Table Talks with the Tares

The first few weeks of anything good feel awkward. Nobody walks into a gym for the first time and enjoys it. You feel clumsy, you're sore, and you wonder if people can tell you don't know what you're doing. Reading after years of scrolling works the same way. Ten quiet pages will feel slow before they feel good, and that's not necessarily a sign you picked the wrong book. Here's the part nobody says out loud: the person who never misses a workout isn't running on discipline. Discipline is riding on top of something they've grown to love. You can train that. We get into where to find book lists worth using, why to start with what you already enjoy, and how to pick books around what you actually want to grow in. You'll leave with a plan you can start tonight.     Resources: Catch our first two episodes in this series:  What if Your Best Year isn't About More Discipline?  Why Can't I Sit Still Anymore?  Links to help build your reading list:  John Senior's 1000 Good Books List (free list) Building a Home Library (free list) BibleProject Resource Hub (free list of theology books)  For Moms:  Well-Read Mom Reading Club Mother Academia         Continue the conversation: → Your Next Listen: Ep. 186 — What if Duty and Desire Weren't Meant to be Split?  — If 194 has you thinking about training what you love, this one goes underneath it, into the older brother in all of us and why what you ought to do and what you actually want were never supposed to be at war.     New drop on Mondays. If this helped, pass it along to help someone else or leave a review. It’s the best way to help more people see their underscore, too. Stay connected: 🌐 http://honestunderscore.com 📩 Enjoyed the episode? The conversation goes deeper in The Greenroom. Once a month we give the field notes version of the things we’re learning at the table so we can recalibrate what we mean to do with what actually shows up. [Let me into The Greenroom] ✉️ Something from this episode hit home? Send it our way → [email protected]. We always enjoy hearing from you.

Attention is the thing every other habit runs on. I didn't set out to fix my attention. I set out to read more. But the days I scroll are the days I can't sit with Scripture, can't pray for ten minutes, can't hold a thought long enough to finish it. It turns out the disciplines weren't the weak spot. The muscle underneath them was. So what if sitting still with one thing is a discipline that other disciplines rely on? We get into what shifted for me and what I'm doing differently. Then we get practical for anyone starting from zero. A book, a time of day, a number of pages per day.       Resources: Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives by Richard A. Swensen, MD Spiritual Books I’ve Read This Year:  How God Became King by N.T. Wright Letters to the Church by Francis Chan The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis The Overcomers: God's Vision for You to Thrive in an Age of Anxiety and Outrage by Matt Chandler Why I Am Not a Calvinist by Jerry L. Walls and Joseph R. Dongell  Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller          Continue the conversation: → Your Next Listen: Ep. 160 — How We're Building Health Habits That Actually Stick  — We rebuilt our health the same way we're rebuilding attention, one small thing we could actually keep.     New drop on Mondays. If this helped, pass it along to help someone else or leave a review. It’s the best way to help more people see their underscore, too. Stay connected: 🌐 http://honestunderscore.com 📩 Enjoyed the episode? The conversation goes deeper in The Greenroom. Once a month we give the field notes version of the things we’re learning at the table so we can recalibrate what we mean to do with what actually shows up. [Let me into The Greenroom] ✉️ Something from this episode hit home? Send it our way → [email protected]. We always enjoy hearing from you.

You are always being formed by a story. The question is whether you picked it. Most of us chase a better year with more discipline. But habits shape what you love, and what you love shapes who you are and what you do. So real change has less to do with forcing new behavior and more to do with training what you want. What if the year you're hoping for starts somewhere other than willpower? This one is the framework. How people actually grow, why your affections need training as much as your mind, and why reading good books is one of the clearest ways to pick your story on purpose. Next we build the plan. Resources: Faouzia - You Don't Even Know Me  Continue the conversation: → Your Next Listen: Ep. 159 — Rethinking Resolutions: Why we're focusing on habits not hustle.  — If the habits and loves piece is the part you want to sit in longer, 159 takes it into goal setting, where we swap crushing checklists for cultivating the kind of people we actually want to become. New drop on Mondays. If this helped, pass it along to help someone else or leave a review. It’s the best way to help more people see their underscore, too. Stay connected: 🌐 http://honestunderscore.com 📩 Enjoyed the episode? The conversation goes deeper in The Greenroom. Once a month we give the field notes version of the things we’re learning at the table so we can recalibrate what we mean to do with what actually shows up. [Let me into The Greenroom] ✉️ Something from this episode hit home? Send it our way → [email protected]. We always enjoy hearing from you.

Some rabbit holes are worth the fall.   It started as a detour from the plan. Because I was bored, of course. And apparently I don't like being told what to do, even when I'm the one telling me. Then it turned into 4 days of obsessive reading. Which may or may not have been followed by watching the 3-part trilogy. Any guesses on the story? Tune in for the escapade and how I’ve convinced myself some obsessions are good.       Resources: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien The Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men by Anthony Esolen    Little Men by Louisa May Alcott        Continue the conversation: → Your Next Listen: Ep. 186 — What if Duty and Desire Weren't Meant to be Split? — If chasing something just because you want to feels a little irresponsible, 186 sits in the tension between what you should be doing and what you actually want (and makes the case that you don’t have to pick).     New drop on Mondays. If this helped, pass it along to help someone else or leave a review. It’s the best way to help more people see their underscore, too. Stay connected: 🌐 http://honestunderscore.com 📩 Enjoyed the episode? The conversation goes deeper in The Greenroom. Once a month we give the field notes version of the things we’re learning at the table so we can recalibrate what we mean to do with what actually shows up. [Let me into The Greenroom] ✉️ Something from this episode hit home? Send it our way → [email protected]. We always enjoy hearing from you.

You probably learned that discipline starts when your child does something wrong. That's the model most of us inherited, and it puts you in reaction mode for eighteen years.  But what if most of the discipline happens before the wrong ever shows up? We walk through Clay and Sally Clarkson's Heartfelt Discipline and the three parts they name: directive, corrective, and protective. Plus the honest version of what we're still figuring out.       Resources: Podcast Episode with Clay & Sally Clarkson  Heartfelt Discipline by Clay Clarkson Clay & Sally Clarkson Website  Parenting by Paul David Tripp Childproof: Parenting by Faith, Not Formula by Julie Lowe        Continue the conversation: → Your Next Listen: Ep. 185 — Why I Aim to be a High Agency Father — Directive discipline takes more of you than correction ever will. This is worth the follow-up where MJ talks about where your best energy is actually going, and how to aim more of it at the people right in front of you.       New drop on Mondays. If this helped, pass it along to help someone else or leave a review. It’s the best way to help more people see their underscore, too. Stay connected: 🌐 http://honestunderscore.com 📩 Enjoyed the episode? The conversation goes deeper in The Greenroom. Once a month we give the field notes version of the things we’re learning at the table so we can recalibrate what we mean to do with what actually shows up. [Let me into The Greenroom] ✉️ Something from this episode hit home? Send it our way → [email protected]. We always enjoy hearing from you.