What's the value?

As many of you know, I love philosophy. I love talking to people about life, our experiences, and what this whole thing is all about. My guest today, Shaddow officially says he is an artist, musician, saxophonist, and writer--but he is also a philosopher. And one of my favorite types of people to talk about philosophy are people who bring both wisdom and passion. They have a fire about them that makes the insights they share even more impactful. Shaddow is that type of person. When he speaks about his experiences and his approach to life it is poetic and you can feel the words. There is a raw, authenticity to him and how he communicates.

We covered a lot of ground in this one, but all circling around Shaddow's most important value of "being authentic and your true self." He had some tough times when he was younger, struggling to fit in, not feeling supported by friends/family, and experiencing extreme loss. Through all of that trauma though he found clarity and optimism. One of the phrases that came up on the show was, "if you knew better, you'd do better." I think that applies to Shaddow, he decided he wanted to know better so he could do better. And he realized that the most important thing to "know" is yourself. Your true self though, not the one you think you are supposed to be or the one your family wants you to be--the one that is actually true to you. 

I often worry when we talk about topics like the essence of human nature, the journey to knowing yourself, or becoming enlightened--all of these grandiose concepts that are super important but can feel really idealistic. I worry that some people will think it is all too abstract and not think there is any value in it. But that is why I love talking to people like Shaddow, who infuse their experience, their personality, and their authentic story into the conversation to help make it real for others.

My guest today, Kevin, is the CFO, Founder & Co-Host of Next Level University, a Global Top 100 Self-Improvement Podcast. As Kevin explains it, "in his twenties he had it all: a beautiful girlfriend, high paying job, sports car, his dream body"-- but it wasn't enough. He still struggled with depression, anxiety, and a lack of self worth. After he hit rock bottom he decided to go all in on holistic self improvement and improving his mindset. Eventually he evolved enough to the point where he is today, where he can help coach, guide, and inspire others to achieve that same level of self improvement. 

Real talk, when you first read that it would be easy to be cynical and say, "Oh great, another self improvement coach with a podcast talking about easy ways to improve your life." I get it, there seems to be a lot of them out there and it is easy to get jaded. But as I often say, that is why I love doing this show. I get to have conversations with people like Kevin and learn about who he really is. I get to hear how hard he has worked, for years, to overcome his issues. I get to see his value of "humility" in action as he talks about his missteps and the tough lessons he's learned a long the way. I am really glad I've been able to overcome some of my own insecurities so that my cynical side didn't win out and allowed me to have this beautiful conversation with Kevin.

We covered a lot of ground in this one, talking about the pros and cons of caring what other people think, how to balance humility and confidence, and why it seems so hard to be a good person. He had such interesting, insightful, and authentic thoughts on all of these topics. And what made those thoughts even more valuable was that he rooted so much of it in real life stories and experiences he's had. That made it that much more tangible and impactful. 

It is easy to claim to be a self improvement expert and try to make a few bucks, it is much harder to do the pain staking work to figure out your own shit and push yourself every day to try to continuously improve, in the hopes of helping others. Kevin falls into the second category and I thank him a ton for being on and sharing his perspective with me.

One of my favorite types of episodes is when my guest has a really thoughtful, deliberate point of view and we can walk down the thread to try and understand it at a very deep, meaningful level. This was that type of episode. My guest, Dr. Capellan started with her most important value being "living up to her full potential." So we started at the beginning; how do you know what your full potential is and what you are supposed to be living up to? From there we worked through it exploring things like the intuitive voice that tries to guide us, the role our subconscious plays, limiting beliefs (the good and bad of them), and understanding if we are predestined to achieve certain things.

As a way of background, Dr. Capellan is the Founder and Director of Transformational Coaching Certifications and is an internationally recognized and award-winning educator, coach and TEDx speaker. She is a former lecturer at the University of Miami, Herbert Business School, a leadership and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion speaker and trainer, and a certified executive coach. She is currently writing a book, Leadership is a Responsibility, about her career journey experience as a Black Hispanic woman in Academia, the stories of Black women in the workplace, and the need of responsible leaders to create a more equitable society.

It was interesting to learn more about her background as well and some of the experiences that led her to this work. We even leaned in a bit and spoke about racism and discrimination to understand why that person might think those beliefs are them actually living up to their full potential. One of the most useful and interesting parts of the discussion was when Dr. Capellan shared her "best version of yourself" exercise. We've probably heard of some form of this before (kind of gets to the "What would Jesus do?" concept) but, as I always try to do on this show, we pressure tested it to understand how it really works, what challenges it might have, and how it worked for Dr. Capellan personally. 

There are often times on this show where I like to wax philosophically with my guest. We can get very abstract and theoretical and just explore concepts with no guardrails or limits. I think there is such beauty and value in those types of conversations. But sometimes, it is equally as valuable to ground ourselves in science and data. We still explore those same philosophical concepts, but we do it through the lens of research and empirical evidence. Because when you do that, it makes you look at things from a different perspective, it forces you to be tighter in your logical assumptions, and it challenges you to think in a new way. That is what I "loved" about this conversation with my guest Aaron. He brought an immense wealth of knowledge, research, and data to one of the most abstract, philosophical topics you can imagine-- Love. 

As way of background, Dr. Aaron Ahuvia is an author (The Things We Love: How Our Passions Connect Us and Make Us Who We Are) and a Professor of Marketing (University of Michigan, Dearborn campus) and research psychologist who has been ranked in the top 2% of all scientists in the world across all disciplines by an independent study from Stanford University. He is a leading expert on brand love and has won numerous awards for this work. He has presented research or consulted for Google, L'Oréal S.A., Samsung, Maybelline New York, Procter & Gamble, Audi, General Motors, Microsoft, Ford, and many, many others. And maybe most importantly, he believes love is the most important value of them all. 

It is hard to summarize this discussion because there were so many interesting discussions, debates, and insights. We talked about the evolutionary history of love, the debate around ethical egoism, the machine like nature of our brains in making decisions, and perhaps my favorite part of the discussion--given all of the scientific explanations of what love is; do we still think it is this magical phenomena that we often are led to believe? Or is it just another in a long line of biological processes we perform without any real thought or free will behind it? Furthermore is it even a good thing that we have the ability to dissect these human experiences/phenomena to try to make sense of what they really mean? So much good stuff in this one.

My guest today, Marie, has had an amazingly tragic, yet beautiful life. We didn't get too deep into the tragic part of it in the show so I will give some of the background here. When she was fourteen she became a mom and was in a very toxic relationship which she stayed in for 25 years. She had three more children, was victim to domestic abuse, drugs/alcohol, and infidelity (by both her and her husband). She also experienced the tragic deaths of her father, sister, and niece (which was particularly horrible as her sister had a bad reaction to the wrong medication and was hallucinating when she dropped her daughter out of a window). For many people that would have been enough and for Marie it almost was. She had bouts with depression and suicide where it just seemed like life was never going to be OK.

But that is where the beautiful part comes in. Marie eventually got out of that toxic relationship and married a new man who she loves deeply. She took the lessons she learned from her experiences and realized that she needed to find "honesty" and a relationship with God to get her back to where she wanted to be in life. For Marie, a relationship with God meant having a reason and a method to hold herself accountable. Having the ability to figure out where she could be better, where she needed to make changes, and where she could be more honest with herself and the world. Eventually she took all of this wisdom she gained and wrote a book called The Pretty Divorce, where she tries to help women realize that they have the ability to come out of toxic relationships, create brighter futures for themselves, and have healthy relationships with people who truly love them, if they so choose to do so. 

I appreciated so much Marie's raw authenticity and sharing stories of where she gets it right but also where she gets it wrong. It made the insights she was sharing that much more potent. We also spent a good bit of time talking about her relationship with God and what that looks like, as well as the importance of parents embracing honesty and accountability with and for their children. This was truly a beautiful conversation and I appreciate Marie a ton for being on.

Growth is such an interesting concept to me (and my guest, CK). In many ways it seems like growth is not something we choose to value but is inherent in who we are as humans. When we were given the "gift" of consciousness it set us down a never ending path of trying to find new and better ways to grow. We want to develop new technology, new tools, more revenue, more resources, personal growth, professional growth, and on and on. This has obviously brought us a lot of amazing innovations throughout human history, but is there a shadow side? Is there a "curse" to our consciousness and the never ending search for growth? This was much of what we discussed during this episode. 

As way of background, CK is a tech entrepreneur who started a company called Taggun which uses AI to automatically process receipts and invoices for customers. CK is fascinated by AI and thinks there is so much value to making it accessible for everyone. This is right in line with his core value of "growth." We should be using this amazing technology to grow even more as a society. But at what cost, at what risk? CK was incredibly thoughtful about all of these questions and the implications of growth, making it for a really rich conversation.

One of my favorite parts of the conversation was when he spoke about his optimism for humanity, despite the potential risks of an unquenchable thirst for growth. We were discussing the similarities between AI and the human mind and CK's take is that there is still so much unknown magic in how the human mind works that cannot be built into any AI system. It is that same magic that he believes is going to save us. There is something in our consciousness that allows us, no matter how bad we screw up as humans--and we screw up a lot, to find a way to recalibrate and course correct. There is something deep rooted in us that brings us back to "good." I sure hope he right.

Cassandra has been on a journey focused on teaching others to find their authenticity, to have effective/healthy relationships, and to better communicate with those around them. She has been on this journey to help others, in many ways, because she has been on a journey to help herself. Cassandra went through some pretty terrible traumas in her life, including being sexually abused when she was younger, and more recently when being hit by a drunk driver she finally began to realize the importance of figuring out how to be at peace with herself. 

As way of background, Cassandra is an author ("Being Whole"), professor, communication consultant, and motivational speaker. She chose "authenticity" as her most important value because she believes that is the key to dealing with your trauma and ultimately finding peace. What I loved about having her on as a guest was the awareness and raw honesty with which she spoke. At one point she was explaining some difficult times in her life, where she had this overriding feeling that something was wrong with her even though on the surface everything seemed like it should be fine. I think most of us find ourselves with that feeling at some point in our lives, so it really resonated to hear her speak about it and how she worked her way through it.

Towards the end of the show we had a really interesting conversation about kids and parenting; and specifically how much we should try and teach kids these lessons and life tools. We tried to understand the implications of engaging them in this type of deep self reflective and empowering work at a young age, as well as the implications of not doing it. It is obviously a tricky path to navigate, without clear answers, but we both agreed the more we can introduce our children to these concepts at a young age, the better off they and the world will be.

Brent is a Los Angeles native who, inspired by 9/11, got fluent in Arabic, earned a grad degree in Egypt, and then worked as a CIA counterterrorism analyst from 2010 to 2015. His work included tracking ISIS external operators and extremist psychology. He also recently published an LA Times op-ed comparing radicalization trends between ISIS foreign fighters and US political conspiracy theorists. This all made for a really interesting backdrop for our conversation. Brent is someone who has seen the ugliest aspects of human nature first hand, he has extensively studied the psychology behind this ugliness, and he has thought a lot about what it tells us about human nature and our future.

Brent's most important value was "curiosity" because through all of his work and research, he has found that being curious is the thing that allows us to connect with other human beings on a genuine level, rather than being controlled by fear or tribalism. This is especially important today when the media and digital technology seems to be designed explicitly to use fear to exploit our reptilian brain. But if we can be curious and try to better understand the source of our fear and the true nature of the "other" person/group, it gives us a chance for a better outcome. This is not meant to be an idealistic state, where everyone loves everyone and agrees all the time. Our cultures, experiences, and genetics (among other things) will always lead us to see the world differently from one another--and that is OK. The goal is to be curious about those differences rather than fearful of them.

We rounded out the discussion talking about the human need to be a part of a group. Brent believes that often, whether it be a religious group, terrorist group, political group, or what have you, we choose to align with these groups because of what we stand to gain rather than because we actually believe what they stand for. That need to be a part of group is deeply embedded in our coding from the time of early humans, which again speaks to the point that we need to be actively curious at all times so that we can address these primal thought processes when ever they arise.

Marcus is the founder and creator of RelativeVisionTv & Media, where he gets to live out his passion as a Director, videographer, photographer, and journalist. Marcus believes there is so much more to share and show the world than the limits the current media networks provide. A lot of this is rooted in his desire to leave a legacy for his son and his community. He believes playing your part in your company and making a positive impact is what the game of life is all about. Ironically though, the way you can most effectively play a part in your community and help others, is by focusing on yourself first. 

As Marcus explained it throughout the episode, you have to have self confidence and clarity about who you are before you can even begin to think about navigating the world around you. There is way too much fear, bias, insecurity, anxiety, propaganda, and hate in the world to ever be able to make a positive impact if you don't start by figuring out your self. So we spent a lot of the discussion probing and exploring how you can figure yourself out. Not in a gimmicky, 5-step approach or anything like that, but a much messier, realistic way. We leaned into the challenges and tried to find useful approaches to TRY to do this work. That is an important distinction, because at best we are all trying to do this work and figure it out. We never get the luxury of feeling like we've finished the job.

The other aspect of this conversation I really appreciated was Marcus' humility and openness. We all have our own beliefs and preferences on what we think is best, but Marcus is very careful to never allows himself to think he knows better than anyone else. Some people believe in God, some people don't. Some people want to make as much money as they can to have nice things, some people want a simple life focused on family. Some people love meditating on the beach, some people love being out in a big city surrounded by people. Marcus understands each of us has our own path to happiness and wellness, so he does not judge anyone. He just hopes each of us continues our work down that path because that is the way we heal the world.