Beyond the Present Podcast

Fuzzy logic is an approach to computing based on "degrees of truth" rather than the usual "true or false" (1 or 0) Boolean logic on which the modern computer is based.  It is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth values of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1 both inclusive.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

reality, true, logic, people, thinking, idea, language, point, universe, objective reality, humans, thought, fuzzy, experiment, paradox, nature, question, probability, false, thoughts

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Govind, Deep

Pouya LJ  00:16

Hey guys, how's it going?

Govind  00:19

Nice, amazing. Toronto. Good weather.

00:23

Yeah, no, it's surprisingly hot. Yeah.

Pouya LJ  00:29

So it's been a while, since we talked. Let's see each of you. What's up with you. Let's start with you guff?

Govind  00:39

Well, for those that don't know, I have a startup called Virtual systems that focuses on network security using information theory, principles, and networking, to have a flat internet that's not built on data centers where data privacy can be controlled by the user, as opposed to any corporate corporation that is controlling your data, which is the case these days. So that's a little bit of my background. I like a lot of things like mathematics, philosophy, computer science, and software development.

Pouya LJ  01:11

Well, that's for philosophy. All right, I bet you the What's up? What's up with you?

Deep  01:18

Um, yes. First of all, I just want to say that just sounds like the life of a polymath, so I can really appreciate that right on COVID. Yeah, so I similar to COVID. I also run my own startup, we do quantum computing. Instead, we are looking to use quantum computers to accelerate the materials discovery timeline. Right. So right now we do a lot of things that are mostly trial and error based plus some compute, for doing materials discovery, let's say you want to discover a new cathode or new electrode material, right? How are you going to do that? We want to automate that process and and speed it up by thousands if not millions. That's our goal. It's pretty ambitious, but that's what we do you everyday, or try to do. Uh huh. Yeah. So that's what I've been up to.

Pouya LJ  02:11

Yeah. Thanks. That's amazing. Are you in Toronto?

Deep  02:14

Yes. Good.

Pouya LJ  02:15

Good. You're enjoying this weather?

Deep  02:17

Totally. Yeah. So nice. weather wise will enjoy it. Well, us.

Pouya LJ  02:21

Yeah. Well, that's true. That's going on soon. Probably next week. Still not that bad? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Anyways, so today, we are tackling a subject that I am very inept in? I have no idea. I mean, I know abstractly what it is, but I don't have any readings on it. I think you guys are more educated on this than me. But let's see how it goes. So we're talking about a bunch of different stuff. Actually, it's not one thing, but it's centered at logic propositions. And quantifiers. Do you want it? So this was the pathway was introduced to this conversation was introduced by golf? Do you want to start it off yourself?

Govind  03:06

Sure. Um, so when we think about logic, what comes to mind? Generally, it's things like, debate, you know, things that logic is associated with, or things like debate, and truth and false, maybe people who are in software development or would think of code. You know, there there are so many of these, these these concepts that come to your mind when you think of the word logic. You know, what, maybe maybe you guys can chime in with like, premium fallacy. When I say the word logic, one of the one of the things you think about,

Pouya LJ  03:35

no, I think I mean, I guess it depends on their perspective, as you were saying, but I think what you're saying it makes sense. I think, generally, people think about logic as reasoning, like step by step thinking. Thinking about, like, it depends, if you're asking a philosopher is a little bit different than a mathematician than a software, regular person going about their lives, not thinking about these things. But I think that just remains for most people.

Govind  04:05

Sure, what am I?

Deep  04:07

Yeah, when I think of logic, I think of two things, the more intuitive idea of logic, which is what I think every human has, right? We like to all believe that we're logical beings, right? What does that mean? We all know that mean something when I say it, but what does so I think, the intuitive idea that humans are logical insofar as they have a set of consistent rules that you can codify that have some sort of basis, right, you can derive next set of actions based on a set of let's say, axiom true principles, right. And they're logical in nature. For example, humans get hungry where you're cutting off I don't is that does that me or?

Govind  04:46

Oh, I can I can hear him fine. I think

Pouya LJ  04:48

that's me.

Deep  04:50

Do you want me to restart for you?

Pouya LJ  04:53

Okay, now that's better. Sorry. Okay. Sure. That's fine. Continue. Sorry.

Deep  04:56

Sure. So I was just saying that like from from the preset preset Something that's logical, or I would consider as logical is the idea of hunger, right? Like when a human is hungry? What would be logical next is that they're going to try to get food. Right? To me that's logical. And that and so that's an intuitive logic or system of systems are sets of logics that we just know from by nature. Then I think of the logic, when when when Govan asked me, What do I think when you know about logic, right? Like what comes to mind? Or how would I define it and whatnot. The second one is the formal, abstract idea of logic that we humans have that I think that maybe other creatures don't have. And and that's the mathematical ability or the mathematical perspective of logic, where you can look at, you can create systems like Boolean logic, you can generalize Boolean logic and look at how you can construct quantum computations in Universal computations. And propositional logic is totally different than what I just talked about. And so that's all these things are abstract logics, and it's different than the intuitive logic, sometimes.

Govind  06:07

Yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's a great way of like, you know, describing the entire breadth of what logic? Thanks. Well, I think it comes down to the concept of truth and false, right, because you have to start with things you know, are true. And then you string these things that are true in certain ways that allows you to create certain implications, right? You, you, you start with a few facts, like, as a classic one, all men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal, right? You know, you have these propositions you have you start with these facts, and then you put them together using some inference rules. But what I wanted to discuss in today's topic, as today's topic is this concept of truth and false itself. We really, as humans, we take truth and false kind of for granted as a discrete binary thing, right? You have something that's true, and it's not true, it's false. But is that really the case? And to further grounded discussion, I have a few quotes from this book. It's called fuzzy thinking. And it has it really explores this concept of how truth can be continuous or fuzzy, right? It's it's not it's not truth. It's like an on off switch. But it's actually like, on and goes all the way to off with like, several, maybe infinite steps in the way. So one quote I really like is, there was a mistake, and everyone in science seemed to make it. They said that all things were true or false. They were not always sure which things were true and which were false. But they were sure that all things were either true or false. So I thought that that is a really cool quote, because it points out this fact that this is really taken for granted, we don't really think about, you know, like, What is it? What does it mean for something to be true or false. And another quote, I think, would be interesting not to make this all the quotes I made this last one is a quote from Albert Einstein. So far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they're not certain. And so far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. Because, I mean, if you say something is true or false, the universe does not give a shit, you know, universe is going to do whatever it's doing. And we're just we're just creating these models where we say, Okay, these things are true, these things are false. And, and we're going to construct our models of reality based on it. But these models of reality are pretty much mental experiments that we perform across humans right? Now, it just so happens that it happens to be incredibly good at modeling reality, to the point where people can get confused and say that reality works based on the principles that we create, and the facts that we create, the things that we assign as true or false is what is allowing reality to work the way it is. But it's it's always important to know that there's this detachment between what's reality and what's what's, you know, our our collective, our thought experiment, which is, you can call it mathematics, philosophy, whatever any anything that we have, when we come together, we have discussions, even discussions like what we're having right now. They're, they're just, like, there's a separation from this and reality. And this is kind of exemplified by what's known as the law of the excluded middle in, in logic. So where if you have a proposition a, let's say, let's just call it P let's let's work in the realm of the abstracts, if you have a proposition p p could be something like, this is a fruit or a gob is a person, you know, things like that things, something that I can assign a truth value to true or false. So the law of the excluded middle is that for all propositions P, P, or not B, that is something can either be true or not true. Now, this this sounds like stupid, simple, right? It sounds kind of like okay, sure, something can either be true or false. But now, what's crazy is that several mathematicians in over the 20th century, were actually pushing back against including this principle and logic, they were saying, No, I want to construct a mathematics which doesn't have p or not p that is, p or not P is actually not true. According to these people. They were called the intuitionists. And this cause Like a massive, massive debate back in the 20th century. But I'll pause here and I'll get some comments from you guys like what do you think such a mathematics could actually look like?

10:11

So

Deep  10:12

the first thing that comes to mind is the idea of structural realism. Structural realism basically posits that whatever scientific and mathematical understanding that we get of the universe, it does not necessarily reflect on the true structure and nature of the universe, right? So, if you have a quote, of creations that describe gravity at the macroscopic scale, that does not mean that those equations are the true structure and nature of reality. And that's important because when we're, as you sort of alluded to Govan, like when we define something to be true or false, nature doesn't give a shit. Right, so to speak. And that's like, like, interesting enough, there's a philosophical question right there. Because what if it happens that structural realism is false. And ironically, there is some sort of mathematical truism, at least in the physics perspective, that we can define, and that it is actually a true reflection of reality. It is objectively the truth. Right? Like, we may not, it may actually be possible, who knows? So there and because we haven't actually answered that, you know, what I mean, that that philosophical idea yet, whether structural realism, is true or not, is very hard to it. Yeah, extend or resolve the conflicts that have occurred in the 20th century from logic? Because this is just an extension of that. What do you think?

Govind  11:50

Um, well, I think this this, this time in history was very interesting, you know, because, well, maybe, like, some historical context would be that, you know, this is the first time you have like, several extremely smart people from across the world coming together and creating a global, you know, like, hey, let's tackle the biggest questions in, in humanity, like any point in your thinking, right? So like, and I think this kind of resulted in probability, right? probability is something that emerged from the 20th century, I mean, some could argue the roots extend way back, but you know, like the roots for everything, then way back. But the reason I bring up probability in this in this argument is like, as, as humans now in the 21st century, we, our process of science is so fundamentally grounded in probability, right? Like, to the point where our models of reality are the closest models of reality, we have use probability necessarily, right? Think of all the discussions you've had with your friends regarding COVID, or all these other things. Most people tend to make arguments related to probability and case fatality rates, you know, these kind of like, almost baseball statistics, right? Like I say, baseball statistics, just to kind of ground that and make it more like, you know, you see where I'm going with this, right? It's just that probability has created this kind of way that of making seen things our model seems so real, that you can actually see them and you can actually see their measure their impact on them. Right, this in fact, in mathematics, this the, let's call it the backbone of probability is called measure theory. Right. And I think this kind of lends itself to, well, some of the stuff you're working on, right, the quantum models of reality. So I think I think structural realism is something that is extremely effective, because it's, it's, it works on observations of reality, behind the scenes, and it actually kind of gets there. I mean, I'm using structural realism, maybe I'm, I'm conflating it with some mathematical context that are quantitation that it does not come with out of the box. I hope, I hope my point is clear.

Deep  13:51

Yeah, I understand your point completely. Um, quia. What do you think about this idea of an objective truth in nature? Um, do you think that it actually exists? And should we possess it? logic around that idea? Or the, or the rejection of the idea? Yeah. How important should that rule be?

Pouya LJ  14:12

Um, that's a very good question. Actually, I have started this long project, which is in the background for my own sake, I actually came up thought of this question a while back. I mean, everybody thought of thinks about these things, but more seriously started thinking about this insert. Getting onto some avenue to, you know, think about Yes. Is there an objective reality? And then that's literally the question to ask myself that started me on this journey. And you know, I I talk to some people from different walks of life, from psychology to philosophy to physics and what have you, some people who are at the top of their fields. I didn't. I mean, I did ask them this question, which is not the point. But from there our conversation, my conversation with them. What I got is that, no, from, from, from the real essence of the question, like the deepest sense of the question. And what I gather from all of those conversation conversations is that, again, we not the way we understand our world, our universe, maybe there is maybe there is a formalism that will get us there. But at least not with anything we have this, you know, far we've gotten discovery in science and philosophy thought. So. I, I think ultimately there is that's just a guesswork, obviously, like hypothesizing, but not in the sense that. So, let me put it this way. So for example, when GM Govan was saying that there's a spectrum of truth, I think that is, that is, that is true, until you get to the, to the resolution to the, to the, to the pixel of reality, essentially, at some point, it has to be one or the other. But we didn't get there yet. So that's my sense of it. That's my sense is that yes, it will eventually be some sort of objectiveness in reality, but it requires a better understanding of that reality that the fundamental laws of our universe, and that is not just gravity, gravity is, for example, gravity is emergent, from my perspective, and that that sense?

Govind  16:49

Well, I think you're gonna be happy, because initially, you wanted this discussion to be more about the nature of reality. And I think it's creeping into there. So I'll talk a little bit about the nature of reality as examined by Western philosophers. So there's a Descartes, notably, in the in the history of Western philosophy in like, let's say, the early modern period, which is like on 1600s, to like present day, or 1600 to 1800, is about the early modern period, we had these different movements, we started with rationalism, which is that, you know, like, we just, we just say things like, create these elaborate logical models. And then, and then we, we kind of examine, we use this as descriptions of reality. And then this kind of God rejects. And notably, Rene Descartes was kind of like a huge figure in this movement, because he said things like, the mind is its own soft, separate substance. And to tie that back to this discussion, what I was saying earlier about the realm of, of imaginary, thought experiments that we work with, in different fields like mathematics, computer science, and so on. He thought that it was its own separate universe that was completely detached from our, the universe that we live in. And he, I mean, these are the things he's saying, right? Like, I mean, he could be right, he could be wrong, but like, he's like, he's using logic as a means to tie together his his arguments. But at the end of the day, these are just things he's saying. And he's just using logic to create an elaborate story, an elaborate logical model. And this is the criticism that the next movement kind of gave to the rationalists. They were called the empiricist. People like David Hume, and I think mill or Locke, john Locke was in there. But they were like, hey, you're just saying things, you know, you're just you're just creating, you're just like, this is basically a story that I'm reading. And you're just like, Well, God is this and God is that. Savage. Exactly. And they're like David Hume, one of his famous philosophical quotes is like, you know, you can, you can't say for sure that the sun is gonna rise tomorrow, we see it rise every day. And we take it for granted, we have these explanations for it. But at the end of the day, these are just explanations, you know, I mean, at this point, they hadn't invented spacecraft and all that stuff yet, you know, they couldn't just go up there and see the sun.

Deep  19:09

Well, even then, like it did, there's still a philosophical point to that, like, even then we may not, despite everything we know, today, you know, I mean, the sun might not rise like there's

Govind  19:21

exactly that's, that's, that's

Deep  19:22

apparently physical reasons. I'm not even saying like magical reasons. But yeah,

Govind  19:26

1. So so they completely dismiss these, the rationalist arguments using this, it's like, if I don't see it, you know, it doesn't exist. So, you know, show me the proof, show me the reality of things. Got it. Um, and eventually, this kind of got resolved somewhat by Kant, Emmanuel Kant, who came in the, I believe, late 1700s, early 1800s. And he, he, he's like, Okay, guys, how do we resolve this? Because there's clearly some value in using logic to describe reality. And there's definitely value in talking about things that we can see and perceive and sense right. So his Way of reconciling this was to say that was to bring in the human aspect of things like how we perceive things. And he thought that that played an important role. In fact, what we call space time, were intuitions, he described them as intuitions. So humans have an intuition of space and an intuition of time, which is what allows us to perceive these things in reality. To make that more clear, he's he's telling the Emperor says, Hey, the things that you think you perceive, so clearly, maybe they're not that clear, you know, you are trapped behind your veil of perception at the end of the day. And again, like this is all to talk about the objective nature of reality, right? As humans, we can't help but be stuck behind the fact that everything we're perceiving is just what we're perceiving. There's another quote from Descartes, you know, it's, I think, therefore I am. It's one of like, the most famous quotes from philosophy, I think. But it's, it's basically that, for him thinking was such a rational endeavor, right? He thinks that just because he has this stuff running on in his head, like this voice that goes like, blah, blah, blah, and in his head, that's, that's why he knows for real, that He exists, like, no matter what, I have this thing that allows me to, like, perceive and like, you know, like, I don't know, if you guys are real, I don't know, my computer's I know, there's something going on here. You know, that's kind of his point there. And Kant was saying, you know, there's a human element of things you just can't strip away from, from anything real, right. So that's a little bit of a background in this in, well, let's say Western philosophical thinking about this, this this topic.

Deep  21:27

That's awesome. Um, and, you know, a lot of its circles, it's all circling and tying back in to itself in an interesting way. And here's what I mean by that. So, to your point about how deep you know, probability is in quantum mechanics, right? It plays a huge role, a fundamental role. For literally since the birth of it, you know, physicists both on the quantum computing and sorry, quantum physics side of things, and the classical physics side of things, believed that there should be some sort of a clear description of the wavefunction and information that we can eventually have access to and predict perfectly. So like, just, there's there was this idea that we'll eventually be able to predict the exact nature of the collapse, the wave function will know when it will collapse, and into what outcome it will collapse, rather than just knowing the probability. And you know, fast forward 100 years later, we've made essentially zero progress in making that stochastic process any less stochastic to us. And so it's really like sad react Sony, right? Like for the people who, who believe like, go when you and I've had tons of discussions about determinism and whether the universe is and Buddha unites was actually all three of us. And so quantum mechanics quickly touches on that. And then there's the objective reality question. There's the witness friend paradox. experiments, right that were recently conducted, again, two years ago, where you had two different labs instead, posing as a weakness friend, basically, it's a witness paradox is a paradox that was created in the 60s it was proposed by the famous physicist Wagner, and essentially, what he said was that if there are given the fact that the wavefunction encodes the all the possible measurables and observables, for a given observer, then the wavefunction is going to be different for different observers. And if that's true, then they're going to have eventually conflicting facts about the universe. And so he said, that's a paradox, right? And it turns out that it's true that two years ago, in those days, it is insane, because two years ago, we actually ran these quantum physical experiments where we took a well being split using beamsplitters, we essentially used quantum entangled photons. And we've been into two different labs, and you have people, you have what's called witness friends inside the lab, and then Wagner or like the observers outside the lab. And so all four people in this experiment, none of them can observe each other. We're measuring each other's photons directly, they can perform measurements to see if a measurement hasn't done, but they can't. Yeah, so that so if you want to think about it physically, they're splitting at the end of the experiment, one particle that was turned into four quantum entangled pairs, so through Bell state pairs and beamsplitters you really have these so if you want visualize that, so imagine, like I take a ball of physical ball, and I cut it in four pieces, and I give it right to four different people. Here's a weird thing about the huge We're gonna experiment what ended up happening is that Imagine if I asked those four people to look at, if I to record the color of their ball, right, let's say I cut up a red ball. And and I gave a piece to everybody, everybody has a red ball in theory right? v a piece that's red. What ended up happening is that these people, of course, were quantum mechanics, there's one caveat, right? You can expect the ball to change colors, that's fine, you can, you can expect it to change either red or green. So that's let's say, you can measure spin up, spin down totally fine. What and what what we did was, let's say I did this, I took a red ball, I gave it to four of my friends. And then they did measurements, knowing that it'll change red, green, red, green, sometimes. I, it turns out that when they did those measurements, and they all got back to each other, and they looked at their lists, and the measurements that they did on each individual piece themselves, the colors didn't add up. So So I so imagine this, like, imagine if I looked at my list, and I observed red, green, green, red, green, red, and you observe green, green, green, green, green, red. So you were looking at a different piece of the ball. How's that even possible? When I physically split the same objective ball? It's not it's, well, technically you shouldn't have been, but it is like, in fact, what's happening is that literal conflict and objective facts about reality, where you have people who participated in a physical experiment, use the same physical measurement tools and came up with different conflicting facts

Govind  26:31

that is completely wild. Yeah, no, that's physics anymore. You know, this is like something just so beyond anything.

Deep  26:41

Yeah, I mean, it is very edgy. Yeah. See? What we know, dude.

Govind  26:45

Yeah. Oh, my God. That's, that's insane. Everyone reminds me of the banach tarski paradox, right? Like, I mean, these kind of things happen on mathematics, and we're totally fine with it. Right. So the banach tarski paradox is like, imagine you have a sphere, a sphere that's composed of like, let's, let's call them like, an infinite number of droplets that are holding together this fear, right? It's like this basketball. So the banach tarski paradox says that there is a way to separate out, like, just choose all the points, like a whole bunch of these points that are in here, like these droplets, and then you take them out, and then you move them away. And these are just solely choosing the points, while granted infinite number of points, you're telling them to go somewhere else. And using this, you can actually create a perfect clone of the ball, right? You have two different copies of the ball using the exact same number of particles. So you can do all these weird things with infinity in the world of the abstract, you know, where we're fun things happen, and everyone's everyone's happy and dancing all the time. You know, like, yeah, they're like, we're okay with all kinds of crazy things happening. But man, when this spills over into reality, it's like, we all lose our shit. Because, you know, yeah, literally not believing.

Deep  27:54

That's right. That's right.

Pouya LJ  27:57

Yeah, and so, um, so what, what, what do you do, but especially because you're, you're actually very close to these experience. What does that what does that make you feel? What does that? What? What does that? Do you think it means? What does that say about that objective reality, if you will? What is your thought?

Deep  28:17

Yeah, it will, what it tells me is that there's likely some sort of, clearly a multiverse situation going on, where almost it's like, we're maybe that maybe each agent that can be concerned, considered an observer or anything that can be considered capable of measurement, right? We don't know how far that extends. We just don't know those answers. But I believe that everything that can is on some unique multiverse, and we all just have our own timelines intersecting with each other. That's what that told me. It no longer feels like, we share one objective physical space. It's like, you know, I mean, we just have like, the these rays instead. That intersect. So it, I found, frankly, I found it psychologically disturbing when I read the experiment and the results. And I don't think that there's no way around it. It's just but it's fascinating stuff. So yeah,

Pouya LJ  29:17

yeah, no, I, it does make sense. Yeah, what you're saying like, I mean, obviously, there has to be so that to me, either. There's another explanation such as the multiverse situation, or maybe there is no objective reality. Well, in a sense, at the end of the day, if you're living in a multiverse with different set of facts, and you're building all of your rules based on those axioms that you get from FX x, or whatever, a different set of axioms will say. Then, who's to say which universe is the reference universe, or the main universe or truth? So maybe maybe there isn't any objective reality which, which to me, And then that's my whole thing. That was my whole thing about this objective reality. I asked this question going in thinking, yes, there is, and we can't just find it yet. But let's pose the assumption that Yeah, no, there is no objective reality, then to me, it's a little bit more humanistic again, talk, but it just shows me how arrogant we've become of a thing called, you know, science and discovery. And we're just, we're just going forward thinking that we're supposed to know the answer to, to everything, we have to figure it out. And that and that's fine to try. But also I think it this whole phenomena should should give us some notion of Okay, there is there there should be a little bit a bit a degree of humility, in what in what we do as discoverers of this universe, which is, to me the most beautiful parts. Again, I'm like, this is being poetic as a human thing. But that's at the end of the day. That's who we are. And I think I think we should appreciate that part as well. Sorry, I'm just going to close this loop on this poem that I just composed here. But Okay, back to Golf. How does that make you feel? from someone who's a little bit more distant? Personally,

Govind  31:28

I think it's very interesting to use the word pool there because, well, since since this, this discussion has kind of been underpinned by logic and language and all that kind of stuff. There's this philosopher Martin Heidegger, his his entire take was like, we need to kind of escape from the confines of language and the kind of thinking that is inevitable, just because of language being the way it is, right? Because it's like, realistically, we all have our own personal language. It's like, I have my own language. And when I say that, I don't mean like my own version of English, I mean, my own, let's like, composition of thoughts, experiences, feeling senses, right? Like, if I remember, if I smell a perfume from my past, like, I'm gonna have like, these nostalgic experiences and all that stuff, right? And, and that really, that's part of that's a word or like maybe a phrase in like, personal language. And whenever I'm talking, what I'm doing is I'm converting from my, I'm translating from my personal language to English, right? In this case, and then and then you have to, like convert that back to your personal language. And men composition is really hard, like, how do we do it? Given this this context, but Heidegger, his his attempt to improve language, was by positing that we move to poetry as a way of expressing ourselves purely because he thought poetry had this innate ability to capture our personal language, right? Because when we write poetry, it's such a, like, poetry is a hard thing to understand, right? Like, sometimes you read poetry, and I'm like, What the heck is going on? But it's just because it's, it's the poets like attempt to try to bring out their personal language as much as possible, right. And I would argue that most of art is the same process. So I mean, in, and I want to tie this back to like, the point I made earlier about us trying to escape the confines of our own existence, right, like, the the confines of our of our human infrastructure, the way we do that, I think poetry is a very, very cool way of and it's kind of cool that emerged from this discussion as well. That's kind of a case in point.

Pouya LJ  33:23

Yeah. No, I I think so. Yes, I think I understand. So it's the least amount of filters like art, I suppose, like, closest to you as it gets, I suppose. So, so yes, I, and that's what I've been going back and forth a lot. Like I obviously, as somebody who cares about, you know, methodical thinking, logical thinking, and, you know, rationale, reason, etc. That is very valuable, especially if you if we want resolved in this in this world of ours, because at the end of the day, we can get a lot with the our version of you know, reality that we have in this very pocket that we are living in, in the whole the whole universe and in space and time. But going beyond that, I think there there has and that is where I think they kind of, you know, overlap the the field, let's call it science and art, if you will, I don't, I don't like to make huge distinction, like borderline distinction distinctions, generally personally, but I think in an entirety, society does make it very, like black and white distinction between these two, which I think there is a good amount of overlap, and that is, we're

Govind  34:44

talking fuzziness, right, it's all about being fuzzy and accepting it for what it is as opposed to what we want it to be that maybe seems more perfect to us, right? Like these molds seem more perfect to us. But the reality is, nothing is a mold like everything is fuzzy, right? Like I think the example is like such a mind. looming realization of that.

Pouya LJ  35:02

Yeah, no, that's that's true. And what one way one can raise a question. I suppose that what makes us want the I mean, I have I have one answer. But let's let me just pose the question first. What makes us as who we are humans, again, within this infrastructure, once this clarity of binary of, you know, not being fuzzy, but rather completely distinct or True or false? Well, what are your thoughts on that?

Govind  35:35

Well, I remember we actually think I think we did a podcast on this a little bit ago about like the nature of chaos, right? Some people, most people I think, are very averse to chaos, because they like things being simple and easy to understand. Right? What I mean, the more, let's say, foolhardy among us, for lack of a better word, like kind of naturally as gravitated towards chaos, because I think chaos is just such a good description of reality. But the problem is that chaos, by definition is incredibly, incredibly complex, right? So you don't you don't have the simplicity of like, you know, two plus two equals four, right? You're like, what's two? what's plus? What's four? What's the quality?

Pouya LJ  36:14

That sounds like you checked, you just say, yeah, smoke some weed or something? Like what is to man?

Govind  36:23

I thought this was Joe Rogan.

Pouya LJ  36:27

Oh, it could be anyway. No, I think so. Okay, let me go back to how about you do and don't share my thoughts?

Deep  36:38

Yes. So, first of all, it's super interesting about the nature of fuzziness, especially when we think about Zeno's paradox. Because even that is a great example. You know, I still contend that we have not resolved the paradox of why is it that we can make contact with anything, right? Why is it that I'm even touching the floor right now, despite the poly exclusion principle? And, you know, Zeno's paradox, right?

Govind  37:10

xenos paradox.

Deep  37:11

Sure. So So, so xenos paradox. It's really a family of paradoxes. But it all comes down to the fact that, I'll give you an example. Let's say that you want to reach the end of the hallway. And your rule that you impose on yourself is that you're going to have your distance in order to get to the hallway, and you'll have your distance, every single time until you get to the end of the hallway. And so let's say the, you're 10 feet away from the end of the hallway, then the next time the next move you make you're five feet away, then two and a half, then 1.25, and so on and so forth. And until you go to point 000000125, blah, blah, blah, but it'll never be zero, right? It never touches zero. So at no point, will you ever actually reach the end of the hallway. So Zeno's paradox, what basically asks, Why do you never, why do you touch the end of the hallway? Why is it that in real life, we end up making it to the other side, despite the fact that these infinite distances, you know, taking any slice of an infinite still infinite so so he just had all these questions about it. Yeah, spacetime. Very deep questions to the thousands of years ago on so and we still haven't answered them properly. And yeah,

Govind  38:34

well, I have a point about that. But I know if we are you're you're itching to talk about your, your perspective on it. Go ahead. Oh, you're on mute. Oops, sorry.

Pouya LJ  38:45

First of all, I want to say that I, I sent a photo and chat A while ago, and I think I diverted deeps attention to that kind of concept, which was I don't know if you saw the, the the rabbit or whatever it is. It wants to go get a haircut. I'll put this in the show notes, by the way, but it's a half off haircut. Did you guys see that one?

Deep  39:12

Right now? That is funny. Yeah, I'll put this

Pouya LJ  39:16

in the show notes. So that people who are listening to this, they can just find it out. But I know this is exactly what you're talking about. It'll gonna take forever. So yeah, you're right. But why do we actually get that haircut and the half of haircut eventually? No, I think so. First of all, all of these are exactly to my point that there's there's there is probably a sea of things that we just don't know about the nature of our universe, the one that even forget about objective reality, the one that we even perceive. And maybe one can make an argument that the reason with the fatalities of our of our views are the questions that we cannot answer is because of the fact that our realities are not completely overlapping the objective one, and that's where those those are the the edge cases that are actually creating these problems, perhaps. But true. Beyond that, I think there's a, there's a degree of obsession amongst many, many people, most people probably besides besides the ones who are embracing chaos, I suppose as go and was putting it, that we did a good good amount of like humanity essentially once a clear answer to two things and sometimes takes shortcuts through through, you know, ideologies that might not have, you know, rational rationale behind them. Just to get to those answer, why am I here? Why, like, because I have to be tested here to go to heaven, part of the some of the religious ideologies, or, or what is the nature of our unit? Why is the sun come up? I feel a first of all does is going to come up tomorrow or, and then we come up with these answers, and everybody through their own ways try to answer these definitively. And part of that is I think, now it's a little bit of more philosophical questions, I suppose, or answer rather thoughts, I suppose. But I think part of that is because we understand our own mortality by binary, which is the most did the deepest, probably driver of our existence, and that is either we're dead or alive, there's no, I'm half dead. I was like, well, maybe you're sick a little bit, but you're not half dead. So I and there is there's a degree that we and there's an understanding that when I die, I there's like, there's no coming back from that. I mean, I'm obviously there are exceptions, sometimes. Some people, some people, flatline they come back. But if you're flatlining for a week, you're not coming back from that, right? So so there's, there's a permanency to that experience that and and, and our deepest drive is to avoid that. So to avoid that clear, at least, at least from our mortal, mortal perspective, clear, true or false If true, being your dead and false being your life. That is clear that okay, if I'm, if I'm talking right now, as the card would say that I exist. In a more biological setup, sense, I'm not dead. And, and, and it drives all those questions, I suppose. But again, like, also going back to language as a logical tool, essentially. What do you think there's going to be a funny question, what do you think people before language would think? Would they have similar thoughts to these things? Now? I mean, obviously, in a simpler case, and not thinking like quantum physics, I suppose. But what do you think all of these are fatalities of language that we're carrying with ourselves? Or is it drive by language? Or is it more fundamental? So if we didn't have language for people who didn't invent language yet, back in? I don't know how long ago? Would they have similar thoughts? Do you think?

Govind  43:11

Well, I think we do have animals, right? Like, I mean, when we have these, you have any pets? Do you

Pouya LJ  43:17

mean no? Okay, before, but I know Okay, yeah. No, but I can understand what you're where you're going.

Govind  43:24

But when you have, like interactions with animals, I love animals. It's almost like you have this communication with them. That's that's not like you. I mean, I don't I can see versus and they probably don't understand me, unless all animals know English, and they just choose to ignore us. And they like humans are too stupid. There was a

Pouya LJ  43:43

cabal of animals deciding that this is not a good idea. Yes.

Govind  43:48

Lots of Rick and Morty episodes. But yeah, no, I think I mean, it's just that that awareness that being that's that's just there right? I think that is rooted in language fundamentally. Like I don't I don't know if we can actually get past this. This like our art like the language that we have developed evolved and developed is like it serves a very good purpose which is sharing thoughts with each other sharing these these like awareness experiences with each other right? But at the root of it all like I mean, it's all about that awareness and you brought up such a great point about death right? And how death is that binary which kind of makes us realize like you know, like there is such a thing as a clear like a clear line drawn in the in the northern sand like a line drawn in the concrete You know, this this is it like you know, there's life and then there's not life so so that that is actually such a such a great point about why negations work in this in this sense. I seem to have lost you guys

Pouya LJ  44:47

know, we can hear you. Okay. Oh, yeah, your picture froze, but I can hear you so that's good. Excellent.

Govind  44:53

Yeah. Well, yeah, that's that's the point I wanted to make. You know, it's a it's like these these ideas do exist, but I'm sure Animals have a notion of death as well. Right? And animals. Oh, yeah. Their their experiences and all that.

Pouya LJ  45:05

Yeah, no. And that's true. The notion of death is obviously at least in its more primal sense of obvious. Obviously, they're, they're trying to avoid it. But there are no but my point was, so so the rabbit holes that we go to and get stuck in it, then half of the way to the destination, and then half it, and then half of them and have it is this. My This is what is this? Now? Now this one is not as outside of language, actually, some, I'm kind of negating myself, but is a lot of these problems with language and and how we're communicating with each other. Because honestly, like, there are instances that I think I should have been thinking about this. Do I think with myself, like when there's nobody else, I don't have to communicate with anybody else. I don't need to use language, English, Farsi, whatever, to communicate with other people. But is there any any? Do I communicate with myself with my thoughts, in language or outside of language? And I've been thinking about this for a while and trying to observe it? And part of it is that, yeah, yeah, most of my thoughts are us using language. But yes, there are pockets sometimes that I feel like, there's a thought that I can't even express it to myself, using language. It's that the, maybe that that's the that's for, like, there's a fog. And I'm perceiving it. There's some sort of experience behind it. But I can't even describe that experience for us. Like, I mean, what what is like, so what is it sounds like an impression of a thought, right? Because a thought is a thought when you're able to express it, maybe? Yeah, so i think i think that that becomes super clear. Well, okay, let me let me give you so this is a, this is going to be a little bit of an exaggeration. Like, it's not what I'm thinking about. So the one that I'm thinking about is more of a thought. But think about this, when you're extremely fearful for your life at a very moment notice of, you know, hitting, you know, you have to you have to run there's there's a, there's a specific quality to that fear. And you're thinking, Okay, maybe there's a bear in front of you. And your thought is that we're going to grab this knife, but are you really thinking in terms of wars, I am going to grab this knife, you see a knife, you you want to grab it, you know what I mean? That's a thought that I'm going to grab this knife, but it's not really in any language. And that is really forced when I think I can see myself doing that, at least, when it comes to the precipice of like some sort of when it combines with some sort of very strong emotion such as, okay, I have to grab this knife or gun or whatever, shoot this bear, I'm not thinking to myself, okay, I am going to grab a gun, and I am going to pull the trigger at this. No, that's not it, you just know, right? That's a

Govind  48:01

possibility. It's like you're like, the way I think of it is like, it's almost like a design space of everything that could possibly happen given what's around you. Right? So it's like you're sampling from this design space. Like one of these events, for example, is like you picking up a knife or like, you know, you punching someone in the face. This is around you. Something like it's like these are these are just, I think the mind is really good at generating these kind of things, which is just sampling points from, from this design space of what's around us, right? Yeah. And then and then these are actions or like, these are these are impressions. Yeah. It's like, yeah, we just, we just like, we have all these things around this, like stimulus. And our mind is generating these things. And most of the time, it's like, it's pretty pragmatic. It's like, Oh, you have to put on your shoes to walk. It's like this thing you tell yourself, but you're not really thinking you're doing things. But like, sometimes it's just like random thoughts. Like it's our mind is a pretty interesting random number generator. Deep. What are your thoughts on that?

Deep  49:00

Okay, it really is. I agree with that. I mean, you can always say that, uh, you know, all of our output all of our, I've always wondered, you know, the, what is it the thousand monkey or the infinite monkey experiment or thought experiment where what would happen if you let monkeys play with a typewriter for an infinite amount of time, right? There's the idea that they would eventually create Shakespeare. And it makes me question the idea of creativity and thought, is it a linear combination of what you already know? Or is it truly something that will eventually appear emergent from random fucking monkey? Monkey actions, right? Like, what what is true intelligent creativity? So with that being said, I really had a I was thinking, though, you know, on that note about us looking at death and life is binary. That's true. We are classical creatures, like we observe the universe in classical sense, right? Everything is and so because it's macroscopic to us, I wonder, what if? What does life look like for, let's say, micro organism that doesn't experience the world classically like we do, right? What if there are, there are quantum organisms that are only experiencing the world and quantum mechanics? To them, there would be literally no such thing as a classical I am dead or classical life. What does that mean? What What does death for that organism look like? So yeah, I was just thinking about that. But you guys think,

Pouya LJ  50:34

yeah, no, you're you're dragging us into the pan psychism

Govind  50:41

the movie arrival, right? With the whole concept of like, circular time and all these things, right? Like, this is some I think, innovations of the 21st century like, exploring this, these kind of ideas. I see so many outlets for this in different TV shows and movies and all that stuff. Like this, this like convergence of everything, how everything is one and many at the same time. Right? Well, I guess the fuzziness of everything, right. Like everything is just really fuzzy. And we're, as humanity starting to accept it, which is, you know, really freakin cool.

Pouya LJ  51:12

No, no, it is. And you mentioned an arrival It reminds me of, so I think if I'm not mistaken. Okay, maybe I'm mistaken. But let me let me just make it maybe, you know, I think Stephen Wolfram was an advisor in that movie. I don't know if he really I don't know. That's that I I'm doubting myself now. So anybody out there listening. Please double check for yourselves. Don't quote me on it. But which reminds me he actually I don't know if we're familiar. Actually. I

51:40

don't know why I did a quick Google and

Pouya LJ  51:43

it is like it's okay. Yeah. And he came up with this new What is it? What do you call it? Geez. new stuff. Yeah, he is hypergraph.

Deep  51:56

Physics.

Pouya LJ  51:57

Yes. Yeah. Have you heard about that? Did you look into it?

Deep  52:01

Yeah, I

52:04

I liked it.

Pouya LJ  52:06

So what are your thoughts on that? But super quickly, I don't want to go to a different deep rabbit hole right now. But it reminded me of him when you mentioned arrival.

Deep  52:14

Sure. I mean, various.

Pouya LJ  52:16

I don't know, Dad Galvin. Are you familiar with what it is? Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Good.

Deep  52:22

Yeah, just very briefly, I mean, the idea of like, Come complex, physical phenomena from simple rules is nothing new, right. Like that's been talked about for 100 years. What was really interesting was the idea of using causal graphs or attempting to use just like these hyper graphs to encode physical rules. Yeah, I think it's promising. I'd love to see experiments and math and more rigor. But the ideas are cool. Like Stephen Wolfram is really, like he has some fundamental thoughts there that are interesting, unique worth pursuing.

Govind  52:56

These are usually a pioneer of this kind of this kind of funky fuzzy stuff. Right, right. Yeah. Yes, geez theory so much with his work on automata and all that stuff. Well, this release. I mean, I wanted to bring back this point from about 15 minutes ago. We were talking about Zeno's paradoxes. Yeah, a conversation topic for a future podcasts definitely should be the nature of calculus, right? Because, yeah, the way we as humans, resolve Zeno's paradoxes was to create this notion of a limit, we just throw a limit on it. And we say, at some point, it does, it does converge on to this value, right? Like, and I'm like, okay, so you keep cutting the half of your hair. And at some point, you're, you're going to get a full haircut, right? Like, even if you get the convergence now that that notion of convergence, it turns out is not strongly understood by by humans. But I think that's something we need to discuss. And I it stands out for me, because this is one of the first discussions we ever had. Right? Exactly. Yeah.

Deep  53:57

Yeah, absolutely. Talking

Govind  53:58

about limits and how like, that's what I think I first realized I'm like, this doesn't make any sense, does it? It's just, we just put

Deep  54:04

it is it is a great because some that is it all stemmed from some Berkeley kid asking us like, like, about it, right? Like he's like, yeah, this like this. And then yeah,

Govind  54:15

yeah. Yeah. Cool stuff. No, but I think we should explore that in in the next podcast or though sounds good. Sounds good?

Pouya LJ  54:24

No, I think I think okay, well, we made the plan. I don't know about the dates. We'll talk about that later. But next sub subject of the next conversation will be calculus, and its origins, its fundamentals. axioms, I suppose. Okay, I think that's a good. Here's a good stopping point. We almost went full hour here. Is there anything else you want to, you know, close the loop on before we leave this conversation?

Govind  54:54

Well, for me, I think I learned so I mean, I had these thoughts about fuzzy fuzzy thinking and all that stuff. And it was Kind of like in the let's let's see the disk of my, the my external hard disk of my brain is just forgotten there. So it's great to brush the dust off. And I feel like I really kind of added to these models based on this conversation. So yeah, it was very cool. I think we achieved fuzziness today. Yes.

Pouya LJ  55:18

That's great. How about you?

Deep  55:20

Yeah, I would just say that I really appreciated the perspective of the history of history philosophy, with respect to logic, a super neat perspective that you brought to the table or Govind and yeah, just different perspectives that were shared today. Um, it's awesome. It does make things more fuzzy. And yeah, let's keep it going. Guys, I, I think that there's a lot of interesting questions. We post here today. So

Pouya LJ  55:47

okay, and if anybody wants to share their thoughts, feel free you can reach go in and deepen their respective social media, which I'm going to put in the show notes. Don't need to repeat them here. You can you can find them there.

56:01

And comment guys.

Pouya LJ  56:04

Make it make it dirty. No, keep it clean. And all right, stay fuzzy until later episode.

Deep  56:11

Cheers, guys.

In this episode of the BTP podcast, Emaad joins Pouya in a free form conversation around topics such as Physics, world currencies, crypto currencies and a decentralized banking system and an idea of world UBI.

Emaad is an Astrophysicist with a passion for technology

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

currency, layover, canada, people, country, places, digital currencies, saskatchewan, money, picture, ubi, talking, notes, winnipeg, toronto, cryptocurrency, world, research, cryptocurrencies, thought

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Emaad

Pouya LJ  00:17

Hey, man, how's it going? Good,

Emaad  00:19

man, how are you?

Pouya LJ  00:20

Pretty good, pretty good. We're actually talking off off camera and not camera, but I'm recording about some stuff that is going on with you and your life. And I thought, you know what, it's actually quite interesting. Let's bring it in. Let's bring it in there according. Okay, so for sure. So let's, let's circle back to five minutes before our conversation go to. So you were telling me that you started a massive program? And you were telling the story of how that that happened?

Emaad  00:46

Yeah, for sure. So well, I was in touch with one of my professors, ever since I gave my final for that course, which I, if you remember, I was with you. Yeah. I was taking it with you last year in like, April. And I spoke to the professor and he was interested. And he actually followed up on email as well. And he's like, oh, like, you know, would you be interested in doing research, or a few other courses on side, and I think I discussed that with you as well, last time. Yes. Because it's always a good idea to take some courses, take some courses even after you graduate, because they're gonna help you with, they're gonna help you with your graduate applications. If you have a gap here, you can take one or two courses, put them on your transcript, and that's going to be helpful for you. So I didn't take that route. But I spoke to the professor, I met with him a lot, I read on his research, etc. And eventually, around November, that's when the time came to apply. So I went ahead and applied got a bunch of references. And all I had to do was wait pretty much until March, when I got my when I got my admission. And when I got my, I guess offer from University of Toronto. So right now it's a master's in physics that I'm doing at the University of Toronto. And what I'll be researching on is with Professor Barth, Netherfield, who is a pretty well known Canadian astronomer. And what he does in his lab, and the cool thing is he actually has his own lab. So it's a whole building that's dedicated for him. It's not an office, it's not a room, it's not a lab space. It's a whole building at the University of Toronto, um, I think it's a two storey building, but his his, so at the ground floor is sort of a lab or a huge space lab space. And then there's, there's computers and stuff upstairs. And what he does is he creates telescopes that are as they're trying to be as effective as Hubble. But at a cheaper cost. That's his ultimate goal to create accessible telescopes, accessible space telescopes. And then what he does is he launches them to space on balloons. So he goes to Antarctica, Sudbury or Timmins, Ontario. There's also New Zealand, where he goes, and then he launches them into space. He's trying to be as close to the north and south poles as possible. And what he aims to do is he aims to do similar research that can be done with Hubble, but at a much lesser cost, because you're doing balloon based astronomy. So, you know, you don't have to pay for thousands and thousands of tons of jet fuel to get the telescope up, like Hubble and maintain it with the International Space Station.

Pouya LJ  03:41

Yeah, well, that's, that's super interesting. And so what what got you? I mean, I know you wanted to do some sort of grad school program, but what got you to this specific program? What happened? I will

Emaad  03:55

be honest, I will be 100% honest, I wasn't really planning. I never thought that it would that I would be doing this last year. Especially when we were finishing our undergrad degree. I Well, I was finishing my undergrad degree and you're about to finish. We were taking the courses then. Yeah. And when I finished my last final, I think it was my second last final with you.

Pouya LJ  04:18

Yeah, sorry. My bad.

Emaad  04:19

Yeah, I thought you know what this is it. Like, I'm never gonna touch physics ever again. If you remember correctly, that week was probably the toughest week of our lives.

Pouya LJ  04:30

I I remember,

Emaad  04:33

there was classical mechanics. At at, at what time it was I think 9am 9am to 12pm. And then the next day we had electro mag. electromagnetism. Yeah. From 9am to 10 9am to 12pm. And then we had a one day break. Yeah, and we had general relativity.

Pouya LJ  04:55

Yeah, not not easy courses. Yeah,

Emaad  04:56

not even courses at all. Again from 9am to 12pm. And I honestly thought, you know what this is it like I'm done with everything related to physics. Yeah. And I wanted to, and then I worked in the cloud computing side of things. So I worked for a company called about extreme. And what I did with them was I helped consult for cloud based solutions on Microsoft Azure. And I helped build them as well. So I helped build chatbots, knowledge mining applications, more so towards the AI, more, so the applications that, that use AI, or more specifically Microsoft's own cognitive toolkit. But I was hoping to go more into that field. And I did look into some masters. But to be frank, I didn't have that much guidance. At that time with me, I didn't know which one to go for which one would be best. And I accidentally applied for a research based one. And the problem with that is that you need to have, it's very helpful to have a computer science background, if you want to go into a research based computer science degree. Yeah, that was sort of my mistake. But I did apply for a master's in physics as well. And I thought about it, I thought about whether it's a good idea to do it or not. And it is a one year program. And if I still want to apply for other graduate degrees in computer science, or data science, or artificial intelligence related fields, I can still do that, while I'm finishing up a Master's. So if I'm going to start next year, if I'll have to start a master's in computer science, or data science or something, next year for that might as well get a Master's, get another masters. Over with it, this is not gonna hurt. And it's a research based Master's. So the coolest thing about research based Master's is, most in most universities, in Canada, they pay you to do it, you're not paying anything out of your pocket, your tuition is covered. And on top of that, you're getting money for being a TA you're getting money for being a research assistant, and you're just getting grants. So that's one of the best things about about research based degrees. And this is applicable everywhere, around Canada, at least for whatever research base degree you have, whether it's a PhD or masters, you're going to be getting funding for it may not be obviously as much as you would get if you were doing the job or whatever. But I mean, look on the bright side, you're getting a degree out of it.

Pouya LJ  07:32

No, of course, that makes a lot of sense. Wow, that's a cool, cool, cool story, because we've been in contact through, you know, text messages and whatnot, but we haven't talked for probably over a year now. Yeah, or so. And I think

Emaad  07:49

some more comprehensive talk.

Pouya LJ  07:51

Yeah, like, exactly like catching up and stuff anyways. So. So it was it was a it was a shock to me, because I thought you're you're working for that company, that you were talking about classes. But

Emaad  08:04

the funny thing is, I actually might still be, I'm still debating on whether I should keep it part time or not. Because because of two main reasons. One, it's always important to get work experience. And even though this summer was kind of late for them, because of COVID. So there weren't that many projects coming in. Because our our main clients, the company has been clients are cities and governments in the United States, city government, state governments in the United States. So they've been more focused on COVID binding COVID. And they're less inclined on doing the projects that we've had in pipeline, I see. But now new things are coming up. And it's always exciting to work on these projects. That's that's one main issue. One mean, that's one main reason because there are upcoming projects. And the second thing is to further enhance my own learning. There's new things again, coming up. within Microsoft, Microsoft is releasing new products. And technology is a field where if you're not on top of it, you're gonna fall off the ladder very fast. So it's always better to be on top of it know your stuff. They still pay, they still help with certifications, the company helps it certification. So it's always better to get new certifications, because they also expired. Microsoft certifications expire every two years. So it's always good to have certification stay on top of things so that maybe when the Masters is over, if I don't want to pursue physics, then there's always this option of this option of cloud computing and AI.

Pouya LJ  09:44

No, that's true. That makes a lot of sense under what's good thinking. Thanks. No, no, that's true. Anyways, so we also had something else in actually we had entirely something else in mind to talk about which is fun. It's a, it's fun to talk about different stuff, too. You have some interesting thing going on which you actually got featured on a CBC article, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. So you like travel? I think a lot of people do. And you travel, you go round, you get their currency. And, you know, like, on the currency, there's typically a picture of something, your monument, a lot of times a monument and you go there with the currency and you take a picture, can you do you want to explain it better than I

Emaad  10:32

did? what you're doing, for sure. So a lot of a lot of listeners would probably know that. What a lot of a lot of different banknotes and a lot of coins, they occasionally have places on them. And that's representative of the country's identity. So if you look at the United States dollars, they'll have different government buildings on them. The five has Lincoln lincoln memorial in DC, the 10 has the US Treasury 20 has White House 50 has the Capitol building, and then 100 has the Independence Hall in Philadelphia. And you know, that's the same for a lot of other countries as well, they occasionally put a place in the country, on their banknotes just as a representative of their own identity representative of their own culture. And what I've been doing, this is a project actually started about, well, it's going to be it's going to be nearly five years, about five years back. And what I wanted to do was I wanted to travel to different places, would that would currencies of those places. So it could be where I'm from, I'm from Pakistan, so I could go, I could go there for Canada, US and other places as well, because a lot of currencies have places on them. So I made a plan to go to those places, travel to those exact spots that are on the currencies of those countries, and then take pictures over there. And it's been five years, I think it's I've taken more than 35 pictures more than 35 at least. And over the course of Yeah, over the course of five years in six countries. If I if my math is not mistaken.

Pouya LJ  12:23

I think you got it. You got it nailed down. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. So what inspired you to do that?

Emaad  12:32

That's, that's always a funny question. Because a lot of people ask that. Yeah. And I feel like part of me feels like, should I just make something up? That sound cool, because, honestly, speaking, there's nothing cool about the inspiration. All I know is like back in, I think five years ago, around November 2015. That's when I went to this place called mind Jotaro, which is in Pakistan. It's, it was part it was ruins from the Indus Valley civilisation, which is one of the three oldest civilizations in the world. Apart from the Egyptian, and I think the Mesopotamian. So that was actually based in around Pakistan, and there's a very big river in Pakistan called the Indus River was based around that. And I went there, and they remember, when I was growing up, I always saw the specific picture in my textbooks in school, and also on the notes. And I always thought about, you know, what a cool place that is, it's basically ruins 5000 year old ruins, or, and, you know, I want to go there and travel and see and see those ruins. And I always saw them on the back of the notes. So when I went there, I was finally able to go there on a family trip. I went there, and I asked the tour guide, I had an old 20 rupee note, which actually has its picture on it. And I went to, I went to the tour guide, and I was like, Hey, where was this picture taken? He took me to the exact spot. And I took a picture of it. And then what I did was, I put it up not just on Facebook and stuff, but also on Reddit. Because I thought this is something pretty cool. People would appreciate it. And it people did. People liked it a lot. I was received very well. And I thought, you know what, this is probably a really good excuse to travel to different places in Pakistan, at least at that time. And that time, I was just thinking of bugs. So I thought you know what, I should maybe do this. In Pakistan, I get a really good excuse to travel to different places, and the pictures would come out pretty nice. So that's sort of where it started. I've always thought about you know, I should make a cool story. I should just make it up and then just put that version out there but the origins aren't that amazing. No, no, look, it's actually pretty.

Pouya LJ  15:02

I don't know what you're talking about. It's actually pretty good. It's a very green coming about at a younger age. When you thought about this, it's actually I think, a very cool story on its own and beyond that, I think nothing, nothing beats the order, the honesty, the the originality and the truth and honesty of the story. Yeah, as boring as it sounds, I think. Yeah, back that is orange, that, first of all, is original. So it's not somebody else's thought, or somebody else might have thought it. But on the other hand, because it's truthful, it's genuine. I think that has a lot of value to it personally, that's it doesn't have to be extra sexy actually, now not to get to cultural issues. But maybe that's that's one of the problems with our culture, especially the online culture these days, because everybody wants to make everything extra sexy. And that's it. Yeah. Sometimes publicity is actually the sexy part.

Emaad  16:01

That is very true. Yeah. Instead of you know, making up something big. And in the story that could have lifted up so many holes and stuff like that. It's always better to just stay simple.

Pouya LJ  16:10

Yeah. Yeah. No, I completely loved it. And don't don't sell it short. It is more interesting than you think it is. Okay, so that's cool. Cool story. Now, that gets us to currencies. So I know you have interest in technology. We actually talked about it today. And there is a degree of Okay, so that those are like government backed currencies. Now, obviously, those are the paper ones. All, I mean, we always were backed by those, but we also are removing them from our day to day interactions more and more. Yeah, as you progress towards credit cards, or debit cards are basically becoming electronic, which loses a little bit of touch. So I think you're bringing out a little bit on the stalls, you're there to, to the to the people who have forgotten what their dollars or whatever currencies look like. Yeah,

Emaad  17:07

you know, there's a funny thing about that. I was I was meeting up with a friend of mine, a few days back. And we were speaking about this project and stuff because I met him after a long while. And he, he was telling me, well, I said he's actually from China. So I said, oh, maybe I should go to China next and, and take take pictures of Chinese currency. Yeah. And he laughed about it. He's like, good luck finding one. Oh, because China has basically moved on to digital currency they have I think WeChat and Ali pay. I think those are the names if I'm correct. But what they do is they it's all digital payments, they have QR codes, they just scan there, they just scan those QR codes so they can pay whatever they whatever amount they need to pay. And, you know, if I'm paying money to you, if I'm giving money to you, or anything that's over V chat, as well. And it's such a streamlined system that they've made, that they no longer have to use paper currency at all. So he was laughing about that. And that resonates with what you said, because so many people are just digital, they're into digital banking, there's no more paper currency anymore. There's no more paper currency. Because I mean, why carry it around? Why case so much of it around in your wallet, when you can just put one card? And that accesses all your money at once.

Pouya LJ  18:29

Right? Yeah, no, that's true. And it makes a lot of sense. But but but you're adding that value on a artistic and social level I suppose. To to your work, which is, which is very interesting. Do you have you have what are the next plans? Do you have any any plans? Now? Like concrete plans to go next country or city or

Emaad  18:49

whatever? I mean, how can you make it How can anyone make any concrete plan?

Pouya LJ  18:54

Well, actually, that's true. That was a stupid question. Over there, I totally forgot.

Emaad  19:00

It's a very tough time to create concrete plans. I mean, I've done a country's I've completed our Pakistan, my home country, the EU, the US, Panama, Canada, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. And Funny enough, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. I've only done a couple of their notes, not all of them. And that was because I was only there for a very short time. I think I was in UAE for about like 15 hours. And I was in Oman for about like 10 hours. Was that a layover? So that those are layover? Yeah. So what I've been doing is I occasionally travel between Canada and Pakistan often. If I'm if I want to go back home, meet family etc. And what I've always been trying to do is trying to find cool layovers. So usually I fly through the Middle East. And that's that sort of that sort of normal, because there's lots of airlines that connect through the Middle East, and or it through Turkey or through other countries or through Europe. So what I try to do is I try to find a different layover, where I can not only visit a new countries airport, but also stay there for like 1015 hours. A lot of airlines will offer is they offered like, two three hour connection. And then they also offer a 15 hour connection. And usually, the 15 hour connection is much cheaper, because so many people are just hoping to get to the airport, stay there for one hour and then get on their next flight angle. But instead, what I try to do is I try to find like a 15 hour layover or a 20 hour layover, so I can actually see the country I can go out of the airport, get an excuse to see. Yeah, see places. And along with that, what I do is then I exchange some exchange some money to get their own currency. I'd well I do research before to see which notes should would make sense. And then what I do is I I try to see which notes would make sense which notes are within reach of where I am. And then I get those notes from a currency exchange at the airport. And then I just tried to go to those places. And that's sort of how I've done it pretty much for most of us. That's how much that's how I've been doing it recently. With the layovers, I've also done Canada. There's a bunch of places within Canada. Sorry, before you

Pouya LJ  21:32

go ahead, I have to add something. For those people who complain about the boringness of layovers, get creative people. This is how you how you make it worth your while I

Emaad  21:42

continue. That is That is very true. I mean, I I love layovers, because an excuse to you know, go around, go travel. Yeah, for sure. I know a lot of people for for a lot of people. I mean, I'll make sense. Yeah, maybe they're in a hurry to get back or get somewhere or something. And they just here to airports. It could be a variety of reasons, or they're tired. But I personally believe that if there's a layover, I should spend it. Traveling or, you know, looking at different things make the most of it. This summer, I was going to travel via Turkey, via Turkish Airlines. And I had the option of a five hour layover in Istanbul, or a 25 hour layover. So I opted for the 25 hour layover, which is actually much cheaper, of course. So I both saved money. And I talked to the airline. And this is something cool. A lot of airlines will do this for you. They will give you a hotel room, and they'll cover your visa costs. They'll cover your visit transit visa costs, as well free of cost. Turkish Airlines was doing that Turkish Airlines gave a free hotel. Free hotel for one night, which is very cool. I mean, I just I just go there and they will take me to the hotel. They'll give me a free hotel. And then I can just go and visit. I did this with Emirates as well. When I was traveling with Emirates, I had a 15 or 16 hour layover in Dubai. And all I had to do was just apply online, it takes five seconds. And when I get to the airport, they give me they give me a hotel voucher, and food voucher, and a couple of food vouchers. So my food was covered. They gave me a free hotel. And they gave me they transported me from the hotel to the airport and the airport and airport to the hotel. And this is all for free. And it's not something you need business class for is an economy class ticket. Right?

Pouya LJ  23:51

Yeah, you were you were going on to sorry, it took you off a tangent, but you were sorry. Originally you were going off to talk about your experience in Canada on what you did.

Emaad  24:00

Yeah, for sure. Um, I mean for Canada, the current notes are not super indicative of different places in Canada. Number of the $5 note, which you might have seen has space on the back has international has actually the Canadarm that is something that can be made it on the International Space Station. It has that so I think that's kind of tough. The $10 note has Jasper National Park that one I've actually done. I did that last year. I did a train going through Jasper National Park in Alberta. The $20 note has a memorial. It's still a place it's still a building but that memorial is actually in France, interestingly enough, and then the 50 and 100 don't really have any specific places on them. So what I've instead been doing is I've looked at older nodes in Canada. So there's the old one $1 old $1 notes old hundred dollar notes, a lot of old $1 notes are in Ottawa, they have a lot of government buildings on them. And the old hundred dollar note was in Lunenburg, which is in Nova Scotia, so I went there last winter, just on a road trip to take a picture of it there. Now, there's another one that I took, which is the newest note for of Canada, which is the new $10 note. And I went to Winnipeg, just for a two day trip, I was able to find a really cheap flight out of Hamilton, Hamilton to Winnipeg at fault places. I was able to find a really cheap flight. So I went on a weekend trip over there. And that is the one when you started the call when you started this podcast. That's the one that you were mentioning the that was the one that was featured on CBC. Nice. Um, so CBC took note of that, and they said, oh, wow, someone came to visit Winnipeg from Toronto to take a picture. This is something like that. And they should feature

Pouya LJ  26:06

Yeah, a little bit of caveat for anybody who knows anything about geography of Canada and especially in the wintertime. I don't know when you went there was it winter or I think it was winter because I can see some snow there or there's some snow anyways. So point being it like you from Nova Scotia. You know, the Winnebago, they have nothing in common like there's like to go out of your way to go there. It's not like you're having a layover in Istanbul or Dubai or something. It's a different game. ballgame. So just I have to add that caveat for people who are not

Emaad  26:41

Yeah. And they're and they're far like,

Pouya LJ  26:43

yeah, now that's what I mean.

Emaad  26:45

The province where Toronto is, it's Ontario, and Winnipeg is in Manitoba. And they're both bordering each other. But the problem The biggest problem is trying to so far south in Canada, as opposed to other places in in Canada, like Winnipeg, in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver. They're very far up north. Toronto is very far south. Yeah, it was a two hour flight just to win it back itself. Which is mind blowing. Because you're going north, you're going north, Northwest a lot. Yeah. But it was pretty cool. It was a fun trip. My flight got canceled on the way back, which is very fun as well. Oh. But that gave me more excuses. You know, travel, pay my friend. We decided to go to CES Saskatchewan, just to the border of it. And Funny enough, now that I'm remembering it. Well, we decided to do was we had a rental car. So we just extended one more day. And he said, You know what? It's a four hour drive to Saskatchewan, which going back to your Canadian geography has nothing in it. There's nothing in there. It's a whole province with nothing in it. Yeah, it's it's just in the middle of Canada. It's just land. There's nothing wrong. I don't think anyone even lives there. And it's just a four hour drive just to the border of it and the border of it. Believe it or not, there was nothing there. It was just a sign that said Welcome to Saskatchewan. So we took a picture with it just to prove that we have been here. And then we went on a four hour trip back to Winnipeg. And on that four hour trip back to Winnipeg, my friend drove and I decided to I decided to finish my application for my physics Master's. And I submitted it that night while I was somewhere on the road between Saskatchewan in Winnipeg.

Pouya LJ  28:38

Yeah, that's that's, that's pretty cool. And I'm actually trying to figure out how much the province like the population of the province, but for some reason I'm failing. I think it's I don't know if it's the city of population.

Emaad  28:54

No, there's a city called Saskatoon. And there's two major cities and ask a tune in Regina. Yeah, but the population of Saskatchewan. I find, I think it's 1 million.

Pouya LJ  29:07

Yeah, it's a gigantic province, with 1 million population.

Emaad  29:12

I think it's the I don't know if it's the biggest.

Pouya LJ  29:16

No, it's not the biggest, like on the map is definitely smaller than Ontario, Quebec, even British Columbia, but it's close enough to Alberta maybe a little bit smaller than Alberta. But point being it's still a lot of land there. And the entire population is like 1,000,001.1. Just Just to, you know, confirm your

Emaad  29:40

identity is there's one there's 1.86. So basically two people per kilometer squared. Yes, a few. If you create a box that is a kilometer wide and kilometer, that is just to each each side of the box is a kilometre, which is a very big number. There's only two people who live in there.

Pouya LJ  30:07

Yeah, that's a very big house for you.

Emaad  30:11

And versus Ontario, if I'm correct, the density of Ontario is 15 people per kilometer squared. Right? So that's, that's the key difference.

Pouya LJ  30:23

Yeah, that's like, so unfolds almost. Yeah. I'm done by five anyways. Um, yeah, what? Let's, let's move on a little bit, because we want to talk about we got to, you know, more computerized digital currencies, not necessarily digital currencies in terms of cryptocurrency, which we'll get to but, um, so we talked, we talked about technology coming into disrupting really anything, everything, and currency being one of them. for for for many reasons, why, now that that naturally brings us also to the realm of cryptocurrency, which, well, what are you going to do? cryptocurrencies don't have monuments on them printed, that they don't print? But joke aside? What are your thoughts on the digitization of currency and maybe even you know, distributed currencies such as cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, what have you? Do? Do you have any interest in them? Do you read about them?

Emaad  31:31

Yeah, I do. I do a lot. And I, I think it's very interesting, not just from an investing perspective, but from a practical perspective.

Pouya LJ  31:40

Well, investment can be practical if you do it right.

Emaad  31:42

Investing can be practical, but it comes with its own caveats, especially investing in cryptocurrency, it's a very risky thing to do. Sure. And you could, you could probably just lose a lot of your money. If you invest, without thinking or without, you know, without the right tools without the right resources. If you do that, then you can lose a lot of money in crypto, but I was talking more so the practicality on the practical side of things on the technology behind it. how they've made something open source, and decentralized. They've made something which no one can touch and chain, no one person can go in and touch and change. Its cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and those things, they they're the Ledger's. They're, their records, they're everything, they, they stay with the people. There's no one person who controls everything. And I think that's that's a beautiful aspect of the digital currency. Because its power comes in its numbers. If a lot of people use Bitcoin, then it's more strong. There's more, I guess records, there's more copies of everything. And that technology can then be applied to so many different things that can be applied to contracts. blockchain can be applied to supply chain logistics, to ensure nothing has changed to ensure there's to ensure the right tracing of materials that people are getting food, and so many different things. But just from a currency standpoint, this is a very tough debate. Because a lot of countries a lot of banks are against this because this is against what they've been doing throughout throughout, I guess, throughout the startup humanity, or throughout the start of banking, at least because the main essence of a bank and a central bank is in the name. It's centralized. Yeah. And if you decentralize parents, if you decentralize money, if you decentralize your own local currency, then how are you going to achieve anything? In terms of you know, regulating power, regulating finances, making sure money doesn't go into the wrong hands. Even the wrong may be a subjective word. But there's so many different things that come in with it, that I personally believe it would be a bit tough to move to it all together. In my opinion,

Pouya LJ  34:12

by altogether You mean like removing the central banks from the central, the regular currencies of countries? Yeah. And making it the dominant. Okay.

Emaad  34:20

Yes. But with that, I also think it is hard for them, the centralized banks to completely remove cryptocurrencies. I mean, a lot of a bunch of countries have made it illegal to have them. I don't know which countries are but I remember there were a bunch of countries that said it's illegal to trade it or have it even. But they're not going anywhere, either. Because they're a force to be reckoned with. They're they're not they're not just something small with banks and say, Oh, that's illegal. Get rid of them. You know, Pete, they're, like I said before, their strength comes in how many people hold it, and I think that's going to be interesting. Day by day. I was talking to a friend of mine who wanted to transfer money from, I think it was from the EU or not from. Yeah, it was from Pakistan to the US. And she was asking me, what's the best way to do it. And whether she should wire transferred, whether she should Western Union it or something else. And I looked at the fees and wire transfer fees were more than 1500. dollars, she would have to pay Western Union fees were around that probably even higher, that she'll have to pay. And that's a huge chunk of your money that they're taking. Yeah. But I suggested, oh, why don't you just buy crypto over there? over the counter crypto, which is you're just paying someone money, and they transfer cryptocurrency to your wallet. And then you just transfer that crypto to whoever you need to send it to in the US. And that takes wire transfers can take two weeks, Western Union can take like at least a day or two that can take like five seconds, maybe a bit more obviously be based on based on how much you pay for the gas, etc. so many different things. But it's still less than less than a day, you can get money from here to there. And then they can just sell it over the counter or cash it out. Or they can do whatever they want. And that's how you can just easily transfer money using crypto as well. So I think it is a force to be reckoned with, what banks would need to do is figure out what's the middle ground here? How can they eat, right? incorporate that into their own systems into their own, into their own platforms? Because Funny enough, the weakest. The point, the place where digital currencies are weak, is the fact that some people can't trust them because they're decentralized. So they're like, oh, then who's going to be taking who's going to be, you know, handling it, who's going to be in charge of dispersing it and stuff. So there's no trust there. But on the other hand, people have started losing trust onto central banks themselves. Because they don't make the best policies. So it's sometimes it's better to have something decentralized.

Pouya LJ  37:29

Yeah, that does make sense. So there is definitely I mean, as with a lot of things, there's there are weaknesses and strengths. And obviously, one of the strength of cryptocurrencies, is mobility of it, etc. Also, just just to close that loop of legality, so the three countries that are definitely illegal, and there's like, there are some countries that have greater areas, but in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco is outright illegal, just for closing that loop. And there's a lot of other countries that are like, somewhere in between. Yeah, meaning some restrictions. But generally speaking, it's legal, etc. So we can put this into notes. And,

Emaad  38:19

yeah, for sure. So now there is something interesting that I, that I came across, and I worked with, I worked briefly with, with the team behind it. There's something called UBI. This is just very generic. There's something called UBI, universal basic income. Yeah, and this is something that has been debated in a lot of countries attempted in a lot of countries and a bunch of places at least, I think Germany is trying that out right now. And just giving universal basic income to some of its citizens.

Pouya LJ  38:54

Andrew Yang is making a lot of noise,

Emaad  38:56

Yang was making that the biggest point of his presidency, there were a couple of places I think in Canada that tried it, if I'm if I'm not wrong, a while back. And there's I can't get much into the details of it. But there is a there is a there's a consortium that is actually based in Canada, that is trying to get together a lot of UBI experts from around the world and work towards creating a global UBI which is going to be a key Their aim is that it's adopted throughout the world. And everyone gets a certain UBI per month, per day, per hour per second. I mean, there's going to be one amount per month, but then that's going to be per week and then you get that every second of your existence. And that's going to be actually I think one of the smartest ways to go about it would probably be on blog. And that's something that that I came across. And I briefly work with them on some of their some and some of the technical side of their project. And that's something that's very cool because now it's using blockchain using using utilizing blockchain, which is, again, the technology that's been brought forward by these digital currencies. And that's where the practicality thing comes in. But now they're putting it into a very large scale where they're asking for global adoption and global adoption for it. which hopefully would replace the need for conventional currency, and create a global system where everyone can earn a basic income to live, essentially, to at least cover where they're living to cover their food to cover their health related things. Which is, I believe it should be right for everyone. Everyone should be able to do that.

Pouya LJ  41:04

Yeah. So now the natural question, especially for universal UBI. Being while UBI has universal and but my point is being like around the world, not just containing a country. An actual question is cost of living and the value of currency, etc. is completely diff No, assuming we still trading regular currencies, not just the crypto ones, that there is a degree of asymmetry here that so is the proposal of this team. By the way, can you can you mention them by name?

Emaad  41:41

I don't know if that's? I mean, the name is global UPI.

Pouya LJ  41:44

Oh, you mentioned it? Okay. Yeah. Anyways, so is the proposal a fixed amount for every single person on the planet? Or is it different, depending on assessment of what are your cost of living? Where you live? by country, by city by province by? I don't know, what have you? Is there a distinction? Or it's just a fixed amount?

Emaad  42:09

See, that's the the project is I believe in preliminary phases, or I'm not 100% sure where they are, and whether they're in testing or whether they're sort of just beginning to research on it. And I frankly, do not know the answer to this.

Pouya LJ  42:27

Do you have Do you have your own thoughts on the matter?

Emaad  42:30

And the thing is, if if it is a global currency, and if everyone is has sort of access to the same currency? Yeah, then there shouldn't really be a problem with cost of living?

Pouya LJ  42:46

Well, I think I think there will be still, what, two two folds for one fold. Is that, okay, if we only adopt, I would,

Emaad  42:53

my question is, why would something be why would like, let's go to the Big Mac index, which is something I promise economists use. If there's a Big Mac in the US for let's say, let's say the the UBI currency, the new currency for the world is world dollars. Sure. There's a Big Mac in the US, which costs one world dollar. The currency in Turkey is also world dollar. Why would the Big Mac there be less?

Pouya LJ  43:26

Yeah. Okay, that's so that's that's the first fold of the problem, though I was talking about. And that is, as if that's the, okay, if that's the dominant currency traded?

Emaad  43:39

Sure. Their goal is to have world adoption of this. Okay. So that

Pouya LJ  43:45

will solve

Emaad  43:46

the would give way to, yeah, it would give away. Well, digital and non digital banks, central banks would give weight, this currency to come in. And the main essence of this currency is to make sure that it's secure and no one person would be able to access everything and change everything. Does that compromise the security of it? Yeah. So if there is, again, like I said, if there's a Big Mac for one US dollar, one world dollar, then wouldn't have the same Big Mac, we won World dollar somewhere else, because there's no other currency to base it off of. Yeah. So where would the cost of living? How would the cost of living and stuff be compared?

Pouya LJ  44:32

Well, you when you're talking about stuff, like I don't know, franchises or something? Yes, you're absolutely right. That makes sense. But if you're talking about for example, cost of land. Well, that definitely certainly has differences as you do within a country. Let's take Canada for example. Obviously, the price of homes in the heart of Toronto is completely different than say Saskatoon, that was what we were talking about, right? So, so in that sense, I mean, you can argue that the cost of living within The cities also started within the country is also different, which is reasonable. That's

Emaad  45:05

that's based on demand. Exactly supply that's really based off of, I mean, what the currency is doing, but it's no normal. So there's more space here more people want to live here.

Pouya LJ  45:16

Absolutely, they're gonna be worth more. So the land was an example of a commodity or, or something that would have different values, depending on where you are in a country and more importantly, in a world, right, that has the certainly has different, different many things have different values in different places in the world. And that alone can cost per debate, the cost of living by a lot, depending on which part of the world you're living, the basic cost of living, let's say, shelter, basic food, water, clean water, and

Emaad  45:51

I get what I get the question that you're I get what you're saying. And I agree that other things could be worth more other things could be worth less. And you're right, there's places in Canada right now, up very north, where food is so expensive. Exactly. Because they have to transport it over there and get it over there. So the cost of living over there is high. Yes, I agree with you. I agree with what you're saying that. Also living can be different because of these reasons. But the thing is that the UBI that I mentioned, sure, it doesn't aim to fully cover everything in your life. Yeah, of course. Because if it does that, then yeah, there's no motivation to do anything, even though that's a completely different debate with UBI motivation. But it's more so meant as a cushion for you. In some places, I mean, you could move to Saskatchewan. And you may be able to live comfortably on a UBI. Yeah, there's rent, there may be cheap food, there may be cheap. I mean, they're farmers, a lot of farms over there, but everything maybe cheap over there. So you might save money with the UBI. But where it says if you're in Toronto, then if you're getting a certain UBI, you may not be able to cover all your expenses with a UBI, you might still have to work. But I guess that's just the that's that's how this is. That's how everything should be. Because I mean, if if you're going somewhere else, if you're going somewhere where there's a very, there's very low demand for something and things should be cheaper. Yeah, if you're going somewhere where there's more demand and things would ideally be more expensive. That's the main essence of sort of a capitalist environment. Yeah, more equals more money.

Pouya LJ  47:44

No, absolutely. That That doesn't make sense. My concern was, and you're right, within a country, etc. So the difference that I was imagining is that the Delta within a country is much more marginal than a Delta currently, at least in the in the whole world. Like, if you give the highest value and the lowest value cost of living in different parts of the world, the delta is much larger than within one country. Okay, that actually to be argued, depending on the country you pick, but yeah, but for most of the world, at least. But I suppose if you and part of that comes from the the big Delta around the whole world, perhaps comes from the fact that the currencies have different values, maybe if you actually do a flatten out everything, and everybody adopts a common currency, at least as a dominant chords, that the trade end, I mean, it doesn't mean that the rest of the currencies will be eliminated completely, but they're not the main one at least, then maybe there's Yeah, maybe there's a degree of flattening this. This Delta make it a little bit smaller. That could be argued, I don't know. But that was Yeah, I'm just trying to paint a picture of what I was

Emaad  49:00

imagining. No, yeah, I understand. I understand what you're saying. But like I said, it's not something that is meant to replace everything in your life, and give you access to everything you want. Because that's gonna lead into way many more problems, because then everyone has access to whatever they want, for sure. But it's more so a cushion for you to at least live your life, to not starve on the streets do not to have your basic necessities at least covered wherever you are, you can be in Toronto, you could be wherever. And obviously, for the economic system to grow, people would still need to work because to create a living they would need there wouldn't be innovation around the world. And none of that is in danger. Because of UBI

Pouya LJ  49:45

Yeah, no, no, that makes sense. I mean, obviously these topics especially the UBI and cryptocurrency have endless spanned, and we can spend hours and hours talking about them which we may at some point, but We've come we've come a long way. I think all we've done almost one hour right now. So, yeah, I think it's a good place to, you know, close the loop on everything do you have? Do you have anything you want to add to summarize? No,

Emaad  50:16

not so much. I mean, I agree. This is a good, some good point. Where to where to pause it. And I'm sure there's going to be way many more discussions about UBI. And I'd love to, you know, have more. You, of course, as I as I research more on

Pouya LJ  50:32

it, exactly how I think about it. Now, I think it's gonna be really good. These discussions are obviously always fun to have and a lot of times constructive helpful. And yeah, I enjoy talking.

Emaad  50:47

Yeah. And yeah, that's really good. So it was a great, it was a great time discussing all these cool things.

Pouya LJ  50:53

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's great. Okay, so we'll put your information in the show notes, too. But do you want to tell people where they can find you online?

Emaad  51:04

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm, you can find me on Instagram, which is pr racha explores. That's pa ra, ch, e XP l or Yes. Or you can also find me on LinkedIn, which is e mod beracha. That is e m, a D. and last name is parotta. Pa ra ch a, if you want to talk about anything regarding the currency project, which is going to be more on my Instagram, or more about physics, or UBI, or anything like that, and I'd love to talk more.

Pouya LJ  51:41

Yeah, that's awesome. As I mentioned, obviously, we're going to put this in the show notes, so anybody who didn't get that they can go and look it up there. Thanks again, Bob. I was really fun talking to you Jason

We kick off the newest addition to Beyond the Present podcast called the Entrepreneurial Edition with short talks from Daniel Molgan dedicated exclusively to business, entrepreneurship, real estate, stock market, Forex, and similar topics for those of our listeners who would like to improve their financial intelligence.

In the first program as part of the Entrepreneurial Edition Dan delves deep into the issue of Entrepreneurship and compares what it feels like to run your own business as opposed to working for someone else. The truth is that some will always be happier and more successful working for someone else while others will be the most fulfilled when they run their own businesses. This short program can help you decide which one is right for you! 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

entrepreneur, business, entrepreneurship, people, work, run, clients, deal, life, prospective client, job, employee, wealth, solopreneur, edition, values, create, hours, decisions, certain types

SPEAKERS

Dan

Dan  00:00

Hello, welcome to the first entrepreneurial edition of Beyond the present podcast. My name is Daniel Molgan. And in this edition of the beyond the present podcast we are going to talk about all things business investment, as well as finances so this particular edition is designed exclusively for the entrepreneurs or those who would like to improve their knowledge of entrepreneurship, business, finance and investment. So this of course, was way back there was a request by one of our basically listeners who requested such a program, of course and now here we are, we have this edition added to our basically podcast series and today we will start our first episode of the Evernote edition of Beyond the present podcast and today of course, this is our first episode of like actually sort of ride by the simple question of what is exactly entrepreneurship and whether or not you the listener should consider becoming one. So, as you probably already know, the word entrepreneurship nowadays is such Big deal. I mean, like it's become almost a global phenomenon, as well as a trend. And quite frankly, I think it's partially due to, you know, the new changes that we're seeing these days and social media and the way many entrepreneurs are using the platform to reach a wider audience, which has made the whole concept more popular. So basically, entrepreneurship is nothing more than you being able to offer your product or service at a profit to a specific customer or a group of customers. That's entrepreneurship, whether you are trying to let's say sell your musical for example, and knowledge as a let's say, a musician or as somebody who wants to sell the product that your company is making, whether you are offering your consulting, coaching services, whether you are set for example, selling you know, certain properties in real estate, all of these things. These are some examples of entrepreneurship that is the ability to run your own business and offer your product or service to a customer or groups of customers who are willing to To pay for that product or service. Now, that being said, isn't really all that simple. That is, knowing the difference is all that it takes to become a business owner? Of course not. So let's now talk about what it really takes to be a business owner and to run your own business. So first of all, there are two styles of entrepreneurship, we have one called solopreneur ship, as you probably know, about 40% of all entrepreneurs are actually solopreneurs. And almost 35% of all the companies registered in the US are run by one person. Now, personally speaking, solopreneur ship is one way to go about it, especially if you're you know, getting started with entrepreneurship because you don't have to pay for your staff. You don't have to hire anybody to have to get an office probably. And this allows you to work wherever you are. And this is of course, very popular among will be called a digital nomad entrepreneurs, that is bloggers, writers, programmers, and so on who they somehow use their own time, or when they want and of course, they get the profit that way. They're set Taiwan commercial force is what we call teamwork. That's when you begin and establish a team could be a team made of only two or three, for example, people or, let's say, individuals, or it could be perhaps made of, I don't know, hundreds or thousands of basically people. But usually most businesses start off with very few individuals involved in the process to run that business, and of course, to work towards improving its profitability. Now, it all depends on your circumstance. Well, Dan, first of all, I'm currently working at a job I got, for example, you know, let's say boss, and he pays me every month and I do my job, and I have my nine to five and all that stuff. Why in the world? Should I consider becoming an entrepreneur? So let me first tell you right now at this issue, you see, becoming an entrepreneur is not an easy thing. Let me just tell you right now, because it was like, well, that way I can work whenever I want. As a matter of fact, my experience proves that basically, getting a job technically is easier, both emotionally, physically and in terms of your time. Then running a business, yes, the 905, you got to wake up early, and then go to the office, stay there until five or whatever it is, come back home. So it's gonna take a lot of time, I just want to work two or three hours per day and be done with it. Well, the fact of the matter is that when you started your business, especially in the first few years, you actually will end up working much more than an employee at the same time, the chances are, your income will be less than a full time job. You see, that's what I've heard from almost any entrepreneur that actually know or have met personally, that is, in the first few years, not only they worked more hours, they actually made fewer dollars for those hours. So because of this, you have to ask yourself, do I really want to be an entrepreneur? Do I really want to run my own business? perhaps be become a consultant, perhaps, I don't know. start investing in real estate. Do I really want any of these things? And to answer that question, you have to look at yourself and your values. What are your values in life? Now everyone was seems like what what is Value values are why you do what you do. You see, every decision that you make stems from your values. So if you perhaps are currently an employee, the chances are some of your values include security, stability, being able to rely on a stable income, and more importantly, not having to think so much about work when you're not working. That is you want you value things like free time, leisure and work life balance. So if you look at the lives of most entrepreneurs, they would tell you that, unfortunately, a lot of those things simply don't exist in the world of business owners. That is, most business owners cannot necessarily determine like, Okay, I'm going to work from this hour to this hour and that I'm going to be fun. It's it's not really that easy for most entrepreneurs, especially in the first few years of any of the business to determine which hours they'll be working, which I was able to not because problems will pop up. There's gonna be some issues documentations taxations. Some other problems the clients might call you Marketing, and so on and so forth. And all of these things will actually make it harder for you to actually work whenever you want to work. So that's one of the things that will, perhaps if you have those values, if you really value let's say, work life balance, or you want to have certain hours just for working from hours, not for working, probably being a business owner probably is not for you from my point of view. Secondly, of course, is about the manner in which you want to run your business. You see, when you're an employee, you have a specific task and responsibility. And oftentimes, your job is about doing whatever task you're responsible for. However, when it comes to running a business, it's far more about the human factor than it is about the technicality of what you do. Because as an entrepreneur, you're supposed to actually do a lot of things, especially if you have a smaller team or even if you're a solopreneur. You have too many things all by yourself things like marketing, things like sales, things like talking to your clients. For example, things like following up with those clients and Of course, dealing with all the headaches that come with dealing with bad clients, you see, when you're working for somebody else, your job is very simple. And it's very clear, do this and do this from this hour to this hour. But as an entrepreneur, there are no such clear boundaries as what you must do. Because sometimes your clients might actually have requests that you never thought perhaps would come up. Sometimes you deal with, let's say, clients that are not necessarily your best clients with all these like bad clients or clients from help, who somehow give you trouble and they have all these excuses for doing business or asking for discounts too much or this and that. So you kind of know that basically, right? So as an entrepreneur, you have to deal with a wide variety of people who are your potential customers. This is one of quite frankly, one of the disadvantages of being an entrepreneur, especially if you are a solopreneur. Or if you have very small team, we have to be involved with everything or with every client. And that's usually most basically often the case with those who begin their business. So just imagine that if you're employed employee, you deal with certain types of people from a certain social background, certain, you know, things that you have in common, perhaps your colleagues who are also in let's say, the IT sector or in the, you know, hospitality sector or in the, let's say, restaurant business. So you see and meet the same type of people, and you interact with them in the same type of basically way. But as an entrepreneur, you basically are dealing with all sorts of people, many of whom You will never ever actually want to meet in real life. I mean, like, if you are, let's say, an entrepreneur, you deal with all sorts of people that most of whom You will never ever be friend in real life, for example, right? This is just, you know, a fact, you might end up talking with somebody have almost nothing in common with, but he or she is a prey, you know, perhaps a prospective client who might actually order let's say a project or ask one of your for example, services or so on and so forth. So, because of this, the human element is very important. So as I was writing this question, how easy It is for you to deal with all sorts of people, many of whom probably will not have a lot in common with you. Because this is the biggest challenge of entrepreneurship, the human elements and the emotional elements. Because if you, for example, don't know how to perhaps deal with people who are, let's say, a little bit more strategic on the side, let's do some clients who use certain tactics to get a good discount, or certain clients who perhaps are not quite upfront with their desires about your products, so they end up for example, postponing or canceling in a way that seems believable. But of course, you know, that these guys are actually faking it. So you have to create, you know, have to create those, basically, patterns. But you know, okay, this client is a time waster these clients actually playing with right now. Oh, this is actually a very good client. Oh, this guy is actually very trusted, like, I should trust him, but this lady probably not so much. So you need all these social skills to be able to manage your time because as an entrepreneur You need to be able to make a certain quota, whatever it is for you, basically. And you have certain amount of time with you and your team and your, let's say, staff members. So the worst thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to spend that time with the wrong people doing the wrong things, or simply doing things that are not quite valuable for your time, which is why the second element of entrepreneurship is personal management and time management. You see how well are you in terms of being able to manage your time and your basically plans? Are you more disciplined or are you more spontaneous, the more spontaneous types? Well, from my point of view, unless you're involved in certain types of artistic career, they are generally better off working as employees because that those working hours creates that structure for them. So that okay, well, I got to go to work from nine to five, and then I'm free, right? And this allows our lives to be more organized. But if you are, let's say more spontaneous, I'm gonna run your own business. You might run into a lot of trouble because organization and discipline is very Are you critical in running your own business to know like, these are the hours, okay, I should do this, I should do that. That's the second element, you have to work on very well. The third element of entrepreneurship, of course, and the valley that most entrepreneurs aspire to, is freedom, and being able to make your own decisions. You see, that's perhaps the biggest advantage of an entrepreneur, again, you pay a lot for it. Let's be honest, because we're an employee, your boss makes all the decisions. It's very simple, or you're a supervisor. But when you run your own business, you get to decide what kind of job you will do, how you will do it, and with what types of people so you have this autonomy of deciding and making decisions about your business and the kind of people you tend to work with. I think that's, of course, very, very important score. Of course, it's totally worth all the effort and struggle, that have to go through to, you know, become an entrepreneur. But from my point of view, if you look at the values of entrepreneurs, they they seek freedom. They seek independence, and of course, In most cases, if you look around you, you realize that in most cases, those who are successful as entrepreneurs tend to create much more wealth than those who are highly skilled professionals who tend to work for somebody else. It's just a you know, a simple matter of mathematics. So if your ambitions financially is pretty high, the chances are you should aim for being an entrepreneur, but then please be be aware that the majority of revenue as of today, an average entrepreneur make makes about 40 to $45,000 a year in the US, as you probably know, the average income in the US is actually higher than that is over $52,000 a year right. So being an entrepreneur does not mean that you are going to be rich, because becoming rich itself is once you run a business and is very successful, and then can actually generate profit and then repeat that process. So if your sole motivation to get on hers to get rich quickly, the chances are you will be disappointed. Because in most cases, entrepreneurs, especially the first five to 10 years, you've actually do not generate massive wealth. If you look around you and like, you know, very famous top entrepreneurs, multi billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, you realize that they actually went through a very long process and it took them decades to accumulate their wealth, and the same thing of force apply. So all other entrepreneurs, so if your sole motivation to be an entrepreneur is to just basically have higher income, I got some bad news for you. If you really think that by become an entrepreneur, you will become a millionaire, I don't know in a couple of days or months or even years, but chances are you will be disappointed. So write and ask yourself, What do I value? Do I want to explore possibilities that are out there in the marketplace? Do I want to have the freedom to decide what kind of work I will do? How I will get them done? What kind of people I will serve? Or do you have the desire to perhaps be your own boss or make your own decisions, or instead you value things like security, you Think of work as a means of service, getting your money and then moving on with your life because let's be honest, I am not at all saying that everybody should be not Brunner. As a matter of fact, I know that most people should not become entrepreneurs, because that's what math says. Most entrepreneurs fail in the long run. Most businesses fail in the long run. So if you want to get in the club, you should really ask yourself is this for me or not? and becoming wealthy can be easily done by getting a job in a very high, you know, highly prestigious company or a corporation. So that's not the only path to wealth. There are many ways towards wealth. There's of course the path of personal investments, we're gonna later talk about hopefully, in other episodes, how you can actually invest in different things to increase your net worth. But ultimately, if you want to run your own business, you better have a very, very strong and you know, reliable reason to become the kind of person who will run basically his or her business because the the path ahead will be very difficult and it's not going to be an easy Ride, if you will, because you will deal with a lot of obstacles, the learning curve in most businesses is actually very steep at the beginning, so you have to spend many hours, days, weeks, months or even years, learn the business, and then you can actually move on to generating profits. So having said all of those things, now let's talk about what time people should not become entrepreneurs, and that they will actually be more successful getting a job. You see. Not everybody, from my point of view, should aim to be an entrepreneur, because doing so could actually push their plans way back. So the people who should not consider entrepreneurship, from my point of view, are those who believe in a clear work life balance and structure to see entrepreneurs that I know of personally. Generally, their lives are not as orderly and organized and a lot of people among us, we value organization in order. So if you want that level of order in your life, where things are happening in order Probably running a business will make you very unhappy. Even if you make more money you will be unhappy. I mean, do you really like to make more money and then be unhappy all the time? What's the point anyways? Right? So the second question, of course, is, Are you the kind of person who would prefer to deal with certain types of people, and do not really enjoy talking with people from all walks of life, that's very important, because as an entrepreneur, especially if you have like a big kind of business, or the kind of is that actually serve a mass audience, especially if it's like, you know, aimed at almost anyone who can come and become your client, let's say restaurant businesses, let's say I don't know health and fitness business, let's say coaching and consultancies, all of these things, you will have to deal with people, you know, people from all walks of life, kinda like you know, being a doctor where almost anybody can be a patient. So, are you the kind of person who enjoys dealing people from all walks of life, and not necessarily those who are like you are who share your opinions. Think about those who are completely unlike you, whose lifestyles are not at all like you, if you are the kind of person who prefers to only spend time with certain types of people, for example, those who are at your level of education, those who live in your town or those share your beliefs, ideologies, and so on, that again, better not information may be very unhappy, because you will end up dealing with people from many different walks of life, who you have to deal with, because they are your prospective clients or prospects. And because of this, you need to somehow feel but upset about this matter, because maybe you really don't enjoy dealing with somebody who is I don't know, perhaps 3040 years older than you or opposite 20 years younger than you or somebody who is coming from a very different background that perhaps is very radically different from your background, right. So if you don't enjoy that kind of experiences, interactions, probably it's better to get a job so you can actually have a smaller social circle made of like minded people. And finally, is About your major goal in life is C, running a business is pretty much a group endeavor. It's really about other people, it's about serving other people creating value for the society. And it's a very rewarding experience. But if you're the kind of person who values perhaps more deeper things in life, like you really enjoy perhaps discussing the details of nature's philosophy for hours, and you perhaps don't want to be, let's say, interrupted by a customer, talking about, oh, we have a problem with the piping of this house, for example, then maybe you should not consider working on your own and perhaps at least delegate those kind of tasks with, you know, for other people who are willing to be interrupted. Some of us we don't really like to be interrupted when we're doing something we want to like, focus on that thing. Entrepreneurship is kind of like being a fireman at any one moment. Something could go wrong. There's sort of problem right here. It should be addressed. You should always be on a standby mode, if you will, for your job and your business. And if you don't Like that approach again, there are many other ways to be wealthy, you do not necessarily have to opt to run your own business. Now, of course, was the beginning. And I really believe that becoming entrepreneur from my point of view is a very rewarding experience. And I think if you have listened well to us up until now, you probably have now a basic idea of what it really takes to be an entrepreneur, and whether or not you should become an entrepreneur. But don't worry, even if you don't want to be an entrepreneur, there are many ways to create wealth without running a business or establishing a group of people who serve customers. There are many simpler ways to become becoming wealthy, including invest in real estate which can be done all by yourself without running a basically a lot of businesses and without having to deal with tech stages, all that stuff or a team or so on and so forth. And in this series, hopefully the entrepreneurial vision of the podcast we will discuss them one by one. And of course, we will also at some point address other issues such as forex stock market, they basically investment as well as other types of business and And financial topics. So that's all we have for guys. I hope you enjoyed our first episode as part of the entrepreneurial edition of the enterprise and podcast. Of course, as always, you have any questions or you would like me to talk about a specific business or financial topic, just send me a message. You can reach me anywhere Dan Molgan and I will be glad to answer it. Hopefully they're on podcasts or face to face or live. Alright guys, that's all the time we have for Thank you very much. And let's see what it takes to become an entrepreneur. For now. I wish you all a wonderful day or night ahead depending on where you are. All of our beautiful planet. Have a good one.

It is said that words alone make up about 7% of our communication and the other 93% is made up of our tonality and especially body language. However, in the era of digital technology in general and a period ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic in particular we are seeing a dramatic increase in virtual forms of communication from text messages and stickers to audio and video calls. 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

communication, text, virtual, texting, person, body language, face, people, talking, tonality, energy, meeting, friends, teleportation, arranging, childhood dream, phone call, important, urgent, means

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to yet another episode of beyond the present Podcast. I am as always joined here with Daniel Mulligan How's it going, Dan?

Dan  00:18

Hey, the man buddy glad to be here with you the one and only paychecks to have another let's talk addition another great episode to discuss things that matter and life is of course, great as usual. We are trying our best to go through this situation. Fortunately, things are getting a little bit better in some countries have it worse than some others. So now things are quite fine. I from my point of view in the Middle East, things are also quite fine in Russia. The US is gradually recovering. Unfortunately I heard some bad news about Germany because they had a basically a protest the other day about this all these limitations against the coronavirus pandemic. Some people are saying this whole is just a hoax and all that stuff. And as you probably know, I've moved the headquarters of my European company from Finland Gemini and this was a little bit problematic, because this year, Gemini is going through a lot of changes in terms of perhaps we're gonna have a new election and Merkel is going to leave and somebody else going to come and now there's a virus. So a little bit of problems in the European Union right now. But everywhere else things are quite fine. Zoo usual with all of our plans.

Pouya LJ  01:18

Awesome. Good to hear that. Now, the progression of the Coronavirus is one thing but one thing that it did, it made a lot of real in person physical communication, move to a virtual space such as calls or a loop, right? Yeah. I'm here today we're sitting here to talk about that the difference between these two and the impacts it might have had or keeps having on our communications. So let's listen let's let's dig in. So what is the essence of a virtual virtual communication that is different than a physical communication and in person face to face communication, in your opinion?

Dan  01:58

Very well. So if anybody here Among our listeners, just from NLP or neuro linguistic programming, one of the comments on this field of endeavor is that communication is basically only about three to 5% made of words. It's almost about let's say 25 to 35% in terms of vocal tonality and voice and so on, and the rest of it the majority is actually body language. So, if you look at the indication for you know, from, from these types of words, which is voice and tonality, which is yet small, but important, of course, then just words and then body language as the most important element of communication, you realize that virtual communication especially texting is probably the least effective means of communication. Now, obviously nowadays we have things like stickers. And I don't know emojis and all that. But even those things still not fully help us convey our emotions well in our communication. So, because of this, you can probably guess, as an extrovert that I am how I personally feel about, you know, verbal communication. So I use it just like anybody else. As part of my business communications, I rarely use virtual communication, to I don't know, just to have fun or pass my time because for me, that's just strictly business or to be in touch with friends and basically, in different parts of the world. So if I'm right now sitting in one city, let's just say that right now, I'm in Warsaw, Poland, and I are going to be texting my friends in Poland or in Warsaw, I will be texting my friends in other countries. But if I am in Warsaw, and I want to practice my polish, I am only going to be meeting my friends face to face because I believe that effective communication requires focus and physical presence. That's my personal take on that. Now, of course I do know that there are some people who are not necessarily as extroverted as I am, and they're rather shy. So for these people, obviously, such means of communication, like texting can be very helpful because, you know, somehow protect them from that shyness. But for most of us, I do not see virtual communication, especially via texting and stickers and so on as anything more than just purely business and it's not really efficient. So, personally, I'm not a huge fan, but at the same time, I do know that in the you know, especially in my line of work, which I worked through from all around the world, it is but impossible to rely only on face to face communication, because I mean, the only case that that might be possible, if my childhood dream is realized, and humanity invents teleportation and I was in my childhood dream since a very young age everybody asked like what's like the one superpower you want to have? And it was like all things I want, like freeze time, all those things. That wasn't one thing instant teleportation to any part of the world that was like, you know, my childhood dream. So until and unless I'm I'm telling you right now, by the way, if if Sunday, there is I will perhaps abandon all virtual communication altogether. And I will simply rely on faces condition, all my interactions. But as of today, unless you're living in some fantasy world, there is no such thing as teleportation, which means we need to use and virtual communication to reachable from all parts of the world. And basically to communicate, this also saves a tremendous amount of time, as well as you know, it reduces our carbon footprint to the environment. If you want to always move around with your car or with you know, planes, you generally are gonna increase a lot of basically carbon emission, and that's bad for our planet. But if you look at this issue, at this moment, there is a you know, from my point of view, there's a great plus here for virtual communication and that it saves time and it you know, saves our planet. But other than that, there are so many disadvantages to you know, vertical integration that I personally can actually go In Depth to all of them, but personally, am I a fan of verbal communication? No. Do I use it? Yes, probably more than most people. And do I like it? Probably not. But I have no other choice because we don't have teleportation. Come on guys think of something.

Pouya LJ  06:16

So I was just when you were talking about

Dan  06:20

this job guys like you to make this happen.

Pouya LJ  06:24

Yeah. Well, working on it. No, but when you were talking about teleportation, the first thing that came to my mind was Dan jumping in and out of rooms and it's like, Hey, buddy, I have to go.

Dan  06:37

Of course, in your personal life, too. It's not just always about business. You can also do a lot of stuff with that stuff.

Pouya LJ  06:42

Yeah, the sky's the limit. Right. All right. Okay, so, so let's let's actually do jump into for some of the, I've analyzed the disadvantages one by one, but

Dan  06:53

go further because believe it or not, our listeners might not know this. I actually learned a lot a lot more about these things. And you are one of the I actually got me more hooked with virtual condition of all kinds because I wasn't so much into it, I would actually ask you yourself, which is so how much do you use it? How well to use of course, our listeners know that we have a difference in terms of our temperament. So I'm more extroverted and you're more introverted. So how do you use, you know, this, this form of communication? And how well and how much you actually use it? for what purposes?

Pouya LJ  07:23

Right? Well, I mean, so that's a very good question. But my attitude is slightly different. I do agree with you that nothing beats the physical in person face to face communication when it comes to stuff that actually do matter. By do matter, means I mean, that, you know, they're convoluted and complex enough that you require some degree of, quote unquote codebreaking to understand exactly what that person means. So if I'm having a debate with somebody on it, let's say an important issue, I don't want to do it on a phone call. I want to do it in person, preferably, but if not possible, the next best thing would be a video call. I don't even I don't even engage in such a debate in a voice, you know, stream of communication, which is I think, lacking a lot. However, like I do like it for a lot of scenarios, for example, if I'm scheduling something to for meetup, like the plan is clear what we intend to do, but it's just a timing that we're trying to figure out. I would like to use the text of course, because then that person can take the receive my text, take their time, go on their calendar, whenever they know if it works for them or not, give a give a text back to me and we can get to it can take as long as they can. It needs unless it's an emergency, like a meet up kind of situation in which you pick up the phone and call them and fix it. But my point is, there are scenarios that I think even a text communication can be quite useful or often often is not a communication but just a ping. Just heads up is like oh, I'm ready in five minutes done, you

Dan  09:03

probably the best usage of virtual communication anyways. Right?

Pouya LJ  09:07

Right. Right, exactly. So point being that, like, obviously, there's a lot of good things that come out of it. But if you unilaterally go on a text based communication, then obviously you're missing a lot and the you being the rhetorical unit, I know you don't do that. But, but But yeah, and I agree with you. So I cannot, I don't, I cannot think of a way that we can beat the physical face to face in the same room in the same place. Kinda kind of communication on on more complex topics that perhaps we are trying to convey to one another.

Dan  09:42

Absolutely, absolutely true. It makes sense.

Pouya LJ  09:45

Yeah. Now let's actually go into deep and say why this is actually what what what are we exactly missing? So obviously, there are layers. So we can go one by one or you can jump between them doesn't matter really. But obviously there's there's a physical thing in the same room, let's say Place, there's a video of the the video format of a video conference or video call, then we have the voice. And then we have the text combined with emojis or without emojis, what have you. Okay, so so let's go obviously physical things has a lot that is missing in a video format Can Can you can go deeper into what is missing exactly between those two.

Dan  10:24

So first of all, let's compare them in details we have facing this indication. Now it was once talking about this issue with one of our basically seminar attendance and I asked him So guys, do you feel right now there's a lot of you guys basically here and sitting here and next to each other and you feel the energy, right? And one of my basically seminar attendance was also a great friend of mine. He said, Listen, Dan, I think it's because of the soul of these people. So our souls come to one another and we create that energy or vibe. I don't know about that because science still has not proven the existence of solar. Spirit. However, we all know that once we are in the physical presence of other people, it always feels different. This could be the vibration they emit from the surface of their skins, as we know that in quantum physics, that everything is vibrating, and there's an energy level involved. So when you're talking to a real human being face to face, whether you call it spirit, or whether you call it the quantum vibrations of their, let's say, body or their energy level, or simply their heat and the temperature, they generate through, you know, their body temperature, whatever it is, there's always bigger impact in terms of what they do to you and how you feel. Other than that, it's about communication itself. So as mentioned, the biggest aspect of communication is your body language. Imagine I'm smiling first right now because we have a podcast that's nearly audio. Imagine I'm smiling, and I tell you like, oh, man, come on. Now. Compare that With someone changing his facial expression and tonality and say, Hey, come on, these two imply very different meaning. I can say, you idiot with a very aggressive, for example, tone, I can say, you idiot. These are very, very different meanings, right? So, because of the fact that body language conveys the majority of the meaning of interaction, because let's be honest, when you're talking to somebody else, most of what you are perceiving of that interaction is the body language. This is how the brain is wired, basically. And if you're saying things, are those things sincere or not, so for example, let's say you text your buddy or your girlfriend or your boyfriend in the morning, and what's up, she texts back. I'm doing fine, smiley smiley. But let's say you saw her in the same room The next morning and say, What's up, she says, another Monday. She Yeah.

Pouya LJ  13:01

So

Dan  13:02

you will perceive of these two communications the same even though they have the same verbal context, I'm doing fine. Which is why face to face communication, first of all conveys more information about the person allows us to understand whether the other person is being sincere and telling exactly how he or she feels. For example, lie detection itself worse only in person, you cannot, you know, use lie detection solely by texts unless you're making some very serious mistakes, right? Where they are saying things that are very contradictory. But in reality, you can understand people better face to face, you know how you're feeling, you understand whether what they're saying is like a let's say, sarcastic comment. It's an aggressive comment, you feel it, all of those, and you take it in, on a subconscious level. And by the way, you don't have to be a trained body language expert to understand most of these. Now it is true that if you have deep you know, studies and body language, you can do a lot of cool things like knowing for example with a person's language, not by opportunity. 95% accuracy, whether the person is sincere or not, whether what he or she says, will actually be done. These are all the things you can learn through additional study of body language, it can make you do some crazy stuff that seems like magic, but it actually can be done with body language. But even if you have no concept of what even what the word body language means, you can still by nature, the way we are our brains wired, we can understand other people's feelings and emotions. And because of this, we are missing out on all of these things when we rely on virtual communication. However, in virtual communication, we also have video calls, which is probably the best form of basically, virtual communication because in that case, you have what you know what they're saying. That is the words they're using. You hear their tonality, and you see their faces, but still, since it's not exactly 3d, it is it doesn't carry the same weight. It's the closest thing that comes to face miscommunication, but it's not the same actually. And if you add up On top of that, you know the connection problems. And let's say that light in the room and all those things, you will have even more problems. But overall, as I mentioned earlier, you can always improve the quality of our, let's say virtual communication if we try to model it after real face to face communication. So I mentioned earlier about emojis, that's a great inclusion, and will allow us to kind of get Is there like a sarcasm? Or is it real? So these are the things that can actually add up. But in the end, as I mentioned earlier, the major absence of body language, as well as tonality makes most text based syndications from my point of view, not efficient at all, and probably close to three or 4%. Effective.

Pouya LJ  15:43

Yeah, no, that that makes a lot of sense. Because as social animals, we're biologically wired to, you know, understand a lot of these things even though sometimes we don't know what we're understanding, really, oh, how are we doing it? Actually, there's a good book. I mean, not exactly on this, but talks about this blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which does talk about this a little bit if people are interested to read more, they're welcome Of course. Yeah. So I mean, especially the tech specs, or text based communication is too far from the physical one. Now when we got a voice as you mentioned for example, you were reading that sentence I forgot what the exact wording was. But no, you can you can imagine it with every kind of sentence What the hell are you doing? Or Oh, you said you idiot. Yeah, it could we could when you introduce it tonality becomes different. Now there's all from obviously, and the subtle subtle little ones which becomes more obvious when you see people now with the role of an eye for instance, now that you can again, get in a video setting, even body language to extent if the entire body is visible into camera, you can get Can you can you can you explain like in a little bit of a detail, maybe maybe that's the energy thing. That you talk about, but what is it exactly that we don't get beyond the video compared to physical?

Dan  17:06

Well, what you mentioned about energy. First of all, I believe in that energy part because that is actually proven by science. You're I mean, you probably know far more about this than I knew, basically. And it's called quantum physics. So basically, all living organisms are basically generating heat and energy is just quite normal, which is why we need to, you know, things like food and rest to be able to keep expanding, we lose cells and burn and burn energy to, you know, build new cells. So that energy asked me what I think it's very important. So real people, they are emitting energy. Now some get spiritual call of things like aura or spiritual energy. Maybe that's the case. I'm neither gonna basically confirm nor deny because in this regard, I will remain nearly agnostic, because science cannot prove it, but at the same time, science cannot disprove it. So I will not comment on that. But science has already proven that there is this thing called vibrations of basically organisms and the energy they emit. So that's one thing. The other factor is being with other people, you're not just seeing them, you are also smelling them even at a very deep, subconscious level. You see, everyone carries with themselves a smell. Now that smell could be very pleasant, like Anna, let's say and very nice odor they've added can be very unpleasant as you probably know, a few a few hours. If you're someone like me, who goes to gym frequently, and happens to be this god awful place called the locker room. And you probably know what, what I'm talking about. So people are also, you know, emitting a lot of smell. And when it comes to the cases, like, basically meeting or funding your partner has actually proven basically that people tend to release basically based upon their hormonal status, they send different smelling signals, that implies whether or not they are open for me. So believe it or not, maybe you're out there talking to someone and you suddenly feel a sense Of Attraction without knowing why you like that man or woman? And the answer is pheromones. So pheromones are now it's not just for humans it exists on all basically living organisms. So the pheromones exist only in face to face communication which is why I'm so against Tinder. Gosh, and I hate this but even more popular these days, just such a such a terrible way to meet someone. So pheromones are like this. So you tend to admit that smell to attract mates basically and all that stuff? Obviously, it's about the way you dress so as you probably have seen, there's a lot of you know, memes and jokes about this. People dressing top up very professionally while they're wearing their underwears below as they're looking at, you know, the laptop so that's like a new thing. And especially working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic has made this even more popular people dressing all nice, they got the suit on on top and they're wearing their you know, mommy's underpants basically right there. So it's like a kind of like not the same thing. And more importantly, in person, you probably get the chance Yesterday will be called touch or because as you as you know, in NLP, we say we have five major senses. And all that we are is the result of those five senses. And one of those critical senses is actually the sense of touch. Things like a handshake things like a hug, things like, I don't know, tapping their shoulders or holding them or all of these things. These are going to also add a lot of meaning and emotional components to our communication that simply are not present in virtual communication, basically. So when you add these things together, plus that energy level, then you realize why it is a lot more efficient to perhaps communicate using body language and face to face then using the internet and virtually

Pouya LJ  20:40

not. So that's amazing now, now the natural question is okay, we try. We tried to do a lot of it in person as much as necessary. But obviously we're in it, especially now in time we're in a circumstance not just because of the enablers of the technology, but actually because of the circumstance. A lot of things are being done. Without the physical presence, like people are working remotely and having their meeting and what have you, or even texting each other for First off, I mean, one good example of a potential solution to use these visual visual forms of communication, but still convey the most that you want was to include emojis, for example, and text. That's a great example. Now, are there things that you can advise? On the for example, well, even text again, but voice and video specifically to convey your messaging better? as a as a messenger not receive? Of course? Yeah,

Dan  21:34

of course. Well, I think in this regard, you're definitely more experienced than I am because most of my virtual communication is strictly limited to business. I tend to avoid basically, communications that are on a personal friendly or romantic level via text or calls or these things because I'm a firm believer, especially when it comes to important emotional relationships. Let's say with your parents, let's say with your partner with your children. really believe that, for example, having these types of indications of via virtual, you know, virtually via text or these things, it's a lot easier but efficient, very inefficient. So most of my virtual communication usually occurs in my personal professional life has been avoided in my personal life as much as possible. So when it comes to professional, basically life, however, I really like to emphasize on being quite clear in your text, because one of the biggest issues of texting is that there are two major problems. Number one is that you might not imply what you're reading me. And number two is that time distance. So for example, if I'm talking to you right now, Face Face to face, and I'm saying like, so what do you think? And then you look at my eyes, looking at different distance, direction, and don't talk to me at all. In a real physics application. What do we assume here projects

Pouya LJ  22:56

was kind of insulting is to

Dan  22:58

you know, say not insulted. You feel like Excuse me, I'm talking to you, dude. Right? So you feel or if you don't feel insulted, you might feel like, what happened to me is he is he depressed? So this brings about basically, you know, some weird things. And we are, by the way, evolutionary wired this way. So because we did not have virtual communication that on a massive scale for about let's see, I don't know, for the past, we only had it for the past, let's say 1020 years. Now, of course, we had telephone before that. But even that was like, even if this whole thing begins with the telephone, which is, I don't know, about 100 years old or something that is still a very a tiny fraction of our evolutionary history. So that was more like, I don't know, perhaps, if our all of our evolutionary background was 24 hours, the invention of virtual communication, including Telegraph's and so on, is probably less than 1% of that 24 hours. So imagine, like, we are not wired emotionally for that kind of indication. So if I'm talking to you right now, and you're looking at this and you feel like Dude, this guy doesn't respect me or something like this, but in virtual communication, I mean, you can Do this, because maybe the person that you're texting, he's, I'm sorry, he's maybe he's using the bathroom, maybe it's an important meeting. Maybe he's trying to make love to his partner, maybe there's something going on. Maybe he's really is depressed and doesn't even want to meet. Because if you are really down and depressed, let's say, I don't know somebody is depressed or to have a health problem, you're not going to go out to meet your friend, but anyone can reach you. 24 seven, I was talking to a friend of mine, and she was a lady. And she really felt like I'm feeling a sense of April. I feel like very down and sad. So that person, if you text him or her, she's not going to respond to it because you're here she is feeling down. But in a real communications that will never happen because you will not meet her in the first place. Right? So because of all these challenges that you know the if you're occurs over distance, there comes a series of issues. Number one, the timing of the response. Someone might not respond to our texts for two days. And we assume, oh, this guy doesn't respect me. But in fact, the person is Perhaps really busy, or maybe in a bad mood, or you don't know what's going on, or maybe simply he did not even, he forgot to respond or you want to send a text or there was a connection. So all of these issues and get in the way, which is why I would like to create, basically, and I like to, you know, create a rule for texting that I personally use all the time. And my rule is very simple. I send a text to someone. And when I send a text to someone that I, you know, no, I expect a response. It's very normal. Everybody does that. Now the person might not respond to it. This means perhaps the person is not available or is not willing. Either way. I wait. Because, you know, we're not there. I'm not waiting for that person. Maybe he or she's in the middle of something important. Maybe he or she is not there. So I wait. And if I realize that waiting did not change and I have not so got my response. I'm not going to send the second or third message. Instead, I will simply make a phone call. Why? Because when you make a phone call it implies I we're discussing something urgent and important right? requires your attention. But when you're sending a text by its very nature text, which is what we call a low investment, social activity. So if I'm sending a text to you, it means what I'm saying is not urgent, and could be responded at any moment. That's what I assume basically, right? So, in all my business interactions, if I'm sending an email or a text, I not expecting an urgent response. If I do, especially in the case of email, I would instead prefer to make a phone call. Now if a phone call is for whatever reason not possible, I simply add over the text or email. Your fast response will be appreciate I usually answered about in my email, over text, I wouldn't do this because text by its very nature is what we call an on urgent form of communication. So I do not expect my texts to be respond too quickly because if I want a response quickly, I will make a phone call instead, for whatever but let's say I want to talk to my supplier and say I want to talk to my For example, security, but whatever it is, if it's urgent, I have to make a basically phone call instead. So anybody who's using texts from my point of view, they should use the same strategy. If you want to say something, something is very important and urgent, you should not use texting because texting is merely a text. It lacks vocal tonality. It lacks body language. And in many cases, even though it lacks Smiley's, especially in case of physical location. So, it almost implies that I'm just another text like all the other text, so you should not necessarily expect to respond quickly. And generally speaking, I also believe we should follow the pattern of the person. So if I sent a text right now, and the person responds after 20 minutes, that implies he or she might be very busy. But if he or she responds immediately, that means that he or she is available. So in that case, again, if finally the person is immediately available, I'm not going to keep texting, I'll just call the person. It's like, Oh, this guy's actually available. Let's call wine. I will use every opportunity Just stop texting and start calling speaking video calling because I want my communication to be as close to the physical limitation as possible. Because texting is a perverted version of communication, it's not the

28:14

field and the

Dan  28:17

and for that reason, if anything, if you're if you are upset about something you should not expect over text you should call the person if you want to clear something that has not clarified yet, you should call or you should have a video call for all these important issues, I recommend using video and voice voice calls and not text and I like to use text for things of that are either extremely the now like See you at this time or beer at this time or I will see you in front of this place like these you know, been there done that kind of stuff very simple telecommunication command based or for things that are not very urgent. Like if I really want to say like oh man, check this out very nice. This This does not require an immediate response right. So for that reason Save texting for things that are neither urgent nor very important. And the more important and the more urgent the text or communication is, I actually converted text to a phone call or a video call. And ideally, I don't do any of those. I just arrange a meeting if I'm in the same city, I will do all face to face.

Pouya LJ  29:17

Yeah, that's perfect. No, that's good. I think we covered a lot. Obviously, this topic is on exhaustible, you can keep going, so you have to come to a national halt. And that is, I think, a good place to do that unless you want to add something up or do a summary of what we talked about.

Dan  29:33

That's right, very well. So we had a great time. Today, of course, we discussed the issue of virtual communication. Now, as you probably know, I am a critic of virtual communication. I'm not a huge fan of it. And I explained all the reasons why and mainly is because first communication is not as efficient as actual face to face communication. However, there's a huge advantage to virtual mediation, that's there are no limits on with whom you can speak, when you can speak and wherever that person might be. Right Because the internet and communication were This is called communication at the speed of light. So we have no limitations in this regard. However, that lack of limitations also creates its own set of problems, which we addressed in terms of knowing how to respond and how to text someone. And more importantly, we emphasize the importance of trying to make our virtual communication as close to the real version as possible by including things like video calls, where we can actually see the person using our tonality. And, you know, we have voice calls and trying to use texts, not as a means of, you know, entertaining or just wasting your time, nor just trying to express the most important deepest thoughts. I mean, one of my friends said, like, I truly want to express to my partner how much I love her. I don't know how to write it on text. I said, Dude, don't text her. Just go tell her face to face, or even some people actually break up over text. It's just, it just boggles my mind. Unbelievable. So you want to use text as a means of reaching the person. And this is one of the things I learned from one of my friends. Basically. And he said, use text as nothing but a means of arranging a meeting. This is one of my friends who said that actually, and he's a great, you know, Jewish gentleman that I like and I learned a lot from. So he said, like, don't use texts for anything other than arranging meetings. Now, that meeting could be, let's say, a virtual meeting via Skype, or zoom, or, let's say messengers, or it could be a person, ideally, a face to face meeting, but ultimately, save texting, at least from my point of view, mainly for arranging real meetups. However, when it comes to these arrangements, these texts are very efficient. Are you available? Yes, I am, here and here at that time, let's see each other. So for that reason, I'm a huge proponent of not relying on texting as a means of communicating, but using text to arrange virtual meetings via zoom. You're saying like, but I don't want to do businessman I want to talk to my friend. Okay. You can text your friend or you can say you know, they Call your friends. Which one is going to be doing more effective? The answer is obvious video calls. So why don't you use text to arrange a video call instead of just texting to see how you're doing. That'll be a lot more efficient if you actually see him, talk to him and so on. So for that reason, that's how I personally like to use text as a means of arranging either a virtual or a face to face meeting

Pouya LJ  32:21

was amazing. All right. With that we're coming to the end of the show. Thank you as always, Dan.

Dan  32:27

It's my pleasure, buddy. Glad to be here with the one and only Pouyjix

Pouya LJ  32:30

Thank you. And thank you everybody for tuning in. And I hope you enjoyed this episode. I did for sure. And please, leave us comments. Let us know what you want us to talk about. And please, if you have time, then if you enjoyed the show, go rate it commented, let it grow. We would appreciate it and until a later episode. Have a good one.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

leisure activities, leisure, people, life, activities, day, languages, pandemic, work, subtitles, fun, body, run, goals, enjoy, talking, reason, occasionally, burnout, recreation

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast. Let's talk addition as always joined with Daniel Morgan. How's it going, dan?

Dan  00:19

Hey, man, buddy. Glad to be here with one and only Cujo likes to discuss a lot of great topics. So life is great. And fortunately, gradually the borders are getting reopen. Of course, again, I was very disheartened a couple days ago when I heard the news that Bali which was supposed to open its borders to all tourists around the world, on September 11, actually canceled the entire plan. And they mentioned that they will open you know, for tourists only in early 2021. And as you probably know, if Bali was going to open the borders, probably many other countries would follow because that's like a place for tourists. So people don't really have to wear masks winter on volume and let's say islands and that you're having some fun over there. So that was a sign Perhaps the world is ready to get back to normal. But the very fact that the government of Bali somehow did not agree with this and they postpone the plan to 2021 implies that we still have to wait for the vaccine, basically. And I also read an article by Bill Gates that mentioned if 30 to 60% of population in the US get the vaccine, the pandemic is essentially over. So we'll see how it goes. And so there are some good news, generally, although there was one disheartening, basically piece of news that I heard earlier from wh o world health organization that said, even a vaccine might not end the pandemic, but then again, I'm guessing that's more like politics, because as you probably are aware, Donald Trump announced that the US will no longer funds w h o from next year so I'm guessing that they will you should feel like they're left behind that Oh, by the way, you will never have a really from the virus if you want us to just start you know, refund this so maybe we'll find a way. I don't know. Perhaps it seems like you know, dirty politics because I don't think the world Right now needs bad news from especially who to tell them that even a vaccine will not end the pandemic, because that's from my point of view is very counterintuitive, because it is proven proven that it can actually end if a certain, you know, minority population actually do get vaccinated. So overall, things are fine. And we are hoping to hopefully see how things will change. I'm literally preparing all of my plans. Now, we are just waiting for the pandemic to be over. And as soon as you know, hopefully, life gets back to normal in 2021. I'm plan to actually initiate a lot of our projects in Europe. So I focused a lot in China and Russia in the past four years. So most of our focus for the next four to five years will be in the European Union. So France, Germany, Sweden, and a few countries like that. We're going to focus on these countries for a while. So we are preparing our plans, basically so that we can actually initiate a full fledged European campaign from next year. We'll see things things are really fine and we're doing our best to stay afloat.

Pouya LJ  03:00

That's, that's amazing. So you're on the slightly more. We call it optimistic camp regarding this whole pandemic situation

Dan  03:09

I have to be if you're an entrepreneur, as you already had this assertion earlier, if you're an entrepreneur, you have to be an optimist.

Pouya LJ  03:14

Fair enough. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. All right. I hope you're right. We're all really free, by the way.

Dan  03:21

perspective, are you on the pessimistic spectrum?

Pouya LJ  03:23

No, I'm not on the pessimistic spectrum. But I'm a little bit. I'm a little bit on the you know, I'm just I'm just, I'm just, I'm just concerned, mostly that the optimistic scenario might not know Yeah,

03:37

yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah.

Pouya LJ  03:38

So I mean, it will be what it will be and we have to cope with it. Of course. I hope you're right. And I tend to be generally speaking, optimistic, but about this particular one, I'm more concerned and optimistic. Anyways,

Dan  03:52

because the US now as you probably know, it's devastated by the virus and the sheer mismanagement and the idiocy of Trump but how things ended Canada. So have you guys managed to actually contain the virus? Are things better there than it is? I'm sure it is better, of course, but how to which degree actually, is it?

Pouya LJ  04:08

Yeah. No, I think it's great. I mean, at least in the Ontario in Toronto, the things are actually pretty good, relatively speaking. cases are, have been less than 100 and the whole province for the past few days, and it's spiked slightly over 100. Yesterday believe. But generally speaking, it's just running around 100 cases every day in the entire province that Toronto isn't, which is,

Dan  04:35

which is funny that Canada is basically nicknamed as Canada because of all the Chinese who are now in Canada, despite the fact that this hadn't, you know, let's say origin in China. And there are so many there. I think there are a lot more Chinese in Canada in the US, I'm guessing. And despite all that, still, we are seeing, you know, how well the Kenyan government managed this crisis so much better than the US so definitely good for the Kenyan president. And shame on Trump.

Pouya LJ  05:01

Yeah. And well, I mean, and the reopening has been done gradually but very, very successfully. So, Toronto has been pretty open for the past. By open I mean, like with with physical distancing, of course, but you can go out you can go to restaurants and whatnot. And still it no no huge spikes in numbers or whatever. So, yeah, that's, that's, that's good for them. For sure. Yeah. Anyhow, so that's not the topic today, but we had to catch up a little bit. So the topic today is, how to choose your leisure activities. What should your leisure activities be, depending on who you are, when what your goals are, etc. Now, so let's start with let's start with talking about what do you do for leisure on an on a day to day basis? I know I know, you don't have so much time for leisure. But anyhow, you do have some Well,

Dan  05:56

you said something very nice. You don't have so much time for leisure because that's As you probably know, we've already started earlier in front of our programs, you know, and beyond the present podcast. And the fact of the matter is that if you wants to, from my point of view have a very inspiring lifestyle, you probably wants to look at life a little bit differently than a nine to five for work. And then the rest of the time is for me for leisure. You see, unfortunately, we live in a world where it is quite normal to consider your work as something separate from your actual life. So that work is like that toil that you have to do to enjoy the rest of your day. So you go in or let's say you go to work nine to five, five days a week, in order to be able to enjoy the rest of your life, which is the other eight hours or 10 hours per day. And from my point of view, that's probably the worst formula you could ever come up with to live a life and it's definitely a recipe for disaster because if you want to live your life in a way that you live for, basically your leisure time, then you know, Gary Vee says your if you're living for the weekend, then your shit is broken. And he's right. Because if you're living A life where you have to suffer through work and suffer through your studies or your you know, professional routines in order to be late, enjoy the time that you're not working or you're not studying or you're not, you know, perhaps advancing your career, then there's gonna be a problem here. And that's, you know, the willpower. I mean, you can use your willpower to keep pushing and working harder and to use discipline to just say, you know what, that's just work, I got to get it done to feed my family, you could definitely do these things. But the problem is that willpower never lasts. At some point, you will run out of willpower, and then you become depressed like what the hell is wrong with my life? And that we call Of course, This usually happens for most people around the ages of 35 to 40 becomes like a, you know, a midlife crisis, which almost everybody goes through, except for entrepreneurs because their lives have been so much filled with crises. They don't even understand what a midlife crisis looks like as much for your question beforehand. But the fact of the matter is that if you really want to make the most of your life, you need to somehow find a way to eradicate that, you know, clear border between work and life. And then trying to mix them a little bit. So given that I have aspired to this belief, I would like to do the exact same thing. And then I will, I would like to involve my hobbies and my, let's say leisure activities into my work and make it perhaps, you know, capitalize on it and try to actually use it as a means of serving other people. So for that reason, probably the only times where I am not necessarily working or doing things that will perhaps lead to, let's say, my, let's say, professional success is probably maybe like, I don't know, it's very hard to find things, perhaps occasionally, some, let's say going out to nature occasionally to just rest for a while. But for the most part, I really believe that if you find the right recreational activities, they are in a sense part of like your investment portfolio because you're investing in yourself in your body in its well being. I mean, if you drive a car, for example, I think most will put more energy into taking care of their cars by going through the maintenance No changing the tires, the oil and all that stuff than they do actually with their own bodies. So, because of this I see recreation as a means of taking care of that organism, that machine that gets you through the, you know, the hustles and bustles of the daily life. And if you want to make the most of your, basically life and career, you have to you better have a body and a mind that is fresh, ready, and basically up for action. So, for that reason, I value recreation very much I value to you know, being rejuvenate yourself very much. However, how do I do this, there are many ways to go about it. So if you perhaps are tired of work, you can go right now and I don't know start doing online gambling, online poker, I don't know you can hang out with your friends, you can do pot, you can get drunk, you can hang out with your friends and I don't know play FIFA for hours. There are many ways to quote unquote, basically lit up some steam, but most of such activities will in the end leave you empty because you haven't done anything useful. And more importantly, in some of these cases, you actually have harm your body Especially with the case of drug abuse, alcohol, basically, consumption and access and so on. So for that reason, I believe that we can and should probably find a way to incorporate or choose certain leisure activities that are in alignment with our main goals and directions in life. So for example, if your goal in life is to be a successful business owner, perhaps you might choose social activities that allow you to network and meet other people. So instead of perhaps spending your time playing Dota at home, and being able to network with the little org that is playing on the other side, perhaps you should, I don't know decide to go to a book club or to a test seminar or some other social activities like a fundraiser or a charity organization or a charity event in order to meet people and expand your network. So here let's say you're on a let's say, you're now in a charity event, I don't know for to help the perhaps the those who are now in orphan orphanages basically right. So in this case, you are feeling good, you're socializing, you're having a good time you're chatting, you're alive. thing with kids, with people with parents. But at the same time, you're actually networking and meeting new people. So even though you are recreating in the background, you're actually expanding your network, which is an essential element for all entrepreneurs to know more people and be known by more people who like them and whom basically are liked by you. So because of this, the best one is a clear example. For me personally, as you probably know, I'm a polyglot. And I have been told that I speak a crazy amount of basically languages. And the answer is very simple because for me, language learning, which is nothing more than a pure passion, and basically, leisure activity is now a regular part of my daily life where I tend to, you know, go on, sometimes occasionally practice up to three, four languages per day, and then switch to either the next day. So by doing these things, even though I'm having fun, and I'm resting, I'm not working, I'm not doing business. I'm not trying to plan the next year or start, you know, talking things with my team. I'm simply sitting chilling and you know, perhaps doing some, you know, drills and Japanese or let's say I don't know in Hungarian, and I'm practicing these things just for fun. But that in a sense will then is in alignment, my ultimate goal, which is international business, and international education of languages for, you know, students from all over the world. So I'm having fun, but at the same time, I'm actually doing things that will be good for my career. So the same thing could be done for anybody. I mean, doesn't matter what you do, maybe you are an artist, maybe you are, perhaps more like a technical type. So perhaps if you are a computer programmer, maybe you want to try some digital activities online, but if you're not in the IT sector, perhaps playing Dota as your hobby will not be the best idea, right? So for that reason, I'm a fan of choosing leisure activities that are in alignment with your ultimate goals and values in life. That way, you will have fun and you also slowly but surely get closer to your goals because we need recreation. We can't just toilet the office from morning to night for 10 days and not you know see anything going go wrong because in that case, we will burn out and that will occur ironically Much worse because in the long term, in the long run in the long term, we will lose a lot more by demanding too much from our time and body. And we will simply stress burnout. And boom, it's kind of like the story of that, basically turtles and the hair. So that fast air just starts running and then gets tired of sleeping. Well, this little guy who's going slowly wins the race. It's kind of like that. So those who really want to go, I'd like to say, I don't want fun. I don't want leisure. Just work, work, work, work work. Bill Gates said that he never took a single day off and his 30s and I'm now 27 I want to kill myself. I'm 30. I don't know. So this is like the story, right? So yeah, you could try to do that. But then you will miss out on the long term, because you will then experience burnout. And then after a while, you get depressed and you wonder like, what's the point of it all? I mean, so what's the point of running your own business anyways? I need a gun. I better get a gun and then boom, something happens right. So because of this, I believe that you should think long term and to think long term means you should take care. You should look at yourself as a human being Not a robot, not a machine, but a human being who needs sufficient rest, sufficient physical activities you need especially we are social creatures, we need a lot of socializing, to feel happy and well. So going out with friends, trying to you know, have a you know, picnic outside or going for a barbecue with your basically colleagues, these type of social activities, especially when they are, you know, with people that you like, will substantially improve your overall well being. So I believe it is very important to put time aside for leisure and for hobbies. Again, that's not a common suggestion these days, because now we are in an extreme culture of work, work work all the time. But I think that's perhaps not the best approach to go about it.

Pouya LJ  14:42

Well, yeah, I mean, I couldn't, couldn't agree more, especially when you were talking about the burnout part. And you know, in the long run, you're absolutely right. There's no way in the long run with that kind of mentality and you know, habit. You'll get the most efficient output from yourself. It's impossible. And I agree with you and that's why I also practice the same thing. I, as much as I like, what I do, generally speaking, I still need some, you know, even even for the sake of stopping repetition, I have to just do something else even if I love what I'm doing, even if you if I, I love pizza, okay, no secret. If I eat pizza every single day, I'm gonna hating pizza. Right? So even even for the sake of change, I have to I have to do something else. Even if I love what I do, which I do,

Dan  15:35

for you should probably run a franchisee of Domino's Pizza.

15:40

That's a great idea for your future. I mean, that that could be on the agenda. Who knows? Right?

Pouya LJ  15:47

No, but but I taught so back to what we were talking about. Yeah, I completely agree and to give some extra examples for myself. I love reading and I adopt that as a leisure time activity. Whilst it helps me learn something, and he can help me Yeah, move forward in the world, which is, which is which is definitely a useful leisure activity in my favorite most

Dan  16:09

favorite leisure activity all is like reading books while eating pizza. That's like the ultimate

Pouya LJ  16:16

must be has to me. Alright, okay, so all right, that was a that was a good, good, good introduction to the whole thing. I mean, it was more of an introduction, but who's counting? Anyways? So, yes, leisure activities. We gave some examples we talked about we talked about how they can be catered and and adjusted towards our goals. While we're enjoying them while we're experiencing some change from day to day life. Now, I know you you you go to the gym, do you count that as a leisure activity?

Dan  16:51

Well, again, these are all typically leisure activities. I told you, I'm not somebody who's just working in the office all the time. People sometimes think about that. And then that like Yeah, Daniel is always working or studying. That's not true. I basically, that's like, for me personally, you know, exercising on a regular basis is just a necessity. So, I basically when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is I grab my gears and I start running, you know, near my house, I don't go to the gym, you know, first morning because the body's not ready for that. So I basically when I wake up, the first thing I do is I grab my running shoes, and I go for a job for about 10 to 20 minutes. And then after the shower, I will, you know, begin the whole day everything, let's say working on social media, answering my emails, messages, all that stuff. So for me that's like the starters kind of like people's, you know, for people who are lazy, they use coffee. For me my coffee is running in the morning because it's not as easy as coffee, but it's definitely healthier and far more effective. And of course, I usually go to the gym somewhere after working hours. So usually, after I finished my basically work, basically my company, usually I tend to go to the gym, about let's say, three or four times Depending on the local time, of course and the country as well as how far because in some countries, for example, the the gym is very close to my house, so I'm just not so I have to adjust that as well by the time but around three or four, maximum five. Usually, I even hit the gym to recharge my batteries for the rest of the day, which oftentimes involves seminars, workshops, or simply group gatherings. So I want to have a lot of energy throughout the day. So I basically recharge the batteries once after I wake up with a jog. And then after about 567 hours of work, I go to the gym to recharge again, the batteries, if you will to have full peak energy throughout the entire day. And I do not consider that as work because it's definitely not work. And I do not simply work. I don't answer phone calls. I don't answer emails. I don't accept meetings or any type of work during that time. And I never cancel it for any amount of work project doesn't matter if it's going to be a $2 million project. If it's going to be I don't know for example, a session with one of my students it doesn't really matter. Now my sports as well as my fitness will never be at the mercy of any work. So I will cancel my meetings or my sessions, but I will not cancel my you know, training sessions. And that's not because of leisure because it is fun. I mean, it's definitely leisure because I often do it with like very positive energetic music in different languages. And, but what I really do is it's it's going to allow me and enables me to work hard throughout the day. So even though it is leisure, technically, it actually contributes much more to my career than probably even working does because just imagine you're talking to someone in business and in sales. And you guys like Hi, my name is Tommy and I'm super freakin tired. Would you please, please man up time, you're having a good day, sir. But in reality, you're energetic. If you're charged, if you're you know, full of energy, you will do a much better job. So for me that's both a leisure activity as well as investment in my career because it allows the body to run well. As you mentioned yourself. I'm a huge fan of reading books, especially audiobooks because I'm a multitasker, I tend to commute a lot, especially I fly a lot because of my work. So as you probably know, flying is a very time consuming activity, you have to be at the airport three hours before the flight, of course the most, because I tend to be a little bit like later than that, but, and then there's perhaps gonna be some delays occasionally, and then you arrive there and there's gonna be a jet lag. So any flight, you know, especially if it's not, if it's intercontinental, like if it's between different continents, so you probably have to put aside 12 hours to 15 hours easily. And if it's like in the same continent, so it's gonna, you know, take about four or five, seven, sometimes eight hours of your time. So that's a lot of time that'd be wasted, which I use for listening to audiobooks, I can easily finish one audio book, which is on average, seven hours long in one flight. So it's pretty good for me personally, and even though it's leisure, I'm not working, it actually contributes to people to think better. And if you think better can like when you have more energy, you will make better decisions and of course, you will get better results. And I generally spend a lot of my time focused on learning Because my one of my biggest passions in life is learning different languages. So I use Netflix, but not the way most people do actually supposable. Netflix is entertainment. For me Netflix is nothing more than going to language school, because as you probably know, one of the best ways to learn a foreign language is through basically, movies. And Netflix gives me the ability to watch whichever movie or show I want, especially if it's like Netflix original, in a variety of up to 30 languages, like I can decide to watch it in Swedish or I can watch it in German, I can watch it. I don't know Italian and Chinese, Japanese and with the subtitles, because that's very important personally, because I think the importance of learning with subtitles is just you probably know more about this than I do. So Netflix, you know, the chance to watch whatever movie I want in whatever language I want with this subtitle in that language, which is probably the best way to accelerate your learning process, especially after the you know, you enter the b1 or pre intermediate level basically. So for me, even though that's technically I'm technically watching a movie, and right naturally these things I'm watching At the latest show called bio hacks which is like a German show on Netflix and I'm watching it you know with with German and German subtitles and it's just such a perfect you know, German classroom like I get all the words I listed my item to my flashcards. So yes, watching movie is a, you know, typical and very stereotypical leisure activity. But for me that's like going to a classroom. It is fun. Although it's not let's be honest, not always fun when you have to pause every 15 seconds to look at the word go back to Google Translate said to work Oh, Miss misspelling, boom, boom, come back. It isn't always fun. I do agree. But the whole experience is fun. So maybe watching a TV or HBO they only offer basically these programs in English. And since I only watch movies in four languages and are English, I cannot use them but Netflix give you the chance to you know, basically watch movies in a variety of languages. So that's another one that I use a lot. Again, you're saying like then your messages your activity, yes, but actually goes along with you know, one of the main activities of modern enterprises which is actually the promoting education of foreign languages all over the world. So this itself is helping my career, but at the same time, it's leisure. It's fun, and it's pretty easy. So for that reason, I'm a huge fan of picking such activities that while leisure in nature actually contribute to your main mission in life.

Pouya LJ  23:16

Yeah, exactly. So you answered one aspect of so the reason I asked this question about your working out well, I have two specific reasons one of them you basically answered and that was the investment part essentially. Now the second part I specifically mentioned working out because that's, that's a problem for me. What I mean by that is that I cannot possibly except that as a year because I don't I don't enjoy it by any means. And I know

Dan  23:41

I know about genetics background lifestyles. Exactly. introvert extrovert you're definitely right. For a lot of people. I think it's just God dammit, I have to sweat. Exactly.

Pouya LJ  23:53

So so for that very reason. I was thinking okay, maybe some other people that have the same attitude towards I don't know, like Learning or reading a book or whatever? Do you have any specific so is there is it? Is it something? Is it some sort of a, like a mindset you can get into and then it becomes a leisure, or you just have to find your own leisure that is also, let's be

Dan  24:11

honest, man, we're talking about leisure here, right? So, if your goal is to truly get a sense of, you know, refreshment, then you should probably choose activities that suit your temperament, biology, your values in life. So even though I like for example, intense exercise, for example, let's say a fitness, let's say boxing, jogging, maybe somebody else could get the same benefit through meditation, or through a fast, you know, walk basically in the park. So it all depends on yourself. However, as I've mentioned, repeatedly, you know, over and over again, I believe that half of your happiness is your biology. Now, the way you manage it depends on your temperament depends on your biology, your genetics, your background, your interests. So I don't think that everybody needs to do what I do. I don't think everybody needs to exercise twice per day, every day, 365 days a week, even when he or she is Sick. Unfortunately, I have been accused of that occasionally by my doctors, which is an improvement, but it's just you know, just the habits. But the point is this, you don't have to do that. But you can create other healthy routines for your body where it is to get enough sleep, for example, or you can begin I know a friend of mine who begins today via meditation. And it's not a girl, I'm talking to a guy here right. So he begins today by meditation, by deep breathing exercises. So, it all depends on what really, you know, makes you tick. However, as we have mentioned, many times you cannot promote one Have you fully eliminate physical activities from your basically routine and feel refreshed and energized. So whether it is just for a walk, you can just go for a walk in the park near your house, whether it is to meet your friends and don't go hiking or whether it is I don't know, there are a variety of activities, but I think that everybody should include some sort of physical activity in a leisure activity because that is the key for energy and happiness. I mean nothing saps energy out of your More than getting fat, or more than getting weak. So because you need, especially if you're an entrepreneur, you need a lot of physical energy, you have to be at your prime because you have to be with people. And people generally are not influenced by those who are weak or who are negative or who are low energy, it's just not going to work. So you need to work on that. So it depends on yourself, I don't think that everybody should do that. I don't think most people do that actually at all. And some who might even try this could find it to be very unhealthy for them, because maybe their body's not ready because I've been, you know, exercising like this for almost more than 15 years now, non stop. So maybe your body is not used to that kind of, you know, fresher physically. So for that reason, you can find something similar, though that was a great example of dancing is a great example. walking, jogging, simply traveling as a tourist and just walking around and looking at the places you enjoy it and you're Of course getting physically active as well. So there are many ways to do that. But ultimately, you are the judge and you should decide which one fits your character and your values.

Pouya LJ  27:00

No, I 100% agree like the physical activity is you can't just ignore it and that affects everything. I completely agree. It was just the point was I was trying to make was it's really difficult for me to counter especially especially

Dan  27:15

Yeah, yeah,

Pouya LJ  27:16

that's actually intense exercise. Yeah, like

Dan  27:21

totally normal by there's zero like nothing wrong with you at all. And that I think is an opinion shared by probably more than half the you know, the world population because it's just the way it is. And like, I mean, like not everybody is necessarily as intense or hyperactive as let's say Daniel, right? Sure. Reality speaking even you I'm pretty sure he can enjoy a nice walk when there's a good when there's a nice breeze and you're enjoying a red cup of coffee. Everybody can enjoy For example, some sort of activity.

Pouya LJ  27:47

Yeah, hundred percent biking. What have you Yeah, there's definitely something you can you can grab on doing. There's no doubt, no doubt. Anyways, so I just wanted to bring that up. Now we're coming to the end of the show. Is there anything you want? We left out that you want to talk about or you want to summarize, what have you, for sure.

Dan  28:04

Well, first of all, what a great topic you chosen projects for this session was pretty good. And as we mentioned earlier today, we talked about using your leisure activities in a way that make your life better and not worse. As I mentioned earlier, we all need leisure. Because some of us, unfortunately, tend to be extremist in our approach, especially among entrepreneurs, in that we want to just, you know, keep putting in if you put in the hours and and just putting long, hard hours, and we think that's good. But unfortunately, that's a very myopic approach towards making clients because even though working more and nonstop will get you ahead of your competition, and let's say in a couple of weeks or months, in the long term, you'll be like that fast day or just ran so fast, got tired, took a nap and lost the race to the turquoise. So you want to think long term and to think long term use you have to look at yourself as a human being, not a machine, not a robot but a human being with a biologic. logical being as well as a social beam, which means you have to take care of both your biological as well as your social needs, otherwise you will experience a variety of psychological and physical ailments. So for that reason, we said you need to choose your leisure activities, you have to pay attention to them. And then we discussed a variety of, you know, ways to make sure that your leisure activities are productive, we said that you could just you know, waste your time, I don't know, I play fortnight, you know, let's say from day to night, and you could just spend your time doing weird stuff. And we also mentioned some of the common ways of letting off some steam which I disapprove of, I don't getting super drunk or doing pot or whatever it is, which are unfortunately quite common among young generation these days. But these are not going to help you at all. However, if you choose leisure activities that will be in alignment with your main goals in life and will somehow help you push you towards you know, a better direction. Those are the best types of leisure activities because they will then allow you to become a better person, which is why for me for myself, Have you Travelling is one of the best leisure activities out there because not only it's fun, it also is very educational and makes you a better person. So you can ask yourself, what are some of the best activities leisure because I can do that are in align with my values and goals that can make me a better person, and then do those things more. And we also mentioned that you should never ignore the importance of adding some physical elements to your basically leisure activities because we are also biological, we need to use our bodies as much as possible. So combining those things and making our leisure activities as intellectually beneficial as possible, as physical as possible and as social as possible, will then allow us to have a life filled with happiness and on the way to success.

Pouya LJ  30:42

Oh, that's the that was great, like, perfect summary of what we talked about and love that. Thank you again, Dan, for joining us today. Always a pleasure being with you. Appreciate it. And thank you everybody for joining us and listening to us. Please if you enjoy the podcast go and rate and Put comments if you would like, and let us know what you want to what you want us to talk about next. And and by the way, oh, yeah, apparently

Dan  31:07

apparently it printed before you before we end the show. Apparently our listeners should be aware that now we have the scripts of all of our show. I forgot about that. Yes.

Pouya LJ  31:18

So yeah, from from the last few episodes, I don't remember how many the episode The the the episodes are being transcribed. And the and

Dan  31:27

they're not being transcribed by you know, people that are sitting, you know, painstakingly writing them down. Yes, dude. The AI is here. We are using AI to make the transcripts. Yeah, we lose a lot of jobs in the future. It's not perfect supports going back to making all of these things go back to coal mining, we don't have any problem. But the fact of the matter is, AI is coming and it's coming to our show as well. And all those transcripts now are being made by AI Of course, the mastermind He's always behind it was Pouyjix, who was the you know, the guy who founded about this and let me know. And I could actually use this myself in creating the subtitles for my videos. So I want to first thank you so much for just for your suggestion that was really helpful. I literally use this last night for one of my videos, and it was very useful. So I want to thank you and of course, a great addition to our show.

Pouya LJ  32:19

Yeah, it's a great, great addition, a lot of people might want to use it. And we're glad to provide that. It might not be perfect. So you might see some mistakes often, not often, but rarely, which makes sense. But hopefully, gradually, we'll recognize our voices better and we will become better. But until then you can at least enjoy what we have right now. And I hope you do. All right. Thank you for reminding me that I totally forgot about that. Awesome.

32:47

That was very good.

Pouya LJ  32:48

All right. Cheers. Thank you, everybody. Have a good one.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

work, customer, construction worker, hard, hours, day, income, increase, money, people, smart, bad apples, life, arrive, simply, business, success, thinking, higher, job

SPEAKERS

Dan

Dan  00:14

Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast, the solo edition. My name is Daniel Molgan. And welcome to this show where we're going to talk about the paradigm of smart work versus hard work. You see, guys, unfortunately, a lot of the times when we talk about success, people are asking me So Dan, I want to be successful. So the only way of course is to work harder. And guess what, I completely agree. I believe that hard work is the essence of success in all areas of life and anybody you look around who are truly achieved and accomplished individuals, you kind of realize that they are real hard workers. But here's the truth are all people who are successful, hard working, I mean, does being hard working itself lead to success or those who aren't are successful, they tend to be hard because that's very, you know, different. For example, think about construction workers think about busboys, think about, I don't know, those who tend to work day and night, basically very little. And they're always working, let's say farmers or working on the field, let's say I know, as I mentioned earlier, like construction workers, so these individuals are hardworking, but they're not rich. So this clearly shows that a relationship between working hard and acquiring major success in life, while that's very, very important, but there's no direct relationship here. Because if we thought that big, you know, somehow being hard working makes you successful, then perhaps the only option you would have is to simply work harder at whatever you did. But the fact of the matter is that that is not the way to acquire you know, major wealth or success. So today we're gonna talk about the other elements of basically success which are not necessarily just about working hard, but rather It's about creating a lifestyle where you somehow tend to get higher and higher on the scale of income as well as profitability. While Of course, from any hard work individual. You see, whenever it comes to any area of life, whether it is I don't know, learning a new language, whether it is to lose weight and gain muscle, whether it is to start your own business, ultimately, there is always going to be an element of what we call sweat equity. That is you have to work hard at it. And that is always there. But the question is this, you can work hard at a task that is inferior, or you can work hard a task that is superior. And it's quite obvious that once you work hard at a superior task, this will yield higher results. So let me give an example here. Let's say you're a construction worker, and you work very hard to work 12 hours per day, at the end of the day, you're going to get your minimum wage, which is about let's say 15 bucks an hour, right? So after having worked all day long and have only slept, let's say I don't know, six hours. So you have have spent a tremendous amount of time working almost 18 hours. I mean, like, that's a lot, right? And at the end of the day, what you end up with is not a lot of money, right? However, what if you know you were a, let's say, Elan Musk, he also sometimes puts very long hours at work. But despite the fact that he might spend sometimes what I don't know 16 hours a day working 18 hours per day working, does that mean that he necessarily makes this amount of money as somebody who was a construction worker? Of course not? And the answer is because Ilan musk works on higher value tasks that will then allow him to yield better results. So in whatever you do, you should ask yourself, first of all, what is exactly my major, basically, path in life? What is exactly my major goal in life? What am I trying to accomplish and what is my main direction? Once you know that you can ask yourself All right, I have this skill. I have this ability. I know what to do with this and that and I wants to build a lifestyle surrounding, basically success in this regard. And then he asked yourself, so how can I increase the value of what I do? You see, working hard is very important, no doubt about it. But of course, if you want to work hard all the time, at some point, you're going to face with some resistance, you're gonna be faced with some difficult because there's only so much time that you can have per day, there's only so much energy that can actually put into your work. And because of all of these things, you generally find it very hard to sustain that level of, you know, very hard work for many years. Because if you do so, then you will what perhaps we'll face with other issues like health problems, like family issues, relationship problems, because at some point, you just simply don't have enough time to actually dedicate to your basically, you know, career or your studies or preparations or all of these things. So, because of this, as you somehow you know, get older and as you go up through the basically food chain You want to focus on not only working harder, but working smarter. Now what is exactly working smart. Working smart can be defined as doing things more efficiently, or working on things of higher values. So for example, let's say you wants to arrive to your destination that is a few, let's say 100 miles away, you have a few options. You can go on foot, you can use a bicycle, you can use a motorbike, you can use a car, or you can use a helicopter. Now all of these options are going to allow you to arrive at your destination, whether you move from this place or that place on foot or on a helicopter, you will arrive there. The question is how fast and at what cost? So perhaps if you want to go on foot, you don't need anything. You don't need any instrument any equipments just you know, start walking, and maybe after a few hours, you arrive there. But if you want to fly there on a helicopter now you need to actually invest in it in advance a helicopter and a pilot's To try to arrive there on time. So this is the paradigm of smart work, which is cost and benefit analysis of what you want to get done in your life, and then trying to create new ways of adding value to your time so that the same amount of hours and days and months and years do you put into a certain you know, activity will then be spent on another activity in order to give you the chance to actually work harder and get better results. So because of this, I want to now start off with challenging the listener with one simple question. From your point of view. What do you think is the best approach and the most important thing to do when it comes to improving the value of your time? Now there are very, you know, various options because the simplest way to increase your income, for example, is to work more hours at whatever job you're currently doing. That's okay. But what are the other ways by which you could probably increase your income while having the same amount of workload? The first option would be to increase whatever amount you charge, you know, per hour, that's one option. Option two is perhaps trying to create a new business, and then having other people work for you. So you free up the time so that there are more people working now this way, you will be spending the exact same amount of time at the office. But since it involves the work of many other employees, you will then have a chance to actually increase the overall profitability. The last one, of course, is to dramatically change, you know, the entire field that you work in and start doing new things and new activism might actually be of higher value. But whatever you do, what truly matters here is how can you start thinking in terms of working smart, and then hopefully, that'll allow you to actually focus your attention on you know, more valuable activities and actually do for yourself in order to you know, gain the most results. So having said that, now let's think of your life. As of now, you might say, well, then you're right. I totally want to just start working smart because I do not want to work hard. Well Now think about three types of individuals in the modern world, we have the one time who is extremely hardworking. We have one type who is extremely, you know, focused on, you know, working smart, but they just don't really want to put in the work. So they are a little bit lazy, perhaps or they have this, you know, dream of those listeners call it the Tim Ferriss style of four hour work, basically, what kind of person and then you have somebody who's going to work hard and smart, so who in the end is going to smoke all of them? I think the answer is obvious, right? So, because of this, I believe that an ideal approach is combining the two because unfortunately, those who tend to you know, look for shortcuts and easy ways of earning, you know, an income. Unfortunately, in most cases do not achieve that. In most cases, they actually find themselves stuck in situations where they simply don't have, you know, an opportunity to fully fathom what they want nor achieve big goals because you know, if you are, you know, working in a marketplace, you're obviously competing with other people in it. And if you want to focus on just working smart, and not trying to put in the effort, then what happens here is you simply fall behind those who do especially if they are also smart workers, right? So because of this right now, I want to ask you a question, ask yourself how much of my time that I put into my work, I put in terms of trying to increase the value of my basically income and my work? Because once you increase your value in the marketplace, of course, you can earn higher income? Secondly, am I really willing to work hard, because unfortunately, laziness is one of those issues that we all have to struggle with on a regular basis, because we want to somehow get the job done, but Well, I mean, there's just the SPN on TV and I want to watch the match and I kind of want to also, you know, hang out with my friends. So I mean, life is short man. So I believe in you know, creating and striking a balance between Working hard and working smart in order to achieve, you know, long term, basically professional goals in your career. So if you really want to make the most of your career, then you have no choice but to combine the two. That is smart work and hard work. So let's talk about both Actually, let's talk about implementing both strategies in your career from today in order to actually make the most of them. So ask yourself, how many hours per day, not per week, but per day understands. Those who are successful did not think of themselves as working, you know, per week. In our society, those who judge their work in terms of basically, minutes and hours are oftentimes the highest paid and the most accessible. And ironically, the least successful ones. Oftentimes they judge themselves in terms of year like how much do I make per year. So just imagine like, for example, a very highly successful surgeon thinks about how they shouldn't how much he makes per hour while Unfortunately, let's say a truck driver might think of how much he makes per year. So you want to first change your time perspective, focus on the minutes and hours instead of months and years. That's number one. And number two, ask yourself, How am I willing to increase, you know, both the amount of time that I work more minutes and hours per day, as well as the quality of those hours, because that's really important. So right now, whatever job you have, you can just simply calculate your hourly rate just right now take your annual income divided by basically 12 to have your monthly income, and then literally count the number of hours you work per week. So for example, if you have a job and an office and you know you do that nine to five thing, five days a week, you can actually you know, calculate like, okay, so I worked for example, eight hours per day, and I work five days a week, so that's gonna be about 40 hours a week. So whatever income you got, you know, two by 40 and boom, you get your basically hourly rate. So that of course gives you a great chance to, you know, figure out, for example, how you can go around it, because let's say if you work for 40 hours a week, then it can actually even go further. So 40 hours a week is going to be 40 times four is going to be like almost 160 hours a month, and then divided by 60 even can get your let's say, you know, hourly or even minutes by minutes rate. And this will then allow you to know exactly how much you're worth. And ask yourself, alright, I make exactly this amount of money every minute, okay? Whatever it is, whether you work in McDonald's, whether you run your own business, whether you I don't know, are a creative type, you know, you're you know, minute by minute rate, and then you ask yourself, alright, so this is my minute by minute rate. Now, how can I increase that there are a variety of ways one, increase the type of work that you do, perhaps we have to move out of McDonald's and maybe start your own for example, restaurant, right? Or perhaps you have to work with better clients. One of the things I really like about working international businesses that it gives me access to a global market, because the same services offered in different countries have very different values. So for example, one service one consultancy service offered, let's say, and I don't know, let's say in Europe could cost you let's say, I don't know, for example, 100 euros per hour, while the same service could cost basically somebody else $2,000 an hour or less if you move to Dubai, right. So by literally let's just moving from, for example, Berlin, to Dubai, you can offer the exact same service and instead of being paid 100 euros an hour you are now listen, pay $2,000 an hour. That's a great move, right? So this is one of the you know, paradigms of smart thinking, How can I offer my service in the best possible location? Or this maybe it's also product depends on the situation, right? Because not all products are sold equal in different markets. And then you ask yourself, How can I find a better way to you know, serve better customers. Secondly, increase the quality of your current customers right now. So you might be dealing with a lot of, you know, bad apples, here's my advice, and it's always been the same, get rid of the bad apples as soon as possible before they spoil the whole pot. You see, there's nothing worse for your success and happiness than to work with people that you don't like. Now, obviously, I mean, we all want to be below you know, in a perfect world, you can always, you know, see a lot of great people great customers are coming, you know, in and out, and you're just so happy. But the fact of the matter is that ironically, a very small percentage of all of your clients and customers at a time will inevitably be those will be called bad apples. And also remember this customer that used to be a good customer could become a bad customer over time, by the changes in circumstances his or her lifestyle or situation in the economy. So just because a customer was the best customer does not mean that he or she will always be the best customer. And in most cases, the opposite also applies. So ask yourself right now, how much stress? How much difficulty Am I experiencing by having these bad customers? If you're working with somebody else, ask yourself in my office, which people are causing me the highest amount of stress could be your colleague, could be your boss could be I don't know, the Vice President. And you ask yourself, Is there any way I could change and not deal with these guys in my work, maybe we should change our department, maybe you should even change your job and get a job elsewhere. But the best thing you can do to increase your productivity is to actually stop working with people that drain your mental energy. And that makes you unhappy. Because the surest way to fail is to work with or for the people that you don't like. So, right now, ask yourself, whether you are working as a secretary and you know in a small company, whether you're working as a You know a doctor privately, whether you're running your own business, whether you are working I don't know as a waiter Do you really enjoy the kind of clients you're dealing with on a regular basis if you wanted to get you know somehow these bad apples if you will out of your life could you get started right away and do so because once you focus your attention on removing these bad apples, initially you will have less income it's true. For example, bad apple customer will make you very you know, feel very upset. But at the end of the day, whether you're a dentist I mean he or she comes to your clinic gets the teeth done and goes now you will be upset and probably even depressed after a while but you get the you know, get your money if the operation you know, the teeth are fixed and I got my money. So, you're saying Dan, okay, so I should tell my let's say, you know, customer from hell who happen to have bad teeth to go home and not come back. And that way I'm going to lose money today as true When you send your bad customers home, you're going to lose money for that day. But what this does is it creates a vacuum free time, and a drive to replace the lost income. You see nature's like this, when there's a vacuum created, this vacuum must be filled. So once you, you know, you know, by yourself and intentionally get rid of a bad customer, you create a vacuum, and this vacuum must be filled. Guess what will fill that, you know, vacuum, a better customer in most cases. So, the same thing applies if you have a job, you're saying, well, then I really feel stress in my workplace. I feel like that my colleagues are abusive, and my boss never understands me. I even told him yesterday that I had a problem with my family and I needed to have a day off and he said I don't care go back to work. So you're saying but then I need the money. I gotta make the mortgage payment. I gotta I gotta pay no. feed my family and I'm telling Right now to quit your job and find a better job, you're saying, but that doesn't make any sense because I have to, you know, feed my family, I'm not really sure about this. So you will end up putting up with the BS of your boss or your staff members, your colleagues trying to make the ends meet, but guess what happens, you will not be engaged at work, you will not be very happy, and your income will not increase. So you will keep accumulating those negative emotions inside. At some point, boom, it bursts. And you say, Oh, I quit. But by then it's too late. Because you have been working to that end job. It didn't like for three, four or 567 years. You did not work on improving your skills. Because whenever you came home, you were so depressed, just had to just you know, chill to get rid of all the stress. So you don't have the time to work on yours to improve yourself your abilities, learn new skills, and at the same time you had no energy or motivation to look for better opportunities. So years have gone by, you have lost your skills or at least you know, remain to the same level. And now have lost the motivation to even look for better opportunities and boom, all of a sudden you say I had it. Or worse yet, your boss says, You're fired. And boom, it's like, what the hell am I going to do? The problem is you are not prepared for it, you are not prepared for, you know, making these changes to make your work smarter to improve the quality of your work, because in the long term, doing the kind of work that you really enjoy, with the kind of people that you like to associate with, will lead to far better results than putting up with the bad clients, the bad colleagues, the bad bosses that somehow give you money in the present, but will then ruin your future and your growth perspective. So because of this, I want you guys to start thinking long term in your careers from now. Whether you are a you know, simple nurse, whether you are I don't know as I mentioned, it doesn't matter what your career is, you should think long term. Do I enjoy working at this hospital do I enjoy being in this Place do I enjoy the kind of people I serve? How can I improve the quality and serve better people? These are the kind of questions you have to ask yourself on a regular basis. And this will allow you to change the way you think, and hopefully be able to change the paradigm of your work that will then allow you to work smarter, those who work smart think long term, so they invest some money and effort at the beginning. so evident, they're actually losing a lot, right. But in the long term, they would be making a lot more than those who simply want to just get through the day and just get a paycheck. That is why it's very important, crucial to start thinking long term, planning ahead and beginning to combine smart work with hard work. With that being said, I will never underestimate the importance of working hard. That's quite important. And if I were to give one advice to anyone who wants to make their lives better, I'd say work harder first, but working hard first is just first There's a second element and that's called working smart. So both are important. And by doing the work on both simultaneously, it's kind of like the wheels can you like drive a car with only one wheel or like, I don't know, a bicycle, you need at least two wheels to get any vehicle running, right? So in this situation, you want to focus on that you want to focus on building the ability to somehow work smarter. That takes effort that takes time, but it is completely possible. Alright guys, that's all the time we have for I hope that this little short talk gave you the motivation to combine smart work with hard work and try your very best to hopefully make the most of your experiences in your workplace. Whether it is you working as an employee or running your own business. It's all the time we have for any questions, feel free to contact me on the social media anywhere you can find me at Dan Mullen and of course you can contact basically the person to show Pouya LJ as well, in case you wanted to discuss things regarding the topics of the show or any other ideas. And of course, I'd like to see you guys in person if you have the chance or simply send me a message and I'll be glad to answer all of your questions. Have a great one guys and take care

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

learning, subliminal, influence, background, language, people, consciously, form, coca cola, learn, matter, listen, commercials, trump, advertisement, impact, pay, billboards, behavior, audio

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to yet another episode of BTP podcast. Let's talk edition. As always, I'm joined with Dan How's it going?

Dan  00:18

What am I man buddy? How are you? Good seeing you. It's so glad to be I'm really so happy to be here right now and just to see your face. You've gone full nerd mode right now I love the background like literally you are now a total real physicist 100%. And I love you know, the background is pretty cool. So just can't wait to get started to share ideas with our great listeners.

Pouya LJ  00:39

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, likewise, thank you first of all for the compliment. Yeah, so it's been going on for a while.

Dan  00:46

So one good question, by the way, Blue Jays. So now you've basically officially graduated, right?

Pouya LJ  00:51

Yeah, well, one more semester but yes.

Dan  00:53

Oh, almost there, buddy. Don't push, keep pushing. Otherwise, outward actions can be very, very disappointing people

Pouya LJ  01:01

Yeah, that's true. All right. Okay, so today's episode is about one of one of one of our audiences ask the question on Instagram from you and that was so as a response to our previous episode, which was about influence of audio on our lives day to day. He his question was the effect of subliminal learning and generally speaking effects on us. So for example, it can be used, as you mentioned in your response by Tony Robbins and your self education, but it's also used perhaps a little less known in advertisement often. Now, we want to address this subliminal learning. First of all, can you define what it is?

Dan  01:48

You see subliminal learning or any type of influence a similar nature is pretty much about you trying to influence people at a subconscious level and indirectly rather than directly and consciously. And ironically, it's a slower form of learning, because you're not actively engaged with that process. And also, it takes a long time to change someone's behavior if you want to use that as a form of influence. But ultimately, as you probably know, the subconscious mind is awake 24 seven, and it is far more powerful than the conscious mind ever will. And because of this, simple learning actually has been used throughout basically, you know, not only the modern world, but even in the past, to instruct people and to change their behaviors. And of course, it's a great tool for education. But as you already pointed out, it also could be used to alter people's behavior or preferences, the advertising and commercials.

Pouya LJ  02:40

Okay, so let's let's branch out into these two, kind of separate segments. And first, let's start with education. So how can one use it for their students or for themselves to educate themselves better?

Dan  02:52

Well, as you probably know, I'm a linguist. So we can learn a lot of for example, languages subliminally and you probably know there's a A lot of courses out of garlic, learn French wild sleeping or something. And, of course, I personally tend to stay away from those courses as much as possible, because in most cases, they're just pure branding and marketing, and there's no real value in them. But basically, anytime there's a form of audio or sound or music in the background, or there are certain types of visual basically pulses in the background, but let's say you're watching for example, something and then at a millisecond, there are certain basically images being shown. Now your conscious mind will never recognize that little thing. But your subconscious is actually reading on that and actually is changing and affecting your behavior. This is also used in a lot of research in labs as well as psychological tests. So it's a great way to influence basically now from my point of view, the most effective forms of subliminal learning when it comes to audio for us is generally for changing your mental condition and the way you feel because it's probably now as we're going throughout our day from morning Tonight, we're receiving a lot of input through our fire senses. And we have no conscious awareness of them because they're just too many of them because we can actually process them consciously up to seven bits of information per second. So that's not that much even though we have a lot of information coming in. So so what we're learning here allows us to improve learning by creating an easier way to have information fed to our mind indirectly. So as in the case of language learning for example, you can actually just sit back and have for example, as you're working on your let's say, I don't know laundry, you in the background, Listen to the music and sound of a foreign language and over time, this actually gives you a great idea of what it is and when it comes to money other material for example, so you want to, I don't know perhaps learn new, you know, chemical formulas or other ways. So you have the material in the background as you are going basically throughout you know your day and you listen that material and you hear it and after a while even though it is not a very efficient or fast way of learning since it almost cost you nothing, because it is subliminal, and you don't have to Spend your time. Because of this, it actually ends up becoming a lot more effective over the long term. Because even the learning is very efficient in the short term, when you are focused and you're trying to learn something by paying full attention. Once we have that at a subliminal level, now we have no time left. So all of a sudden, you can now spend hours per day learning for example, perhaps new words, let's say new useful, for example, material or let's say scientific journals or any type of learning because you know, it can be in the background. But from my point of view, of course, I intend to use simple basic learning mainly to condition my mind if you know no p&l conditioning is about getting your mind and your basically body a state of being oftentimes it is associated with peak level or peak psychology where you are at your best you're fully sharp, and you feel great. That is basically also another usage of simple learning when it comes to education and basically personal development.

Pouya LJ  06:00

That's, that's really good. So I mean, you mentioned in addition to your, your mind your thoughts, etc. That's great. Now, you are somebody who knows a lot of languages, and I suspect you spent a lot of time actively learning them. But do you also use subliminal methods and developing your language? Because I'm pretty sure a lot of people listening to this to this podcast are interested in learning new languages or are doing it. Is there any? Are there any ways maybe perhaps podcasts and different languages? I've heard you say, I play video games, for instance, in language learning. Yeah, of course,

Dan  06:36

of course. Now, playing video games per se would not necessarily act. So as simple as learning a foreign language because, again, you're fully immersed, you're fully engaged, because submittal is usually when it's in the background. So you mentioned audio, such as podcasts, such as, you know, just TV being turned on the back when that's true. So basically, before getting here, I was actually listening to some material, you know, in Arabic, so I was actually basically doing my stuff. And I was watching Dubai, for example channels to just hear some Arabic in the background basically as a form of subliminal learning. And I do that, of course with a lot of languages and different material. So in a language learning I personally believe that signal learning actually is very effective as a means of letting your brain rest because as you probably now, if you are trying to learn a language from morning tonight, at some point, you will have a burnout because it's gonna be just just too much for you know, Brady to take in at once. However, with the power of the signal learning, you can actually have that language fed to your mind subconsciously, from morning tonight without you actually working so much or pingan a lot of conscious attention. And of course, as I personally have experienced, it really works. Just having that in the background really works, especially when it comes to the musical language I should not long ago I basically published a funny video on Instagram. It was an HGTV exclusive about me mentioning different accents and who asked like, yeah, how did you learn all these things? And the answer is, of course in the mall learning because I literally have All of those basically in my back of my head, and I had no idea to actually learn to pick up their accents, even though I was listen to my clients and my students and my friends in different languages. And this actually got me that in the background, so for language learning, of course, it is very efficient. And anybody who wants to get, you know, take their language to the next level, they should definitely, you know, tap into the power of the normal learning and try to actually listen as much as possible in the background while they're doing other things. And this improves, of course, their overall level of basically fluency because the brain is always learning, even if you're not consciously aware of it, the brain is always learning. And that's exactly hopefully going to get us to the next part, which is why it can be used to change people's behavior, or preferences. And then I'm going to know why. And this is of course, used, basically, and let's say commercials, advertising and other forms, not necessarily Of course in business but also in politics and forms of propaganda, or mass, for example, indoctrinations these could be used and they have huge aquaforce

Pouya LJ  09:01

Yeah, so before we actually segue there, I'm wondering, I know it's Isaac igtv exclusive. But do you can you give us a taste of one of those favorite accents of yours?

Dan  09:12

Oh, well, I don't know, perhaps you could go for I mean, my first course is Russian. And I like Russian. Because like, you've spent a lot of time trying to them the language and like, you have to tell us that it's not very easy for me to do that. But when you hear this every day from different people, he helps you to understand what it is. And of course, that's just one of the things basically, because it allows you to learn it and to practice it, basically. And I hear this, of course, I have a lot of great content from Russia, do the exact same thing, of course, in different languages. But what really matters, of course, is trying to hear it in the back to a great perspective to learn about it, and then feeling somehow imitated, which is very important, of course, in language learning.

Pouya LJ  09:51

Okay, yeah, that's good. That's good. Appreciate it. Alright, so let's segue to the body. Yeah, thank you. So let's segue to the Other parts, which is mainly about influencing people without their knowledge without their perhaps consent, because if you're doing it to yourself if you're learning something language, whatever, it's probably intentional and you have consented to it, but a lot of times through advertisement, yes, political campaigns, propaganda, etc. You're being influenced left and right, without your consent or knowledge or even awareness, which is not later in two weeks time, not two weeks, probably two years time you see yourself a different person and you have no idea what that is why that is. So now advertisement, I guess it's a little bit more intuitive. People have seen these subliminal, you know, effects. For example, you know, Pepsi, Coca Cola, whatever, visually specially, obviously, x. Sure, let's, let's talk about that a little bit. But can you also segue to the political and PR pack for propaganda? Yeah,

Dan  10:56

well, they actually are very much linked because they're about Like you see, a perfect example of subliminal learning is actually billboards. Because when you're walking around the city as you're driving, believe it or not, you do not pay a lot of conscious attention to the billboards. And of course, billboards are designed like this. And of course, mainly not just build like all all types of commercials, the ones that you see pop in and out, for example, let's say on your browser, basically on your apps phone. So ultimately, advertising is designed to make you feel familiar with something without you putting a lot of time to learn to get you know, to get to know that thing, right. Because human mind is like this, if we are exposed to anything, whether it is for example, a new idea, whether it is a new product, or a new language doesn't really matter. Doesn't matter how strange or even alien that concept might be. If we are exposed to it frequently enough. Eventually we come to see that thing as it belonging to us like we feel a sense of connection to it. That could be a mere, for example, brands could be a product could be a drink. Could be, for example, a new gadget or a new system, a company or even sometimes a political innovatively way of running the government. So all of these things are subject to influence. And unfortunately, a lot of us we think, like, well, that's not for me. I'm a very smart guy. This is not about intelligence, it doesn't matter how smart you are we all right, no, you and I are sitting here discussing this issue. And we are consciously analyzing different aspects. You and I are as susceptible to this thing as anybody else. Which means it doesn't matter how much you know about this consciously, you are not immune to this subconscious impact that will of course have on you. So as you're driving to and from work every single day, and you have this Coca Cola has, let's say, logo in the background, you're saying like, well, that's just nothing. I don't like sugary drinks. It's not for me at all. I don't really care about these things. But you don't i don't know after a few weeks, you end up going to the grocery store. You just you're in your head like yeah, I gotta pay the bills and all those things and you know, pay the cashier and you do that Why do I just Miko cola. I don't know how it happened. And this is one of the you know, the impacts of this because, of course, it's a form of visual learning at a subconscious level auditorily of course, many other things could happen as well, in terms of using music, let's say in your commercials and other forms of giving you that basically immersion because the fact of the matter is, if you are exposed to anything, even if you are not consciously aware of it, you are going to be influenced by that doesn't really matter even if which is why I think the best way not to be influenced is to actually get away from that object that could actually influence you that's like the only permanent solution. It's kind of like you know, if you want safety of your, for example, data, just put a sticker on a duct tape over the you know, let's say your laptop's camera. This is kind of like that, like the only way not to be influenced by something or someone or some idea is to just simply be away from it and not paid any conscious attention. Nor receive any subliminal impact from that thing. And because of this, it's now being used openly, basically a variety of things. That's why advertising and commercial industry is such a big industry because it works. Because it persuades billions of people around the world to buy products. They don't need to impress people they don't actually like. And this is like the power of some little learning when, when it applies to basically business and we are all vulnerable in this regard.

Pouya LJ  14:30

Yeah, that's very true. And I suppose we're closing in on the US elections. I suppose we're going to see a lot of those campaigns. Well,

Dan  14:37

listen, as you probably know, I'm an endorser of basically Joe Biden. But the fact of the matter is, even Joe himself is very smart and he understands these things. So even though he I personally don't like Trump. You can see how Joe Biden is actually using a lot of great well designed, for example, attack ads that he's making against Trump like he picks up, for example, one four recently Trump in one of the interviews, he was saying, like, yeah, we have a lot of debt deaths, it is what it is. And we're doing our best. So Biden took that phrase, it is what it is, and then repeated like five times in one attack. And these things aren't being like what mom, voters will know. That's just one of the phrases that he said. But the fact of the matter is, those types of subliminal impact, especially when repeated again and again, via social media, of course, will have a huge impact on the voters. And now we're seeing this happening. Obviously, top politicians are experts at this type of influence, because they are oftentimes the kind of people who have paid a lot of money to their campaign managers to create such types of ads to promote their ideas, basically, and because of this, we are susceptible to that type of influence as well. And that is why I think that it's much better for society as a whole to be well educated and well informed about politics. Otherwise, most people could end up making decisions based upon merely ads and take a look at our last lecture. In 2016, and a lot of people simply voted for Trump because of these things, because they felt like he will make all these changes, even though they have no idea who Trump was. And because of this, of course, we have to know how we can deal with this issue and how to somehow keep ourselves immune against all of this negative impact.

Pouya LJ  16:18

All right, that's very great. I think we talked about most of the things we aimed to talk about, and this was supposed to be a shorter episode as a response to like a follow up to our previous episode, because we talked about the influence of audio. And we talked about a lot of the aspects that are conscious, but also a lot of aspects that are that were unconscious, like the subliminal impact. And yeah, so I think, I think I think this was a good sum up from my perspective, but is there something else that we missed out left out that you want to talk about?

Dan  16:48

Well, first of all, I want to thank our listener have actually gave us this idea to discuss this matter, but I really believe that if we want to protect ourselves against negative influence, we have to be aware of some of the learning of all sorts Now that's not always bad but I've actually personally make good use of this technology because it really is it's nothing more than a technology for influencing other people basically right so if you have the ability to use that for yourself that's great. Now we mentioned that we can use some learning for a variety of Thai you know, types of learning what be at Korean languages be for example, new concepts in school or in university and at the same time, we can use it for changing our mental condition. For example, ask yourself what type of sound is there in my background in my home most of the time is classic music is it death metal and dual metal is it's you know, Britney Spears, because all of these are going to change your impact if you're in the background with some you know, classic music most of the time, the chances are you're more introverted and very kind of soft and at the same time very well you know, where and probably very intelligent. If you have a lot of doom metal in the background that don't worry why you want to just paint somebody in the face. You don't know why this happens as well. Right? And of course, all of these things Depends on it. And now this could be not just coming to your, let's say your audio in the background, it could be also about the image you have in the background. So what kind of colors are you exposed to most of the time, that's going to make you you know, feel differently about that, you know, based on the color of your listening, that you're paying attention to, and you're listening to and all those things. And finally, it's about using it, unfortunately, to manipulate other people. So we're all vulnerable here. So if you're watching, let's say, I don't know sort of commercials, like that's not for me, I know that Coca Cola is just nothing more than diabetes, that so it is sold in bottles and cans, but the fact of the matter is, if you're exposed to it, and now, eventually you come to see Coca Cola as nothing, but a familiar product that you will actually pick up without even knowing why when you're just doing your grocery shopping. Of course, we also mentioned that this could be used to create basically a new approach to dogma by trying to create propagandas and influence voter behavior. And of course, we've seen this already happening. Our last election was This time, it'll be a little bit different.

Pouya LJ  19:02

That's great. Thank you again for joining us and talking to us, Dan. My pleasure, buddy. It's always a pleasure to be here with you. Appreciate it. And thank you everybody for tuning in and listening to our episode. I hope this was useful for you until later episode. Have a good one.

Having control over our sensory input insures choice over the outcomes that we achieve in life and while many of us are quite picky about what we eat or even see, a great deal of us are thoughtless about what we listen to! In this episode of Beyond the Present Podcast Dan and Poujix discuss the importance of being more selective about what we listen to from sound and music to podcasts and audiobooks. 

You are what you listen to thus if you want to change the quality of your life you need to change the quality of your auditory input and this short program will remind you to do just that. 

Episode Transcript:----more----

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

book, listen, audio, podcasts, audiobooks, audio inputs, choosing, life, author, input, applicable, important, poker, impact, influenced, emotional state, music, importance, title, topic

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello, and welcome back to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast. Let's talk addition as always with Daniel Mulligan How's it going Dan?

Dan  00:16

it, man, buddy. How are you? Good to be here with you for yet another great episode of The let's talk edition, and couldn't be excited about this matter anymore because it's just so great to hear your voice after a while. And life is great. I mean the coronavirus pandemic is obviously not over at all, but we are still seeing some, you know, even spikes, basically that are going up in some cases now. Now California is ahead. But overall life is good. And life is somehow getting back to normal in some countries. And of course, generally, we're not complaining Life is good and we're going forward.

Pouya LJ  00:51

Let's pretty good. Good to hear that.

Dan  00:54

Now.

Pouya LJ  00:55

So today's topic, thankfully we're not talking about anything Coronavirus related for change And we are talking about. So this is a topic you introduce and you will you sort of use you mentioned, you are what you listen to. And it was a very interesting scenario. And I think we share similar thoughts on the matter. So we thought, you know what, let's go go ahead and give it a go to try about this topic. And so first of all, can you can you explain what you meant? When you said, You are what you listen to? What do you mean by say

Dan  01:26

was, it said that you are what you eat is like pretty common. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of us we pay up a lot more attention to what we eat. But we don't care so much about the other inputs, as we know we have, you know, five major inputs. Basically, one is of course, visual one is kinesthetic, the things that we touch or do physically. And one is of course, what we taste. One is what we basically hear. And unfortunately, that's what unfortunately gets ignored and neglected a lot. Because of this. I believe that we need to take care That aspect of basically our lives as well, if you want to, you know, take full control of our lives, because if you are not in control of what auditory input you have in your head on a daily basis, then of course, you will have some problems and your life will not go the way you want. And for this reason, I believe that the quality of your life really is determined by what you listen to.

Pouya LJ  02:23

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, though. I want to also mention Yes, it's one of the things that the one of the downsides is that you can't really turn it off easily, like you can't shut your ear and not the best you can do is pluck your ear. There. There's a question how much the worst actually doesn't work that much does it? No, not really. It makes it dim, but still you can hear but there is a there is a there's a degree that you can also think of it as upside. And that is you can listen to stuff passively meaning web while doing other stuff. For example, you're listening to podcasts, perhaps if you're in the gym or commuting, driving. Whatever. So now, I want to talk about that. I want you to talk about that a little bit. And so what are so we met, you mentioned the downside, and there's an upside. What are the ways you can we can do to optimize the upside, but on the other hand, minimize the negative part. Do you have a

Dan  03:18

very good question. You see, when it comes to understanding the way the environment affects you, you have to understand that what you listen to has a direct impact on you. A lot of times people ask like, Dan, what do you get all this energy to be active all the time? And the answer is because I'm very much aware of what input I have throughout the day, not just basically auditorily there are many other ways to control it. But for me, audio is very, very important. Of course, I grew up as an auditory learner for the most part. So for me, that was always a thing which actually led to me becoming a polyglot. But the fact of the matter is that once you have control over what you listen to, it changes the way you think you change the way you feel the world around you. And because of this, I've always believed in the importance of looking at audio and your audio inputs very carefully. For example, most of us we don't care, some show will be listened to, we drive and we listen to random music. We listen to random radio programs, and we put all this junk into our head and wonder why life sucks. There's a reason if you're listening, you know, you're driving down the road, you listen to a song and says, Oh, my wife just left me. Life is all terrible. And I'm alone. And you start singing along with this crap. And you wonder like, Well, why do I feel so bad? Dude, you just listened to a shitty music and you wonder why you feel bad. So I believe that if you want to optimize the overall quality of your life, you have to take a look at what audio inputs you have at on a regular basis. And most of us we have a variety of basically forms of audio input. Namely, of course, we have the music, but that we all listen to on a regular basis. Then we have things like radio programs, podcasts, audio books, and so on. And I really believe that you can cannot really take your life to the next level. If you're not controlling basically the the type of audio that you actually listen to. And if you want to optimize it to the way you want it, ask yourself, what kind of state of emotional, emotional state or states of being I want to be in? And more importantly, what are my targets and the long term that I want to achieve? And once you know those, then you say what type of audio inputs will allow me to achieve that, so does listen to sad or doesn't seem to useless material or useless radio talk shows necessarily allow you to achieve that. If the answer's no, then you should probably make an adjustment here and start changing it for the better.

Pouya LJ  05:45

Yeah, that that actually makes a lot of sense. Lots of good points there. Now. So I have a question for you. Like let's say we have a goal we have a you know, we want to optimize that the listening passive listening skill, if you will. So one of the you mentioned these you have, we have audiobooks or podcasts that you can specifically pick and choose and listen to, to help you or you know, in your path, whatever that may be learn something new, helps you do something. So, I'm sure you use selectively go go about choosing your podcasts and audio, audible books or any kind of audio book that you listen to. Do you have any any specific methods of weeding out the use less than using the choosing the good ones to listen to? Or do you think it's generally? Yeah, go ahead.

Dan  06:36

Very good question. You see projects out when I want to make a choice here about what to listen to you. I asked myself, What will I get because I look at time as investment as money. And I asked myself, so I'm going to spend seven some audiobooks. I listen to where you know, more than 20 hours. I mean, for example, I recently finished a book called basically The room where it happens by john bolton. And that book was more than 20 hours. And when I finished that audiobook, I got a badge on Audible saying that this called the I don't know, Mount Everest band or something. I literally got a badge for the longest audio book I've ever listened to. And that was, you know, you can imagine that's a huge investment of time. And because of this, I asked myself, I cannot just skip through this the way I do this when I'm reading a book, you know, visually. So I asked myself, is the content of this book relevant to me or not? If the answer is no, I simply won't speak in listen to the audiobook, because what's the point of trying to read something or you know, listen to an audiobook that you simply will never use in the future? So it's not immediately relevant. I just don't do it. Now. The second layer filtering is okay. Maybe I think this book is relevant to me. For example, not long ago, I was listening to an audio book, basically a called the biggest bluff. It's about the journey. As a professional poker player, now in that audio book, and you know, the description, the audio books description was all about how the philosophy of poker, for example, can be applied to politics and to be applied to business. I mean, the poker face concept and putting yourself in the, you know, certain positions to make decisions, and so on and so forth. And I thought this would be applicable, you know, in business, and I actually made the purchase, I got the audiobook, I was listening. And after about a few hours, I realized No, man, this isn't really not at all about business or politics. It's really about pure poker. And it's talking about the journey of a professional poker player who went from complete newbie to I don't know, World Series of Poker tournament, for example, extraordinaire, and then I realized, well, do I really want to spend the next three, four hours finishing it? And I realized No, because unfortunately, you see projects, a lot of us especially guys like you and me, we tend to somehow detest giving out we say, like, you know, what if I if I don't finish this audio book that I'm giving up And therefore, I should keep listening to this garbage because otherwise I have given up. No man, this is not the case because in reality, you could spend that four or five hours, let's do another audio book that will actually be ethical. Because the fact of the matter is, if you just grind through the audio book, so you know what I got to finish this audiobook right now. So what happens? after about four or five hours, six hours, 10 hours you finish it, and then what happens? You'll forget about it. So if you're going to forget about it, then why spend that 10 hours listening anyways. And for that reason, I believe that it's better to go for that two layer method. So at first, you fully filter out the topics, and let's say, the titles that are not relevant to you. On the second level, once you read and start reading or listening, you ask yourself, Is this really helping me or not? If the answer is no, just abandon it and move on to another audio program, podcasts or some other source.

Pouya LJ  09:54

That's exactly that's exactly my that was my problem. And now isn't so much What do I mean by that? Is that you mentioned that if it's not useful, you thought it's different kind of audiobook, and it's not living up to your standards or your thought or your expectations. Yeah, I don't I don't shy away from dropping dead, which is a good advice, in my opinion, but even books, but specifically audiobooks because you have to dedicate that chunk of time, as you mentioned. And I used to think otherwise, meaning Yes, I can't give up whatever. And at some point, that is accumulation of thoughts. Give me this epiphany that, yeah, well, the not giving up scenario has a purpose because if you don't give up there is a gem at the end of all of that suffering that will you know, that will be that will be unlocked and you can access it. However, in the case of a audio book that is not useful to you, not interesting to you or not useful to you, not helpful to you. There's really nothing but for our statistics, which I read this book, too, which is, well, who cares? What is the result of that? So I I completely agree on that on that point. And I think I think just choosing is obviously requires some time and research, to dedicate to choose Good, good audio books, podcasts, what have you. And one one way, which is usually a reliable way is word of mouth from people you trust, and they can explain to you what the book is about to a degree. So you have a higher degree of confidence of purchase. But at the end of the day, there's always chance that, you know, I thought differently about this book, and it turned out differently. So, you know, no, no shying away from dropping the books. Do you have any other method methodology in choosing a books, podcast, whatever, like, for example, by author maybe I don't know, like, maybe

Dan  11:46

because sometimes a lot of the, you know, titles that I find, let's say audiobooks are certainly, you know, knowing the author, because I believe that sometimes you don't know the author, maybe it's like her or his first book. So in that case, you Need to actually give it a shot. For me it's more about whether or not the description of that audio material or the podcasts or whatever it is, if it be directly, that's, for me a lot more important than who the author is. Because sometimes very famous authors, just because they are famous, they just want to, you know, write more and make more money and just write more books. And a lot of you know, top authors books are total junk after about a few books, I mean, because basically, they just got to rights, and if you will, and they end up writing some crap. So for me, it's not about the author so much as it is about the top of the title, how relevant The topic is to me, and that's how I usually pick them. But of course, I usually go through the best selling list on Audible calm to see which titles are now bestsellers. Obviously, a lot of those titles are bestsellers because of the situation which might not be relevant to me personally. So in that case, I tend to somehow not care so much about it. But if I find a topic, or a title that is, you know, brand new or it's like a best Wunderland really applies to me. And of course I will take it and of course I will apply because in that case, the suit You know, going to be applicable regardless of who the author is. Sometimes I don't even know who the author of the book is. I know the title, but I don't remember the author's name. So that's okay, too, because what really matters is the content that you will consume in terms of audio. And that's for me, very, very important. And by the way, because I know you also listen to a lot of audiobooks, what is your typical audio routine these days? Like how much audio Do you listen to these days or in the past? What is your typical day like?

Pouya LJ  13:27

Right? Well, I mean, it's changed a lot since the Coronavirus situation developed because I used to do a lot more commute than I do now, due to covid. Or but I mean, still going so it's not to a halt and but it's much, much more reduced. And currently, I am actually reading, not reading rather listening to a podcast is always there. I have my own podcasts that I listened to whatever. But in terms of auto audiobooks, I am listening to one by this individual called Douglas Murray who's The book is called the madness of crowds. A and the author is a British journalist actually. So my vocabulary is much influenced by the fact that I'm listening to this. Yeah, we talked about the unconscious impact of audio, which we're not really aware of, perhaps, consciously, but it's always impacting us. And that's one of the one of the aspects of this like to listen, please

Dan  14:28

try the title myself, which is just double the deeper into what this thing is like the impact that we're receiving what the author exactly she's trying to say here.

Pouya LJ  14:38

Oh, no, but by the impact, I meant to impact the audiobooks itself. I already did this book. I was right. But the book is about a book it was about the well, the title is actually the subtitle of the title. Let me let me bring it up because I don't remember precisely, but it's very telling. It's basically about groupthink in a sense, so it says the madness of crowds crowds, gender, race and identity, the recent issues that have circulated around gender, race, identity, etc. orientation, all that, and the good the new groups that have emerged and the crowds that have started, you know, kind of like some eye movements anywho. So it's actually a quite a controversial book. But what I'm trying to say, regardless of the content of the book, his choice of vocabulary has influenced my choice of day to day speaking vocabulary that I use. I mean, I noticed that recently, but it does actually, even if I listen to podcasts, sometimes I see that, you know, sometimes my choice of vocabulary my own speaking, is changed or influenced, based on what I'm listening to. So when I was trying to highlight the importance of, you know, passive listening and what impact it can have on your mindset, Yeah, yeah. I don't know, do you feel you have the same?

Dan  16:05

For me personally, of course, I've been an audio learner myself. But I think that audio has a tremendous impact on us. I mean, think about this think of music, what is exactly music because music affects us emotionally, in ways that I don't know, speeches or even you know, articles, books or even masterpieces do not do it. And music has been with us since you know, our evolutionary background, which is why I believe that the impact to influence us auditorily is far higher than many other mediums. And other than that, of course, it's about you know, your own perspective. It's all about how audio affects you personally, not just in terms of like, what you listen to, but also how you express yourself, which is why in the, you know, in the area, for example, marketing and personal branding, recommend things like podcasts because nowadays, that's the one basically platform that never gets too old. People will can will always be able to find time to put in some listening time in their schedule, which is why I believe that not only is effective in terms of how it affects our emotions, but in all facets of life, whether it is branding or marketing, or whatever it is, you can always use audio as you as a major carrier of information that not only transcends beyond just mere words, hers emotions and the feelings and values of the person who's saying that So overall, I totally understand the importance of basically audio and how it really affects us the way many other basically inputs do not do it.

Pouya LJ  17:36

And Besant doesn't amazing now for the end part of the today's show, is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to address, or you want to summarize what we talked about?

Dan  17:48

Well, first of all, I really want to thank you for choosing this topic because I believe it's quite important for us to fathom the importance of the audio input that we have. So all listeners should now ask themselves do I Choose the music I listen to on a regular basis with care. Do I know the emotional state of my favorite for example, musicians? I mean, let's be honest. Many top celebrities, top musicians have serious mental issues. And a person with all that mental issues, the lyric and the music that will come out of that mind will in some way also be sick and not necessarily applicable. So ask yourself, do I really feel a sense of connection to these artists that I have around me? Have I selected these bands just because they are cool, or because I really feel that the message resonates with who I am, because unfortunately of us, don't do that. And be very selective of the kind of music you listen to because that ultimately reflects on many things and determines your emotional state. Other than that, we discussed the importance of audio and all forms, whether podcast, audio books, radio programs, and so on, because we believe that audio really has deeper impact on us as an input than many other forms of input and choosing the right basically audio format for us. And more importantly, the right sources are very important. We also talked about, you know, the whole concept of never ever give up, which does not really apply to audiobooks. And we mentioned, whether it comes to when it comes to audiobooks or podcasts. If you start listening, and you realize, well, this audio book really is not about me, or if you're listening to podcasts, and you realize that I don't know after about, I mean, we have some very, very long podcast goes on for hours. So after about an hour and a half, it's like, you know, well, it says two hours left. So it's a three and a half hour podcast. Do I really have to finish it? The answer is no, of course not. So do not apply the same thing if it doesn't immediately attract your attention. Then you are going to forget it. So why listen anyways, and that of course then allows you to choose the Write source of material, the right source of input for yourself that will also be applicable and you will remember it and you can actually apply it in your daily life. So, for that reason, it can actually be a lot more conscious of the content that you choose and the material that you actually try to listen to on a regular basis. And by doing so, you will then be able to control how you feel how you think and the results that you will ultimately get in life.

Pouya LJ  20:24

That's amazing. Thank you, Dan, for like, we appreciate it. And thank you all hope. I hope that we have influenced you auditorially well today and until a later on jatoi, auditory influence Cheers.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

dream, goals, planning, life, achieve, realistically, realistic, steps, set, pandemic, reality, people, business, true, motivation, execution, limits, potential, corona virus, details

SPEAKERS

Dan

Dan  00:12

Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast, the solo edition. My name is Daniel Morgan and today we're going to talk about the importance of setting the right amount of goals to give you the right level of motivation to say guys, we just finished a wonderful workshop and we were discussing the issue of goal setting, visualization, and even fantasizing and daydreaming about your goals. And it was just a very, very constructive workshop. And I really enjoyed this and I want to just, you know, share a few of the tips that we discussed during the seminar and what will you guys hopefully be able to use and apply to your own lives. First and foremost, we actually talked about what it really means to set goals and to have dreams because I am a firm believer in the fact that if you do not have a dream to aim for, then your life will be Filled with repetitive, meaningless moments of brainless entertainment, as well as, you know, disengagement life that you simply cannot get rid of, and you will never truly experienced a real joy of life. And what is the real joy of life, the real joy of life is about, basically, you know, there's a great statement about this already learned a while back and it says, happiness is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. And this was by Mr. Nightingale. And in reality speaking, I think this is what we need right now. a happy life, a life of basically contentment, a life of joy. And satisfaction is a life where you are taking progressive steps, small but progressive, towards all of your goals and ambitions and dreams. Now, the good part is, you don't actually have to arrive at your destination, to feel happy to feel basically satisfied. What really makes us all happy is that Chase is that pursuit is that effort that you're making every single day trying to get closer and closer to realizing that dream and I think that's really what we need to focus on and in the in the in the workshop we discussed what are our dreams and I think every listener that is currently listening to our podcast should understand that we only the dreams now your dreams might be very silly like I don't know, just I want to win five hands back in you know back to back or your dreams could be very, you know, difficult to attain perhaps world peace, perhaps equality, you know, fighting global warming. What it really is a dream is nothing more than a wish or a hope and something you really want to aim for in life. And while I'm a huge fan of basically making plans that are more realistic, and rational, when it comes to dreaming, I believe that we need the exact opposite because If you want to implement logic and rationality, in dreaming, you will fail and dreaming may explain why. You see, when it comes to making plans, you're saying well, I should first say what are the requirements? What are the steps that should be taken? And what should we do right here. So you think very logically, very linearly, and very realistically, because you have to make a plan. However, when you make the exact same basically approach and you apply it to dreaming, you will fail because dreaming is supposed to be and I'm certainly realistic. It is supposed to be irrational because it's supposed to excite your imagination. And Albert Einstein said that imagination is the most important thing of all, because he believed that imagination is what leads to creating new potentials. So the problem with realistic dreaming is that if you dream realistically, you are defeating the purpose of a dream which is that non basically Ending and continuous surge of energy and motivation to realize, you see, if you look at people around you who are highly energetic and highly motivated, and they're always going at it day in and day not. I've seen a lot of these people. I mean, I just talked to a wonderful athlete. And this guy is crazy about basketball, like, he just wakes up early in the morning. And he tries to find, you know, a gym even though nowadays, as you probably know, there's a major pandemic, and all the world's many countries and many cities are going back to, you know, quarantine and just like California, like right now many gyms are actually closed. So this gentleman literally goes out of his way to find another gym that is perhaps open in this situation to be able to pursue his dream of becoming a professional basketball player. You see, this is energy. What I mean just imagine, just imagine if you perhaps don't have a major energy and all the gyms are closed, what do you tell yourself? Well, you know what things happen right? mean we gotta just tolerate it, it's gonna just go away and you stop exercising, you stop practicing you stop training because for you, being a professional athlete is not a dream. But for somebody who believes that this is my dream, he will go out of his way to make sure that he actually achieves it. So for that reason, it's very important to have that dream. And the problem with that is a lot of us we believe that when it comes to having a dream, a major dream in life, then we should simply just dream realistically, this is a huge mistake. Because if you dream realistically, you will not accomplish much in life. Because the right approach here is dream irrationally and without any limits. But make plans and execute realistically and logically. Because in reality speaking if you want to dream realistically, you will never exercise and practice your imagination of what is truly possible for you and you will settle down for Whatever Cisco has told you that you are. So if today, you think that Well, I've worked in my business for a while now. And I think that's just I've reached my, basically maximum capacity. Well, what will happen here, you will reach a plateau that you cannot exceed because you have set a mental limits, your mind has now accepted that, yes, this is my limit. And for the rest of my life, I've been working as an accountant, as a lawyer, as a doctor, whatever it is, and this is my limit. And that's it. And guess what, you probably are not going to feel very excited to wake up the next morning and say, You know what, uh, well, I gotta go to my job to pay the bills. And this somehow fails to truly enrich you with energy and zest to achieve something. On the other hand, if you set a very huge dream, the kind of dream that people say like Dude, are you high or something or you've been drinking? Those are the kind of dreams that you need to have because ironically, those are the type of dreams that will give you the right amount of motivation to achieve big goals because once you dream without an limits. We call this the blue sky thinking. At that moment, there is nothing to stop you. So all you have is a vision of a possible future. And in that moment, your true potential is revealed to you. Because when you set big goals, you are telling yourself that I am capable of achieving this, your subconscious mind now makes that as a command to your nervous system. And now this almost a reality for you, even though you haven't yet achieved anything. And ironically, once you have that vision in your in yourself and you start thinking about that dream and that vision, things begin to change, and you start taking different types of actions slowly but surely, and you wait for a couple of years. Again, as Tony Robbins said, we tend to overestimate what we can do in one year, but we unfortunately underestimate so much what we can do and accomplish in 10 years. So what do you have that big dream for yourself? You might start taking some And after a few days, like, Well, my goal was to perhaps have a very, very fit body or run my own multimillion dollar business or perhaps I don't know, play the guitar, whatever it was. And then after a few days or weeks, you feel like, Well, I haven't made much progress, because that's the nature of all goal achievement. I mean, you can't achieve any big goal overnight. But once you have that dream, you see, that's when the difference is made. If your goal is just to make some bucks, after about a few days or weeks, what happens is that you tell yourself, you know what, I'm not making much progress. Are you sure the goal was worth it? And guess what the answer is going to be? Of course not come on man. Let's go back to the status quo. And you stop From then on, you're no longer trying your best to achieve that goal. However, what if you had a major big dream that you wanted to go for and you wanted to study and you wanted to practice and you wanted to learn more? How can I do this? A true what you know What I like to believe as a true obsession, that you have a dream that keeps you awake, to work harder during the nights and gets you wake up earlier during the day. These are the kind of dreams that we need to have as individuals who wants to realize our true potential. Which is why if you're now listening, ask yourself, what is my dream? And what kind of dreams did I have in my childhood that I later abandoned because it seemed to be just too difficult. You see, once you look at yourself, and you want to set a dream, please do set the kind of dreams that'll make anyone who knows you to say, Wow, are you crazy? This is I mean, if you really want to know you've set a good dream, just go around and ask people that you know, guys, here's my dream. If they're not saying, dude, are you crazy? You probably have not set a very high dream or at very high goal. You probably can do better. Because when you set a dream, you must set a dream that is beyond your current ability, knowledge, or basically chances you need to somehow go way above and beyond what you can realistically accomplish. Because once you do that, then you will have the motivation throughout the entire lengthy and slow and occasionally gruesome process of obtaining big goals because guys, the road and the journey ahead will not be an easy one, nor will it be short. It'll take a long time. It'll take a lot of work. And perhaps believable amount of failure and setbacks and difficulties and rejections, you got to go for a long journey. And if you don't have that dream, then what's the point of trying right? You just give up right away. And because of this, it's better to start dreaming big. And to do so you must pick a dream that you yourself want sometimes unforeseen. A lot of basically individuals certainly in their at a younger age, they don't pick their own dreams, they pick dreams that will make their parents happy or will make their partner happier will make their best friends happy or simply the kind of dreams that will get the most amount of attention from people. This is a huge mistake. If you're setting a dream just because it makes you super cool or because, you know, it allows you to have a lot of attention or even making you know, just just seeing money as your target, then the chances are you will not truly dream big, nor will you dream for yourself. You will dream to make mommy happy little dream to make your partner happy, you'll dream to get some attention. But you will not truly commit to your calling to your vocation to your inner desire that you've had. And because of this, it's better to really dream for yourself. Ask yourself if I had everything in the world that I thought or I should probably have. I mean a good home let's say a family all those things. What else What I dream because unfortunately a lot of dreams are forgotten because we just get busy with a daily you know, pursuits of the things we should have, you know, a roof over your head, a car perhaps or I don't know, being able to have a family. These are important. But ask yourself what is my real dream? Maybe your real dream is not necessarily just to, you know, make some, you know, let's say bucks. Or maybe you really want to actually make a huge difference in the world. Maybe you want to help people to eradicate, you know, let's say gender inequality or sexism or poverty, maybe wants to be a force for good. Maybe your real passion is to have a great family, and you want to raise lots of wonderful kids and your role isn't so much. I mean, you don't care so much about having a, let's say, you know, a Lamborghini. What you want instead is of course, perhaps having a lot of great children that you can raise in a healthy way. Maybe your goal is really to be a multi millionaire. Maybe your goal really is to be the best artist or the best in your field. See, these are the kind of dreams that will motivate you. Now, hear me out. Up until now you've been dreaming now is dreaming all it takes to achieve your goals and realize your potential. Of course not. The next step is planning and execution. And in this case, I usually like to change things I literally shift gears, here's when you need to start getting realistic, logical and rational. Unfortunately, most people do the exact opposite. When it comes to dreaming, they're all realistic. And they're all pessimistic when it comes to planning execution. They're all optimists, I am the exact opposite. I am an absolute optimist, when it comes to making you know setting goals and you know, dreaming really, but I tend to err on pessimism when it comes to planning and execution which is why one of my strategies, make Plan B before you make Plan A I've lived by this for my entire life in my business and all areas of my life I worked with a plan B. And I designed and complete act like I designed my exit strategy and my plan B before I'm actually putting the details of Plan A. That's called realistic and logical planning. There's no dreaming here. But guess what? I've done the dreaming beforehand with the goal with the dream that you will then think about on a regular basis in your life and that's exactly what you need to do. So you want to start thinking using the blue sky method and just dream What do I want if everything were perfect? They never are, but just imagine if everything were perfect. What kind of dream would I set for myself? You're saying, but do there is the corona virus pandemic, people are dying of the corona virus and we're where the economies are coming down and we have a lot of difficulties. I know. That's the reality. When you're dreaming you don't think about the Coronavirus panel. endemic, you don't think about the economic recessions that have followed or the close borders, you think about the dream. That's the issue. You see, you do not want to concern yourself with reality when you're dreaming. Only then you will truly pick the right dream for yourself. Because if you engage in rational thinking and dreaming in this as you're dreaming, you will not pick the right goal. Nor will you pick it at the right size or volume or scale because you are being extremely pessimistic because you're not going to realize your true potential. However, after you've done that, it's okay Dan is okay Dan is right. No problem. So I'm going to start I'm going to pretend there's no coronavirus pandemic. I'm gonna pretend the borders are all open. The economies are running everything's okay. Now what is my dream? Oh, can you start planning I want to be the best photographer. I want to be the best fashion designer. I want to be the best athlete, the best dancer, whatever it is, you start dreaming. You dream big dreams without any limitations. Then it's time to shift gears and become realistic. And basically, I'm not going to say being pessimistic but like, a little bit more rational here. Now you say, Okay, okay, so now let's come back to the reality, things are not very easy. Now, what are the first steps that I should take to become the best basketball player to run my own business? To find the right partner? To learn to play the guitar? Whatever it is, what are the first steps I should I should do this or should do this. Now it's time to think rationally because guess what? When it comes to execution and planning, you need to be realistic. Otherwise, you will, in most cases failed. And if you ever when it's because of chance, pure luck. It's not because of effort. That's when you say, all right, so if I want to run my business, how many years do we have to work as an apprentice or some other business to learn it? I see and which countries will offer me the best opportunity to you know, practice entrepreneurship, if your goal is to be the best hockey player, so What are the best nations that truly promote hockey? For example? What are the best nations that truly allow me to be in touch with arts and fashion or whatever it is that you truly desire in life? Now you get to the nitty gritty and you start to think about the details. Okay, I'm gonna do this first, and I'm gonna do this one second, and oh, boy, there's gonna be a problem. How can I get that, for example, I don't know the permit to run that company. Oh, and one of the organizations we should call you see, now here are the details. You've found the dream. And now it's time to get down to business, and to get realistic to look for the real sources of basically, issues and problems that you have to deal with and overcome in order to achieve your goals. And by combining blue sky thinking, with realistic planning and execution, you tremendously improve your odds of actually achieving your goals and realizing your potential because now all of a sudden, you're no longer shooting for an easy goal that probably will cease to amaze you after a while, but you're now working on your life's mission. And that motivation will never disappear. So, because of this, I believe that if you want to make the most of your life, start from today, too, and start asking yourself, what can I do to truly achieve my dreams, that's when you start getting into details. And please, while doing so, try to not just think about them. And my friend, basically, they say, don't think it and get now get down to business. Start writing down your goals, plans, gather all the phone numbers to the start, you know, surfing online, go to Google and start googling all the details. That's when you have to then hopefully start putting in all the missing, you know, pieces of the puzzle, so naturally, hopefully, in the future achieve all of that. And ultimately, once you have both the blue sky thinking and you know the spirit of hard work and you paying a lot of attention to details. Now your life will change and everything will get better. Because of this, I really believe that it's important to focus on doing your best, it's really important to try your best to focus on combining these two approaches. And eventually you'll have the opportunity to achieve almost all of your goals without, you know, compromising your true potential and abilities. And that's, of course, my hope and wish for you to listeners of the show to truly not settle because life is too short to settle for something that is just a mere, you know, miniature representation of your true potential or your true desire and it's best to aim and shoot for the stars, while at the same time trying to build foundations. You see, you imagine, you know your castles in the sky, that's wonderful. The castle that you imagine in your head should be in the skies, but now start building foundations under them step by step rigorously. and methodically. That's all the time we have for guys. I hope that this short talk inspired you to set and achieve your goals, and of course to dream big and take a lot of action. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me. Or, you know, PLJ, the producer of the show directly on the website or on social media and glad to actually help you answer all your questions and that's all the time we have for how to go on and take care.

The word diplomacy brings into mind images of politicians discussing comprehensive deals among nations but the truth of the matter is that diplomacy is not something that happens only in politics, rather, it is an essential component of every human relationship that includes peace, cooperation, mutual respect, and understanding among in a group of individuals as small as a newly wed couple and as large the United Nations with all its member countries.

Episode Transcript:----more----

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

diplomacy, diplomatic, relationships, practicing, emotions, fails, act, punching, deal, feel, influence, books, people, business, grabbing, talk, means, long term, traveling, life

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast, joined with me as always, Dan Molgan, how's it going, man?

Dan  00:17

Hey, man, buddy, how are you glad to be here with you life is wonderful. And of course, we're back on track, working very hard and trying to make sure that things remain upbeat. Despite all the challenges of your hand. Of course, I'm very happy to know that there are some improvements. Now in terms of traveling around the world, some boards are getting actually opened. And of course, it's not going to be as I really wanted. I think that the true summer will be experienced, hopefully, next year, but it's better than nothing. And let's see what happens. But for now, life is great. And I'm waiting to see hopefully how, for the rest of the summer we will see some changes in terms of traveling in terms of the orders in the European Union in Asia and the Middle East, and hopefully things will get better. We'll see. We'll see.

Pouya LJ  01:00

That's good. So they were talking about some topic regarding how to what is the art of being a diplomat. So first of all, the first thing comes to anybody's mind when you're talking about the word diplomat or diplomatic is the, you know, international relationships, which is very true. Of course, that's part of the whole part of the whole deal. But I wouldn't really put a stop to the definition of the word there because you can apply diplomatic behavior and being being diplomatic, as an art form in your life and your business and your personal life. So how do you how do you see it? Do you see it that is contained within the EU between countries when they're negotiating, for example, trade deals or whatever? Or do you think it applies to personal individual lives as well?

Dan  01:42

Absolutely, very well put out and such a smart statement. Diplomacy exists, whether someone wants to buy a candy as a five year old, or whether somebody wants to negotiate I don't know, for example, a major trade deal between three or four countries to see when, for example, a five year old goes to, for example, His mom and starts looking in his eyes and says things like, Oh, Mom, Hey, Mom, what's up? Do you see that candy over there? Well, this little five year old is actually engaging in diplomacy. Now depends on how he does it. If he says, Mom, either you buy me the candy, or I am not going to talk with you anymore. We call this emotional blackmailing. That's one of the strategies of, you know, diplomacy. If, on the other hand, he tries to get the candy by being very nice and kind with the mom and trying to, you know, be very attractive. We call this enticing, which is a very democratic approach to towards diplomacy. But diplomacy Simply put, is about reaching agreements, and avoiding conflict, especially when it comes to physical conflicts. Diplomacy basically is what prevents wars from happening and where we see worse across nations, or fights would be verbal fights or even physical fights. That's it. happens when diplomacy fails because diplomacy is that glue that holds the societies peace and stability together. And without diplomacy, there's nothing left but arguments. So imagine that child who did not get the you know, candy starts smashing things around anyhow basically and starts punching, for example with his, you know, his little hands punching the man, I want the candy. That's when diplomacy fails. So whenever we hear verbal fights, people start using strong language Oh, you this and this such and such a person. That's when diplomacy fails. When we see physical fights. That's, you know, when diplomacy when you suddenly see somebody grabs, I don't know, I don't know, some brick and or some stuff, start pushing somebody or punching somebody. That's when diplomacy fails. And of course, when you see troops landed, and boots on the ground, that's also when diplomacy fails. And obviously, as we know that, you know, in the modern world, we want our societies to the modern, in the very sense of modernity with itself brings about diplomacy because different policy itself is what led to modernity, because if we did not have diplomacy we would have no civilization would be still cavemen, wha, moving around and grabbing stones, all those things, but we have our technologies, we are capable of sitting in two different countries and having this you know, live conversation or traveling very, you know, fast between different countries, or, for example, using AI or using modern technologies and medicine, because we had diplomacy, because when diplomacy fails, progress halts. And every every side loses basically, right. And because of this, I believe it is very important for everyone to learn the art of being, you know, diplomatic, and it is hard to fully, you know, articulate what it means to be diplomatic and all you know, things and all relationships, you know, in a short period of time that we have on our podcast, but if our listeners pay attention to it, of course, it'll be very, very important and we see exactly why it is important to learn the art of diplomacy.

Pouya LJ  04:59

That's good to know. I mean, Again, we're not going to delve into the political aspect of it from a negotiation between countries because first of all, people tend to have some ideas of what it is and how people tend to do it. But let's, let's make it more personal. So it's my, I suppose it's more useful to with our limited time. So let's talk about how you employ diplomacy and diplomatic approach to negotiating Say, say with your let's let's talk about first class of businesses so that your business partners with your customers, whatever. So how do you how do you go about So first of all, are you going to establish a rapport using a diplomatic approach? Or what is the first step in your in your guess? Right?

Dan  05:41

Well, you know, usually diplomacy basically is what I call when diplomacy is about creating a relationship that is founded primarily on offering value to both sides. You see, a diplomatic relationship, for example, is a relationship where A certain degrees of logics and strategy is involved. So for example, if you see someone, and then you start jumping up and grabbing them and hugging them, this is not necessarily a diplomatic relationship. So if I, for example, go to a business meeting and I say, Hey, man, what up buddy? And I, you know, start, for example, rapping a little bit graph is, hey, what up, buddy? How's it going? Now, that's not exactly diplomatic, I'm probably going to call this security and they're gonna have to kick somebody out. Right? So diplomacy is basically being able to create a professional as well as mutually beneficial setting environment where both sides win and get value. So when you are being diplomatic, you're not trying to be friendly necessarily. When you're being diplomatic. You're not trying to be sincere necessarily, because, again, we're looking at politics here right? Now, unfortunately, politicians are accused of being extremely, you know, dishonest. That's an exaggeration, but diplomacy itself is about being able to control your emotions in the heat of a debate. So firstly, To see your intuition you feel the guy says, Listen, I know you've traveled along with this deal. But guess what? I'm offering nothing less than this amount for example. Now, your natural emotional tendency is to stand up on your chair and say you something, something, something. I just traveled this distance to do this. And now you ever meet this price you something something that's like the natural, you know, cavemen mind tendency. But diplomacy here says, alright, take a step back. Take a deep breath. Again, this all happens, you know, very quickly, you know, in the subconscious mind, let's just calm down and analyze the situation. So then you start to move on to their person, what are your conditions? What do you want to do with this? Why do you offer this so you start asking questions, and more importantly, you try to come from the frame of cooperation, rather than elimination or competition. Because this is the major factor diplomacy works when both sides understand that the other side actually isn't Just looking for his own interest. When this happens when this is, you know, thanks. For example, this guy only wants the lowest price he can get. Then automatically here there's a sense of animosity. This happens a lot, unfortunately, in business, where it's like, either you take them or I take them. And I've heard a lot of great books in sales. Unfortunately, a lot of them teach you a lot of unethical practices, things like when you are selling, you must be selling at the highest price no matter what, because of this, and they justify that with saying things like you're selling it for your team, but in reality, it's very unethical. So diplomacy is about trying to understand what the other side once trying to explain clearly what you want, and explain why especially to deal in a different way. That's called diplomacy. This happens a lot in business. But then again, it's not just in business, we can use diplomacy in all relationships, friendships and partnerships could be with your partner, spouse with your children, and this applies to almost everything. However, personally speaking The closer you are in a relationship, it's best to be more sincere, because, you know, if you're extremely strategic in all relationships that also, you know, quality relationship, but being diplomatic is not the same as being a liar. Whereas being a cheater, it's simply a matter of having strategy and relationships. And if you look at those who are very happy and have maintained long term relationships, you realize they have actually noticed some degrees of strategy and their encounters and have learned to be diplomatic.

Pouya LJ  09:31

So, from what I'm hearing from what you're saying, it seems to me I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, obviously. But it seems to me that it's from your point of view, at least, this whole diplomatic approach to say business or even in personal life. We'll get to that in a second half, but at least for the first half business side, it seems like it's a it's a it's a structure. It's a foundation. It's a framework that defines some boundaries, some helps you guide and navigate your relationship. With the third party or second party, that is that would that would you say that that's

Dan  10:04

exactly a great point, I mean yourself right now. I'm gonna give you right now, three situations and describe for me how you feel in each of these situations. So put yourself. So we're going to use three cases here. One is going to be business one is going to be personal, and one is going to be basically friendly, not extremely close, like let's say for example, a wife or a child, but also not very distant, like, for example, business. So imagine the first case in business. So you go to a business meeting, and you ask for something. And the person says, Listen, projects, we got this price right here, it's $2,500 per staff member, and we are the only company that supplies it. So take it or leave it. How do you feel in this situation?

Pouya LJ  10:51

I was definitely not comfortable. I'm not, you know, comforting,

Dan  10:55

but you really don't necessarily have any other options. So there's no other option and you told me been told by your boss to make this purchase? What will you do?

Pouya LJ  11:03

So, so? So assuming they're correct, actually. So there's there's no competition or only choice. Right?

11:09

Exactly. There.

Dan  11:12

They have their monopoly. So I mean, in a sense, you have to give in, don't you? Exactly. Now, here's the next case. Imagine after literally a week after that deal was done. And another company comes along and offers the same service slightly more expensive. So, for example, this service to $500 per staff now is 2700. And then you go to the, you know, office, would you be interested to even negotiate in this case, or you want to go back to the same guy who pushed and shoved into your face the last time?

Pouya LJ  11:43

Yeah, of course, if I could make a better deal with the second guy, and that's

Dan  11:46

not a bad deal. Technically, it's not a better deal because it costs more, but you know, this might have a chance. So you go to his office, for example. He says, sir, here's our price is 2700. But the reason that we offer For a little bit more expensive than this competitor is because of this and this and this and of course, we're glad to help you in terms of long term payments and certain other things. So they are very polite. They ask you a lot of questions they understand who you are and what you want. So are you more likely to pay a little bit extra and work with this guy that he actually like then to keep working with the monopoly guy who apparently right now has

Pouya LJ  12:22

still a lower price? Right? Well, no, I mean, definitely with the new guy even if it's more expensive because not only because it's at least they they opened the door for negotiation you never like with an ongoing especially if it's not a one time sale, maybe it has some sort of maintainence or something. And definitely the the guy that is more approachable, more. Listening better, is definitely a better choice because at least we can negotiate terms and conditions and you know, problems occur, we can solve them and talk. I think that conversation that the channel conversation being open is definitely comforting. The second

Dan  12:59

take exactly See, that's the point. So diplomacy, it actually leads to a better long term relationship. Now let's move on to the pharmacy and personal relationships. I really believe that the foundation of diplomacy and personal relationships, speed friendly family and other comes down to long term thinking, you see, it's much easier to do certain things to have certain reactions, especially negative ones in the short term because of some emotions you're feeling, but that could in the long term, jeopardize our relationship. So diplomacy is about this. So for example, right now, I'm gonna give you two cases. Imagine you're talking with your girlfriend. And your girlfriend basically guess is obviously very stressed very, you know, angry because she has perhaps missed her deadline for the university and she got fired from her last job because she was very busy or just she's very nervous right now. So in the first case, she comes home and says, Listen, Pooh, chicks, the cool guy with a cool suit and the cool beard look at look at me right now. Well, you feel like life is so cool. And like, look at me. So in this case, when she acts all nervous, obviously is not activated automatically. And you have two choices. You can sit back and say now You shut up your little which you're not supposed to talk to me like that. So this is when exactly diplomacy fails. But here's the question. If this really happened to you projects, do you think you would necessarily react aggressively?

Pouya LJ  14:30

Not necessarily. I mean, depends on what mood I am personally. And if.

Dan  14:35

So, if you make decisions based upon your mood, then you are not being diplomatic. This is the exact difference between diplomacy in relationships versus winging it or acting your feelings out, right. So if you're imagine you had a very good day, I mean, you had a wonderful day life is great. Everything is going well. And then of course, you're going to be like, understand like, yeah, nine out laid on me. I'm your man just keep punching, keep jabbing no problem. But if you had a bad day, what do you do? Yeah, cannot I had it, I'll do it and you start fighting and boom, diplomacy fails. So diplomacy is about acting and doing the right thing. He irrespective of how you feel. So sometimes diplomacy dictates that you must back off, even though you might need something, sometimes it implies going forward, even though you don't feel like it. So diplomacy is about managing putting a distance between your emotions, and what is right to do to save the relationship if you get the results. So people who are again, that's how politicians are generally those who are good politicians. I mean, if you look at you know, for example, the idiot Trump, who called Joe Biden sleepy Joe, I'm gonna call them idiot Trump. So this is a great example of when diplomacy fails and you just start bullying right? Now this is not just in politics, I'm sure you know a lot of people like that. You know, a lot of people who are using aggression as a means of getting results, they want to bully and all those things. But aggression rarely leads to long term results, not just in politics, but in business and in all relationships. So diplomacy is putting that distance between your emotions and your mood of that moment. And the long term longevity of the relationship and acting not based upon the feeling, but doing what is right. And that by the way, pooches is not easy at all, it requires a lot of training, which is why this, you know, show today is just a means of inspiring our listeners to start putting more time learning the art of basically diplomacy, to know that yes, a girl can start fighting, but if you know and have a good, you know, basically a diplomatic mindset, he can easily turn it around. So the same angry girl who starts shouting and all those things and you feel like oh, you feel like angry right now. say okay, let's be diplomatic here. So, how does she feel? You see, practicing empathy? How does she feel? Hopefully she's very, probably very angry. Why does she feel this way? You see, you're literally putting yourself out of that, you know, situation and inside of her basically mind within a person. And then you try to see the world as they so probably, she is very nervous. Probably she has lost her job and that for her, maybe that time of the month. I mean, you never know. But there's gonna be a lot of things right now, basically. So you put yourself in her shoes. And you say, Okay, what is my objective here, I can fight, I can start slapping her. And then we're going to break up, and then she's going to grab her stuff. She's going to leave and then I'm going to cry. And then I'm going to basically call her she's going to block me, then I'm gonna go back to her home, that's going to come kick my ass. I'm gonna go back home basically, again, and you can imagine that there's no good ending for that. Or I could try to keep it cool. And try to let her express her anger. shouted Little bit and then calm her down. And this is an example of diplomacy. So she started like, Yes, I know very tough for you, I understand totally. Now understand here, you're feeling all the pain that she does. But you are using diplomacy here, right? And in the long term, this diplomatic approach, actually, she starts shouting for a while, she starts screaming, and then after about 25 minutes, she's all done. And then she says, so how was your day, and boom, now you got to go, right here, literally, after all that stuff. And guess what someone's gonna get late at night. And that is because you have managed to be diplomatic. So whether you want good results, whether it is to have a good evening, whether it is to, you know, seal a deal, to get the paycheck to, I don't know, make the alliances or in large scales politically, if you want to build the alliances, then having that diplomatic mindset is the key to success in all these areas because of simple look at politics, and, you know, successful politicians or those who work in business. For those who have good relationships always shows that these are rarely the people who act out their emotions. Because let's be honest, you don't need any education to act of your emotions. It is natural to feel aggressive, it is natural to feel upset or hurt. It is natural to want to punch someone or kill someone these are you don't need any skills to do that. That's all ingrained in your DNA. Anybody can do a five year old can do it and 10 year old you what takes a lot of effort and education and eventually wisdom is being able to control and of course I personally spent a lot of time studying the Chinese culture to practice this for myself and everyone's relying on my friends as well because this thing able to take yourself out of the situation and out of your emotions and towards a you know focused direction we can actually make strategic decisions in a diplomatic way rather than emotional way ultimately yields the best results in all relationships.

Pouya LJ  19:54

Perfectly what we already discussed the personal side like a personal relationship, side of There's two. So we're gonna blow past that. And because we're getting to the end of our show as well, now, it's for the people who want to continue educating themselves getting better at this learning practices that they can, you know, do to develop this skill and art form. Are there any books or videos or people who have worked in the space and have material in this space? Do you have any recommendations for further studies?

Dan  20:28

Well, of course, there are a lot of great books actually, in this regard. But I really believe that diplomacy itself is not a subject that is linear in nature. That is, yes, there are many books on the subject. For example, I recommend a great book, for example, the psychology of influence, which is a very, very useful book, and has been a bestseller for decades now. And one of my most favorite actually, which talks about what it really means to influence someone basically the psychology of influence, you could try to actually by Dr. Cialdini wonderful book. And but apart from the books itself. I don't think people actually start practicing because diplomacy needs to be practiced in real relationships, not just on paper. So try to look at all of the relationships in business at school at home, and ask yourself, how much of the time am I acting out my emotions? And how much time am I actually trying to act in a diplomatic way that allows the other side to save face to control or his or her anger, to do these things and to get the results and more importantly, to be strategic in my approach, and only then you can actually improve it. But if you want to get a head start, before you practicing these things, I recommend, of course, the psychology of influence. Other than that, there are a lot of great tools and great ways to improve your knowledge of basically diplomacy through learning sales. So I recommend a lot of basically, scripts right now is available in terms of sales, you can actually find online, basically becoming better at selling up anything of any kind itself can actually prove your ability to be diplomatic, because by the very process of doing that, you will eventually Yes, of course, finally, it is experience by having a lot of experience by meeting a lot of new people. Because in order for you to get good at diplomacy, you have to have a lot of social interactions. So you can get good at diplomacy if you only know how to influence your mom, for example, or your best friend. So you want to have a wide basically range of contacts, you know how we can influence because you will then eventually over practice, you will find the patterns that, oh, it doesn't matter, like in most cases, but if the person is black or white, young or rolled tall or short, Asian, for example, or Middle Eastern doesn't really matter, you you can influence them this way. So you eventually get patterns. So the last one, of course, is having a lot of reference experience to improve your overall diplomacy.

Pouya LJ  22:43

Excellent, perfect. Thank you, Dan, for today's episode. If you have any final thoughts on the matter, please go ahead.

Dan  22:53

For sure. Just I want to thank you again for this great topic you've chosen for this session we talked about, you know what it means Used to be diplomatic, we described the diplomacy as about putting a distance between you and your emotions in order for you to be able to create, influence or save a relationship. And more importantly, we talked about the fact that it can be applied to all facets of life. And everybody can learn to do that. We also discussed that if you want to act on your emotions solely, that's not diplomacy. If you want to know why. And what happens, just take a look at you know, the current recent political events that are happening in the United States and around the world because of the analysis, of course, then you will realize this is what happens when diplomacy fails, results simply vanish and disappear. So ultimately, by knowing this and learning to do that, you can actually become better and then we talked about how we can actually work on it. And he said, other than Of course, certain books that we recommend, there's obviously the the act of practicing, you want to actually start practicing using diplomacy and salesmanship in all your relationships. So we want a couple of books, when of course the most useful right now will be the psychology of influence, but after Cellini which talks to you detail about what it means, of course parchement himself was a salesperson before he actually became a psychologist. So he talks a lot about how, for example, His, you know, brother managed to sell, for example, very good cars at very high prices. So it's a very great book to start with. But then again, practice makes perfect. So try to use those and your daily practice. Well,

Pouya LJ  24:19

thank you again, Dan, for this episode. My pleasure. And thank you, everybody for joining us today until a later episode. Have a good one.