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Getting After It
This isn’t just a podcast—it’s a relentless pursuit of growth, grit, and getting after life on your own terms.
Every week, we break down what it takes to push limits, embrace discomfort, and turn ambition into action. This is where wisdom meets execution—because knowledge alone doesn’t cut it. You have to apply, refine, and outwork your own self-doubt to see real results.
We bring on guests from all walks of life—entrepreneurs, athletes, creatives, adventurers—people who have battled through resistance and come out stronger. Their stories aren’t just inspiring; they’re roadmaps for anyone looking to level up.
The mission? To fuel your fire, challenge your thinking, and equip you with the mindset and tools to chase down your biggest goals.
This is Getting After It—not just a podcast, but a movement for those who refuse to settle.
Getting After It
134 - Jared Lee - Faith, Philosophy, and Forming Your Own Code
What does it really mean to "feed your heart"?
In this episode, I sat down with my friend Jared Lee to unpack one of the deepest conversations we’ve had on the show yet—one that weaves through philosophy, religion, suffering, and the pursuit of meaning. We explore how ancient thinkers like Plato and C.S. Lewis believed in the power of the “chest”—the seat of emotion, conviction, and moral clarity—and how modern society often leaves that part of us malnourished.
We dive into world religions—Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and even atheism—not to convert, but to understand. To see what drives people to their knees in prayer, to mountains in solitude, or to sacrifice comfort for something they believe is worth suffering for. This conversation isn’t about dogma—it’s about desire. About what you’re willing to endure, not just enjoy.
Jared shares the Latin root of “passion” (patior: to suffer), and we look at how true joy often comes not from avoiding pain but choosing the right kind of pain—the kind that builds character, connection, and clarity.
If you're seeking more than just goals, if you’re after depth, direction, and a reason to keep going when the path gets hard—this episode is for you.
5 Key Takeaways:
- True Passion Involves Sacrifice: Without something you're willing to suffer for, desire remains shallow. Passion is proven in the pain you choose.
- You Are More Than Your Mind or Appetite: Plato’s tripartite soul reminds us that humans are not just logic (mind) and desire (belly)—but must also develop the chest, the heart, where purpose lives.
- Different Beliefs, Common Ground: Whether you're religious or not, many systems point to similar moral frameworks: self-discipline, service, love, and the pursuit of joy over pleasure.
- Joy Is Found Through Alignment, Not Escape: Luxury, status, and indulgence can numb you. Real joy comes when your actions align with your values.
- Discipline and Consistency Are Spiritual Practices: Religion isn’t just belief—it’s routine. The same virtues that build your body build your soul.
You’re not done.
You’re just getting started.
Let’s keep getting after it.
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I hope today’s episode sparked something within you to pursue your dreams and unlock your true potential. If you found value in it, consider sharing it with someone who might need that same push.
This podcast is built for you—the dreamers and the doers. My goal is to provide a space where you can find inspiration, learn from others, and feel empowered to chase what matters most to you.
I'm good to go, good to go, man. Well, right on, jared. Thanks for coming on, dude, I'm excited. I can't wait actually.
Jared:Yeah, this is definitely exciting. I am definitely a little nervous because this is some deep stuff and I just finished my outline like 20 minutes ago.
Brett:but let's roll, I love it because you're one of the most prepared guests. Not a lot of people come with an outline, so I'm excited to see where it goes, and this has been what two months in the making. Almost We've talked about it for a while. That's right.
Jared:You've been dropping seeds on me. I'm like I don't think I can do this, but you know I have a passion that's similar to yours in different area and I listened to your podcast and you know you inspired me.
Brett:So happy to be here, man. It's, uh, you know, all ships rise together, so, um, yeah, but happy to have you on. I'm excited to go into what we're talking about today. It is going to get a little deep, so I do want to ask you how you got interested in all the different philosophies that we're going to talk about and and that kind of I guess picture starting there, like how did you get interested in in philosophy and exploring different religions and, um, just understanding what they, what they believe?
Jared:Yeah, we're definitely going to go into that. Uh, so I really wanted to understand why people go on their knees, why people are live the way that they live and to such a great extent, like, dedicate themselves, wear different clothing, get on their knees and pray five times a day, have different gods they worship, read different texts and really dedicate themselves to different things. Yeah, because life's short and you've got to make the most of it. You've got to get after it, right? Yeah, get after it.
Brett:You've got to do it. I love it. You got to make the most of it.
Jared:You got to get after it right. Yeah, get after it. You got to do it. I love it. Yeah. So I did have some things I wanted to go into. If you're ready for this, let's go. Okay, yeah, I'm excited. Okay, so, an area that I think really ties us all together. I was thinking, okay, there's different religions out there and what really is one of the core aspects of life and I think a great way that has been talked about in the past is through Plato the philosopher and CS Lewis. So Plato, he created this thing called the tripartite soul, and these are some words that are really hard to say he was Greek.
Brett:right, Plato was a Greek. Yeah, he was like.
Jared:Greek or something like that. Yeah, I think he's Greek, one of those guys, and he had three parts. So he had logisticon, which means the mind, thumoydes, which is the chest, and epithumeticon, which is the mind through my desk, which to the chest, and E E P T U M E T K, which is the belly. I don't even know how to say it. That's like someone, how you say it, you did better than I would.
Brett:So that's awesome. So we have the mind, the chest and the belly the belly. Okay, yeah.
Jared:And I think people are going to resonate with this really well because it's super basic. People are going to resonate with this really well because it's super basic. Yeah, like the mind you think with it, you rationalize the belly, you have appetites, you eat things, you have desires, natural desires for things like, oh, like I want to, uh, I'm really hungry, I need to get food. Or, uh, I really need to get some entertainment. Right now I'm going to like scroll through tick, tock, yeah.
Brett:You spend hours on tick tock.
Jared:Yeah, tick tock. Yeah, you spend hours on tick tock. Yeah, and other people too. They have greed. There's vices, greed, drugs, sex, whatever it can be multiple things uh, and the chest is really the part of that. Uh is highlighted by cs lewis and I think it's an interesting part where I'd like to go and talk about.
Brett:Yeah I'm, I'd love it. Yeah, I think that's. That's what we've kind of discussed. A little bit of work is how these different religions fill their chest, almost, you know, and and take in you know stuff into their heart and and build their spirit almost, because, like you said, we've talked about this before a lot of people just feed the mind and they feed the stomach, um, which you know. If you're just feeding into all your desires like that's, it's gonna it's gonna be an interesting life like I don't know, without discipline, I think it's uh, it's tough so, yeah, you can have an empty life.
Jared:You can turn into like this robot who's just like trying to go through the motions. Maybe you're like super career oriented and you just don't really feel like you have that love and passion in life. Yeah, we'll talk about passion and and really trying to get after it, what, what are the things we're going to be passionate about? Um, so, uh, what I want to say about this is that, with uh, these three pieces, cs lewis, like I said, focus on the chess and how people are, uh, living without chess. He says men without chess, that's exactly how his phrase has written um, and he goes into different areas of hey, like people are emotionally not there, or they're, uh, not mature, uh, or they don't have things, are really altruistic about, uh, things that they really are going to suffer for, and, uh, I think what really translates into this is the heart and passion. Uh, and what passion means, uh to a lot of people is like, hey, like I really love something and I'm going to do everything I can to get it.
Brett:Uh, that's true. I do say like I have a passion for running, but I've learned um. Do you know who Cameron Haynes is?
Brett:Oh, it sounds so familiar I talk about him all the time, but he's like, he's one of my favorite ultra marathon guys. He's known to be a bow hunter and I was reading a book that he just put out. It's called undeniable. In that book he talks about passion, specifically, and how passion requires sacrifice, because without sacrifice, like, you must not be passionate about it, it must just be a desire. And so he's like, if you are passionate about something like he gave the example of bow hunting he's like the reason he runs and does all these races is because his passion is bow hunting and he wants to be as fit as he can when he gets in the mountains, when the season comes around, and a lot of that is sacrificing his time, his body, like he's pushing it hard. But I think that's an interesting point is, without sacrifice, passion becomes desire. And I don't know, I will probably talk a little bit about that here, but could be something to relate at least a little bit too.
Jared:Yeah you're actually going right where I'm going, so perfect. You're on the ball, on the ball.
Brett:Yeah, you already solved.
Jared:You got, you got your chest on fire right now.
Jared:So, uh, something that's very interesting about the word passion and where it comes from. It comes from the Latin word patio, which means suffering, so it's very similar to, uh, sacrificing suffering. What are you willing to suffer for? Are you willing to suffer? Go run for a reason I know you've run for other people sometimes. You're willing to suffer for it. You have passion for doing that. I think it's really interesting to see, like, hey, what are people really willing to push themselves for? Where? Where are they really passionate about? Hey, are you going to really suffer your religion, suffer the cross like in Christianity? Yeah, suffer, uh, get rid of suffering like in Buddhism. Or uh, uh, getting rid of your sins in Islam? Yeah, they also believe in sins. Um, so there are so many different angles to this of really developing. Hey, like I'm willing to go so far with my heart to fulfill my passion, yeah, um.
Brett:I think that's huge, like in my own experience at least, with, like, trying to understand suffering, at least in the religion, like in a faith instance I think about. I served a mission for my church and that's not suffering. I wouldn't call it suffering. There were many lessons learned, it was a hard time, but you are sacrificing two years to go and do the Lord's work. You're going and preaching and talk to people on the street and trying to tell them about Jesus Christ. At the time I didn't think of it as sacrificing, but looking back it's like, yeah, there actually was two years where I could have been in college or I could have been doing a number of things, but instead I was out serving the Lord. So I think it is interesting and I'm interested to hear what's next.
Jared:Yeah, so I wanted to talk about different levels of the heart and the passion. What makes people get after it? Yeah, and it's your whole show here. So we want to get after this, right, right, and I think it's good to scale this in two different ways. One way is to look at it in the aspect of a very weak heart. And what is a good heart and what is something that's going to allow you to go full tilt? I guess, and just go at it.
Jared:Yeah, all the way, nirvana. Right, isn't that nirvana? Yeah, nirvana means you, you diminish suffering, and you're, you're. You made it, yeah, in buddh. Oh, there we go. I knew it was something, yeah. So I think, uh, something really interesting to talk about, uh, in this area is, uh, I think we know what a weak heart is. Weak hearts like hey, I don't have anything I'm really willing to to suffer for, at least immensely. I'm living through my appetites. I'm just going through the motions where I want to like be entertained, I want to have pleasure. Yeah, uh, just, things are animalistic. We talked about this.
Brett:Uh, I think a really cool aspect, a good angle, is talking about what corrupts the heart, what corrupts your passion yeah, because I was just about to ask, like, do you think if, if you feed the mind and the stomach too much, that just kind of leaves no room for the heart to grow, which I guess is could deteriorate it? Um, maybe there's a better way to say that but like, when you focus on other things and you're not trying to feed that, you know that piece where you feel those, um, passions come to life, to life. Like, yeah, I feel like you would be empty and we've talked about that a little bit just like it's a hollow feeling yeah, you can be doing well in life and still feel empty.
Jared:You know people say, hey, like I'll feel happy if I cry in a lamborghini, yeah, but what do you really? You know you're crying and like you don't really understand the purpose of your, your own, your life. And you know, maybe you don't feel like connected to other people. Uh, you don't have a drive, you know, maybe you, you just don't know what the purpose is anymore. Uh, yeah, I think another cool angle is looking at corruption. I think it does explain a little bit of you know how you develop things and how why it's so important to develop your heart. Um, I wanted to bring up an example and I'm gonna have to read a little bit of how you develop things and why it's so important to develop your heart. I wanted to bring up an example and I'm going to have to read a little bit here, because it's tough for me to remember these things.
Jared:But the book Ordinary Men I don't know if you've read that it's a military book. Right, it's a military book. Okay, so it's about World War II police force in Germany and they are ordered to kill Jews, jewish people, and some people say, no, I can't do this. There's no way I can kill an innocent person and these are Germans, but a lot of them end up doing it. So there's the massacre of Josefo I don't know how to say that exactly and Major Wilhelm Tra trap gave the men an unprecedented order. He said hey, like I want you to uh shoot all these people and it included women, children and elderly and uh, he gave them the option saying, hey, like I know, I'm giving you guys a terrible order and if you want to step out, you can step out. And only about 10 of them stepped out.
Jared:Really, yeah, it's, it's pretty insane, yeah, pretty low it's pretty low yeah, it's insane, and I think this is a an area that points at the heart. Yeah, if you have a really strong heart or you have those values built up, you know pretty easily that, no, I should not be killing these innocent people, right. But if you're gone like your heart's gone, you're a man without a chest or a woman without a chest. It's like, well, you know, this is gonna help my career. My peers are looking at me. Yeah, um, I don't want to get paid. Yeah, like I taught, these are bad people, so I'm just going to shoot them.
Brett:Yeah.
Jared:So the majority of people ended up committing massacre, and I think the highlight of corruption is you get corrupted when you don't have anything there. Yeah, so when you have a heart that can really pull through, you're not going to be corrupted or swayed. You already know where you stand, right.
Brett:And you have your morals and your values like set up and you live by them. That's right.
Jared:That's right. And how do you develop that Right? I think it's very interesting, like when I was studying different religions love studying different religions. I love studying people like uh, I love atheist podcasts. You just like to think how people think and understand the world. Yeah, uh, some very smart people in every aspect uh, religious, non-religious, very smart people.
Brett:I'm sure you've heard and listened to them as well yeah, I think the cosmic skeptic is is one of my favorite ones to listen to on that side yeah, he's pretty, he's pretty interesting.
Jared:Yeah for sure, interesting. Yeah, and uh, when you're looking at these different religions and and, uh, people, uh, everyone has different ways of developing the heart and some are more concentrated than others. And there's not, there's not necessarily, uh, uh, there's. I mean I'm biased, I'm trying not to speak too biased, but yeah, it's okay. Uh, a little biased too, that's how, what's the best way to put this? There's, there's not one path. I'd say. You can people have different paths where they can learn and come around and learn the things they need to learn, uh, but there are different focuses in life where, hey, like, I am definitely on the grind in this religion and I'm learning what I need to learn and I'm getting the values, uh, or you can be agnostic and still be like, hey, like, I really understand people are, are good and I want to be altruistic in the sense, and I'm a humanist. I'm not necessarily, you know, religious. Maybe I'm spiritual, but I don't go to church, I still look humanist. So you can still develop these values, uh, but they do have different focuses.
Brett:Um, we go on for a while and these are from religions here, but I don't know how interesting this is, audience, uh I think it's interesting, just like understanding what because kind of what you were talking about, like it's it's not one path but what I've learned from meeting people, talking to them like other people who are not of my religion, um, and I'm a christian, I'm a member of the church of jesus christ latter-day saints, but people who I've talked to who aren't.
Brett:It's interesting because, at the end of the day, there are things that we can agree upon and there's things that you know, if there was an agnostic who was a humanist, like they probably have something in their mind where they say, hey, I need to serve someone, like I need to help others out, just because we're all here on this planet together and we're the human race, kind of thing.
Brett:And um, what I like about the fact that you know we're having this conversation about different religions is, like it just helps me understand that you know people are people and we can all relate, like you don't have to have everything in common with someone, but at the end of the day, like we're all here together, we might as well try and make the most of it, and I think that's kind of an interesting angle is, like, you know, at least someone might believe something completely different than me, but there's something that I can also agree upon with them and yeah, I'm sure we'll talk about some of those things and some of the similarities, but yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great point and thanks for giving a more of a segue for going into these religions.
Jared:I think I think we should. I can talk about these religions at a high level and just get a flavor for how these religions approach things and maybe we can, if I'm able to, maybe tie it together.
Brett:We'll see how it goes. We got this. We got this.
Jared:It's going to be good, so we can start with Buddhism. I think Buddhism is a pretty understandable religion. Uh, it does not believe in gods. You can, yeah, believe in no gods and be buddhist. Uh, you can also believe in gods and be buddhist too. Um, because buddha?
Brett:was a prophet. Right, he was considered a prophet uh, is buddha a prophet?
Jared:um, and it's. I actually don't know if he's considered a prophet. Is Buddha a prophet? I actually don't know if he's considered a prophet exactly, but prophet-like. I don't know if he could see in the future he's respected like a prophet. But in Buddhism the core aspects is removing suffering. It's basic. I mentioned that earlier. And what you do to reach nirvana is you extinguish the flame essentially, which is interesting because you try to remove suffering in your life and you also see life has suffering in general, where you achieve this peace. Yeah, so if I'm a really good Buddhist, I can connect with you and see your suffering and I'd be like okay, like suffering in general is something we should avoid. And there's different things in Buddhism that they recognize. They call it the Eightfold Path, which is based off the four noble truths. A lot of stuff we don't go through all this but I'm gonna give you a taste.
Brett:I remember, yeah, so I, I think I told you I took a world religion class and I remember learning about those two things, the four noble truths, and then the the eight something path. I can't remember what you said eightfold path. Eightfold path, yeah, um. So yeah, I mean I mean let uh, let's talk a little bit about, yeah, what they believe in that kind of thing.
Jared:Yeah, so, um, the eightfold path is really developing yourself to have these pieces, and this is going to sound, uh, pretty basic, but eightfold path is right Understanding, right Thought, right Speech, right Action, right Livelihood, right Effort, livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.
Jared:Uh, and this is uh, this is based off the four around the four noble truths is that, um, all beings suffer, experience suffering.
Jared:Uh, the cause of suffering is, is craving, and fundamental ignorance is two, three is uh, the cessation of, of, uh, suffering comes with the cessation of craving, and the path which is the method we must follow to and suffering is that of the noble, uh, a noble, no, no, a full path, yeah, uh, so this is practice through karma. Um, karma has, uh, either good skill or bad skill, and when you have good skill, you, you're going around, around, around the eightfold path, you're speaking the right things, you're thinking the right things, and path, you're speaking the right things, you're thinking the right things and while doing this, you'll eventually, um, uh, reach a place where you can have a, be more susceptible to nirvana and see suffering. So that's the taste of buddhism, yeah, and it's very uh, getting rid of the self, so getting yourself, getting rid of suffering, because the self is what suffers and I can extinguish the flame of suffering and get in touch with, uh, those, those around me and, yeah, in the world that's interesting.
Brett:Uh, yeah, don't they do like fast um, they go on. They fast for weeks, don't they? Or is that the more the buddhist monks?
Jared:yeah, the buddhist. So there are different types of buddhism. Uh, people do focus on different ways and monks do have a more extreme uh practice of hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fast, I'm gonna try to like isolation, I know they do that?
Jared:yeah, isolates, and they're just trying to uh diminish the self. Yeah, try to get rid of that and reach uh nirvana, which is the ultimate goal, which is getting rid of samsara, which is the cycle of rebirth. It's a rebirth. We can go into that later if we have time, but that is essentially Buddhism in a nutshell. I'm not a Buddhist, but that's pretty much what it is. It's really good. If you're a really good Buddhist, you're a really awesome person, and then Hinduism is really awesome too.
Brett:Yeah, see, this is the one I'm excited about, because this is the one I know least about. Okay, I'm ready Jared.
Jared:You're ready for this? Okay, so Hinduism also believes in karma. Uh, and karma also has skill. Um, this is around a different practice called uh, yoga, and you might think of yoga people yeah, stretching and doing the exercises.
Brett:Yeah, downward dog and stuff.
Jared:That's what I was thinking immediately yeah, that's right, yeah, that's called hatha yoga, which is part of raja yoga. Raja yoga is one of the four yogas. Um, but these different yogas are different paths people can take to um become one. So it's very it's it's like the flip of buddhism, but very similar to buddhism.
Jared:Buddhism, uh, so buddhism will take the concept of life and everything and cease suffering, and hinduism will flip it and say, okay, like I'm going to become one part of the ocean, I'm going to drop in the ocean, I'm going to try to become one of life and create life interesting. So they operate on on the four paths of yoga and that also leads to what's called Dharma, and Dharma is both a list of kind of commandments, I guess you could say if you're a Christian, but also gives you room to be intuitive and learn what's good and wrong, good and bad, and live your life that way. And also it leads in rebirth, and when you practice better, you can have a better rebirth, and when you practice bad, you become like a squirrel or a dirty animal or something less worth in life. I mean, I'll be honest, I kind of think it would be cool to be a squirrel or, you know, something less worth worth in life.
Brett:I mean, I'll be honest, I kind of think it'd be cool to be a squirrel, yeah.
Jared:You're fast and stuff.
Brett:You fast jump from trees, whatever. You find lots of stuff so interesting. So, based on your actions, you can come back as a lion. If you're a good person, maybe, or if you're a bad person, then it's. I'm going to rat in New York City.
Jared:Yeah, I don't know how they, I don't know they have lions. But yeah, the rat in New York City could definitely be like okay, you practice poorly.
Brett:You're a bad person, yeah.
Jared:And then for them it's not nirvana, it's moksha, and once you with moksha, you achieved atman, which means you're with one, you reach reality and uh, it's interesting because you become a part of reality and you also feel for everything. If you ever listen to a hindu leader, they sound so beautiful when you talk to them, just super mesmerizing and like we live on this planet and like, uh, this ball of dust in the sky and like I don't know. They can talk way more beautifully than I can, but it's very poetic and superphotic. It's very beautiful, very peaceful, uh, very joyful and uh also, um, ceasing suffering too. So they there's a lot of talk about these religions. I'm like freezing through them super fast uh, so I'm not giving them full justice. Like you mentioned the buddhists, they will fast and they will uh abstain for things.
Jared:So they also believe like greed causes suffering and uh, different types of appetite, like what we talked about earlier, are main causes for suffering yeah so that's why they abstain from so much stuff, or like they try to fast remove themselves because they want to diminish the suffering that they feel in life. Yeah, so they live very minimalistically.
Brett:Uh, buddhist you yeah, that's pretty true, though, like I mean, greed causes suffering, like all those things that you mentioned. The desires they cause suffering because in a sense, it's like those have control over your actions is, if you're a greedy person, then you're going to find out how you can make money all the time and that's probably going to look like long hours, um, lots of headaches, lots of challenges along the way, uh, which, at the end of the day, the only thing you're getting is some, some money. So you're sacrificing all your time and spending your efforts doing things that might not be helping your heart at all but could be helping you know your actual materialistic wealth, and I think that's that's a great thing. That like, like I was saying in the beginning, like we can all relate to these kinds of things because, like greed is, we can all, I think, agree that that's a bad thing. Like being a greedy person is not necessarily great.
Brett:But, um, and controlling the desires, like it's funny because when I always talk about fat brett on this podcast, yeah, I used to be a fat and fat little kid, but the desires of the back then were like I'm just gonna eat all this food because it's delicious, and I didn't know at the time, but you know, I gained some weight and I was bad at sports after that and like all these things happened, but like that is suffering and my body was suffering because it was getting terrible things and um, I mean, it's just interesting. Sorry to cut you off there, but yeah, I think it's like there's a lot of tie-ins that we can make, just as people with these religions so yeah, yeah, they are very uh, similar to each other, uh, in many different aspects.
Jared:Um, and we'll tie it back. Um, yeah, we'll tie it back pretty soon. Um, I want to pull up an example, uh, that I think is really interesting and I love how you talked about, you know, greed is, you know, pretty bad and it's like it's an over appetite of the belly. Is you don't want to make that greater than what your heart can offer you? Um, like you don't want to have your stomach serving or you want, you want to have your stomach serving your heart instead of your mind serving your stomach. Uh, cause that's really where life is your passions.
Jared:I think, a really interesting example and this is from the New Testament. So, yeah, this is not super biased, but this is just an example that I think is really interesting for people who are Christian and all people who are not Christians when Jesus was, when he was going up with the cross to die for everybody, yeah, uh, I thought there's a really interesting verse uh, that he refused to have, uh, wine and myrrh and carry the, the full pain, uh, to then get lifted. He was offered that on the way, which is pretty much a painkiller. Yeah, say, hey, please take this painkiller. And he's like, no, I'm going to experience this pain. And carried it up which is such a small piece but it was such a powerful verse.
Jared:Yeah, this is Luke 23, 23, where I'm like, wow, so many times in our lives we feel like we have to avoid pain, but when you really want to suffer and really feel it, you really have passion, you really are going to go through it and take it to that level of I'm going to go through whatever it takes to get there. And Christ, of course, if you're christian, it's really really strong. Uh, he has a very strong heart, obviously.
Jared:Uh, especially we're talking about two christians here yeah, for that pure love of of people dying for everybody yeah, for insane, it's amazing yeah, for all the sins, um, which translates really well for practically all the religions, even though, like, if you're islam, you don't think christ is all that, but like you believe in christ, but but what? What really is interesting here is when you're looking at the heart and think of, like the greatest heart there's in my mind. There aren't that many examples that compare to Christ, or if any at all.
Brett:Yeah, it's a very, very small list.
Jared:Very small list, if any. Yeah, if any, yeah. So we're talking about going past all suffering. Suffering, uh, which buddhism is like? Okay, that's, our main goal is to see suffering, to remove the self. Yeah, who did that better than christ? For um reaching moksha and being one with the life and what's most important in life? Who died for life, for every, all lives? I mean, it's, it's pretty self-explanatory for people, yeah, but there's so much power in that, and how he went so deep into walking through the pain purposely to do it. I think there's something to be said there. Yeah, that's amazing.
Brett:It's like. I mean, when we talk about Christianity, we all believe that Christ suffered for all of us experiencing everything that we've experienced, and so if he was to take the wine in the mirror, he wouldn't experience it to the degree that I think we would need to feel that connection with him. That's my take on it, but that's interesting. I think that's a really cool story. I don't think I've heard that in the Bible before or noticed. Noticed it maybe I just didn't notice it, but it goes by super fast yeah, it's one verse, that's it that's so cool though yeah, yeah for sure.
Jared:So like when you see people run, it's like I, I like your example of running for other people. It's like you're you're running through the with pain. I mean, you know, if you did that with, like I don't know, a car, I'm going to drive a mile for this person.
Brett:It's like not the same thing, right? Yeah, I mean, my most recent race that I did for someone was uh well, we do team Tim every year for my father in law who passed away from cancer, um, but last year in July I ran my first 50 K, which is 31 miles um, in the desert of Arizona and I was doing it for my friend Jordan at the time and I almost quit a mile 15. Cause, like I was throwing up every quarter mile. It was a rough thing Like I trained in Utah, not as hot as Arizona, so I go down there and I think I just had heat exhaustion or stroke like a heat stroke or something. But at mile 15, it was a loop and that's like halfway. So I got back to the aid station. I was sitting there with my family and stuff and they're all like you know, we won't, we won't be disappointed if you pull out of the race Like it's totally okay. You're throwing up like you're not ready for this.
Brett:And then I don't know what it was, but like I just kept thinking of of Jordan he had stage four colon cancer at the time I was like I'm he's going through pain that I can't even comprehend and I said I was going to do this for him, like I'm gonna have to suffer just a few more hours just to show this guy that, hey, I like, I love you enough to to suffer for you, um, and it just, I don't know, helps you stop thinking about yourself and you find that strength to just keep going. It's a, it's an interesting thing. But yeah, I think running for someone else and running for a purpose for me it's just like, hey, I'm willing to suffer with you. I know life is pretty bad right now. You're going through it, but I love you enough to do what I can to show you I'm suffering with you.
Jared:Yeah, that's a great example of having heart, guys.
Brett:I mean I wouldn't say I'm to be put on a pedestal or anything, because definitely not. Like I make my own mistakes and stuff, but I don't know, it's just like little things, you know. Going back to hinduism, like we're all here together, um, like why not try and make the most of it and try and support each other through their own trials? So yeah, I mean, I think it's it's just a good thing and I think it's it's it's good for me to not think about myself all the time. I think it's good for most people, but, you know, just gets you in a different perspective.
Jared:Yeah, yeah and um, I think, I think that's that's super, super strong. You know, for you to experience that, and a lot of people in life they need to take those opportunities. Yeah, they need to exercise their hearts. Uh, it can be. You know, running that's one example. That's not going to be an example for me, because I haven't really run far, that's okay.
Jared:But, uh, you know, if you're gonna test your heart, I think it's. Uh, maybe you need to, um, get out of your comfort zone and forgive somebody that wrong to you. It's super basic.
Brett:Maybe you need to that's hard to do sometimes, oh yeah.
Jared:Forgiveness is a hard thing, oh, super hard. Yeah, you just gotta like realize there's something greater here, um, and go after it. Uh, there's many different examples and go after it. There's many different examples. Another thing I wanted to pull up is how the heart can show a path, um, and this is something that is kind of like what's that called? It's compounding, so it compounds, okay. So if we have a good example of someone doing something good, uh, we can see like, oh, like wow, like that person is able to go through that type of pain and make that type of sacrifice. Why? Why we watch these movies of different heroes. We're watching frodo take the ring to mordor, yeah, and we're watching you know, captain, america's saving.
Brett:I just watched the winter soldier yesterday when I was at the gym, so you know he's saving the world. Yeah, that kind of stuff.
Jared:Saving the world. You know, the hero's journey is beautiful Um it is so good.
Brett:I love the hero's journey. It's so great, right, good.
Jared:Yeah, we see it a lot, but we it never gets old.
Brett:Um yeah, marvel's kind of had their time, but then there's Rocky. We got Rocky.
Jared:Yeah, rocky, great hero. We got Fast and Furious 2, which kind of has Rocky's outs when they go to space.
Brett:that's my favorite one.
Jared:I actually haven't seen that one or heard about it.
Brett:They become more and more insane as time goes on, and that's why I love it. They're just unbelievable. That's great.
Jared:But anyways, fast and fierce is another episode. We'll go there later. Yeah, so when you have a super weak heart, uh, it's super hard to inspire people. They think that you're you're fake or you don't have a strong purpose. They can see in your voice, they can see in, like, how you act. But when you're able to suffer and you suffer greatly for something, uh, you bring a different type of leadership, you bring a different type of force, uh, in the world that people can recognize and say, hey, that guy lives for something. Maybe I can live for something as well, yeah, uh.
Jared:So you have great examples in religion. Uh, you have great examples in life, like heroes in world war two, um, great examples in life, like heroes in World War II, gods in religion, different types of suffering. They really open their hearts for us to open our hearts. That's how you get inspired by these different things. So it's extremely powerful when you have obviously a heart where, hey, I can overcome everything. My, my appetite is not going to slow me down. Yeah, I'm not going to let anything slow. This is like david goggins stuff.
Jared:Yeah this is goggins coming out this guy is coming out, I'm gonna run that, I'm not gonna swear here. Carry the boats, carry the boats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh. You get inspired by that. People get inspired by Galgans. I got inspired by Galgans, I'm sure you have too.
Brett:Oh, yeah, I mean like I'll play some of those things in my head all the time, like when I'm, when I'm feeling sorry for myself or something like that. I'm just like you know what he always talks about, how, and of course I will say he's a little on the more crazy side of things, like he's very his life is suffering like that's all he does um but he does have some great points, like one thing that he says that I love is when you go to war with yourself, you will find peace, and I think that's true.
Brett:Like when you're trying to understand yourself, understand your values, and when I've been running in the mountains or something I feel like I'm going to die. Like you learn a lot about yourself. Are you, are you able to keep going? Can you keep pushing like forward? And do you have what it takes? Um? Is your heart strong enough to do that? Because a lot of the times when you run, your mind quits before your body does. But if you have a desire to keep going and that's strong, it's like when I was in the desert running for Jordan, I was like, hey, I'm going to keep going, there's no decision to be made here. So, yeah, I think it's interesting. Like his, his whole thing is, you know, he suffers to learn about himself and to um, understand his own mind and become, he tries to say, you know, the hardest blank word in the world. So, um, yeah, I think it's interesting. But Goggins is someone who suffers and inspires other people, like you said, yeah, yeah.
Jared:I think it's a good example of hey look, lot of heart I'm gonna go push through um, and there's different flavors of things that really will drive you and give you that belief and truth in life. So people get inspired by different things like, hey, I got inspired by goggins, I got inspired by this influencer. I got inspired by this influencer, I got inspired by this TikTok video. It could be anything. This is where an area of finding truth in life is really important. This is something we could talk about for a good amount of time.
Jared:I don't know if I want to get so nerdy here on this podcast.
Brett:We can get as nerdy as we want. This is the Gettin' Average show. There's no rules. Okay, we get after.
Jared:Until we're done, no rules um, yeah, so there are different types of things that people get uh wrapped in. So you can definitely have a heart and say, hey, like I'm gonna go do this thing and be misguided. Uh, I'm sure you know it's hard to say like, hey, every nazi that committed a terrible act, they are a hundred percent going straight to hell. Yeah, um, we want, maybe we want to think that. But what if you're in their shoes? You know, like what if you thought you were doing the best you could? And this is what truth is, and they don't know any better. Some young kids were caught up in that, like 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, they don't know jack.
Jared:Hitler's youth. Yeah, there's a whole program for it Exactly. It's hard to cast and judge people so harshly.
Brett:Of course I'm definitely getting against the holocaust and nazis. I'm like no, nazis are not great people, not?
Jared:not very clear there's some people go for sure, going to hell, like for sure some people are going to hell absolutely. Yeah, uh, but people can get be misguided in life and go down different routes and have passion and and fall uh and and try to get back up. You know people don't walk in a straight line. Yeah, I don't think you have or I have. I don't think anyone has yeah, it's impossible.
Jared:Uh. So finding the core pieces in life of what really is going to make you run, what's really going to make you go, uh is a huge, huge question. Um, I, I actually asked this is funny, I did ask neil to progress tyson one question you got to talk to him.
Jared:I gotta ask him one question. Okay, all right, I asked him neil, what is the most important question in the world? And it's pretty basic. Yeah, what did he say? I'm interested. He said he looked up in the sky or the ceiling for like two seconds. And he's pretty basic. Yeah, what did he say I'm interested? He said he looked up in the sky or the ceiling for like two seconds and he's like what is my purpose? Super basic, yeah, and I think, yeah, that's true.
Jared:But really, what brings you joy is the ultimate thing of what should drive your heart. I think it's pretty basic, but that is the guiding force for your happiness. That's going to make you run, it's going to make you love your wife or your husband. That's going to make you go to the nth degree. Forget about your stomach, forget about your belly, live with your heart and go forward. And what brings you joy is such an elusive question, like how you know if I eat this Carl's Jr burger, am I going to be joy? You know I'm going to have that, you know who knows, am I in the moment?
Brett:Am I?
Jared:in the moment. You know, maybe, yeah, who knows or is there a higher way of living, and I do think it takes exercise to build that muscle. I don't think, as babies are fully there. You have to mature, you have to develop your, your chest, you have to be able to to run, you have to be able to to be a leader for others, uh, and for yourself, right, um, and developing that in the aspect in the lens of different religions is very interesting, and also, being a, an agnostic slash atheist is also interesting too. Uh, when you're looking at agnostic, agnosticism and atheism, uh, it's interesting because joy, what brings them joy, uh, is essentially what I would believe in, what you'd believe, but, uh, what they imagine, right, what I study, because I've spent hours listening to them and I love listening to them is a rational thought and this you can still feel.
Jared:Good, I don't want to talk about those people. Yeah, because I think atheism and agnosticism is the easiest to understand of all the religions from the aspect of just, naturally just living.
Brett:Yeah, it's very logical.
Jared:It's logical, extremely logical. If you're like the cosmic skeptic, you're super logical. You can think through things. You can be very humanistic. He's also against suffering. He talks about that. He's like I hate how they're suffering and that's actually one of the reasons why he doesn't believe in god, which is interesting, uh, but um, yeah, when you think of hey, like, what am I gonna have? That brings joy in life. I think that's harder to define when you're agnostic, atheists, because the moral standard is more developed into like, what current, current, uh, society is like. In history, you know, maybe burning a witch was like, oh, yeah, like that seems like a good idea, right, like in medieval times, yeah, yeah, this is a witch. You burn them, of course yeah they're evil.
Jared:They're evil like, yeah you know, like a way against a duck monty python or something.
Brett:Yeah, monty Python, that's exactly what I was thinking.
Jared:If they would, they should float. Yeah, that's right, that's right. So you know, of course we have technology, we get smarter, or whatever. Is that really like the path of joy? You know, are people a thousand years earlier less joyful than they are now? Yeah, uh, it's. It gets really hairy when, in the eyes of, in the lens of agnosticism and atheism, you, it's more natural living, more like, hey, I'm just gonna like live my life and that's fine. Uh, to that extent.
Jared:But is there a definition of joy? You know what is joy? Joy? And I think it's hard for people to define in general. But I think it's even harder to define if you're agnostic or atheist. That's just my own opinion. I'm sure some of them have. Hey, this is what it is. But it's hard to like define that, saying, okay, this is the pure thing in my life that will bring me that joy. When you look at the other religions, it's like this is what brings you joy yeah, moksha, uh, nirvana, uh, paradise. In islam, paradise is the heaven. Uh, they got another word for it, I can't think of the top of my head, but that's what they call heaven. And then you have uh, eternal life and in christianity exaltationation.
Jared:Yeah, and how to get there. They're pretty defined paths, like we talked about Buddhism and Hinduism. Also, in Islam and Christianity they're pretty similar Getting rid of sins and living a righteous life. In Islam and Christianity, live with your have posterity, live with family. Be honest, all these religions teach.
Jared:okay, I guess buddhism is really to teach families, but it teaches, they teach the principles of being a good person, yeah, and these are the fundamental morals of of having joy. And morality is an interesting topic where, okay, morality, there's good and evil and I think people have to accept that. If you don't accept that, then it's kind of weird. Just like, okay, like if you shoot yourself in a week in your foot with a gun, is that bad or good? Yeah, it's pretty, it's bad, it's pretty bad it's pretty bad.
Brett:It's pretty bad. You got some issues. You got some issues yourself in the foot yeah.
Jared:yeah, it's like, okay, there's getting's good and bad in life, right? So, yeah, there are things in life where you can start finding a path that, hey, maybe you should look into these. And that's kind of why I like to look in different religions, because, hey, there's some things that people will go on their knees for they live every day thinking about these things. How do they have joy in life? And I think it's something that people should try to find and focus on and get after it.
Brett:you know, yeah, get after. That's right. Yeah, have you noticed any common like commonalities between them with joy, besides like the things you talked about, I guess?
Jared:yeah, you kind of mentioned them yeah, yeah, no, a big thing I haven't mentioned yet is, um, the concept of christianity is repentance, and I guess that I think it's the same in Islam. I'm trying to remember off the top of my head. It's the same thing. They believe in sins as well, and Hinduism and Buddhism believe in it. Refining your intentions and removing suffering, and that concept of repentance across the board and refining yourself, is very universal, extremely universal. It's a huge practice of hey, I'm going to get rid of the bad and and taking the good. Yeah, become a better person. Uh, that is so similar across the board. It's, it's crazy.
Brett:Uh, I mean that's one thing you talked about with, like the different paths. Everyone is on that they're not going to be straight, like. You'll probably have times where you're doing really good and then you know you mess up and boom, it's like a another dip and then you're kind of making your way out. But it's those times when you are doing well but then you fall into that dip. That's when you learn the lesson and you're like well, I think I need to change some things about myself, because that didn't feel good and I'm not feeling great about myself. So I'm going to repent and get better and get back after it, try and do what I can to be a better person and influence society in a better way, and then you'll do good again and then boom, it's a roller coaster. But as long as you're continually going up or the stock market might be a better example you'll have times where you're going up and down and then eventually, hopefully, it ends as a game. Yeah.
Brett:I think it's interesting because everyone's path is different and and it's going to be messy, like you're going to mess up in your life. You're going to do dumb things that you wish you didn't. You're going to regret them, and that's okay. That's part of being a human being, um, and it's trying to understand these morals and these principles and things like repentance that you know, teach you that you're not as bad as you think you are and that we're all in this together and we can have joy and happiness as long as we're living in line with, like the things that we believe, I guess.
Jared:Yeah, yeah, totally that we believe, I guess.
Jared:So, yeah, yeah, totally, uh, shedding the things that are slowing you down, going up. You know it can be hard, uh, but it's part of the process of developing joy, developing your morality, uh, developing, um, you know, better world, uh, everything all together, good and evil, um, and developing your heart and your chest, uh. So I I think I think it's critical, uh, just to like kind of wrap it up a little bit on my side of hey, it's super important to recognize your chest is something real, yeah, to have passion, be willing to suffer for something, uh, and that thing to suffer for should bring you joy. It's not just getting rid of suffering, but you want to chase after something that's going to really bring you that joy and defining what the joy is in your life and find that path. It will give you that purpose, it will give you the fire, it will make you live more. Allow you to get past your belly and your appetite. Yeah, allow you to share awesome experiences with people. Um, it'll get you beyond just uh, pleasuring yourself in different ways.
Brett:That's not super sexual but, like you know, yeah, I mean, hey, some of the desires might lead to that, so be careful, could lead to that.
Jared:But you know, like you know, luxury vacations I mean this can be nice, but like you know what I'm saying, like, hey, you watched watch tv, you know, just like, totally, just uh, riff on like physical, yeah, um, enjoyment, which you know we do need to like balance ourselves and you can't just like burn yourself out and go crazy but, uh, to really align your life to a greater purpose. And who would not want to align the purpose with joy? Yeah, who would not want to do that? Who would not want to have the heart to go further and say, hey, I'm going to do this thing for other people and for myself, and I stand for this. And it's like something where I can live a full life.
Jared:That, looking behind, hey, these are not wasted years. I really was able to enjoy these things. I harbored these values in my life. I got to share these experiences, uh, this love and this path, and that's pretty much it. Yeah, it's pretty much. That's in a nutshell. We can talk about these topics in more detail, for sure, but that's kind of the whole deal. I love it, man.
Brett:That's it's so good, like it's super interesting when we talk about suffering and things, because, um, another running analogy. I tell my wife this all the time and she gets mad, but it's the best metaphor for life. I think when people say the runner's high, typically they're referring to when they're done with their run and they feel all these endorphins running through their body and they're feeling super good. But it's because they suffered. Feeling super good but it's because they suffered, like they had time where they were doing something difficult. And you could say the same thing about lifting weights, doing a sport. Um, even writing, like writing is hard but I love to write and every time I sit down and I do an entry and then like go back and look at it, I'm always like, hey, well, that was worth it, because now I have my thoughts out and I feel like it helped me understand my thinking and get clear about it and get some clarity there. But it is interesting. It's funny because I know I might get questions of like this doesn't really seem like a getting after topic, but I would argue that it very much is, because with religion it requires two things I talk about all the time.
Brett:It's discipline and consistency, like. You have to be disciplined enough to to look at for other people, to help, or try and look outside yourself and relinquish the suffering you face. And you know, if greed is your temptation, then you have to be disciplined enough to not act on it. And then you have to be consistent in practicing these virtues and and trying to live your life in line with whatever you believe, and for me that's, you know, following Christ and trying to be better every single day repent consistently, try and stay on top of like understanding the gospels and and spending time reading those, um, those scriptures so I can get a better understanding of the religion and apply those lessons to my life. And like discipline and consistency.
Brett:I talk about getting after in all ways, but in religion I would say that might be one of the most difficult is being disciplined with religion, because I don't know if you've seen this before, but I have a lot of friends I grew up with that I went to church with and we were all good friends and have just started abandoning their morals and trying to live a life that they want to, because I think, from our conversation today, maybe they thought joy was going to come from somewhere else.
Brett:They wanted to feed the desires of their stomachs and the appetites that they had, instead of look inward and say I think I just need to do some work on myself first and I think there might be something I'm missing that could lead me to joy. To joy, um, because I mean living a a Christian life or, you know, a Buddhist life, any of the religions we've talked about today. It it does require commitment and like, hopefully that that stirs a passion within you to say like, oh yeah, there are other people out there that you know I can get along with and I love the fact that you're out there, like studying different religions, because you just want to understand what they believe and recognize, like, what similarities we all have together.
Jared:Yeah, that's something I want to say. People are very similar to each other. They're not so weird. They're not so weird. People are very similar, absolutely.
Brett:It's so cool and yeah, I mean you can get along with with anybody, I think, unless they're people like the Nazis. Don't, don't get along with those people, um. But you know you can get along with anyone and relate to them in some capacity, because we all sort of believe the same things.
Jared:A hundred percent. So it's so true. Uh, yeah, like people don't like, you know, walking on Legos, you know, yeah, it's not good. Everyone hates that Everyone hates.
Brett:That Everyone knows, that feeling, everyone knows that feeling.
Jared:yeah, it's the worst. It's the worst and you know people like to have. You know friends and family. You know People. There's commonalities across pretty much everybody you know Of course there's some outliers. You can everybody you know of course there's some outliers and you can say, hey, what about those people? Yeah, they're very, very outliers. Yeah, talking about 99.9999% of the people that share very common feelings.
Brett:Yeah, absolutely, cause we're all humans, we all connect on that piece. Yeah, but I do want to ask are there things that you do, um, to help you like to help feed the heart in your life? Are there any things that you consistently do?
Jared:Yeah, um, I think an area that is really important for feeding the heart is harboring those values and those things that you know, you know bring you, bring you joy. Um, so say that you have, uh, say that you have, different feelings in your life. Maybe it's with, um, your family in some sense, uh, or your friends, and you're like, hey, like I really enjoy like complimenting people, or you really enjoy loving this person if it's more intimate. Uh, I'm not trying to sound like sexual on this no, you're good, okay, but intimate has.
Jared:Maybe it is I don't know, but yeah, just moments that really lead to um a happy spot of of hey, like these things are. Okay, I could get into my own philosophy, but going to sign right now, should we go with my philosophy?
Brett:you don't have to, you don't have to say it I can say I can say it, it's it.
Jared:I'm kind of sputtering my own philosophy and this is something that's like. I think Hinduism goes pretty well with this. Hinduism doesn't have as much closure as I'd like to harbor and build those values and exercise my heart on. Yeah, and that's pretty basic and I think that you can resonate with that too, Like you probably have those things as well.
Jared:Yeah absolutely so. When you think of those things like hey, like, you know, even exercise is good. Maybe I think of a relationship that's hard in my life where I'm like, hey, like, maybe I just need to like just have that branch revived in my life, just hey, like, I'm gonna talk to that person, I'm going to uh, make sure that they know I at least care and respect them as a person, and that's like a part of that. I'm like, wow, like that person could be going through some emotional stuff and they could be wavery, whatever. And I've been able to re-establish that connection because I know like nobody's perfect and we all fall.
Jared:So it's. I mean, there's multiple aspects. How do I feed the heart? Um, I think you exercise it and think upon those things that your heart strives for and works for, what things that bring you joy, things that bring you, uh, a greater life, brings, brings you more life yeah uh, it can be your career, for to an extent if it's not too, careerism can be your your spouse.
Jared:It can be um learning about something that gives you peace. Yeah, those things can bring you more life in your life. So that's kind of like my philosophy.
Brett:I think it's beautiful, like that really is beautiful. It's like what can I do to just feel more of the things that I enjoy, like feel have my life more enriched through, if it is mending a relationship with someone who's either wronged you in the past or whatever happened there, or like with me, like I love spending time with my wife. She's like my best friend, best friend and um, that brings me a lot of joy. And um, like it's interesting because we're doing distance right now, because sometimes she'll go to arizona to fly and then she'll come back, but it's like weird schedule. So on the weekends she's usually down there, but it's like those times I'm like, oh, I understand what I don't have when she's not here and I want to be around her all the time because she brings me joy. And then, like my family, it's the same thing. And, um, one thing that I've I I love that.
Brett:I know a lot of the those religions practice with Buddhism, and I think Hinduism specifically, is a meditation.
Brett:Like meditation just helps me both, both of them for sure.
Brett:Yeah, it's just like getting clear with my thoughts and understand what is bothering me right now.
Brett:If anything like if I'm feeling frustrated, like okay, well, what's the root cause of that? Like, how can I mend that internally first, um, and then also just like praying, like talking to god and expressing the desires of my heart, like those things are our daily actions that I do that helped me feel a little bit more closer to you, know a God, and to other people, and, um, better, better, like I have a better relationship with myself because of it, I think, too, because I'm not so, um, angry at myself, myself, or like I don't beat myself up as much as I used to, because I used to have terrible self-talk until I understood, like you know, I had a perspective change where I was like Christ wouldn't want me to talk about myself this way. So why am I? And it's, yeah, it's interesting, it's like healed my relationship with myself and also helped me try and give more to others. Um, so it's, it's pretty amazing what happens when you practice these principles, um, yeah, yeah, I mean I like your example of self-talk.
Jared:Like if you have negative self-talk, you're clouding your life, especially at that moment where you can't even see the life around you in your own life, your own path, yeah, you can't see the path of others. Like, uh, when you have those good feelings of like, especially if you have god's perspective good for you like you have that now you know like, okay, that's, that's like a.
Jared:When you think of the gods of these religions, uh, it's the god of abraham, for both islam and christianity, uh, the same. And then you have, um, various gods in hinduism and no gods in buddhism. But when you think of these main gods, uh, they all are life-bringing and wants like the best for you, yeah, uh, a greater life, and uh, practicing that and wrestling with that perspective is very interesting, the eternal perspective, if you're a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jared:Yeah, exactly, but I mean, if you develop that, wow, like you know, now you start thinking, okay, the sociality that we live in now exists beyond the grave. Like, okay, friends, family, whatever that's in now exists beyond the grave. Yeah, like, okay, friends, family, whatever that's gonna exist beyond the grave, that's, if your church, the member, jesus christ letter of sands, you believe that. Uh, so how do you have like sustaining life? Hey, like, I'm gonna get beyond this self-talk, like that's just a moment of blinking time, you know, it's like, yeah, if you have that perspective, great, I know, I, I'm not. I'm not preaching I'm. You know I might sound like a cult leader here, but like, no, this is great, I, I love it.
Brett:Like it really is like important, and it does take a lot of time to develop like that perspective and I'm I'm no, by no means perfect, just in that sense. Like I think, with, um, the self-talk thing, I tried picturing myself as a dad and like if my kid came to me and I was like dad, I'm so fat, like I'm a loser, like I, I hate myself, I'd be like what? Like why are you talking about yourself that way? Like I love you, stop, yeah. Um, I feel like God would do the same thing.
Jared:Yeah.
Brett:And it's the same thing with, like um, rebirth. We were talking about the rat, I can't remember what that term is called. Uh, Samsara, yeah, Samsara, Okay, Um, but like things like that. Like we believe in an afterlife and we believe that there's something coming um, if we live righteously and like in the way that we should, um, while helping our brothers and sisters along the way. But, uh, yeah, I think you know it's, it's tough to have that kind of perspective, but it's, I think, through meditation, through praying and through practicing the principles and and actually being um, you know, an active member of whatever faith or religion you believe, um, that teaches you those things and it helps you build the heart at the end of the day, Like you want to have that, that desire and that passion to serve other people. And that only comes from my experience, through actually doing it and and finding ways to implement it into your life.
Jared:Yeah, yeah, and I do want to mention that I know we talked about this earlier. I just I would you want to mention that if you are a really good Buddhist, a really good Hindu, a really good uh, muslim, really good Christian, like across the board, there the hearts of those people are so strong, yeah, absolutely Incredibly strong, like you. Go talk to a really strong Hindu practitioner, like they are going to be so loving and like caring, and you'll feel it will cut through you. Yeah, it's not like hey, like okay, I want to tie in some agnostic, atheist people.
Jared:I feel like I'm leaving them out yeah, yeah, you can do that but like uh, yeah, you can also be a really loving person if you're obviously atheist or agnostic. Uh, because you can have that familial bond, you can have the part where I'm a humanist. I really care about people yeah uh and uh, yeah, it's not.
Jared:Love is not, like, restricted to christianity, it's not even further restricted to being a member of the church. Jesus christ letter of saints, it's, it's, it is a universal thing that exists, that anyone can have and you can see with everybody. And, um, that I I thought it'd be funny, um, if I did mention this. I mean, there's some terrible like members of the church oh yeah, that's true.
Brett:Like I I'll say the tv show the mormon wives. They're not.
Jared:They're not members I actually don't call them out. Yeah, I know people personally that, um, you know, I'd say like, yeah, they're not. They're not great people. I can't fully judge them, but like they're like wow, like you're a total, like I don't know. Just they hurt people. Yeah, they hurt people and they, you know, go to church and like, have this facade, uh, and you can totally be anything else besides that. You could be, you know, a Scientologist and have it. Be a better person than some of the people I believe are in that category.
Brett:Um, I mean absolutely, like there's, there's going to be people who are like you said, like when we were talking about at the beginning, like if they don't have their heart bought in, if they don't have that piece it's, you can tell that it's fake. And when it's sad because in religion that does happen like there are people who I know in my own religion that's like, do you actually believe these things? Like you say you do, but your actions speak nothing of of that? Um, yeah, so I think there's good and bad people in every religion. But, like I have met some, some, some um Muslims who are just like the most down to earth people I've ever met in my life. Um, but I'm sure there's also some bad ones. Like it goes the same both ways. Like there's always going to be good and bad people and different levels of people being bought into the principles and the religions and, um, yeah, I think it's just interesting yeah, yeah, for sure.
Jared:The thing is that reality exists. Yeah, uh, we live in a reality and it's people argue it's subjective. But when we go back to the abolition of man, which cs lewis wrote and tate miller, by the way, uh, suggested this book for me to read and this is really, yeah, tate miller loves All right, I'll check it out. Yeah, the abolition of man. We live in a reality and it's hard to argue that, hey, this is subjective versus objective. We're sitting in these chairs, like we're talking to each other. It's pretty objective. The correlation of what people see is extremely objective.
Jared:Uh, so, developing and living a joyful life can come from so many different angles and the path to get there, like you talked about it, has its ups and downs. Yeah, uh, and there are some different ways of like. Hey, like, maybe, maybe a certain path you want to take can lead you to greater joy. Um, of course, like you and I are gonna be a little biased, but like, uh, there are things that are a little bit more defined. Like, I did study some. I read the quran, I read the bhagavad-gita. Um, and those are beautiful books.
Jared:Like, I gave them five stars on goodreads beautiful books yeah yeah, great books, but uh, the clarity and the practice and putting your heart in it's, in observing life and things, it's like, okay, some things are a little more clear and I, I'd say, you know, the main thing I would ask people in general is just to uh practice their hearts, practice looking for joy and not just like live off their, their stomachs, their appetites. Yeah, the life's greater than that. Uh, life has things that are so great that the emotions just like burst out of you. Yeah, instead of like oh, I just gotta like feel something, I gotta get a different high, I gotta get a different high like whatever, like, yeah, you gotta find your next kick, whatever it is. Yeah, it's chasing highs all the time, getting kick.
Jared:Uh, so there's a different way of living and, um, I, I think that's that's a part where I say, hey, if you want to get after in life, you know, build that heart, build that drive, get after it, have the heart and soul to do those things and do things with that purpose. That's that next level. You'll not only feel so great for yourself but you'll be a beacon for other people who are also like, oh, wow, look, look at, look at Brett, look at him go through this pain. Like wow, that's so amazing. Like if they're watching you go through that and running for your friend who has cancer, it's like wow, I know Brett's doing this.
Jared:Like that's that's pretty strong. Like I think I can feel that yeah, uh and uh. That's that's one example. There's multiple ways where you can really dive into this reality that we live in and, no matter what you believe in, uh, you can still develop your heart to be something greater, something we all connect with, that emotion that we all connected with. Instead of we're talking appetites, we're chasing appetites, we make jokes of appetites. We we're getting you know very, um, you know, when you hear comedians, they talk about appetites all the time, like there's sex jokes all the time there's like pretty much what it is drinking.
Jared:All you know, drink whatever it are like, uh, you know things that are that are naturally funny because it's like, okay, these weird things in reality, but yeah, um, there also can be like, if you're over in that area, it can be over distracting and less fulfilling, whereas, like hey, like that stuff's funny, but there's also funny things in like around the heart and like messing around there. There's not enough people focusing it and that, that, that mindset of hey, like you know, I mean, if we can talk about heart and stuff, it comes to dark humor which can be funny to you. But you gotta, you gotta be strong for that.
Brett:Yeah, my my wife is the queen of dark humor.
Jared:Okay, great.
Brett:Um, I will, yeah, it's. It's pretty funny Like we always tell people to get it sign up for the race for my father-in-law, right, yeah. And if they say no, she's like, oh, so you love cancer, huh. And it's just like so good. Or like I'll, I'll make a joke and like, yeah, I won't go into it, but she's got a dark humor runs in the family.
Jared:It's hard to say dark humor, just like everybody goes like oh, yeah, I get it. But yeah, when you go around, the heart it can get there. It can be light too, you can be light hearted about stuff. But yeah, the focus in society is so much around appetites and in that world, so influenced by the world, yeah, uh, the world will not give you that, that heart, that drive, the thing that gives you joy, like people think of all the time. Yeah, it is, yeah, it is, I'm gonna go to new york city or whatever. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go to vegas. I'm gonna go to vegas. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to like, get the most statusy type things, uh, the most expensive things. I'm gonna experience these things and you know, I'm gonna do all these things. It's like, are you really doing it?
Jared:for the reasons that bring you joy are you doing those things because those are parts of your, your natural appetite of, of resources, of of sustaining yourself in the animalistic kingdom type thing like if we're getting really like in that little like, uh, you know, secular world, uh type of type of aspect, and it gets pretty nihilistic if you get on that, that path, uh, but, um, you really want to, you know, develop the uh, the heart and that, to to avoid those things. Like, you wanted to be able to have a richer life and there's more to that life than experiencing like, oh, like there's this place in maui that's got an awesome like hotel and stuff and I can ride surfboard. Is that? That's? That's great. But like, is that better than having a family? Is it better than having someone who is experiencing something and they're crying on your shoulder because they trust you and you're there for them? Is it better than that?
Jared:And there's some things that are very expensive in life and leaving your heart behind is extremely expensive, and I know everyone will recognize the hearts inside themselves. They just need to get after it a little bit more. Maybe look a little deeper, be a little more introspective, maybe just practice those basic things. I don't want to make it sound so obscure, or so what's it called? I forgot the word in CIAia. Oh my gosh it's like cia.
Jared:Yes, it's a word for uh, I think it might start with the e. I think it's like something that's just like cloudy and like you can't see what it is. But um, yeah, the heart. There are things that people know, people, what people can fight for, um, that are very basic things. They're simple things. They're very simple things in life and once you start feeling those things, you can.
Jared:This is going on way longer than I thought, so this is great this is super introspective here and I feel like I'm like a cult leader, like no, this is good.
Brett:Like my question was actually going to be, like what would you suggest people do if they want to go on this journey of, like, developing their heart? Yeah, you Answering, so it's perfect.
Jared:Okay, yeah. So when you develop your heart, see, and like I've seen this myself, I've been, I've gone in a way that's like more extreme to you saying hey, like, okay, like I'm going to be super skeptical, I'm going to be a very say the word uh and I'm gonna think like almost like a, like a uh, straight, I don't know, almost robotic in a way, and I've been practicing that area, logic and a little bits and stuff and uh, you start to lose feeling a bit. And then we go back and start exercising your heart. You start to feel things again and that's something where you're like, oh, wow, that's a little different. I realize, hey, I can make someone smile a little bit in that area, or I can see there's something a little off. Maybe I just need to say hi, or maybe I need to myself, maybe I need to, oh yeah, maybe I just need to laugh a little bit about something right now. You start to feel things a little more naturally, uh, and then you'll start to exercise.
Jared:Oh, like now there's like different areas in life and you start to feel more things, um, in yourself and others and and just how life is, and, uh, you can keep going on the path and people go down that path and they're great. And some people go to existent and stop exit. Uh, some people go back and forget about it. Yeah, uh, people struggle with developing their hearts and I, I think it's. I think it's hard to do because you gotta you kind of have to be mindful of your heart. It's hard to be emotional and passionate about something and then let it fade away.
Jared:Yeah, and it takes a lifetime of of work yeah, I think what you mentioned earlier, like discipline, yeah, like when you have discipline and dedicate yourself towards developing these things, like, okay, now you're championing, like this light in your life, you're championing this, this area, uh, and you start building it, you start pounding it like boom, boom, boom. I mean running example, so easy to talk about. This area is like, okay, like you are developing your heart, you're developing your muscle, you're doing it, um, you're going and going and going, um, and you know that will take you places and there's different roads, there's different aspects. That's a running, easy analogy. Um, but it's really just exercising feeling.
Jared:Uh, if you don't know what I'm talking about at all and you're like, hey, what's the heart? Uh, what brings you joy? What brings you joy? Find those things, practice them, learn, try to learn from books, learn, learn from the best people you know. Yeah, try to feel like you know this happy moments, your life and chase those things. Uh, it's not like, it's not like one thing, it's like you know you everyone's feel felt these things in their lives, where they, hey, like I can start pulling these things. Okay, now I learned things. Like for me, like, oh, jared's talking about this. He must think he's an expert at this. No, I'm not like. I'm I'm not like joyful like 24 7 I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.
Brett:Uh, again, it goes back to the human experience. Like there's gonna be ups and downs in everyone's life, doesn't matter how good you are.
Brett:Like life is gonna test you yes and for me it's like religion and my faith has been a, like it's rooted me in those times, Like when I do struggle and I go through hard times, it's given me something to hope for and to um recognize that like with Christianity specifically, that like Christ has felt this before. He knows what I'm going through and because I can rely on him to help me get through it. Because, yeah, sometimes it's hard, Like life is not going to be joyful all the time, Like I was saying, like my wife is gone, Like it's kind of hard to have joy when, like, my best part of my day is not here, you know, and it's tough. But I think in those moments like that's when you have to rely on the things that you've learned and exercise them, Like trust that they work and keep moving forward.
Jared:Yeah, we're going pretty long. I do have one point that would be funny to bring up. Let's hear it. We've got some time, we've got some time. All right, yeah, life is, this is super meta. We're going to get super meta here.
Brett:I'm continuing my my my cult, my cult, uh sermon I was kidding yeah, we'll have to get you a robe after this. Just kidding.
Jared:No, no, no, I like my t-shirts and my two pairs of pants I wear every day. Uh, I'm the same, uh, um. One area that I love to bring up that's super fascinating and it's just kind of a fun mental exercise is thinking of the start of life. Like we're sitting here with microphones, you know, people are listening on spotify or whatever youtube. I don't know. I don't know where, um, and how's this all happening, and you think like, okay, well, let's pull it back, let's go all the way to, like, you know, maybe Adam and Eve. If you're Christian, yeah, or is Muslim, you believe in Adam and Eve as well. Or, okay, what about further than that? There's like dinosaurs and stuff. Yeah, let's go back further. You know, maybe there's like these little bacterias and stuff, some amoebas, amoebas, yeah. And then you go back in further. It's like, okay, well, what was there? A rock like?
Brett:yeah yeah matter.
Jared:And then the big bang, like the big bang I mean the sun, like where did this come from? Like where did everything come from right? Like if I put a piece of sand in the microwave for like a million years, is that gonna make a human?
Brett:like maybe, who knows, yeah, yeah, it's that would be amazing if that's how we learn it all happened is god's just like I'm gonna put this piece of sand in this microwave and then boom the universe.
Jared:That was the big bang yeah, or if I have two cars going like like speed of light against each other, is that going to make a human? You know it's like. Yeah, you know, the creation, creation of dna, like that is that seems very godly, in my opinion. Um, life, the, the whole creation of life, uh seems like it's created by god. Uh, how things are set up, how we're even talking to each other about this. Yeah, like if, if god didn't exist, like well, like, why does everything exist? Yeah, yeah, 100, uh and I think that's.
Brett:There's a lot of science to back it which I believe in. But for me, the more I learn about science, I'm like there has to be a hand behind it. Yeah, and so I don't know, every time I I learned about, like evolution and learning about the stars, like when Neil deGrasse Tyson was talking at accelerate, like I was like it's just just more evidence for me, like, and I don't know if it's because of the things that I believe, or like my mindset, um, or even if I'm looking at it wrong, like I think it's important to, to question yourself at times, but um, it's just to me it's, it's very clear that there's um, a hand behind it. And um, our prophet, russell M Nelson I butchered that he uh gave a quote one time where he talked about the human body, or a talk where he talked about the human body, um, and he says you know, our eyes are auto-focusing lenses, our hearts, you know, pump oxygen through our bodies at all times and our lungs fill our blood with oxygen. And like he talked about all the just minute mechanics of the human body, and like the brain is a computer, and like all these different things, and um, for me I'm like that might've happened through putting a piece of sand in the microwave and seeing where it would go.
Brett:But I don't think so. I don't believe that Personally, I don't believe that. I think God designed it to allow us to live life to the fullest and experience mortality, and he understood what needed to be done to make that happen. So I think it's interesting. Um, he understood what needed to be done to make that happen. So I don't know. I think it's interesting. And you brought up the point of, like you know, trying to look at your viewpoints from different angles, and I think that's really important to do. I think you have to do that, um, because, one, I believe it strengthens your own beliefs if you come to the conclusion that, after looking at it from different angles, that it is true. And then, two, um just helps you continue living on those principles, because if they are true, why not live them?
Brett:So I don't know Just where my thoughts were when you went there, but yeah, it's super. I like that exercise though. That's cool, it is cool.
Jared:Yeah, yeah it's. I think it's a pretty strong argument for that right now of how life started.
Brett:I heard this quote. Sorry to cut you off, but I heard this quote where it said you know, religion has many miracles, but science only asks you to believe in one, and it's the Big Bang. But it's like there's miracles all around and we don't know how the Big Bang happened. So who's to say that God wasn't the one that initiated it?
Jared:yeah, I think it's interesting, but yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, I think it's. I think it's a pretty good stretch. The big thing, like all science, it's pretty crazy in my opinion. But like people can try to like tie their head around that and say, yeah, we came from amoebas and stuff and DNA, and like evolution happened Super hard to prove, you can't. That's why, yeah, at least right now you can't.
Brett:I mean, I think evolution probably played a role, but like I think at the time, like maybe that's how God built us as humans, I don't know.
Jared:Yeah, evolution.
Jared:you can look at it and say, hey, like there's aspects of that that did exist but, um, all the way from amoeba is like, yeah, it's uh, and before that, the creation of everything. It's not something that's scientifically proven, it's not something that's like scientifically strongly uh believed in either. Uh, it's mostly unknown. Um, but what I want to say around this whole thought exercise that's kind of fun and, you know, really super meta is, um, the uh aspect of hey, like, if there is a purpose behind everything, if there is a hand, there's something created everything, there's joy to be found in all aspects of life. Um, you know, there's a purpose for us, maybe talking right now. Uh, maybe there's a purpose for someone listening, uh, in this moment. Uh, maybe there's uh a purpose for someone to like experience whatever's in their fridge. I have no idea.
Jared:Uh so, yeah, you never know. So there's, yeah, there's definitely life in so many different things and you can learn about plants and animals and stuff and just things that hey, things are created a certain way and what pieces of nature are aspects of God, and it's a different lens. This is a whole different topic. I don't even know why I'm going so deep in this area.
Brett:This is great.
Jared:No, it's awesome, it's super meta. But, yeah, you can go in that area um and and learn about, learn about things, life, there's a lot of life around um, in this life. Obviously it's kind of super basic for me to say that, but, um, yeah, you can definitely just uh, find, find happiness and living um, and so many different aspects. Uh, one of my favorite books actually is unbroken. Have you read?
Brett:that, or I haven't read it, but I I know the story. I don't think I've even seen the movie, though, but it's the. Yeah, if you want to tell a little synopsis real quick okay, yeah, so really quick.
Jared:This is a guy who was a airplane pilot. I think it's for about, not my pilot, I think it's a. He was part of airplane squad. I don't remember what he was, maybe it was a pilot he was part of like a loading crew for an airplane that that airplane crashed in hawaii. He became a pow. Um, I think that's why this I read this book like when it first came out, like a year when it came out. It's been a while. He became a POW in Japan and they tease him. They were brutal and they made him run because he was also like an Olympian around and like raised the guards and stuff and they just were so mean. But uh, he was able to find happiness and I also love the.
Jared:There's a couple other books about the holocaust, that man's search for meaning to you it's a great one, very similar to the frankl yeah, similar, similar flavor, uh, different though, uh, but finding the humanity and the purpose of living and, uh, in such a tough circumstance where you're being belittled and bullied and people are suffering and dying around you, uh, to find, hey, like, wow, like I may be changing something or changing myself, changing somebody else, uh, uh, the guard or the person. Yeah, he actually does, um, make men's with a guard, which is really interesting. Um, really beautiful story. So it's non-fiction super evil.
Jared:Um, yeah, in any circumstance, there's always more life to be had and if you're facing such a hard circumstance, you can fight that and there's a different way, different approach where you can overcome it. You know, even if it's as low, as, like, you know, I want to like do drugs. You know that's super common, like example, example. It's your common example. I'm not saying everyone does drugs, don't do drugs, don't do drugs. It's a way to fight that. If you're, if you're in isolation and you feel like, hey, like I, I feel like there's no meaning, you can find meaning. Uh, if you're feeling like hey, like I am not good in my career, there's ways to learn. Yeah, I feel like, hey, I'm too slow, I'm too fat, whatever, like in your example, I guess fat brat yeah.
Jared:Fat brat. It's like you can fight, that you can be hard, or, if you're like dying, you can still maybe make someone smile, leave a note behind, make something stronger in those dire circumstances, like there's always ways where you can look at darkness and there's a way of the reverse of light.
Brett:Yeah, yeah that's beautiful man, that's. Uh, yeah, it's got me thinking a lot about my own beliefs and stuff. So I think, yeah, I mean really appreciate all the time that you you've taken to go into this outline, because I I think it really helped the conversation and helped me understand, like perspective from different religions and how, at the end of the day, it's just supposed to, you know, help build and and develop your, your passions and find what you're, what makes you happy and, um, yeah, I mean, everyone's gonna have different lives to live but, like you said, I think in any circumstance it's just perspective, like trying to understand what, how you can make the most of something, how you can maybe laugh a little bit, like you said, or make someone smile and just do something small to impact someone else's day or, you know, make you have have good feelings or whatever that looks like. But, yeah, this has been awesome man, this has been a really good one. It was one of my favorites, just because it's been so interesting and and fascinating to learn these things.
Jared:So I really appreciate it yeah, well, thanks for having me on. Uh, if you didn't ask me about this and I, I don't know if I'd ever go on a podcast and talk about this stuff, so dude, it's great.
Brett:I mean, yeah, I think you should start a youtube channel honestly you gotta do something because people would listen. I think it's great I don't know.
Jared:Hopefully I'm not too boring to everyone listening to this it'll find.
Brett:The audience I mean, that's that's what I've learned is like, you know, there's some people who come on, they talk about marathon running and some people just tune out, but then, you know, talking about faith and things that might be someone's someone's thing, like that might be what they're interested in. Um, that's why I think it's important to have different people on to share their perspectives and share what they're getting after. And, um, yeah, you definitely are like by learning all these things and like that's what getting after it is is, you know, trying to develop yourself and learning and growing and, yeah, sharing that with other people. And I really appreciate that you came on and shared some of this stuff with with my audience, because there's always something to benefit from it. I think we can all learn from these religions and take pieces from them, even if you're not religious, and just apply them to your life to be a better human. It's been awesome man.
Jared:Thanks for having me, man, it's been good.
Brett:Well, there we go. You always have an invite to come back. I think this was great, awesome yeah.
Jared:First podcast you killed it. First podcast I'm a star of the cult, guys. No, I'm just kidding. You're going to hear first guys.
Brett:But yeah, everyone else, I really appreciate you for tuning in today and, as always, keep getting after it.