Latest / The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell / #28 - Terror Management and Using Death to Take Responsibility for Life With Greg Akinbiyi

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#28 - Terror Management and Using Death to Take Responsibility for Life With Greg Akinbiyi · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: He was going through a lot of these emotions of grief and thinking about it for myself, I was like, oh my gosh, like, what do I want my last memories with my dad to be?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are the last conversations that we're going to have?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say that that really catapulted me to say to my dad more regularly and to other people that I know, I love you.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's up, y'all?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Seeking Authenticity.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Flint Mitchell, and I get absolutely psyched by having conversations with authentic people that I admire about the things they value.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Their stories and perspectives don't just make me smile, laugh, and think.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: They inspire me to wake up earlier, listen better, focus, and work harder, and help make me a better version of myself.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's my hope that sharing these conversations through this podcast might do the same thing for you.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, I talk with Greg Akinbi.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Greg is a former Duke football player, businessman, and consultant who I had the pleasure of connecting with through Ellen Leance, another guest of this podcast on episode two.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Greg and I had a fantastic conversation over the phone, somehow spanning masculinity, death, and grieving and success in just about 30 minutes, so I was really excited to get him on the podcast.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here, we talk about the journey he's been on with a book he's writing with the working title Leaders Die First.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise, we cover a wide range of topics that I'm really interested in, including the current societal discussion about what it means to be a man and how it relates to what it means to just be human, about the frameworks we use to define success, and about using death as a framework for life, showing us the ways we might want to change our actions and perspectives on what is truly under our control in this moment.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Greg is awesome to listen to and a great guest, and I'm very grateful to have him on the podcast.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for doing this with me, Greg.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, excited.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, glad we connected, Flynn, and excited for our time.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, definitely.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh it's always fun connecting with new people, especially, you know, I connected with you um through Ellen Lands, which is another uh podcast guest.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's kind of fun.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Always shout out to Ellen, she's awesome.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's fun for me to see kind of um, you know, a success for me in this podcast is already being able to network and meet, you know, more cool people that I respect off the bat.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a like that's a success for me.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm excited for for adventures like this with people like you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and when we talked over the phone um like a week ago before this podcast, you mentioned briefly that you were on this journey writing a book.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about you know how that started and kind of what the what the story is there.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it definitely is a journey.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I wouldn't say I'm complete.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've reached my destination just yet.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but long story short, it started when I was about 23.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was working with college students, um, doing more like a college counselor type of work.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: And a student that I was working with asked me, he said, Greg, what does it mean to be a man?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I'm 23 years old, just graduated from college.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I just gave him some platitude, you know, to kind of satisfy the moment, but it really sent me on this spiral on this journey around manhood and masculinity and um and being an athlete.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of um uh expectations around what men should be or men should do or how we should behave.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought that there were some things that were great about that, you know, when we think about the very broad generalization of responsible um integrity, um, but then thinking on the level of identity.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and then also thinking about the ways in which it has been hurtful.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh I I've seen the ways in which it's it um some of the definitions of masculinity were hurtful in my own life, sure.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then also seeing other men um around me striving to be things that I already knew were kind of, oh man, that's a booby trap.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, don't go down that path.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, I think you know, kind of look if we put it in the the um plainest terms, like the womanizer.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: There's that's an easy caricature, sure, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Is like I'm just gonna use women to satisfy this longing within me to be loved and appreciated.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, so that's an easy one.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's it, it's an easy one right there, right?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Or uh different forms of bullying, right?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, especially being an athlete, if a guy doesn't speak a certain way or walk a certain way, um, or doesn't lift as much as me, that means he's weak, right?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then we'd want to destroy and get rid of the weak.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so those are probably like very easy ones um to to characterize.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's that's a good image, right?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, those are pretty big, easy caricatures.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then so so as a result of his question, I had to reconsider all these other things.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, man, I need a more meaningful answer to give him.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it sent me on this journey of really asking the question, like, what does it mean to be human?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are what are the real values of what makes us different?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I know there's a lot of great books out there, and I think part of my stubbornness is I want to have something that's unique and different and have my own vantage point on it, and uh, which is you know, everything for the most part is a remix.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so um that sent me on this journey of of researching about manhood and masculinity.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I came to this call, I came to this framework, and I had uh I was sharing you with some friends of mine, and there were a group of about four women in this group, and and one of them after is I shared, and she said, Greg, um, I know you wrote this for men, but you seriously need to consider writing this type of material for women.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Me?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about that.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not I don't I'm barely you know convinced about what I've written from myself.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so she she really challenged me to reconsider and reevaluate just kind of the presupposition around just masculinity and thinking more broadly about it.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the way to think more broadly about it is thinking about leadership, um, because women and men can be leaders.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um so as I've gone through the journey, it started to really formulate around this intersection of leadership or our ideals and aspirations around leadership, as well as the capacity and capabilities.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then thinking about uh terror management, which is how we respond to terror.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so Ernest Becker in his book, The Denial of Death, talks a lot about um death.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: And out of his work, um uh Solomon and a number of other authors, um, like they've written the book, The Worm at the Core, really dive into the impacts of terror management and how we live and how we define our values and things of that nature.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: So leadership, terror management, and then really identity formation.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So in undergrad, I studied human development.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I've always been fascinated by that nature-nurture kind of blending and how then do we come to understand who we are?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: So um that's where that's where the work has taken me on this project.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm calling it right now Leaders Die First.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I and I'd be honest, I'm I'm I think part of the aspiration is, you know, I think back to playing football.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there were always players who would be at the back of the line, so to say, when we're doing conditioning, and they're telling everybody else to run faster.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, how are you telling everybody to run harder when you're already at the back of the line?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now maybe you're hurt and we can be sure.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it's usually those people who were like, everybody else needs to work harder while I'm in the back chilling.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, no.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or thinking about um, you know, the those heroes in Gladiator or Braveheart, where the leaders were not on the back line, right?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't the ones.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you want to be led by the guy at the front.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: All right, yeah, by the guy or the other woman um who's willing to also do what they're asking other people to do.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that that's kind of what it boiled down to is don't ask people to do something that you yourself aren't willing to do.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, like do your work as well.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's where the idea of leaders die first, which I find more and more controversial because our idea of leadership is that leaders are further and further and further away um from the front lines.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, like yeah, yeah.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: So even even in our military today, right?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: We got people pressing buttons that like in they who themselves are not on the front lines, or if you put it into the business context, you when you start getting into a lot of the politics that happen in organizations where it's like, oh, can you go tell this person that?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, why don't you just tell them yourself?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: But oh no, no, because and it's like because now they want this intermediary.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're so far detached.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, you're so far detached, and you have leaders, and I think for a lot of companies, is you know, and the work that I do now um around consulting, it it is why so many companies are so detached from what their customers really need or what the job they need to get it done for their customers, is that most most CEOs and leaders are so far removed um from the actual value creation that it ends up you know steering the company in in interesting directions.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: So it makes sense.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Leaders that first is the is the name of the project, and it I talked through all of these intersections.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I love it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I appreciate it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I will I will definitely read it when it's out.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I there's a lot to unpack there.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: As you say, there's like uh a bunch, a bunch of just different elements of that framework.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: The ones I kind of picked out were well, there's like this leadership aspect, which is um the perspective you kind of gave on that was not necessarily um how to lead, it was more, which is important, but it's it was how leadership kind of connects us, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was this woman saying, Oh, well, what you're writing isn't necessarily just for men.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because when you get down to this more fundamental level, when it's not, it's more about like your inner image, it's the the way you hold yourself, right?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was the integrity, it was the being the aspects of being a leader, uh, it was how to be human.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and and that kind of reflects any different people or any different um gender or type of person.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh terror management, which is fascinating.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then you you said that you studied human development.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think that influenced uh maybe the way you thought about these kind of projects?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Were there parts of that you know, that experience, those studies that influenced uh your perspective on this project?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, to be fair, you know, I obviously we have the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, uh, then you have John Dewey and the positive reinforcement um movement of thought.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'm a I'm a I'm a simple guy, or at least I like to think I am, because I try to really simplify things.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'll take it to uh Leonardo DiCaprio and in Inception, which is one of my favorite movies, sure.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in the opening scene, you know, he's sitting there at the table and he asks the gentleman, he says, What is the most insidious parasite?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: He says, Is it a bacteria?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a virus?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Is it uh an internal intestinal worm?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, No, it's an idea.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what's so fascinating is how our eye how our lives are so shaped by ideas, ideas of like who we think we should be, ideas of how the world should work or how the world does work, yeah, and the transaction of ideas.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we see that on social media.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you think about books, you I mean, in all these different places to to realize, like, oh, we're we're exchanging ideas about reality or how we make sense of it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And like most people have not built a filter.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think part of this book is reflecting on um what it looks like to build a filter in a world where we oftentimes take these the influences for granted.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, absolutely.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think, and that touches on something that I wrote down when you were talking about this idea of like the womanizer or the the you know, the weak versus strong uh athletes, which is this like outer image versus your inner image.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, strong, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it and that connects right.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: The way I connect that is it's like the idea of what it looks like to be a man versus the idea of what it feels like to be a man, um, or like the character that is required to be a man.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think something that happens in today's world is that when you say to be a man is to be this, too often we associate it with that outer image, right?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Of what it looks like of having lots of women around or being the strongest, and not enough with like the character associated.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's one issue.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the second issue is that I think we um we take we say this is what it's important to be a man, and for some reason we'll assume that that means that those qualities are unique, like it's not unique to men and not to other people.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not mutually exclusive.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like to be a man might mean to be honest and to be um you know strong in certain aspects of your life, but that doesn't necessarily mean that those are only masculine traits, right?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, I I think you're hitting it right on the head, Flint.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and the distinctions between the outer versus the inner.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's a there's a great group called the they have a product called the Leadership Circle, and they talk a lot about the difference between the outer leader and the inner leader, and they they have this entire assessment, um, which I've read and taken.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I I feel like we have really um in an in an attempt to be helpful, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: We can be over-prescriptive.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, these are the certain behaviors or certain things that you should do.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then realizing, like, oh, wait a minute, that that that jersey doesn't fit me, or like my body is not built like that, um, or I don't think about things that way.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and so uh instead of I think one of the big things is not trying to be overly prescriptive, but really directional, like saying, okay, at least we should think about this, or at least we should consider these things, and then being a part of that process as people continue to unfold and develop their um, you know, develop the answers that they can own for themselves.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the key piece, right?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you people need to own their stories.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like if LeaderDive First has a second tagline, it's own your story.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: And how do we create environments for people to own their story?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think it's just the and this is where you know I I may not even be right on this, but I I feel strongly about it, um, which is okay, um, because I could be wrong and I'll take it back 10 years or 30 years, whenever it is.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully I don't get canceled in the process.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I I think I think our our our our our misconception of always trying to make people into heroes um ends up is that we make them into these caricatures, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so we only see the good side and we don't see the shadow.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: We don't see that sometimes the things that are good about people came out of all of the pain or the things that were very painful and bad actually diminish the amount of quote unquote good that they've done when we look at the real way in which they had to go about getting it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the understanding of the outer and the inner impacts um really allow us to more, I think, more evenly and with more with a healthier perspective, think about the true implications of the decisions that we're making and what we're encouraging or the ideas we're promoting.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, and that goes exactly to that question of what does it mean to be human?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um because if you look at your heroes, your idols from that perspective, you see that um if you can see these uh their shadows, as you put it, uh, it makes them more human.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: It it makes, you know, and it it's it helps you to connect with these people.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is oftentimes what we lose sight of.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think all of life is about relationships, especially if we think about, you know, from a systems perspective.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I know you're a scientist, so you think about systems, inputs, outputs, you know, flows, throughputs.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and if we if we imagine that that entire sinew or that entire connectivity is relationships, um, we lose sight of like what are the network of relationships or the absence of relationships that made some of these quote unquote heroes who they are.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I I I definitely think the idea of the self-made man or self-made woman is something we like to imagine, but it it there's there's a network of relationships that make us who we are.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Very rarely do you find someone who truly is completely isolated and did something incredible, right?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, whatever.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: You probably won't ever find that.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and if they were completely isolated, we probably never heard of them because they're completely isolated, right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's like yeah, at some point they had to talk to someone.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: They had to.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good point.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I want to touch on something you said, which is I I think that this is an issue I have with the industry of self-help.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh is it feels like people are trying to tell you to do things.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you mentioned that this idea of your book or your this project is like you said, it's like I could be wrong, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like giving it from your perspective.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not telling them what to do.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: How do you go about giving this kind of story, this journey of yours, this you know, experience in a way where you don't tell others what to do, but you still put it in a framework where you go, I really do believe this though.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um I just on the head, I'm still figuring it out.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've been watching and listening to other stories of whether it's cults that were created or or leaders that you know talked about death and um really diminished the the healthy fear that we should have of death.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I don't want to dis dismiss that as a reality.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think using death more as a device is helpful, but um it brings a sobriety to it.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't, I don't if if the goal is to help people to own their decisions, so they live lives of less resentment, um less regret, um, but they're really taking a greater level of ownership for the ways in which and the choices that they have available, because not everybody has the same choices available, but within that realm of spectrum, you know, I think that's where we start to overreach.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is now we're telling people that, oh, you need to go into debt in order to get this insight, or you needed to go, you know, 45 days without eating so you can get this revelation.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's where it starts to um really break down because we're not honoring the the boundaries and the limitations that people have.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm I don't know, I haven't figured it out for myself, and I think I leave a lot of the work open to the individuals to to uncover for themselves, yeah.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that then ultimately they can own it.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: But I I do think there's an unhealthy level of if you don't do this, then you will never X, you know, and I think that that's that's where self-help can get really dangerous.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think, yeah, absolutely.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's this idea of building like a scaffolding upon which the reader, the person experiencing it, will then create their own uh their their own adventure.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like any any great author, you know, you you read Emerson, and he's not exactly telling, I mean, there are instances where he's maybe telling you what to do, but he's really giving you like an experience, like a story that is very relatable.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, and especially in a beautiful and poetic way.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: But you you read it and you kind of are able to reflect through any great author or any great story, movie, whatever it is, and bring it into your own life.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the idea of the hero in general.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: When you humanize them and you look at them and you see their story, and if you're able to relate yourself to them or them to you, that's where you kind of build your own adventure and your own character.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: You see the traits that they have or the actions that they took, and you go like, I could I could be that too.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I could make that too.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you have an example of you know from your own life of this idea of using death as a device?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it'd be helpful also to talk about kind of how did this come into being for me as well.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, please.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I was playing football in undergrad, and one of my teammates' fathers passed away.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know why, but it profoundly impacted me with the thought of whoa, man, like what if my dad died?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember him retelling the last conversation he had with his dad, and it wasn't a n it wasn't a good one.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that really struck me like, wow, like you know, and the grieving processes, oh, I mean, it it's time, sometimes it's around you you'll feel that person or that sense of loss um around that time when that person passed away, and You smell something, or you go to a special place.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, wow.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so he was going through a lot of these emotions of grief.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And thinking about it for myself, I was like, oh my gosh, like, what do I want my last memories with my dad to be?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are the last conversations that we're going to have?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say that that really catapulted me to say to my dad more regularly and to other people that I know, I love you.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: I did not grow up in a house where we said that often.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't because my parents didn't love us.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I would say, and I don't want to be a, you know, make a broader characterization, but I know in Nigeria, a lot of the Nigerians that I've met, you know, love is often demonstrated through our actions, right?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: We don't say it, uh, we don't need to hug, we don't need to really declare it from the mountains, but we do it through our actions.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started to tell my parents because I wanted that to be a part of our conversation.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I had other people who were around me at that time who really helped me to understand how to express that love.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I think about using death as a device, um, it's just a simple reflection on like, oh wow, like how would I respond to my dad differently if he died?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Or what do I want to be said of me when I die?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: And thinking about those things.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so that begins to activate um just some of those core ideas, like, oh, I want this to be true of me.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I want this to be represent my relationship with my dad.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that sobriety, it doesn't have to lead to a place of anxiety, which I imagine I know for some people it could lead to anxiety.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: For some people who've experienced death at younger ages, uh, some people, some studies will say that that leads to schizophrenia or to other things.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, I didn't know.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I yeah, um Erv Yalum and a lot of his work around existential psychotherapy has really been a good resource for me.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I so I want to be sensitive to how we all respond and react to it, but I think using it as a device can help to activate greater levels of generosity.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: When they talk about um cancer patients, people who know, oh, I have you know 12 months to live.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: How then what do I want to be true of my life?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's a greater that it's studies have shown greater levels of happiness, greater levels of contentment.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like people start to say, why am I in this rat race to just make more money and get more promotions?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that those things are really fascinating.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and to reflect on, okay, how then can I use that as a part of my daily reflection as I live, as I'm just a human person and I have my own limitations, my own boundaries.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then I also have possibilities and things that I didn't even know was possible about myself.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, I didn't know I could tell my dad I didn't grow up in the house where we did that, or I didn't know that you know one day I would be an entrepreneur and started my like or I moved across the country.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like these are a lot of things that I would say as a result of reflecting on death um have helped me to really, I think to center and to ground uh my decisions on a daily basis.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's um it's such a fantastic result.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's so tangible, like this idea that a shift in a perspective, right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: As you say, using death as a device, um, this this perspective that uses death or the idea of death or projects it onto uh however morbid it is, projects it onto the people around you, like the idea of what if they did die today?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: What if what if Moda, what if my mother died tomorrow?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how would that relationship end?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: How would their last conversations uh be?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so wonderful in a sense because it gives you the perspective of going, well, actually, I could change everything about that.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: In any interaction I have, I've complete control over how I'm going to interact.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, right.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it also kind of fascinating.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: We talked briefly before this.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: I have a another friend uh who's who immigrated from Nigeria, his name was Akin Jude, and he said a similar thing.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: He said, uh, growing up in Nigeria, is it direct will he said, you don't really talk to your parents.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of like a um, and this is in Nigeria when he was growing up, not necessarily reflective of you know the whole group, but for him, he's like, it was more of like an ownership relationship.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that kind of interaction, that more uh intimate relationship wasn't necessarily there.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that it can't be, it just means that you have to kind of shift your perspective and say, no, I want that, right?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's hard.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to see that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I don't, and I don't I I and I want to make clear, it's also messy.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think I had to deal with if I focus on my relationship with my dad, some of the resentment I had for how I was raised, or the lack of love that I would have liked to see expressed.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so it made me really say, okay, am I waiting for him to make the first move or will I make the first move?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's for some people, their relationship with their parents is very fraught, it's very tension, you know, full of tension.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think it it really uncoves some of that messiness for me that I found actually helpful because now I I dealt with some of those issues where I was like, hey Dad, can we really talk about this?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and it's like, and also thinking if I'm coming using death as a device, as we engage in these difficult conversations, I don't want this to end in a in a like fist down, you know, fist out argument, but I really want to understand.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would say there's three, there's three things that have become central to this kind of methodology or questions, so to say.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's a much bigger framework.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but what would I create?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if I was to die today, what would I create?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or what would I learn?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: What would I want to learn?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Or what would I want to enjoy?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so um those three things of passion to create, seeking to understand, and celebrating others or celebrating with others, um have become kind of guiding frameworks.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what would I want to create?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: What do I want to do with my hands or with my words or want to write?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what do I want to understand and learn?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like who so oftentimes that could be books or they could be talking to other people and enjoy, you know, and celebrating other people, which I think is actually the hardest thing because so much of our uh culture is saturated with Schanenfreude and wanting to see people fail or or envy and resentment.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that there's something or just wanting to see yourself succeed.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, how can we enjoy life?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think life is meant to be enjoyed.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but using death as a device, I I think it can be really helpful.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a lot of research around it, so I don't feel like I'm just reaching.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I also know that it can be dangerous for some people.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it may be more triggering um than helpful.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's um, I mean, and my only pushback would be on that uh is no matter how much anxiety the idea of death gives you, even if it's from you know childhood experiences or something very intimate to you, death comes to us all, right?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's something that is real, and it you can't push it off forever, no matter.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, once again, I don't want to push this onto anyone to go say you have to deal with this idea, but at the same time, this is real life.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's inevitable.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the death rate has always been 100%, you know, um, and hasn't dropped.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're we're seeing more deaths, unfortunately, because of coronavirus, but it's always been 100%.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's one thing you can always count on.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Not always taxes.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: People say you can always count on death and taxes.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Not really taxes, depending on who you are, but you can always count on death for sure.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good point.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, no, and what I think is fascinating, what I where my mind goes with this conversation was is this idea of you know, you see by using this new perspective, um, like I what I what I loved that you said was are you waiting for your dad to make the first move?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's this idea or this perspective shift that puts all the accountability on yourself.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: You start you look in the mirror and you go, I could wait forever for him to make the first move.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, and this could be in any situation, it could be in a fraud, any sort of relationship, it could be in um, you know, a group project.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, am I waiting for them to do the work?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I take up accountability?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I do the work?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I, you know, you see, you see how much more control you have over your situations and your environment.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, and I in and this is just to nuance that a bit is let's say I did tell my dad I love him and he didn't say anything back.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: I could still say, at least I did what I could do.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I put myself out there, I took the initiative.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: It may not have generated the result, and I think that's the other obsession sometimes is the result.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Now, results can be helpful, or goals and targets can be helpful to shape our intentions and our motivation.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we also letting go of what the end result will look like, it it makes the process even more meaningful.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um why would you say why would you say that it's more meaningful or fulfilling to come out of that experience saying I did what I couldn't have done?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think because then it loses the sense of personal regret.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's probably a regret like, oh, I wish he would have returned that, right?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I regret, and maybe even now I regret making myself vulnerable in that way.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I think what's important is coming back to owning our story, right?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Is that I owned my decision to do that.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't forced, I wasn't coerced, I wasn't tricked.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I made the decision to do that.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that other person, respecting their freedom, respecting their agency, made a decision not to reciprocate.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that that's hard.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that's the other part is that it's not always rosy.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's not always going to be um, you know, a 10-step program to this, you know, and I think people love those things because we're we're we're obsessing over the results, but then thinking about who are we becoming in the process is just as beautiful, is just as meaningful, is just as significant.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, and the reason I asked that question, why is it so meaningful because is because I feel like it ties so well into this question that started this entire conversation, which is what does it mean to be a man?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's this feeling uh, or what does it mean to be human?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: This feeling of uh loot like not having personal regret, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's this association between that and your character and how you feel about yourself as a person.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you act well, when you love well, when you compliment someone because you just wanted to compliment them, right?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: You get a sense of joy because that was like your self-expression, like you honestly believed what you were doing or what you were acting and how you wanted to do it.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, this is a good thing.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is a good thing for me to do, not for the result, but because I want to express myself in this way.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is a very defining aspect of you know, this, you know, being a good person.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be a good person?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like self-expression with good intent.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's really wise, Flint.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it makes me think of Henry Cloud's work on integrity, where he talks about trustworthiness and what does it mean to be a trustworthy person?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we all want trustworthy people, and trustworthy people, as he defines it, are people who um seek our best interests without us having to ask them for it.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so in that moment, I was seeking my dad's best interest to build a closer relationship with his son.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now, he didn't ask me for it, and so I'm not gonna say, Well, I'm trying to help you out.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's so, but it makes me really have to reflect on my motivations and my intentions, right?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, am I doing this?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: So then he would say, I love you more than he says to my sister, than he says to my brother, or am I really doing this because I think he would benefit from a relationship that's closer with his son, right?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think letting go of the outcome, letting go of the result allows us to really shape and I think become what we all desire in other people.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like people who say, Man, I don't have any friends.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: But then you have to ask, okay, are you becoming the friend that could actually have friends?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, are you becoming a friend?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think um you talk about manhood, like there is a lot of um moments where even in this experience of life where we're isolated, where we have to, you know, battle through um the temptations for immediate gratification of like I just want to go with that crowd just so I'm not alone, or I just want to be in a relationship so I'm not alone, or I just want to get in that job so I'm not bored.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes we have to sit with, like, okay, I'm gonna make this decision, even if I don't get the results that I want out of it.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is a part of being a man.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a part of being a woman, I think there's a being a leader.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think everybody has the capacity of being a leader.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: We all want to be leaders, uh, but oftentimes leadership is um sequestered or left for the elite or the more much more educated or people in positions of in power or have a certain amount of money.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think we are all in this journey of becoming, um, but most people aren't aware that their choices and their decisions are or the ideas that they believe about themselves and others are just as much important in shaping them day by day.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, and it it seems like it really all ties back to this idea of personal accountability, this idea of like taking control over um who you want to be, right?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're saying if you don't have any friends, well, what kind of person are you becoming right now?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of actions are you taking right now that would that would attract the type of people that you want to be around?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have a bunch of friends, but you don't you look at them and you go, I don't really want to associate with them, they're just around.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what are you doing to change yourself or to be the person that those kind of people would want to be around?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think what's so powerful about personal responsibility, which is which is also, you know, I'm gonna nuance that a little bit as well, is that we all have different access to different things, right?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, because I went to the university uh, you know, then I went to, I started to see more things that were possible.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, people started to believe more things about me that were possible that sometimes weren't even true just because I went to you know uh Duke University.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: So now people think, oh man, this guy's gotta be smart, or this guy's gotta do this, or this guy's gotta do that.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I definitely had more opportunities and access to more opportunities than people who grew up in the same neighborhood as me and didn't and went to Miami Dave Community College.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't go to Duke, but they were probably three times as smart as me.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: And but with that being said, is I think owning what we have access to in our opportunities and our in our choices, in our choice set, right?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I can't remember, I was talking with a friend and we were talking about you know algorithm and and how we like building different algorithms and and how the robots end up having choices, right?
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is that you have to give them awareness of what the choices of the answers are and then how do you train those models?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think in the same way in our lives, we don't always know what we have access or opportunity or a choice in.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so once we start to realize that we do have a choice, we start to see more choices and more opportunities for us.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think that um some of the choice sets, if we were to call it choose that word, are different based upon where we're coming from and what we believe is, you know, what ideas we believe to be possible.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: And but you at the same time, you still got to own your story.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe you didn't push yourself, maybe you didn't know it was possible to push yourself.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's it's uh yeah, it's not as straightforward, but yeah, it's I don't know if that's even helpful, just more nuance.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love it.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great perspective, and it's I mean, once again, it's this idea of it makes what I said more real, it makes it more applicable to real life, right?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're taking more of a theory that I'm putting out and and applying it to narrow niche, narrow, narrower niches of life, right?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are truly people that come out of the gates with less opportunity.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's not up to them.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: That that's kind of that idea of like you know, of control over your own life, is there are things out of your control.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully as a society, we build a system that um you know supports those people, but at the base level, if you're in that situation, if you're in any situation, right, there are ways that people suffer in any situation, you have to be able to take ownership of the things of your own actions, and I think that is really one of the um strong ties in this relationship here, in this conversation, uh, and these points is this idea of action.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is you can be aware of all the choices that you have.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can sit back and say, like, all right, what do I really want to be?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Who do I really want to be?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of job do I really want to have?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: But and then you can actually take that further and go, what choices do I have right now?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but then you have to act on them.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: And some people are paralyzed by choice, right?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of research around paralyzation of choice, and it's kind of like why people are perennial, um, you know, Tinder users.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's just kind of they get paralyzed by choices on the air.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: Really, you know, and yeah, people get paralyzed by like, oh man, I can go on another date this weekend, and then my expectations for relationship.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: Esther Pedro talks a lot about um, you know, mating and a in uh captivity, but I think um to your point, yeah, I I feel like it's it's that level of ownership of like, okay, I may not have all the all the right choices, but I'm gonna make one and I'm gonna see where that takes me.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: Or um, and just owning the mistakes too.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh, that was a bad choice.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: All right, let's try again, you know.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think uh because unfortunately, if you think, oh, I mean, I gotta become a hero, right?
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we just follow this hero arc of always making the right choices, and oh, I had one setback, but you may have 20 setbacks.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you may be on 19 different entrepreneurial journeys and never, you know, really make it to the uh, you know, the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that doesn't mean that you are a failure.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I think that um with the choices and opportunities that we all have, I mean, it's it's it's uh we're all trying to make the best of it, but hopefully, you know, leaders diverse in that concept really begins to pull back the scales on people's eyes or help people to better see, like, oh wow, you know, I may not have all the choices, but I do have this one or I have these three, and then what can I do there?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then yeah, just continue to iterate and learn.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think that's a that's a good place to kind of wrap up because it ties together a lot of this conversation really well.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we started off talking about this idea not only of what does it mean to be human, but I I liked that I that concept of the outer image versus the inner image of who are you showing versus who are you creating, like in this moment, what are the choices you're making that are gonna influence who you are as a character.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we talk a lot, or we talked a decent amount about this idea of kind of vulnerability of you know, you by so by expressing yourself by trying to become the person you want to be, you're gonna face messy situations, right?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like the example you say with your father, you could say I love you, and then he could not say it back.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: But by doing that, you open up this position where he sees, or whoever the person is sees that the only wall that now exists is the one that they have created.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: The other wall has been has been taken down, and if it's now you know the ball is in their court on if they're gonna take down that wall themselves or how they're gonna interact with that situation.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, absolutely.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then this idea of uh, yeah, no, this idea of uh using death as a device, I think is powerful, especially for you know personal accountability and for taking control of taking ownership of the options that you have, you know, you have to be aware of the options you have, you have to be aware of the the shift in perspective that you can take.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I could be the exact same to my dad today, or I could change it a little bit and say something a little different and see how it reacts.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um to wrap up this conversation, if there's one or two messages that you would take out of it that you would want a listener to see or to or to hear, uh, what do you think it would be?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I would I would leave them with my my definition of leadership is that leaders create environments for other people to flourish.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: And um, the image that I use most in that is when I look at nature, when I look at trees, um that they're each tree in and of itself is like its own ecosystem.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would think about what what environments are you creating around yourself?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and are you flourishing in that environment?
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: And do others have the opportunity as well to flourish around you?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: Love it, man.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my pleasure, man.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Dude, thank you.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank Greg for that awesome discussion.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: After this chat, I'm even more excited to read his work after it's all done.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to unpack here, but something that has really stuck in my mind is Greg's story of changing his relationship with his father.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of picturing the way you want to act and the relationships you want to have before you die is pretty commonly talked about.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: However, what I liked most about Greg's commentary is how he builds on this philosophy, with the idea that this framework can not only open your mind to the things you want to change, a relationship in this case, but also the understanding that how you act in that situation or with that person is completely under your control.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: We may all be born into lives with different circumstances, but at the end of the day, it is up to us to take charge of the ways we will act.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Greg uses these frameworks of death and terror management to give the perspective of ownership of our lives.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: One where it is important to reflect on what is possible, to find awareness of the choices we have in our current situation, and the personal accountability to act on the ones we really believe are the best for us.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: In that place, with those positive actions taken, even in failure, even with mistakes, we find a path forward.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: This conversation stimulated me to reflect on recent days and the ways I had spent my time during them, and helped me be more intentional with my energy, both physically and mentally.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully it helped you reflect on the ways you would rather be spending your time too.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you liked this episode of seeking authenticity, that's freaking awesome.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: All I want to ask of you, the listener, in return for the time and effort I put into making it, is that you take a deep breath.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean really breathe.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Breathe so that it stretches out your shoulders and your back and your chest and pushes out your stomach.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: No more of these shallow bullshit breaths.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're barely keeping you alive, my friend.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: And after you exhale, go out and soak up today.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the end, your actions and the way they interact with the world and the people around you right now are all you have in this life.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: So be authentic with them.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.