Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Greg Marcus about the spiritual practice of Mussar Greg Marcus has a BA in Biology from Cornell University, and earned his Ph.D. in biology from MIT.  He worked for ten years as a marketer in the Silicon Valley genomics industry, after which he became a stay-at-home dad, writer, life balance coach, and biotech consultant. Greg’s first book, Busting Your Corporate Idol: Self-Help for the Chronically Overworked, is a five star Amazon best seller. His latest book is called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions: Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Mussar In This Interview, Greg Marcus and I Discuss... The One You Feed parable His book, The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions: Finding Balance Through the Soul Traits of Mussar Mussar: A Thousand Year Old Hebrew Spiritual Practice Soul Traits That you can be too truthful and it can  be counter productive That being untruthful to spare yourself embarrassment is not ok That being untruthful to spare someone else's feelings can be ok And the intention is the most important determiner of whether or not to tell the truth Choice points The evil inclination and the good inclination Mussar helps us by opening the space between "the match and the fuse" That we all have free will but it's not always accessible to us What qualifies as an act of kindness Mussar = "Extreme Spiritual Fitness" Morning Mantra, Daily observations and practices, Evening journaling Mussar helps you specialize and deepen your knowledge and practice of the Soul Traits The four assumptions of Mussar: We all have a divine spark that is occluded by our baggage We all have the same Soul Traits but we have different amounts of each We have a conflict between the good inclination and the evil inclination We all have free will and it's not always accessible to us That patience is the cure for helplessness Mussar: repairing the Soul Traits within us and how it can help the world     Please Support The Show with a Donation