Kurt Nelson 0:07 Welcome to behavioral groups, the Podcast where we explore why we do what we do, and how small shifts in behavior can lead to big changes. I'm Kurt Nelson Tim Houlihan 0:17 and I'm Tim Houlihan. Let me ask you a question. Kurt, have you ever noticed how certain sayings just really stick with you? Kurt Nelson 0:25 Yeah, I have. I think there's some phrases from the Stoics, which I love. Marcus Aurelius said, do each act as if it were your last now, that's pretty powerful, right? Yeah. And then they're, they're just like these little bits of philosophy or advice that pop into my head, at least when I'm stressed or uncertain or just need to have some kind of comforting thought, almost, Tim Houlihan 0:51 yeah, yeah. You know, for me, I get like little lines like Mark Twain's comment that the lack of money is the root of all evil. Kurt Nelson 0:59 I like that. I'll take that one. Yeah, that's a Tim Houlihan 1:02 good one. But then there's also more serious ones, like James Baldwin's comment, where he said ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. Now, I know that's a little heavy, but is a really powerful thing. They feel familiar to me. They're comforting. They're they're just really kind of rewarding to be reminded of from time to time. Kurt Nelson 1:25 Yeah, I love that. And from a behavioral science perspective, that makes a lot of sense. Our brains love these shortcuts, right? Tim, especially the ones that are built on experience or meaning or rhyme. As a good songwriter might know, agreed, Tim Houlihan 1:44 agreed, which is where aphorisms come in. Now, aphorisms are short philosophical sayings that help us interpret the world and guide our decisions when things are complex or uncertain. Kurt Nelson 1:56 And we've learned a couple of things about aphorisms that are worth noting. Here, for instance, aphorisms don't tell us what to do. They help us decide how to think about something. And another important element is that they should always be able to be traced back to someone who wrote them in the first place. They're not by anonymous. They are by someone. Tim Houlihan 2:18 They're not It's not like graffiti. Kurt Nelson 2:20 Yeah, there you go. Okay. Tim Houlihan 2:23 But here's another interesting part, some aphorisms can be helpful at one point in life and maybe less helpful at another point. Yeah. Kurt Nelson 2:32 And I think one of the things that we want you, our listeners, to take away from this discussion is this an aphorism that serves you well at 25 may not serve you as well at 45 or even 65 and what steadies you in a period of crisis might limit you during periods of growth, changing things up is key. Tim Houlihan 2:54 That is the message at the heart of today's conversation with James Geary, the author of the world in a phrase. Kurt Nelson 3:02 Now James has spent years studying and writing aphorisms, not as rigid rules, but as living tools that adapt with us as we move through the different phases of our lives. In our Tim Houlihan 3:13 conversation with James, we'll explore how aphorisms act as cognitive heuristics, portable bits of wisdom that help us orient ourselves when the path isn't quite so obvious. And in case you'd like an example, here's James with an aphorism for why he thinks you should be listening to behavioral grooves. Speaker 1 3:32 You should listen to behavioral grooves because Wittgenstein said uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination, and the conversations that you will hear on behavioral grooves will be a symphony to your ears. Check it out. Kurt Nelson 3:52 I don't think I could have said that better myself. Yeah, that is one poetic and informative way of instilling some wisdom and hopefully getting people to listen, okay, although we would like it if you listen to behavior grooves for the rest of your life. Wisdom, as we know, isn't about clinging to the same sayings forever, right? Tim Houlihan 4:15 It's actually about knowing when it's time to reach for a new approach or a new set of tools, new mindsets that might suit your particular situation that you're in now better than others. Kurt Nelson 4:26 Yeah. Now, before we get to our conversation with James, we want to remind you that Tim and I have been bootstrapping this behavioral grooves podcast along for the past eight years without any formal funding. So we've delivered over 500 episodes to listeners in more than 140 countries, and we do it because we love it. Tim Houlihan 4:52 But okay, so that you might be asking, why this message now? Well, our. Descriptions that help us produce the podcast, and the outsource service costs that we use, they've gone up. And if you'd like to sponsor us, great. Send us a line please, please, if you'd like to contribute via our sub stack, that's great, too. Kurt Nelson 5:16 But we also have a we have a Patreon thing. We have a Patreon. Patreon for us. Lots of ways to Tim Houlihan 5:22 help there, but frankly, we'd rather be earning our way by helping you apply the behavioral science that we love so much, so so much to you and to your business. Kurt Nelson 5:34 Yeah, so if your business, if you're in a place where you go, you know this work, this behavioral science information could be valuable to us. Just send us a note. We'd love to start that conversation. If you want to improve the effectiveness of your teams, how you're working with your team, that would be a great way that both Tim and I can definitely help you. If you want to improve the cohesiveness of your culture, how does that culture work and shape and understanding how that culture is driving behavior? Well, Tim and I could be the people for you, right? If you are looking for tools to help communicate your incentive plans or to engage and motivate your employees. Well, hey, we are probably two of the best guys in the world to help you with that, and if you want to address those nasty behavioral issues that your employees or your team or your co workers might be having that are just getting in the way of people having positive change or the getting in the way of your teams finding the groove? Well, I guess maybe we might be able to help Tim Houlihan 6:49 it's our groove that is our groove, and that's what we'd love to do. And we would love to help you out. Just just drop us a line. Let's get started on building a solution that will make you and your teams into heroes. Kurt Nelson 7:02 Heroes, that's what we want to make you all right, okay, so, oh, back Tim Houlihan 7:06 to our episode on James and aphorisms. Kurt Nelson 7:09 All right. So, yes, so let's sit back and relax with a fine aphoristic cocktail and enjoy our conversation with James Geary. You. Jim. Tim Houlihan 7:27 James Geary, welcome to behavioral grooves. Speaker 1 7:30 Thank you so much for having me. I'm really delighted to be here. Tim Houlihan 7:33 It's our pleasure, and we're going to loosen things up with our famous speed round. So let's start by finding out if you had to live a year without either your laptop or your mobile phone? Which would you Speaker 1 7:45 sacrifice phone? No question about it. Gotta have no question. Gotta have the laptop to write. I can, I can, I can't write on a phone. I'm sorry, nothing. Tim Houlihan 8:00 What about like a 1959 Smith Corona manual Speaker 1 8:05 I used to use, back in the day, I used to use an electric typewriter. I could do it longhand, but then I found that I'm increasingly unable to read my own handwriting. Tim Houlihan 8:16 That would be a that's problematic, that would Unknown Speaker 8:19 be problematic during the revision Kurt Nelson 8:20 process, I think, oh, that, yeah, or maybe better, because now it's like, oh, I have to rethink the whole thing. Speaker 1 8:28 It might be easier. So let me take the phone then let me tell you, Kurt Nelson 8:33 Oh, I don't know if we've had anybody switch there. Tim Houlihan 8:36 Sorry, that against the rules. All right. Kurt Nelson 8:39 James, are you? You're in London right now. But are you a a coffee drinker or a tea drinker? Unknown Speaker 8:46 Oh, my God, coffee 100% Kurt Nelson 8:50 and you haven't converted you. Then my laptop. Unknown Speaker 8:55 But not coffee on my laptop. Kurt Nelson 8:57 Family a good combination. No, no, no, no, no, definitely not. Tim Houlihan 9:01 Okay. Third Speed Round question is the back of a George Harrison poster. The ideal place to start writing your aphorisms down. James Geary 9:11 It is. And if you'd like to see that poster, no, yes, oh yes, one right there in the middle, there it is, right there. Tim Houlihan 9:21 I You've got it framed. This is fantastic. This was an important day in your life, apparently. Speaker 1 9:28 Yeah, the George Harrison, all three of those posters that I describe in the book, or I still have them, and they're hanging on my study wall. Kurt Nelson 9:35 Oh my gosh. Love that. Love that. Okay, we'll talk about that, I think. But this is a speed round so let's we'll continue on. Otherwise, we'll get right into the interview. The last of our speed round questions Is this, is it a good idea to make your own fortune cookies, of your own aphorisms? Yes, pass out. And you know, poetry readings or parties or whatever it is that you're doing, Speaker 1 10:04 I'm shocked you would even consider asking me that question, of course. Kurt Nelson 10:09 All right, so that's the last of the speed round questions. So tell that story at least a little bit, because I found that one really fascinating. Speaker 1 10:16 Oh, so I lived in after graduating from college, I lived in San Francisco, and I was a poor, struggling, starving poet, and I get paid every two weeks. And when I got paid, I My first stop was Chinatown to go to Sam woes restaurant and have some noodles there. Sam woes, I should add, his was closed down a couple of years ago for hygienic violations of hygiene, although I emerged relatively healthy from, you know, my my patronage there, Tim Houlihan 10:49 maybe you had a good immune system in your early 20s, yes, Speaker 1 10:53 and it helped boost my immune system. So I would spend a lot of time in in Chinatown, because the food was cheap and the portions were plentiful, and I was doing these poetry readings, and I was writing aphorisms myself, and had been for some time, but I was doing poetry readings in which I would do the little globe trick. And here's the globe. Tim Houlihan 11:21 There it is. Speaker 1 11:22 During my poetry readings, I would walk through the crowd with aphorisms written on slips of paper, and I would ask people in the audience to pick a slip of paper from the globe and read the aphorism out loud. And then I would kind of riff on that aphorism and that aphorist. And I would do that with my poems as well. And then I had the idea, since I was so addicted to Chinese food, that I could have, instead of just slips of paper, I could have fortune cookies with my own aphorisms inside. And so they're right, there's a little dank little alley, I forget the name of it, but right across from Sam woes, and there was a fortune cookie factory in there. And I went there with my slips of paper, about 100 of them, and none of the people who worked there spoke English. I didn't speak Chinese. But it was evident when I handed over 100 slips of paper, what did I? What I what I wanted them to do with the with them, and I just kind of walked around the block or for 30 or 40 minutes, came back and I had 100 freshly baked, steaming fortune cookies with my own aphorisms inside, and I would distribute those at my poetry readings. Tim Houlihan 12:36 Highly encouraged. I just love the idea that there actually is such a thing as a fortune cookie manufacturing building, that there is a place where they actually get made. And you could, you could just walk there, Speaker 1 12:53 yeah, I was describing it as a building, is would be generous. It was like a little room, okay? And there was one guy always standing outside smoking a cigarette, and two women inside. I described the process in the in the book, but there's this huge wheel, it looks like a locomotive wheel, and there's two women on either side of it, and they're kind of grabbing the cookies as they come out and fold it, folding the fortune into them, but it was like a single room with boxes of fortune cookies stacked everywhere. Is really tiny, but fascinating. I'll never I'll never forget it. So that was like a little ritual for me. When I had a reading coming up, I'd go to Sam woes, and I go to the fortune cookie factory, the fortune cookie room, and while they were making my fortunes, I'd have my usual at Sam woes. Tim Houlihan 13:47 I love that we are speaking with James Geary about about his new book, and it's all about aphorism. So we have to, we have to start with, there's a lot of people who might not be familiar with what the term mean, what? What is an aphorism? Can you just help us with what's your best definition today? An aphorism? Speaker 1 14:08 It's an aphorism. Is just a short, witty, philosophical saying, and that's all it is. And the word is very unusual, and a lot of people haven't heard of it. And when I first discovered aphorisms in Reader's Digest. When I was eight years old, I had never heard of an aphorism either, but we all use aphorisms every day, and it's it's sort of like still one of the most vital, vibrant forms of oral literature, because we all you know you're talking with someone and they have an issue, or they have a problem, and then you say something that maybe has been a saying in your family for generations, or your grandfather used to say, or your great aunt used to say, I had one woman come up to me after a talk and ask me if the following sentence was an aphorism, because. It's something that been going around in her family for years. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space. That's an aphorism. It's short, witty, philosophical saying. And I think the key thing that differentiates aphorisms from other kinds of short forms of communication, or short sayings or text messages, or some forms of memes. For example, although memes can also be aphorisms, is that it has to be have a like a witty twist, and it has to be philosophical and go ahead terms of daily life. Sorry, sorry to interrupt. Kurt Nelson 15:40 No, I'm sorry I interrupted you. You talk about five kind of factors or rules that go into that. Can you talk? Yeah, what are those five? So you just mentioned a couple of them. Speaker 1 15:50 Yeah, I have it on these five laws come to me from very good authority, which is myself. I just made them up. So they must be right, of course, the first law, it must be short. That's short prayer penetrates heaven, is great aphorism from the medieval monk, author of the Cloud of Unknowing. The second law is, it has to have an author. It has to be personal. So this is the difference between an aphorism and a proverb. Let sleeping dogs lie at one point when someone knew who the first person who said that was, that was an aphorism, but the identity of the author has been worn away by centuries of use. So it becomes a proverb. The third law, it must be definitive. Aphorists don't put any ifs ands or buts or caveats. They're very, very definitive, and they don't give you any evidence either. Stanislav, let's one of my Polish efforts, one of my all time favorites, one of the greatest of all time. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible? Wow, yeah, so it's not like under certain weather conditions, if the light is shining, there may or may not be snowflakes that feel responsible. And it's very definitive. And then the fourth and fifth laws are what I was what we were just talking about. It has to have a twist, like a witty twist, that could be word play, or it could be a psychological twist, or it could be both, and it has to be philosophical. And before I so rudely interrupted Kurt, I was saying philosophy in the sense of, like daily life, existential, existential questions we all face every day. How do I live my life? Who am I? What am I doing here? Oh, my God, I'm traumatizing myself even even saying those questions out loud. Those are the kind of questions that literature and art always have addressed, and those are the kind of questions that that aphorisms address. Kurt Nelson 18:04 So so like this person that came up to you and asked you, is this old family saying a aphorism? I'm going to ask one of my one of my own? Oh, great. So in college, I freshman year in college, at University of Iowa, I'm walking and there's this small little train tunnel that you know, is filled with graffiti, a graffiti all around it and up in the corner. And this just little written with a with a marker, not even spray painted on anything. It was this little thing that said, Never here actually have it written down. Never think you know? And I wrote that down. I've filed it now. I don't think it's an aphorism, because it doesn't follow that second law, which is, I can't attribute it to anybody. And I don't know if there's an attribute, an attribute there. But I then took it further. And so I like, never think you know, and then I added on, know, you know. So it's lovely is that is, is either one of those an aphorism, from the way that you think about Speaker 1 19:10 this, yes. So I would say, Never think you know, if we knew the author, it would be an aphorism. And there's a long history of graffiti as graffiti, as aphorisms. Banksy, you know, the British artist, yeah, who he's known for his images, but they often contain one liners. There's a young woman in the US who goes by the Instagram handle boots, poetry by boots, and she posts these, she has these stencils that she uses and posts her aphorisms on lamp posts and walls and things like that. One of them is, and there are a lot of them are about love or romance. And one of them is, you're not asking too much, you're just asking the wrong person, which I think is pretty damn good, like. The situationist International Group, a kind of leftist group of students in France in the 1960s they posted their sayings on walls during the 68 the protests of 1968 in France. One of my favorites from them is no forbidding allowed. Speaker 1 20:22 Also the question that the subject of knowing and doubt has a millennia long history of in aphorisms, starting with the Oracle Adelphi Know thyself. Yeah, and Voltaire has a great aphorism about that. It says, doubt is an uncomfortable what is it? Doubt is an uncomfortable feeling, but certainty is a ridiculous one. Yeah, yes, I would say that saying is an aphorism if we knew who the person was, and you are definitely an aphorist. Congratulations, with your score, with your variation on the on the saying, Oh, Kurt Nelson 21:01 well, fantastic. Thank you. Tim Houlihan 21:02 You know, James here at behavioral grooves, we're speaking a lot to our podcast is about people and the behavioral science behind our behaviors and decisions that we make, the choices that we make, the things that influence our decisions. And we often talk about heuristics as being a rule of thumb, or a way of guiding our decision making. And I was wondering, to what degree do can aphorisms be heuristics? They could be these little guides, these little rules of thumb? Speaker 1 21:37 Yeah, absolutely. I think they are. They are aids to decision making. And so the like, one of the unique things about aphorisms, and one of the things that I like about them, what is also a little bit uncomfortable, is that they don't solve any problems, yeah, you know, and they don't make you feel good. Generally, they don't make you feel good about yourself, or they tend to reinforce so in terms of heuristics, an aphorism, aphorisms occur in moments of need, in moments of emergency, or facing a personal crisis, or you're in doubt, you have to make a decision. So you reach for any kind of instruction or guide that you can you can lay your hands on and aphorisms are the have the have been those for me, my whole life, but also for aphorisms are the oldest written art originally an oral form, but they're also the oldest written art form on the planet, ancient China, Ancient Egypt. The first aphorisms were recorded 5000 years ago. So as a heuristic device, an aphorism doesn't tell you what to do. It immerses you more deeply in the problem or the dilemma or the choice. So it confronts you, it concentrates your mind so that you can make the choice. So Jenny Holzer, contemporary American artist, works with language a lot, and aphorisms a lot. One of her aphorisms is playing it safe can cause a lot of damage in the long run. And you know, think about that if you've got a like, an important career decision to make, or you're considering starting your own business, or you're considering getting into a relationship with someone who you don't know very well, or have some doubts about an aphorism like that can be really useful. It doesn't, it doesn't tell you what to do. No, it does kind of give you a different perspective on it. I'll give you one more example, when I some years ago, I was made redundant from a job that I had, and I kind of expected it to happen, but was in denial, as we often are, about things that are inevitable and unpleasant, but when it finally happened, my first, my first, my first feeling was like financial terror. I had three young children, a family, and I was just thinking, Oh, my God, what am I going to do? How am I going to do this? And a nanosecond later, an aphorism by Wilhelm Eklund, a Swedish aphorist, popped into my mind, and the aphorism is to be placed on treacherous ground. Is good. We only learn to stand on our own two feet when the ground is shaking underneath them. And for me, that's like a heuristic. That's a heuristic device. It remind it doesn't solve my problem. It doesn't, like, magically create or manifest an income stream for me, no, but it kind of centers me in the core of the dilemma and then helps me. Me focus my attention. Concentrate my attention on making the right decision. One last example of how I think aphorisms work as heuristic devices. Another Polish afrist wieslaw brudzinski, the most difficult thing to find is the way to the signposts and like in life, isn't that so often the case? It's like, when you're in the midst of a crisis or an important decision that you have to make under pressure, it's like, give me a sign. Give me a sign. How do I know which way to go? And so the most difficult thing is, is to find the way to the signpost. And aphorisms are those signposts Kurt Nelson 25:43 I love that. I love that do do aphorisms need to be true. Speaker 1 25:51 Yes, no, unfortunately they do not. The truth is the is the not one of the five laws, and you can vehemently disagree with an aphorism. And I read hundreds of aphorisms that I admire and with which I vehemently disagree. Okay, aphorisms and the truth is like, yes, they should be true in the in the factual, empirical sense, okay, the philosophical truth you is for you to decide. So there's a great example of this. What was his name, Joseph Prescott and GK Chesterton. They were friends, and Joseph Prescott wrote a book of aphorisms. And they were kind of, kind of Nietzsche and in their approach, and so they were all about intuition and action and things like that. And and one of his aphorisms, Joseph Prescott, was, Don't think, Unknown Speaker 26:57 don't think, do. Speaker 1 27:01 So that's the kind of you can you know, is that true? It might be true in some cases. It might not be true in other cases, right? So this book collector, whose name is escaping me at the moment, but he came across a book, Joseph Prescott's book, in a used bookshop, and he was paging through it, and it had these little scribblings after each of the aphorisms. And this guy happened to be a GK Chesterton expert. GK Chesterton really great English novelist and wit and essayist. And he noticed that, hey, that is GK Chesterton's handwriting. And after each of Joseph Prescott's efforts. So this was GK Chesterton's copy of Joseph Prescott's book. And in the book, he wrote a riposte to each of Prescott's aphorisms. And under the one that said, don't think do he wrote, do think? Do those two, those two pieces of advice, are diametrically opposed. One can't be they both can't be true, but they can be true, yeah, in terms of the philosophical truth of of that as a kind of an embodiment of your attitude towards life, your approach to decision making. You know your approach to heuristics as a heuristic device. You know Wynton Marsalis think long think wrong. He was talking about musical improvisation and in sports, in music, in the arts and generally acting, for example, being being improvisational, being spontaneous is what you want to be. Don't think do. On the other hand, in life, sometimes do think do before you make a very stupid decision. Is good advice. So it's a really interesting question, are they true? They need to be empirically, factually true to be credible, but philosophically true. They can be self contradictory. Kurt Nelson 29:14 Hey, grooves, quick break from the conversation to talk about something we don't bring up enough on the show. Tim Houlihan 29:20 Yeah, that's right, when we're not behind the mic, we're working with organizations to apply behavioral science in ways that actually move the needle for leaders, teams and whole cultures. Kurt Nelson 29:31 So whether it's designing smarter incentives, boosting engagement, setting goals that actually stick, or helping teams navigate change, we bring real science to real workplace challenges, Tim Houlihan 29:43 and we don't just talk theory, our approach blends research backed insights with hands on strategies that drive results. Now we've seen small behavioral shifts lead to big wins in Fortune 500 companies and scrappy startups, and even in mission driven nonprofits. Much? Kurt Nelson 30:00 Yeah, and we bring the same curiosity, creativity and care to our client work that we bring to every episode of the show, Tim Houlihan 30:07 really, I think people might want more than what we bring to the show. Kurt Nelson 30:14 You probably have a point there. You're probably right. Tim Houlihan 30:17 Okay, so we'll bring more care and creativity to our work with you and your teams than what we do on the show. Kurt Nelson 30:24 Yes, more care. So, so if you're ready to build stronger motivation, better team dynamics, and maybe even make your workplace a little more groovy, Tim Houlihan 30:33 yeah, reach out to us. Grab us on LinkedIn or Facebook or just drop us a line. We'd love to help you and your team find your groove. Kurt Nelson 30:45 It reminds me Rory Sutherland, we've had on the show, and one of the things that he said is the opposite of a good idea. Is a good idea, or can be a good idea, which sounds exactly like what you're saying here to a certain degree. Yes, you can have an aphorism that is absolutely 100% you know, meaningful to you. And there can be an opposite that parlays itself into a different situation, a different context, maybe a different time in your life, or maybe it doesn't apply to you, but it applies to Tim because he's, you know, Tim, and that would, you know, it would be the wrong one, but it would be Tim so well, Tim Houlihan 31:24 I can't escape the idea that Chesterton sort of contradicts in a paradoxical form, like, you know, the the original text and that Chesterton, and it's not ironic that Chesterton, of course, Is, is is a big fan of paradoxes. So, like, there's this, it's, it's just, it's, it's so meta. I'm sorry for me just to be thinking about that. I just love it. Well, it also, and it also just makes me think about, are the lessons that come from, from these, these messages that we get through the aphorisms. Are they? Are they intended for specific points in our lives as well? Like, could there be aphorism that are really applicable to us as young people, but not so much in middle age? Or really applicable in middle age, but not so much in the latter part of our life, is there? Is there a contextual basis for them as well? Speaker 1 32:27 I think so. It depends on aphorism, for example, to be placed on treacherous ground is good. The Wilhelm Ecklund one, I think is applies to everyone at any age, right? Yep. But for example, I came up with enough. May I share one of my own aphorisms? Oh, please. I hate to be I hate to be self promotional, but responds exactly to your question. And I wrote this in my 20s. In my fortune cookie days, some people have salad days. I have fortune. Young people should picnic in active volcanoes. Unknown Speaker 33:12 Yeah, that Speaker 1 33:13 is not advice I would give to older people. No Right. But at a recent talk about the book that I gave, someone asked about if I wrote aphorisms myself, which is my favorite question of all, as you can imagine. And so I said that one, and she said, Why not old people or older people? Why not middle aged people? Yeah. I thought, yeah, people should picnic and active volcanoes of any age. Tim Houlihan 33:40 Oh, so, so you'd like to revise your I would like to Speaker 1 33:43 revise that, if I may. Yes, but so that's and that's sort of like Jenny holzer's advice, playing it safe can cause a lot of damage in the long run, which is, I don't think I knew Jenny holzer's efforts and when I originally wrote that in my 20s, but it's the same spirit like young people should picnic and act volcanoes, do something that's a little bit daring when you're young and you have the chance, and if you fail, it's not as big as a deal, as if you've in your 50s and you fail so and then there's a great Who Is it? Is it Mark Twain, or is it La Roche Foucault? Old people are fond of giving good advice. It consoles them for no longer being able to set a bad example. And that's one that doesn't apply to to to young people, I think, right. And I think there's also a difference. Sorry, I'm going on a little bit long on this. No, this was great. I think you need a certain degree of life experience to understand certain aphorisms, right, right? So I remember sharing an aphorism at again, at a talk I was doing at a at a university. So these were. Undergraduates. And I forget who, I forget who wrote this aphorism, but it was, it goes like this, memoirs are the backstairs to history. And I always thought that that's genius. You know, that's brilliant. It's such an interesting way to compare and contrast an autobiographical story with the more objective, allegedly objective, kind of big picture of history. And no one, none of the students, got it and I, and I thought about it and I thought, yeah, they probably they, they probably haven't been around long enough to understand, like how history is compiled, or what memoirs do. And so I think there's a certain also it's like when you read a you read a book and you don't get it, and then you try and read it again five or 10 years later, and you do get it and you love it. So I think, yes, some aphorisms apply to certain periods of our lives. Some are kind of universally applicable, but I think we are also primed to use a behavioral science term, hey, thank Tim Houlihan 36:11 you. Bing, bing, bing. Speaker 1 36:15 Extra points for that. Absolutely. I think we're primed to be responsive to certain aphorisms, either in certain phases of our lives, chronologically, or certain kinds of experiences, you know, like heartbreak at any age. Love is that brief moment of time when someone else feels the same way about us as we do about ourselves. That's that's Magdalena samovicic. That's the kind of observation about love. But I think someone who's a little bit older would get better than someone's who's a little bit younger. Tim Houlihan 36:53 Yeah, or Diogenes comment about to own nothing is the beginning of happiness. Yes, I think that would be really difficult for me, as a 20 year old to like, why would I embrace that? That doesn't make any sense, but as someone who's older than 20, it would be easier for me. Let me say that. Not to get too specific. Kurt's like, okay, let's, let's, let's, James. Kurt Nelson 37:21 I want to, I want to go back, because we started in the speed round, talking about writing on the back of your George Harrison, and you showed us you. You started, like, with aphorisms at a relatively young age. I mean, this isn't something that I think most you know, early teenagers are like, you know, falling in love with but you started reading reader's digests and tell us that story. Speaker 1 37:53 Yeah, so I've you know, Reader's Digest has in every issue, or had in every issue a quote page of quotable quotes, and that's a collection, just like a random I'm sure. It's not random, it's carefully curated a selection of quotes from a wide variety of people. And there weren't really many or any books in my house when I was a kid growing up, and we had Time Magazine and Reader's Digest. Those were the things to read. And for some reason, I was, I was an avid reader from from as long as I as young as I can remember. And I remember the quotable quote section, and I remember reading the difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. That's an awe. That's a Gerald beryl, the former archbishop of Chicago, Episcopal Archbishop of Chicago. That's something I didn't understand at all when I read that, and I must have been not even in in double digits, age wise, at that time, but you remember it? Oh yeah, I never forgot it. And it was branded into my mind. And I thought, Wow. I had no idea what it meant, but I thought that's, there's something about that saying there's something special going on, and I want to find out what that is. Some of the others, you know, were were more quippy. I wouldn't even call them aphorisms today. And those, I kind of understood lots of puns and word play and fun. So after like, something about the word play and the fun of it. But I also sense this deeper, like we're talking about earlier, this deep, deeper philosophical meeting that was way beyond me when I was eight, 910, however old I was and but I always remembered that sentence, and I always remembered what you could achieve in a single sentence, like the difference between a rut and a grave. That's maybe eight words, nine words, but it's. It's a novella. It's a really complex it has a story arc, and it has, you know, characters and and that's another good one that I think I've come to appreciate much more as I've gotten older. It's not one. You know, as an eight year old, I hadn't the faintest clue what it was about. And I should say, like I mentioned before, I had no idea what an aphorism was. Never heard the word in my life. But as I when I became a teenager, I started reading novels and getting us assigned to read novels and poetry in high school English classes and things like that. I started seeing these kind of sentences everywhere, little single sentences that you could extract from whatever work they were in, and they would stand alone. So there's some people who are aphorists, like Stanislav, let's who I mentioned. He only wrote aphorisms. But people like, you know Audrey Lord or James Baldwin or Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau, they wrote essays or novels or poems or whatever. And there's that, but there's aphorisms in there that can be extracted. And that's what I did with the posters that I showed you, which are just on the wall behind me. And I can, you know, look back there, and I can see, and some of them I even dated, put little dates below them when I 19 8219 8319 8319 would have been late 70s, I think, and so. And then it was only much, much later that I came to understand these. There's a word for these kind of things. Yeah, there are aphorisms and but I've been collecting them, you know, since, since I was a teenager, and yeah, so as but Only later did I come to understand them as aphorisms. And for some of the sayings, like the difference between a rut and a grave, it was decades before I understood what that meant. Tim Houlihan 42:00 It I can see why it would be easy to be attracted to the poets, because they have such economy of words that they're so focused Shakespeare being a great man, just boiling down really big ideas into very, very short phrases, is his stock and trade. And the poets have followed that for years. I also see that in writers like Stephen King. I know that he said that he loves really short stories, and he set out to write a bunch of forward stories, and one of those was baby shoes for sale. Like, oh, like that. That isn't, that's an incredible story, right there. You can just, your imagination just unfolds from baby shoes for sale. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's dark and sad and all those kinds of things. I'm sorry. I'm not driving very closely to a question here. It's a short epistle in the middle of our conversation. But let's get, let's get back to, let's get back to something that is so important for us when it comes to aphorisms, and that is the decision making, quality of the the way that it informs our decision making. At what point in this arc of your love of aphorisms, do you start to see that they're informative, that they're that aphorisms are providing something more than just a little bit of wit or a clever view, that they're actually informing decision making? Speaker 1 43:39 Yeah, and I think that's again, comes back to that fifth law in terms of decision making. It's the it's the philosophical insight that helps you make that decision. It doesn't make the decision for you. So it's not aphorisms. Are not like catechisms, you know, where you're told what the answer is, yes. And they're not commandments, although they are definitive, it's like Thou shalt not kill. That's a good I totally agree with that. Yeah, it's not an aphorism, it's it's a command, it's a it's a directive. So aphorisms have that ambiguity. They're definitive, but the the ambiguity is, how will you execute on that, or will you execute on that? And so in terms of my own understanding of aphorisms as heuristic devices, has to do so whenever things happen to me, like a lot of things, but especially like, you know, inflection points in my life, I will think of aphorisms. If, if I'm preparing for some decision, like moving back to London after 12 years in the US, I'll think of aphorisms, one by George Herbert, in fact, an English poet who. English, metaphysical poet, Unknown Speaker 45:04 when you finish the house, leave it. Speaker 1 45:09 And so again, that that is a command, but whether you do or do not leave the house after it's finished, and what exactly he means by that is up to you. And so when I have decisions to make or things happen to me, aphorisms will occur to me. But very often, I will play the I Ching, which is the Chinese Book of Changes, which is one of the, if not the earliest book in existence. And it's a book of aphorisms, and it's a collection of, like, 64 archetypal situations that you know, growth, decay, birth, death, darkness, light. And it's based on the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism. And you it's a little complicated how you actually play it, but you do play it, and you end up getting one of the sentences, the aphorisms in one of these 64 scenarios that is also heuristic, heuristic device. And that scenario, like I played it once when I was going through a kind of emotionally turbulent time in my life, also in San Francisco, and I got the the one this the scenario of the well. And the way that the itching works is you have this scenario of the well, and it's made up of like six individual lines, and each of those lines has an aphorism attached to it. And this one, I was found on the spot where the well there's the well is muddy, but the well is being repaired. And I thought, wow, the well. And I started thinking about, what is the like? What the metaphor of a well? What does that mean? What do you find at the bottom of a well? You know? What is the what is the function of a well? Am I well? Do I feel well? And so that was usually important to me, and it was very kind of positive. And the sense that it gave me a sign, like we were talking about earlier, the hardest thing to find is the way to the signpost. It gave me a sign that I was in the like up to my knees, or maybe up to my nose in the mud and silts and muck at the bottom of the well, but that I would repair it and get out. And again, it doesn't. It didn't solve any of my problems, unfortunately, but it gave me some inspiration and some direction to solve it myself. Tim Houlihan 47:38 Hope, I mean, was, yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 47:41 So, yeah, yeah. So for our listeners out there, James, what? How would you Kurt Nelson 47:51 what it what advice would you give them? I mean, should they be going out and buying books of aphorisms? Definitely buy your book, but Unknown Speaker 48:00 starting with one called the world and afraid, Tim Houlihan 48:04 but by James Gary, yes, yeah, Kurt Nelson 48:06 but what is, what should they be taking out of all of this conversation? I mean, this is it's fascinating. It's great, but all right, what does this mean for me? Speaker 1 48:16 Yeah, well, the first thing I would say is aphorisms are not an esoteric like elite form of literature or anything like that. They're the most democratic form of literature, and democratic in the sense of small d. They are. They're popular and they're accessible to everyone. So the first thing I would say is just listen, listen when you're talking to people when you're talking with friends, especially if you're having like a serious conversation, listen, and I guarantee you that you will hear an aphorism at some point, or some aphorism adjacent adjacent saying, because in those kind of situations where we're trying to help each other or affirm each other, or give, give each other perspective, we instinctively resort to these kinds of sayings, Hallmark greeting cards. They're not aphorisms, but they come from the same impulse to share words of wisdom at intense moments of joy, bereavement, accomplishment, failure, sickness, health. So the first piece of advice would be just to listen, because you hear them all around you, and then pay attention when you're reading things and see if you see them. If you're on like, if you're on the internet or on social media, they're also like a currency on the internet, often, often wildly misattributed. But if you see, if you see one that you like, check out the author, or check out your favorite author, and you might find aphorisms if you're a fan of Lydia Davis or Jonathan letham's novels or Lydia Davis. Stories, look for the little kernels of aphoristic insight that are contained in them, and then, yeah, seek out the authors that you like. But I would also say that aphorisms, if you don't, aphorisms, are for living. So if you just kind of read them and think, Hmm, that's so true. So so true. That's not enough. You have to like playing it you know, playing it safe can cause a lot of damage in the long run. You can just enjoy that as a great aphorism, and it is a great aphorism, but it impels you to actually do something. Aphorisms are practical philosophy that you can apply in your life. Or the difference between a rut and a grave is the depth I've been in ruts a lot of times in my life. And that sentence, that aphorism, would occur to me, and it made me want to do something, and in fact, it made me do things like change jobs, yeah, to get out Kurt Nelson 51:01 of that rut so you don't go to that grave. And I love this idea of looking at your favorite authors, and one of the ones that I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that you kind of outlined, or outlined in here was Dr Seuss. You think about Dr Seuss, and we're reading those as children's books, but there's some fantastic aphorisms and lessons and instructions about how to live in there. Absolutely he's Speaker 1 51:32 I love Dr Seuss. I grew up reading Dr Seuss, actually, when I now that I think about it, those were the Reader's Digest, Time Magazine and Dr Seuss were the things to read. Tim Houlihan 51:43 Yes, the triumvirate, yeah. Speaker 1 51:48 And one of like, he's a he's so interesting because he's if he's very subversive. If you, if you look at his books again as an adult, he never shows the faces of any adults, you only see them like from the waist down, children are often alone, and they have to kind of, I had trouble in getting to solo Salu, which is really scary. It's just a little boy who has to go to the through this really scary place. But there's also something really affirming about it, from from from here to there, from there to here, funny things are everywhere. That's a philosophy of life. It's a kind of joyous, mischievous, playful way to approach life and to approach learning. And that was certainly what Dr Seuss was about because when he started writing his books, see Spot Run was the way you were supposed to learn how to read. But he said, that's kind of boring. Let's have trouble in getting to Salo Salou. And so it was a kind of subversive, playful, kind of radical way to learn to learn to read, and he slipped in a lot of great aphoristic insights along the way. Tim Houlihan 53:06 We Kurt in Kurt, in my prep conversation, we talked a lot about Dr Seuss and some of the aphorisms that we've had in our lives. And one of the things that we were thinking about is how modern you know, children are growing up and hearing and learning about these things, and we wonder, to what degree are our musicians or songwriters, specifically, the carriers the current, you know, bearers forebears of aphorisms today, you mentioned, I think You mentioned David Byrne and Bob Dylan in the book. But, I mean, I can think of, we can think of tons of examples of songwriters today. Speaker 1 53:49 Just, yeah, just, well, I'd love to hear your examples. I'm thinking like Leonard Cohen, there's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. You know, Joni Mitchell, what's this? Oh gosh, my daughter's gonna be furious with me. There's a Oh God, what is his name? As a contemporary rapper whose lyrics are astonishingly good? Unknown Speaker 54:16 Oh gosh, Tim Houlihan 54:18 I'm sure there are. I don't doubt it. I went to like Paul Simon, you know, with, you know, everything put together sooner or later falls apart. Unknown Speaker 54:28 Yes, another uplifting aphorism. Kurt Nelson 54:32 Well, all right, so uplifting. You have Lennon and McCartney, you know. And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. Oh, that's a lovely one. Speaker 1 54:41 Yeah, that's a lovely Yeah. So maybe we can, I can look up this. I'll find out that the rapper's name, I'm thinking, Yeah, I'll send it to you so you can do a voiceover or something. Kurt Nelson 54:56 We'll put it, we'll put it in the show notes of nothing, yeah, so that people can. Look for it. So fantastic, absolutely. But do Tim Houlihan 55:06 I guess the question is, to what degree do you think that that modern songwriters are the the carriers of of aphorism today? Speaker 1 55:17 That's that's an interesting question. I would say that they're not the carriers. And I think, like sometimes people wonder, because of social media, you know, the emphasis on short form communication, text messaging, is this the golden age of the aphorism? And in some ways, yes, because those kind of digital forms of distribution make it a lot easier to share aphoristic insights and aphoristic sentences. But in some ways, no because most of what is shared on social media is anti aphoristic. It's the opposite. It's It's toxic. It's not meant to make you think. It's to, you know, rage bait and hot takes and all that kind of stuff. So that's the opposite of aphorisms. My view is aphorisms. It's always the golden age of aphorisms, and there's never been more or less people, or, you know, doing, writing, reading, thinking about aphorisms, because there, there are constant and so, yes, it occurs in song lyrics. And, you know, not just contemporary popular music, but you know, from the jazz and blues, oh my gosh, blues and jazz, the lyrics to those, or, you know, some of the the Great American Songbook, lyricists, brilliant aphorisms in the Tim Houlihan 56:46 Rogers and Hammerstein, yeah, exactly. Speaker 1 56:51 But also, you know, it's, they're always present in whatever form, what they're sort of, I was gonna say parasites, but they're not parasites. They're like a living creature inside another living creature, yeah, yeah, it's a novel, but inside that novel, aphorisms are living. It's a poem. But inside that poem, aphorisms are living. It's a song lyrics. But inside those song lyrics and aphorisms living, and they also exist independently. So it's always, I wouldn't say like popular song, is the carrier anymore? We're all carriers. And I'm always astonished when talking with people, they always like I was saying we were talking about earlier. People are always saying, is this an aphorism? Is that an aphorism? We always said this in in our house, and as soon as you start the conversation, people start coming with their own aphorisms. These are not professional writers, they're not artists, they're not, you know, they're not professors of literature. They're just people who instinctively use and apply aphorisms. There's one guy who was at a recent talk, and he said, Is this an aphorism? This is advice I recently gave my 20 something sons. Good things happen when you get out of the house. Tim Houlihan 58:11 Sounds like an aphorism. It is Speaker 1 58:13 an aphorism. It's and it's great advice for a 20 something young person. And that's just, you know? So it's just everyone is the carrier of aphorisms, and they're and they're everywhere, and if you, you know, tune your antennae to Kurt Nelson 58:31 spotting them, you'll spot them all over the place. James, I think that is a wonderful place to end this conversation. I think the the words of wisdom there are just really profound. So thank you for being a guest on behavioral grooves. Speaker 1 58:47 Oh, thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure and just a lot of fun. Kurt Nelson 59:00 Welcome to our grooming session where Tim and I share ideas on what we learned from our discussion with James. Have a free flowing conversation and groove on whatever else comes into our never think you know, know, you know brains. Tim Houlihan 59:13 Oh, snap, oh, pulling right from like one of your this is an actual this is, Kurt Nelson 59:20 this is my now, James said it's my aphorism, right? It is. You've authored it. I took that, I took that graffiti from the train tunnel, and I added to it to make it an actual aphorism, because it could be attributed to me and all of those things. Tim Houlihan 59:41 So, yeah, well, this is, I think this is a great thing about language and about authored pieces, if, if Bob Dylan had a song with 17 verses, and you felt like there's part of the story that hasn't been told, we need an 18th verse, And you wrote that 18 verse, 18th verse and recorded. It you would be a co author with Bob Dylan. Kurt Nelson 1:00:04 Is that how that works? I mean, it is, yeah, Tim Houlihan 1:00:07 that's, that's how it works, yeah, kind of, kind of amazing. So, okay, but back to aphorism and James. Kurt Nelson 1:00:15 It's interesting, though, when you think about attribution, right, and how important attribution is in a number of these things. And I think it's what in today's world with the internet and aphorisms. The aphorism from, you might think it's from Mark Twain, where I might think it's from, you know, Woodrow Wilson or somebody, because the attributions just get so messed up. That's a whole nother discussion that we don't need to go down. All right, what do we what do we want to talk about in our grooving session? What are we grooving on today? Tim, well, I Tim Houlihan 1:00:58 really like the part of James conversation that leads us into this idea. And we teed this up in the introduction a bit, but how aphorisms can do two things. One is that they lead us to decisions. They don't make decisions for us. They lead us to decisions. And the second part of it is that because decisions change over the course of our lives and in different situations, that some aphorisms might be great at point A, but not so much at point B, okay. And the reason I think that that's interesting to me is because I used to think that an aphorism is just it's a universal. It's gonna apply my whole life, and it might not okay. Kurt Nelson 1:01:40 Let's start with that first part, this idea of how aphorisms, from a behavioral science perspective, act as heuristics, right? They're these cognitive shortcuts that reduce our mental loads. They help us think when thinking is hard. Tim Houlihan 1:01:57 Yeah, maybe we're we've got stress, or we're at a point of transition, or there's some uncertainty, those are really great times to look to. Well, what are the pieces of wisdoms that might guide us in the direction of helping make a decision? Kurt Nelson 1:02:11 Right? Yeah, and I think that's where James really talked about how we can use these as devices to center us, to kind of pull us out of that, whatever mess we're in. It's also a way for us to maybe look at the situation that we're in from a different perspective, or allows pushes our brain in a different direction than it might have gone otherwise? Tim Houlihan 1:02:49 Yeah, and in some ways, it's as simple as thinking. I mean, I remember my parents had things to say about very specific situations, right? That they repeated constantly. But if you're at a career crossroads, you might say, well, nothing venture, nothing gain. It might be right. It's an opportunity framing and mindset that can lead you to maybe make better decisions when you're at that career crossroads. Kurt Nelson 1:03:15 Yeah, the framing part, I think, is really insightful, because it does help us frame that situation in a way that the wisdom of the aphorism can help you go, oh yeah, I can frame it from that perspective, as opposed to, oh, my God, this is so scary. I'm afraid to give up what I what I want. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. That provides a different lens. Is a different framing than what you might have been feeling in that moment. So, oh, go ahead. Tim Houlihan 1:03:54 Well, I just love the way that you emphasize that. Because I think that we, we can sometimes lose my we can lose framing because of a particular feeling that's dominating us at a particular time, right? If you know, I've been through a lot of change in the last couple years, dramatic change, and I haven't been at my level best, and it's been easy for me just to kind of feel worn out, tired down, etc, but then a little saying like this, too shall pass can, because everything changes like that can be actually helpful in any given day. Kurt Nelson 1:04:33 Yeah, and given where we are in the world today, I'm in Minneapolis, and we're doing this right when there's a whole bunch of chaos going on in my hometown. Those types of aphorisms can both help us from a mental, emotional perspective, but they can also help us move and make and make a decision. As you said, there you. These guides for us, they help orient where we want to go, right, orient us with these problems. And so, you know, I love that. And in business, too, when we think about this, the aphorisms, you go, Oh, how do aphorisms work in business? Well, no, I mean, perfect is the enemy of good, all right, helps me get out of paralysis, you know, decision paralysis. So all of these, Tim Houlihan 1:05:29 I think about the number of times that we've been working on a PowerPoint, and it's like, okay, yeah, we need to. What about if we just move this just, like, a quarter of an inch, and then there is, wait a minute, perfect. Is the enemy of good, like it's good enough. Let's, let's do a little satisficing from time. A little Kurt Nelson 1:05:44 satisficing there, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think James said this, right? I'm gonna try to quote him here. Aphorisms occur in moments of need and moments of emergency. They don't tell you what to do. They immerse you more deeply in the dilemma. Oh, just, I mean, just stop for a moment and think about that, right? That should we just have a moment of silence? No, we should have a moment of talking about this, thinking about this. Aphorisms occur in moments of need and moments of emergency. There are these aspects that can help in those times where, as you said, you've you've gone through a lot of change and stress in your life, but as you said, Be as we've talked about. They don't tell us what to do. But I love this part is they immerse you more deeply, yeah, in the dilemma. Speaker 2 1:06:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah, because that's where, Tim Houlihan 1:06:43 that's where the insights gonna come, right? Kurt Nelson 1:06:45 Well, and we know this from behavioral science too, is that when we try to ignore something, when we try to push it away, it actually gains more power and various different things. It's the idea of, don't think of a white elephant. And what do you do? You think of a white elephant it there's aspects of this where it comes from stress and discomfort as we try to ignore it, when actually, if you embrace it and you you kind of feel it, you name it, you do all of those things, it actually helps you overcome that much, much better. But that's a whole nother stress and emotional groove that we could do. Tim Houlihan 1:07:24 Well, I like that. The fact that you're talking about these change, changing situations, this variety, I want to just focus for just a second on this idea that that context is really like this hidden variable in all of our decision making, right? That it's always there, and what worked in one situation won't necessarily help us in another section. And I think the this is just to reinforce this idea that the right aphorism at the right time could be really helpful in the way our life is changing and Kurt Nelson 1:07:57 and I think this is the part where we're going, like, oh, that aphorism that worked when we were 20 may not be the same right as it is when we're 40 or 60. And there's an aspect of this where the aphorism may not have the May the same impact. I think there's also another aspect of this is that that aphorisms meaning Speaker 2 1:08:21 could change. Yeah, as we change, yeah. Kurt Nelson 1:08:25 Again, the the never think you know, know you know, has taken on different meanings for me in as I've as I've gone through my life, right? It started off as, never think, you know, it's this kind of nihilistic, kind of piece of just, you know, there an attack, whereas now it is this, don't jump to conclusions. Don't make those don't allow that system, one thinking to override the system two, thinking and all of our natural biases that we have that come into play, I love that. Tim Houlihan 1:09:13 That's such a great example. And you're the author of that, that aphorism, and yet it has become, it has become something that has morphed with you and and you've interpreted different things from it as your life has changed. Kurt Nelson 1:09:30 Yeah, well, I think, I think aphorisms work that way. And I mean, we didn't talk to James about this, but I would, I would assume that that's part of the, not the definition of an aphorism, but part of how they work. Yeah, you know, Tim Houlihan 1:09:48 if it's if it's okay with you, I'd like to skip to, like, the third point that that I was thinking about here and and that was that. Growth means updating the language that we live by. So just as you're talking about how the meaning of the aphorism changes, the actual the way that I was originally thinking about this is that the actual aphorisms that we rely on at different times in our life could be different because of these different changes, right? That changing up our behaviors and our values are signs of growth, right? Not weaknesses. So adapting to different aphorisms around our life can be helpful, can be instructive, as we talked about. They can guide us or orient us in our decision making. Kurt Nelson 1:10:38 Yeah, and I think the same thing if the meaning of the aphorism doesn't change, and you've changed, holding on to the wrong aphorism can lead us or guide us in the wrong direction, right? So it keeps us solving Yesterday's problem, not today's problem. Tim Houlihan 1:10:58 Yeah, that's which is really not a not a good thing. I have a couple of examples here that I think are kind of fun, though, when I think about early career, and this is, this is attributed to Lao Tzu from The Art of War, early in your career, you might be thinking about opportunity, and you might be thinking, as Lao Tzu said, a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. Now that is really applicable if you're 20 years old or 22 and you're getting started on a first job, you've got, hopefully a long road ahead of you, but framing it as I need to take this first step, I think, is really wonderful thing to keep in mind. Kurt Nelson 1:11:38 I love that, right? And it's not necessarily the same if you're in the later part of your career, to apply this to that part of your career. Now it could apply to you know, what you're doing after your career. That may not necessarily apply to your career when you're our age, Tim, or if you've changed careers, or it could, I mean, I mean, we, we started this podcast eight years ago, and that started with one, you know, conversation like, oh, we could record. It's that one step that we said, oh, this will be easy. Tim Houlihan 1:12:20 We were just punks. Then though, like you were, you were like, what, 25 I was like, 26 Kurt Nelson 1:12:26 Yeah, okay, yeah, okay, but all right, you have some other ones around mid career and later career from just the aphorisms that you kind of apply here. Yeah, yeah. Tim Houlihan 1:12:36 Rutan the Buddhist, Zen, Zen Buddhist said, for kind of a mid career framing is you cannot pour from an empty cup. You cannot pour from an empty cup like mid career. You need to be gathering up some steam right when you're kind of deep into what you're doing. You need to be you need to make sure that your cup is being filled and that you have something to pour from it. Kurt Nelson 1:13:02 Yeah, you need to protect your energy, right? That's this idea of so it helps you in understanding how to live your life. It is that guide again, Tim Houlihan 1:13:13 okay, yeah. And then later career. Later career, let's go to Charlie Munger, you know, the great partner of and co founder of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger, said, the best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more that that's like, that's our job, man, that's what we do. I'd like to think it is at least we're going to hopefully help other people know more make the end from that, hopefully make better decisions. Kurt Nelson 1:13:44 Yeah, I love all of that. I think it's just fantastic. So, you know, I think one of the things that James said in this is that aphorisms are for living and, yeah, we don't think about writing in those types of aphorisms or poems or other types of things as these things for living that they but they are. They're these guides. They help us in how we show up every single day in our life. And that, I think, is the power of them. Tim Houlihan 1:14:21 So if you had a groove question for our listeners, Kurt, what would you be? What would you be challenging our listeners to think about or to do even Kurt Nelson 1:14:31 this week? I think what they should be doing is thinking about, is there an aphorism that has helped you get where get you to where you are Unknown Speaker 1:14:41 and to our point of, Kurt Nelson 1:14:45 you know, making sure we're not living in the past. Are there ones? Is there an aphorism which might be holding you back now, one that you had held on to, that either hasn't morphed with you or no Unknown Speaker 1:14:58 longer serves you? I Tim Houlihan 1:15:01 think that's a good thing to be thinking about this week. Kurt Nelson 1:15:03 I do. Okay. Well, there you go. Okay, to wrap up, yeah, yeah. Tim Houlihan 1:15:08 Absolutely, absolutely. Closing comments from you, anything Kurt Nelson 1:15:14 you know, just hopefully that you're were able to understand a little bit more about aphorisms, and maybe, maybe it has inspired you to write down a favorite aphorism that you have and put it up in front of you and and use that in your life to help you make better decisions this week, as you go out and find your group you you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai