How To Tickle Yourself: Recent Episodes
How To Tickle Yourself
How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about finding your true purpose, your true self, your happiness. It's where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
Hosted by Duff McDonald & Matt McPherson
About Duff:
Duff McDonald is a New York-based journalist and author. He has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, New York, Esquire, Fortune, Business Week, Conde Nast Portfolio, GQ, WIRED, Time, Newsweek, The New York Observer, and others.
He is the author of several books, including:
Frictionless, co-authored with Christiane Lemieux (Harper Business, June 2020) The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite (Harper Business, April 2017. The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business (Simon & Schuster, September 2013) Last Man Standing, a biography of Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase (Simon & Schuster, October 2009) The CEO, a satire, co-authored with Owen Burke (Simon Spotlight)
He lives in Hurley, New York with his wife, Joey; his daughter, Marguerite; ten chickens and three cats (The Sherriff Steven Wondrous, Princess Steven Buscemi, and Corey Feldman, Esquire).
About Matt McButter:
Matt McButter is the podcast nickname for Matt McPherson. In his work life, Matt has worked with many early stage tech companies over the years, making disease surveillance tools, game systems and most recently - virtual humans. He teaches the odd entrepreneurship class to grad students at the University of Toronto. Annoyingly curious, some of his obsessions include: maps, classic arcades, hockey, sci fi and any sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic. His latest preoccupation includes tickling himself with long-time pal, Duff McDonald and recording the music technology podcast ‘Beatseeker’ with his buddy Mike Weider. Matt lives in Toronto.
Eric Hirshberg is what you might call a renaissance man – an accomplished creative executive, he has worked in brand building, video game creation, design, marketing, storytelling, drawing, and music. He has earned awards for innovations in advertising during his years as leader of world-renowned ad agency Deutsch LA, and in his work overseeing development and marketing at video game giant Activision (the maker of Call of Duty and Guitar Hero).
These days, he is currently exploring his lifelong passion for music as a singer/songwriter/muti-instrumentalist — with live performances and two recorded albums of his work, 2021’s Spare Room and Second Hand Smoke, which is coming out in May.
Meet today’s guest, Mr. Wayne Magri Xuereb of Gozo, Malta. For those of you not in the know, Malta is an archipelago in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast. It’s got a total population of just over half a million people. It’s also got Your Kombucha, Wayne’s brewery. We love anyone who brews kombucha here at How to Tickle Yourself. But Wayne doesn’t just make kombucha. Better yet, he’s also a kombucha educator, and through his SCOBY School, gives workshops and classes, teaching people how to brew themselves, all the while showing how Kombucha can be a gateway to our true selves. In other words, he is most certainly our kind of guy.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/273420577572186
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Website: https://yourkombucha.com.mt/products/your-kombucha-workshop
Today is a first for this show. While we do have a guest – the great Betty McKeon, astrologer, mother, and mother-in-law par excellence, we are not here to “interview” Betty in the typical manner. Instead, we have invited her on the show to talk about one of our favorite things, The Bhagavad Gita, and what it means to all of us. We talk to Betty about the Gita all the time. We figured it was time we shared some of those conversations with you.
We’ve got another first for you this week. It’s not Taylor Swift, but he’s going to be able to tell us about Taylor Swift. Specifically, tickets to Taylor Swift. Josh Baron is not a Taylor Swift expert, but he is a ticketing industry expert, and maybe he can tell us what the hell just happened during Taylor mania this past year.
Josh is currently VP of business development for Project Admission, where he works with content owners to facilitate a more connected and integrated ticketing experience for fans and rights holders working across professional sports and live entertainment. Previously, he helped lead business development at Songkick, working closely with artists and management teams on direct-to-fan ticketing. He is also the co-author of Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped, widely regarded as the definitive source on the history of the live entertainment business in North America. For more than a decade, Baron served as editor of Relix Magazine, the jam band journalistic bible.
The founder of Shakti Yoga in Woodstock, Linda Winnick has been teaching yoga for more than 30 years. Equally important, she is a student and teacher of ayurvedic medicine as well. We decided last time she was on that we would have her on every quarter to talk to us about how the seasonal changes affect all of us, and what we can do about it – how to stay in balance when the balance is shifting. We were late then, but we are right on time now. Scratch that, the self is always on time.
Emma Levant is a professional ballet dancer and singer from Orange County, CA. She trained at the Long Beach Ballet Academy from the age of 6 until she graduated into the corps de ballet of California Ballet in San Diego at the age of 20. She’s had soloist and principal roles in various full-length ballet productions, including DewDrop and Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Kitri in Don Quixote, Cygnets in Swan Lake. and the Autumn Fairy in Cinderella.But that’s not enough for Emma. She’s also been drawn towards the world of musical expression. She learned to sing by copying her favorite artists on the radio and participating in school choirs. She has delved into songwriting, and has begun creating original music. She has released one EP, a single, and multiple collaborations, and is currently working on her next EP slated for release in next year. Check her out on Spotify. She’s got a couple of gems on there, including one song called Gems. She’s also a big fan of the book TICKLED, which makes us a big fan of hers. What goes around comes around. All kidding aside, we love this woman for her refusal to let life tell her how it’s going to go. She’s doing it on her terms. Listen up, as she’s an inspiration.https://www.instagram.com/emmaxlevant/
Chris Gaelan is an old friend of Rockledge. Among other things, he is the man who pointed us to the defunct kombucha store out on Route 28 that’s now gone, the patronage of which led us to start making kombucha. So you might say we owe him everything. When he’s not helping change the direction of our lives, Chris is a singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. Last month he released his first music as a solo artist, a single entitled “Just Another Love Song.’ But it’s not just another love song — rather, it is a grooving indie rock song reminiscent of early Blur, featuring a distorted driving post-punk bass sample over live drums and a Lou Reed-esque half-spoken vocal. The song draws influences from 90’s sample-delic artists such as Lemon Jelly with twangy dobro, guitar, and piano samples combined with Stonesy guitars and claps—mixing house music vibes with a nostalgic rock feel. Got it? In other words, it’s a great song. And Chris is a great guy. We are thrilled to share his insights on music and life with the rest of you. We hope it tickles.
chrisgaelan #musician #singersongwriter #justanotherlovesong #growth #tickled #howtotickleyourself #spirituality
Today marks yet another first for this show. It’s the first time we have ever had the sibling of a previous guest on the air. We set new records all the time at How to Tickle Yourself, and we’re doing it again right now.
Susanne Langlois is a Canadian artist, based in Kingston, Ontario. She is sister to Paul Langlois, the musician, who we’ve recently had on this show. Sue has been painting for over 20 years and currently works in three distinct styles: abstract, still life botanicals, and contemporary landscape, featuring wind turbines. We have two of that last type in this house.
Anyone listening right now, I encourage you to go check out her website before you continue. So you can, like, know what we’re talking about.
https://www.susannelanglois.com/
Dr. Jeffery D. Long is the Carl W. Zeigler Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown College, in central Pennsylvania. He has taught there since receiving his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School in the year 2000. He is the author of several books, including Jainism: An Introduction and Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds and Discovering Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist Thought, which will be released in February of next year. He has also published a wide array of articles and has spoken at a variety of venues, both national and international, including three talks at the United Nations. He received initiation into the Vedanta tradition of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda in 2005 and is a regular speaker at Vedanta Societies and Hindu temples across the US.
But here’s where it gets really interesting. Dr. Long, like many of us, is a lifelong fan of the Beatles and George Harrison in particular. His book on Jainism includes a section on George Harrison and he has given talks on the influence of Vedanta in Harrison’s music. Fans of Harrison will know about the very obvious influences in Harrison’s legendary solo album All Things Must Pass. But there are hints of Harrison’s Hindu influences in many Beatles songs as well.
We are so excited to speak to him about so many things – Hinduism, George Harrison, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and the Bhagavad Gita, for starters.
We are super-excited for today’s guest. She’s been on the show multiple times and is one of our absolute all time favorite yoga teachers, Linda Lalita Winnick. She’s the founder of Woodstock’s Shakti Yoga, has been teaching yoga for over 30 years, and has a Masters Degree in Ayurvedic Medicine and Yoga Philosophy. We don’t just love her for her yoga flows but also for her sense of humor AND all the nuggets of wisdom she drops during her classes. Today, we talk to Linda about the changing season and how we can use the insights of Ayurveda to stay in balance as the energy of summer dissipates.
Today’s guest, Margo Steines, is the author of the recently-released and captivatingly titled memoir Brutalities: A Love Story. A professor, creative coach, and editor on the faculty of the University of Arizona Writing Program, Margo teaches small-group creative nonfiction writing classes and seminars. As she describes them, they are the classes she wishes she had found when she was a fledgling writer: warm, generative, and trauma-informed, with value placed on process before product. So she’s helping people find their voice. We are very much in favor of that on this show.Trauma, as it turns out, is a central theme in Brutalities, her memoir of a couple of decades spent in parts of the world and of life that most of us have only heard about: a former professional dominatrix, Steines takes her readers on a journey through S&M parlors, mental institutions, hospital detox wards, antidepressants, and a couple of suicide attempts thrown in for good measure. It might seem a little counterintuitive to be discussing the memoir of a former dominatrix on this show, especially one that explores, in graphic detail, what it’s like to both give and receive (with consent) the most extreme kinds of physical pain imaginable. But Margo Steines finally found the tickle on the other side of all that suffering. She’s here to tell us all about it.
Duff McDonald and Joey Moss discuss the special things in life that bring them one step closer to the tickle of existence.
Today, we bring you back to one of the most important topics in the history of mankind: Bob Dylan. Specifically, the massive and astounding and beautiful new book that is being released this month: Bob Dylan: Mixing up the Medicine. This gem of a publication comes to us courtesy of Callaway Arts & Entertainment and the Bob Dylan Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is a beast, more than 600 pages with over 1,100 photographs by 90 photographers and filmmakers, as well as 30 original essays by writers and artists focusing on unseen treasures from the Bob Dylan Archive. And I can say, uncategorically, that this is the most ambitious, comprehensive, and beautifully constructed book ever published about the man. And today’s guests, these two fine gentlemen, are who we have to thank for it: Mark Davidson, and Parker Fishel.
Andrew Faust is the founder and director of Center for BioRegional Living and a permaculture designer, teacher, and activist. Andrew is known for his dynamic teaching style and his ability to inspire people to take action and make positive changes in their communities. He’s also an advocate for social and environmental justice. He believes that permaculture can play a crucial role in addressing issues such as climate change, food insecurity, and social inequality by promoting sustainable and regenerative practices. It all might sound very serious but believe me, it’s very ticklish stuff as you’ll hear.
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Mandara Cromwell is the author of the book Soundflower: The Journey to Marry Science and Spirit. A veteran entrepreneur, Mandara has been on a lifelong mission to prove via science what she has always known to be true in her heart. And that is that sound, the essence of the universe, has the power to heal. To that end, she has spent several decades refining what she calls cymatherapy – healing using sound frequency with an understanding of the energetic meridians of the human body. She believes that love is a vibration and can heal all maladies. We do not disagree.
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Today’s episode is going to be a family affair. Back by popular acclaim, one of our first guests way back in Season 2 of this podcast, is Betty McKeon, who holds the triple crown of top mother (to Joey), top mother-in-law (to me), and astrologer non-pareil. Many of our listeners have had a reading from Betty. Those who haven’t should book with haste. She’s at BettyMcKeon.Net.
So what are we going to talk about today? We’re going to start with a high-level discussion about some astrological changes that affect all of us. Then we’re going to do a reading. But not a reading for me. Nor a reading for Joey. We are going to get a reading for one of the patron saints of How to Tickle Yourself – Bob Dylan. Betty’s got his chart, and she’s going to tell us what makes him tick and what he’s got in store.
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Shawn Wickens is a New York City-based futurist, casual stoner, and comedian. He co-produces Stoned Laughs, a monthly 420-friendly comedy show in Midtown Manhattan.
His most audacious work yet, “Time Machine Blueprints, 1st Edition,” is available on Amazon. It is a work of pure genius.
All of his good friends, the ones who have his private phone number, can tell you that he doesn’t like being harassed.
But we’re not here to harass him. We are here to have him tell us how to bend the space-time continuum. And some other stuff.
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It’s not every day that you get to interview the guitarist for one of your favorite bands of all time. But the goal of this podcast is to tickle ourselves, so a few months ago, we decided to see if we could make it happen. We succeeded. Paul Langlois is a founding member of Canada’s seminal rock band, The Tragically Hip. He’s also the leader of the newly-constituted Paul Langlois Band, who just released their debut album (and his third solo album), Guess What, this past summer. Humble, thoughtful, genuine, and downright funny, Langlois shares stories about how he got his start in music, his decades playing with The Hip, as well as the challenges of moving from the side to the front of the stage. He also reveals a thing or two about songwriting in the clutch. It’s all very ticklish stuff. Listen up!
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Today we speak to Dan Tomasulo, the academic director of The Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University’s Teachers College. But that’s only one of his many talents. Dan is the author of the bestselling books Learned Hopefulness: The Power of Positivity to Overcome Depression and The Positivity Effect, among others. He’s got a PhD in psychology, an MFA in writing, and a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. When he’s not running schools or writing books, he edits scholarly journals about psychology. He’s also pretty damn funny, but you can judge the quality of his jokes yourself.
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Rich Cohen, Duffs favorite writer, is back with a new book called When the Game Was War: The NBA’s Greatest Season. He’s talking about 1987. He tells the story of that season through the prism of four of the greatest players in NBA history: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, and Michael Jordan. And he does it with his usual craft, insight, and wonderful writing.
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We’ve got a special one for you today, folks. About a year ago, Duff started hounding his old friend, filmmaker and documentarian Andy Keen to sit for an interview for How to Tickle Yourself. Andy is currently at work on a timely documentary series of monumental importance. It’s called Back to the Fire: In Search of Lost Values That Could Change Our World, and he’s making it with our other guest today, Chief Gibby Jacob, the leader of Canada’s Squamish Nation for over 30 years. We want to let these two describe what they’re working on themselves, but suffice it to say that their mission is something we share here at How to Tickle Yourself: They are trying to help us get back to first principles, to those few things that matter more than all the other things.
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In 2020, Duff told Joey that he wanted to start a newsletter called The Kombucha Times. Alas, someone already had that idea. His name is Ian Griffin, and he is the founder and publisher of Booch News, the premier source for independent news and statistics about the kombucha industry.
A former marketer and speechwriter who was blogging and podcasting when both were still new things, Griffin wrote a blog about professional speaking for more than a decade. After he retired, he was on a trip with his wife to his native UK and couldn’t find enough kombucha. Seeing an opportunity to mix his two loves – blogging and kombucha – he landed on the ideas of a couple of reports about the industry, and Booch News was born.
So this interview is going to be a bit of a mash-up. We’re going to talk to Ian about all things kombucha as well as speechwriting. He thinks AI has changed the speechwriting game forever.
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We cannot believe our senses over here at How to Tickle Yourself, because we got to interview a singer/songwriter who literally lights our souls on fire.
His name is Andrew Combs. Andrew released an EP in 2010, and his first album, Worried Man in 2012. It was an auspicious start. Since then, he has graced us with four more: All These Dreams in 2015, Canyons of My Mind in 2017, Ideal Man in 2019, and Sundays in 2022.
Texas born and Nashville-based, Andrew writes about love as beautifully as any songwriter we have ever heard. But also about the nature of existence. He’s got “searching” lyrics - it sounds as if he’s trying to find something, the secret of it all. He also sings like an angel, with a timeless voice.
In any event, he’s been on quite the artistic journey, from straightforward country/folk to orchestral accompaniment to indie singer-songwriter, to rock n roll impressionist to outright songwriting experimentalism with his latest, Sundays, during which he entered the studio with a producer and musician friend every Sunday to record a song he’d written that week, entirely in mono.
He’s also quite the painter. Check out his site, AndrewCombsMusic.com, for a sample.
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We are so excited to introduce you to today’s guest, woodworker Uli Kirchler. We first came across Uli’s work on the website ThisIsColossal in late 2019. A Portland, Oregon-based artist of Italian heritage, Kirchler is the inventor of one of our favorite things, ever.
Using unique pieces of wood with varying textural surfaces and colors, he carves multi-story towers – hidden castles, landscape castles, pop-up cities – that telescope in and out of the wood with a flick of the wrist. Uli, quite literally, sees castles inside pieces of wood and then spends countless hours bringing them out of that wood. He is an artist of a most ticklish sort.
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This week’s guest is a repeat offender: Chris Wink, the co-founder of Blue Man Group, one of the most legendary performance art creations of our time. But one huge triumph wasn’t enough for Chris. More recently, he created Wink World: Portals into the Infinite, which he describes as a psychedelic art house meets carnival fun house. Located in Area 15 in Las Vegas, Wink World consists of six infinity mirror rooms, each containing a distinct combination of light, color, sound and motion. It’s quite the trip, literally. And so is Chris, who is one of the most inspiring and energetic people walking on this earth.
He’s currently working on a second Wink World at Mall of America, with the help of his longtime partner in crime, Alex Aliume. We will talk to him about that, but also some other things: How to stay inspired, how to reconnect to the source, to cultivate a sense of wonder and joy, to appreciate the mystery, etc. You know, all the important stuff.
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Our guest this week is a man of multiple dimensions. First off, Ron Brent is a friend of Duff and Joey. He lives just down the road in Woodstock. But let’s back up about fifty years. In the 1970s, Ron was living in California, surfing, doing yoga, and meditating. The next thing he knew, he was in Ganeshpuri India, where, for 12 years, 1982-1994, he managed one of the country’s largest yoga and meditation training facilities. During that time, he helped establish the PRASAD project, a rural development program bringing literacy, safe drinking water, economic development, and eye camps for cataract surgery to villagers living in the vicinity of Ganeshpuri. After returning to the US, he spent nine years on the global board of directors of PRASAD. He’s currently on the Board of Directors for PRASAD’s Children’s Dental Health Program. But that’s not all. Ron was co-founder of Asia Arts and Culture, a former company dedicated to bridging the cultural divide between China and the West. Wapner and Brent Books, the publishing arm of Asia Arts & Culture, recently published Laozi’s Dao De Jing, translated by Yang Peng, a visiting scholar at Harvard. Ron served as Yang Peng’s editor. He has produced documentary films shot in India, Nepal, Tibet, Turkey, and Egypt. Among his current projects: the development of the Shaolin Zen Center of New York, a retreat site for the teaching of Shaolin Culture (meditation and Kung Fu) as well as the production of a documentary film on the development and spread of Chan Buddhism.
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This week’s guest, Dr. Sona Bhatnager, has quite the story for you. On the surface, it does not seem ticklish in the slightest. Twelve years ago, her husband was killed in a motorcycle accident. Ten months later, her son died of bone cancer. Not surprisingly, she fell into a pit of despair. Time, willpower, self-reflection, and a conscious acceptance of what had happened to her brought her back from the edge. She wrote about it in a book called Grief Healed: A Physician’s Guide to Dealing with Grief and Thriving. She’s got a blog and website called GriefHealed.com. We all know people who have lost loved ones. So we invited Sona onto the program to talk about what happens when the tickle seems all but gone, and how to get it back.
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We have a repeat guest for you this week, one of our favorite people in the whole wide world. Her name is Linda Lalita Winnick, and she is the founder of Woodstock’s Shakti Yoga. Go to enough yoga studios, and you will find that the quality of teaching can be all over the place. Not so at Shakti. Linda’s understanding of both hatha yoga - the various yoga poses, and flows – as well as the deeper philosophical aspects of yoga runs so deep that her teaching is not rote; it is spontaneous, in the best sense of the word. She does not teach from memory; she teaches from the heart. We all hear a lot of talk about presence and how to find it. It is always in ample supply during one of her classes at Shakti.
Of course, much of yoga, as taught in the U.S., is more like an exercise class than an exploration of anything deeper. That is not the case at Shakti. A certified yoga teacher, with an M.A. in Ayurvedic Medicine and Yoga Philosophy, Linda’s teaching of yoga integrates her over three decades of experience as a yoga practitioner and teacher with the principles of exercise physiology and the energetics of Ayurveda, the Science of Life and Longevity. True to the spirit of yoga, Linda continues to study with a number of teachers, including Dr Robert Svoboda (for Ayurveda and Tantra), Dr Parla Jayagopal (for Ayurveda), and Shubraji (Vedanta), and others. Not that long ago, she invited me and Marguerite to an afternoon talk by Shubraji on the lessons of the Bhagavad Gita. So Shakti isn’t just a place to fine-tune your body. It’s also a place to fine-tune your soul.
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My, oh, my, we are excited about today’s guest, a remarkable musician and guitarist who is about to bless the world with an unbelievably joyful album next week. It’s coming out July 14, and it’s called Wild & Precious Life. The man of the moment is Duane Betts, and the album is packed with soulful melodies, intricate guitar work, and a raw, heartfelt energy that will take you to the place that great music is supposed to take you. Dare we say, it will tickle you.
Son of the legendary Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts, Duane is his own force to be reckoned with in the guitar-based rock and blues scene. After cutting his teeth with the bands Backbone69 and Whitestarr, he spent a decade playing guitar alongside his father as a member of Dickey Betts and Great Southern. He then traveled the world as a touring member of Dawes. But in the last five years, he’s been on a tear: He released an EP in 2018 and co-founded The Allman Betts Band, releasing two records in 2019 and 2020. And then, it was finally time for a solo album. Which brings us to Wild & Precious Life, which is being released by our friends at Royal Potato Family.
A native of Sarasota, Duane says he wanted to capture “that old school Florida vibe” with this record. Well, he did that and more. Along with a powerhouse of a band - Johnny Stachela on guitar, Berry Duane Oakley on bass, John Ginty on keyboards – all three members of The Allman Betts Band, along with Tyler Greenwell on drums and special guests Marcus King, Nicki Bluhm, and Derek Trucks, Betts has gifted us with 10 scintillating tracks cut live at Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks Swamp Raga Studio in Jacksonville, Florida in 2022.
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This week, on How to Tickle Yourself, we speak with Virginia Schenck, a vocal artist and jazz performer who goes by the stage name VA. She’s a social activist. She conducts soul-inspiring Singing Journey Retreats, where she takes singers to places like the middle of Time Square to improvise amidst chaos or the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico to “sing our bones alive.” She is also a board-certified music therapist. She believes in the power of music, as do we.
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Longtime listeners will know we love musicians on this podcast. We particularly love musicians whose music we love listening to. That’s why it’s such a thrill to welcome guitarist Scott Metzger to the show this week. Because he’s in four of our favorite bands. In addition to being a founding member of the Grateful Dead revivalist outfit Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Scott is part of the “Telecaster rock trio” WOLF! (along with Jon Shaw and Talor Floreth), and the trio LaMP (with Trey Anastasio band members Russ Lawton and Ray Paczkowski). He also recently released Too Close to Reason, the first solo album of his 20+-year career. The label? Our friends at Royal Potato Family, who also released the latest from WOLF!, an EP called Adult Entertainment. Check out any or all of these incarnations of Scott Metzger on Spotify. They will not disappoint.
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Jeremy Toback is one half of the hush indie-folk group Renee & Jeremy. These two have made a speciality — actually, an art form — of turning popular songs into delightful little lullabies. The latest is Madonna’s Lucky Star. But they also write great originals. One of them, Here and Now, sounds a lot like our theme song here at How to Tickle Yourself. One of us must have stolen the idea from the other. Or, more likely, we are singing from the same songbook about things like presence – the vital importance of focusing on what’s happening to you in this very moment. Renee & Jeremy have been releasing singles from their latest album, shout! (a cover of the Tears for Fears hit) in recent weeks. The entire thing is due out this summer. It’s a winner. Check it out Renee & Jeremy on Spotify. But first, have a listen as we talk to Jeremy about songwriting, the music business, spirituality, and how forgiveness might just be the answer to everything.
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Join us on this enlightening episode as we welcome the inspiring Sunny Singh, an articulate evangelist of the importance of nurturing the “whole” you. After a remarkable — and remarkably lucrative — career in healthcare technology, Sunny realized that it was time to pay attention to the parts of his life he’d been neglecting, and rededicated himself to his practices of yoga, meditation, nourishing nutrition, and establishing strong connections to nature and the human community. But Sunny’s mission extends well beyond his own personal journey. Indeed, the once hard-driving executive has shifted his focus to giving back to the world with an intention and scale that boggle the mind. For starters, he’s founded a company called Roundglass that supports people in their journey toward what he calls Wholistic Wellbeing. Roundglass is quite the effort, with resources centered around meditation and mindfulness, food & cooking, grieving and death, learning and wisdom, and music. In other words, everything that matters. He’s also spearheading an effort to plant a billion trees in the Indian state of Punjab. And that’s only the start of it. Sunny Singh’s actions serve as proof of the value of his own ideas. Listen in and discover the transformative potential of an integrative and wholistic approach to wellbeing.
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
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We have a repeat guest for you this week. Her name is Tara Bach, and she is one of Rockledge’s favorite artists. Tara lives just down the road a bit, in Saugerties, and in the basement studio of the beautiful house she and her husband are building, she churns out one piece of delightful art after another. Her attitude is light. Her art exudes light. Her Instagram account is like a sunbeam of inspiration.
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This week’s guest, Mark Hsu, wrote a book called Please Open in the Event of My Death: A Father’s Advice to His Daughters In Case Something Horrible Happens (Which Hopefully It Won’t, But Just in Case…) It’s a delightful book, full of the kind of advice we all wish we’d gotten when we really needed it. Mark is a rarity - he’s a funny lawyer — and we have a humorous time trying to get to the bottom of what it’s like to try and be a good parent in these unprecedented times.
Support the show by subscribing to How To Tickle Yourself wherever you consume your podcasts! Thank you all so much for your support! Till next week, Duff, Matt and Joey
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
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Today we’re talking to Margie Bissinger, a physical therapist, integrative health coach and “happiness trainer.” We like authors on this show, and Margie is the author of Osteoporosis: An Exercise Guide. She is also the host of the podcast Happy Bones, Happy Life. Who doesn’t want either of those?
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This week’s guest on How to Tickle Yourself is an old friend of Duff & Joey’s. Her name is Rachel Ghiazza, and she is the EVP of US Content at Audible, the audiobook arm of Amazon. Rachel, who studied computer science and business as an undergraduate, has what might just be the perfect combination of talent and assets for today’s fast-moving business landscape: She understands the programmers, she understands finance, she understands content, and, most of all, she understands people and what makes us tick. In fact, she’s playing a part in what’s making you tick. Whether you know it or not, she is helping shape the way you consume media every day. She knows what tickles you, and is holding a very big feather called Audible in her hand.
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Learn how to create a meaningful and self-sufficient life in nature as Arielle Crawford, a sustainable fashion designer turned back-to-the-land evangelist, joins us on today's episode. Arielle is the driving force behind a fascinating project called The Realness Preserve, an off-grid regenerative ranch and retreat, and watching her on Instagram is like watching someone stranded on a desert island figure out how to do everything we take for granted in modern life. A shining beacon of passion, drive, forthrightness, and creativity, Arielle will inspire you to be a better citizen of planet earth.
Support the show by subscribing to How To Tickle Yourself wherever you consume your podcasts! Thank you all so much for your support! Till next week, Duff and Matt
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Each of us adds to the great play of the universe in our own unique way and with our own unique gift. Today’s guest is making lives better, one pantry at a time. Her name is Mira Dessy, and she is known as the Ingredient Guru. As a nutrition educator, Mira helps us understand how to make informed choices about what we eat by focusing on whole food nutrition. Join us as we explore topics like food labeling, common food additives, eliminating bad ingredients from your diet and how to build a healthy and sustainable pantry. With Mira's guidance, we are able to gain clarity and confidence in our food choices, leading to a happier and healthier life.
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Listeners: The whole universe is music. And every now and then, individual human beings get in sync with that music and become a conduit for the rest of us to enjoy, a channel through which to hear the sounds of universal love. Paul Reddick, the Poet Laureate of the Blues, is one of those people. He brings us the sound of everything. We ask about Paul the process of creation, songwriting, and the last book he borrowed from the library.
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This week on How to Tickle Yourself we speak with Andrew Steiner, an internationally touring comedian, actor and producer, about living in a Zen Monastery in Japan, Capitalism, UFO’s, Burlesque, Comedy and meditation. Andrew takes the myriad of his life experiences and celebrates them in his comedy show, How to Meditate, a stand-up comedy show about his unorthodox spiritual journey that explores the nature of happiness, self-identity, and true love through a series of unconventional and hilarious stories, and guided meditation.
See Andrew Steiner Live!:
April 14th - 6th Dimension Comedy
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/6th-dimension-comedy-tickets-600895453477
April 15th - How to Meditate: Comedy Show @ The Bunker (Toronto)
https://sidedooraccess.com/shows/hX4sQoIQdwuoqpikyoCv
April 17 - Montreal Improv
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-to-meditate-a-burlesque-show-tickets-603831705887
July 22 - Old Confidence Lodge, Riverport, Nova Scotia
https://sidedooraccess.com/shows/dErxVquCMtyXF9vWsRdN
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Described by Rolling Stone as "the point man" for drug policy reform efforts and “the real drug czar,” this week's guest, Ethan Nadelmann, is widely regarded as the outstanding proponent of drug policy reform both in the United States and abroad. He founded The Lindesmith Center (1994-2000) and then the Drug Policy Alliance (2000-2017). We talk to Ethan about the unlikely leadership of the United States in reforming marijuana laws, the role of the drug war in mass incarceration, and President Biden’s slow transformation from being old time drug warrior to a drug policy reformer.
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This week on How to Tickle Yourself we speak to a doctor that helps people see themselves as whole, not broken. Dr. Nemeh, along with his wife Kathy, helps us use the power of faith to heal ourselves. Dr. Nemeh has been practicing medicine for over thirty years in a private practice in Cleveland. He is well aware of the tools and techniques of modern medicine. But he works with more than that. He has the entire universe at his disposal, and he is using it.
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Today we are talking to model/actress turned philanthropist and filmmaker Katie Cleary, who has taken love of animals to a whole new level. A former contestant on America’s Next Top Model, Katie has since moved on to more meaningful endeavors. She founded the charity Peace 4 Animals in 2012. She later created World Animal News in 2013 to report on breaking news focused on animals from around the world. She has lobbied to change legislation around cosmetics and their testing on animals. In 2022, she produced and directed Why On Earth, a stunning documentary about the vital connection between humans, animals, and the planet.
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
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Today’s host is the perfect guest for this podcast. She’s someone who was doing something, happily enough, or so it seemed, until something happened that changed everything, and she found her purpose in life. That’s the big tickle, the one everyone should be trying to find.
Allow me to explain: Our guest, Jane Hogan, spent the first 30 years of her career as a design engineer. But a case of rheumatoid arthritis became crippling to the point of debilitation. Doctors couldn’t help her, pain medication couldn’t help her. She was a wreck. But using her engineer’s mind, she set out to find out how to cure herself, and the discovery of a natural solution to her ailments changed everything. She ditched the engineering and began her next phase as a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, a Yoga Teacher, and a wellness educator.
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How can you turn one man’s trash into another one’s treasure? We get the answer to that question from this week's guest, Sophie Rochester, who finds herself doing just that, smack dab in the middle of the “circular economy.” Sophie brings a sharp eye and British wit to a discussion about how the creative industries can help us make the world a better place—provided that we help them help us to do so. It’s all very inspiring, as is Sophie’s company, Yodomo. Have a listen to hear all about it.
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With cameras and photos everywhere ready at hand, what gives iconic photography the staying power to influence new generations? This week on How to Tickle Yourself we explore this question with Elliott Landy, one of the first music photographers to be recognized as an artist. His celebrated works include portraits of Bob Dylan (the cover of Nashville Skyline), The Band (Music from Big Pink and the Band), Janis Joplin, Van Morrison (he took the photos on the cover of Moondance), Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and many others.
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🎧 👉Listen to the How to Tickle Yourself Podcast here:👇
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jen Stone is one of those people who treats everything--and everyone--as if they were her own family. (Everything really is Brahman, people!) Jen is the co-founder of Stone Kelly Events, which she runs with her brother-in-law Marco Olmi. Stop what you are doing right now and go to StoneKelly.com or check them out on Instagram. For 25-plus years, they and their team of designers, artists, and craftspeople have created thousands of elaborate city, country, and destination weddings, elegant dinner parties, award shows, and fundraising galas. There is no event too big or small. Their creations will blow your mind. And then Jen will too, because of the humanity of it all.
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This week we speak with Dave Skaff, co-founder of skincare brand Geologie and co-parent of Duff McDonald's daughter. Dave shows us how to let enthusiasm lead you to where you need to be. He is adding his piece to the greater puzzle, with thoughtfulness and determination.
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From juggling tennis rackets to spinning cheeseburgers, Michael Rayner, aka the Broken Juggler, has captured the hearts of audiences with his "preposterous brilliance" and "wacky jugglement." Get ready to be amused and inspired as we chat with this master of self-tickling humor.
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Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams are a husband-and-wife musical power duo that have been performing together for nearly 20 years. When talent of this caliber plays live, there can be magic — and with these two, there usually is. Duff and Matt sit down with Teresa and Larry to talk about the other dimension that musicians go to when they’re in flow.
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
After seeing some of the most successful people in the music business struggle and not feel happy or realized as their best selves, Kathryn Frazier decided to go back to school and learn the art & science of coaching, to help those same artists (and others) learn how to stay on an even keel — to hang onto the tickle of their existence — when things get crazy. We sat down with Kathryn to ask what it means to feed and care for the artist’s soul.
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🎧 👉Listen to the How to Tickle Yourself Podcast here:👇
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Matt: https://www.instagram.com/picpherser/
→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week on How to Tickle Yourself we speak with scientist Dr. Lisa Miller. Dr. Miller tells us that humans are universally equipped with a capacity for spirituality, and that our brains become more resilient and robust when we turn toward the transcendent. An advocate of the marriage of “radical materialism” and the spiritual point of view, she is pointing us toward the truth.
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🎧 👉Listen to the How to Tickle Yourself Podcast here:👇
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Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6MtbjNk...
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Matt: https://www.instagram.com/picpherser/
→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ellen Scanlon is a marijuana advocate’s dream - someone who had almost no interest in smoking or consuming cannabis while it was illegal who found her way to the plant for medical reasons who is now a full-throated campaigner for responsible cannabis use. We talk to Ellen, host of How to Do the Pot, a podcast about women and their experiences with cannabis, about weed and health issues, weed and paranoia and weed and sex. We also talk about the munchies, great stoner movies, and where marijuana laws are probably headed in the United States.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Our relationship to our own body is, in a lot of ways, mediated by a pervasive sense of shame that our culture perpetuates. What insights about the body does this shame prevent us from seeing? Today’s guest, Kim Vopni, has built an unconventional career and she’s done it by fearlessly breaking these taboos and creating a dialog about things like incontinence. More about Kim Vopni Now when I think of the word coach, hockey comes to mind. Other people might think of coaches they’ve had for various sports, or perhaps a life coach or an executive coach. But have you ever met a vagina coach? Well today’s guest is Kim Vopni and she is a vagina coach. Now while a vagina coach is not something Duff or I are likely to ever need, we have both wives, mothers, sisters and daughters - along with many of our women listeners who can benefit from breaking the taboo of talking about their… vaginas. I was going to say hoo haas or some other euphemism for lady parts, because that’s what we tend to do because it’s uncomfortable to talk about… but I’ll just say vagina here because I feel like part of breaking the taboo is speaking frankly about it. As a vagina coach, she has programs for women in pregnancy, motherhood and menopause, she does one-on-one coaching for pelvic fitness and can help you find your Kegel mojo, whether or not you’ve had any kids. She’s a sought-after speaker, giving talks at health and fitness events internationally and you’ll find her in magazines, newspapers and TV segments talking about pelvic health. She is also the creator of Kegels and Cocktails, which sounds like a party… and maybe there’s a mocktail available… for the non-drinker? Well, let’s find out…
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself←
Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week we learn about tattoos and the stories behind them. Ad man Drew Plotkin is covered in ink, and each tattoo tells a story about an important moment in his life. More about Drew: Drew Plotkin has spent the majority of his adult life helping to build brands that sell beauty and personal care products to the masses: weight-loss systems, workout devices, skin and hair care products, hair loss prevention, and cosmetics. The founder of his own ad agency, he has directed commercials starring the likes of JLO, Cindy Crawford, Paris Hilton, Serena Williams, and a who’s who of Olympians and fitness gurus. He’s made infomercials, and he’s proud of them. During COVID, he launched a podcast – just like us – called As Not Seen on TV. And he’s just written an autobiography. That gets us to one of the most interesting things about the guy: He’s covered in tattoos. $125,000 worth, give or take. His book is the story of his life, as told through tattoos. It’s called Under My Skin. Get it? Follow Drew on Instagram 👉Click here to Subscribe! 👉 http://bit.ly/storicYT
Check out Storic Media for more: http://storicmedia.com/shows/
🎧 👉Listen to the How to Tickle Yourself Podcast here:👇
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The holiday season is upon us and this week’s guest, Clare Gustavsson, says that the best gift we can give is ‘one hour of nonjudgmental listening’. We learn more about how this expression of curiosity not only allows others to express themselves without holding back but allows us to look at ourselves in a more honest way. But you could also just buy yourself some of Clare’s mouth-watering baking creations (https://www.instagram.com/clarelicious_delicious/?hl=en)
More About Clare Gustavsson:
Clare has toured and performed as an opera singer and actress worldwide, including roles on roller skates, and in multiple pieces with the Mark Morris Dance Group. She’s been an artist manager, a teacher of voice, dance, and fitness, and is the founder and chief baker of a custom baked goods company. She’s worked in a range of fascinating industries, with a unifying passion to help, entertain, and guide people to live their best life and perform at their maximum potential. Ultimately these varied interests and experiences led her to group and individual coaching and psychotherapy. She’s a certified professional coach, a certified Gestalt therapist, and a licensed psychoanalyst in the State of New York. She has worked with everyone from homeless youths in New York City to women leaders in Saudi Arabia.
Follow Clare on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/clarelicious_delicious/?hl=en
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Check out Storic Media for more: http://storicmedia.com/shows/
🎧 👉Listen to the How to Tickle Yourself Podcast here:👇
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6MtbjNk...
Google Pod: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
🎨Follow How To Tickle Yourself 🖌
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Matt: https://www.instagram.com/picpherser/
→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How does the act of creating music help inform us how to live in harmony with our body and soul? Duff and Matt interview Marco Benevento to learn about the process of creating a record. Duff speaks about Aurobindo’s thoughts on the discipline of music as education for the soul.
More about Marco Benevento Benevento is a hallucinatory keyboard wizard, songwriter, and all-around musical artist. An accomplished solo artist as well as a member of the Grateful Dead tribute band Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Benevento released his latest album this spring.
Check out Marco Benevento’s music: https://marcobenevento.com
👉Click here to Subscribe! 👉 http://bit.ly/storicYT
Check out Storic Media for more: http://storicmedia.com/shows/
🎧 👉Listen to the How to Tickle Yourself Podcast here:👇
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6MtbjNk...
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Matt: https://www.instagram.com/picpherser/
→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week we learn about how the pursuit of musical knowledge transformed into a spiritual journey.
Jonathan Kay an internationally recognized cross-cultural jazz multi-instrumentalist. In search of non-western ways of musical knowing, he moved to Kolkata, India for 10 years and formally studied North Indian Raga music, innovating its expression on the saxophone as well as the rare 21-stringed instrument, the bora israj. Kay’s time in India, however, did not just transform his thinking about music but also his thinking on being.
At the moment, Jonathan is a PhD student in the department of East-West Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco under the mentorship of none other than Dr. Debashish Banerji, who we’ve already interviewed on this podcast. He’s been studying East-West psychology and philosophy, specializing in Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga as well as the non-classical western philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
👉Click here to Subscribe! 👉 http://bit.ly/storicYT
Check out Storic Media for more: http://storicmedia.com/shows/
🎧 👉Listen to the How to Tickle Yourself Podcast here:👇
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6MtbjNk...
Google Pod: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
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🙋♂️Follow Matt and Duff! 😅
Matt: https://www.instagram.com/picpherser/
→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jeff Permar went from trying to evict Chunk the Groundhog from his garden to raising funds for his family’s dental work on social media. Yes, you read that right! It all started a few years ago, when everything in Permar’s organic garden was getting eaten. He suspected that the culprit was living under his shed, so he installed a motion-detection camera to find out. It turned out it was a groundhog. Who seemed to know that Permar was watching. Because he would grab whatever he was going to eat and then eat it, staring right into the camera. Everything Permar tried to keep the groundhog – who he named Chunk – out of the garden failed. Everything. Chunk even started bringing his girlfriend, Nibbles, to join him at mealtime. And then it hit Permar: he’d build Chunk his own garden. Chunk and Nibbles loved the new set-up so much that they decided to raise a family. Permar set up a picnic table for them, and, naturally, began setting up their own social media accounts. The entire experience has opened his mind while also opening the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Chunk’s fans. We think Chunk is one of the greatest things that the Internet has ever given us.
Follow Chunk on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCV8EscIh3Lhbf51g8MsF9mg Follow Chunk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chunk_the_groundhog/?hl=en
#howtotickleyourself #hiddencamera #groundhogs
→WATCH more How To Tickle Yourself! ← Is The Future Analog? | David Sax | How to Tickle Yourself - https://youtu.be/5Vn0xe9H5Bc
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On the same day in 1985, the following three things happened to Andy Cumming, in this order: He found out that his testicular cancer, for which he’d been undergoing chemo treatments for five years, was gone, for good. He proposed to his girlfriend. He’d been waiting until he was in the clear, because he didn’t want to saddle her with a dying husband. That afternoon, he found out that he’d gotten HIV through a blood transfusion he received for his hemophilia.
How does your worst day stack up against that? But that was almost 40 years ago. Today, he’s still alive and even survived a liver transplant. Duff and Matt speak with Andy about how constantly being told he was dying has informed the way he has lived.
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself←
Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
For years we were promised a digital utopia, where technology or the algorithm would allow us to optimize ourselves into a state of permanent satisfaction. After spending some time being shut in during quarantine with all the digital tools we wanted, it seems like people are more eager to unplug than ever. To quote this week’s guest, David Sax, “The digital future was finally here and it f* sucked”. Duff and Matt speak with Sax about where human interaction is more important, the convenience of technology and his new book, The Future is Analog: How to Create a More Human World*.
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Today’s guest comes to us courtesy of Tinseltown. The funny side of it. The REALLY funny side of it. Owen Burke is a comedian and producer who has worked with Comedy Central’s Drunk History and FunnyorDie. He tickles people for a living. He's pretty much a tickling expert. Owen talks about how doing improv comedy at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre helped unlock his creative freedom, what it was like to pitch “The Art of the Deal: The Movie” to Johnny Depp and how to find the funny in everything.
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For the first part of his life, you would have described Jeremy Down as an artist, musician, and creator. He fronted bands, traveled with the art collective DrawnOnward, and lived a good life. But a near death experience in 2001 - after a canoe capsized during a winter paddle, he got hypothermia and his brain pretty much shut off – revealed the layers of consciousness and spiritual balance needed for happiness, and he has spent the last few decades taking deep breaths and seeking deeper truths.
Check out Jeremy Down's Website: https://www.jeremydown.com
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During almost twenty-three years of teaching, Bob Osborne has mentored and taught well over a thousand kids. He’s taught 1-3 grades, 7-12 grades, and graduate students. Mr. O, as his students call him, starts every year by establishing a basis for respect. Then he tries to show them how to take ownership of their own learning. The formula works, and Mr. O’s story is so inspiring they should make a movie about him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When Duff was struggling with alcoholism, Joe Schrank stepped forward and offered to help. So don’t let Joe’s gruff demeanor, which you’ll get a full dose of in this episode, deceive you. He’s got one of the biggest hearts around. Schrank is a Social worker, an interventionist, a community advocate, and the cofounder of TheFix.com. We speak with Joe about marijuana, the drug war, alcohol tax justice and more.
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If you listened to the audiobook version of TICKLED, you were listening to Sean Pratt’s award-winning voice, which has won him 9 “Earphones” awards from AudioFile Magazine, 5 SOVAS nominations, and 5 “audie” nominations from the Audio Publishers Association. Sean is also the author of To Be or Wanna Be – The Top Ten Differences between a Successful Actor and a Starving Artist, an actor’s how-to book that talks about approaches and behaviors that separate a thriving actor from a starving artist. When Sean isn’t narrating the 1,101st book, he’s coaching other performers on audiobook narration technique. We’re excited to talk to him about how he finds the tickle in all the stories that he tells.
#howtotickleyourself #audiobooks #acting
→WATCH more How To Tickle Yourself! ← Sobriety and Self Realization | DeDee Pfeiffer | How to Tickle Yourself - https://youtu.be/ftpHDJ95xDg
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🎧 👉Listen to the How to Tickle Yourself Podcast here:👇 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6MtbjNk... Google Pod: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
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→ABOUT How To Tickle Yourself← Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is an award winning podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all – the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Our guest today is nothing short of a rock star. Her name is Anna Mernieks-Duffield, and she is the lead singer, banjo player, and guitarist of the Toronto-based band BEAMS, as well as the guitarist and backup singer of the band Ace of Wands – we’ve had drummer Jodeye Brummel on the show – as well as the sometime guitarist and backup singer of a third band, The Fern Tips. She’s also an arborist. She collects information about trees, around development sites and which trees should be saved and protected. In other words, she’s doing God’s work, both on stage and off. We speak with Anna about songwriting, BEAMS' most recent album, Ego Death, and their next one, Requiem for a Planet, which they recorded right here in the Catskills.
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This week on How to Tickle Yourself we learn about the Self-Realization Fellowship, an organization that teaches meditation and the philosophy of the Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda. We asked Brother Satyananda, who has been a monk of the SRF monastic community for over 40 years, how the teachings of Yogananda can help us find the tickle.
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We invite a special guest on How to Tickle Yourself this week. His name is Steven Jenkins, and he is director of the recently opened Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is the perfect guest to help us explore the unbelievable artistry and playful nature of Dylan’s incomparable craft.
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We have mentioned Sri Aurobindo in almost every episode of this podcast. The reason for that is that the Indian philosopher, yogi, poet, journalist, and nationalist is one of the most profound thinkers in all of human history, and whatever your topic, whatever the conversation, it is highly likely that he has had something insightful to say about it. This week Duff speaks with Professor and Author Debashish Banerji about Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy.
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This week we speak with the wonderful DeDee Pfeiffer who plays Denise Brisbane in ABC's "Big Sky". The role is a return to acting for Dedee, who spent 10 years away from Hollywood to earn a master's degree in social work from UCLA, concentrating in mental illness, substance abuse, and homelessness. Some of that subject matter is close to home: Dedee is sober and an advocate for the long overdue open dialogue about addiction. Oh, she also believes in the paranormal and alien life forms. So we can talk to her about Hollywood, sobriety, self-realization, and aliens. Are there any other topics that matter?
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While we try not to play favorites here on How to Tickle Yourself, we’re going to make an exception this one time. The best commercially available kombucha in the New York region is Laughing Gut Kombucha. Brewed by today’s guest Adam Benziger just down the road from here, in Poughkeepsie. Adam has figured something out about the delicate balance between flavor and subtlety that makes for a great kombucha. This guy is following his tickles, all the way to deliciousness. Duff and Matt sit down with Adam to learn more about the art of brewing Kombucha and the rapidly evolving and growing commercial kombucha industry.
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While we’ve had a few authors on this show, one thing we have not had is the author of an illustrated book. This week’s guest, Thomas Peniston, is the illustrator and writer of A Time For Color: A Book About Joy. While it may seem to be a children’s book on the surface, one thing Thomas and his wife Landa, who wears the editing and marketing hats in this duo, are here to report is that they’ve got a lot of interest at the other end of the age spectrum, too, in nursing homes and retirement communities. Kids love it, older folks love it; maybe there’s something in there for the rest of us, too.
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Steve Lopez is a longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times. A four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, he’s checked off a lot of boxes in his nearly fifty-year career. At 67 years of age, Steve has been pondering the question of retirement. In search of an answer, Steve talked to dozens of people about their own retirement-related decisions and found that there are about as many answers to the question as there are people. He documents this experience with his new book Independence Day: What I Learned About Retirement, from Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will. Duff and Matt speak with Steve about how, in his search for answers, he came to more fully appreciate living in the present moment.
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Duff McDonald and Joey Moss discuss the special things in life that bring them one step closer to the tickle of existence.
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Great live music can tickle the soul. To find out how and why, this week Duff and Matt speak with Peter Shapiro, legendary concert promoter and author of The Music Never Stops: What Putting on 10,000 Shows Has Taught Me About Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Magic.
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What are some steps we can take to find happiness and peace of mind. This week, friend of the podcast Luke Froude guest hosts the podcast to interview the tickle master himself, Duff McDonald.
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This week Matt and Duff talk with Hannah Crum about everything Kombucha. People love this fermented, lightly effervescent, tea drink. In The Big Book of Kombucha, Crum puts it this way: “Something magical often happens when kombucha comes into people’s lives. That moment of Kombucha Kismet is often a bright dividing line between a life ruled by inertia and a path of conscious choice.”
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This week Duff and Matt speak with David Robertson, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of Brick by Brick: How Lego Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry. David is also a member of the Cherokee Nation, and he recently began exploring that heritage in earnest. His father, James Robertson, was a great Cherokee innovator himself, inventing the language computers use to divide. According to David, Cherokee Community Values are actually a thoughtful and nuanced language for talking about how we should treat each other, not just in business, but in life. If we want to innovate well we need to understand the values, the social conventions and the way people interact in the communities of which we are a part.
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Today’s guest is one of Duff's oldest friends in New York. His name is Adolphus Holden. A former professional basketball player, the latter part of Adolphus’s career has been as a personal trainer. Adolphus speaks with Duff and Matt about the role your mind plays in physical fitness.
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When you’re looking to solve a multi-dimensional problem such as climate change – trying to triangulate different groups with different values and goals - we need a new way of thinking with a new language. Duff and Matt speak with Deepa Patel about ways we can change corporate and political governance - a Department of Love.
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Arts Technologist KamranV builds bridges between the real and the ideal. He makes cutting edge technology, like holograms, automation, and quadraphonic sound recording, accessible to artists who want to push the boundaries of their work. Duff and Matt talk to KamranV about how new technology changes the way we interact with sound and music in our lives.
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Philosopher of Mathematics William Byers speaks with Duff and Matt about the deeper relationship we have with numbers. How mathematics is a tool born out of intuition that our mind uses to create a deeper understanding of the world around us. His book, The Blind Spot: Science and the Crisis of Uncertainty, had a huge influence on Duff, in part inspiring the writing of his book Tickled: A Common Sense Guide to the Present Moment.
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This week we spoke with Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians, about magic, curiosity, and how great fiction can illuminate the dark corners of the human condition.
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We’ve got another podcast about music for you this week. Why? Because music is one of the best things about life, that’s why. Duff met Kevin Calabro several years ago at a festival in upstate New York called Mountain Jam. At the time he was managing the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. Now he also has his own record label, Royal Potato Family. Matt, Duff and Kevin talk about how the process of discovering new music has over time has changed and more.
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Duff and Matt speak with Cardiologist Dr. Lena Rabi Capapas MD about the book that was trapped inside her and, eventually, forced its way out. It’s called Love this Beautiful Musical Mathematical Universe, and It’s about the inherent harmony underlying everything.
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This week, we come at storytelling from a slightly different angle - we’re going to talk about the stories we tell ourselves. Specifically, those stories that place limits around our unlimited selves - why we do it, how we can stop doing it, and what happens when you do. Our guest, Tom Asacker, is, in his own description, a wayward creative force. He’s been an artist, a professional magician, an inventor, and a screenwriter. He’s also the author of Your Brain on Story: The Destructive Seduction of the Hero’s Journey.
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The majority of Duff’s writing career has been spent covering Wall Street, consulting, and Silicon Valley. So he has thought a lot about valuation and the numbers we assign to this company or that one. And then, very abruptly, he lost interest. But it wasn’t just in finance. He lost interest in quantifying anything. He decided that I wasn’t going to write about the things I’d spent my entire career writing about, ever again. So it was actually quite a shock to Duff when this week’s guest somehow roped him back into talking about companies and the valuations we place on them. His name is Unni Krishnan, a sort of business philosopher who has consulted for some of the world’s largest companies about what they really are and how we should think about them. More interestingly, he managed to find a way to express the purpose of a company using Vedantic philosophy - nondual, timeless, borderless.
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Today, we are talking about storytelling. And we have a treat for you. Our guest, Rich Cohen, author of 14 books, is one of the finest writers of his generation. What makes for a great writer? If you ask me, it’s when the marriage of style and substance leads, in that writer’s idiosyncratic way, to profound insight about the human condition. It tells us–you, me, anyone–something about who we are, what we should do or what the heck is actually happening here. In other words, the writer uses a story about someone else to tell you something about yourself. This is what Rich Cohen does so well.
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Hey folks, welcome back to How to Tickle Yourself. This week’s guest is a real-life example of the interconnectedness of all things. Or at least all the Ticklish things. You may recall that a few weeks ago, we played a snippet of a song called The Great Unwind, by William Tyler, a sublime guitarist. Well, I was on a bit of a William Tyler kick, and followed him on Instagram, and came across a post about a new album that he’d played some guitar on and was musical director for. That album is called Hymns and Hallelucinations, and it’s by a Hawaii-based artist named Courtney Jaye. So William Tyler led me to Courtney Jaye. I should have already known about her, as she contributed a song to another album we’ve talked about on this podcast, Highway Butterfly, the Songs of Neal Casal. In any case, we found her, and we are glad we did. Hymns and Hallelucinations is not Jaye’s first record. But, in her own words, it’s her first gospel record. And it’s wall-to-wall wonderful.
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Is reality essentially mental? This week’s guest, Bernardo Kastrup, would say it is. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence). What’s interesting about Dr. Kastrup is that he clearly straddles the dividing line between eastern and western philosophy, using western modes of inquiry to land at metaphysical conclusions that have a distinctly eastern flavor.
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Duff and Matt speak with the wonderful Tara Bach, artist and human extraordinaire. Last season, Tara spoke about finding her tickles through art and parenting, sometimes both at the same time. She returns to the podcast, because, like our recent guest Malcolm Fitch, Tara recently had a spiritual experience that changed both her art and her outlook on everything.
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This week Matt and Duff sit down with author and consciousness explorer Jeff Warren. Warren, the co-author of Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, provides some clarity on the act of meditation itself and outlines the skills one would use to explore the inner workings of their consciousness.
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This week, Duff and Matt speak with Selena Reynolds, an agent of joy, optimism and reverence for life. She believes wholeheartedly that yoga is a vehicle through which we can embody our fullest potential in all areas of our lives, and contribute in an increasingly positive way to the healing of our relationships, our communities, and ourselves.
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This week, Duff and Matt speak with Tom Peters, management guru and bestselling author. Duff and Tom discuss how the analytic approach, often pushed in business schools, fail to capture the full scope of what people face in the real world. They discuss what the missing human element is and how to open up the mind to find it.
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Duff and Matt continue to speak with Malcolm Fitch about his mystical experience and how these states of consciousness challenge our concept of the "self".
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Duff invites an old friend, Malcolm Fitch, on the podcast to tell listeners about a recent transformative experience. Malcolm, Matt and Duff discuss the challenge of describing the ineffability of a spiritual experience, as well as the question of whether you can have such an experience through an act of will. Duff isn’t so sure, while Matt suggests that psychedelics might do the trick.
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We’ve talked a lot on this program about the fact that NOW is the only thing that exists. And while we’ve had a wide variety of guests, we try to talk to all of them about the same thing: How to get to NOW, how to stay in NOW. It’s all about consciousness. The goal is to shift the center of your consciousness away from activity and toward the crucible for that activity — away from the becoming toward the being. You want to grab ahold of your very existence, and hang on tight. I know that sounds abstract, but it really isn’t. You want to grab hold of the thing behind the thing. And then, when you have done so, try to tell – or show – the rest of us what it’s all about.
Today’s guest has been doing that very thing through his artwork for over 50 years. We all want a peek behind the curtain, right? Well, read one of the countless interviews with him that you can find online, and you’ll see he’s been hanging around that curtain the entire time, pulling it back, having a look, and making paintings of what he saw. His name is Vincent Desiderio, and we’re glad to have him on the show.
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We have a special treat in store for you today, Linda Winnick. She knows a lot about Duff’s current obsession, which is Yoga, the world’s most enduring and profound spiritual and philosophical tradition. Matt and Linda discuss self-inquiry and how the empirical approach of western psychology and the vedantic practices of mindfulness differ.
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This week’s guest is one of my favorite performers of all time. He’s a magician, who I’ve seen several times, in small venues in New York, in Philadelphia, even at Carnegie Hall. For most of my life, I thought magic was a sideshow, the thing that specialist performers did. For a time, I was a bit of an amateur magician myself. I was taking after my father, who was one, too. At some point, I put the magic hat and the playing cards down. In the last few years, though, I have come to the realization that I didn’t know what real magic was. Real magic isn’t the card trick. It’s the fact that you exist. It’s the fact that anyone can conjure an idea out of nowhere. It’s the fact that you can “transport” your body from here to there, using nothing but the power of thought. Magic is everywhere. We are all magicians.
Real magic is also making people think something that they didn’t think before. It is the power of suggestion, which is the power of the mind. There are few as fascinating and talented as our guest this week, Mr. Steve Cohen.
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Most of the time, the chaos inside our minds is of our own making. Eliminate that chaos, and you can find your way to presence. All that said, there are situations in life where the chaos is actually real. Take any emergency situation, such as a car accident or a house on fire. Thankfully, most emergencies come to an end. But what if they didn’t? What if you woke up every day and the chaos was still there? I don’t know this from experience, but I’m guessing that’s what war feels like. It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to keep one’s mind in check in the midst of war, so I’m not even going to try. Instead, we’re going to ask today’s guest, Chris Wade, an Iraq veteran, to tell us what it’s actually like. He’s going to talk to us about war, PTSD, what it’s like to try to write your way out of whatever war does to your mind, and a whole lot more.
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In my new book, TICKLED, I talk about a lot of stuff, including presence, precision, Bob Dylan, Harry Potter, and love. I also talk a lot about addiction and the extremely difficult time I had tackling the challenge of alcoholism. The end of my marriage was precipitated by alcoholism. I have lost friendships due to alcoholic behavior. And while my career has been, thank God, a pretty interesting and lucrative one, God only knows where it might have gone if I hadn’t spent much of my 20s, 30s, and 40s in an alcoholic haze. When you’re an alcoholic, it is practically impossible to find presence. Alcohol is a depressant, and it ejects you out of now. That’s why some people drink — because they can’t face the present moment — but it also works the other way around - it’s hard to find peace if you consume too much alcohol, because you are basically a step behind in the living of your own life. I recently spoke to a recovery group on zoom about my addictions and, more recently, my discovery of presence, and the experience was profound, both for me and, based on their reactions, the addicts listening in. Most of us have an addiction to something. I’ve been addicted to alcohol and certainty, separate and apart. And while addictions do seem to tickle on the way up, they definitely don’t tickle on the way down. Today’s guest is going to talk to us about all that and more.
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One of the most important things about finding your way to being centered in your own consciousness is to be consistent. Discipline is key. Practice what you preach. Articulate your principles and then act upon them. Mean what you say: Don’t talk out of two sides of your mouth. Dare I say, be authentic. Our guest this week is one of the most authentic you’ll ever meet. Meet Arielle Crawford.
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Great art is not something that you do. It is something that happens through you. You are not living, you are being lived. When you can get that in place, Shakti, the divine energy of consciousness, flows through you.
Our guest this week is a visual artist. He talks about consciousness meaning being aware of where you are, being aware of your surroundings. He’s not only a great artist but also an art teacher. He talks about being present. He paints not what he sees but what he remembers. Meet Christian Dore.
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What is yoga? Yoga is unity. Yoga is centering yourself in your own consciousness. It’s not complicated. In fact, it’s as simple as can be. You just want to be. Meet Tara Stiles. She’s a yoga teacher. One who exudes a sense of peace and chill that we all want. She offered to knit me a winter hat within five minutes of talking to her. She isn’t trying to fix everybody. Rather, she sees yoga as a means to “organize yourself in the presence of other people.” It’s all in the Self. She talks about trying to be happy for no reason. Which means you can be happy all the time. That’s inner peace. Let’s find out how to get it.
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You are not your body. Nor are you the swarm of thoughts that make up your identity at any given time. What you are is the crucible for those thoughts—consciousness itself. You are the creative force behind your own existence. When you get trapped in your ego—the knot that ties your consciousness to your body and your mind—you get stuck in what the Eastern philosophers will tell you is the “gross,” or least subtle, plane of your existence. That’s what makes us feel limited, what confuses us into thinking that we are bound by time and space, when in fact they are mere concepts—cognitive creations—that have tricked us into thinking that they are Reality itself.
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Our third season is going to be about the nature of consciousness. In it, we will combine some of our favorite elements from Season 1 with the interview style of Season 2.
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This week we speak with one of our favorite people. He is smart. He is compassionate. He is a comedian, host and entertainer, who for years has tickled audiences while driving! He is none other than our friend Adam Growe, host of Cash Cab. Imagine getting into a cab and instead of just riding or paying you get to play a game and win some money. Talk about the ultimate tickle!
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Welcome back to How to Tickle Yourself! We have a special treat for you this week. Joining us from Toronto is drummer, percussionist, pounder of skins, banger of beats, keeper of time and vanquisher of silence, Jody Brumell. Listen back to our theme song, “Right Here, Right Now” and you will rediscover his magic. Jody began playing the drums in utero when his parents saw Buddy Rich at the Imperial Room in Toronto. He has been following the tickle ever since.
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Peter Barrett is a true renaissance man. He is a painter, musician, chef, food writer, teacher, photographer, cookbook author, and fermenting king. I don’t know of anyone, and I mean this quite literally, who has ranged through so many different ways to tickle himself over his life and career.
Check out Peter Barrett's Cooking Blog:
https://www.acookblog.com/
Follow Peter Barrett on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/cookblog/
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Welcome back to How to Tickle Yourself! Our guest this week is Alex Aliume, one of the finest artists you will ever meet, but most importantly, he is a master of the tickle and all around amazing human being. He has been featured in Wired magazine in an article entitled “The Cosmic, Psychedelic, Glow-in-the-Dark Art of Alex Aliume” written by our very own, Duff McDonald. You can find Aliume’s glow-in-the-dark paintings and 3D kinetic art at Wink World at Area15 in Las Vegas. Discover the art of Alex Aliume online at www.aliumeart.com Follow Alex Aliume on Instagram - @aliumeart See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today’s guest is Cam Drynan, a Toronto based voice actor. After nearly 20 years in the marketing and advertising world Cam had a revelation and changed his career, returning to his true passion, acting. It was about ten years ago when he dropped the rat race to pursue voice acting full time. Since then, Cam has recorded close to 700 projects and you have probable heard his voice acting for brands like Bud Light, Mercedes Benz, Red Bull and more. He has voiced animated characters, narrated a television series, multiple audiobooks, documentaries, and even has worked with Matt McButter at Quantum Capture! We talk with Cam, who, without even listening to this podcast, learned the art of how to tickle himself and put it into practice. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Welcome back to How to Tickle Yourself. This is the hottest episode of the season! We're interviewing two fire spinners: Miche Moon Flower and Natalya Bowen, part of The Firemingos, an all-female fire-spinning conclave. (We bet that's the first time you have ever heard of one of those!) In addition to being two extremely talented performers, they’re also two of our favorite people in the whole world. Check out the short film, Wonderforce, performed by The Firemingos on Youtube, Facebook or instagram. Wonderforce on Youtube: https://youtu.be/nft_t35PxHo Follow The Firemingos on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefiremingos/ Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Adam Masry taught himself photography as an adult and found his tickle. In a little over a decade, he’s developed the ability to capture digital magic, no matter what the context - portraits, landscapes, or otherwise. We talk to Adam about the importance of hobbies, the secret to finding flow, and the glorious silence that any of us can find when we figure out how to find a single point of focus, whether that’s with a camera or in life itself. Check out his photography on instagram @adammasryphotos Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today’s guest is Kat Lanteigne, award winning everything - actor, playwright, master marmateer and in recent years a blood warrior with the organization Blood Watch. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Gemma Godfrey is a serial entrepreneur. She is also a physicist and a government advisor. She is in the boardroom of a lot of the fastest growing companies in the world. And she has been been a face on TV both in the US and in her home country, England, where she recently had a show. Most of all, she knows how to talk about the intersection of physics, philosophy and how to tickle yourself. Duff and Gemma sit down and talk about Quantum Physics, Boy George, Consciousness and much more. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Welcome back to How to Tickle Yourself! This week we have for you one of our favorite people that ever was - Christiane Lemieux. She is a superstar designer, founder of three companies and one of the minds behind cultivating the tickle universe. Duff and Christiane coauthored a book about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship called Frictionless. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week Matt and Duff speak with abstract painter, Tara Bach. Tara describes how her painting process is a balance between spontaneity and control. Through this process she creates luminous, enchanting worlds that transport the viewer to a new place. Find Tara Bach Online: https://tarabachart.com Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rupam Das - Season 2, Episode 5 This week Matt and Duff speak with physicist and spiritual seeker, Rupam Das. Rupam sits right in between the positions Matt and Duff often take in regards to spirituality. In this episode, Rupam discusses how to find a balance between a scientific worldview and a spiritual worldview. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chris Wink - Season 2, Episode 4 This week’s guest might actually be the perfect guest of How to Tickle Yourself. Chris Wink, one of the co-founders of Blue Man Group and the founder of Wink World in Las Vegas, might have tickled more people than anyone you or I will ever know. And that is obviously because he knows how to tickle himself. We talk to Chris about Blue Man Group, WinkWorld and how to tickle yourself over a 30 year long artistic career. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Betty McKeon - Season 2, Episode 3 This week we bring you another legend, Betty McKeon: mother of Joey, world's greatest astrologer and the woman who gave birth to the woman who turned Duff's entire life around. In 1977, Betty discovered the power of astrology when a fellow colleague did her reading and blew her mind. Now Betty conducts readings of her own. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dr. John Froude - Season 2, Episode 2 Welcome back to How to Tickle Yourself! Today we have with us the esteemed Dr. John Froude, author of the new book, Plagued: Pandemics from the Black Death to Covid-19 and Beyond. Dr. John Froude is an infectious disease specialist. He has worked on four continents over nearly 50 years, treating sufferers of plagues that arose over a century ago and never left us (like malaria and cholera) and battling new threats (like AIDS and Covid-19) as they emerge. Duff first met Dr. John Froude as a child in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. At the time, Dr. Froude was working with Duff's father, Dr. Don McDonald, at King Faisal Specialist Hospital. Matt and Duff sit down with Dr. John Froude to discuss the science behind pandemics and humanity's response to plagues over time. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Crazy Legs Conti - Season 2, Episode 1: Part 2 We are back again for part two of our interview with the one-and-only Crazy Legs Conti. Yes, that is his real name. Crazy Legs is a competitive eater, a bon vivant, and a raconteur nonpareil. He is also the author of the page-turner “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Eater: A Competitive Eater’s Diary,” and the host of the best cooking show on instagram, which you can find at his alt-handle @colemansbarandgrill. Without further ado…. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Crazy Legs Conti - Season 2, Episode 1: Part 1 Welcome to Season 2 of How to Tickle Yourself! In Season 1, we explored the most important thing any of us can ever do, which is to learn how to tickle ourselves, to appreciate the glory of our own existence. We talked about a lot of things you shouldn’t do, like count things. But also a lot of things you should do, like try to stay present, cultivate a sense of wonder and chase all those things that tickle your soul. In Season 2, we have shifted to a more traditional interview format. We're going to talk to people who know how to tickle themselves and ask them how they do it. We're going to listen to stories about creating the self. And, as usual, we're going to go for all the easy laughs. Our first guest in Season 2 is the one-and-only Crazy Legs Conti. Yes, that is his real name. Crazy Legs is a competitive eater, a bon vivant, and a raconteur nonpareil. He is also the author of the page-turner “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Eater: A Competitive Eater’s Diary,” and the host of the best cooking show on instagram, which you can find at his alt-handle @colemansbarandgrill. Without further ado…. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How to Tickle Yourself is a podcast for seekers about the miracles of existence. It's about spirituality, self-realization and most of all, the joy of being a seeker. It's where self-help meets philosophy. Where we use the spark of inquiry to set your mind on fire. And we squeezed two actual puzzles in there, because life is a puzzle and we thought it might be fun for seekers to have a puzzle they could contemplate while contemplating the puzzle of their own existence. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
These episodes may have seemed separate, but they are, in fact, just pieces of a larger whole. Put the puzzle together, and you realize that it’s all one thing. There is only one piece, and it is you. You are the universe. The Self. Being. Existence. Stop thinking so much. Start doing things. In the present. Meaning, right now. Find out what tickles, and start tickling yourself. You will untie the knot of the heart Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Where are you going? What is your destination? You are already there. It is right now. There is no need to be concerned with progress toward some goal. You have reached the goal. It is now. The only goal you have, in truth, is to stay here. And to realize that you are in charge of your NOW. You and only you get to decide what you are going to do next, and it can be anything you want to do. Add all those NOWs up, and you have assembled your entire existence. Ergo, you are the creator of everything. You are God. Or, as George W. Bush put it, you are the DECIDER. Of course, all of our episodes have been about presence. This one is also about Purpose. Purpose is a new thing for me. I mean, insofar as having a “purpose” to my life as opposed to having a purpose to individual actions I have chosen to undertake. What do I mean by that? I refer you back to the previous episode, The Love Equation, in which we suggested that the only equation you need to know is that you should Love More. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I believe that Western society has embarked on a misguided quest to model our way to understanding. But understanding can be obtained by more straightforward means. All you need is love. Find me an equation, any equation, that does not quite explain the phenomenon it seeks to explain—economics, physics, behaviorism—and I will show you that the missing variable is love. Why did the universe come into existence? Because it was in its nature to do so. And it sustains itself because it loves existing. When we let our mind run away with itself, thinking of this thing we should do, that person we don’t like, this event we wish hadn’t happened, we let distraction take us away from an appreciation of our own existence. You know how you know that you are alive and that you love your life? When something tickles. Zero in on that tickle, and you can quiet all the side conversations in your head. At that point, you have revealed yourself as the creator. You have pulled back the covers - you have discovered - that God is inside you. That you ARE God. You just forgot that you were God. Whatever you focus on expands. Focus on your Godliness, on your LOVE of existence, and no problems are insurmountable. When you love yourself, everything is easier. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There’s no time for thinking when you are in flow. Thinking kills spontaneity. If you don’t believe me, just ask Bob Dylan. He wrote an entire song about it. On his excellent, and under-appreciated - if it’s even possible to call a Bob Dylan album under-appreciated - Street Legal. Mind you, he’s written songs about everything. How does he know about everything? That’s simple: He spends a lot of time in the now, too. And you can see everything from there. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This episode is about meditation. I started meditating about a year and a half ago, prompted by Joey. The way she tells it, I didn’t want to, but did it for relationship reasons. That’s partly true. I did want to do it, but I didn’t quite understand what meditation was all about. It’s one of those things that needs to be experienced to be understood. Meditation isn’t just about the act of meditating. It’s about fostering a meditative state for the time that you are not meditating. It’s so that you can feel that faint tickle beneath all the noise of the mind. Tickles are waves are flow is love. It’s all the same thing. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This episode of How To Tickle Yourself, while nominally about JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, is about the same idea, that even as you, me, and everyone else all have our own points of view, there is an underlying Truth that lies beneath it all. I’m not talking about who is right and who is wrong, though. Outside of a very small set of indisputable facts, the question of right or wrong is always relative. In some cultures, for example, the teaching of children takes place in a classroom. In others, it takes the form of apprenticeship, in the form of experience. Is one of those right and one of them wrong? Well, that will obviously depend on whom you ask. We make a mistake when we conclude that our own particular points of view are the sole repositories of Truth. There can be one, two, three or more stories, on top of the same set of facts. In other words, one underlying Truth and many points of view. And, as often as not, that Truth is not something that can be proven or explained. It just is. It is the Truth of our own existence. Our job is to take stock of a situation—any situation—and CHOOSE what we believe. We can’t always PROVE what we think is happening. As often as not, we have to accept that we cannot know everything, and just trust that which we believe is TRUE. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We talk a lot about “progress” and “success” - but both of those things are illusions. We are not headed anywhere. We are already there. Things aren’t moving along some trajectory from the past into the future. Things are what they are, right now. Because now is all there is. So what is success? We often think that it’s getting something that we want, trying to make something happen. In other words, trying to CONTROL what is happening. But control is also an illusion. The only thing you need to do is take stock of what is happening at this very moment, and make the best decision that you can make about what you’re going to do. We talked about this in the last episode - anything is possible. You just need to make a choice. Do not try to predict the future. Do not try to resuscitate the past. Just figure out what’s going on, and do what you need to do. Success isn’t control, success is freedom of choice. Freedom isn’t a number. It is a state of being. Freedom isn’t something you can calculate. Freedom isn’t something that you can model. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One of the most fascinating things I have come to understand about the nature of reality is that the seeker is the sought. Or, put another way, the seen exists only for the sake of the seer. What does that mean? It means that the act of looking is what causes something to exist. It’s all inside of us. Everything you see is inside of you. If you manage to turn your senses inward, you will find the Self - that is, God. And God is infinite. So the universe, which most of us thinks exists outside of us, is actually inside of us, and it is endless. One of the ways that I came to understand this was by making kombucha. I know that sounds absurd, but it’s true. When I realized the implications of kombucha being a living drink, I also realized that it contained infinite possibility. The beauty of kombucha is not the wonderful variety of flavors that are available, it is the fact that kombucha can be any flavor you want it to be. That’s a subtle distinction, but it’s an important one. Focus on some particular flavor, and you have made a choice. But focus on the fact that it can be any flavor you want, and you are talking about possibility itself. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
To be in a state of wonder is to be open, not closed. You are not narrowing the field. You are trying to see all of it. There’s a concept in Indian spirituality called sadhana, the path of knowledge, guided by grace. It’s the journey of self-discovery. “Human language is the attempt to express the truth that is within.” - Vivekananda If we can stop telling each other the things that we are certain about, and start sharing with each other the things that cause us to exist in a state of wonder, then we will be well on our way. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Einstein used the same tools that all mathematicians and physicists use—numbers. And why wouldn’t he? Because it is mathematics that allowed us to entertain the fantasy that we can predict things—if this, then that. You will recall, however, that mathematics is something that only exists in our minds, and is therefore imaginary. Because our predictions take place in our minds, that means that they are imaginary, too. In the zone of the intellect, science is useful. And why wouldn’t it be? It is the intellect that created science in the first place. But when we try to transcend the intellect - whether that’s asking why people are the way they are or asking about the nature of Absolute Reality, science is in overreach. It cannot tell us what it means to be human and it cannot tell us what it means to exist, which is another way of saying the nature of reality. For answers to those questions, we need to look inside. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
People talk too much about the things that they think. We should spend our time doing things and then tell stories about the things we have done. Why do you think the happiest people you know aren’t the ones with the most control but the ones who are able to exercise freedom of choice in their lives? The ones who do whatever they want to do? The Quantified Self? Are you kidding me? That’s like sentencing yourself to life in the prison of your own mind. We should spend less time trying to calculate probabilities. We should spend less time in pursuit of certainty. We should spend less time trying to reduce risk. We should drop the quest for precision, once and for all. We should spend way more of our time embracing uncertainty and taking risks. You don’t need numbers to do either of those. You just need courage. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The place we want to get to is right here, right now, and there are no numbers that can adequately grasp now. Why is that? Because now is infinite. It cannot be captured quantitatively. Of all the tools we have created, numbers and mathematics and science are among the most powerful. They can tell us what happened (which doesn’t really matter anymore), or what might happen (which will always be a guess), but they can never tell us what is happening right now. Because as soon as you have started counting, the now that you were talking about is already gone, leaving you counting the past again. Life is and always will be a stream of surprises. We like time because we like to think that there is a pattern, which makes us hope that we can predict things. But we can’t. We shouldn’t even be trying. Nisargadaata Maharaj, who we will talk about in this episode, says that when we shake the illusion of time, we can shake the illusion of causality, and let creative freedom take its place. No one made you do anything. You did what you did. You get to choose, and you get to choose every single instant. You are the creator of your own reality. Time has nothing to do with it, nor does causation. It’s all about freedom. Just do what you need to do, in the moment, and everything else will follow. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This episode marks the end of our first quartile, which we named The Great Awakening. When you wake up, you haven’t “figured something out.” You have simply emerged from somewhere else, from sleep or perhaps a dream. But there is no equation for waking up. There is no equation for enlightenment. The answer is simply to be. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick, Kyle Ferguson, and Steve Marriner Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We keep trying to count our way to enlightenment. The experts tell us to evaluate each other based on the numbers that can be assigned to us: Our annual sales performance, our IQ, or our influencer rating. While it obviously makes sense to incorporate selective measurement into the decisions we make, it doesn’t make sense to overweight those things we can easily measure while underweighting those that we can’t—particularly those things that make us human, such as our level of awareness or our attitude. In other words, our state of mind. The journey to self-discovery is not a calculation. When you ask, Is this my Self? Who is having this experience? Who am I? The answer to those questions is not a number. Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick and Kyle Ferguson Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Pray at the altar of capitalism and you will find efficiency. Pray at the altar of science and you will find precision. Pray at the altar of the Self and you will find Grace - gentility, affability, elegance, ease, benevolence, and beauty. I know which altar I pray at. Which is yours? Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick and Kyle Ferguson Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Episode 1 of 16 is called The Most Difficult Puzzle of All Time. When you do a cardboard puzzle, you are trying to assemble an image. So what would be the most difficult puzzle of all time? That would be grasping reality itself. Every single puzzle you have ever done in your life is just a warmup for the big kahuna, the one that, when assembled, answers the question Who Am I? Hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter Theme music by Paul Reddick and Kyle Ferguson Featuring Music from Chris Zabriskie More info at StoricMedia.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Why do we exist? What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What is the nature of reality and what is the Self? How to Tickle Yourself is a podcast about the miracle of existence. It’s about spirituality, self-realization, and most of all - the joy of being a seeker. It’s where self-help meets philosophy, where we use the spark of inquiry to light your mind on fire. Learn how to tickle yourself, and you will discover your true purpose. And once you find that, the rest will take care of itself. Season 1 is carved into 16 episodes, crafted to fit together like a 16-piece puzzle. We use controversy, storytelling, word origins, lyrics, writing, and ancient wisdom to explore each weekly topic. There’s even an actual puzzle to solve while you contemplate the most difficult puzzles of all, the puzzles of reality and the self. Join us each week as we put one more piece of the puzzle in place. Brought to you by Storic Media, How to Tickle Yourself was created and is hosted by Duff McDonald and Matt McButter, with original theme music by the legendary Paul Reddick and Kyle Ferguson of the Sidemen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.