Outworker
Stories of healing, personal development, and inner work. Founded on the idea that the relationship with oneself is the most important to develop, but the easiest to neglect, Outworker shares conversations aimed at helping you develop that relationship.
Outworker
#061 - Dan Millman - The Peaceful Warrior Path To Purpose & Inner Power
Dan Millman explores the path from self-improvement to self-transcendence, revealing how shattered bones, paradoxical teachers, and inner stillness shaped the Peaceful Warrior philosophy. He shares the hidden story behind his character Socrates, lessons from poverty consciousness, and why true wisdom lives in action, not inspiration. This is a conversation about naming your path without becoming it, embracing pain without seeking it, and discovering how clarity, presence, and purpose emerge through the simple act of doing what the moment asks.
Timestamps:
00:00 Life Before Becoming A Peaceful Warrior
02:29 Power Of Names & Mantras
04:02 How The Peaceful Warrior Philosophy Came To Life
11:30 Speaking With Variability & Unlearning Fixed Beliefs
15:13 Becoming A Writer
18:32 Balancing Formal & Informal Education
22:31 Getting An Education From Physical Pain
33:11 Relationship Between Feeling & Behaving
37:33 Quieting The Mind vs. Finding Peace In The Unquiet Mind
42:30 Broader Benefits Of Physical Movement
46:09 Balancing Internal & External Worlds
52:19 Working Through Poverty Consciousness
57:55 Retiring From Writing
1:00:09 Finding Your Edge
1:01:43 Connect With Dan Millman
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What’s up outworkers. Dan Millman explores the path from self-improvement to self-transcendence, revealing how shattered bones, paradoxical teachers, and inner stillness shaped the Peaceful Warrior philosophy. He shares the hidden story behind his character Socrates, lessons from poverty consciousness, and why true wisdom lives in action, not inspiration. This is a conversation about naming your path without becoming it, embracing pain without seeking it, and discovering how clarity, presence, and purpose emerge through the simple act of doing what the moment asks.
Tim Doyle (00:07.552)
Before you were living the Peaceful Warrior life, what name would you give the life you were living then?
Dan Millman (00:18.37)
Well, at one point...
I don't know that I'd give it a name, but that's good question. I hadn't thought about that before.
Dan Millman (00:31.22)
And by the way, I came up with the name Peaceful Warrior when I was teaching a martial arts course at Oberlin College in Ohio in the early 70s.
It involved Aikido and Tai Chi. And I was going to call it for the school catalog, The Way of the Warrior. But they're both non-aggressive arts. They're more receptive. They're internal arts. So then I had a light bulb moment and I said, hey, why don't I call it The Way of the Peaceful Warrior? And that's when I coined the term. Before that, I was just living a life, a generic, you know...
everyday life, a kid growing up in Los Angeles and then off to college at Berkeley in the late 60s as I noted. So it was, I had no name for life, it was a no name life.
Dan Millman (01:32.398)
But I was so involved with self-improvement throughout my youth. I took memory courses and speed reading and learned ventriloquism and sleight of hand, magic, martial arts, acrobatics. Until one day, some years later, jumping ahead, I realized that no matter how much I improved myself, only one person benefited. But if I could somehow...
influence other people in a positive way, that made my life more meaningful and I had no idea at the time how I might do that. It was only later that I thought of maybe, gosh, maybe I could write a book.
Tim Doyle (02:18.858)
I like how you talk about how before you were living the peaceful warrior life or before you had that name, you were just living a generic life and there were no terms or identities that you had to describe your life. And I'm a big believer that having different identifiers or names or terms or mantras that we can live by can really help us. Why do you think
with your experiences or even our lives as a whole, concrete names or terms like this can really be beneficial.
Dan Millman (02:56.386)
Well, in a way, was a blessing to not be defined. Some people grow up within a religious culture. They live a Christian life, a Jewish life, a Muslim life, and they're defined by that. And they have guardrails and walls, a sense. Definitions, things are asked to believe. Whether we call it education or indoctrination or programming, either way, there are limitations. And so my parents
gave me the blessing of just letting me grow up and discover life without any particular belief structures. So I had to find my own way, so to speak. And so there are positive aspects of growing up within the community, shared beliefs and so on within a tribe, but that really wasn't my way. I describe myself as a member of none, a friend to all.
Tim Doyle (03:53.024)
I like that. What was the foundation of the way of the peaceful warrior that truly brought it to life for you where, you know, it made it feel real and not just an idea.
Dan Millman (04:05.198)
Yeah, interesting. Well, I really didn't know much. As I said, it was just a coincidence. When I wrote the book, I didn't know what to call it. It was about a lot of things, big picture type things, because of my interest that expanded out of the sports arena, out of the gymnastics gym, gymnasium, into everyday life. So I shifted from how can I create talent, more talent in the athletes I coached.
or myself earlier on, and those I coach at Stanford University, how can we actually raise their level of talent in terms of the ability to learn faster and easier and rise to higher levels? And I was fairly successful in that endeavor in terms of building their foundation of talent for sports, which was like strength, stamina, suppleness, and sensitivity, like coordination, balance, and so on.
But then my interest expanded. kind of didn't care who won anymore in the competitive arena. And I started asking, how can we develop talent for living, for the actual things we encounter in daily life, in relationships, in health issues, in finances, in career decisions, and so on, basic life skills. So that sent me on a kind of search, an existential search, if you will.
So it happened organically. It wasn't as if I thought of the term peaceful warriors. I'll teach the peaceful warriors way and it'll have these facets and principles. I had no idea, no clue. And when I wrote the book, it was kind of an inspired last draft, but from my heart to my reader, and again, I thought I might have a few college students who might relate to it. I had no idea of the response over the decades.
But it was only after about 25 years after I wrote that initial book, 1980 was published. In the early 2000s, when the movie came out, the movie adaptation for my first book, that's when I said, you know, I better clarify these teachings because they've been clarified in my own mind and heart. So I wrote a book called Wisdom of the Peaceful Warriors.
Dan Millman (06:35.096)
kind of a companion to way of the peaceful warrior, which explained the teachings of this character Socrates in my first book. So it only became clarified in my mind over time. And in my culminating work, which was written several years ago called Peaceful Heart, Warrior Spirit, I first revealed the source of Socrates and a few other things.
and describe a 20-year intensive quest, a preparation if you will, with four radically different mentors. One I called the professor, one I called the guru, one I called the warrior priest, and finally the sage. And they all have different approaches to life's bigger picture and practical way to live wisely and well. So...
You know, many people who just see the movie or maybe read my first book think, Dan met this old guy in a gas station and then he started teaching later on. But there was, again, a lot more to that story.
Tim Doyle (07:44.958)
I know you're big into the paradoxical nature of thoughts and ideas, especially when it comes to quotes. I know you're very fond of quotes with those four teachers. Do you feel like all those four teachers harmonious harmoniously work together or were there paradoxical thoughts and ideas when relating to all them?
Dan Millman (08:05.634)
Paradoxical, I would say, is the answer. By the way, many people confuse paradox and irony and aren't sure what it is. But paradox are really, it's two opposing ideas or statements that are both true, depending on your viewpoint. And in fact, I'm going to be giving a seminar online. Anyone can go to my website later. I'm sure you'll have it up if they want to read about that online event.
where I'm going to talk about more deeply about paradox, humor and change and what that means and how it's a key to understand the two different worlds we live in with two different truths. But as far as your question about the teachers, they were more supplementary. I don't even want to say complementary, but supplementary to one another, reflecting my own evolution. The professor was all about university for altered states of consciousness.
It started with a 40-day intensive training, 10 hours a day, with global heritage of spiritual practices put together in an extremely skillful way. I have gratitude for him. It really did impact my life a lot. But then the guru said, I'd rather beat you with a stick than teach you to meditate. He wasn't into technologies or those kinds of, as he called it, self-involved inner exercises.
His was more of a devotion, a direct transmission of the divine, let's say, through the body of the guru. And I learned a lot of lessons, positive and negative, in that community. Joy and I, my wife and I, were involved on and off for almost eight years with the guru. And after those two first teachers, that's when I wrote Way of the Peaceful Warrior. So their influence was reflected in that book.
They kind of opened doors to insight in my own character. I didn't just parrot their words, but there are a few examples. For example, a paradox, humor, and change came from the guru. And the bone massage that I describe in Way of the Peaceful Warrior came from the professor. So they did have a direct influence as well as indirect. And it was only later that I met the warrior priest and then finally the sage.
Dan Millman (10:31.8)
who brought me back down to earth, so to speak. So they really had very different approaches to life. And that's why I decided to share it in the book. Not because I'm playing the game of my teachers are better than your teachers. There are hundreds, thousands of teachers, role models. We all meet in our lives. And one of the principles that I like to share with people is that there is no best teacher, no best path.
religion, philosophy, diet or system of exercise, there's only the best for each of us at a given time of our life. Life is an experiment. each of us has to find out what works for us on our own path. People aren't here to tread my way. They're here to tread their own. And that's, I emphasize that, respect for each person's process.
Tim Doyle (11:28.564)
That's why I like the way that you write and speak is that there's a lot of variability within it. And you're not just strictly speaking from fixed statements, especially when I've heard people ask you very black and white questions, looking for a very fixed statement answer, but you speak from variability. And I'm curious within your own life, what's a fixed belief that you think you once held about yourself, but has evolved?
Dan Millman (11:58.924)
Well, I fell prey to that notion at one point in my life when I was really immersed in gymnastics training that because I was a really good gymnast, it made me a really good person. Great gymnast, great person. And many people do generalize that maybe they're a great musician, chess player, whatever, and they think, well, that makes me a really super person.
But there are many aspects to life. life gave me many humbling lessons to underscore that. And as you probably know, since clearly you're well versed in some of my work, that life, know, lessons repeat themselves in our lives until we learn them. And if we don't learn the easy lessons, they get more dramatic, just to get our attention.
So I had a few dramatic lessons in my life, reminding me of my own mortality and at times stupidity. It could be said that life is a series of moments. It's not like we're smart person or a dumb person. We have smart moments and dumb moments. Sometimes this, sometimes that. I've never, I've seen some quote unquote enlightened masters in some unenlightened moments. So.
I don't believe in a permanent state. I think it's more realistic. And this is influenced by the sage. It's more realistic to...
view ourselves as. You know, somebody came up to me once and said, man, you seem like a nice guy. said, sometimes.
Tim Doyle (13:46.528)
Yeah, I see that as to have enlightened moments, you can't always be in an enlightened state because then that just becomes your natural state and then you don't know what being enlightened feels like then. So it's like you need moments of unenlightened to have that deeper realization of, this is a moment of feeling enlightened or feeling transformed. And like you said, you were big into the world of gymnastics.
when you were younger and very talent and self-improvement focused. When you started writing, what was the lens that you brought to that?
Dan Millman (14:32.91)
Well, first of all, I would be intimidated by a 10-page paper if I got assigned. Like, how am I going to write 10 pages? Many college students can relate to that. So it never really occurred to me to write a book, though I did have a gifted English teacher who made a lot of demands on us in school. Many of us think back on our teachers, and some of the ones that made the biggest demands on us were the most influential. Well...
I was writing a series of articles for a gymnastics magazine. That was my area of knowledge and interest. And they started stacking up before I sent them in and mailed them to the magazine. And I said, wow, that almost looks like it's getting thick enough to be a book manuscript. And that was the first notion I had that I might write a book. And anybody who has aspirations of writing a book, let me just say today's
atmosphere is quite different. It's harder to rise above the noise to get noticed. It's quite challenging to get even the attention of an agent or an editor today. So many people take the positive step of self-publishing. They express themselves and they publish online as an e-book version, which costs much less to do.
In fact, my daughter and I wrote a book together, one of my few collaborative efforts called The Creative Compass, Writing Your Way from Inspiration to Publication. And it's quite a good guide, an encouraging guide for any aspiring writer.
So I know I've gone off tangent, but I'd like to free associate in my responses a bit. So anyway, that's how the first book evolved. took over seven years to on and off to finally complete. And I didn't write another book for 10 years after that, after Way of the Peaceful Warrior. I felt I'd said what I have to say. So I shut up.
Dan Millman (16:42.35)
After ten years, then the warrior sage came into my life, the warrior priest, sorry. And that inspired me. There was so much intriguing content that I was moved to write another book called Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior. And that took literally six months from the idea of writing the book to it being on the bookshelves. Very quick, immersive kind of experience.
Then people were asking me, Dan, I was inspired by your first two books, they're great stories, but how do you apply this stuff to daily life? So then I wrote No Ordinary Moments, A Peaceful Warrior's Guide to Daily Life. So that's, each book was like an airplane waiting to take off the runway. I never knew which one would say, me first, until it came up. And that's how they evolved over time, the various books.
Tim Doyle (17:39.518)
You draw a lot of connections between your gymnastics and your relationship with Socrates in your book, whose real name is Sergey Ivanov that you get into in other works. I'm curious though, because you did get a formal education at Cal Berkeley and you were a psychology major. That's where you got your bachelor's in. How do you reflect back on
getting a formal education and an informal one at the same time.
Dan Millman (18:14.318)
Good question. Well, first of all, I'd never had to study much in high school. I just got by on Bs, maybe B minus, occasional C. But I was able to score well enough in the SAT to get into Berkeley. And I was treading water kind of over my head. And I nearly flunked out my first semester. It was a wake-up call.
because I wasn't prepared. And I took a study course and I really dug in and took notes and read my notes and typed them up after class. And I improved up to like a B plus, A minus grade point my second semester. But it really was a wake up call because I wanted to keep competing in gymnastics. So, you know, the gym, training in any sport or playing a musical instrument, let's say, it's not just sports.
demands mental focus, physical involvement, and emotional wherewithal.
like a whole greater than the sum of the parts, whereas the academic courses demand memorization skills and ability to analyze and so on, mental skills. And you just do it or you don't. But it's not necessarily physically involving. So while I was doing my academic training,
Dan Millman (19:54.168)
There was life outside of school. You learned to do your own laundry, for example. Now, I will say this. Sports weren't just a preparation for my quote unquote spiritual training. They were part of it. Because training in a sport, or again, doing other skills.
training is a form of meditation. It really teaches you also some universal laws, such as the law of process, step-by-step learning. For example, you know, when I was coaching at Stanford, I was also teaching beginning gymnastics classes and trampoline classes, which I loved even more than training the elite athletes.
Beginners had such enthusiasm and then I was able to Teach them more than they believed they could learn and that broke through their self-concepts and maybe open them up to future learning And I noticed that some people learned let's say back somersault quicker than other people maybe they had a background preparation, you know in coordination and so on But I also noticed
that those who took longer to learn the somersault often learned it better than those who learned it quicker. And that's why I remind people to trust their own process of learning and of living and not stop comparing themselves to other people on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, where everyone seems to be having a better time than you, know, that kind of thing. A lot of kids get depressed because...
Tim Doyle (21:24.565)
Mm.
Dan Millman (21:44.394)
Everyone is showing their best face. And you know what? Everybody has their inner battles to climb, their mountains to climb, their battles to face. Some of the kids have more sophisticated strategies to make themselves look better. But don't believe it. Everybody has their own challenges. And I say that with my heart to everyone out there, especially young people.
Tim Doyle (22:11.358)
You clearly have a diverse relationship with education, like we've been talking about. So you got a formal education at Cal Berkeley, a physical education in gymnastics, and then a mentorship from Socrates. But in my eyes and what stands out the most and the biggest education that you got was from pain and physical pain. You describe shattering your right leg in a motorcycle accident.
right before your senior year of college as it shook me up. But the emphasis on up here is that it's an upward trajectory and a real positive transformation. Talk to me about your relationship with physical pain and how it plays within your Peaceful Warrior framework.
Dan Millman (22:59.16)
Sure, sure. Well, I've often preached about the benefits of adversity. In no ordinary moments there's a whole chapter on it.
I view daily life as a form of spiritual weightlifting. And if we don't lift any weights, we don't get any stronger. Many of us intuit that adversity has its value because we've looked back on our lives, we've all overcome certain aspects of adversity, a physical condition, a pain, challenges in life. But...
Sometimes climbing out of a dark hole can give us the strength to climb mountains.
Even even the idea of voluntary adversity like I often ask people How many of you have do some kind of physical training? Or have done a sport and that's a form of voluntary adversity life is tougher doing that than not doing it It's easy to coast through college without doing any sports I can't even imagine what that's like or learning an instrument or new languages or whatever It's relatively easy
because that adds a burden. You've got to be training three hours a day in the gym or on the track or whatever in addition to doing your studies, the academic work. So it's a form of voluntary adversity. We don't have to do it. Nobody forced us to. And then I ask how many of you have maintained an intimate relationship with someone for more than, two weeks? And that's a form of voluntary adversity.
Dan Millman (24:43.742)
It has its consolations, it has its delights, but also it's not easy having a long-term relationship. My wife and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary this year, 15 years together. And you have to overcome some bumps in the road along the way, but it's not easy. In fact, I tell people, you want life easy? Sure. Don't ever take on any responsibility.
You don't have to go to work and no intimate relationships and life will be easier. Live in a little trailer in the woods. But even that has its challenges. And some people, it's like, have you had children? Voluntary adversity. Kids, our nerve endings are right out there. They're a challenge. Now we have three grandchildren in our area and it's delightful and exhausting at times. Making a living.
Engaging in business voluntary adversity all of it. That's why I say we're all schoolmates in the school of life we're all in training and So I that's that's how I view adversity now in my case by the way, I do not recommend Fractures as a method of personal and spiritual development one doesn't have to go through pain
Because there's enough challenges in everyday life anyway. but that did suddenly shake me up as I mentioned And it made me more sober, you know, because in their 20s you're kind of bulletproof, you know You can do anything in your 20s and then most people around their 30s mid-30s become more thoughtful and more reflective and so on and they realize they better find their way into life
Maybe not consciously in those words, but that's usually what it happens around one's 30th birthday. So that did in my case, it was transformative. And many people who've had dealt with cancer, for example, and are in remission now, they say that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me in a weird way. Not that they look for it, nor will I look for any more broken bones.
Dan Millman (27:09.134)
But we need to appreciate that, that it can, when it happens, we can look back on it say, I overcame that. So, and we roll up our sleeves and I can handle whatever may come. So that was its gift, its value. Even the loss of a loved one, our loved ones leave a gift behind for us.
and anybody who's lost someone understands that.
Tim Doyle (27:43.4)
Yeah, like how you broke that down there between voluntary and involuntary. And that's the way that I see it as well. Slightly different framework, but pretty much the same topic that I talk a lot about is willing suffering versus unwilling suffering where unwilling suffering can be a true gift at the end of the day because you wouldn't have asked for it and you wouldn't have been exposed to those experiences under your own.
Dan Millman (27:43.598)
Yeah.
Tim Doyle (28:13.588)
control, but that can be truly transformative. And getting into your relationship with meditation, Reb Anderson taught you that the two most important things for meditating properly was one, sitting up straight. So you're physically aligned in the present moment. And number two is that you must die. And the way that I interpret that is that meditation is always like a rebirth.
When it came to your motorcycle accident, in a metaphorical sense, did it feel like a death afterwards and how things transpired?
Dan Millman (28:55.768)
Well, I could put it that way. Metaphorically, I could say I died to the old and became a different person in that way. That's what I refer to that it's shaking me up, upwards. So in a way, I mean, and I could have died looking back. I was very fortunate. No head injuries, no spine injuries, shattered leg, very, very painful, but something I could recover from. And people have been injured worse.
I acknowledge that in war and accidents and so on. And by the way, after that revelation from Reb Anderson, that Zen Roshi, quite a guy, he obviously didn't mean physically die. He meant die to attachments. And I created a meditation I do every single day. And I've done it for, I don't know, 12 years, maybe 13 years now.
And it's a four-minute meditation on the process of death and rebirth. And I won't go into it now, but nothing has helped me to appreciate the life I have more than that, doing that meditation. That's why I created it, that's why I teach it at some of my weekend workshops, that sort of thing. Because if you sit down to meditate and you're
partly like, I've got to run an errand after this. We're still attached to life. We're still clinging to the things of our daily life. But yeah, we're closing our eyes and doing some breathing and focusing on our breath or our mantra, whatever it is. Whereas doing this meditation is a great entree, an introduction into whatever form of meditation someone else does. Because you die to the world, and then you can really let go and open up to whatever may come.
So that's why I practice that form. And by the way, I'd like to say that, yes, I did write a book called The Journeys of Socrates, which was my...
Dan Millman (31:09.056)
gift to readers who had asked me questions over the years. What was the old man like that he met in the gas station? And was he married? What did he go through in his life? And I asked myself, to become that old character that in my first book, what would he have had to go through? And at the time I was studying a Russian martial art called the system or sistema. And I went to Moscow, I went to St. Petersburg, I went to Lake Ladoga and the
the monastery island of Valhalla, a pristine place. So that was around 2005, 2006, so it was some years ago. so when I sat down to write the book, I drew upon some of those experiences and that inspired me to create this character, Sergei Abunov.
or Ivanov, in Russia and his life there before he emigrated eventually to the United States. Now, we have enough illusions today. There so many different versions of truth in the political world today that I don't want to add to the illusions. And in my final book, Peaceful Heart Warrior Spirit, the memoir, I do confess
in beginning of the book that in fact I am Socrates and he was a character I invented based on a meeting with an old guy in a gas station, in a service station in Berkeley around three in the morning. And I drew upon that meeting with that old fellow, enigmatic fellow, to create this character just as King Arthur had Merlin.
and Frodo had Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. There have been many, many stories of Daniel Son had Mr. Miyagi in the karate kid. the teachers and bumbling students and I created Socrates. And the journeys of Socrates was really more out of my creative imagination. It's a novel, but it does convey a lot of heart. It's close to my heart, that story.
Dan Millman (33:37.09)
because my grandparents came from Russia, came from Ukraine actually, back then. They didn't talk about the old country much, understandably, because they were Americans now. So I am a grandchild of immigrants.
Tim Doyle (33:57.79)
Yeah, I like that. And that goes back to the point I was saying, there's a lot of variability in what you say and how you write rather than just this concrete nature. And something that I find really interesting that builds off of that, talk to me about the relationship between feeling and behaving.
Dan Millman (34:19.982)
Sure. Simply put, and this is something that I learned later in life from the sage. He pointed out that we have less, see that there many things we can influence in life. We can influence other people. We can influence even the weather by seeding clouds to maybe create, sometimes it works to create precipitation in dry areas, other times not.
So to influence something means we exert an effort in a direction and it may work and it may not. Method actors, you know, try to influence their emotions by remembering an intensive time where they felt that, that sort of thing. So there many things we can influence, including our emotions. We can influence our emotions by our posture. We can influence our emotions by how relaxed we are, our breathing. So looking at things from a different angle.
So there are many techniques we can try to influence our emotions. And yeah, including our thoughts, we can try to influence thoughts. what the sage pointed out was, realistically, we have very little control by willing ourselves to feel any given thing in any given moment. We feel what we feel. It's like emotional weather passing through us. It comes and goes.
And also we have no control over what thoughts just pop into our awareness. know, thoughts happen to us. We don't wake up one morning saying, I think I'll think this thought next.
Thoughts, you know, and few of us, I don't know of anybody who has a spam filter in their head that can keep out negative thoughts. I just don't know that. My thoughts are sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but I don't take them as seriously anymore. I've seen their illusory nature. They're just stuff, like dreams that happen, that come up. And they don't need to guide or lead or demand, you know, control our life. We have this thought, we have that, and in meditation.
Dan Millman (36:32.514)
Mindfulness meditation is about noticing the thoughts and feelings. It's like accepting our thoughts and feelings. That's natural to us in the moment. Accepting them doesn't mean bowing to them, obeying them, running from them, resisting them, just noticing them. And the second principle is to focus on a positive goal. And the third is do what needs to be done in line with our goal. So that's the behavior part.
So because we have less control over what thoughts arise and what, I mean, we can learn to concentrate and we can write poetry and solve math problems, remember grocery lists, we can control our intellect, our mind, our memory. But it's the random thoughts that pop up. That's we have no control over. And the only thing we can control, if I were to ask you to raise your hand, you know, could do it unless we're disabled.
then that's not possible. But most people can have more control over what they actually do, how they move their arms and legs and their mouth. That's a behavior too. So that's why the Warriors approach, the Peaceful Warriors approach to living is founded on what we have more control over rather than less, which is what we do moment to moment. And the main question to ask ourselves is, what do I need to do now? What does the moment call for?
and then doing it, whether we're motivated or not, whether we're inspired or not. know, somebody came up to me once after a seminar and said, Dan, feel, I don't know, I feel inspired. I said, don't worry, it'll pass.
Tim Doyle (38:14.42)
Hahaha
Dan Millman (38:16.042)
Because inspiration comes and goes, so does motivation. But if we focus on what do need to do now and to do it in line with our goals, it's very respectful of the individual. What are your goals? Do what needs to be done. And we're more likely to live wisely and well that way than letting emotions push us this way and that.
Tim Doyle (38:40.202)
I'm going to ask you an either or question and like I've talked about, you speak from a place of variability rather than fixed statements. I'm assuming you're not going to answer it one way or the other, but I'm still going to ask it. Do you think we need to be more focused on quieting the mind or finding peace in the unquiet?
Dan Millman (38:53.88)
Sure.
Dan Millman (39:04.088)
Well, I don't know what you or anyone else should do, but I can say this.
Many of us experience, especially when we start meditating or introspecting, we look at our own mind and we go, wow, it's so busy. All these thoughts, I've heard tell that there thousands of thoughts every hour passing through, impressions and so on. So many people go, yeah, I'd like to have a quieter mind. I have worries, I have regrets, anxieties about the future and all that. Well, the simplest thing you can do.
is to recognize the illusory nature of past and future. Because, and when I say, this is not a slogan, this is not a bumper sticker when I say all we have is the present moment, it's the truth. Because what we call the past is gone. It's a set of neural impulses in our brain we call memory.
And just as people, know, witnesses, five witnesses to a crime or an auto accident will all give slightly different renditions, our memories are not exact. They're our impressions. We hear, we remember life in the same way we see it or hear it or smell it or taste it through a filter of our own projections, associations, beliefs. So we don't see life as it is. We don't remember life as it actually is.
objectively, but more through our own filters. that's what we call the past. And someone can tell me, you you could say, well, Dan, wait a minute, I have a picture of my last birthday party. See, that's the past. I know it exists. But all that's happening is you are showing me a photographic image in this moment that reminds you of something of a memory. So we just have now. And if we think about the future,
Dan Millman (41:06.392)
That's our imagination. If we get up and imagine our day, what it's gonna be like and write it down, it won't turn out that way. And as one of my martial arts teachers once said, in terms of combat, one thing is predictable, it will not go as predicted. And the same way as our life doesn't go as predicted, it rarely does. But we have the power of memory. We have the ability to imagine and project into the future.
you have to run this errand, so I might as well run that one while I'm in the neighborhood. That kind of thing. So that's fine. We can project our minds into the future, project our attention back into the past. But we shouldn't mistake them for reality. Now, I'm coming around, as you call it variability, I'm coming around to answering your question directly. In the present moment, we have no thoughts. Whenever we think about something,
I guarantee you it's going to be about what we anticipate in the future or remember from the past. In the present moment, if I were to take, if we were sitting across from each other in a room and I took out some keys and said, catch, and threw you a key ring and you were reaching for it to grab it like a cat-like awareness, you know, to grab it, I guarantee you're not going to be thinking about tomorrow or yesterday. You're going to be focused right in that moment.
So in the present moment, the more we focus on what we're doing, Chikmin Tsai, I think that's how you pronounce his last name, yeah, he talked about absorption in the moment. We're happiest when we're absorbed in something because we're not turning our attention to the past or future of regrets or anxieties about the future. So we're just in the moment. It's a more natural way to live.
So the present moment is our moment of power, our moment of sanity. The rest is a little bit craziness. So we need to, and it's not a matter of a technique, teach me how to live in the present moment. Our bodies are always in the present moment. Changing over time, but still in this moment. But it's our minds, our attention that flits back and forth, back and forth. Once we recognize the illusion of past and future,
Dan Millman (43:26.286)
We can still use our power of memory and imagination, but we don't quite take it as seriously. And we focus on what's in front of us. And that's what we handle. And that's when the mind is quiet.
Tim Doyle (43:41.994)
Digging deeper.
Dan Millman (43:42.158)
Yeah, so I did come around to answering your question.
Tim Doyle (43:45.408)
Yes, you did. Digging deeper into this thought process. So you were a professor at Oberlin College and you taught a class called Way of the Peaceful Warrior, but you also taught a class called Mirthful Movement. And I'm curious to know because you said it earlier as well as physical exercise and physical movement is part of a spiritual process as well. It's not simply just physical.
And I'd be interested to know on your thought process with physical movement within this conversation as well within quieting the mind and everything here.
Dan Millman (44:26.008)
Sure, sure, that's a good point. Yeah, the Mirthful Movement, it's hard to say that, was an acrobatics and circus course. People tried teeterboard, jumping up and down on these teeterboards, and juggling and trampoline and acrobatic skills. And I would show them a routine at beginning of the semester and they would say, no way I could do that. Maybe the person next to me can do that, but.
By the end of the semester, they could do it. Most everybody could. So the point is, and then we put on a show. That was fun. The performance, the moment of truth. I always viewed gymnastics not as competitions, but as performances. anyway. So.
Doing that kind of activity is an immersion in the present moment. When you're swinging around the high bar, you're not thinking about what you had for breakfast or what you're going to do later in that day. You're focused in that moment. It's meditate or die. So it is a form of meditation, an active form, dynamic meditation. And again, playing a musical instrument, learning a new piece is a form of meditation.
So we can meditate through our daily lives. There's a book called Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herigel, a German professor who went to Japan and trained in Zen archery. And he learned a lot about himself. You know, when he shot his first bullseye and he looked over at the master archer who was shaking his head. And he said, wait a minute, I don't understand because he was a Western mind. I won the prize, but I hit the bullseye.
What are you shaking your head for? And he came to understand it was more the inner bull's eye he was supposed to hit. He was supposed to learn the process of effortless, that there's no one there letting go of the bow, there's no loosing the arrow, there's nobody there, it's just all happening. That was the training he learned, not just how to shoot well, though that was part of it. In fact, he asked the master, can you actually shoot well?
Dan Millman (46:42.956)
because these targets were like 10 or 15 feet away. They were pretty close. And the teacher told him, he gave a shot with the arrow and he hit the bulls right in the middle. And then he said, turn the lights off. And Herrigal turned the lights off and then he heard another thwack. And when he turned the lights back on, the teacher apparently, as he tells it, had split the arrow. So yes, he could shoot well too. One follows from the other.
serious physical training. So I don't know if I answered your question or even remember exactly what it was but I hope I've addressed it.
Tim Doyle (47:21.938)
No, very well. you mentioned him earlier, I think you were talking about Mihaly Csikszentmi with his research on flow state. And I think that goes to that very, very well. And how like we were talking about physical movement is not simply just physical, but it gets you into a strong mental framework as well.
Dan Millman (47:49.292)
Yes.
Tim Doyle (47:51.422)
And to add onto the conversation now, so a lot of your work and a lot of what we've been talking about is very internally focused and personally focused. And the way that I see things, and I'm not saying that this is the correct way of looking at things, but if we were to look at things like within a spectrum, like on one side, you have your external world and on the other side, you have your internal world.
and you can push back and forth and like the more you push into your external world, the further you can be separated from your internal and the more you go into your internal world, it's going to push you farther away from your external world.
How do we make sure we're not getting consumed? Because like for me and a lot of people that would be listening to a conversation like this, very curious and intrigued by doing that inner work and exploring that inner world, so to speak. How do we make sure we're not becoming consumed by that internal world and not just being completely pushed out of the external?
Dan Millman (49:07.082)
Very good question, an important one. Let me share a story in response. However, first I want to talk about the word mindfulness, because that's become a thing today. I practice mindfulness. What is that? Well, all mindfulness means is paying attention to what's going on in the present moment without judgment. And so if one is mindful,
Tim Doyle (49:23.293)
Ha
Dan Millman (49:35.342)
of sitting down say to meditate, you're quiet, you have no distractions, so all you see is your thoughts and feelings and internal phenomena because your eyes are closed or half closed, depending on the meditation style. So we call that mindfulness meditation, just noticing what's arising internally and moving on. And that has some benefits, some value.
But then, even more important, is turning mindfulness into the world, noticing what's going on around us and approaching life in a mindful way, paying attention to what we're doing, crossing the street rather than looking at our phone while we're crossing the street, and noticing what's going on in the present moment without judgment, just seeing. And paying attention is very powerful. For example, going off in a brief tangent just for a moment,
Children thrive on attention. People can give them presents and buy them a lot of things, but paying attention, even a few minutes a day, real quality attention to our children is a real gift to them, because that's what they crave. That shows them they're worthwhile, they're loved, and so on. So, now, the story.
I'm walking down the street with Socrates down Telegraph Avenue way back in the 60s. I see a poster on the wall about starving children and the Vietnam War and oppressed peoples around the world. And I say, Socrates, I'm doing all this work on myself, all this navel gazing, self-analysis, meditation, internal work.
self-massage, know, bone massage and all this he taught me. I said, shouldn't I be more active in the world and, you know, protesting and being more politically active? And he just kept walking. And then suddenly he stopped and he said, take a swing at me. And I said, what? What are you talking about? Did you hear what I just said? He said, come on, I'll give you five bucks if you can slap me on the cheek. So I figured it was some kind of test.
Dan Millman (51:57.802)
So I bobbed and weaved a bit and swung at him and I found myself on the ground in a rather painful wrist lock.
his having thrown me, him having thrown me to the ground. And as he helped me up he said, you notice a little leverage can be very effective? I said, yeah. He shaking my wrist out. And he said, well, if you want to help other people, of course, do what your heart tells you. But don't neglect the work on yourself. Because that can create the clarity.
to know how to exert the right leverage at the right place at the right time. So it's not either or, it's both and. We need to have our head in the clouds, but our feet on the ground. Peaceful heart, warrior spirit. And so that's how I would respond to your question about inner work versus activities in everyday life.
Life isn't lived in a sitting a lotus posture. We have to act and do things in the world. But knowing ourselves can be extremely helpful and it takes time. Every spiritual and religious tradition, educational tradition is about knowing yourself. Because if we don't know ourselves, we know our self-image, we end up making the right choice for the wrong person, the one we thought we were.
And many of us have had that experience in a relationship, in work choices, and so on. But the better we know ourselves, and that requires some introspection at least, in terms of what are my values? What are my talents? What are my interests? The more we know about ourselves, the wiser decisions we make for ourselves. While we're out there serving a higher good in our own way,
Dan Millman (54:02.368)
in the world.
Tim Doyle (54:04.5)
I like that way of looking at it that you said head in the clouds, but feet on the ground. And I think there's another facet of your life that also displays this internal and external give and take a little or this tug and pull something that you've talked about in the past is how one of your biggest challenges was struggling with money. And you describe this period of your life as
mastering poverty consciousness. What exactly does that mean to you and how did you work yourself out of
Dan Millman (54:42.926)
Well, look, many of us grow up with antipathy or mixed feelings about money. We may think, I'd like some more of it. Of course, sure, on the surface. But we grow up, for example, do you remember that movie? It's a wonderful life. It's a classic, you know, holiday Christmas film, whereas the good guy, George Bailey, you know, he's poor, but he's really good with people and service-oriented. And then there's the evil Mr. Potter.
who owns the bank. He's the banker, the wealthy banker. So like good people, salt of the earth, poor. Bad people, rich. And whether we get, you know, I don't want to get off on political tangents and oligarchs and all that stuff, but many people mistake their net worth with their self-worth. And it's just not the case.
But we do have mixed feelings about money. Joe Lewis, the famous boxer, once said, I don't really like money, but it calms my nerves. That's one way to put it. But often, because of populist audiences, many people didn't have much money. So they like to see the rich guy as the bad guy and the poor guy as the good guy. So many people are negatively programmed about money. And it has to do with self-worth as well.
Open they are to it, know Ramakrishna the Indian saint once said an ocean of bliss and abundance can rain down from the heavens But if you're only holding up a thimble, that's all you're gonna get So that that's one of the chapters in one of my other books dealing with Managing your money. The book is called everyday enlightenment the 12 gateways to personal growth And one of the chapters is on managing your money because it's a necessary skill
today. yes, but I, and there's more to that bigger picture story to give you, but I did have negative views toward money. And I realized it one day when I was again in that poverty consciousness stage, just struggling with money, that I looked across the street and I saw three attractive young women get into a Mercedes sports car. And
Dan Millman (57:06.542)
A cloud passed through my psyche. was like, look at those little rich girls. Well, I didn't know them. Maybe they were very nice people. Maybe they did community service. I don't know. But I always had a negative feeling because they appeared to have money. Well, you know, I wasn't going to attract any of it with that kind of attitude. See, I believe a peaceful warrior, that's all of us. I view everyone as a peaceful warrior in training in the school of everyday life.
Because we're all striving to live with a peaceful heart, but there are times we need a warrior spirit. So I view everyone as that. And in the school of daily life, we can make good money doing what we enjoy or find suitable while serving other people. All three are important. So I don't have any issues with money being great or money being horrible. It's neither my god nor my devil. It's just a measure
of effort, creativity, work and so on. And some people start out below the baseline. They have many disadvantages culturally and otherwise. So it's harder. But anyone who is enterprising and continues to strive toward it can make what they consider good money doing what they enjoy while serving other people. If it means getting more education, do it. I mean, whatever the steps are.
It's possible.
Tim Doyle (58:36.928)
Do you think that was a natural and organic unfolding of getting out of that mindset? Or do you think that there was specific work that you were doing to, I guess, attract money or just have a better relationship with?
Dan Millman (58:50.126)
It wasn't about attracting money or like a magnet, all these books on you know, no, I think it's effort over time. You know, we can't control the outcomes in our life, but we can control our efforts. And by making a concerted effort over time, we increase the odds of getting the results we'd like over not making the efforts. So it's, I had light bulb moments like the one I described to you, realizing I had negative feelings just because somebody had money, appeared to have. So...
Tim Doyle (58:54.346)
Yeah
Dan Millman (59:20.526)
I think that's what I would, how I would respond to that. It's just awareness over time. Again, what are my talents? What are my values? What are my interests? Another one of my books called The Four Purposes of Life gets into career and calling. The second purpose of life in that book is finding our career and calling. They're different, or they may combine at times, but I can't go into that right.
Tim Doyle (59:51.988)
You've mentioned a lot of your books and you've written 18 books in total correct. So like we were talking about with money, you had that shift out of poverty consciousness and you're a retired writer now, you don't write any more books. And I'm interested to know from that perspective on consciousness as well, because you're not in the consciousness of being this active writer anymore.
Dan Millman (59:57.164)
Yes.
Tim Doyle (01:00:19.872)
Do you feel like you live or think differently with the thought of now knowing, okay, I'm not working on a book or I'm not trying to create something.
Dan Millman (01:00:29.25)
Yeah, good question. Another one. You know, many people say, I'm a doctor, I'm a police officer, I am a lawyer, I'm a plumber, whatever. Instead of the I am, instead of identifying with one's work, one can say, I practice medicine, I practice law, I practice policing. And that way we don't, because otherwise everything comes to an end eventually. Either we volunteer it,
I retired from writing long-form books. Or something happens in an accident, retirement, we're forced to age-wise, whatever, it comes to an end and we go, who am I? I was a policeman. Now, who am I now? Instead, if we practice those kinds of things, we can practice something else. We can take up a new practice. It's not our identity is tied up with it. So, Isaac Asimov,
famous writer, he did at least 106 books he wrote. He once said if I had six minutes to live, I would type a little faster. I'm not really of that ilk. I don't need to write. I wanted to write. I expressed what I had to say. I still teach here and there online, as I mentioned earlier, and I get to speak with bright folks like you. And I appreciate the invitation to your program.
Tim Doyle (01:01:35.135)
Hahaha.
Dan Millman (01:01:56.832)
And I still teach weekend workshops and that sort of thing. Anybody can go to my website too.
to find out about the various books and offerings and so on.
Tim Doyle (01:02:09.642)
I have one last question for you. You've shared that your wife is a reminder to always look at your edge. What does that edge continue to look like for you in this point in your life?
Dan Millman (01:02:24.462)
Well, it's shoring up, know, a chain breaks at its weakest link. So it's shoring up weaknesses. It's doing things that I might not be naturally inclined to do. For example, love my grandchildren dearly. We have two daughters in town. We moved from California, a comfortable big house in California, to a one-bedroom apartment in New York City, in Brooklyn, New York, because we had two daughters here. And now we have three grandchildren in the neighborhood.
and we take care of them. And I mentioned they're delightful and can be exhausting at times. I'm learning. Maybe I'm a better granddad, a more attentive granddad with more free time and free attention than I was a dad when they were younger. I was into my work so much. So that's my edge right now. My edge is whatever challenges me. And I'm trying to transcend
some of those tendencies. We all have tendencies to be lazy or to overwork or whatever it is. And so there's always an edge in everybody's life.
And my wife is a constant reminder about she gives me straight feedback.
Where I can still improve you it took me 25 years to realize she wasn't criticizing me. She was improving
Tim Doyle (01:03:51.776)
I like that framing of it. Dan, it's been great talking with you. Work in, people go to see more of your work and connect with you.
Dan Millman (01:04:00.876)
yeah, well thanks for asking. If people are curious they can always go to PeacefulWarrior.com. They can also look me up on Wikipedia, Dan Millman, know, Wikipedia. But PeacefulWarrior.com is one stop. There's a lot of interesting things there, including a life purpose calculator people can go to. So it might be worth exploring.
Tim Doyle (01:04:25.746)
Awesome Dan, great talking with you today.
Dan Millman (01:04:28.302)
pleasure.
