What's the value?

I was super excited to talk to Tricia because the focus of her work is to "teach teenagers to be happier, one habit at a time." I am a strong believer that if we want to improve society we need to start with kids. I am also a firm believer that "happiness" is something that we should strive for in life, so I was eager to hear more about Tricia's perspective. As she explained it when she says happiness, she means the type that "comes with a sense of purpose, lasts long term, surfaces to keep you going when you have something boring or overwhelming to do, and keeps a little light on for you when you’re going through a dark patch."

Tricia believes that "creativity" is the way to achieve happiness because when you realize that in every moment you have the ability to create something, life becomes more expansive and enjoyable. This is especially true for teenagers, because typically their days feel very regimented and restrictive. School runs on a very specific schedule, there are very strict demands on what they must do, and it is very easy to forget about the power of creation. So Tricia's goal is to reactivate that creativity and empower them to be excited about how they choose to spend their time.

We didn't shy away from some of the obvious, potential concerns some might have about her work. Some might say it is too idealistic; life is about structure and not always getting to do what you want. Others might say we are already coddle kids too much, so trying to indulge that further is going to cause more problems. And others might say all these "soft skills" Tricia is trying to teach sound nice but don't actually apply to real life. We explored all of this and tried to objectively assess and work through them.

What I was most impressed by in this conversation, was that even though it was focused on "softer" skills/topics, Tricia applies a deep logic in what she does. She doesn't dismiss the importance of structure, limitations, and struggle; she just wants to make sure we aren't forgetting about the importance of creativity and happiness as well.

In 2014, at 21 years old, Harriet had just completed her degree and was traveling with her best friend when they were hit by a car traveling 101mph. Her friend was killed on the scene and Harriet woke up one month later in a very different world, one filled with an insurmountable amount of pain and with no idea how to fit back into her old life. She went through a long recovery that left her in a wheel chair, a traumatic brain injury, and a mental breakdown; at one point she actually believed she had died in the crash and she was now in hell. 

When you spend your time searching for the meaning of life and trying to better understand how we are "supposed" to live, it is unbelievably insightful to talk to people who have been through experiences like this. The perspective Harriet has on suffering, grieving, mental health, relationships, and many other things is so valuable; because it has all been pressure tested by one of the worst experiences anyone can have. 

Interestingly, through all of her experiences, Harriet has come to believe that "consistency" is the most important value. By consistency she meant both the consistency to commit and put in the work to get to the outcomes you want in life, but also consistency in being true to yourself. As we talked about on the show, there are so many examples today of people being inconsistent with their words, beliefs, values, and actions. We say we are worried about safety or justice but we are willing to unfairly hurt others to achieve it. We say we are worried about intolerance or hate, but we are willing to tear other people down to get our way. 

Circling this back to Harriet's experience, she explained how being honest and consistent with herself was the most important aspect of her recovery. The world is not always fair, it is not always beautiful, and it is not always kind. Therefore you have to do the work for yourself to figure out who you are, what matters to you, who you want to be in this world, and then stay consistent to it, in spite of everything the world might throw at you. 

Creation was the value Daniel (an autodidact, business owner, and podcast host- https://theallunknowing.com) chose for his most important value. Daniel chose creation because he believes our ability to create is our greatest tool to improve the world. He also believes logically, if we exist, then improvement must be our main objective. What else could we be working towards other then to make the world the best place we can?

The problem comes, as it always does, when we try to lock down what "best" actually means. We tried to look at obvious examples of "creating human improvements" (e.g., plumbing, medicine, AI, social media, or any other example you can think of) to determine if the world is really becoming a better place. But none of them seemed objectively net positive. Even if you look at the reduction of human suffering as a clear marker of human improvement, you have to ask, among other things: how do we measure suffering, on what time horizon are we measuring, and is every reduction in suffering inherently a good thing? As we explored these questions, we constantly ran into this dichotomy of life, where we know we must strive to be better but we have no idea what better means.

All of these questions led to a discussion of hatred as an example of how this dichotomy could lead to our demise. Because we can never turn off the need to improve; it eventually leads to some of the ugliest aspects of life. Maybe hatred was just humans taking something functional like anger and optimizing it too far. Maybe thats what we always do; we take things like survival, or pleasure, or happiness and we optimize them until it becomes negative. 

Following the thread through this discussion is a great example of what I think Daniel meant with the value of creation. Connecting with another human being to generate new thoughts and insights on questions like these, is maybe the best chance we have to break that dichotomy. I really appreciate Daniel for bringing his perspective and for exploring all of these topics with me.

Sometimes I find it really insightful and enjoyable to think about common concepts or ideas and dissect them. To try to go beyond the words we normally use to convey their meaning and think about them at a much deeper level. In this conversation with Sofia we ended up doing that with the word "pain." Sofia started off stating "growth through trauma" as her most important value, so that set us down the path of understanding what trauma or pain actually is. So often we think of it as a negative thing (and rightfully so), but how do we make sense of the fact that so much growth and positivity can come from these same negative experiences? 

To step back for a second, Sofia is a law student, researcher, and podcaster (Raw Paradox Talks); but ultimately she is someone who is fascinated by the human experience and wants to understand it as best she can. She is also someone who has experienced a lot of trauma in her life, so when you put those things together you get a really thoughtful, genuine discussion about trauma and the role it plays.

What I found myself thinking about the most after this conversation, as I mentioned up front, is how inadequate words like "pain", "sadness", and "suffering" are in explaining what we actual experience as humans. How do we make sense of the world if some of the basic tenets are unreliable to us? How do we reconcile the fact that we want to feel "good" but must feel "bad" to do so. Most of us agree that pain is a necessary, sometimes beautiful part of life, but we take that idea for granted. How often do we question what kind of world it is that we live in where something that at a very base, primal level seems so bad for us, but is actually a source of beauty? 

If this sounds like really abstract thinking, I get it, because it is. But that was the spirit of the conversation Sofia and I had. Just two people who spend a lot of time thinking about life and the various experiences we've had, trying to make some sense of it.

Connor is a film director, writer, and traveler. He has a degree in Creative Technologies and works as a video producer for Bright Trip and Debutify, but he also spends almost all of his time traveling. As Connor puts it, "I've traveled to 35 countries to try and understand humanity’s tests and treasures." He values "community" and connection above all and is constantly seeking out novel perspectives and experiences. Traveling and gaining new experiences is the norm for Connor, as his father was in England's Royal Navy and they moved constantly when he was a kid. But he has carried this through to his adult life, with a major goal to bike all across the world.

I love talking to people like Connor who have cut their own path in life and are deeply reflective about the choices they've made. Too often the "normal" reaction to someone like Connor is to assume they haven't figured out what they want to do with their life or they are not mature enough to settle down. I see it completely differently though. I think having the courage to follow your passions and values, despite the risks and the push back from society, is actually a sign of extremely high self awareness and maturity. 

All of this makes for a great episode because that same courage it takes to live authentically, usually results in having really open, genuine conversations as well. There are certain people you speak with where you realize pretty quickly that you both are willing to "bring the walls down" and just speak honestly. And it is in those conversations where you can learn the most, about the other person but also about yourself. So it was no surprise in this discussion that we spoke about Connor's story, how he approaches life, and his goals for the future, but also spoke a good bit about my personal journey through life as well. 

As Connor explained with his value of community, finding moments like this to make a true connection with another human being is a special thing. Hopefully this episode inspires all of us to go out and do more of the same.

Bill is someone who was born in the 1950's and grew up in a culture where "men were men." His dad was a WW2 veteran and society told Bill that men were not supposed to be sensitive or emotional. From an early age though, Bill struggled with this and it wasn't until much later in life that he realized he actually had a highly sensitive personality trait (which about 20% of the entire population--men and women-- also have). He eventually became a psychology major and an author who spent a lot of time working to understand more about this trait.

He has since published two books called, On Being a Sensitive Man, Success Strategies to Harness Your High Sensing Nature and, Confessions of a Sensitive Man, An Unconventional Defense of Sensitive Men. And as Bill puts it, "I wrote these books for every man or boy that was told that they are too sensitive or too emotional; that they aren’t man enough or masculine enough simply because they feel more, sense more, and experience a broader range of emotions."

This made for a really interesting and dynamic discussion. Bill is really knowledgable on the topic so he was able to explain the scientific and biological aspects of highly sensitive people; but we also dove into the societal and philosophical implications of it as well. Is high sensitivity an adaptive or maladaptive trait? Do we think older generations of men can ever be comfortable fully embracing this trait? If more men tapped into their high sensitivity would we have been able to defeat the evil in the world like we faced in WW2? 

Some of these questions were intentionally provocative, in the spirit of the show, to really try to explore the implications of being highly sensitive. And Bill was great at providing really thoughtful and candid responses to all of them. In the end, I think Bill is right that we need to embrace who we truly are, whether that be highly sensitive or not. That is obviously much easier said than done, but hopefully as we continue to evolve as humans it becomes much more prominent.

"Humans are not a 'thing', we are a process." This quote, which is representative of this conversation with Tara, was really fascinating for me. On the one hand Tara very much sees the world the way I do. She is intellectually curious, she is constantly searching for answers and ways to grow, she is very cautious about becoming too dogmatic, she is often in her own head spinning out thinking about philosophical topics, etc. But on the other hand she has to come to a very different approach in life. Unlike me, who has continued to lean into the search for answers because I believe it is the only way, she has decided to keep searching but not actually care at all about finding the answers.

We talked about it on the show, but to me that approach almost seems insane. Why would you ever look for something if you don't actually care about finding it? Tara was super insightful though in explaining how this approach works for her. She used the analogy that she is "intellectually dating" with different philosophical approaches to life. She recognizes life is far too complex to ever land on one answer, but she still does see value in being out there playing the field to try to glean insights from the various thinkers of the past. Then she uses those insights in a very fluid and agile way to move through life and apply the right insight at the right time (or at least she is trying to).

As a bit of a background, Tara was someone who has had the gift (or maybe curse) of being extremely self aware from a young age. That resulted in her having a hostile relationship with her own mind and ultimately a hostile relationship with life. Eventually that led to some pretty severe alcoholism, which she battled for over 15 years. In many ways she used alcoholism as her tool to detach from the struggles of searching for answers in life. Now she has found her value of "not being too attached to any one value" as a much healthier tool to utilize. This was a super insightful conversation and I really appreciate Tara for being so thoughtful, open, and reflective.

My guest Dan is an author who recently wrote a book (A Heartbeat in Danger) discussing the difficult and complicated journey of a young girl contemplating having an abortion. Given that and Dan's value of "faith in Jesus" many people might think "great another person spewing out reasons why we should all go to church and ban abortions." I'd be lying if I didn't say I thought that might be the case too. But I can't tell you how far off that would be from reality. I mean obviously Dan does have a deep faith and belief in Jesus and the teachings of God so we did discuss that, but there were two aspects of Dan's faith I found super insightful and beautiful.

The first is that Dan's faith isn't blind faith. He discussed how he grew up in the church and for many years it was pushed on him without a choice. However as he got older and had certain life experiences, his faith was severely tested. He truly questioned the role of religion, God, and faith and in the end made a very conscious choice to have a relationship with Jesus/God. Dan also talked about how the "rules" of formalized religion can be detrimental and can cause us to forget about the essence of what Jesus was actually trying to teach us.

The second aspect of Dan's faith that I loved relates directly to that last sentence. Dan never wants to preach to anyone or judge anyone for their beliefs, decisions, or actions. It does not mean he always agrees with them, but he understands (much like the God he believes in) it is never our role to judge or criticize others. Faith has taught him that life is about embracing the complexity of the world we live in and choosing to try to love and help our fellow man. 

If Dan expects God to love him despite all of his flaws then he needs to love others despite theirs as well. I recognize that can sound like bullshit or nice words that don't really have any meaning or substance. But as you listen to this discussion with Dan, I think you will realize that he has worked very hard throughout his life to make those words real and I appreciate him for that.

Anna is a subconscious mind communications and re-coding specialist and the CEO of Quantum Mind Academy. She is also the author of an international bestseller: Escape Your Matrix: How to Master the Game of Life. Anna states that in five steps, she teaches people how the subconscious mind works and why you need to understand and recode it.

I often talk about philosophy on this show, but my first love in trying to understand human nature was actually psychology. I am a firm believer that the subconscious is a fascinating, complicated, and potentially dangerous part of our minds. So I was really excited to talk to Anna and dive into what the subconscious actually is, how it has evolved over the years, and what it means to "recode" it. Anna explained how understanding and working to recode the mind is critical to achieve her most important value, "freedom of the mind." Without that we are somewhat blindly enslaved by "programming" that was set in our adolescence.

Of course I had to get into some of the more philosophical aspects of the subconscious mind too and we had some really interesting discussions around it. Some of this included topics like, is the subconscious trying to protect us or sabotage us and is it a gift or a curse that we have developed a conscious mind that can reflect on the pros/cons of the subconscious? Maybe the most interesting insight from the episode was when Anna explained that our minds are not "us", they are just like our hands or our eyes--they are just tools we use to interact with the world. 

We so often associate ourselves with our thoughts or at the least assume our minds are the most significant part of who we are. To think that it is no more significant than our hand is a really fascinating thought. It does beg the question though, if not our minds, then who is the true "us?" We will save that philosophical discussion for another episode though.

Nicole is a licensed Mental Health Counselor that helps people use ketogenic dietary therapy as a treatment for mental illness and neurological issues. She uses a variety of nutritional and functional methods of treatment in her work and provides evidence-based psychotherapy, which supplements the years she spent as a "traditional" counselor. In this context, "traditional" means a counselor who practices with a focus on behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, and dialectical-behavioral therapy, with medication as a major tool to help patients.

This ties to Nicole's value of integrity, because she believes there are too many pharmaceutical and food companies that aren't being honest with their customers. It is not that everyone involved is evil or deliberately trying to hurt others but, for various reason, the result has been a system that is more focused on profit than integrity. Perhaps the leaders of these companies actually think they are doing some good (providing drugs to improve mental/physical health, low cost food options for impoverished people, etc.) but have lost sight of the big picture and what really matters. 

This type of topic and line of discussion is ripe with assumptions, biases, and blind spots. We don't actually know what is going through the heads of the CEOs or doctors involved. Science very rarely has conclusive evidence, so even the various studies that seem to support these claims can be refuted with other studies that provide counter evidence. So Nicole and I factored all of that in and spent a good bit of the discussion trying to entertain the possibility that there was more to the story than we were aware of. 

What I really appreciated about Nicole's approach was that, even though it was evident she has a lot of passion and frustration around this topic, her goal wasn't to prove she was right or that nutrition is the answer to all of our problems. As she stated, she just wants people to be more informed about what they are putting in their body and what options they have for potential treatments.