Welcome to the Gathering Room podcast, the audio version of my weekly gathering room broadcast.

So everybody, welcome, welcome, welcome to the gathering room. Today we have an extremely

wonderful treat in store for us, especially I do. We have the fabulous author, Eric Zimmer,

who has written this book, How a Little Becomes

a Lot, the Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life.

I read dozens and dozens of self-help books and rarely find anything that is easy to read,

backed by science, and also deeply spiritual, which makes it such a perfect

fit for the gathering room. So Eric himself is amazing. At 24, he was a homeless heroin addict.

And now, today, he is a famous author, teacher, speaker, and he created the One You Feed podcast, which has over 50 million downloads across more than 800 conversations.

So yeah, we've got a big, big fish coming to swim in our pond today.

And the thing I love about this book again is that

it's not just smart. It is very smart, but it's not just smart. It's wise. I remember going

into my first therapist and sitting down and she said, what are you here to get? And I said,

wisdom. And she said, I don't have much of that. And she didn't. But, you know, Eric does.

So Eric, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you, Martha. That was a very lovely introduction. I'm very,

very happy to be here. So can we hear a little bit about your backstory? You're very generous with that in the book,

and I'd love people to know a little more about you. Tell us about the descent into addiction

and then how you came out of that to become a wise, a wisdom keeper. Well, I mean, my descent into addiction

was, I mean, I think it parallels a lot of dissents into addiction.

I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and I reacted differently.

I, I, there was a desperation in the way that I pursued it from the very beginning that I think was different than people around me.

Although some of the people around me also descended into addiction.

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