I don't think dogs do that, you know?

I picked up this stick on the walk, should I have picked up that other?

I don't think they do that kind of thing.

So we have two lives because of this ability to reflect.

And a dog just has one.

I think it's probably more or less inevitable that the dog's going to love its one life more than

we love our two lives. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.

Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't

strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't

have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not

just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes

conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other

people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

If you know me, you know that I love dogs. In many ways, it seems that the secret to a good life might be something that our dogs already know.

Today we're talking with philosopher and author Mark Rowlands, whose book The Word of Dog, does something remarkable.

It takes some of life's biggest, weightiest

questions like, what is meaning, how should we live, and explores them through the lens

of our four-legged companions. For me, this conversation hit right at the heart of when you

feed Sweet Spot. It's about philosophy. It's about dogs. And it's about the age-old question

of how to live a good life. That's a phrase I first uttered in this show's intro over a decade ago

and one I've been chasing ever since. Mark argues that reflection, the very thing that makes us

human, is both our greatest strength and our biggest trap. We talked about why

...