#110 The Very Online Quasi-Wandering Monk - Tasshin Fogleman on Metta, Monasteries, Leisure, Work, Twitter and Finding Work That Matters (Pathless Path Podcast)

[00:59] Paul: Welcome to The Pathless Path. I'm Paul Millerd, and in this podcast, we examine the invisible scripts that run our lives and dare to imagine new stories for work and life. Welcome, friends. Today I am talking to Tasshin Fogleman, who describes himself as an extremely online wandering quasi-monk, perhaps the only human on the planet with such a description. I love that. On an indefinite pilgrimage for the benefit of all beings.

Welcome to the conversation, Tasshin.

[01:34] Tasshin Fogleman: You're so welcome, friend. I don't know why I said that. I'm just amused. Yes, thank you.

[01:42] Paul: So you describe yourself as living a simple life, dedicating your life to being of service, supported by the generosity of others and focused on spreading love, following your curiosity and empowering others. Excited to dive into all that today. I also got a peek at a book you're working on, and I found the beginning just very powerful. So I thought that might be an interesting place to start. It's really kind of your story of growing up and never quite fitting in and how that felt, which I imagine was not great, but Maybe you wanna tell us a little more and talk about how that has laid the groundwork for where you are now.

[02:27] Tasshin Fogleman: Yeah, yeah. You know, to be honest, I don't love the intro to the book that I'm writing, and it's not actually published yet, so I might change it, but I think I'll keep it. It feels something like melodramatic to me or something in the way it's presented, but it's compelling, it's strong, right? And it's all true, it's all 100% true. So it's not like a lie, but yeah, I sort of listed out difficult memories from my childhood and times that I was bullied or felt alone and even, you know, just extremely depressed. And, you know, it's kind of intense.

There's a content warning on the book just in case it's— that section of the book in case it's too intense for someone. But yeah, I think there were definitely beautiful parts of my childhood, and I didn't, I didn't write about them there, but those were sort of the most difficult memories. And I think, yeah, a sense of not being quite at home in the social groups that I found myself in, and being strange and different and weird, and like really wanting to connect to people, wanting to have friends, um, and yet not really finding friends that were very good to me or that I felt very close to. And thankfully, of course, in my adult life, I feel just blessed by an abundance of wonderful friends, and the internet has sort of brought me the weirdos that I needed then. But yeah, yeah, but yeah, that's, that's sort of what the intro is about.

And hopefully it puts into context why, why finding a sustainable way of being happy would be meaningful to me, meta-practice, and the Brahmaviharas and practicing this, this love has sort of allowed me to access a happiness that's, that's not dependent on having friends or certain circumstances. And I think that put it into context.

[04:24] Paul: Yeah, I just want to say, I mean, you have to figure out what feels right for you, but I thought it was actually very relatable in just a deep human way. I didn't find it melodramatic at all. You're really talking about like wanting to be friends with people and sort of being rejected. And I, I think most people have experienced something like that, right? It gets down to these deep desires we all sort of share. So this, this podcast is ostensibly about kind of life paths, life journeys.

And one of the interesting things I like to explore is what are the scripts people grow up with. So I've discovered we all sort of have some sort of script or idea we have as a young person that says, do these things as an adult and you will be a good person, a successful person, insert any of your adjectives. What was your working model of the world, no matter how detailed or abstract?

[05:22] Tasshin Fogleman: Hmm.

[05:24] Paul: Wow.

[05:24] Tasshin Fogleman: I'm not really sure. I, I, I know one thing that feels very resonant when you ask that is just how dissatisfying all the ones that came to me were, and almost like they bounced off of me. I was like, this is not— no, no. Like, I don't, I don't want this. I think, for example, I have a very strong memory of being on a bus in, I think maybe the 5th grade and noticing that I was like on track to finish elementary school and then go to middle school and then go to high school and then go to college, and then I'd be done with my learning. You know, it's like, oh, then you'll be done and education is over.

And I was like, no, no, no, I want to keep learning. I want to keep growing. It felt tragic to me that that was how learning was supposed to happen in our society by default. You know, I was aware that like graduate school existed. I don't know what I— I don't know, but I knew that. But I was like, maybe I'll do that.

I don't know. But I know that, you know, later actually, when I was considering graduate school, one of the things that felt also dissatisfying about that was specializing. It's like, I don't, I don't want to specialize. That's, that seems gross. I don't want to be the best at this. I want to learn a lot of different things.

And yeah, so that was one. I never felt compelled to have a traditional job. I've very briefly held, quote, traditional jobs, and then those also just bounced off me. It's like, no, thank you. I don't want to have 40-hour work weeks and a 9-to-5 and a 401(k). It just didn't make any sense.

It was like someone speaking a foreign language. So I don't know so much if there was one compelling narrative that I thought, oh, this is what it is, so much as just being really dissatisfied with the ones that I did find.

[07:12] Paul: Yeah. And that's sort of something I've noticed is a lot of people are dissatisfied with the default script, but they don't have an alternative story. To go towards, right? Being against something is easy, but going towards something is actually hard. And we'll probably dive into that a little later.

[07:31] Tasshin Fogleman: If I could mention, I think that's probably— I only started considering joining a monastery when I was maybe 20. I don't think I'd— I mean, I must have heard of them, but I never considered it. But when I started meditating, it was like, oh, that's actually a script that makes somewhat sense to me. You know, it wasn't a common script. I didn't know anyone that trained at a monastery. At that time, but I was like, that actually makes sense to me to do that.

So yeah.

[07:58] Paul: What do you think about it resonated? Was it just sort of escaping from the default mode? Was it something more positive that was drawing you to that?

[08:10] Tasshin Fogleman: Yeah, it definitely wasn't escaping. I think it was, you know, I started, I had started meditating and I was, you know, a year or two in and just very clearly saw this is worth doing. This is a good thing to do. I'm not very good at it. I need to get better at it. I'm not going to get better on my own.

I need support, a teacher, a community, an actual place of practice would be helpful. And I had seen already at that point in my life how being surrounded by people who are trying to do the same thing is very helpful. And so it was like, yeah, if you want to get good at meditation and spiritual practice, then a monastery is a good place to do that.

[08:49] Paul: Yeah. So talk to me about that decision. How did you decide to commit to that? Were you— did you end up going to college? Where were you in your journey?

[09:00] Tasshin Fogleman: Mm-hmm.

[09:02] Paul: Yeah.

[09:04] Tasshin Fogleman: I was in college and just increasingly— I started meditating as a sophomore and like, as time went on, it just became of increasing interest. And when I was a sophomore, I considered dropping out to go join a monastery and ended up deciding to keep going with my education and finish my degree. But I considered that, and then when it was time to graduate, I was thinking about it. And the main sort of challenge became what monastery would I join? Because one thing that was very clear to me was I didn't resonate with, you know, traditional monasteries that I was aware of, because it's almost like, I don't know, Basically, I wasn't from the cultures that a lot of these traditions were designed for. So even if I respected them, it was like, I'm a contemporary American kid.

So that's why I really resonated with the Monastic Academy when I found that. It wasn't called that at the time, but it seemed like they were trying to create a real authentic monastic tradition for contemporary Westerners. And I was like, okay, that's the one for me.

[10:11] Paul: Yeah. And I think that's how I first discovered— ran across you and also the Emerge podcast and Sure You. Sure You. Sure You.

[10:25] Tasshin Fogleman: Sure You.

[10:25] Paul: Sure You. For a while was involved in that. Maybe tell us a little bit about like what the mission of the Monastic Academy was. I thought it was a very unique kind of mix of like this active leisure mode. While also in this contemplative mode?

[10:46] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes. Well, I left there about a year ago, and so I'm not sure how they'd currently frame their mission. But I think there was, on the one hand, an emphasis on real rigorous contemplative practice in a monastic structure designed for Westerners. So different than than traditional Asian monasteries, for example, but inspired by them, aimed at the same levels of rigor. And on the other hand, a commitment to being of service in the world, to making a real difference in the world, an awareness of the various complex problems that we're facing at this time, and how could it be possible to resolve those and create leaders that have the skills needed to address those problems who have real practical skills in the world. So it also had this aspect of leadership training and learning how to run a nonprofit.

And, you know, I learned to fundraise there and other things, just very practical skills that you need to run a nonprofit, start a company, have some kind of impact in the world.

[11:53] Paul: That's amazing. And how long did you spend there?

[11:59] Tasshin Fogleman: I trained there twice, sort of like two tours of duty if it were the military. Uh, so I, I was there for two years, left for a year and then went back for another almost three years. So almost five years in total. Yeah. I think it's like one or two months shy if you counted it all up.

[12:16] Paul: Yeah. So, so you ended up leaving there and it might be a good jumping off point just to talk about how you think about your path. So I think that your writing that I most resonate with is when you're talking about your path. You have this quote in one of your essays, you write, "Do not do the things you know are bad. Do every good thing you can and purify your mind so that becomes clear to you." When did that as sort of a compass for guiding your life become central to you?

[12:47] Tasshin Fogleman: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That, I'm not sure where specifically you found that. I definitely put that sort of idea in a lot of places, but that is, to my understanding, a rewording of the Buddhist Three Pure Precepts, which comes from Mahayana Buddhism, which is essentially do good things, don't do bad things, purify the mind. That's the path. And, you know, I chanted that every day for years, and that's one formulation of ethics from Buddhism. There's others as well, like the five precepts and other forms.

But the Three Pure Precepts is for Mahayana Buddhism in particular, like an ethical foundation. And that's sort of baked into me at this point. And I think, you know, there's also a passage in Peace Pilgrim who I've been tremendously inspired by that's very similar where she talks about like, if there was something I knew I shouldn't do, I stopped doing that. I relinquished it. If there was something I knew I should do, then I got busy doing it. And just kept going.

And she says, the way she describes it is, as I lived according to the highest light that I had, then more and more light came to me. And at a certain point, um, yeah, maybe it's when I left the monastery, maybe in the months preceding it, but I started to realize that, um, I think, I think a sort of spiritual maturing happened where instead of trying to follow a tradition or a teacher and sort of externalize my spiritual authority to someone else, which was a reasonable thing to do. It was very reasonable that I did that. I realized that that's not going to work anymore. I have to be my own authority and in particular follow this teaching of what Peace Pilgrim describes as living your highest light and doing that.

So that means, yeah, again, doing the things that I felt called to, not doing the things I felt I shouldn't, and trusting that even more than specific prescriptions given from traditions or something like that, really trusting myself and my own wisdom as high as I could. And yeah, I think that the more and more that I've leaned into that over the months and years, it's just unfolded in its own time and way in a really beautiful way.

[15:09] Paul: One of the themes that pops up in a lot of people's paths is very similar, I think, there's this sort of apprenticeship phase in any life path. And Robert Greene actually talks about this in his book Mastery, where it's like embed yourself in the system, find an apprentice, and then leave the apprentice. And then he has this line that stuck with me mostly because I had found some apprentices in my former path while I was reading this. And he says, most people stay with the apprentice far too long before embarking on their own journey. And it's interesting how that seems to show up in all paths, career paths, spiritual paths, different things like that. Do you think everyone has a natural path?

I don't know if that's the best way to put it.

[16:03] Tasshin Fogleman: Well, you know, that metaphor means different things to different people. But the way I look at it increasingly, yes, everyone has one. And it seems to me I find it useful to think that there's basically two things that we're here to do with this life. One is to learn lessons and the other is to give gifts. And it seems to me everyone has lessons to learn and gifts to share with the world. And everyone does learn lessons and everyone does give gifts through their time.

And different people learn different lessons, different people give different gifts. But looking at life as basically an education project and a service project has been a very helpful frame for me. Yeah.

[16:52] Paul: Yeah. Has that been freeing for you in terms of just getting more at ease with your journey?

[17:00] Tasshin Fogleman: You know, I don't know that I would have thought to use that word, but absolutely. Because one of the problems that I have with the concept of, say, a life purpose would be, oh, there's something specific you have to do. There's a box because you either check or you don't, you could fail, you know. And that, that just, that creates for me a sense of like overwhelm and like dread and worry that's just has never served me, you know, personally. And instead, if I say, oh, you know what, I'm alive and I'm going to learn some lessons and I'm going to do my best to be of service, then try, just try my best, then that attitude of, you know, curiosity and just making an attempt is you know, a much more helpful frame for me emotionally. Yeah.

[17:46] Paul: Yeah. That resonates a lot. I think I see so often this, you like this deep desire to be known, right? To know what your path is. Right. And you'd probably agree with like the path that can be named is not the path you're supposed to be following.

[18:03] Tasshin Fogleman: Mm-hmm.

[18:03] Paul: But yes, we sort of have this wishful thinking of Okay, I have the thing I love doing and I can make money doing that and serve the world. And it's like, that seems to me misguided, mostly because do you really think like the unique economic circumstances of this moment, this year is perfectly aligned with like what you're meant to offer the world in terms of economic rewards? It seems like only the people actually reaping those economic rewards are bought into this sort of way of seeing things.

[18:42] Tasshin Fogleman: That brings up for me just, I feel like money is another one of those things that I never felt particularly compelled by. You know, it's increasingly useful. I have good uses for it, but it was never like, oh, let me make a lot of money. I don't know. It's just a tool at this point. And yeah, I think also just reminds me of like, I think one of the reasons that you can't name it is no one has ever done what you need to do before.

You have never existed before. There's no, there's no life manual just for Paul or just for Tasshin. It's like the book you get when you're born. It's like, here's what you need to know about how to live your life specifically. No one's written that book. And so you have to discover things about yourself and your relationship with the world that are, that are unique, I think.

[19:34] Paul: Yeah, it becomes way more clear too once you leave an actual path that a bunch of other people are also on, or at least like the legible path, right? So I was in a certain career type path and I could look around literally and see, okay, that person over there is— has somewhat same path as me. But it was never really true, right? I was approaching each day, each moment in my own unique way. And now being self-employed, it is painfully obvious— not painful, it's very freeing actually— that like only I can do this crazy weird combination of stuff I'm doing.

[20:16] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes, yes, absolutely. And then, and then from there, once you figure it out, you can describe it, you can put into words, but because you've lived it and no one else could have pointed you to that thing in advance. And then I think people can provide a helpful function of sort of reflecting their best guess to you of like, hey, this is what I see you being good at and what I see you doing that's helpful for steering. But no one can provide the whole of that ahead of time for you, I think.

[20:45] Paul: Yeah, just my day today is very weird. I did a lesson in Chinese today, and then I'm doing a small consulting project for a steel company. And now I'm having a conversation with you about life paths.

[21:03] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes.

[21:04] Paul: And then I'll be teaching my wife later today how to drive.

[21:10] Tasshin Fogleman: Okay.

[21:11] Paul: So I'm quite certain that is like one of one.

[21:15] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I know what you mean too. But if I were to take stock of each of my days, they would look not at all the same and yet very similar flavor of Weird mix of things.

[21:28] Paul: Yeah. So arriving here is non-trivial though. I think I'm 5 years into this sort of do-it-yourself path and it's been confusing, um, non-intuitive. And a big thing for me really was reconnecting like with my body and like listening to that intuition that says like, you are not meant to be doing this. You need to walk away from this. And those walk away from these often can be things that, like, give you other benefits, right?

So, like, one example is leaving my job. One of the questions I ask people is, will people love you less if you give up your current path? And the hard reality is sometimes yes. And so to find like that deeper connection, fulfillment, meaning in life, you actually might need to short-term give up other stuff as well to kind of get there. Is that— does that resonate with things in your journey and things you've had to give up?

[22:38] Tasshin Fogleman: It does. I think right before I left the monastery, there was a confusing period of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 months, depending on how you count it, where I was debating leaving. And I think it was very confusing for me and for other people that I was thinking about leaving. And, you know, I'd been very dedicated to training there and to being part of that organization. And then suddenly it was like this pull to leave. And I think at the very least, I'd say it was confusing for me and maybe other people.

I don't think anyone disliked me because of it or something. I could imagine in a different circumstance that happening. But yeah, I think I feel like there's sort of two signals there with the body that you receive in your life. And one is, one is sort of pain, discomfort. You're like, oh, I don't like this. And then another is like joy, enjoyment, fun, pleasure.

And I think the more you And it's not that you want to avoid discomfort or challenge or something like that. But if there's like, "Oh, I hate this kind of pain," then that's meaningful information. And then, yeah, if you're just delighted by something, then that's also meaningful information. And trusting the one and trusting the other and steering in that way has been very helpful. And yeah, I think it takes courage to follow that even if other people might not like where you end up going.

[24:07] Paul: So I'm testing out an idea. One thing that occurred in my path, and I've noticed this in other people's paths, is before you take that next step towards this new thing or walk away from something, there's often like this last stand when you're almost like moving in the opposite direction of trying to talk yourself into doubling down even more on that existing path. Did that, uh, did that happen with you as well?

[24:37] Tasshin Fogleman: You know, I, I think that's, that seems true. I think I look back at a lot of the blog posts that I wrote during that time, and I think on some level I was really trying to persuade myself like, this is the thing to do and this is the right thing to do, training at this monster. I, I, I went through, I went through, yeah, months of basically rotating very quickly between I have to stay here forever and give my life to this and be very dedicated to this. And I have to leave right now. Like, I have to get out right now. And I would just like— I would watch my mind, you know, from a meditation perspective, just flip from one world to the other hundreds of times a day.

And, you know, to some extent, I was really trying to persuade myself to stay and that that was the good thing to do. And ultimately, I think that there were certain values that I really valued about being there that I had to find a way to continue to honor and embody those values when I left. And I didn't know how it would be possible to live in accordance with those values if I left, and that had to sort of get resolved with time.

[25:44] Paul: Yeah. And so one year out, um, how do you think about your journey path and the vows you're making right now?

[25:56] Tasshin Fogleman: I feel, I feel, frankly, just blessed. I feel one of the components of the path in Buddhism is right livelihood. And I feel like a lot of the last year has been about finding right livelihood and living that. And it's like, I mean, obviously, I'm still living my life, and there's more to learn and grow. But I feel like, yeah, this is the right livelihood. This is the way I should be living my life and now it's time to actually do it and follow through with it.

And yeah, I feel that feels like such a blessing.

[26:29] Paul: Yeah. And what role has like finding the others played for you? I think you were talking earlier around how you had this idea like, I can't be a generalist. I need to like pick one thing, right? Or at least that's the message society gives us. And it was the same thing for me.

I always had this like, I gotta find like the thing, the thing. And luckily with the internet now, I find other people like you that just have these weird, vast, diverse interests. So has like finding the others, especially through the internet, been a big part of like making you feel more comfortable in your path?

[27:07] Tasshin Fogleman: Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, I've been on Twitter for years and Twitter has just increasingly been a source of finding delightful people that are very inspiring for me in so many ways. And, you know, one of the things I did in leaving was starting a podcast, and it was just like, hey, I want to talk to a lot of people about life and answer questions that I have, see how they see it. And I might as well just record the conversations and post them because I'm going to be having them anyway and people might want to listen.

And That's, you know, that's really helped me to step into a certain way of seeing people that's been very fruitful for me, of basically looking at every single person that I meet as someone that I can learn something from, that has some kind of wisdom or skill or insight to share with me, and also someone that I could potentially offer something to as well, that I could help them in some way. And, you know, in practice, I may not actually learn something from each person I meet. In practice, I may not be able to help each person I meet. But really looking for what is the wisdom here that I could learn, what is the way I could be of service here in each interaction.

And just repeatedly talking to so many people on the internet has been just a very real training ground for practicing that way of seeing and feeling blessed to be taught by so many diverse, incredible people that have so much wisdom and knowledge. And yeah, and then also helping them as well. I think that the internet is just amazing for that. There's so many specific skills or pieces of knowledge that it was almost like I was hungry for and I couldn't find even in a book or something like that. It's like, but this one person that lives somewhere totally different in the world has this thing that is like a food group that I need. I need it.

The more I look at things that way, the more I can— it's almost like a taste or a smell where it's like, oh yes, I see this person's has the thing that I need and I just, I like run towards that.

[29:17] Paul: Do you think the Buddha would have been on Twitter?

[29:21] Tasshin Fogleman: You know, I don't know about the Buddha, but I often think about Peace Pilgrim. She, she, she corresponded heavily with people. She would have mail delivered to places for her ahead of time, and then she would write letters to her and stamps and letters and a pen were one of the few things she carried with her. And I think she would have loved the internet for that reason. I think, you know, I could see the Buddha going either way.

[29:44] Paul: Just for people that don't know, can you tell a little bit more about Peace Pilgrim?

[29:49] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes, happily. The Buddha is very well known and rightly so. But the Peace Pilgrim is not well known and wrongly so. So happy to answer that. She was a mystic, spiritual activist, spiritual teacher in the last century. She, she was the first woman to walk the whole Appalachian Trail in a season, actually.

And she, she did that years before her proper pilgrimage. But she spent basically the last roughly 30 years of her life on foot walking across North America, something like 7 or 8 times. And she just lived a life that was dedicated to teaching mankind the way of peace is how she talked about it. And she was very concerned about war and other kinds of conflict. In the world and wanted those to be resolved. And for her, she saw very clearly that peace starts within and that you have to come to a kind of internal peace in order to have external peace, but you still need the external peace.

And so she was trying to teach people that, and she did that through her example. And she has these writings that have just very deeply touched me. And I think more than anything, her teachings have really formed the basis of the way I look at my life, even, even more than the Buddha or, or Taoism, both of which have been huge influences on me. Um, but, um, yeah, she's an incredible person. Incredible person.

[31:16] Paul: Wow. Definitely, definitely want to do a, uh, deeper dive. Um, thank you.

[31:22] Tasshin Fogleman: You can order her book for free, importantly. There's a digital copy, and then there's a website you can like mail away that you can give them your address and they'll mail you her book for free. And, uh, definitely recommend that to folks if they're interested in her.

[31:34] Paul: Beautiful. That was a wonderful lesson. Um, you just gifted us. So well done. Um, might be a good segue to talk about gifts. Um, so I like how you describe it.

Uh, your gift is where your skills and dreams meet the world's needs and problems. It's an act of service and is deeply joyful for you to give and that the world is deeply grateful to receive. When did you first start thinking about gifts as a frame?

[32:04] Tasshin Fogleman: Hmm. You know, there's a lot of synonyms for this, what this is pointing to. The one that we were talking about, path, earlier could be one. You know, life purpose is a very common one, mission, quest. The one that my teacher shared with me was vow, which has a long history in Buddhism. Increasingly, I find the word gift really resonant.

I think, yeah, it's only really been in the last few months that I've started to double down on that. There, you know, there was a moment. I don't know if it makes sense to share this whole story, but there was a moment right in 2020. I did a very long solitary retreat, did a lot of retreat in the first half of 2020. And I had a conversation with my teacher at the very end of that, where one of the things he said to me was, give gifts now. He said, give gifts now.

And it was that I had received a tremendous gift in the opportunity to do deep solitary practice for months, and that it was time to focus on service and being of benefit in the world. And I really made that the basis of my life for the months that followed and was delighted to see that not only was I being a benefit to others, but, but that act of giving was itself joyful and rewarding for me as well. And I think there's a kind of maturing that happens where, like, I remember as a kid I loved getting gifts. I was like, what's my present going to be? What toy will I get? You know, very— and it's like, yeah, yeah, very American, you know?

And it makes sense. It's nice to get a gift. Nothing wrong with that. But at a certain point you realize, oh, it's nice to give gifts as well and can even be more satisfying and So, and how satisfying is it to give a gift that only you can give? You're the only person in the world that can give a certain kind of gift. And so, yeah, I think that's increasingly just been the basis of my life is what kind of gifts can I give the world?

Sometimes it's a conversation or a podcast or a blog or, you know, a dance party or a guided meditation. There's lots of kinds of gifts and I try to give all the ones that make sense to give.

[34:21] Paul: Yeah, I was influenced a lot by Charles Eisenstein's book Sacred Economics, where he talks about gifts. And I just love— it helped me reframe a gift as like sort of this transactional thing I grew up with, maybe around Christmas or birthdays, and instead think about it as like giving without the expectation of receiving anything. And even if you do receive something, you may not know when. It may not even be in this lifetime, right? So it was still deeply uncomfortable for me to sort of practice that, but I've reframed generosity as a practice rather than like just as a thing you do. And I think it's a skill you can learn.

Did you go through your own journey with reframing generosity and gift giving?

[35:12] Tasshin Fogleman: Absolutely. I think a few things there, but one, one that comes to mind is, as I mentioned earlier, I did some work for fundraising when I was at the monastery and had to learn how to do that. And I saw very clearly how not only was the act of generosity that people would give funds to support the monastery, that was essential for the functioning of the monastery, and also that that was actually a gift for the person that was giving the money in a way that they benefited from that. Not only, but I'd say primarily by practicing this virtue of cultivating generosity, where that's actually a virtue to be generous. And actually, I think that in the Buddhist spiritual path, the first step is right view. And I think generosity is one of the best ways to practice right view because you are saying my actions have consequences.

What I do matters in a way that I think really breaks down a lot of the harmful views that can be in our culture of like, what I do doesn't matter, that my actions don't have consequences. When you make a gift, you say, no, what I, what I'm doing does matter, and my actions have consequences, and therefore I'm going to do something that's good for the world. And you practice that way of seeing. And so I think it's actually a gift to give, to have the opportunity to give. And I saw that very clearly, and Yes, I think that making my life based on generosity has been one of the most powerful things I've done. Both, okay, I am going to try to give all of my gifts to the world as an act of generosity.

I will try to do as much as I can on a generosity basis of like, you know, most of what I do, not all of it, but most of it is free, doesn't cost anything, has a Creative Commons license on it that people can reuse it and very permissive ways. And I'm just like, here, have this, it's a gift. You can do what you like. You don't have to pay me. And then also, if you would like, you can support me financially. I have a Patreon.

That's just how I make my money. And that's available to people if they choose to use it, but it's not dependent on that. And yeah, I really love this way of living. It feels very appropriate for me.

[37:29] Paul: Yeah, it's— I've done a bunch of experiments with the gift economy. Type approaches like you're saying over the years. And it's, it's been really interesting because in giving has this sort of, uh, paradox of like, okay, you give with the intention of like not receiving anything. However, a gift is really a leveling up of commitment in a relationship. If I gift you something and you receive it in a genuine way, it's often an invitation to a deeper relationship rather than, hey, it's a gift, don't worry about it, do your own thing. There's sort of a universal pull that's like, okay, this is a more serious relationship now.

Have you noticed that like people shy, and maybe you can reflect on that, but have you noticed people shy away from gift giving or just like, tell me the price? Because it is that scary deeper commitment?

[38:32] Tasshin Fogleman: Hmm. I'm not sure how much I've consciously noticed anything like that. I think I really try to make my own stuff as widely available as possible, including like, you know, a lot of it is just like available on my website, or it's a recording that someone can listen to at any time or something like that, or a drawing that I put out in the world. And so it's almost like, there's not much effort required to receive it. And also the way that I structure it, it's available just to the whole world, to many people. And so I think a lot of the gifts that I'm giving aren't maybe specifically for a specific person.

And so in that way, I imagine that if it was more like, oh, I am giving you, Paul, a specific gift, then that might be a way in which those dynamics might come into play more, at least in a noticeable way to me. But I haven't noticed too much stuff like that.

[39:25] Paul: Yeah, Seth Godin has this quote I love. He says the internet has lowered the marginal cost of generosity to zero.

[39:32] Tasshin Fogleman: Wow, that's incredible.

[39:35] Paul: Yeah, so he was basically making the argument that you have no excuse not to like go and find your gifts and start giving.

[39:45] Tasshin Fogleman: It's worked very well for me. I know it's, it's, uh, different people have different models and I think there are models where it makes sense to charge for something or you know, ask for money for your services and whatnot. But for me, having as much as possible the intention to do things freely on a generosity basis has been just a blessing for me to live that way.

[40:10] Paul: Yeah, I've found the word gift to be very, very useful. Whenever I've used the word free, it does not go well. Meaning that people just don't actually do anything with free stuff they receive. They don't value it. When you use the word gift, you can kind of elevate the status of the thing. And the approach I've taken is to sort of basically openly and generously want to give anything away.

So if like people sort of know, I say this over and over again, if you want my book, I will happy to gift it to anyone. In the world. However, it is also for sale because some people just like that. And I've gifted my book to people in person and they're like, what do you want me to pay you? I'm like, no, it's a gift. And they're like, no, I'm going to find your Venmo and send you something.

They like feel compelled because a book is like this thing that we know has a price and like authors deserve to be paid a price. Which is always funny. And I'm always wondering like, well, if you want to like give me something, you don't have to give me $10. You could give me $100. But we're sort of anchored still to that, that book price, the book market, the book transaction. Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that, but just some reflections I've had on like gifting and pricing.

[41:37] Tasshin Fogleman: Yeah, it's really interesting because I would never want to encourage someone to not value what I'm doing. And that's definitely an argument to charge for certain things, I think. On the other hand, there's a certain value that I really appreciate of making explicit that something can cost you $0. I actually like reminding people of this, that, oh no, this is— I like to say for a specific reason, oh, this is free, this is $0, because, you know, like thinking about the library, for example, I think it's just an incredible social institution to have libraries where you can go and get books for free. And yeah, like the best, the best social institution. It's so good and it's, it's good that it's free there.

And I think I really see one of the central questions of our time societally being how can we have that kind of information abundance in a sane way You know, and don't see clear answers to that yet, but I would love to see more of an abundance mentality with contemporary things. And I think for me, I want people to know both that what I do is in almost all cases free of charge, doesn't cost money, accessible. You can take it for $0. I'd be happy to give it to you. And on the other hand, please know that the way that I support myself, the way that I have my living, is through generosity. And I think just by making that aware to people, the people that have the desire, inclination, means to support me financially have found me and I'm making this work.

So I need to tell people both of those things. Please take this for free and know how I make my living.

[43:28] Paul: Yeah, I think that's beautiful. It, it resonates with what somebody I've talked to a lot, Andrew Taggart, um, also approaches in his life. And he gives— like, the gifts I've received from him are so genuine and so powerful that, like, I am, like, pulled to then try to give gifts back to him. And it's really beautiful when you truly open yourself up for that. So I really admired that. It's been interesting too.

I've done so many experiments with the gift economy. When I was first starting to do it in 2018, you couldn't really do it. There was, I think Gumroad was the only one where you could like do zero plus, which is like either free or offer a gift if you'd like. Um, two weeks ago Stripe just, uh, added gift pricing, um, to their portals, which I think is really interesting. It kind of shows that like this gift mindset is proliferating more, hopefully with the internet. So it'll be exciting to see more people embrace these things.

[44:40] Tasshin Fogleman: Yeah, I love that model. The book we've been talking about hasn't been released yet, but when I do, it'll be on Gumroad with a zero-plus pricing thing because that's actually another value for me is with spiritual teachings in particular, I feel it's not appropriate to charge for them. And this is something Peace Pilgrim says. She says that you injure yourself spiritually when you charge for this kind of wisdom. And so, you know, I think if you have a service of, or like a product, then it makes a lot of sense to charge for things. But for spiritual wisdom, like how to cultivate love in your heart, it seems inappropriate to me to charge for that.

And then I can say, yeah, if you want to, you can give a gift for this, but please know there's no obligation whatsoever. So the zero-plus pricing model feels very appropriate for that for me.

[45:31] Paul: And how does that relate to your current relationship with money and how you're just seeking out to meet your needs of like warmth, hunger, shelter, things like that?

[45:45] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes. Well, it helps that my life is simple. I don't own a house. I don't own a car. I'm not in debt. That's a blessing.

Many people, of course, are in debt. Many people— it almost feels like a privilege to live a simple life because many people, you know, need a house. Many people need a car. Many people need to be in debt. That makes total sense to me. And yet I feel blessed and privileged to have a simple life, to be able to go from place to place.

My main two expenses are transportation and food because I travel all over the world. It seems helpful to travel to different places and be, be there and do all kinds all kinds of different projects and so on. But, you know, it's— I don't know, I'm always working on the math for this, but currently I spend something like, I don't know, anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 a month, which is pretty low expenses. And, you know, I do have a desire to, if and when more money comes in, to use surplus funds for service projects. And I have like infinite ideas of service projects I could do that would be good for the world. And so I would, you know, that's what I would use money for.

If suddenly I made $10,000 a month, I'd still spend $1,000 or $2,000 a month for myself. But then there's lots of great projects I could do. But currently my Patreon is like, I don't know, I think $800 a month or something. And people make one-time gifts here and there. So between all of that, I'm able to make it work currently. And yeah, that feels like a blessing to be able to live a simple life.

That's dedicated to being of service and is based in generosity, that, that feels, yeah, really like a privilege to live that way.

[47:26] Paul: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think I, um, when I was leaving my job, somebody said to me, how will you pay rent? Right? So I had actually saved up some money, probably money to live like 6 to 9 months where I was living, and I knew this person made like far more money than me. I was just like I was like, what kind of reality is this where like you need to make a certain income this month to pay your monthly expenses, right? And like savings aren't a thing.

And like there aren't other ways to like lower your costs. It's sort of this like my life is fixed. There's nothing I can do. And it's this trap, right? And over the next year, I essentially did what you did. I lowered my cost of living down to about $800 a month.

And I never felt happier. It was amazing.

[48:23] Tasshin Fogleman: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[48:25] Paul: And I did experience, like, what it felt like. And I think it is a privilege because after doing that, not like everyone's doing that when you're 18. So it's like you feel like that's what you're supposed to be doing. If you can tap into that and like live on very little when you're older, you sort of always know you can just go back there and you'll be fine. And that's something that's given me a deep sense of peace on my path. Is that something, is that kind of what you mean when you're saying it's a privilege?

[49:00] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes, absolutely. I think, you know, it reminds me of one of the things that I've been blessed to be able to do in this life is go on, especially walking pilgrimages. That's a practice I've done twice now. And, you know, where I didn't know where I was going to stay and didn't have a plan for where to go to. The way I practice pilgrimage, you just start walking, basically. You don't have a plan to go to a specific place.

You just start walking and you trust and you trust and you trust and you trust. You come to a fork in the road. There's no definite reason to go left or right. So you just decide and you trust your decision. And that simplicity and that practice of trusting was very helpful for me. And yeah, knowing that I can sleep like in a graveyard without a sleeping bag if I need to, that's helpful.

I just need to eat food and drink water. And of course, for my projects, the internet is quite helpful to me, having internet access. But that's basically what I need. And, you know, the health of my body as well. In Buddhism, there's four requisites: food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. Um, and then, you know, for me in my current way of life, I need internet access.

So I joke that that's the fifth requisite. Um, yeah, but, uh, yeah, that's what I need. And one that importantly that I should mention, um, one of the ways that I make this way of life work is I stay with different people around the world. So I don't have a house. I stay with different friends who put me up for one night or 6 weeks or something anywhere in between. And, um, so I don't pay rent and I stay with people.

And that, that makes this work as well, that I'm, you know, I don't have to have an apartment or a house or something like that.

[50:41] Paul: Where did you do the pilgrimage?

[50:44] Tasshin Fogleman: I did one in Vermont in 2015 and then another one in California in 2019.

[50:51] Paul: Yeah. What was, what was that experience like?

[50:54] Tasshin Fogleman: Well, um, they were very different. I think that, um, I almost would put, um, like the way I would describe it is like there was a meter of how much I was trusting my experience and how much I was surrendering to what was there, which really became clear that that's the practice that you practice on pilgrimage. And the first time the trust meter was like very low. It was like 15% trust.

[51:20] Paul: You're in Vermont too.

[51:21] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes. Yes, I, I basically rushed to get back. I was like, oh, this is very hard. And, you know, had various challenging experiences and wasn't trusting it and could see that I wasn't trusting it. I was having a hard time trusting. And it took time to be willing to come back to the practice of pilgrimage.

And then the second time, I think the trust meter was at like, I would put it like 80 or 90% where there's still ways I wasn't trusting. But I really went in the second time with the intention of, okay, now I know what it is to trust. And I'm going to do that as fully as I possibly can. In particular, I didn't— so if I was doing a pilgrimage like this in certain places in Asia, for example, people would know that what a religious wanderer is and how to support them and be like, please stay in my home, please let me feed you. There would be some context for that, and there's not that context in America. And so in particular, I usually would stay in public places where I didn't have to ask for permission.

Some exceptions there where people let me stay in their, at their house, like on their lawn or whatever. Um, but by default people are like, what are you doing? Uh, what is this weird guy doing? And then, um, yeah, there was no context for me to be willing to trust that if I asked people for food that they would give me food. So I ended up basically purchasing food both times. I'd spend like $20 a day just going to eat food.

And I think that there's a way of doing pilgrimage where I would trust that people would give me food even. And I haven't quite worked out how to do that because of my own relationship to American culture. But yeah.

[53:01] Paul: Yeah, there's a lot of challenges, I think, in the way we see people who like are wandering or don't have a home, right? Yes. Yeah, I could definitely see it being easier in Asia. I mean, I know me and my wife actually want to do something like that in Taiwan. And you can basically just stay at any temple. That's like a thing people do.

So you could just kind of use this like term people use and they'll be like, oh, okay, of course. You might get some weird looks, but like at least there is some foundational context and cultural memory around those things.

[53:41] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes, yes, yes. I think it's unfortunate that we don't have that context in our country, and I think that it's sort of, again, sort of a privilege to go on something like a walking pilgrimage. And so, yeah, it's unfortunate that I couldn't lean on that, but I think more about, you know, like homeless people in our country and people that literally are on the streets. And there's, you know, of course there is great kindness that many people extend to people that are in that unfortunate position, but also there's a lot of cruelty and not kindness towards those people. And that hurts to notice and see that there's an attitude of suspicion or distrust or lack of generosity or kindness. And I think it behooves us to cultivate an attitude of kindness and generosity towards others.

[54:34] Paul: Yeah, can that be cultivated? Absolutely. Leading question.

[54:41] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes, it absolutely can be cultivated. I think there are many spiritual virtues and they can all be cultivated and being kind and generous is one and the practice of loving kindness, of course, is one way of doing that. Yes.

[54:56] Paul: Yeah, maybe tell us a little bit more about what loving kindness is. I think The first time I did it, I can go right back to that moment. It was so powerful. And just as you kind of bring alive different people and send them love, it was a pretty wild experience.

[55:18] Tasshin Fogleman: What was that like for you?

[55:22] Paul: Just the feeling of love coursing through your body. And like that you could just generate that. And I think I sort of resolved some conflicts I had, uh, and it made me realize that, wow, all, all these things just start internally. Nobody's doing anything to us, right? I mean, of course sometimes people are, but like a lot of times our conflicts are created in our own minds, our own body's attachment to those feelings and things like that. So yeah, definitely very powerful.

[56:02] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes, yes. I'm glad you had that experience. And that's, yeah, that's what I'm hoping to help people cultivate. I think, you know, loving kindness comes from the Buddhist tradition. It likely predated Buddhism, actually, but has certainly been most cultivated in Buddhism. I think you find similar themes in other religions, but in terms of how to do it as a practical technique, I think Buddhism really has the monopoly on the market there.

And yeah, that's, that's what I'm hoping to help people do. And I think of it basically as cultivating, intentionally creating loving thoughts and feelings. And there's a whole spectrum of kinds of thoughts and feelings you could have, and you're intentionally creating those. So that's in contrast to, say, following the breath or something like that, where you're just observing the breath without trying to change it. Instead, you're actually intentionally creating something, in this case, loving thoughts and feelings. And, um, yeah, there's, uh, just a whole breadth of sort of beautiful, healing, connecting, uh, wonderful experiences you can have when you start to go down that road.

[57:11] Paul: What's a good place to start, uh, if you're curious about these things?

[57:16] Tasshin Fogleman: Hmm, well, um, You know, I think if you resonate with the way that I'm talking about it, you can check out my stuff. I have a weekly event on Saturdays, and that's recorded, so the recordings are available. And I'm working on this book, and, you know, you can go to tasshin.com/love, and that has all of my meta-related stuff. And there's also other teachers out there though, so if you don't like the way that I talk about it, there's just an abundance of amazing teachers about this. I really liked Rob Verbea, and, you know, there's certainly other teachers as well. So yeah, it's a wonderful practice, sort of regardless of how you frame it or who you work with or whatnot.

[57:59] Paul: What have you learned from Rob Verbea's teachings?

[58:03] Tasshin Fogleman: Hmm. You know, he talks about such a breadth of specific teachings, both from Buddhism but also from, say, Western psychology and trying to update, you know, connect those things together. But, and those are amazing. Those, like the way he talks about the traditional Buddha Dharma has been amazing. And the way that he integrated imaginal practice and what he ended up calling the Soul Making Dharma, very inspiring to me. But the thing that most impacted me was really his presence I think that he, if you listen to recordings of him speaking, such a gentle, kind, sweet, loving presence that was very healing for me personally, and also very authentic, incredibly authentic person.

He wasn't trying to be someone other than himself. And that comes out in so many ways where he was like just a guy, basically. He was very ordinary. And he was this Rob Berbaya guy and just ordinary guy. He wasn't trying to be someone special or be, you know, attain some concept of who he was supposed to be. He's just this guy, Rob, you know, a really lovely person and totally ordinary at the same time.

And that, that was a blessing for me to really encounter both the depth of love and curiosity and joy that was there and also just the total ordinariness of of just being a person. And I think when you have spiritual heroes like the Buddha or Peace Pilgrim or my own teacher, So Ryu, it's easy to fall into a sense of like, oh, these are the, the perfect people that have truly become perfect in some way. And, and gradually, of course, I realized that my teacher was just a guy too and had challenges and things like that, and that presumably Peace Pilgrim and the Buddha had their own stuff too. But But I could really see that just so clearly from Rob, that he was just a guy, just totally ordinary and yet so loving and so wise. And that came through not just in spite of his ordinariness, but even because of his ordinariness.

And that touched me even more than any specific teaching that he had, which there are many that have touched me. But just his presence was such a gift to the world.

[01:00:31] Paul: I love that. Maybe that can be a goal at the end of your life, just a guy.

[01:00:38] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes. That's nice.

[01:00:39] Paul: Yes.

[01:00:41] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes. I wrote a blog post about him and it is sort of based on a quote that he wrote about the different aspects of himself. And I forget the exact title, but it's like Rob Bourbeau, werewolf, something else, I forget the second thing. And it was like ordinary guy. It's like, yeah, let me just look up real quick what it was.

[01:01:04] Paul: Yeah, I can link to it too.

[01:01:06] Tasshin Fogleman: Oh yeah. Robert Bea, ordinary guy, werewolf, eternal wanderer. It's like all of those things and more. There's more in the original quote that he said. But yeah, yeah, that's, that's a worthy goal. I think ordinariness.

[01:01:19] Paul: How do all the different things you're drawn to fit together— love, curiosity, empowerment. And now, as you're talking about exploring like gifts and what that means.

[01:01:34] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes. I think that finding this— there's a certain frame that I've found in the last year or so where it has helped me to understand the different things that I'm doing and see how they fit together. And it's sort of these three, these three things. Love, curiosity, and empowerment. And the— yeah, so love is spreading love, metta meditation, loving kindness, the brahmviharas, teaching that, inspiring people to practice it. That's one part.

Second is following my curiosity. So that's, you know, I have my podcast and my blog, and then also just I go down weird rabbit holes of researching things and learning about different things, and that's, that's following my curiosity. And then empowerment is really seeing everyone as having this gift or this vow or purpose and seeing, is it possible for me to help others to give their gifts, to live their vow, and looking for systematic, structured ways to do that. And all three of those things feel like sort of central activities that I'm doing in my service projects. And I think if I just did any one of them, that I think there's specific failure modes that I would run into if I just did one of them, where like if I just focused on love, I think I'd be very happy, but I'd get a little bored.

And then if I just focused on following my curiosity, it'd be like too interesting and not very grounded. And then if I just focused on empowering other people, I wouldn't be putting my own gifts forward, where it's like focusing too much on other people and not my own celebration of my own skills and dreams and visions. And so having sort of a portfolio approach to, yeah, these are roughly the 3 things that I work on and I spend different amounts of time on them, has made it so that I'm both fulfilled personally and really somewhat focused and intentional on what kinds of gifts I'm trying to give to the world. Yeah.

[01:03:35] Paul: Do you think the best way to show up and do these things is really to take care of yourself first? Or asked another way, like, do you think like serving others can really be the primary aim, or is the best way to serve others sort of like as Joseph Campbell says, like save yourself so you can save the world?

[01:03:56] Tasshin Fogleman: Hmm. I think that it's easy for a concept of service to be equated with a felt sense of self-sacrifice, which may look noble, but I think is ultimately unkind to yourself and others because it's not sustainable to simply sacrifice yourself for others. I think it's a false virtue to self-sacrifice in that way. And for me, a concept of service has to involve a dedication to my own joy and delight and satisfaction. And so I'm really maximizing for two variables at any given time. One is my own joy and fun and fulfillment, and the other is benefit and service towards others.

And I do not want to have to compromise either of those. If push came to shove, I would choose my own fun and joy. But I think my experience has often been the case that when I trust my own sense of fun and enjoyment and delight, that often has beneficial repercussions for others that just aren't obvious or clear at the time. Where you're like, like, for example, I started drawing last year. I have an art practice. No one said, Tasshin, please start drawing.

It would just seem fun to do. And yet gaining those skills has been very helpful to me and beneficial for my service projects. I still do it because it's fun, right? I'm not just doing it just to be of service to others, but it wasn't obvious that it would help me in that way. Or, you know, there was no reasoned case I could make for it. And yet it has proven to be of benefit to others.

And so if push came to shove, I would choose fun. That seems like a more trustworthy metric for me or compass. But, um, I think really trying to maximize for both of those things has been my, my guiding light there.

[01:06:00] Paul: Yeah, I definitely resonate with this. I think, I think a lot about sustainability and what I've realized is that sacrifice or like suffering for like some future potential trade-off is basically just an unsustainable failure mode for me. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, at the same time, this is sort of radical, especially for our culture where the default belief is like, I do need to suffer because, well, that's what you do in a job. That's what you do need to make money for future payoffs, paying for school, paying for daycare, like all these things. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't know if that's a question.

Um, do you think it is radical? Intention with today's culture?

[01:06:48] Tasshin Fogleman: Absolutely. I think on so many levels, it's like hard to know where to begin. But really, really caring about both of these variables is radical. It's radical in the sense of defying contemporary society and structures. I think there are people that care about one or the other, but It's rare to care about both in a certain way. And yeah, I think one of the things that's radical is it uproots what I see as the default notion of what work is, right?

That at least that I received is again, like 9 to 5, 5 days a week, have your weekend, retire when you're 65. Like that's sort of baked into so many things. And I was never called to that. Never felt like I wanted to do it. And the way I think about it for myself at this point in my life is I want to work every day. I want to work every day.

I want to work in a way that's both joyful for me and beneficial to others. And if I do that, there's, there's no meaningful distinction between play and work. And I actually want to do that every single day. It would be hurtful to me to prevent me from doing that. I would be like, why are you stopping me from doing this? And I don't have to force myself to work, work because it's so enjoyable for me.

And so that's, that's, that's, that's in stark contrast to the, the function of work that structures our economy and society for most people right now, as far as I can tell.

[01:08:30] Paul: Um, yeah, yeah, I love that. That's, uh, have you read Stephen Cope's book The Great Work of Your Life?

[01:08:38] Tasshin Fogleman: No, I've not heard of it.

[01:08:40] Paul: Uh, so I feel like it would definitely resonate, but, um, he talks about like finding your dharma and sort of this understanding that there is this great work of your life that can be found, and people all throughout history have talked about it. And when you found— find it, it is this deep sense of like connectedness to yourself, to the world, to the things you're doing, and to other people. And then once you find that, the only thing that matters is like designing your life around letting it emerge, right? So I sort of call this like the great— the great work of your life is really finding the work you want to keep on doing. And I feel this way too. Like, I think writing especially, I do other stuff, like I'm attempting a higher degree of difficulty of like money making.

So I probably push the like sacrifice a little more than I want, but it's way less than my previous life. But yeah, the work that I'm drawn to, if somebody took that away from me, That'd be a human rights violation.

[01:09:51] Tasshin Fogleman: Yeah, yeah, yes.

[01:09:53] Paul: And if anyone took away my previous jobs, I would just been like, thank you. Yeah, okay, yeah, I think the world will go on.

[01:10:04] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes.

[01:10:04] Paul: Um, but yeah, I love that distinction of like, yeah, you feel compelled to do it every day, and it's, it's a more vague— it's so impossible to like put in a container anyway.

[01:10:16] Tasshin Fogleman: Yes, yes. And it's not tiring. It's not exhausting. It doesn't deplete me. It's energizing. It's renewing.

And I think that's a distinction as well. I think that's why you get burnout from people is that they're repeatedly doing something that is exhausting physically, but I think also morally, spiritually, ethically, where you are forcing yourself into life choices that aren't aligned with your deepest values and your deepest goals and ambitions. And if you do that, that's— I think that's the root cause of burnout, and in a lot of cases at least. And the way out of that is living in accordance with your deepest values. And it's not easy to do that. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is a blessing to go in that direction rather than the direction of burning yourself out.

[01:11:19] Paul: That's beautiful. What else do you want to leave with people or point them in a direction if they want to learn more about what you're working on?

[01:11:33] Tasshin Fogleman: Well, my website's tasshin.com, T-A-S-S-H-I-N dot com. And then I'm on Twitter as well with my last name Fogleman after my first name. And I think, yeah, that's where to find me. I just want to come back to this idea of learning lessons and giving gifts. I think that finding that framing has been so helpful to me personally. And I think that, that frame is not dependent on any of the specific things that we've talked about and fits with so many worldviews of like, oh, you don't have to be a Buddhist or a Heart of Peace pilgrim or see things in a particular way to be like, oh, what can I learn from my life?

What can I do to be of service to other people? What would be joyful for me to do that would be a gift to give to other people? What's that? And I think that's, that's worth pondering in your own heart after this conversation.

[01:12:30] Paul: It's a great question to leave us with. Thank you, Tasshin.

[01:12:35] Tasshin Fogleman: My pleasure, friend.