What's the value?

I talk about some changes I am making to the show for season 2 and what to expect from the conversations going forward.

I spend a lot of time thinking about suffering. As I work through all of the conversations on this show, it is what I keep coming back to. We live in a world where it is almost all a mystery. If you dig deep enough, nothing really makes sense, at least in the traditional logical sense. The only thing that seems real is pleasure and suffering. We know, logically, viscerally, emotionally, and intuitively the feelings of pleasure and suffering.

This has lead me to a conclusion that the only concrete value to consider is one that tries to reduce unnecessary suffering. There are far too many instances of it in our world and we should be actively trying to reduce it, however we can. That is why this conversation with Jake came at exactly the right time (and is a perfect way to cap off the first season of What's the value?). Jake is writing a book called "The Art of Suffering: A Guide to Deriving Beauty from Life's Inevitable Pain."

Jake believes that life is a great mystery and the best thing we can do is engage that mystery in a "congruent" way. Since we live in unavoidable subjective blindness (i.e., the great mystery), the closest thing to objective truth is being congruent, or being free of internal contradictions. Said another way, Jake approaches life by diving head first into the mystery of life, with full acknowledgement that everything he thinks, feels, and believes is ultimately outside of his control. So he doesn't try to control it, master it, or challenge it; instead he surrenders to the greater intelligence that is the universe; and just goes along for the ride trying to learn and experience as much as he can.

The natural cynic in me spent a lot of time trying to question Jake about this Buddhist like approach. I wanted to understand how you can surrender to the universe when the universe has generated so much horrific suffering? How can we surrender to something that has not given us a solid reason to trust it? Jake and I had a really good discussion about all of this, but maybe the most notable take away was how Jake kept holding the mirror up to me. How all of these thoughts about needing to minimize suffering likely say much more about me (how I was raised, my lived experiences, my genetic make up, etc.) than they do about the universe.

Sean has been playing and creating music for over 30 years. He has spent most of his working life as a self-employed freelancer, playing in a jazz trio at wine bars, editing audiobooks, creating websites, and playing electric guitar with an orchestra. As you'll hear Sean explain, towards the end of the show, he is one of those people where music just made sense to him from a very early age. There is a real magic to it that allowed him to feel some comfort in a world that otherwise seemed impossible to navigate.

Interestingly though, we spent most of the show talking more about his philosophical and scientific views. Sean spoke of acceptance as his most important value, very much in the Stoic sense. He has struggled in his life with anger issues and poor coping mechanisms, so he uses the Stoic approach to try to stop his emotions from controlling him. On script with Stoic philosophy, Sean's goal is to try to separate himself from his visceral reactions, his social conditioning, and his ego so that he can understand the world around him more objectively.

We spent a good bit of time exploring these ideas and trying to understand if there is any shadow side to them. Does an approach that centers on acceptance force you to become cold and dismissive of other people's suffering? Does the utility of Stoicism cause us to devalue the human/emotional aspects of life? We also tried to make sense of why human's need a philosophy like Stoicism to live a better life. Why do we need to learn how to be human rather than just being able to trust our natural instincts?

As often happens, we also spoke about the meaning of life and the existence of a "god." Sean falls into the category that so many of us fall into, where we don't have any strong rational reason to believe there is a meaning to life or to try to make the world a better place-- yet we feel compelled to do so anyway. He spoke about not wanting to be a nihilist, even if it may seem like the most logical conclusion. Exploring these ideas with someone who is so thoughtful and diverse in their thinking was a real pleasure for me and I hope you all enjoy it as well.

Sandhya is an author and anti-oppression consultant with 20 years of community organizing experience. She particularly loves helping organizations get Diversity/Equity/Inclusion teams off the ground. These types of topics are really interesting to me, not only for the obvious reason of how important they are to reduce unnecessary suffering, but also because they speak directly to the complexity of human nature. Trying to understand the root cause of oppression and inequity (which I think is critical to actually addressing the issues) requires you to understand human nature.

This made for a good discussion because Sandhya has tons of practical, hands on experience working with individuals and organizations in these areas. We were able to explore the theoretical concepts as well as the real life implications. She started with "accountability" as her most important value because she believes in impact over intent, or as she put it we should always honor intent but we must acknowledge impact. By that she means that we can't take our hands off the wheel, we can't just assume we are good people, or that because we didn't intend to harm somebody that harm wasn't caused. We have to do the work to see what impact our actions are actually having.

The other thing I really enjoyed about talking to Sandhya is that the conversation covered religion/spirituality, history, philosophy, and psychology. We really tried to look at these issues from all angles to understand them. We talked about power dynamics, racism, if we should care about other people's children as much as we care about our own, black lives matter, and Bacon's rebellion-- just to name a few.

I'll be honest, I am still not sure we as humans are capable of overcoming some of these deep rooted issues that have plagued us throughout history. But it always gives me hope to hear the stories of someone like Sandhya, who is doing the work to bring people together, share their stories, and find ways to focus on what connects us rather than what divides us.

My guest today, Byron, is a great illustration of what makes life so amazing, but also so tricky. He realized at some point, after spending years being overweight, bullied, and lacking self-confidence, that the key to life is to put yourself out there, try more things, and constantly seek growth. He totally transformed himself and his life.

In many ways it is a beautiful story. Byron got healthy, got confident, and built his own business. He is now an author, speaker, and high-performance coach (www.byronmorrison.com), working with CEOs from all across the globe to help them maximize their time, lead with confidence and grow a business without losing their sanity. He did the hard work and he became "successful." He created a life that should allow him to have no regrets.

That is where the tricky part comes in. It is true, that if you are committed, if you adjust your mindset, and if you do the hard work necessary you will see results. But how do you know if those results are better? How do you ensure that you new mindset that is driving you towards growth, isn't also creating stress and tension that stops you from fully enjoying life? How do you know that you aren't just succumbing to societal pressures and conforming to an inauthentic version of success?

Byron had some thoughtful answers to these questions, as we kicked them around. I valued his answers not just because they were logical and addressed some of the concerns I raised, but also because he acknowledged that some of those concerns might be valid. He was super open and transparent about the struggles he still has trying to find balance between chasing his aspirations and living a well rounded life. He talked about the seduction of success and how ironically, in his constant search to minimize regrets, he could easily find himself with plenty of regrets at the end of his life.

I think what makes Byron so qualified to do the work he does, is his consciousness and awareness of all these challenges. He doesn't claim to have the secret answers to life. What he does claim is that there is a tried and true approach to change your life, but part of that approach requires you to constantly reflect to see if the changes are actually making your life better.

My guest today, Tim, has a really diverse and interesting background. He's trained martial arts for most of his life, he's been a successful serial entrepreneur, he's studied under Buddhist monks, and he's now a high performance life coach. He wants to use all of these experiences and learnings to help shift the world into the most inspirational and connected place possible. That is what Tim is about, maximizing potential.

As he put it during the show, humans in many ways are god-like but we don't realize it. We have such an amazing ability to connect, collaborate, and create; but often we get caught up with so much other baggage that we don't take advantage of it. That is why integrity is so important to him. He calls it a "container" value, that allows you to effectively pursue all the other values while still holding you true to what matters most.

We spent a lot of time trying to determine what maximizing potential is really all about. Is it just exciting and fun, is it functional, is it moral, is it divine? Tim has a belief that we all have a purpose that we should be trying to work towards, so that is why we should be trying to maximize potential. So we tried to dissect that "purpose" concept too, to understand what it actually is. Where does our purpose come from, do we choose it or it chooses us, how do we know when we found our true purpose, etc?

As we often do, we got into the realm of subjectivity and nuance. These theories and concepts all sound good in the abstract but what do they actually mean in our day to day life. So to try to make it more real we looked at a recent instance with my son, where it appeared to me the nuance of the situation made it impossible to know for sure how to proceed.

What I appreciated so much about this discussion was the passion Tim had. You could feel it come through at times when he talked about his purpose and the ability for humans to create. I still wish I knew exactly where that passion came from (at a first principle level), but regardless I still aways enjoy experiencing it.

My guest, Matt, recently published a comedic memoir about religious upbringing, "Swept Up: Lessons From the End Times" (https://amzn.to/3I2rqB2). The book includes "tales (and lessons) from church, home-schooling, and a few strange years at a major evangelical university."

This background helps explain his value of "self-honesty, because as Matt put it, he was raised to rely on certainty to guide him through life. From a very young age he was taught about God, heaven, hell, and the other various religious doctrines of Christianity. For a kid like Matt, who from a young age tried to question and understand things, this made life really difficult. He found himself in a constant state of anxiety and stress, worried that any wrong move might lead to his eternal damnation.

Worse yet, as he tried to make sense of it all he found himself with more questions than answers. How could everyone be so certain about this God and these rules we are supposed to follow? Would God really send me to hell if I don't follow all the rules exactly? Why aren't we allowed to acknowledge there are some things we just don't know for sure?

I really enjoyed this discussion with Matt, because so much centered around the question of: what do I do in the face of uncertainty? If I am not sure there is a God, I am not sure what the meaning of life is, and I am not sure if there is a universal moral code to follow--then what do I do? Matt and I tried to work through this and make sense of how we live day to day with all of this uncertainty.

We also spent a good bit of the discussion trying to empathize with those who do completely submit to the concept of God. We even put ourselves in the shoes of a parent or devout follower who feels they do know for sure that God is real and has given us directions to follow. If you truly believe that, what is the right way to live, the right way to raise your children, the right way to talk about God with others?

This was a really fun, engaging, and thought provoking conversation and I thank Matt a lot for opening up so much and sharing his journey.

Josh (author, PhD, SEO/AI expert-- http://youtube.com/jbachyns) started the show by talking about the concept of agathos and how he is a radical optimist. Agathos is a greek word, with a lot of meanings, but Plato most famously used it to mean "the good." By "the good" he meant the ideal or most optimal good that exists. So when Josh says he values agathos or that he is radical optimist, he means there is nothing more important, nothing more logical, and nothing more obvious than focusing on the ideal good.

It is interesting because typically I think people process that one of two ways. The first is to generally agree with it and to view it as obvious. Of course we all want "the best possible good", what else would we want? The other way is to be cynical and to focus on the fact that it sounds nice, but we have no idea what "the best possible good" actually means, therefore it isn't actually practically useful. I tend to take the second approach in all things, so we spent a good bit of the show trying to understand, question, and test what Josh actually meant.

Much of the discussion centered around the inherent subjectivity of the concept. Who decides what is the ideal good, what time horizon are we using to evaluate if something is good, what if something is good for one person but bad for another? I won't do Josh justice in explaining his responses to these questions here, so I will let you listen and decide what you think.

To give you a flavor though, maybe the most intriguing insight was when Josh responded to the subjective vs. objective point. He views a blending of these two concepts, where the way we identify the "objective" good (or ideal good) is based on looking subjectively at all the information, data, trends, human experiences, etc. as exhaustively as we can, and then making the best decision we can in that moment. Kind of a subjective objectivity.

The other thing that stood out in this episode, was how confident (dare I even say certain) Josh was in his perspective. I asked him about that too, if it worried him at all how confident he was, about how sure he was he had an unique ability to see the world more accurately than so many other people? Certainty is always something that concerns me, but maybe it takes people like Josh to push us to reach outcomes that wouldn't have otherwise been possible. Or maybe we are all just a bunch of apes trying to make sense of the unexplainable.

What I enjoyed about this conversation with Anmol, was the juxtaposition of the personas he seems to have. On the one hand he appears to be the prototypical "finance guy." He is a high end trader, with nice clothes, and helps people make millions of dollars using his specialized investing approach (Learn more about it and his book here- https://preppingforsuccess.com/). Money and returns appear to be his guiding stars and he isn't ashamed about it.

But then, Anmol is also deeply reflective, spiritual, and focused on morality. He realized he had a gift for understanding the psychology of traders and decided to use that to create tools to help others better their lives. He openly admits that most of the work that it takes to be successful can be done by anyone, it is just hard and boring. There is a humility and philosophical mindset that isn't just geared around money and expensive things.

Maybe that has been one of my biggest learnings in doing this show, something I should have known since I was 6 years old-- the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" thing. People, like Anmol, are multi faceted. It is possible to be a hard driving finance professional, who also understands the role of spirituality in your life and desires to serve people beyond yourself. Just because I have preconceived notions of people and want to put them in a box does not mean that is the way the world actually works.

We can only know that though through conversations like these. Only in being curious, probing, and questioning can we allow our minds to put aside our biases and actually understand someone for who they are. I am glad I did that with Anmol, because it allowed me to better understand how he balances these different "personas", what is actually most important to him, how he developed his moral compass, and what it is about trading that makes him feel so alive.

A big thanks to him for being on and letting us peak through his perspective for a bit.

My guest, Josh, and I had a really good conversation about resiliency (his most important value). His life is an example of the rewards you get from being resilient. He's an author, founder and CEO of an AI company (https://inquisio.ai/), Mayor and City Council member, and a veteran of the US Marine Corps (among other things). Josh will be the first to admit though that not all of these things came easy to him and took a lot of persistence, humility, and competitive fire to achieve.

We spent a lot of time during the discussion trying to hone in on some of the key aspects of resiliency, to really try to understand it. We explored where resiliency comes from (is it genetics, developed over time, random, etc.?), why resiliency is so important (are we inherently lazy or selfish and it addresses those issues), why some people don't value resiliency, and lots of other interesting questions about a really important concept.

What I found most interesting about Josh, was that he had a very pragmatic approach to life, but it was rooted in a philosophical perspective that allowed the whole thing to work. He mentioned how his resiliency developed because from a young age he felt compelled and drawn to things that scared him. Whether it be wrestling, spiders, joining the Marines, etc., if something generated fear in him he had to go towards it. He was able to do this because he has an understanding that on a very macro level, fear doesn't matter.

If you take a long enough perspective on life, the universe, humanity, you realize the little blip that is your life is pretty small in comparison. You can almost think of it as two "realms", the universal realm (where fear doesn't really matter) and the individual realm (where we live day to day) where fear seems to matter a lot. Josh has been able to distinguish between these two "realms" and that has allowed him to push through, face his fears, and overcome obstacles that he might not have been able to otherwise.