gotten Stuck in/Going Overboard [20:30]
• Why It’s Important to Have Principles [23:40]
• How to use NLP to Improve Your Life [25:40]
• How Insecurities Reinforce Bad Behavior [30:15]
• I ask Ryan If you could speak directly to your ex-girlfriend, what would you say to her? and why is it important that he tell her this? [33:30]
• The importance of Male Role Models in our Lives [40:00]
• What is the Guiding Principle in my Life right now? [49:00]
• What is Ryan actually working at really hard right now? [51:30]
• We Give Closing Advice for Ourselves [1:03:10]

Selected Links for the Episode:

• The Robin Doner Episode
• The Amelia Episode
• Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder by Nassim Taleb
• Graduate Unschool
• Headspace
• Wear Sunscreen Monologue
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• The Paleomodern Polymaths Facebook Group.  If you listen to the podcast, you SHOULD join this!

Selected Quotes from the Episode:

• “If I’m not being weird then I feel like I’m just borrowing ideas from other people and repeating them and I don’t like that”
• “How many times a day do you realize you’re awake?”
• “Look at yourself from a third party perspective and think what decision should I be making?“-Ryan
• “You were an important part of my life, it sucks being shut down by someone who I truly cared about. It feels like losing a best friend.”
• “I spent a fourth of college being with this person and now that it’s over. It’s like all those memories I have, I’m having to delete out of my system.”-Ryan
• “You can only put yourself out there so many times before you get exhausted with it… Why am I spending this energy on this person who clearly doesn’t want me around.”