Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Whenever people say you can be anything, anything you want to be, you challenge that.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: That's the worst. Absolutely. Because you can't to tell anyone you could be anything you want to be. It opens up an infinite world of options to you. The reality is that's not the case. And so that makes you feel bad for when you fail at doing something or pursuing something that's not yours.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: I'm Diana Earley, and I've spent most of my life learning firsthand what privilege actually costs.
The legacy control, the family expectations.
The guilt of feeling trapped in a life everyone thinks you should be grateful for. If you've ever wondered why having everything still feels like something's missing, you're in the right place.
Welcome to Pressures of Privilege.
My guest today spent four and a half years in corporate finance, then walked away at 27 with no plan. What followed was a decade of what he calls misadventures.
A hostile failed startups, a blueberry export business. Nothing clicked. Then a son was born in 2021, and something cracked open. He got obsessed with one question. What is innate and what is just conditioning we've mistaken for ourselves?
That question became a company.
Chris Blahout is the creator of Innate Edge and the writer behind the zag. He decodes people's wiring and helps them stop building a life that fits someone else's blueprint. Chris, welcome.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Thanks, Dan. Thanks for the intro. You said it better than I could even say myself. It's a privilege to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Yes. All right, Well, I thought we could go straight to the point. You were at P and G. What did you think were going to happen when you walked away?
[00:01:38] Speaker B: I didn't know what was going to happen for sure. I just knew what would happen if I had stayed right. P and G is a company that's up or out. So everyone who's in there above me has been there for longer than me. And I could see my future. It's not bad. Of course, it's pretty. Pretty cushy. I could continue on moving around the world. I. I'm from Canada, but I had started off in Switzerland, then moved to Panama City, Panama, and then that's where I was. I could continue something like that, but at the same time, that sort of cushy lifestyle was too comfortable and not exactly what I wanted for my life. So I. I knew that, hey, after a certain amount of time, I need to get out. Otherwise I would get too comfortable there and be there for, who knows, maybe I'd still be there now. So I left without any plan whatsoever and packed up all my stuff and bought a one way ticket to South America just to, as I say, sort of factory reset to turn off all programs on my hard drive and just reset from restart from scratch and see what I can make for myself.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Wow. And how did that work out?
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Well, that was 2013. April.
So was that 13 years ago? Almost to the day. Wow. It's almost, it's almost pretty much the anniversary of 13 years ago. So it was April. Yeah.
And still, still searching to some extent. And that's the whole reason I got into what I'm doing now, because I had grand dreams, grand ambitions for myself as any 27 year old might have, that had had lots of success in high school, college, university, professionally, everything. Just, you know, going following that straight line, the, the line that the society sends us and doing well in it. And I figured, hey, you know, I'm capable of more. I could start some big world denting startup, make billions of dollars, whatnot.
And well, right now I'm in a one bedroom apartment here in Vancouver. You can tell that that did not happen and probably for the best because it's the only thing that could possibly have really happened that that was not really a reality. But I learned a lot along the way through my misadventures and got to where.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: So in terms of misadventures, what was the worst one?
[00:03:38] Speaker B: The worst one, probably the dumbest one, would be trying to take food waste. There's about 30% of the food that we produce goes to waste and feeding it to fly larva and then trying to convert that fly larvae into edible protein and oil for human consumption.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Wow. So what happened?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: We got some funding. We got into an accelerator here and we worked on it for a couple of years.
Believe it or not, not enough interest in buying our product or even through the regulatory channels for approving such a product. So we never got off the ground there.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Oh, that's hilarious. And the blueberry business, the blueberry business
[00:04:18] Speaker B: just came out of the blue.
I was, when I was in Panama, I had some Mexican friends and colleagues and then one of them just called me up out of the blue to say, hey Chris, we need 40 tons of blueberries.
We don't speak English. You do. Apparently blueberries grow around where you are in Vancouver, Canada. Can you find it for us within a few weeks? And I was just sitting around. Like I said, I had nothing, no idea what I was going to do. I just had grand visions and I had a decent amount of savings. You know what this is an adventure. Let's see what I can do. And managed to make it happen. Get those blueberries shipped from the state of Georgia down to Mexico City. Big success, made a bunch of money that led to hey, let's keep on doing it a few, few more times over and over again and let's make a business. And the business did well for a couple of years and then until it didn't. Until things get more complicated and you start building up inventory, start having to deal with partners and everything. And then that's when realized blueberry export and frozen fruit export was not for me.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it probably goes bad really quickly, I would assume.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Just like frozen fruit. Yeah, exactly. It's for certain person. Right. And that's what I, that's what I've learned through all of my misadventures is that my partners continue to do this. They are meant to be doing that. They like to do that sort of trade, they like to deal with that sort of complexity and they like to just do stuff to make money in a sense. And for me there was no drive to do that other than that first problem solving of hey, how can I source this? How can I get that there? That's kind of interesting. And other than that, it wasn't a fit. And also I wasn't a fit with those guys. So it was doomed to fail really.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: So does that. I'm thinking that you know, like knowing what you're good at and what you like does that. How does that relate to the spine that you talk about, you know, before any self awareness can stick?
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So what I wish I had was that's fine. Right. So if I look back now, even through my childhood, all the way through my professional endeavors and then what worked and didn't work, there are some trends. And then I went through a lot of self discovery after I did my factory reset and left my job to understand a little bit more about myself. All of these are different lenses, different clues about yourself that sort of. You accumulate in your, in your, in your closet of, of memories without but. And you start to tell yourself a narrative about that, of what's going on and what is about yourself and what like and how you describe yourself and how you think you can you're meant to be and how you're meant to work and succeed in life.
Except that there's no intentional spine creation of finding those core clues that tie it all together and piecing it together and taking ownership of that narrative and that understanding of what you are innately wired for and what is against that wiring that you ought to avoid.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: So how did you figure that out?
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Well it started with you mentioned in the intro like I mean after Blueberry export, after failing to sell larvae, after owning and selling part of my share of a hostel, I got tired of the winter here in Canada and took off to to the south with my then girlfriend, now wife and we went to Colombia. And since I had nothing to do, no idea what I was going to do, but I spoke Spanish and like to travel off the beaten path. I've been doing that ever since I moved to Geneva. I started writing about that and taking advantage of my ability to speak with the locals and understand under get beneath the scenes and understand what's really going on and see the city for what it really is and write about that. And so I became a travel blogger and and pretty quickly got a decent sized audience and started making money off of that and became an off the beaten path travel blogger writing a blog called the Unconventional Route that Led to Covid. And then we got locked down and I was like ah, you know what, I don't want to live a lifestyle of being a vagabond, moving around, traveling from one place to other, writing about travel. Bun like I enjoy it but that's not who I am and it's, it's just a steady grind, always having to pump out more content.
What's more interested it interesting to me then off the beaten path travel is off the beaten path life. That's the life that I'm trying to live. It's an intentional life where I'm trying to understand the first principles of living for myself and build it. So why don't I start writing about off the beaten path life related stuff. And that's where I got very interested in more about just personal development is the regular self help. It's just cliche stuff. Then 2021 I had my first son and that's when sort of things like oh man, I'm responsible for this guy, I'm going to be role model for this guy and I want him to live his best life. What is his best life? Well, I wanted him to understand what he's made of and nurture his nature. So that starts with understanding his nature. So I got very into the idea of understanding personality.
What is biology? What can you change, what can you not change, what you might not want to change. And that led me to researching that deeply. And then out came ChatGPT and AI and large language models which gave me a way, a funnel for all this data that was essentially in my closet, say, hmm, what happens if I dump my closet of all this data that I've had, all these experiences I've had, all these stories I've told, all this reflection I've been doing since 2013 and before. And see what it spits out, what does that spine. And it spat something out that was incredibly validating to me. Wow, he's like you.
I have that saved as my starred chat in Claude still to this day. And I don't remember what it says exactly, but it just like it was a mirror, the clearest mirror that I've ever had of myself was saying, huh, this is really what it is. This is me. And I was, I've been a compulsive data collector. So I had so much data that it really did a pretty good job of telling my mirror even when I was an old model like that. I said, I wonder if I can apply that to other people and of course to my children as they, as they age and I collect more data on them. And that's what turned into what I'm working on now of trying to decode people. And as it turns out, all my, my past has been, I've realized, has been related to the spine, has been related to trying to decode things and understand what it is like. Like off the beaten path travel is decoding the city that I'm visiting and understanding what makes it unique and highlighting that for other people to understand to making it legible. Right? And so, and even when I was a kid, I, I loved the Guinness Book of World Records because. And I loved superheroes. Not for the stories, but just to understand what makes each one unique. I would look up skyscrapers of each city. Once I got the dial in Internet, that was the first thing I did. Would look up skyscrapers of every city in the US to understand what made it unique, visually at least. And so now all that made sense to me. This is my spine. And now that I understand this, I can push hard on it doing what I'm doing now.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: That's so cool.
You, you talk about the data that you love data. And you dumped probably all of all of your writing and did you dump in all of your.
You say that you, you, you're a lifelong logger or you do life logging.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Can you explain what that is?
[00:10:47] Speaker B: So back in August 2015, I listened to a Tim Ferriss podcast because like I said, I was deep in the self help hole, the self self discovery world that everyone starts off in to some extent and listened to a Podcast with him with the movie director Robert Rodriguez. And Robert Rodriguez was talking about how he every day writes down what happened that day and how he treasures that because with his kids now, he can go back and look at every single day of his child's children's life and see, hey, that remember that moment. And not just remember that moment, go back and see the details of what he wrote. And reading those details rekindles memories that would otherwise be lost and also can verify memories that may have been fudged. You might think one thing, but you look back, oh, what do you know? It's completely different. And so I was intrigued enough to want to try that habit myself.
And so I started logging my time. Everything that I would do, I just log it quickly on my, on my phone to start now, on my computer now, voice note, whatever. And I've kept it up since. So I have my entire life all logged. I know everything, that's everything that's happened to me the last 10 years and I only wish that I had it sooner. I wish I knew more was going on even sooner.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Wow, so. So you do it throughout the day, you don't just wait till the end of the night the day to do it?
[00:12:02] Speaker B: No, I do it throughout the day. I view it as, it's like reporting, you know, so if you're keeping financial reports for a company, every time you make a transaction you, you report it. Because I'm reporting up to my end of week self reports, to my end of month self reports to my end of quarter self reports, my end of year self. We keep some reporting up the hierarchy. Top of the hierarchy being my 95 year old self that views a big picture and so I do it pretty constantly.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it must be really useful for like when, like let's say like in, in twelfth step, we talk about doing a ten step, which is basically what you're describing, which is throughout the day whenever I make a mistake and I need to over an apology to somebody like it, it forces you to be self aware in the moment, doesn't it?
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean that's the whole thing is it gets you. I think that's the biggest benefit is it gets me working on my life, not in my life because I have to zoom out to log it. And as I move up the reporting hierarchy, right, if I'm reporting looking at my whole year, I'm looking at that broader picture and I can start to see, oh man, I was a real prick there in that time that I was being mean to someone. Why did I Do that. And then I can correct accordingly. And it makes me aware of. Okay, where I'm spending my time. Because after every time I do something, I say, oh, I did that. How did I. And if I feel bad about having spent three hours down some YouTube wormhole or scrolling through whatever it may be, then I feel bad about that, and that makes me feel bad. Then at the end of the week, I have to look at again, feel bad at the quarter, look at it again. Eventually I was like, you moron, stop doing that. And then I improve my habits.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Oh, wow. So and so now. So originally you probably did it in a notebook like 10 years ago.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: No, I did it with Apple Apple Note. I started off just very simple, just Apple Notes, until Apple Notes got so heavy that it crashed. Then I exported all into Evernote at the time and then moved from Evernote to something else.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Oh, what are you in now? Can you, can you tell now?
[00:13:38] Speaker B: I use Roam Research. It's helpful because it tags, because I don't only now log what I do. I also log what I learned. So it, it's. It's the proverbial second brain. So when I take research on anything, I will log that. Whenever I have ideas, brainstorms, I put it all there. So it's all interlinked. And then that's all stored as markdown files that I can export. And then now tap into these large language models that can make it really powerful to first of all decode myself, but also understand patterns and, and work with in all sorts of ways. Because I have the data on my life, so I'm working on my life in my life.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: That is so cool. Do you use like, something like whisper flow to dictate to it?
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Typically, yeah. So I have a shortcut on my phone. I just tap it and put it in. And of course, yeah, I keep. And back to my kids, I keep notes on. I have one for Zach. Quirks, Sandy quirks. I have one for my wife too. And I'm logging all of this because first of all, those are really fond memories that I know that even when I look back to my kid when he was. Now he's almost five, when he was a newborn born, I forgot a lot of these things. If I go back, it's like, wow, this is, this is. This is amazing. I forgot that. It's. It just fills me with nostalgia and good feelings. And also it lets me understand what makes him different. I already know within the two sons how different they are already in terms of their. Their nature. And I want to remember this because as I've seen working with other people and decoding them, these things start early. Like your earliest memory tells a lot about you. And it's actually, you're almost less tampered with by society as a child. You're more innocent, more and more pure. And so there's a lot, there's a lot you can infer there, but not too much, but it's still there. And so I want to keep it all so that I truly understand my kid better than anyone. Because who could, other than them understand themselves on the best mirror they, they can have?
[00:15:14] Speaker A: That's so nice. Seeking to understand someone is like a highest form of love. I, I read somewhere I'll tell that
[00:15:19] Speaker B: to my wife and maybe it comes across when from talking to you, but I can be somewhat robotic and analytical and thinking about things like that. And so someone who's on more on the emotional side of the spectrum would see that as being, hey, what I why don't you just get all touchy feely and write me a love poem or something?
Or as I was like, no, my love poem is keeping data on you and trying to understand you, to help you understand yourself so you can find your fit in society and really thrive alongside me and family and professionally too.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: So what's the most surprising thing that you've learned about yourself using this data?
[00:15:48] Speaker B: It's very hard to do to decode myself, it's the hardest thing, right? So I've continually improved my understanding and changed my sort of archetypal understanding of myself. And I think what's surprising is actually I know the answer is that how simple the best answer really is. You know, I think of all my past experiences and how diverse they are from working in corporate finance, to running a travel blog, to bug food, to hostels, to whatever. But then when I really synthesize, synthesize and distill that down, I get to a single verb, which is decode. That's what I do, I just decode. I want to decode things and highlight that uniqueness and translate it to make it and that to make it visible to the outside world. And I wouldn't have thought that it would be that possible to distill some person down to such a simple term. Obviously the term decode means a lot more to me and it doesn't mean just the dictionary definition of it. But the fact that I can synthesize that down into a single model for myself is really surprising and super empowering because they say we all contain multitudes or Whatever, which can be very confusing because there's too much of you to understand and to control. Whereas if I just focus on that one term, it's extremely empowering and focusing.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: I think of you as a scientist
[00:17:06] Speaker B: sometimes I would look at it that way. Whereas every individual is kind of like has their own inner species inside of themselves with their own strengths, predispositions, their own environments in which they thrive. It's kind of like a species, their own nutritional needs in terms of the values that they need to fill themselves up with to feel good. And so kind of like I'm kind of like a biologist. Whenever I talk to someone I. It's like meeting a new species. And I can be sometimes a bit annoying, especially in a one on one conversation where I want to dig into that uniqueness over and over and over again and can't stop because it's like a scientist, like Darwin in some, in the Galapagos. What is this? This is so interesting. And the more interesting, more weird that person is, the more attracted I am to them. Into decoding them and understanding them and helping them understand it.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: That's really cool. You're getting to their essence, like, sort of like getting to the concentrated version of who they are.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's it. Right? Because you can't, it's. Our brains are, at the end of the day, just want to simplify stuff into a simple story. So you want to own that simple story that you have for yourself so that you can channel it. Most of us don't. Most of us have a subconscious story that guides us and pushes us along and it doesn't typically push us in a great way because our brains aren't evolutionarily wired to thrive. They're wired to survive and to procreate. And that's about it. Right. So if you want to do that, you need to be conscious about it and I believe you need to be conscious about it and own that story. Almost brainwash yourself into believing that story because like, okay, fine, people are not that simple. I'm not simply a decoder. But if I could brainwash, brainwash myself into believing that, then it just makes all my other decisions much simpler. Makes a story that I tell you, tell anybody else tell myself much simpler. Much less doubt, much more certainty. And if it's reasonably accurate, it's better than whatever is going on in, subconsciously in my head. That would be probably worse and less accurate than what I'm inventing on my own.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Interesting. So that, that's why you challenge the idea that, that people can. Whenever people say I can, you can be anything, anything you want to be, you challenge that.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: That's the worst. Yeah.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Point of view, isn't it?
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Because you can't. I mean, simplest analogy is like is is in the physical domain. Right. Some people will never be able to dunk no matter how hard they try. I can because I'm tall and reasonably athletic. Right. And so to tell anyone you could be anything you want to be, it opens up infinite world of options to you when the reality is that's not the case. And so that makes you feel bad for when you fail at doing something or pursuing something that's not yours.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm thinking about like the, the, the, the, the, the, the free will arguments and the non free will arguments. Arguments. You're kind of arguing for the non free will in a way.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: I suppose so. And I suppose I me, I don't care about that argument because all I care about is again, the brainwashing yourself. So is it free will or is it non free will? I. If you can at least brainwash yourself or I mean if you're destined to brainwash yourself anyways and well, I'm not doing anything anyways. But if you can brainwash yourself into buying into something that was going to happen anyway, going to enjoy the ride more than if you just not knowing what's going to happen next and don't feel like you're controlled. Right. Well, being a huge part of well being is about that autonomy. Right. Autonomy. Mastery and then connectedness. And so if you feel that autonomy like I'm in control of what I'm. My, my story and everything makes sense, it's cohesive, coherent, then you're going to feel much better about it. And if it's, you understand that story, you probably are in the pursuit of some sort of mastery, which is the other part of it and probably to help other people and alongside people you like. So it brings all three. So you feel much more sense of well being than just saying like what's gonna happen? I don't know. Fate will decide. It's already been decided. Everything is just, you know, we live in the matrix. Cool. Maybe you're right. But your life's gonna suck or you're not gonna feel that great as opposed to just brainwashing yourself into believing something that's more fulfilling and rewarding and hopefully more useful to other people as well.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah, the term was determinism. So it doesn't have to suck. You can, you can brainwash yourself into Liking it.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: That's what I like to think. I'm brainwashed myself into believing that.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: You know, on the show we, some we talk about privilege and I was curious to know how privilege fits into this because, you know, there's some people who have every advantage, right? Money, education, connections, and they still end up lost. And so does having every, like having more resources make the wiring harder to hear?
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Not sure if it makes it harder. It changes your influences. Right. So the way that I would look at having lots of resources in terms of generally money, but also it could be social capital is that it puts a lot of pressure on you to do something with it. Right. That's a, that's a fuel that can push you forward. The problem is fuel needs a vehicle to go into, to then push itself to do something with. And that vehicle is, that is yourself. It's understanding yourself. And if you don't understand yourself, you're just pumping tons of this fuel into this vehicle without knowing how it's running. So it could be dirty fuel, it could burn and could actually burn out your engine and just totally screw you up.
Right. And at the same time it makes. Puts a lot of pressure on you because you have this big fuel thing. So you compare yourself to someone who doesn't have anything. It's like, well, I should be able to do so much more because I'm so privileged to have this. Why am I failing? And so you feel even worse and you're surrounding yourself with other people who probably have accumulated maybe large fuel tanks because they have found a better fit and whatever. And so you're in this circumstances, environment surrounded by other people that are putting more pressure on you to burn. Not in a dirty way or to, to. To feel fulfilled, to like just run your engine well and you're not doing it so it can increase the pressure on you that way. That's what I would say.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: I mean, that's a great image. Thank you.
Yeah, it's a really good image. The fuel, you know, symbol.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's one way to look at it I guess, is that. Yeah. Is to understand your verb. Your verb is everyone has an engine. You want to understand that verb that you have. So the verb is what your engine does for the world. It's. It's what it does. And so that verb runs through the fuel and there's two, two forms of fuel. There's clean fuel and dirty fuel. Right. The clean fuel is self fulfilling. It's. It's when you do something and it fulfills your values. Right. So for me, some of my values include self direction, success and just. And hedonism, having a good time. So when I do something on my own that works out and that I have a fun time doing, then that gives me lots of fuel that I don't even necessarily need money to fuel me because it's, it's self reinforcing. You sometimes need the money obviously for more practical reasons, but it can and it burns super clean, so it gives you more and more energy every time. Whereas the external fuel is really just to sort of propel you over some other barriers or some past some other hurdles that you just need to, to get past or just to buy yourself the flexibility to, to, to get your vehicle in the right, straight, right place. It needs to be.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: What's an example of the dirty fuel?
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Well, yeah, the dirty fuel is, is, is money, right? Is, is, is, is something that, or just anything that you need that's, that's motivating or status is something that's not true to your, your actual core values that you've been conditioned to have informed
[00:23:52] Speaker A: with like ego, greed.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: I, I guess it all depends on your definition of ego. But then yeah, greed, generally anything that would be more status oriented comparative to other people, right? Because if you're trying to compare yourself to other people, then you're not being true to yourself and running your true engine. So then you're, you're gonna be running your engine inefficiently because it's misaligned and you're running on a misaligned engine. It's gonna start spudding, spitting out bad fumes. And sure, you can do it for a long time. People do it their whole lives. Especially if it keeps on replenishing that dirty fuel tank, that money fuel tank, right? It just keeps on getting bigger and bigger and bigger so you can keep on pushing it through, but that engine gets nastier and nastier and nastier and you feel like crap. Even though from the outside it looks awesome. Because most people look at you from the outside. From what that fuel tank looks like, that, that monetary or status oriented fuel tank looks like.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Like in, in recovery we talk a lot about, you know, the coping mechanisms that we have developed as children.
Um, how does your system tell the difference between like innate and deeply conditioned?
[00:24:52] Speaker B: Good question. I don't know if there is an answer, if there has to be an answer. I suppose if it's empowering and it, the, the, the, the big part of the system is it's constantly evolving. You want to just, It's a non stop experiment. So you just keep on trying to hone in on what's the most efficient, what works, what works best for you. So if it's deeply conditioned and you test it and it just feels bad, it sits, it burns you out. It feels like you burn negative fuel and it doesn't give you energy, so it's not burning clean.
Stop doing that. Right. That's one of the values of writing down everything I do. So then I can be more objectively objective in appraising what I'm doing. Because in the moment sometimes it's hard to understand. But if I look back on it a month later, I'll say, you know what, these things I like doing more than these things. Right. And then you can start to, you can start to disambiguate the conditioning versus what's the nature.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: So you, you do work with emotion after all.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I do. Do I use emotion, I suppose as a data point.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So, so yeah, you're not the robot that Riff thinks you are.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Thank you.
I suppose not. I say thank you, but I don't mind. I don't. I mean one part is just understanding which. Right. So emotion, if I look at, from a personality standpoint would be extroversion and neuroticism. So extroversion is your sensitivity to positive emotion, neuroticism, sensitivity to negative emotion. And it happens to be that on both cases I'm pretty low. So sensitive negative emotion, extremely low. So my, my half life and sensitivity to negative emotion is almost nothing. So I don't feel it. I don't, I don't. So I don't avoid negative emotion so much because it doesn't bother me. And same thing for positive emotion. So I also don't reflect on it and write about it or look at the world that way because it's not a major signal for me that comes in, whereas a major signal for me is more data oriented. And that's what, that's why I'm more attuned to not motions. They're an output rather than the data that's the input.
But other people are different.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Wow, you did that so quickly.
I, I'm hoping that my, the listeners are going to catch what you got, what you, what you just said there.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: So okay, we can just look at, look at, look at introversion. Right. So introversion is. Or introversion. Extroversion is a spectrum, of course, and it's sensitivity to positive emotions. I like to break it up into, to two areas in the, in, in, in the scales that I use but let's just keep it simple with looking at just sensitivity to positive emotions. So if you are more introverted, so lower down the spectrum, you're going to be less attuned to positive emotions. You'll feel it less strongly so you'll be less inclined to seek that out because you get less reward from getting a positive emotion from social experiences generally give positive social experience give positive emotions or getting rewards. Right. Getting lots of money, that's also a positive emotion. Those things don't like, sure, I enjoy that. Right. I enjoy having a conversation with you. I enjoy making money. But even on my most lucrative days when the stock market's going crazy, it's like, huh, cool, what's next? Right? Or some people like, ah, yes, I want more of this. Right. And so they want to make more money, they want to make more friends, they want to do that because they're more attuned to that. Whereas on my side, it's not my primary driver because it's just, it's e driver but I have stronger drivers from my, in my wiring that, that supersede those.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: I see. Oh, that's interesting because I, I, I, I was at a conference two weeks ago and, and they were describing OCD and they were saying that people who have OCD have a very high avoidance, it's called approach versus avoidance. And people who have OCD don't are, are not able to see the upside or the positive emotion. Like that could be the result of a decision that they make.
So, so a lot of them, they just avoid. They, they, they, they, they opt out because they're, you know, like, nor people who are less ocd, you know, the, the idea that they could get a goal or have money or whatever could motivate them to take the risk.
Whereas somebody with OCD would avoid.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: It's ocd. Obsessive compulsive disorder, wouldn't that be. But why are they, what makes them so obsessive and compulsive then? If they're not seeking something, what are they? Obsessive and compul pursuit of something.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Well, I think one of the reasons why that they avoid, for example, leaving the house or they, yeah, that there's something that's missing in their wiring because it's obviously a pathology where they, they're, they, they will not take on risk.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: And so they want to have, they want to feel totally in control. So then they need to control everything possibly. And then that, that would, yeah. Well, one, one thing on, on that note, one thing that I have learned through experiences. I also, I'm, I don't work with people that suffer from a pathology. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a doctor. I'm not, I don't, I don't, I don't pretend to be a therapist or anything like that. I'm, I'm strictly a decoder. So if someone has serious problems and needs medical help, that's a different situation and one that I don't. It very much interests me because some, I think that there's some way, there's some aspect to this ocdness that can be leveraged into being a strength. Right. And can be reframed positively at the same time. There's probably something that there might be something that also can be fixed and would be better off being fixed. And like we, like we talked about, I want to work on what can't be changed and harness that rather than look at the stuff that can be. And if, if that takes an expert, it's like, it's like a doctor, like I'm not the doctor. So you want to get, get them to fix it.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: I was just wondering if there was a correlation. How do you know whether it's, you were born with something or whether it was conditioned? I guess you find out over time.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Ongoing hypothesis testing, it's just, it's a non stop ex experiment with yourself being the, the test subject essentially. Yeah. I mean you can also start with like the personality traits are pretty clearly.
Well, they're pretty hard to change. You can change them. Right. So if you're, if you're highly neurotic, that's where something like mindfulness, they, they found that you can practice that enough that it can desensitize yourself to the nakedness and get you work zooming out of it so you can get more broader perspective on, on what's going on. So you can, and sometimes it's worth it. But typically it's a lot of effort for minimal change and it's better to work with that. Right. Because if you're neurotic, sure. It's probably the most negative of all the aspects you can have extreme of. There's a benefit though to that. Right. Because you're going to be more risk averse. So if you want to work in insurance, for example, it's probably useful to be neurotic because then you can identify the risk before they hit you. Whereas me, I never buy insurance because I don't worry about the downsides. I'm like, you know, and I, I take a Lot of risks that other people that are neurotic wouldn't take. So that's why we're. Some people are evolutionarily wired to have high neuroticism just to save.
Save their tribes, but from bad things happening.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Yeah, Like, I wonder if accountants are neurotic.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: I mean, I, I was a corporate in corporate finance, somewhat an accountant. So it all depends. Right. So it's just a different lens. Like there's different, completely different wires can fill a role. So the, the accountant would be a box that you can fit in and that's a, a danger. Right. We're separating the verb from the, the noun. The noun would be a accountant. Right. So there's different verbs that can fit within that noun and understanding the verb behind it can make a big difference. So me, some, some accountants would be, okay, I want to see exactly what's going on and make sure there's no risks and maybe audit and fix those things. I could care less about that. I, When I was working in corporate finance, I was always put in terms of, into, into projects where we're on the new frontier. We're trying to understand what's going on somewhere new and to restructure everything to make it work better or to like, change up how the reporting is working so it makes it clear to hire management to make better decisions rather than reporting to some outside authority. Because I would be terrible at that, because I don't care. I'd be like, this is the most boring thing. This is the worst thing. It doesn't energize me. I'm not good at it. It's just a negative cycle. Whereas doing what I did, which is somewhat congruent to my wiring, was a positive cycle because I found value in the, like, the, the decoding, the understanding what's going on and, and then communicating with other people.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: So you were a systems guy.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Systems guy would be a slightly narrower box within that box of accountant for sure. Yeah.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: I'm like a sit with the discomfort kind of person.
Where do we actually agree there.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Sit with the discomfort person. Tell me more what that means.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: Well, instead of like, I've been accused by therapists of being too much in my head sometimes, like too intellectual, like, trying to. I remember one time, like I showed up in, in a therapy session and I said, oh, doctor, I'm reading this book. She's like, frau early, would you stop reading and just feel for a second?
So I've been trying to be more like what she was trying to get me to do, like to, to Just sit and you know, do the mindfulness thing and feel like what am I
[00:33:17] Speaker B: actually feeling if I understand. When you say sit with discomfort, it's like you, if you feel discomfort, you want to try to actually more like understand it and solve it quickly rather than just experience it and learn from it that way. Is that right? Because when you say that you're reading about it, it's like, ah, man, this makes me uncomfortable. Why? And then try to understand the driver of it rather than, or trying to
[00:33:36] Speaker A: find the answer to a book rather than finding it within myself.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's different approaches. Right. It depends on whether it works or not. Right. So if you're solving your discomfort by solving your discomfort by being more analytical about it, is that a problem? It's only a problem if it really, if it doesn't solve itself and it's draining your energy. But if it's, if you enjoy the pursuit of the knowledge that it is as of what's going on and reading those books and it seems to be helping, that's one thing. If it's not, then.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Well, what was interesting about what you said earlier is that when you are doing your logging, you have to be kind of mindful to do that.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean I would say it, it's a product of the practice more so than a practice of the product.
But doing it over and over again, it generates that mindfulness. Right at the onset, I did it mostly out of interest to audit my time, see where my time was going. Right. I made a spreadsheet out of my data and like, hey, there's not much time I'm spending on this, this that I'd categorize it and make pivot tables because I was a recovering Excel Excel junkie from my days in corporate finance. So I, so yeah, I had cool charts about my time. It was eye opening there to see just how when I feel I was working so hard, how much hours of how many hours of actual deep work I was doing, it was not that many, which was free because oh wow, that's how much time that I can spend with my life and still feel extremely productive. But then, then it's, it became, you know, something that I compulsion something that I wanted to keep on doing. And then as I learned the practice of zooming out more and more, that's where the mindfulness would really come. Until now I've almost, you know, I, I like to sometimes look at it like I've put my 95 year old self on my shoulder because I've done it Practice it so many times. And in fact when I write my letters, I write it basically every year or whatever to that future 95 year old self. So all that practice, communicating back and forth between my present and future selves and even reading what my past self has to say is, is conditioning myself to have that 95 year old self on my shoulder saying hey Chris, you know, this is what I'm thinking now. Like you're feeling crappy now, your kid's being a jerk right now, he's not listening to you, he's crying and everything feels crappy. But hey, me as a 95 year old self, me, I would love to be there, right? And that's something I call like to myself in my own mind, pre stalgia. It's like nostalgia in the moment. So like I can almost feel the nostalgia for the moment in the moment thanks to the practice and just enjoy the crap because it's all part of the story. At the end of the day what you want to live is a good story.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: It's so cool this system that you have, this logging thing because I'm thinking it forces you to be the direct like to plug into your director to look back at yourself. Which is what a lot of therapists say one should do actually.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Yeah, easier said than done. And it's, you know, I, I've tried to help other people do the same because I've seen so much value of it for myself.
The reality is, is that some people need a lot more. I think if you had someone literally on your shoulder telling you hey, do this all the time, they could benefit from it. But in for me that's not something I enjoy doing. I'm not that type of an accountability coach. I just, there are certain people that love doing that and love holding people's hands and pushing them forward.
I'm not, I like to just get in there, see, oh, this is the problem. Here's like a systematic approach. Now go work with this guy to do it. And so I've almost, I have almost a 100% failure rate in trying to get other people to try it. They're all compelled like you sound seem to be from, from my description and my own experience. But the, that that is not enough to make it stick as a practice because it's not a habit. There's no such thing as habits. I don't think I get this number like so enjoyable, enjoyable for me that I want to do it. It's something that I have to intention do with intent knowing that I'm Going to be glad I did that in the future when I look back on it. And so it's, it's more of a feedback loop practice than a habit.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: There's absolutely no pleasure in it.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: The occasional pleasure, right. The occasional pleasure when I make a strange connection or when I'm decoding myself and trying to understand what's going on or just playing around with, you know, at the end of the year I have all this data. I like to dump it in and synthesize board of director meetings with myself and maybe a devil's advocate, the CEO of humanity and my 95 year old self and just play around with that to see what the LLMs will tell me. That to me is a lot of fun. It's also a lot of navel gazing. It generally doesn't result in that much. It is a big waste of my time. But that's pleasurable. But the process of gathering that data, generally not pleasurable. It's fun to go out and just reflect and it's okay. But there's always something I'd rather be doing. I'd rather be doing playing sports, shooting some hoops, or reading a book or doing some research or actually doing work on decoding someone else, a client than, than doing that. But I know that if I just let it all go, I feel unreal. I don't, I feel sometimes I look at like a spaceship, right. So my engine would be like we talked about the engine, like my wiring. And then my dashboard is that. That's my dashboard. That's my connection back to Houston, which sees the big picture of my arc. And I need to keep on reporting data back to that because otherwise I'm just flying blind in this world of this, this like expansive universe of potential. And my co pilot is my evolutionary wiring, this guy I call Landon, who keeps on whispering my ear like, play it safe. Keep doing what you wanted to keep doing that. Like, don't, don't shake, don't, don't, don't, don't. That's too risky. Or you know, save your energy or that's gonna make you look bad. And so to overcome Landon, I need to put my 95 year old self on my shoulder and listen to him instead. And to be intentional about my drive and also understand my engine, because that engine is a very complicated thing. Then you always changes over time and you always need to keep on working on so, so that I can get my spaceship moving on a extraordinary trajectory.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, it's like they say, I don't Know who said it? Know thyself. Was it Socrates or I, I forget. It was one of those ancient wise people.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: I wonder how well that person knew. They knew thyself.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Well, they didn't have AI.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Well, yeah. So, yeah, you know, like AI is a extremely powerful tool. It's still not the best tool. The best tool is other people. And that's what I've learned from my experience is that if you really want to understand yourself, the best thing to do is to talk to everyone around you from all different walks, all different ages, eras of your life, and, and collect those transcripts. AI is helpful at transcribing that. But then understanding that and then collecting all those clues and frankly, even talking to one person. I do a deep dive interview with someone where we talk about their life story. 2 to 3 hours non stop from beginning to end. We just talk about everything that's going on in their life. And through that conversation, invariably we see there's a common thread. It's that interspecies within you that keeps on pushing in a certain direction.
By the end of that two or three hours, which almost no one ever has ever told you, never talked about themselves for that long. You see, it's like, oh man, this, like I keep on veering in this one direction. That's that through line, that's that core, that inner species that you want to understand, articulate, synthesize, describe, and then leverage and make them also.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: So when you work with people, like, that's like what I was going to ask you, like, what do they walk away with that they didn't have before?
[00:40:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So they, they walk away with that archetypal and the new archetype of themselves. So for me, like understanding of their verb of what they are and that new story that they can tell themselves about what they are at their essence. They walk in with that closet full of information. I love it. The more assessments they've taken, the more journals that they've written in their life, the more therapy sessions they had that have told them different stuff about their past and how different stories about their life, the better, especially the more friends that they can solicit feedback from about what they are and what makes them strong, what makes them weak.
All great. Just dump it all into me and then let's talk. We'll have that interview, we'll do a couple assessments and then I do the work of distilling it and we work on this over and over, like just hammer it home until we say, hey, this is, this is a compelling thread. Is maybe not the perfect thing, but sure is better than the lack of that spine you had before. Let's keep on working on that and get them and get them to buy in and then build their life around that rather than let their life be built sort of willy nilly or built on impulse from day to day.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: You wrote about a future version of yourself.
You know, reading your lifelong and getting frustrated with you. What would future Chris be frustrated about right now?
[00:41:27] Speaker B: That is a question that you need other people to answer for you. I've realized I wish I knew. I think I started this year with a question that I really like which is that similar is what would my 95 year old self pay me as a $95,000 to do that I don't want to do. It's like what is it? And I tried to use all the data I have to figure out that answer and I couldn't because I mean first of all I don't have many complaints. I'm pretty good because of my work of basically saying what's going like in my log they say what's going well, what's not going well. Okay, do more of what's going well, less of what's not going well. So I, I sort of engineered my way into a life that's pretty, almost too good so that I don't want to push for more and you know, be more externally successful because it's like why would I give up this that I have, I have all this time with my kids, I can do what I want pretty much every day. I'm, I'm just sort of on easy street. I'm very privileged to have that of course but that's intentional right? So it's not like I feel bad about it because I'm also doing what I love still so. But I knew all that my 9 to 5 year old self like oh you complacent more on like just you could do more like you could have even more of an exciting life. You like excitement, you like working with. You would love to work with more high leverage projects that you're not doing now because nobody cares about you. And I'm like oh yeah, I could do these things. So but so I go back and forth and I really don't know the answer to that question but it's something that maybe talking with you or someone else they could help me answer and that's why part of the value that I give you just have to work with other people and, and computers AI LLMs can't do that. Yet, maybe one day, but not yet.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: Well, I have a friend who talks about like he always has this question, my good friend Ryan. He says, what are you optimizing for?
[00:42:59] Speaker B: And what's his answer? What's your answer?
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Well, his answer is like it's spending time with his family, you know, and you know, you were mentioning your children and having time for them. It seems to me like that's a pretty important thing in your life for sure.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: You can also spend too much time with your family, as I've, as I've learned as we still go away every winter and we've tried traveling, looking for the best winter destination to go to. And there's too much time I could spend with my kids or I started not take it for granted and the pre stalgia doesn't work anymore. I was just like, I need time away. And so I would say that's not, I wouldn't say optimizing for time with family. It's just like what do you get out of optimizing time with your family? Maybe it's energy. So maybe you're optimizing for energy. And so there's, you always have to be trading off these different buckets, these different aspects of your life, or are honing that. Right. Calibration of how much of each one to have so that you can really give your all in every single moment that you're there. So when you're with a kid, 100, you love it because you know that's, that's the choice you made with the kids and then, but also professionally, also with your health, also everything with a, with the community, with your spiritual practice, everything.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: So I see what you're saying. So in order to, like earlier you were mentioning, like you need to, to do the things like the, your spine, like what you define as your spine. If you don't do what your spine is, then, then you're not going to have the energy to give to your kids.
[00:44:26] Speaker B: That too. Yeah, for sure. Of course. Because you're going to be running on, you're not going to be running your engine as efficiently as it could be running. And so, and that also you kids will see that, of course. And then they learn from you. At least that's what they say. I have a five year old and a two and a half year old, so I'm not, we'll see what happens when my kids turn out, when they're, when they're 30 years old. But that's what they say, right? They, they, they, they learn from what you do. Not what you say. And so they see that, feel that energy. And so I try to make sure that, hey, I'm. I'm optimizing. I'm actually optimizing, I think, for. For clarity, but whatever. Like, for energy is the outsource. So. So that when my kids see me like, hey, dad, I don't give a crap what he does. I don't know what he does. He tells me that I like to. He finds people superpowers, which I think is cool because they're just superheroes. But it's like, all I want is him to have, like, fun when. Play with me and wrestle with me and play sports with me and whatever and be in a good mood and not be bad and not yell at me and like, be like, have a hair, hair trigger temper when I'm around. And so that's what matters. And it's not. It's. That's. That's. That's where it's at. That, that, that. That energy, that. That ability to do that.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: You were asking me, like, what am I optimizing for?
I don't know.
I'm thinking.
I think there's a certain constant striving, like lifelong learner, but also balance, perhaps, but that's not really a verb, is it?
[00:45:43] Speaker B: I mean, no. When you're optimizing for something, it has to be something that you can measure. Right? You can't. I mean, I suppose it has to be right. You have to optimize it. It's a measureable factor. So balance you could measure.
I have a. I have a visceral aversion to the word balance that.
Because balance is almost passive. Right. I like. Rather than seeing balance, I'd like to see what that apex point is and understand that apex point and look at that and say, hey, this is intentional. I'm doing this. It's not balanced. This is like, it's. It's constant choice to do both, to find that convergence between the things and how they're all working together. What are you. What's the balance for? The balance is to get at something else that. That's more important. And balance is a. Can be very quickly become a cop out. And it's like, ah, you know, I'm just doing this, like work life, balance or whatever. Balance.
Okay. Yeah. Well, what are you really going towards? What is this balance for? And are you just saying that because it's like you don't want to make that hard choice?
[00:46:41] Speaker A: Ah, interesting. Yeah. So. Okay. Yeah, I don't. I agree with you. I think the work life, balance thing doesn't.
Yeah, I don't think, I think that's a fallacy.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: But you say balance. There's something, there's something to there, right? So same thing. Whenever I hear there's some clue within saying that that gets at what's important to use, that balance is some sort of like equilibrium, some sort of like, like stability in some way, shape or form that, or like confidence in a sense. Because if you're imbalanced, you're unconfident, you're uncertain, right. So there's probably something there. It's kind of like a question you can ask over and over again and never really get the answer to. I think it's worth asking every once in a while though, because if you don't know what your, what that is that you're looking for, then you know, you're just sort of shooting blind. And so for my, in my case, I think it is like, I'll just buy you some time and also just talk because I'm supposed to talk here, I guess. Is, is, is that clarity, right?
Is that the more that you understand yourself, your own values, your own needs, and how you best contribute, true contribute to the world so you can like for me the best, like an extraordinary life is giving your best to the world, getting the best from it and inspiring others, right? To do that, you have to fully understand what your best is that you can give. Okay? So that's like your, your powers, your abilities, you have to understand what getting the best is. So what is that you want to get out of life? So h, how much like time with family, how much time in terms of fulfillment of, of like success and money or whatever it may be and how much other stuff as well, like all that. You have to understand what getting the best is and what life can give you and then inspire others. If you do those things, you just want to leave a positive legacy and inspire others by doing so.
So for me, like clarity, if you have unclarity on what to do on a day to day level, day to day basis of making decisions that work toward doing that and you understand what you're made of, what you want out of it, and then the next step to do it, that's the best you can do. Obviously you can't control the circumstances that you're in, but you, if you can control those decisions, that's, that's all you, you feel that autonomy of your life and that, and that certainty and you can go at it a hundred percent rather than, you know, One foot in, one foot out. Not sure what you're doing because you don't have that clarity.
[00:48:45] Speaker A: I think right now the word that comes to mind is stewarding. Like stewardship.
You know, it's this idea that, you know, I, I, I, I'm at, I'm 55 years old. I have a lot of responsibility. I have to take care of shit, and, and I take care, you know, take care of myself, so I can take care of the people I love and take care of the foundation, take care of the business, take care of, you know, so it's, it's, it's stewarding. I'm, I don't like the idea of owning, but I like the idea of taking care. Like our planet, we have to take care of our planet.
Stewarding the planet, stewarding information, passing it on to the next generation.
I can get overwhelmed with the idea or I can do it in a way that's, that, that's functional and that, that doesn't overwhelm me.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, and that's in, that's. So that could be that, that's a really good starting point for that distillation of your own verb. Right. And if you think about stewarding, that could explain partially, the balance. Right. The steward, A steward is the, whatever it's called the, like, the, the stuff that helps a boat balance, right? Like, it's like you're helping everything stay balanced. Right? So, like, as a steward, you're keeping the, the, the, whatever, the, the, the weight and the hull of the ship. That's what you are, that's what you're doing, Right.
[00:50:02] Speaker A: I never heard of that definition. I have to look that up. Okay.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: All right. Yeah. Cause I've worked with a couple of stewards in, in the past ourself, like, the people that seem to really be about stewardship. And that's a, it's a, a metaphor that resonates typically with them. Right. So some people are the sail, some people are the engine. Some people are whatever. They're the ones that are making sure the ship stays upright. It doesn't capsize. The ballast. That's the word.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: The ballast, yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. I like that concept because, you know, when you're 20 years old, you're not really thinking about that. It's different. You're thinking about, you know, just like, making money, making a name for yourself. It's maybe some of the dirty fuel that you're talking about.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And so that's a passionate topic for me, of course, as a parent, of understanding how you change societal systems to, to change how we are conditioned to seek those things. Right. We're always going to be in a sense wired a condition to, to seek that, that's that status because that's a, we're, we're, that those are the animals that we are. But our schools and even our society, our culture to some extent can help us counteract that by helping us understand what's more important and understand ourselves and what, what true successes teach us as, as corny as that may be, that's, that's really what it's about. And so that those 20 year olds, I, I hope and especially my kids will understand that and have a better understanding of themselves and, and what to do rather than like me, you know, leaving their job, chasing after things that they're not meant to be chasing after, but chasing after things that they want to be chasing after rather than just following a pre, predetermined, predetermined course.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: Also a little worried, you know, about society today because it seems to me like people are throwing out a lot of institutions, a lot of principles, a lot of concepts that have survived centuries and maybe even millennia and they're just throwing it out as not valuable. And I'm like, no, wait, we get a whole lot of this stuff. It's stood the test of time, right?
[00:51:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So that's part of your stewardship instinct, right? Is just, is this is keeping even old society just. Yeah. Not, not chucking the stuff that's also the ballast of the ship to some extent. Yeah.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: Because it's brought us this far and I feel like, okay, it's not perfect. I think anything man made isn't perfect. That there's some pretty good stuff. Let's not throw the baby out with
[00:52:14] Speaker B: the bathwater or at least double check. Right. The, the whole Chesterton's fence type of thing where there's the fence exists for a reason. That's not this person. Understand why that, appreciate why it's there before we take it down and we'll eat all over ship sheep or whatever it may be.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: One example I think comes to mind is, you know, as you know, I think I talked about this. I practice karate and we have a code of morals. There's like five principles and one of them is etiquette. You know, you gotta respect your opponent. Even like we bow to our opponent. And today's society couldn't care less about etiquette. How are we going to share a table, sit together if we don't have etiquette?
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I would say, I mean, not all of society. Right. It's. That's, that's kind of the, the image that's maybe too common on. In the media now. But if I, if I spend time walking around the street in, in Vancouver or in Cape Town, I don't feel that. I feel like that's, that's, that's part of the problem. Right. Is that it. That what you see sort of becomes more and more pervasive in your own behavior and then it just sort of a negative cycle and. But it can be turned around, you know, and there's.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: There's of course the pursuit of perfection, of character and being, being honest and, and, and, and effort, you know, cultivating a spirit of effort and, and, and like not being a bloody brute, you know. Restraint.
[00:53:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So there's like, there's a, that brings like there's a. I think there's a distinction between sort of values and virtues. There are certain things that are virtues that are universally good. So a value typically is something that the. The opposite is equally valid.
[00:53:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:53:42] Speaker B: So self direction, great, that's a strong value for me. But the opposite is tradition. Right. So you can value tradition just as strongly as self direction, but you cannot. And conformity, those two like you. But you can't go after both at the same time. Otherwise you just. That there's going to be tension the whole entire time. And so each individual has a different value basis. And you have to appreciate that because that's why like we each different value, different personalities, different. Different wire and different spikiness.
When it comes to virtues though, in terms of stuff like, you know, yeah, courage, justice, things like this, that the opposite of courage is what is whatever it is sort of just as justice, like those are not good things. So those are things that need to be practiced and, and that are part of what culture needs to help people learn and young people, old people and reinforce them and, and celebrate.
[00:54:28] Speaker A: So talk a little bit about arc.
[00:54:30] Speaker B: So arc, alignment, resonance, clarity. That's just like the overarching name that I of. Of my methodology that I, That I have invented to, to try to systematize what I did for myself of taking all this information about myself in the closet and distilling it down. It's trying to get that alignment to your inner nature and the clarity on how to act accordingly so that it resonates. So it resonates in terms of energy internally and also externally. So people see, hey, wow, the more you see people that are living authentically, living truly aligned and doing the Thing that only they can do. The more examples you have out there, the more role models, the more you're gonna say, hey, that's really cool like that. I wanna be like that person more so than this person who, sure, maybe they're making a lot of money, but they seem like a nasty person. They don't seem like, they're not smiling very often. They don't seem very energetic. And I hope that even me as an unemotional, robotic guy, you can sense through talking to me that, like, hey, I'm really into what I'm doing. And like, if you see me on the street, you're like, okay, he's not the, he's not a party animal, that's for sure. But there's no sense of him hating his life whatsoever. He's like, that guy is very well adjusted and knows what he's, what he's into. He's almost brainwashed into, into believing it. But that's, that's the reality and that's what I want. I want to resonate like that so people like, I want that for myself. And the more we have of that, the more it becomes like we talking about the media, like it becomes the common thing so that the unconventional and the extraordinary becomes the norm. And everyone's doing that. That's. That's the grand vision of ARK and innate edge and what I'm doing.
[00:55:57] Speaker A: So you became obsessed with nature versus nurture when your son was born. So what do you want to make sure he inherits?
[00:56:03] Speaker B: He inherits.
I don't care what he, I guess like what he inherits because he has his, he has his, he has his nature. Right. So I just want to nurture it. It's kind of like the plant that you just want to call. You just want to take care of and, and help grow in the way that it was designed to grow. So I can't say I want him to inherit. I would love him to be more similar to me because it's easier to work with than someone who is very different from me. That would be challenging.
But otherwise it's just, I need him to learn those skills, those virtues, those skills that he can have and then also in a sense have the fortune and the privilege that I had to have the space to be able to pursue what he wants to do. Because it's hard. You know, there's are many, many, most people in the world don't have the opportunities that I had and that my son will have to truly spend 13 years screwing around, playing around with AI having conversations, whatever, trying to figure themselves out. And I want to make sure that my kid has that. It's like the, the ability to afford patients. That's like the, the best, the best way you can put like the ability to afford patients to explore the extraordinary. That's what, that's what I want him to have.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: Beautiful.
[00:57:12] Speaker B: To give him the belief that if he keeps on doing that, he will get there and, and that, that I'm, you know, behind him and supporting him in doing that.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: Wow. Can you say that again? You want him to afford the patience
[00:57:24] Speaker B: to explore the extraordinary. I'm trying to minimize the amount of time it takes to understand what that is and to, to art, to articulate yourself, make yourself legible, and then make yourself legible to the outside world. Right. That's my, my, my, my sort of lace work is to minimize that for the people. But nonetheless, it's going to take time. And maybe you're going to find out something about yourself, that your, your spikiness, your weird shape is something that society is not built for. So you have to build life around it. And that takes time and that takes patience. And if you are around parents who are, you know, tiger parents or whatever who are really pushing you one way and your friends are also pushing you one way, that takes away your ability to afford patients. If you don't have the money to be able to pay rent and pay for food, that takes away your ability to afford patients. So all of those things.
And if you just don't have the mental strength or the mental wherewithal to work on your life, on in your life, that takes away your ability to afford patients. So all those things you need to build up that almost that reserve, that strength to, to do it because, because the insight, the knowledge of yourself is only half the battle. Right. I know that myself. Like, I'm not, I'm not super successful whatsoever, but I have the patience to keep on pushing, on jumping one stepping stone at a time to see what's going to happen and enjoy it as I, I go along. And I want the same for my kids and essentially for everybody to, to make that a goal for them. The, the ability to afford patients.
[00:58:38] Speaker A: I found that really interesting that you said if somebody doesn't really fit into society, they have to build the environment around them in order for, for them to feel okay.
[00:58:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: I mean, can you give an example of that?
[00:58:52] Speaker B: The more, the more spiky, the more unusual your spiky nature, your shape, your engine is, the less likely it's going to Have a box, a noun that's already been designed that fits right into society, right. So you can't just like plug right into this vehicle that's going to let it work. Whereas if you're someone who's just like a natural, naturally bored entrepreneur who just loves to make money, solve problems, do some like, there's a million different types of entrepreneur, but you're naturally wired to that way, okay, well, there's lots of boxes that are already there out for you. And if you can, so it's pretty easy for you to fit into that box. But if you're not, if you're someone even like me, okay, sure, I can do pretty well as a consultant, as a financial advisor, as an investor, whatever. But even then I. It wasn't the right box for me and I would have hated my life doing it. So I had this weird spikiness that there is no box for what I'm doing, like decoding people. It's. There's, you know, some, some businesses like Myers, Briggs, Clifton, whatever, that do some of the things, but it's not the same. And so it takes a lot of time to meet, design a life around doing that and design and make it, make the world understand it so that eventually it's like, oh, this is his fit. You know, like to make the fit. There is no open space in a puzzle waiting for me. No, I have to like force it into there and make people aware of the need for it.
[01:00:02] Speaker A: So are there, is there like an ideal client?
[01:00:07] Speaker B: Yeah, the ideal client has APEX the ability to afford patients to explore the extraordinary. They don't have too many pathologies, they don't need medical or professional help. I. And I'm not an emotional healer whatsoever. Entirely objective. And there's someone who's driven, right. They think the. I, as I was saying about how I failed almost at 100% level to get people to put in place the system like I have for working on your life, not in your life.
The only people that I've succeeded with are people that are intrinsically motivated to just do things on their own. They're just, they're just, they don't need that person, that, that coach, whatever. So they're the type of people that just work out when they want to work out. They just do the things when they have to do. And so for me, that's easier. Otherwise I could work with someone who has a coach that could do that for them, but I'm not the coach. That's like. Part of what I would say is like you want to set a boundary line of what you are, are and are not to like sharpen your edge. And that's not me. So I like to have people that if I tell them something and give them that insight, they take that and they run with it and I don't have to. And I can just watch and decode and help them decode their results and go from there.
[01:01:06] Speaker A: Oh, that's so cool.
[01:01:07] Speaker B: And, and, and weird people, right? The people who really feel, man, like, I don't fit in. This is. The rest of the world is so different. Like, this is not fair, right? I've. Even as a kid I, I gravitated and always was like, would talk to the, the weird kids at class and like try to understand them. Like what? Like what? I didn't feel that they were weird. I hated when they're bullied. That was the thing that hurt me the most, is seeing these weird kids who are just being themselves. Not intentionally being weird to get attention, but just being themselves getting bullied. And that's where I was like, ha. No. And that I love to understand them. So now adults, when I talk to them, who are those kids or who are those people? As adults, I love to work with them. Just because to me again, as like almost a scientist looking at weird species, the weirder the species, the better. And I think also the more extraordinary the potential because there's a need for that weirdness out there, right?
[01:01:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Because on your website, I love this idea that you learn, you figure out who you are in order to build something extraordinary, right?
[01:02:03] Speaker B: Because if you, if you don't know, if you have that, that closet full of just self knowledge that's not assembled in any way, shape or form, everything you do is just a scattered effort. You're just trying one thing after the other, but you're just shoving that input into a closet that you're not really making sense of. Whereas once you gather that spine and have something that you can keep on improving on, but you can build on, instead of just gathering pieces, you start erecting something. So I call it, I call like my life's work, my Sagrada. After the Sagrada Familia of, of Barcelona, where it takes a lifetime or more to build it and it looks weird and it's unique to you and your wiring, but if you just go piece after piece after piece, putting one piece after another, eventually it creates something that is truly remarkable, truly represents yourself and other people will see and say, hey, wow, that's, that's, that's incredible. And as it starts to take shape, you understand how to build it more so you have more clarity on what that is. Other people have clarity on it, too. And it turns into something.
Yeah. Something truly extraordinary.
[01:02:56] Speaker A: It wasn't Sagrada. That was a Gaudi.
[01:02:59] Speaker B: Yeah, Gaudi then. Yeah. Like, as an. As a counter example to that, because, you know, he's. It's super famous. It's the. One of the landmarks worldwide landmarks. So it's like. I'm not saying everyone needs to do that. Right. But when. When I was in Medellin, my first summer that I fled Canada, after I pre. Tired, I called it in 2013.
When I went to Medellin in 2016, 17, we went to this house in a suburb of Medellin called Elaro. And there was a guy there named Santiago who brought back a stone for his wife every day as a represent. As a. As a demonstration of his love for his wife. And he did that day after day after day, until he eventually erected an entire house, La Casa de las de.
Out of these stones. And it's obviously, it's a house that no one else can possibly build because it's handmade stone by stone by stone. Very eccentric and unique. But that's his creation. That's his. Almost his Sagrada, his proudest achievement. When he showed us around, you could sense that, Right. Obviously, this is a life story in a physical.
Physical structure. And that's what I want to help other people do, is make everything make sense into a structure that you can show. Maybe it's not physical. Right. For me, it's my methodology, the way that I'm looking and trying to decode things and structure that into methodology. But that's something that can make sense and eventually I can show to people through a book or just through working with them, and I can say, wow, that guy has clearly been doing this for many, many years. I've only been doing this for, like, a year. Yeah, Just. Just over a year now. Right. So it just keeps on, well, formally for a year, but for much more prior to that. But now you can see just like, builds, builds, builds and gets better and better and gives you that direction.
[01:04:29] Speaker A: Can you share some things that are being built right now that.
[01:04:31] Speaker B: Oh, from. From people that I'm working with.
[01:04:33] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[01:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So Roman, who you had on your podcast, couple guests ago, He's. He's an example. And so he is. He. As. He. As he talked about in this podcast, so he won't mind me sharing that he had left a couple of successful Ventures in Germany, an insurance company, and then a private equity company. And he was like, he'd been reading my writing for a couple of years, and he wanted to know what to do next, whether to jump into his next venture or whatnot. And so we decoded him and we tried to understand, okay, what is distilled down archetype, and found that to be override orchestrator. So he's override. He finds where rules are existing, rules are there that are actually harmful that you need to override and make a new rule to replace it. That will help empower people and help them live better lives. And his override that he wants to work on now, that's most.
Most interesting to him and most energizing to him is the fact that when you're 61 years old, like him, very accomplished, lots of skills, his expectation is either start another business or just retire to do nothing. And that's such a waste. And so he has lots of peers that don't know the district that are sort of like, I don't want to sit on the board and sort of like, give lip service to stuff. I want to add my value. I have lots left to give. So he's starting. He said he's an override orchestrator. He's starting a program or a way to override that rule that you just sort of like, go into boards if you're successful and move on and start a. Like a quarter three or the quarter three of your life institute to help people that are in a similar stage to him come together and figure out ways to keep on contributing well into their third quarter, you know, fourth. Fourth quarter. So he's. He's one example of someone who's. I'm helping to get that. That clarity on how to leverage his wiring, understand his story all the way from youth, from back when he was in army, orchestrating his. His army troop to enjoy a good life, too, all the way through all of his. His professional endeavors until now and how it all makes sense and how he's uniquely equipped at bringing these people together, the right people to do the right thing, to override a problem, to. To do something that. To take down Old World and replace them with better ones.
[01:06:32] Speaker A: Wow, that's so cool. Yeah. I was so grateful that he introduced us. Any other cool success stories you want to share with us or.
[01:06:41] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. One of my. One of my favorites is so that Roman's one of my older clients. Another one of my youngest ones is named Evan. He just.
[01:06:49] Speaker A: He.
[01:06:49] Speaker B: He came in, he's like I love writing. And he said, I want to do my mfa, but also I love working with data. And I don't know, like, I. I feel like I'm. I'm torn between the two. He's a data. Data analyst at a startup in. In New York City. What. What, like, what do I do? And I'm so uncertain. Like, do I just find that balance in my life and. Or maybe just, you know, keep working in data even though I'm, like, I'm kind of on the fence about it and then right on the side? Or do I just leave it all and just pursue this.
This dream of becoming an author and writing some book like his, his hero, Zadie Smith? And so I said, okay, let's understand.
What's that in your spine? What's your core? What's your archetype? Right? So Evan, as it turns out, he's really, as you call it, a playmaker. So he. He likes to be the, like the guy in the midfield of a soccer. Soccer team that's setting up the play for other people to score. And he does that through narrative. His narrative can be told with his both feet. He has his right foot for data, is left foot for story, for narrative, and he can work with both very well. He's like. He's ambidextrous in that regard, which is special. But he's really like, his drive, the thing that sort of sparks his engine to move forward, is seeing potential that's not being tapped into. So he likes to tell the stories that motivate people to move forward and score goals on themselves. So he's used that to. Now, okay, he left his job not because of what I told him to, but just. Just as the circumstances happened, he left his job and now is working on becoming a narrative director within companies. So he goes to companies, helps them understand what's going on, and helps companies that are getting a bit bigger than just a small team tell the narrative of their story and have the. The members of each team tell their own stories so they can see how they all come together to tell a narrative. And they can all, like, sort of score goals together in a sense. And so it's bringing together that data because he's used lots of data to analyze that and the storytelling and the writing to create a business of his own. That's going to take effort because, again, that's not something that really exists in the world already, but it's something that he is uniquely equipped to do. And I'm really excited to see what
[01:08:48] Speaker A: he makes of It So you're almost like personal brand brander in a way.
[01:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah, some people, some people put it that way. Yeah. Another way that yeah is, is product market fit for people is what I try to help them get.
[01:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Because it's, you know, even as a coach it's. I was told once that it's really hard for people to buy your services unless they understand who you are.
[01:09:10] Speaker B: Right. Okay. Yeah. As a coach.
Yeah.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: I could see you being very helpful in helping people figure that out so they can then show the world. Okay. This is, this is who I am.
[01:09:20] Speaker B: Right, exactly. So it's about that legibility. Right. You understand yourself first and then you make it legible to the outside world so that they can understand it too. And you position yourself accordingly so you understand that engine. That's the first part. The second part is building that vehicle around the engine that the world is going to see because they don't like you can tell them all about oh you know, I'm introverted, neurotic, blah, blah, like I'm all these things about myself. Oh my values are this, oh my enneagram is this like I don't care what can you do for me? So you build a vehicle that's like that's the vehicle I need and ideally with each person because each person has a unique, you know, background in equiring.
There is by the laws of comparative advantage economics something you can be the best in the world at. And if you can hone in on what that is and then position that accordingly it can take time for the that market to open up. But if you have that confidence and that faith that it will, that if you keep on pushing that direction, something extraordinary will become of it. I'm. I'm sure I can't prove it yet because I've just gotten started and look at me. I'm not, I'm not vest in the world at decoding yet but talk to me and 20 years and if I failed, I failed if either way I'll have enjoyed the, enjoyed it and been intentional about that's for sure.
[01:10:23] Speaker A: Well, your smile says it all. You're. You're having fun and I think if you're having fun it, it means that something's working.
[01:10:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I, I think so. Like again there's that, there's that trade off where sometimes you need to make a sacrifice to truly get, get over a hump and I, that's where I still have a lot of doubts is that hey, do I need to sacrifice a little bit. You know, go on social media. I hate social media. Or pimp myself a little bit or just do lots of sales, sales calls or whatever to really push and sacrifice a couple months to get over this hump and almost hate my life for that. To have even more fun in the future. Or just as I call radically moderate progress. Just so moderate is radical. Just one step at a time, trusting the process. And I think that's the one thing is if you have a lot of that fuel in your tank to like cover you into so that you can afford that patience and you can afford it also from a, from a social aspect in terms of people around you, then there's I, you don't necessarily need to, you can still tell that story in a more gradual way and, and, and make that progress. And that's my, that's my thesis that I'm working on for myself at least right now. Until someone tells me I'm in moron and to try something else. I'm always willing to experiment. And that's one of the things you have to be too right. Always willing to try, try different and test test the opposite to make, to prove, to prove that you're right.
[01:11:42] Speaker A: Just to double check so people can find you on the Zag.com, which is your, your blog. There's lots of really free good information on there for people to read about your process, about your philosophy.
[01:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah, they can. And they can also go either there or innate edge.com I have this nude new report called the Core Wiring X Ray and it has nine questions that take maybe 10 to 15 minutes to answer. And then in, if you fill that out, I will by hand spend my time with my AI Sidekick decoding that report and send you, sending you an output that will reframe what your how, your self perception to give you a little bit more clarity on yourself on what and get started on that distillation.
[01:12:27] Speaker A: That's so cool. And then of course people can work with you one on one if they want.
[01:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I would still suggest doing the X ray to start, just to get, get a feel for, for what, what it is. And then if they're interesting and I'm interested in working with them because again I like to work with people who I enjoy working with. I spend a lot of time talking with these people and I mean you get to know them so well, they become always invariably your friends. I want to, I'm pretty picky about that. And then yeah, then, then we do the full engagement and. And then I'm with you for life essentially. Unfortunately, because I want to see what happens to you. Right. So it's a. It's an investment from both sides.
[01:13:01] Speaker A: Very cool. Is there anything I've missed?
[01:13:03] Speaker B: That's. I think that's plenty. Yeah. No, I appreciate the questions and the conversation, and it's. It's really cool to. I think what you missed is I want to. I want to try to talk more about your own stewardship and see if we can get that even more dialed in and understand, for example, how does this podcast fit in with the stewardship? Right. How the drive to do that, how your drive should into work in editorial work. How does that all fit in? Because there's. I guarantee you, everything seems disparate and unrelated, but I guarantee you there's always a thread that brings it together. And when you understand that, then the positioning of yourself in the world makes a lot more sense and you feel good about it.
[01:13:36] Speaker A: Well, I'm going to go and do the X rays tonight.
[01:13:38] Speaker B: All right.
[01:13:41] Speaker A: And to be continued, Chris.
[01:13:43] Speaker B: All right. Appreciate. Appreciate the time. Thanks for having me, Diana.
[01:13:46] Speaker A: Thank you.
If this episode landed for you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if you haven't already, subscribe. So you don't miss what's coming. But here's the real thing. I want you to know if you're carrying something you can't talk about, if you have every resource except someone who actually understands what wealth costs. I work one on one with people like you navigating exactly that. You can reach me at Diana O E H R L I dot com. Thanks for listening.
