Delve into profound discussions led by a.m. bhatt on humanity, intrinsic motivation, systemic change, and societal values. Explore the importance of engaging with inner passion, individual giftedness, and aligning personal growth with societal needs. The episode highlights the challenges of initiating meaningful conversations, measuring productivity, and the quest for meaningful engagement beyond compliance.
You can find a.m. on Instagram and TikTok at @absurdwisdom. We are produced and distributed by DAE Presents, the production arm of DAE (@dae.community on Instagram and online at mydae.org).
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. While we make every effort to ensure that the information shared is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or correction of errors.
You can contact us at daepresents@mydae.org.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
a.m. (00:00):
No, is to be within a specific discipline, a specific
world, a specific reality toknow is extremely useful for
getting things done within thatparticular discipline or world
or reality to be an effectivedoctor or a pastry chef or a
(00:21):
financial analyst.
There's much that is critical toknow, but knowing by its nature
is bounded by, and in factreinforcing of, the reality
within which it occurs.
For 25 years, I've worked withexecutives in large
organizations, grad students,tech entrepreneurs, religious
leaders, and no doubt mytoughest client, myself.
(00:42):
I'm developing the capacity toexplore what lies beyond
knowing, beyond certainty at apractical level.
This work is required for thingslike innovation, but more
importantly, I found that thisinquiry is critical for
maintaining one's humanity.
Oh, and if you're generousenough to be listening to these
conversations, I respectfullysubmit that at any point, if you
(01:04):
feel you understand what I'msaying, you're not listening
deeply enough.
I'm a.m.
bhatt.
Welcome to Absurd Wisdom.
And for today's conversation, weare continuing the ongoing
series with Ben Heller, CTO ofDriver Technologies.
Let's jump right in.
I mean, I've had one topic thatI've been figuring out how to
frame up.
To not lose what I, what I'mtrying to point to, but not be,
(01:26):
you know, triggering in theconversation on some, some
legitimately and rightfullysensitive areas.
So let me see if I can do itlive on a mic.
So the best analogy I got isthis one.
And then I'll start with thismaybe instead of, you know,
naming the thing first.
You know, concussions infootball are a real thing.
And long term damage and, andmental health issues and, you
know, incidents of, of playersengaging in extreme acts of
(01:48):
violence that are directlyattributable to repeated brain
trauma are a real thing.
And if you bring up like it's,it's March right now, you open
up a conversation aboutconcussions and football and the
need to really, you know, kindof take a more humane approach
to, you might get somelistening.
You get some people say, ah,shut up, come on.
It's a sport they choose toplay.
Right.
But for the most part, youlikely get some listening.
(02:09):
Try opening up that conversationthe week before the Superbowl.
Nobody wants to hear it.
Like not only do they not wantto hear it.
Right.
And so this thing That is aboutnot a, it's, it's a, it's at a,
at a, at an order higher thanthe game, right?
It is in a domain outside of thegame.
It involves the game, but it'sin a domain outside the game.
It's about, you know, sort ofjust basic humanity and, and,
(02:31):
and yeah.
But you try to have thatconversation, Super Bowl week,
man, you, you, you get framed asan idiot.
As a snowflake, as a, you know,what, pick your thing, right?
And the only question peopleentertain is, what side you
rooting for?
So here's the sensitive part ofit.
You know, for quite some timenow the most extreme example of
this is what's happening inPalestine.
And really, you know, theconversation I'm wanting to have
(02:53):
is not about the situation.
acknowledging of the, you know,complexity and, and, and I can
very much see, you know,perspectives of the rightness
and wrongness of one side or theother.
Right.
I have a particular opinion onit.
Right.
But the level of intolerance forany sort of conversation in the
last year and more and more aswe go along.
(03:15):
For the equivalent of theconcussion conversation for the
conversation about just basichumanity, and it's not about
what side you're on.
And I get what side you're onmatters.
Not just because it's youropinion.
I mean, it could matter in thesense of right and wrong, right?
The equivalence I have is sortof like, Like, I don't know if
you could do this anymore.
There was a time where you couldbe a conscientious objector in
World War II, be a conscientiousobjector and say, but I will go
(03:36):
to, go into battle and I'll be amedic.
Like, Right, like I acknowledgethe thing is happening.
I acknowledge there's the thingwe need to do, you know, World
War II We yes, we do need to goover and support the Allied
forces but I am at a Committedto a game that's at a higher
order.
And so I want to play thathigher order game in the context
of this Lower order and I willacknowledge necessary perhaps
(03:58):
game But it's a game that I willnot participate in at that level
But I will participate at ahigher level, which is, you
know, the level of humanity.
That conversation is notpossible these days on any
issue.
On any fucking issue.
It's whose colors you'rewearing.
Whose banner you're flying.
Whose team you're rooting for.
And any meta conversation aboutthings that are timeless, to go
(04:21):
back to how you and I firststarted in conversations,
timeless and timely.
Any attempt to introduce aconversation about things that
are timeless and about, broadlyabout humanity gets met with
certain, very specific kind ofanimus from, from both sides.
And again, let's take it out ofthat very, I don't even know
what to say about the situationthat I started with and take it
(04:41):
to any aspect of publicdiscourse right now.
Thank you.
There's no tolerance for themeta conversation for timeless
for for opening up andacknowledging and caring for the
things that are Again I can'tfind a better word for it than
at a higher order than theConflict itself than the
discussion itself than the superbowl itself So that that's been
(05:02):
on my mind a lot For months andmore and more acute As we move
along And as we enter,specifically what's, what's,
what's brought it Even more intothe foreground for me is again.
I've talked about this like I'vespent I have like beautifully
navigated for 25 years workingon really, really, really big
things totally in thebackground, just invisible.
(05:24):
You know, it's great.
And now with this thing, there'sno, you know, I can't write.
And so I got to do press and PRand all this shit and and
increasingly.
I find we are, you know, it, it,it feels like we're about to
start being invited more andmore into public discourse on
some issues.
I feel compelled to be morepublic in some of these issues.
(05:45):
The, you know, the, the, theDalio report and 119, 000
disengaged, 18 to 14 to 26 yearolds thing is just.
There's so much I feel compelledto say about that publicly,
right?
And and so, so this is on mymind around, you know can, how
can I have that converse theconversation I'm wanting to have
that isn't about, are you on theside of fixing the schools or
(06:05):
burying the schools and goingwith a new model, fixing
government's relationship or,or, or, you know, changing or
fixing corporate America'srelationship to, or, you know,
like.
I get it.
Those are legitimate battles inconversation, but that's not
what I want to talk about.
So anyway, I'll stop there.
I think I've laid out theterritory probably a little too
well.
Give me a chance to respond.
Ben (06:25):
No, this is great.
It's a, I don't think I know ourlistenership well enough to
know.
what would make them angrier, aconversation about football or a
conversation about the MiddleEast, but maybe we'll take a
third,
a.m. (06:39):
this conversation
Ben (06:40):
about education and public discourse and the ability to
have a healthy conversationabout anything.
Whether regardless of the topic,
a.m. (06:48):
you know, our audience, I'd say Middle East.
Sadly in the country, probablySuperbowl.
Ben (06:54):
That was my suspicion.
But you know, there is a pointat which I think you enter into
the public sphere enough thatpeople begin asking you
questions that expect you tocome down on one side or the
other of these kinds ofdifficult polemics.
And the question is, is like, Doyou need to, just because
(07:17):
someone asks the question, doyou have an obligation to answer
it in that way?
And as an educator, can youranswer be, well, our job is to
create a generation of peoplewho are going to take that
question and acknowledge thatquestion and then break it apart
Sides that are not right andwrong and to see it in a
(07:37):
multifaceted Detailed way andactually by in some ways dodging
the question recrafting thequestion re engaging with it
seriously, but on a differentaxis is that actually a
demonstration of the methodologythat you'd expect like the
product of someone who's gonethrough DAE To, to deploy when
(07:59):
asked something that is really,truly leading, right.
It's leading you to saysomething that's going to get a
rise out of someone.
If you, if you say black orwhite, half of the people in the
room are going to, you know.
began to you know throw theirhands up and up or but if you
you come in and say Well, youdon't maybe purple, maybe gray
(08:20):
than that kind of upsetseveryone a little bit because
it's not catering to their theirworldview of right and wrong.
So.
but it at least starts theconversation.
And so the question is how doyou actually do that?
How do you respond in a form ofdiscourse that's acceptable,
that feels like a continuationand a response and not a
(08:41):
sidestep.
a.m. (08:42):
My response to black and white though, where I'm trying
to navigate, and this is like,so we're like doing live, I'll
share an anecdote that happenedabout you shared one about
somebody listening to thepodcast.
I'll share one with you a littlelater, but What I'm real time
trying to figure out, Ben notfigure out just, just what I'm
sitting with is my response toblack and white.
I don't want to get to purple orpink or gray.
(09:03):
My response to black and white,I want to get to sweet and sour,
right?
Like I want to point to adifferent domain.
I don't want to point to new, toother options within the domain,
because I think the work is inanother domain.
The issue of 119, 000 disengagedkids isn't in the domain of
curriculum.
job opportunities, economics,all those are important, but
that's not where I want to havethe conversation because I don't
(09:24):
think that's where the actualleverage is.
Ben (09:26):
So where do you want to have the conversation?
a.m. (09:28):
I created this little short video, the 119 K
commission.
They formed this commission.
It's, it's a bunch of mayorsfrom around Connecticut all the
cities basically.
And then the co CEO of the Daliofoundation formed this
commission, had their firstmeeting last week.
And one of them had asked if I,if I would, you know, they were
taking like public juststatements and just ideas and
thoughts and, you know,whatever, again, just kicking
the thing off.
And one of them asked if I, if Iwould come and I couldn't, I had
(09:49):
a previous commitment, but Icreated this little video.
And So I'll, I'll respond to youwhat I said in the video.
Engagement for a human being,let's say, let's stick with
these 119 kids 19, 000 kids.
Engagement doesn't look like,Okay, we have to figure out how
to convince them that they canhave meaningful careers.
Engagement doesn't look like wehave to help convince them that
they can be, you know,productive parts of society and
(10:10):
feel good about themselves.
Engagement doesn't, mean we haveto convince them that they're
smart enough or good enough tobe in computer science or
manufacturing or whatever,right?
Engagement doesn't mean we haveto provide them financial
resources to be able to get toand from, you know, development
programs, all of those thingsare critical and absolutely must
(10:32):
get worked on.
But if that's all you do, you donot get engagement, you get
compliance.
Because the reward forcompliance, at a certain point,
you'll get a, you'll hit atipping point where the reward
for compliance is high enoughthat the person will say, okay,
cool, I'll do it.
That is not engagement.
That is not motivation.
That is compliance.
And at a certain point, that'llburn out.
And it says in the video, and ifyou want reference point of
(10:54):
that, look at corporate Americathe last century.
You know, we can incent you tokeep paying attention and keep
showing up.
That is not engagement.
That is not motivation.
Engagement is only one thing.
It is intrinsic.
Engagement is I'm engaged withmyself.
I am engaged as an individualhuman being alive on this planet
(11:14):
with a sense of why I'm here andhow I want to him have an impact
and how I want to live.
From that place now choosing acareer skill set, all these
things.
Yes.
You know, so it's not do one orthe other, but if you only do
these other things, theseextrinsic incentives for being
engaged the best you're going toget is compliance and you're
(11:35):
going to, you know do high fivesand celebrations because you'll
get the compliance short termand you'll say, look, we did it.
We won.
We fixed it and you will havefixed it for a period of time.
And again, see corporate Americafor cycles of remediation on
things like this.
But what you will have actuallyhave done longterm is you will
have made the problem worsebecause at a certain point, the
incentives aren't enough and thedisengagement actually deepens.
Ben (11:57):
So how do you measure engagement, which is, is a far,
far more subjective measure ofsuccess.
And, you know, we're notparticularly good culturally or
institutionally at polling and abroad audience for, for
something that's really a kindof personal measure of
(12:18):
motivation, right?
If I'm, if I'm engaged on atopic, I could be engaged for a
moment, I could be disengagedthe next moment, but what we can
rather measure instead of theactual engagement is the knock
on effects of the engagement.
You know, what did, what wasproduced, what was generated,
(12:40):
what are, what are the artifactsthat kind of came out of
engagement and then how do youdeduce that engagement actually
As a result of the things thatyou can observe more directly
than the engagement itself.
a.m. (12:51):
Yeah.
And so, so this is it though.
A lot of the things you'repointing to from your aren't
engagement there, they'rebyproducts of, and they are more
easily measured.
It's, it's like we've got a lampin the room here.
Ben (13:00):
Yeah.
a.m. (13:00):
It's plugged in or it's not.
Right now it can be plugged inand it's not giving off any
light.
It's not transacting, but thatsucker is plugged in.
It's ready.
And when you flip it on, it'slike, and then you measure it
and you say, Oh, it's working,but it was working before you
flipped on the light becauseit's plugged in.
This is a phenomenon pointing towith human beings, right?
These kids are not plugged in tothemselves though, to the, to
(13:22):
the, to the source of, ofthemselves that would have them
light up when now they go andencounter this piece of
curriculum, this jobopportunity, this, et cetera.
Right?
Yeah.
That's, that's what I'm pointingto.
Ben (13:33):
I'm gonna zoom out for a minute'cause this is touching on
something I was thinking about abit this week, which is, you
know, the extent to which peoplebelieve in themselves as being
important and fulfilling animportant function.
It came to me in the, in thecourse of participating in a, a
workshop in ai up in Hartford,and it was actually fabulous.
(13:56):
Great speakers.
I learned a lot, but what I sawand most of the talks was people
grappling with and coming toterms with the ways in which
these tools are going to makethem more or less relevant And I
saw a concern that the personalrelevancy of everybody in the
room as a ongoing force feltlike that was diminishing, like
(14:20):
everything that they'd done upuntil now is really just become
part of the training set.
And someone who is better andfaster with these tools will
come and use those tools.
To achieve more than they evercould.
You know, the people say, well,you know, AI is not coming for
your job.
Someone who knows how to use AIis right.
(14:42):
But that also leads to this kindof, well, who is that someone
who knows how to use AI, whydoes it matter?
Well, that's a person who iscomfortable with the rapid
acceleration of productivity.
And that's what we're actuallytalking about.
Sometimes that's exciting.
And people see that as veryexciting.
We can be more productive inspaces.
(15:03):
We don't have to waste so muchtime with boilerplate or tasks
that, you know, we couldactually spend more of our day
out engaging with ourselvesgenuinely because all of the
cruft is taken care of by thisnew type of automation tool, but
it also represents a rapidacceleration.
And if you're not okay with thatacceleration.
And you also see the ability todo things the long way, the slow
(15:25):
way, going away and beingreplaced by other people who are
more willing to use those toolsto engage in that endless
snowball effect.
Where do you see yourself worth?
If you're 16 right now, andyou're looking at the next 25
years of your life, your workinglife, where do you see yourself
(15:46):
fitting into that?
Do you embrace being part ofthat rapid acceleration and say,
all right, well, I just got togear up for this, or do you
have, do you struggle to seewhat your self worth is?
And I think if you're reallylistening to a lot of the hype
cycle, it can be, it can be hardto feel like there's a place for
(16:06):
you where you can contribute andbe valuable.
And I see why engagement in theface of that might be actually
at an all time low.
And, you know, we need kind of acycle of people seeing these
tools put to use and realizing,no, this isn't maybe the sea
change that I thought it wasgoing to be, or it is that, but
(16:27):
there's still room for thisother thing.
And for us to like empiricallyactually hold this new
technology and this new way of,of doing things.
In our hands for a moment and tofeel its impact because right
now there's just a lot of forlack of a better word, just
dread about what the future isgoing to hold, especially for
somebody at the beginning oftheir careers.
a.m. (16:48):
Underlying that Ben for me, those, the, the, the sort
of, you know backgroundassumption of, of the fact that
my worth is connected to.
My productivity, my output and,and you know, I need to upgrade
my skills so I can keep beingproductive because if I not, I
don't exist.
That's the disease.
This is where you might talkabout like wanting to have meta
conversations.
(17:08):
Like I say that to policy peopleor to a corporation or to a
large foundation.
They're like, yeah, that's cool.
Well, thanks for coming by.
Well, you know, like, becausethere's no, you know they, they,
they don't know how to act onthat.
They don't know how to, or theyactually going to take it
differently.
They want to act on that.
They want things they can act onbecause again, they're part of
the same trance of what's theproductive next thing to do.
(17:30):
And again, that's not anargument against when we,
oversimplify here because justfor the purposes of, of, of, of,
you know, getting to a point,but Like we are hunter
gatherers, right?
Like the three of us, you know,likely the males were going out
and, and killing the, you know,the mammoth, right?
The three of us go out and youlike, reliably are the best
(17:51):
hunter.
Right?
Like, like 50, there's three ofus, but like 60, 70 percent of
the time when somebody killssomething, it's you, right?
Back in the village, what'sgoing to happen is you're gonna
get fed more.
Right?
Not as a reward, but because itis in our collective interest
that you should be thehealthiest.
We're not going to be left tostarve, but you are going to get
(18:12):
fed more and better cuts.
And that that's actuallycollective good, right?
Where it gets weird is then youstart to think, yeah, yeah, I'm
fed more.
I also maybe should have aspecial house.
And that rock over there, if youcarved it in my image, You know,
like that might be cool, right?
That's where we get weird.
And we have the society we havenow, but my point is that, that
(18:33):
even then productivity matteredfor the collective good, but
neither Scott or I would bedevalued as part of the
community.
Our identities were not tied tothat productivity.
We were part of the collectivein a, in a, in a certain story.
And so the thing now, and thenwhen it started to get weird and
might have gotten weird and daytwo, right?
(18:54):
I don't know.
I wasn't around, but it'scertainly weird.
Now is when those two things arecollapsed.
My inherent value as part of thecommunity is separate.
And as an individual being inthis story is separate and apart
from my productivity value,which is also critical for our
survival.
And should be acknowledgedthrough more meat for you
because you're the bettersurvivor you know hunter.
(19:14):
So you're gonna make sure you'rethe healthiest, right?
We've collapsed those two thingsand, and radically collapsed
them in the last hundred years.
I just so excited.
We've been doing it, you know,for quite some time, last
hundred years, we have soaccelerated that where there is
no distinction between my valueworth existence and my
productivity output.
And it's, it's.
It's fucking barbaric, you know?
(19:36):
And then you throw on iteverything you're saying of,
Okay, everybody, you're 42, yougotta reset.
You gotta learn all new thingsso that you can still have worth
as a human being.
Ben (19:46):
For me, there's a bunch of kind of fuzzy bits in and around
productivity, you know,productivity on behalf of
something like nebulous andunjustified is, is what I think
of when I think of productivityas you're using it, but to play
a little bit of a language game,there's aspects of productivity
that border on exploration anddiscovery where you're, you're
(20:10):
unlocking.
And it's not for the sense oflike a manic, let's, let's make
sure we stay on the merry goround, but really because there
is a sense of progress that isinnate in the idea of us wanting
to reach the next rock.
But we don't have to do that asfast as possible or as
(20:33):
efficiently as possible.
And so kind of playing these twogames of not wanting to be fully
stationary, to want to engage inexploration and discovery, to
reach out and see what thepotential is, and then pull back
and engage with it at a pacethat works for us, that finds
value in the action.
(20:53):
I think that's how you keeppeople engaged.
Because as long as you'refeeling like engagement and
meaning is derived from beingthe most productive, which I
think is an assumption.
A lot of people leave schoolwith or enter the workplace with
is if I'm the most productive, Iwill derive the most
satisfaction out of this.
(21:15):
I'll receive the most praise.
And therefore that's how I'mgoing to Measure myself at
every, every stage.
And there's some distant goalthat it's never really well
defined.
That is the point at which,well, I'll do that.
And then maybe I'll chill out.
That's when I will have reachedstability or I will have reached
(21:36):
some point at which I can let goof this idea, you know, for me I
think of like lawyers trying tomake partner, for example.
Well, guess what?
Like once you make partner,you're responsible for the
success of the whole firm.
Do you think that's the point atwhich you sit back and relax?
I don't think so.
Right.
And so you, you have this deeplyingrained kind of need for that
(21:59):
feedback loop and it becomes theonly way, you know, So the
question is convincing peopleearly on in the process who are
coming out of earlier stages oftheir education or personal
development to believe inprogress and believe in their
own capability to achieveprogress, but without doing it
(22:20):
in a kind of a hollow,repetitive, externally demanding
way.
Okay.
a.m. (22:26):
And what do we offer?
99.
9 percent of workers is hollowexternally defined way.
Right?
That's, this is the challengebecause, the God is efficiency,
right?
And so shut up and do your job.
Now, we have a much kinder andgentler approach to it through
decades of.
Putting, you know, layers ofvelvet gloves on the, on the
(22:48):
steel hammer, but it's still asteel hammer.
You know, we say the rightthings.
We position it the right way andwe do these job enrichment
things, but it's the samefucking hammer, right?
And, and it's not even, youknow, the productivity is very
specific.
It's output, right?
It's not exploration.
It's not, it's output.
How many did you put out?
Did they hit at the right time?
(23:09):
And where they have sufficientquality, right?
Again, important going out andkilling that mammoth important
if we're going to live.
So not like we should throw thataway.
We can't, we don't survive, butit's, you know, again, we always
kind of, for me, I always comeback to, you know, kind of
foundational principles, whichis, again, we don't live in a
story anymore.
And so when all there is, isthat economy to live in.
(23:32):
Human being withers.
It's a miracle.
It's a fucking miracle to methat a 16 year old is willing to
get out of bed given, given whatthey're told about the world and
how absolutely non stop with theinternet and social media how
absolutely non stop themessaging is about the world
It's a miracle they get out ofbed.
(23:53):
And you're talking about, Oh myGod, they're disengaged.
Of course they're fuckingdisengaged.
What are you talking about?
Of course, employees aredisengaged.
Of course, you know,
Ben (24:01):
Now, since I always threatened to turn this into a
film club, I, you know, this is,this is something that we've
been trying to figure out how toarticulate for, for decades, and
we've been broadly aware of it.
And it reminded of the Kurosawafilm, Ikiru.
a.m. (24:15):
My favorite film of all time.
Have we talked about this?
Ben (24:17):
I don't, we have not.
No.
It's literally
a.m. (24:19):
my favorite film of all time.
Ben (24:20):
All right.
That's I might've guessed youknow, do you want to summarize
it for, for those at home?
You know,
a.m. (24:27):
I mean, sure it's an aging bureaucrat who finds out he has
cancer and does what people do.
He first tries, you know.
hitting on women and I've neverhit on enough women and maybe
that'll be it.
And then he tries booze and hetries, you know, and the
punchline of it is there arethese women in this, you know,
little kind of corner town nextto a bridge whose kids have
nowhere to play.
(24:47):
And this bureaucrat pushes andpushes the system and oversteps
his bounds and gets that damnpark approved.
And he dies happy.
Because he knows kids are goingto play in the park.
Ben (24:58):
We should we'll put a little spoiler alert before we
tee that one up, but it's a,it's a wonderful film.
It's a really moving film.
It's, it's also one of my, oneof my favorite movies.
And it, it, it sort of capturesthe spirit, I think of what
you're talking about ofsomeone's lifelong sense of
productivity and engagementbeing entirely defined by
(25:20):
compliance.
And then suddenly having kind ofa end of life outburst of
realizing that the way that hefelt he'd been compliant and
productive.
It wasn't actually achievingpositive change in, in his
neighborhood and where he livedand for the people around him.
And then he did it.
You know, he, he has this momentwhere he, he breaks out of that
(25:42):
mold and the sadness from itcomes from it being kind of too
little, too late in some ways.
But it's a very reflective, filmand I don't think there's too
many people who watch it.
And.
Go to work the next day.
It's a real watch a movie andcall in sick kind of experience.
And it really, I think, hits onexactly, exactly what you're
talking about, is this issomeone who found engagement and
(26:05):
took his whole life to be ableto do it.
So how do we help people whootherwise, for lack of that, are
going to head towards compliancebecause they don't know any
better and the world around themis going to tell them that
they're doing a good job.
And if they don't haveconfidence, you know, in their
own internal definition of that,which frankly, it's really
difficult to have that type of,confidence, you're going to go
(26:29):
through the route that is kindof culturally validated for what
it means to do a good job and toexpect anybody in their teens.
Or really at any age to havethis unrelenting confidence in
the, their own vision of what itmeans to, to do good.
It's not really a reasonableexpectation.
You know, there's sort of therare person who, who has that
(26:52):
and followed that.
a.m. (26:53):
As always Ben, I appreciate these conversations.
Because now we're at the, thisis the conversation I want to
have with the government andwith school districts and with,
you know, there's a, there's aline from a Rabindranath Tagore,
the Indian writer, philosopher,poet.
So the man who plants treesunder whose shade he will never
sit begins to understand themeaning of life, right?
(27:15):
That we have built a society.
On my fulfilling my egoic needs,my, just feeding my face,
feeding my, my bank account,feeding my, just me, that's
cool.
You know, we like food.
We got lunch here.
We're going to have it a littlebit, you know, we like
experiences.
I like, I like being able toafford the criterion channel so
(27:36):
I can watch Ikiru whenever Iwant, you know?
But I've just, when we, when weused to run the MAOL and so many
of the MAOL principles areembedded in DAE, because they've
just been, you know, the mastersin leadership that Mel and I ran
for, for many years you have todo a breakthrough project and a
breakthrough had four elementsto it.
A, it's impossible.
It's not hard.
It's not difficult.
It is from, from, you know, inthe context of where you are
(27:57):
today, it is impossible.
There's no way to do it withincurrent reality.
Second, it has to be bigger thanyour self interest.
It can include your selfinterest, but it inherently must
be bigger than your selfinterest.
I'll leave you dangling on threeand four for the audience, but I
have consistently found thathuman beings don't become fully
sort of awake and engaged andliving until they're, they've
(28:20):
attached themselves.
They surrendered to somethingbigger than themselves.
Not at the sacrifice ofthemselves.
Martyrdom is just as toxic as,as, as living just for your ego,
right?
Because martyrdom is justanother form of, of egoic
behavior.
So not at the sacrifice ofyourself, but, but at work on
something bigger than yourself,something that can't get done in
(28:40):
your lifetime, but you're onlygoing to be able to put some
bricks onto.
Which again, Ikiru, right?
That, that little part, biggerthan himself, he will not live
to see what the value of thatis.
We offer no one, certainly notkids, an invitation to work on
things bigger than themselves,than their own self interest.
(29:00):
That's considered like, like nonprofit work, and you do that if
you don't care about money.
Or, you know, you're, you're asnowflake or a, you know,
whatever we want to characterizethese things, right?
But I think it is fundamentalnutritional context for a human
being to have access to that.
And it's why we start withstudents.
Ground zero is day one, weekone, month one is what's the
(29:24):
impact you want to have in theworld?
Not what do you want to get foryourself, but what do you see in
the world?
That you'd love to be able tosay, I helped that be better, I
helped that move forward, Ihelped that, right?
And then, and, and you want tomake a billion dollars out of
it, awesome.
You want to make, right?
That, that, that comes later,right?
But that's the conversation I'mwanting to have with these
people is to say your, yourentire frame of reference.
(29:46):
We'll keep ensuringdisengagement and the best
you'll do is get situationalcompliance.
Feel like you won and in anothergeneration it'll be even worse.
It's been getting worse everysingle generation since World
War II.
Despite all the progress and allthe new tools and all the new
gadgets and all the neweverything, every successive
generation is more and moreburned out, disengaged, and
(30:08):
confused.
Ben (30:09):
So how do you turn that around?
a.m. (30:11):
Fuck if I know, this is what's keeping me up.
I'm trying to figure out evenhow to introduce the
conversation that doesn't soundlike, oh, that's nice.
Where's your beggar's bowl wecan drop a few coins into?
This is lovely.
Everyone, isn't that lovely.
Oh my god, that's great.
Okay, now we're gonna get on tothe work part of the meeting.
Like, I'm trying to figure outjust to have the fucking
conversation so it doesn't justget, you know, turned into that.
(30:31):
Because this is a very practicalconcern I'm pointing to.
I'm not pointing to philosophyor, you know, do good, whatever.
I'm talking about real,practical, that through decades
of experience we've learned,works and has an impact, right?
And I'm trying to figure outeven how to have the
conversation, let alone, what doyou do, you know?
At scale I know what to do youput ten people in front of us I
(30:53):
know what to do.
We know what to do I mean thesense of the I'm not know what
to do, but but we can engagewith that, right?
At the scale of the state thecountry the world, you know, I
Don't know.
I'm again.
I'm just trying to figure outhow to have the conversation
publicly
Ben (31:05):
The first step is I think Having these conversations and
having it not be that tokengesture having it not be well,
we'll fund you just enough toallow you to run the experiment
so that we can say that wesupported something alternative
in air quotes, which is anotherform of sort of compliance is
showing, making a show of havingtried differently while being
(31:30):
very much tied to whateversystem has become the status
quo.
You know, most of the peoplewith the money to support
something that could bedescribed as alternative
education or alternativeculture.
to, to, to have it because theysucceeded in the current system.
And so it's very difficult tosay, well, I'm going to work
against the system that rewardedme.
And actually, you know,dismantle it.
(31:52):
Even though it's what I know andwhat I'm comfortable with,
because the reality of it, it'snot, it's not the same thing as
saying, Hey.
We're, we're, we're asking youto make a sacrifice.
You know, if you're takingsomebody who has a particular
vision of the world and you'resaying, I want you to support
this other way of functioning,that's actually going to be
(32:13):
terrifying.
It's going to be scary anddestabilizing.
It's not just asking somebody totake a risk or to try something
different or a change inperspective.
It's actually, it's.
It's going to be emotional andinvolve some amount of
existential shift in terms ofwhat that person's legacy is and
contributions have been and howthat's going to fit into the
(32:34):
future.
And some of, sometimes theselike paradigm shifts happen and
we just can't stop them.
So you have to embrace it.
I think that's what we'reexperiencing with the kind of AI
shift that we're seeing now.
But what you're kind ofarticulating is we need a
different one on a differentaxis in a different space and
it's not happening on its own.
So how do we actually start,like start the landslide, start
(32:59):
tearing away the supports sothat it becomes inevitable.
And so people feel that motionand say, you know what, I have
to go with this.
I have to find a way to getthrough the discomfort.
And these two things are workingagainst each other, they're at
odds.
And so either you have to do itwith no funding and no support,
and it has to come completelyfrom the outside, which isn't
(33:21):
unheard of, or you have to findsome truly, you know,
exceptional ways to see thatsomething alternative can be
supported by mainstream cultureand education.
a.m. (33:32):
Yes.
Ben (33:33):
Good luck.
a.m. (33:34):
That's exactly what I'm sitting here with.
I was like, fuck, you know,like, so yeah,
Scott (33:38):
I was looking at the the 119K commission website and
looking at the mission and stuffand it, it designates 119, 000
at risk or disconnected or thewords that are used.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To me, at risk means thatthere's some sort of, you know,
investment that can be made at abigger level, you know, maybe
into the families of these kidsto make sure that they have
(34:01):
support systems in placeindirectly or directly and
disconnected.
But then you scroll down to theplan and it's like.
Basically saying, get themdiplomas and get them jobs, like
you were saying, like, you know,we'll just use the same thinking
that we've always used, butthat's why we're here in the
first place.
So I think, you know, theconversation needs to be not,
you know, what, but why, like,why are they, why is there
(34:23):
nothing for them to latch onto?
Why is there, feel like there'sno out, there's no reward, you
know, for them to try.
There's no intrinsic motivationat all.
So it's, it's interesting to seehow it comes out and, you know,
the Dalio Foundation has somemoney they could start the ball
rolling is that, is that toomuch of an ask?
a.m. (34:40):
I listen, it's an important sort of thing.
And I found myself saying this alot.
I haven't met the, met the badguy.
You know what I mean?
I haven't met the bad guy.
Like the Dalio folks seem reallygenuine, like genuine.
The politicians seem genuine.
The school administrators, Godknows, seem genuine.
Like, I haven't met anybodywho's like, no, no, no, no,
we're going to keep this aproblem.
Like, quite the opposite.
(35:01):
Like, I've met people fairlyconsistent.
I've met a couple ofopportunistic folks.
There's one guy who wanted to,sort of leverage our business to
get access for his business andnonsense.
But, but, but the people in, in,in power and control at the
steering wheels.
I haven't met the bad guy, orthe bad woman, or the bad human.
I, I think it's, it's a deeperproblem.
I think it's our world view,it's our, it's the sort of, you
know, the operating system thatwe're, that we're moving from
(35:24):
is, is, is the challenge, youknow.
There's, there's this you know,I'm an org psychologist by
formal training, although Inever use this stuff, right, but
you know.
You know, Maslow's hierarchy ofneeds.
And there are other models ofthis, right?
Well, that, that peer, he neverdrew that pyramid that was like,
like idiot consultants that cameafter him, needed something to
sell.
Right.
And so what, what it's that, anda couple of the theories that
have been misrepresented haveled people to believe is that,
(35:46):
that these things aresequential.
If we get you fed and then getyou housed and then get you in a
productive job, then.
You can become altruistic orself actualized or transcend or
these things, right?
It is not a sequence, right?
I've talked about my own life.
Like grew up without indoorplumbing, you know, outdoor
latrines, barely anyelectricity.
(36:07):
Our hygiene needs, right?
The, the, in the psychologicalterms, right?
The psychological hygiene needs,safety, et cetera.
We're not met.
The higher order needsabsolutely were.
Right.
I knew who I was.
I knew where I belonged.
I loved the world.
I loved being alive as a productof the relationships I was in,
mainly my grandfather.
(36:28):
And so, so one of the things Ican see to do is practical in
terms of having thisconversation is to try to
separate, although I've triedthis in the past, you know, it
still leads to, you know, sortof confused looks is to try to
separate this, the sequence.
So we can give these kids, andwe should give these kids and
their families economic supportand access.
A thousand percent yes, right?
That will not lead to the higherorder stuff.
(36:50):
It is neither a prerequisite tothe higher order stuff.
You can start working on thehigher order stuff even before
that if you wanted to.
You shouldn't.
We're a wealthy nation by God.
We should be providing peoplewith basic food, housing, and,
you know that sort of thing,but, but one is not the
prerequisite for the other.
And one absolutely doesn'tguarantee the other lots of
wealthy people walking aroundwith no sense of purpose, no
(37:10):
self actualization, certainly nosense of ego transcendence,
right?
And so part, part of what, whatI'm toying with is, is, you
know, how do I frame theconversation to separate these
two things out?
But yes, you should do thesetransactional things to provide
the basic foundationalpsychological hygiene needs of
safety and, you know, all this.
But there's a wholly separatetrack and that wholly separate
(37:31):
track is where engagement lives.
These other things aren't aboutengagement.
They're about survival andthey're critical and again,
it's, it's barbaric thatanybody, you know, can't feed
themselves given how affluentthis society is.
And we should be working on thema thousand percent.
But, but it's separate from whatyou're talking about when you
say engagement and you want kidsengaged, right?
So.
Ben (37:50):
I had a long conversation with a friend who I think I
should just name, you shouldcheck out his work.
His name is Michael Pope.
He's working on a multimediasemi autobiographical piece
called Cinematica.
And, you know, we were talkingabout what it means to work on
something like that and howyou're driven to work on a multi
(38:11):
year long project.
He's been, he's been on thisfor, I think, almost a decade
now.
And he described it and I feltvery affirming of similar
feelings I've had of existing onpure light, on pure energy,
emanating from inside him to thepoint where he felt that he
(38:31):
could be sustained on that lightand work on this project.
and was so driven to work on itthat he was actually partially
consuming himself in the act ofcreation and that he was willing
to do that because he was sodriven to create.
And I remember these earlyfeelings of being, being a
(38:54):
teenager and my mind latching onto certain things and realizing,
Oh, this is it.
This is something that I need toknow.
I need it to be inside me andpart of me and I need to engage
with it because it's justcurious.
Like I can't imagine notgrappling with this.
And when I talk to people whoare learning how to program and
(39:17):
be engineers and are interestedin computers, I remember the
feeling of like, I'm going tosit at my desk for 20 hours
straight.
And I just need to know this.
I need to slurp it all up everylast bit.
And that went like so fast.
I mean, it felt like seconds andit was that, I think that's the
(39:37):
type of engagement that's real.
And, you know, you step awayfrom that, obviously that's not
all the time, right?
That's just every once in awhile you have these bursts
where you just have to integratesomething into yourself.
And I'd love to sit down withevery teenager.
and say like, you may not havefelt this yet, but someday you
(39:58):
will.
And let's explore everythingthat you love to try to find
what is the closest feelingyou've had to this.
How do we get you to feel this?
Because whatever you feel thisway about is the thing that we
should give you more of.
We should help you explore this.
We should create fertileterritory for it.
And for some reason, like,that's not the question we ask.
(40:20):
Like, I love, I love music.
I was a very serious classicalmusician growing up and
practiced a lot, but it waspractice in the vein of
compliance.
Later in my life, I quit playingclassical music and picked up
other instruments.
And I experienced for the firsttime that same like inner light
(40:42):
level drive where like I had tolearn how to play guitar.
I had to, I found one that afriend wasn't using under a bed
and I would stay up all nightlong playing.
And I just needed to know moreand more and to feel that.
And I realized that for years, Ihad been playing music, but it
(41:02):
never felt that about music,even though my identity was as a
musician, that was who I was.
And finally it circled backaround to having that level of
growth and that feeling of thatthing.
And, and to me, that's reallywhat you're talking about.
It's like, how do we and I'm notadvocating for like manic
behavior and not sleeping and,and whatnot.
Like there is the, there is ahealthy way to approach this,
(41:25):
but the idea of being feelinglike you, you are driven to
consume something like that,whatever it is and to make it
part of you is is I think.
Really what you're getting at.
a.m. (41:39):
Yeah, man.
It's, it's, the ego can never befilled.
It is forever hungry.
But if you make yourself foodfor something bigger than you,
you get transformed.
And yeah, the guitar or whateverit is.
And we just don't, I would sayBen the first part of what you
said, you're talking to ateenager, maybe you haven't
experienced this yet.
(42:00):
They have.
It was never named for them.
They might've had it brushedaway.
And so they brushed it away, butevery human being before the age
of five, before the age ofthree, whatever, they haven't
done what we insist upon in thissociety, which is put it into
the right box that has a linearpath, right?
Nothing wrong with the right boxand linear path.
(42:22):
But, but that becomes, again, weget the thing backwards.
That becomes the prerequisitetoo.
But that inner feeling, thatsense of, Oh, I'm alive and can
have this sort of impact.
And when I do, my place inthings makes sense.
The kid experiences that two,three, four months, I don't
know, right?
(42:42):
It's there.
It's human.
And we are sad and disengagedbecause that part of us, it's
human has no fucking place to goanymore.
And of course we're disengaged.
Ben (42:56):
And to your point about, sort of, planting a tree under
your shade, you're never goingto sit.
Like, not everybody is going tohave this experience with the
same thing in the same way.
But once you've had thatexperience, it sort of becomes
your gift.
To the people around you to showthem what it might be like and,
and let them share in that, ina, in a way that gives them
(43:18):
access to it.
a.m. (43:19):
We have gifted it's another thing I used to do talks
on.
We should probably startputting.
I've got so much shit I've gotto put out into the more of the
public, I guess, space to help,you know with clients is great,
man, you know, even withstudents, the way I'd work with
students is, it's like threeyears, four years, five years,
and it's just in relationshipand you can kind of build these
things, you know, versus soundbites and papers and all that,
(43:40):
right?
But there is, there's a bank ofstuff and maybe there's, it is
worthwhile just, justdocumenting it and, and which is
kind of maybe what we're doinghere with these, with these
podcasts.
We've got gifted backwards.
When we tell somebody they'regifted, what we, what we mean,
what we say to them is, oh, youwere given a gift.
Use it well.
That's backwards.
Gifted means that I have a giftto give.
(44:03):
Every human being is gifted.
We don't let people unwrap thepackage.
And so they don't figure outwhat, and once you figure out
the way in which you're gifted,not the thing you were given,
but the thing you've got to giveaway.
Once you figure that out, lifejust gets simple because you
have an unlimited, you got aSanta Claus bag of that thing.
And once you figure it out, seeit, appreciate it, value it.
(44:26):
You're going to channel thatshit.
At the Starbucks when you ordercoffee and in whatever thing
you're doing for money and inyou're just, you're just, that's
just not going to stop.
And now I get my place in theuniverse, but we make it about
what you got.
Again, ego, we make it aboutthe, you're special.
This is the special thing yougot, as opposed to this is the
(44:46):
unique thing.
Everyone has their unique thingthat you're supposed to give
away because you have infinitequantities of it.
Ben (44:52):
I love that.
You didn't just come up withthat on the spot, right?
a.m. (44:55):
No, that's another distinction that we, you know,
that I've played with over theyears of people.
Ben (44:59):
I mean, that really, to me, is the core of everything we've
been circling here.
If, for people listening, if youcan't tell, we go into these.
Pretty cold.
And sometimes it takes us a hotminute to really figure out
where, where's the juicy centerof the conversation.
And I think we, you sort ofbrought us there and I love once
(45:21):
I realized we've arrived, kindof visualizing like, what is the
shape of this thing?
How did, do we just wind in aspiral towards the middle?
Did we go straight for it?
Did we meander off the page andcome back again?
I think that's kind of thebeauty of.
So I'm gonna be really short andkind of go over the topic of, of
the conversation itself.
But as you were saying that, youknow, I, I didn't know that
(45:43):
that's what you're gonna bringup.
We don't have notes here.
It just felt deeply, deeplyright to me.
And parts of these conversationschange how I go and live the
rest of my, my day or my life,and my relations to people and
other conversations I have.
So I'm always grateful for whensomething like that lands.
You know, the only thing I'dchange is maybe support your
(46:05):
local roasters.
Don't go to Starbucks.
a.m. (46:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I I never go to Starbucks.
I don't know why I said that.
Yeah.
Ben (46:12):
But I just gotta give you a little bit of shit.
You, you're too spot onsometimes.
a.m. (46:16):
I just, yeah.
I just, I just, I just, when Ipicked up lunch, I thought I
swung by Willoughbys, one of ourlocal roasters and, you know,
got a cup.
Ben (46:23):
There you go.
Great.
No, is to be within a specific discipline, a specific
world, a specific reality toknow is extremely useful for
getting things done within thatparticular discipline or world
or reality to be an effectivedoctor or a pastry chef or a
(00:21):
financial analyst.
There's much that is critical toknow, but knowing by its nature
is bounded by, and in factreinforcing of, the reality
within which it occurs.
For 25 years, I've worked withexecutives in large
organizations, grad students,tech entrepreneurs, religious
leaders, and no doubt mytoughest client, myself.
(00:42):
I'm developing the capacity toexplore what lies beyond
knowing, beyond certainty at apractical level.
This work is required for thingslike innovation, but more
importantly, I found that thisinquiry is critical for
maintaining one's humanity.
Oh, and if you're generousenough to be listening to these
conversations, I respectfullysubmit that at any point, if you
(01:04):
feel you understand what I'msaying, you're not listening
deeply enough.
I'm a.m.
bhatt.
Welcome to Absurd Wisdom.
And for today's conversation, weare continuing the ongoing
series with Ben Heller, CTO ofDriver Technologies.
Let's jump right in.
I mean, I've had one topic thatI've been figuring out how to
frame up.
To not lose what I, what I'mtrying to point to, but not be,
(01:26):
you know, triggering in theconversation on some, some
legitimately and rightfullysensitive areas.
So let me see if I can do itlive on a mic.
So the best analogy I got isthis one.
And then I'll start with thismaybe instead of, you know,
naming the thing first.
You know, concussions infootball are a real thing.
And long term damage and, andmental health issues and, you
know, incidents of, of playersengaging in extreme acts of
(01:48):
violence that are directlyattributable to repeated brain
trauma are a real thing.
And if you bring up like it's,it's March right now, you open
up a conversation aboutconcussions and football and the
need to really, you know, kindof take a more humane approach
to, you might get somelistening.
You get some people say, ah,shut up, come on.
It's a sport they choose toplay.
Right.
But for the most part, youlikely get some listening.
(02:09):
Try opening up that conversationthe week before the Superbowl.
Nobody wants to hear it.
Like not only do they not wantto hear it.
Right.
And so this thing That is aboutnot a, it's, it's a, it's at a,
at a, at an order higher thanthe game, right?
It is in a domain outside of thegame.
It involves the game, but it'sin a domain outside the game.
It's about, you know, sort ofjust basic humanity and, and,
(02:31):
and yeah.
But you try to have thatconversation, Super Bowl week,
man, you, you, you get framed asan idiot.
As a snowflake, as a, you know,what, pick your thing, right?
And the only question peopleentertain is, what side you
rooting for?
So here's the sensitive part ofit.
You know, for quite some timenow the most extreme example of
this is what's happening inPalestine.
And really, you know, theconversation I'm wanting to have
(02:53):
is not about the situation.
acknowledging of the, you know,complexity and, and, and I can
very much see, you know,perspectives of the rightness
and wrongness of one side or theother.
Right.
I have a particular opinion onit.
Right.
But the level of intolerance forany sort of conversation in the
last year and more and more aswe go along.
(03:15):
For the equivalent of theconcussion conversation for the
conversation about just basichumanity, and it's not about
what side you're on.
And I get what side you're onmatters.
Not just because it's youropinion.
I mean, it could matter in thesense of right and wrong, right?
The equivalence I have is sortof like, Like, I don't know if
you could do this anymore.
There was a time where you couldbe a conscientious objector in
World War II, be a conscientiousobjector and say, but I will go
(03:36):
to, go into battle and I'll be amedic.
Like, Right, like I acknowledgethe thing is happening.
I acknowledge there's the thingwe need to do, you know, World
War II We yes, we do need to goover and support the Allied
forces but I am at a Committedto a game that's at a higher
order.
And so I want to play thathigher order game in the context
of this Lower order and I willacknowledge necessary perhaps
(03:58):
game But it's a game that I willnot participate in at that level
But I will participate at ahigher level, which is, you
know, the level of humanity.
That conversation is notpossible these days on any
issue.
On any fucking issue.
It's whose colors you'rewearing.
Whose banner you're flying.
Whose team you're rooting for.
And any meta conversation aboutthings that are timeless, to go
(04:21):
back to how you and I firststarted in conversations,
timeless and timely.
Any attempt to introduce aconversation about things that
are timeless and about, broadlyabout humanity gets met with
certain, very specific kind ofanimus from, from both sides.
And again, let's take it out ofthat very, I don't even know
what to say about the situationthat I started with and take it
(04:41):
to any aspect of publicdiscourse right now.
Thank you.
There's no tolerance for themeta conversation for timeless
for for opening up andacknowledging and caring for the
things that are Again I can'tfind a better word for it than
at a higher order than theConflict itself than the
discussion itself than the superbowl itself So that that's been
(05:02):
on my mind a lot For months andmore and more acute As we move
along And as we enter,specifically what's, what's,
what's brought it Even more intothe foreground for me is again.
I've talked about this like I'vespent I have like beautifully
navigated for 25 years workingon really, really, really big
things totally in thebackground, just invisible.
(05:24):
You know, it's great.
And now with this thing, there'sno, you know, I can't write.
And so I got to do press and PRand all this shit and and
increasingly.
I find we are, you know, it, it,it feels like we're about to
start being invited more andmore into public discourse on
some issues.
I feel compelled to be morepublic in some of these issues.
(05:45):
The, you know, the, the, theDalio report and 119, 000
disengaged, 18 to 14 to 26 yearolds thing is just.
There's so much I feel compelledto say about that publicly,
right?
And and so, so this is on mymind around, you know can, how
can I have that converse theconversation I'm wanting to have
that isn't about, are you on theside of fixing the schools or
(06:05):
burying the schools and goingwith a new model, fixing
government's relationship or,or, or, you know, changing or
fixing corporate America'srelationship to, or, you know,
like.
I get it.
Those are legitimate battles inconversation, but that's not
what I want to talk about.
So anyway, I'll stop there.
I think I've laid out theterritory probably a little too
well.
Give me a chance to respond.
Ben (06:25):
No, this is great.
It's a, I don't think I know ourlistenership well enough to
know.
what would make them angrier, aconversation about football or a
conversation about the MiddleEast, but maybe we'll take a
third,
a.m. (06:39):
this conversation
Ben (06:40):
about education and public discourse and the ability to
have a healthy conversationabout anything.
Whether regardless of the topic,
a.m. (06:48):
you know, our audience, I'd say Middle East.
Sadly in the country, probablySuperbowl.
Ben (06:54):
That was my suspicion.
But you know, there is a pointat which I think you enter into
the public sphere enough thatpeople begin asking you
questions that expect you tocome down on one side or the
other of these kinds ofdifficult polemics.
And the question is, is like, Doyou need to, just because
(07:17):
someone asks the question, doyou have an obligation to answer
it in that way?
And as an educator, can youranswer be, well, our job is to
create a generation of peoplewho are going to take that
question and acknowledge thatquestion and then break it apart
Sides that are not right andwrong and to see it in a
(07:37):
multifaceted Detailed way andactually by in some ways dodging
the question recrafting thequestion re engaging with it
seriously, but on a differentaxis is that actually a
demonstration of the methodologythat you'd expect like the
product of someone who's gonethrough DAE To, to deploy when
(07:59):
asked something that is really,truly leading, right.
It's leading you to saysomething that's going to get a
rise out of someone.
If you, if you say black orwhite, half of the people in the
room are going to, you know.
began to you know throw theirhands up and up or but if you
you come in and say Well, youdon't maybe purple, maybe gray
(08:20):
than that kind of upsetseveryone a little bit because
it's not catering to their theirworldview of right and wrong.
So.
but it at least starts theconversation.
And so the question is how doyou actually do that?
How do you respond in a form ofdiscourse that's acceptable,
that feels like a continuationand a response and not a
(08:41):
sidestep.
a.m. (08:42):
My response to black and white though, where I'm trying
to navigate, and this is like,so we're like doing live, I'll
share an anecdote that happenedabout you shared one about
somebody listening to thepodcast.
I'll share one with you a littlelater, but What I'm real time
trying to figure out, Ben notfigure out just, just what I'm
sitting with is my response toblack and white.
I don't want to get to purple orpink or gray.
(09:03):
My response to black and white,I want to get to sweet and sour,
right?
Like I want to point to adifferent domain.
I don't want to point to new, toother options within the domain,
because I think the work is inanother domain.
The issue of 119, 000 disengagedkids isn't in the domain of
curriculum.
job opportunities, economics,all those are important, but
that's not where I want to havethe conversation because I don't
(09:24):
think that's where the actualleverage is.
Ben (09:26):
So where do you want to have the conversation?
a.m. (09:28):
I created this little short video, the 119 K
commission.
They formed this commission.
It's, it's a bunch of mayorsfrom around Connecticut all the
cities basically.
And then the co CEO of the Daliofoundation formed this
commission, had their firstmeeting last week.
And one of them had asked if I,if I would, you know, they were
taking like public juststatements and just ideas and
thoughts and, you know,whatever, again, just kicking
the thing off.
And one of them asked if I, if Iwould come and I couldn't, I had
(09:49):
a previous commitment, but Icreated this little video.
And So I'll, I'll respond to youwhat I said in the video.
Engagement for a human being,let's say, let's stick with
these 119 kids 19, 000 kids.
Engagement doesn't look like,Okay, we have to figure out how
to convince them that they canhave meaningful careers.
Engagement doesn't look like wehave to help convince them that
they can be, you know,productive parts of society and
(10:10):
feel good about themselves.
Engagement doesn't, mean we haveto convince them that they're
smart enough or good enough tobe in computer science or
manufacturing or whatever,right?
Engagement doesn't mean we haveto provide them financial
resources to be able to get toand from, you know, development
programs, all of those thingsare critical and absolutely must
(10:32):
get worked on.
But if that's all you do, you donot get engagement, you get
compliance.
Because the reward forcompliance, at a certain point,
you'll get a, you'll hit atipping point where the reward
for compliance is high enoughthat the person will say, okay,
cool, I'll do it.
That is not engagement.
That is not motivation.
That is compliance.
And at a certain point, that'llburn out.
And it says in the video, and ifyou want reference point of
(10:54):
that, look at corporate Americathe last century.
You know, we can incent you tokeep paying attention and keep
showing up.
That is not engagement.
That is not motivation.
Engagement is only one thing.
It is intrinsic.
Engagement is I'm engaged withmyself.
I am engaged as an individualhuman being alive on this planet
(11:14):
with a sense of why I'm here andhow I want to him have an impact
and how I want to live.
From that place now choosing acareer skill set, all these
things.
Yes.
You know, so it's not do one orthe other, but if you only do
these other things, theseextrinsic incentives for being
engaged the best you're going toget is compliance and you're
(11:35):
going to, you know do high fivesand celebrations because you'll
get the compliance short termand you'll say, look, we did it.
We won.
We fixed it and you will havefixed it for a period of time.
And again, see corporate Americafor cycles of remediation on
things like this.
But what you will have actuallyhave done longterm is you will
have made the problem worsebecause at a certain point, the
incentives aren't enough and thedisengagement actually deepens.
Ben (11:57):
So how do you measure engagement, which is, is a far,
far more subjective measure ofsuccess.
And, you know, we're notparticularly good culturally or
institutionally at polling and abroad audience for, for
something that's really a kindof personal measure of
(12:18):
motivation, right?
If I'm, if I'm engaged on atopic, I could be engaged for a
moment, I could be disengagedthe next moment, but what we can
rather measure instead of theactual engagement is the knock
on effects of the engagement.
You know, what did, what wasproduced, what was generated,
(12:40):
what are, what are the artifactsthat kind of came out of
engagement and then how do youdeduce that engagement actually
As a result of the things thatyou can observe more directly
than the engagement itself.
a.m. (12:51):
Yeah.
And so, so this is it though.
A lot of the things you'repointing to from your aren't
engagement there, they'rebyproducts of, and they are more
easily measured.
It's, it's like we've got a lampin the room here.
Ben (13:00):
Yeah.
a.m. (13:00):
It's plugged in or it's not.
Right now it can be plugged inand it's not giving off any
light.
It's not transacting, but thatsucker is plugged in.
It's ready.
And when you flip it on, it'slike, and then you measure it
and you say, Oh, it's working,but it was working before you
flipped on the light becauseit's plugged in.
This is a phenomenon pointing towith human beings, right?
These kids are not plugged in tothemselves though, to the, to
(13:22):
the, to the source of, ofthemselves that would have them
light up when now they go andencounter this piece of
curriculum, this jobopportunity, this, et cetera.
Right?
Yeah.
That's, that's what I'm pointingto.
Ben (13:33):
I'm gonna zoom out for a minute'cause this is touching on
something I was thinking about abit this week, which is, you
know, the extent to which peoplebelieve in themselves as being
important and fulfilling animportant function.
It came to me in the, in thecourse of participating in a, a
workshop in ai up in Hartford,and it was actually fabulous.
(13:56):
Great speakers.
I learned a lot, but what I sawand most of the talks was people
grappling with and coming toterms with the ways in which
these tools are going to makethem more or less relevant And I
saw a concern that the personalrelevancy of everybody in the
room as a ongoing force feltlike that was diminishing, like
(14:20):
everything that they'd done upuntil now is really just become
part of the training set.
And someone who is better andfaster with these tools will
come and use those tools.
To achieve more than they evercould.
You know, the people say, well,you know, AI is not coming for
your job.
Someone who knows how to use AIis right.
(14:42):
But that also leads to this kindof, well, who is that someone
who knows how to use AI, whydoes it matter?
Well, that's a person who iscomfortable with the rapid
acceleration of productivity.
And that's what we're actuallytalking about.
Sometimes that's exciting.
And people see that as veryexciting.
We can be more productive inspaces.
(15:03):
We don't have to waste so muchtime with boilerplate or tasks
that, you know, we couldactually spend more of our day
out engaging with ourselvesgenuinely because all of the
cruft is taken care of by thisnew type of automation tool, but
it also represents a rapidacceleration.
And if you're not okay with thatacceleration.
And you also see the ability todo things the long way, the slow
(15:25):
way, going away and beingreplaced by other people who are
more willing to use those toolsto engage in that endless
snowball effect.
Where do you see yourself worth?
If you're 16 right now, andyou're looking at the next 25
years of your life, your workinglife, where do you see yourself
(15:46):
fitting into that?
Do you embrace being part ofthat rapid acceleration and say,
all right, well, I just got togear up for this, or do you
have, do you struggle to seewhat your self worth is?
And I think if you're reallylistening to a lot of the hype
cycle, it can be, it can be hardto feel like there's a place for
(16:06):
you where you can contribute andbe valuable.
And I see why engagement in theface of that might be actually
at an all time low.
And, you know, we need kind of acycle of people seeing these
tools put to use and realizing,no, this isn't maybe the sea
change that I thought it wasgoing to be, or it is that, but
(16:27):
there's still room for thisother thing.
And for us to like empiricallyactually hold this new
technology and this new way of,of doing things.
In our hands for a moment and tofeel its impact because right
now there's just a lot of forlack of a better word, just
dread about what the future isgoing to hold, especially for
somebody at the beginning oftheir careers.
a.m. (16:48):
Underlying that Ben for me, those, the, the, the sort
of, you know backgroundassumption of, of the fact that
my worth is connected to.
My productivity, my output and,and you know, I need to upgrade
my skills so I can keep beingproductive because if I not, I
don't exist.
That's the disease.
This is where you might talkabout like wanting to have meta
conversations.
(17:08):
Like I say that to policy peopleor to a corporation or to a
large foundation.
They're like, yeah, that's cool.
Well, thanks for coming by.
Well, you know, like, becausethere's no, you know they, they,
they don't know how to act onthat.
They don't know how to, or theyactually going to take it
differently.
They want to act on that.
They want things they can act onbecause again, they're part of
the same trance of what's theproductive next thing to do.
(17:30):
And again, that's not anargument against when we,
oversimplify here because justfor the purposes of, of, of, of,
you know, getting to a point,but Like we are hunter
gatherers, right?
Like the three of us, you know,likely the males were going out
and, and killing the, you know,the mammoth, right?
The three of us go out and youlike, reliably are the best
(17:51):
hunter.
Right?
Like, like 50, there's three ofus, but like 60, 70 percent of
the time when somebody killssomething, it's you, right?
Back in the village, what'sgoing to happen is you're gonna
get fed more.
Right?
Not as a reward, but because itis in our collective interest
that you should be thehealthiest.
We're not going to be left tostarve, but you are going to get
(18:12):
fed more and better cuts.
And that that's actuallycollective good, right?
Where it gets weird is then youstart to think, yeah, yeah, I'm
fed more.
I also maybe should have aspecial house.
And that rock over there, if youcarved it in my image, You know,
like that might be cool, right?
That's where we get weird.
And we have the society we havenow, but my point is that, that
(18:33):
even then productivity matteredfor the collective good, but
neither Scott or I would bedevalued as part of the
community.
Our identities were not tied tothat productivity.
We were part of the collectivein a, in a, in a certain story.
And so the thing now, and thenwhen it started to get weird and
might have gotten weird and daytwo, right?
(18:54):
I don't know.
I wasn't around, but it'scertainly weird.
Now is when those two things arecollapsed.
My inherent value as part of thecommunity is separate.
And as an individual being inthis story is separate and apart
from my productivity value,which is also critical for our
survival.
And should be acknowledgedthrough more meat for you
because you're the bettersurvivor you know hunter.
(19:14):
So you're gonna make sure you'rethe healthiest, right?
We've collapsed those two thingsand, and radically collapsed
them in the last hundred years.
I just so excited.
We've been doing it, you know,for quite some time, last
hundred years, we have soaccelerated that where there is
no distinction between my valueworth existence and my
productivity output.
And it's, it's.
It's fucking barbaric, you know?
(19:36):
And then you throw on iteverything you're saying of,
Okay, everybody, you're 42, yougotta reset.
You gotta learn all new thingsso that you can still have worth
as a human being.
Ben (19:46):
For me, there's a bunch of kind of fuzzy bits in and around
productivity, you know,productivity on behalf of
something like nebulous andunjustified is, is what I think
of when I think of productivityas you're using it, but to play
a little bit of a language game,there's aspects of productivity
that border on exploration anddiscovery where you're, you're
(20:10):
unlocking.
And it's not for the sense oflike a manic, let's, let's make
sure we stay on the merry goround, but really because there
is a sense of progress that isinnate in the idea of us wanting
to reach the next rock.
But we don't have to do that asfast as possible or as
(20:33):
efficiently as possible.
And so kind of playing these twogames of not wanting to be fully
stationary, to want to engage inexploration and discovery, to
reach out and see what thepotential is, and then pull back
and engage with it at a pacethat works for us, that finds
value in the action.
(20:53):
I think that's how you keeppeople engaged.
Because as long as you'refeeling like engagement and
meaning is derived from beingthe most productive, which I
think is an assumption.
A lot of people leave schoolwith or enter the workplace with
is if I'm the most productive, Iwill derive the most
satisfaction out of this.
(21:15):
I'll receive the most praise.
And therefore that's how I'mgoing to Measure myself at
every, every stage.
And there's some distant goalthat it's never really well
defined.
That is the point at which,well, I'll do that.
And then maybe I'll chill out.
That's when I will have reachedstability or I will have reached
(21:36):
some point at which I can let goof this idea, you know, for me I
think of like lawyers trying tomake partner, for example.
Well, guess what?
Like once you make partner,you're responsible for the
success of the whole firm.
Do you think that's the point atwhich you sit back and relax?
I don't think so.
Right.
And so you, you have this deeplyingrained kind of need for that
(21:59):
feedback loop and it becomes theonly way, you know, So the
question is convincing peopleearly on in the process who are
coming out of earlier stages oftheir education or personal
development to believe inprogress and believe in their
own capability to achieveprogress, but without doing it
(22:20):
in a kind of a hollow,repetitive, externally demanding
way.
Okay.
a.m. (22:26):
And what do we offer?
99.
9 percent of workers is hollowexternally defined way.
Right?
That's, this is the challengebecause, the God is efficiency,
right?
And so shut up and do your job.
Now, we have a much kinder andgentler approach to it through
decades of.
Putting, you know, layers ofvelvet gloves on the, on the
(22:48):
steel hammer, but it's still asteel hammer.
You know, we say the rightthings.
We position it the right way andwe do these job enrichment
things, but it's the samefucking hammer, right?
And, and it's not even, youknow, the productivity is very
specific.
It's output, right?
It's not exploration.
It's not, it's output.
How many did you put out?
Did they hit at the right time?
(23:09):
And where they have sufficientquality, right?
Again, important going out andkilling that mammoth important
if we're going to live.
So not like we should throw thataway.
We can't, we don't survive, butit's, you know, again, we always
kind of, for me, I always comeback to, you know, kind of
foundational principles, whichis, again, we don't live in a
story anymore.
And so when all there is, isthat economy to live in.
(23:32):
Human being withers.
It's a miracle.
It's a fucking miracle to methat a 16 year old is willing to
get out of bed given, given whatthey're told about the world and
how absolutely non stop with theinternet and social media how
absolutely non stop themessaging is about the world
It's a miracle they get out ofbed.
(23:53):
And you're talking about, Oh myGod, they're disengaged.
Of course they're fuckingdisengaged.
What are you talking about?
Of course, employees aredisengaged.
Of course, you know,
Ben (24:01):
Now, since I always threatened to turn this into a
film club, I, you know, this is,this is something that we've
been trying to figure out how toarticulate for, for decades, and
we've been broadly aware of it.
And it reminded of the Kurosawafilm, Ikiru.
a.m. (24:15):
My favorite film of all time.
Have we talked about this?
Ben (24:17):
I don't, we have not.
No.
It's literally
a.m. (24:19):
my favorite film of all time.
Ben (24:20):
All right.
That's I might've guessed youknow, do you want to summarize
it for, for those at home?
You know,
a.m. (24:27):
I mean, sure it's an aging bureaucrat who finds out he has
cancer and does what people do.
He first tries, you know.
hitting on women and I've neverhit on enough women and maybe
that'll be it.
And then he tries booze and hetries, you know, and the
punchline of it is there arethese women in this, you know,
little kind of corner town nextto a bridge whose kids have
nowhere to play.
(24:47):
And this bureaucrat pushes andpushes the system and oversteps
his bounds and gets that damnpark approved.
And he dies happy.
Because he knows kids are goingto play in the park.
Ben (24:58):
We should we'll put a little spoiler alert before we
tee that one up, but it's a,it's a wonderful film.
It's a really moving film.
It's, it's also one of my, oneof my favorite movies.
And it, it, it sort of capturesthe spirit, I think of what
you're talking about ofsomeone's lifelong sense of
productivity and engagementbeing entirely defined by
(25:20):
compliance.
And then suddenly having kind ofa end of life outburst of
realizing that the way that hefelt he'd been compliant and
productive.
It wasn't actually achievingpositive change in, in his
neighborhood and where he livedand for the people around him.
And then he did it.
You know, he, he has this momentwhere he, he breaks out of that
(25:42):
mold and the sadness from itcomes from it being kind of too
little, too late in some ways.
But it's a very reflective, filmand I don't think there's too
many people who watch it.
And.
Go to work the next day.
It's a real watch a movie andcall in sick kind of experience.
And it really, I think, hits onexactly, exactly what you're
talking about, is this issomeone who found engagement and
(26:05):
took his whole life to be ableto do it.
So how do we help people whootherwise, for lack of that, are
going to head towards compliancebecause they don't know any
better and the world around themis going to tell them that
they're doing a good job.
And if they don't haveconfidence, you know, in their
own internal definition of that,which frankly, it's really
difficult to have that type of,confidence, you're going to go
(26:29):
through the route that is kindof culturally validated for what
it means to do a good job and toexpect anybody in their teens.
Or really at any age to havethis unrelenting confidence in
the, their own vision of what itmeans to, to do good.
It's not really a reasonableexpectation.
You know, there's sort of therare person who, who has that
(26:52):
and followed that.
a.m. (26:53):
As always Ben, I appreciate these conversations.
Because now we're at the, thisis the conversation I want to
have with the government andwith school districts and with,
you know, there's a, there's aline from a Rabindranath Tagore,
the Indian writer, philosopher,poet.
So the man who plants treesunder whose shade he will never
sit begins to understand themeaning of life, right?
(27:15):
That we have built a society.
On my fulfilling my egoic needs,my, just feeding my face,
feeding my, my bank account,feeding my, just me, that's
cool.
You know, we like food.
We got lunch here.
We're going to have it a littlebit, you know, we like
experiences.
I like, I like being able toafford the criterion channel so
(27:36):
I can watch Ikiru whenever Iwant, you know?
But I've just, when we, when weused to run the MAOL and so many
of the MAOL principles areembedded in DAE, because they've
just been, you know, the mastersin leadership that Mel and I ran
for, for many years you have todo a breakthrough project and a
breakthrough had four elementsto it.
A, it's impossible.
It's not hard.
It's not difficult.
It is from, from, you know, inthe context of where you are
(27:57):
today, it is impossible.
There's no way to do it withincurrent reality.
Second, it has to be bigger thanyour self interest.
It can include your selfinterest, but it inherently must
be bigger than your selfinterest.
I'll leave you dangling on threeand four for the audience, but I
have consistently found thathuman beings don't become fully
sort of awake and engaged andliving until they're, they've
(28:20):
attached themselves.
They surrendered to somethingbigger than themselves.
Not at the sacrifice ofthemselves.
Martyrdom is just as toxic as,as, as living just for your ego,
right?
Because martyrdom is justanother form of, of egoic
behavior.
So not at the sacrifice ofyourself, but, but at work on
something bigger than yourself,something that can't get done in
(28:40):
your lifetime, but you're onlygoing to be able to put some
bricks onto.
Which again, Ikiru, right?
That, that little part, biggerthan himself, he will not live
to see what the value of thatis.
We offer no one, certainly notkids, an invitation to work on
things bigger than themselves,than their own self interest.
(29:00):
That's considered like, like nonprofit work, and you do that if
you don't care about money.
Or, you know, you're, you're asnowflake or a, you know,
whatever we want to characterizethese things, right?
But I think it is fundamentalnutritional context for a human
being to have access to that.
And it's why we start withstudents.
Ground zero is day one, weekone, month one is what's the
(29:24):
impact you want to have in theworld?
Not what do you want to get foryourself, but what do you see in
the world?
That you'd love to be able tosay, I helped that be better, I
helped that move forward, Ihelped that, right?
And then, and, and you want tomake a billion dollars out of
it, awesome.
You want to make, right?
That, that, that comes later,right?
But that's the conversation I'mwanting to have with these
people is to say your, yourentire frame of reference.
(29:46):
We'll keep ensuringdisengagement and the best
you'll do is get situationalcompliance.
Feel like you won and in anothergeneration it'll be even worse.
It's been getting worse everysingle generation since World
War II.
Despite all the progress and allthe new tools and all the new
gadgets and all the neweverything, every successive
generation is more and moreburned out, disengaged, and
(30:08):
confused.
Ben (30:09):
So how do you turn that around?
a.m. (30:11):
Fuck if I know, this is what's keeping me up.
I'm trying to figure out evenhow to introduce the
conversation that doesn't soundlike, oh, that's nice.
Where's your beggar's bowl wecan drop a few coins into?
This is lovely.
Everyone, isn't that lovely.
Oh my god, that's great.
Okay, now we're gonna get on tothe work part of the meeting.
Like, I'm trying to figure outjust to have the fucking
conversation so it doesn't justget, you know, turned into that.
(30:31):
Because this is a very practicalconcern I'm pointing to.
I'm not pointing to philosophyor, you know, do good, whatever.
I'm talking about real,practical, that through decades
of experience we've learned,works and has an impact, right?
And I'm trying to figure outeven how to have the
conversation, let alone, what doyou do, you know?
At scale I know what to do youput ten people in front of us I
(30:53):
know what to do.
We know what to do I mean thesense of the I'm not know what
to do, but but we can engagewith that, right?
At the scale of the state thecountry the world, you know, I
Don't know.
I'm again.
I'm just trying to figure outhow to have the conversation
publicly
Ben (31:05):
The first step is I think Having these conversations and
having it not be that tokengesture having it not be well,
we'll fund you just enough toallow you to run the experiment
so that we can say that wesupported something alternative
in air quotes, which is anotherform of sort of compliance is
showing, making a show of havingtried differently while being
(31:30):
very much tied to whateversystem has become the status
quo.
You know, most of the peoplewith the money to support
something that could bedescribed as alternative
education or alternativeculture.
to, to, to have it because theysucceeded in the current system.
And so it's very difficult tosay, well, I'm going to work
against the system that rewardedme.
And actually, you know,dismantle it.
(31:52):
Even though it's what I know andwhat I'm comfortable with,
because the reality of it, it'snot, it's not the same thing as
saying, Hey.
We're, we're, we're asking youto make a sacrifice.
You know, if you're takingsomebody who has a particular
vision of the world and you'resaying, I want you to support
this other way of functioning,that's actually going to be
(32:13):
terrifying.
It's going to be scary anddestabilizing.
It's not just asking somebody totake a risk or to try something
different or a change inperspective.
It's actually, it's.
It's going to be emotional andinvolve some amount of
existential shift in terms ofwhat that person's legacy is and
contributions have been and howthat's going to fit into the
(32:34):
future.
And some of, sometimes theselike paradigm shifts happen and
we just can't stop them.
So you have to embrace it.
I think that's what we'reexperiencing with the kind of AI
shift that we're seeing now.
But what you're kind ofarticulating is we need a
different one on a differentaxis in a different space and
it's not happening on its own.
So how do we actually start,like start the landslide, start
(32:59):
tearing away the supports sothat it becomes inevitable.
And so people feel that motionand say, you know what, I have
to go with this.
I have to find a way to getthrough the discomfort.
And these two things are workingagainst each other, they're at
odds.
And so either you have to do itwith no funding and no support,
and it has to come completelyfrom the outside, which isn't
(33:21):
unheard of, or you have to findsome truly, you know,
exceptional ways to see thatsomething alternative can be
supported by mainstream cultureand education.
a.m. (33:32):
Yes.
Ben (33:33):
Good luck.
a.m. (33:34):
That's exactly what I'm sitting here with.
I was like, fuck, you know,like, so yeah,
Scott (33:38):
I was looking at the the 119K commission website and
looking at the mission and stuffand it, it designates 119, 000
at risk or disconnected or thewords that are used.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To me, at risk means thatthere's some sort of, you know,
investment that can be made at abigger level, you know, maybe
into the families of these kidsto make sure that they have
(34:01):
support systems in placeindirectly or directly and
disconnected.
But then you scroll down to theplan and it's like.
Basically saying, get themdiplomas and get them jobs, like
you were saying, like, you know,we'll just use the same thinking
that we've always used, butthat's why we're here in the
first place.
So I think, you know, theconversation needs to be not,
you know, what, but why, like,why are they, why is there
(34:23):
nothing for them to latch onto?
Why is there, feel like there'sno out, there's no reward, you
know, for them to try.
There's no intrinsic motivationat all.
So it's, it's interesting to seehow it comes out and, you know,
the Dalio Foundation has somemoney they could start the ball
rolling is that, is that toomuch of an ask?
a.m. (34:40):
I listen, it's an important sort of thing.
And I found myself saying this alot.
I haven't met the, met the badguy.
You know what I mean?
I haven't met the bad guy.
Like the Dalio folks seem reallygenuine, like genuine.
The politicians seem genuine.
The school administrators, Godknows, seem genuine.
Like, I haven't met anybodywho's like, no, no, no, no,
we're going to keep this aproblem.
Like, quite the opposite.
(35:01):
Like, I've met people fairlyconsistent.
I've met a couple ofopportunistic folks.
There's one guy who wanted to,sort of leverage our business to
get access for his business andnonsense.
But, but, but the people in, in,in power and control at the
steering wheels.
I haven't met the bad guy, orthe bad woman, or the bad human.
I, I think it's, it's a deeperproblem.
I think it's our world view,it's our, it's the sort of, you
know, the operating system thatwe're, that we're moving from
(35:24):
is, is, is the challenge, youknow.
There's, there's this you know,I'm an org psychologist by
formal training, although Inever use this stuff, right, but
you know.
You know, Maslow's hierarchy ofneeds.
And there are other models ofthis, right?
Well, that, that peer, he neverdrew that pyramid that was like,
like idiot consultants that cameafter him, needed something to
sell.
Right.
And so what, what it's that, anda couple of the theories that
have been misrepresented haveled people to believe is that,
(35:46):
that these things aresequential.
If we get you fed and then getyou housed and then get you in a
productive job, then.
You can become altruistic orself actualized or transcend or
these things, right?
It is not a sequence, right?
I've talked about my own life.
Like grew up without indoorplumbing, you know, outdoor
latrines, barely anyelectricity.
(36:07):
Our hygiene needs, right?
The, the, in the psychologicalterms, right?
The psychological hygiene needs,safety, et cetera.
We're not met.
The higher order needsabsolutely were.
Right.
I knew who I was.
I knew where I belonged.
I loved the world.
I loved being alive as a productof the relationships I was in,
mainly my grandfather.
(36:28):
And so, so one of the things Ican see to do is practical in
terms of having thisconversation is to try to
separate, although I've triedthis in the past, you know, it
still leads to, you know, sortof confused looks is to try to
separate this, the sequence.
So we can give these kids, andwe should give these kids and
their families economic supportand access.
A thousand percent yes, right?
That will not lead to the higherorder stuff.
(36:50):
It is neither a prerequisite tothe higher order stuff.
You can start working on thehigher order stuff even before
that if you wanted to.
You shouldn't.
We're a wealthy nation by God.
We should be providing peoplewith basic food, housing, and,
you know that sort of thing,but, but one is not the
prerequisite for the other.
And one absolutely doesn'tguarantee the other lots of
wealthy people walking aroundwith no sense of purpose, no
(37:10):
self actualization, certainly nosense of ego transcendence,
right?
And so part, part of what, whatI'm toying with is, is, you
know, how do I frame theconversation to separate these
two things out?
But yes, you should do thesetransactional things to provide
the basic foundationalpsychological hygiene needs of
safety and, you know, all this.
But there's a wholly separatetrack and that wholly separate
(37:31):
track is where engagement lives.
These other things aren't aboutengagement.
They're about survival andthey're critical and again,
it's, it's barbaric thatanybody, you know, can't feed
themselves given how affluentthis society is.
And we should be working on thema thousand percent.
But, but it's separate from whatyou're talking about when you
say engagement and you want kidsengaged, right?
So.
Ben (37:50):
I had a long conversation with a friend who I think I
should just name, you shouldcheck out his work.
His name is Michael Pope.
He's working on a multimediasemi autobiographical piece
called Cinematica.
And, you know, we were talkingabout what it means to work on
something like that and howyou're driven to work on a multi
(38:11):
year long project.
He's been, he's been on thisfor, I think, almost a decade
now.
And he described it and I feltvery affirming of similar
feelings I've had of existing onpure light, on pure energy,
emanating from inside him to thepoint where he felt that he
(38:31):
could be sustained on that lightand work on this project.
and was so driven to work on itthat he was actually partially
consuming himself in the act ofcreation and that he was willing
to do that because he was sodriven to create.
And I remember these earlyfeelings of being, being a
(38:54):
teenager and my mind latching onto certain things and realizing,
Oh, this is it.
This is something that I need toknow.
I need it to be inside me andpart of me and I need to engage
with it because it's justcurious.
Like I can't imagine notgrappling with this.
And when I talk to people whoare learning how to program and
(39:17):
be engineers and are interestedin computers, I remember the
feeling of like, I'm going tosit at my desk for 20 hours
straight.
And I just need to know this.
I need to slurp it all up everylast bit.
And that went like so fast.
I mean, it felt like seconds andit was that, I think that's the
(39:37):
type of engagement that's real.
And, you know, you step awayfrom that, obviously that's not
all the time, right?
That's just every once in awhile you have these bursts
where you just have to integratesomething into yourself.
And I'd love to sit down withevery teenager.
and say like, you may not havefelt this yet, but someday you
(39:58):
will.
And let's explore everythingthat you love to try to find
what is the closest feelingyou've had to this.
How do we get you to feel this?
Because whatever you feel thisway about is the thing that we
should give you more of.
We should help you explore this.
We should create fertileterritory for it.
And for some reason, like,that's not the question we ask.
(40:20):
Like, I love, I love music.
I was a very serious classicalmusician growing up and
practiced a lot, but it waspractice in the vein of
compliance.
Later in my life, I quit playingclassical music and picked up
other instruments.
And I experienced for the firsttime that same like inner light
(40:42):
level drive where like I had tolearn how to play guitar.
I had to, I found one that afriend wasn't using under a bed
and I would stay up all nightlong playing.
And I just needed to know moreand more and to feel that.
And I realized that for years, Ihad been playing music, but it
(41:02):
never felt that about music,even though my identity was as a
musician, that was who I was.
And finally it circled backaround to having that level of
growth and that feeling of thatthing.
And, and to me, that's reallywhat you're talking about.
It's like, how do we and I'm notadvocating for like manic
behavior and not sleeping and,and whatnot.
Like there is the, there is ahealthy way to approach this,
(41:25):
but the idea of being feelinglike you, you are driven to
consume something like that,whatever it is and to make it
part of you is is I think.
Really what you're getting at.
a.m. (41:39):
Yeah, man.
It's, it's, the ego can never befilled.
It is forever hungry.
But if you make yourself foodfor something bigger than you,
you get transformed.
And yeah, the guitar or whateverit is.
And we just don't, I would sayBen the first part of what you
said, you're talking to ateenager, maybe you haven't
experienced this yet.
(42:00):
They have.
It was never named for them.
They might've had it brushedaway.
And so they brushed it away, butevery human being before the age
of five, before the age ofthree, whatever, they haven't
done what we insist upon in thissociety, which is put it into
the right box that has a linearpath, right?
Nothing wrong with the right boxand linear path.
(42:22):
But, but that becomes, again, weget the thing backwards.
That becomes the prerequisitetoo.
But that inner feeling, thatsense of, Oh, I'm alive and can
have this sort of impact.
And when I do, my place inthings makes sense.
The kid experiences that two,three, four months, I don't
know, right?
(42:42):
It's there.
It's human.
And we are sad and disengagedbecause that part of us, it's
human has no fucking place to goanymore.
And of course we're disengaged.
Ben (42:56):
And to your point about, sort of, planting a tree under
your shade, you're never goingto sit.
Like, not everybody is going tohave this experience with the
same thing in the same way.
But once you've had thatexperience, it sort of becomes
your gift.
To the people around you to showthem what it might be like and,
and let them share in that, ina, in a way that gives them
(43:18):
access to it.
a.m. (43:19):
We have gifted it's another thing I used to do talks
on.
We should probably startputting.
I've got so much shit I've gotto put out into the more of the
public, I guess, space to help,you know with clients is great,
man, you know, even withstudents, the way I'd work with
students is, it's like threeyears, four years, five years,
and it's just in relationshipand you can kind of build these
things, you know, versus soundbites and papers and all that,
(43:40):
right?
But there is, there's a bank ofstuff and maybe there's, it is
worthwhile just, justdocumenting it and, and which is
kind of maybe what we're doinghere with these, with these
podcasts.
We've got gifted backwards.
When we tell somebody they'regifted, what we, what we mean,
what we say to them is, oh, youwere given a gift.
Use it well.
That's backwards.
Gifted means that I have a giftto give.
(44:03):
Every human being is gifted.
We don't let people unwrap thepackage.
And so they don't figure outwhat, and once you figure out
the way in which you're gifted,not the thing you were given,
but the thing you've got to giveaway.
Once you figure that out, lifejust gets simple because you
have an unlimited, you got aSanta Claus bag of that thing.
And once you figure it out, seeit, appreciate it, value it.
(44:26):
You're going to channel thatshit.
At the Starbucks when you ordercoffee and in whatever thing
you're doing for money and inyou're just, you're just, that's
just not going to stop.
And now I get my place in theuniverse, but we make it about
what you got.
Again, ego, we make it aboutthe, you're special.
This is the special thing yougot, as opposed to this is the
(44:46):
unique thing.
Everyone has their unique thingthat you're supposed to give
away because you have infinitequantities of it.
Ben (44:52):
I love that.
You didn't just come up withthat on the spot, right?
a.m. (44:55):
No, that's another distinction that we, you know,
that I've played with over theyears of people.
Ben (44:59):
I mean, that really, to me, is the core of everything we've
been circling here.
If, for people listening, if youcan't tell, we go into these.
Pretty cold.
And sometimes it takes us a hotminute to really figure out
where, where's the juicy centerof the conversation.
And I think we, you sort ofbrought us there and I love once
(45:21):
I realized we've arrived, kindof visualizing like, what is the
shape of this thing?
How did, do we just wind in aspiral towards the middle?
Did we go straight for it?
Did we meander off the page andcome back again?
I think that's kind of thebeauty of.
So I'm gonna be really short andkind of go over the topic of, of
the conversation itself.
But as you were saying that, youknow, I, I didn't know that
(45:43):
that's what you're gonna bringup.
We don't have notes here.
It just felt deeply, deeplyright to me.
And parts of these conversationschange how I go and live the
rest of my, my day or my life,and my relations to people and
other conversations I have.
So I'm always grateful for whensomething like that lands.
You know, the only thing I'dchange is maybe support your
(46:05):
local roasters.
Don't go to Starbucks.
a.m. (46:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I I never go to Starbucks.
I don't know why I said that.
Yeah.
Ben (46:12):
But I just gotta give you a little bit of shit.
You, you're too spot onsometimes.
a.m. (46:16):
I just, yeah.
I just, I just, I just, when Ipicked up lunch, I thought I
swung by Willoughbys, one of ourlocal roasters and, you know,
got a cup.
Ben (46:23):
There you go.
Great.
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