70: Walking in Dead Man’s Forest with Michael Marvosh

This deep conversation with Michael Marvosh explores meaning and life lessons with prompts from nature and our own life experiences.

Mentioned in This Episode

ConvertKit Conference (where John & Michael met)
Stephen Warley of Life Skills That Matter
Mike Vardy of Productivityist
Michael’s podcast called Deadman’s Forest
- The exploration of existence and meaning
- Being intentional about sharing what he has learned from his life instead of letting those things die with him
- Everyone has unique wisdom and experiences
- Recording process and open air recording studio
Giant trees along the coast of Northern California
- Stout Grove at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park
- The enormity of the trees how perspective is somewhat hard to come by
- A similar feeling of awe that you’d feel walking into a huge cathedral
- Makes you think of things bigger than yourself
- Gaining the perspective and the value of realizing that we are not the center of things–feeling that bigger thing
Michael shares about his vision fast ceremony and the shape it took
- Following the ideas about who you are or what you might do
- Acting on them and finding meaning through that action
- Life is a series of “transitions”–our modern day society doesn’t do a lot to mark or celebrate these events
- Committing to a future version of ourselves
- Crossing the threshold
Often the first step forward towards what we really want or changing is committing–even when things aren’t 100% clear.
More “knowing” comes from committing
People who struggle to achieve a particular skill are often better teachers of it compared to people who naturally succeed–struggle can be an advantage (John borrows this from Steve Chandler)
- The Story of You (And How to Create a New One) by Steve Chandler
Embracing mindsets that take us in productive directions
At Michael’s request John shares some of the biggest lessons from his life so far:
- Grappling with Christianity
- Figuring out what I want to do and what I’m good at
- Compassion and empathy with grappling
- Embracing the tensions and unresolved questions of life
- Accepting and leaning more into who John is
- Getting to the bottom of what’s true for John and what he really believes
- L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland–“honest answers to honest questions”
Being satisfied with imperfection

Resources

School of Lost Borders facilitated Michael’s vision fast ceremony
Reach out to Michael if you’d like to have a conversation with him (use the form at the bottom of the page)
Dead Man’s Forest podcast