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Question Everything: Are Your Beliefs Actually Your Own? · the ACT OUT podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Act Out Podcast.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Adam Tomlin.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Today's guest is mental health advocate John Symes.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Let's roll the tape.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: John, how are you?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm well.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Adam, it's lovely to meet.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Lovely to be here.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's great to meet you too.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: I've definitely uh been looking forward to this uh conversation.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was uh kind of like looking over your uh kind of like looking over your biography and things, and it it seems like you and I are going to have a uh really fun conversation today.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm definitely excited.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: So would uh would you kind of consider yourself uh like kind of a a coach, uh so to speak?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh or like kind of uh what what do you consider yourself as a profession?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I coach uh and I speak.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: I work with corporates and uh I think at a larger level, I think what I'm uh what I'm trying to do is find some way of entering the conversation that that changes the direction of the human family.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: And if that sounds grand, I was brought up just a little bit, yeah.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was brought up in a household where the common good was was kind of something that registered in with my parents and and the idea of of uh contributing somehow to to the way we all live.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And um it came to me 20 years ago really clearly that uh I wanted my voice to be some part of uh positive change in the world.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's taken me on quite an adventure.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in the work that I'm doing, I'm trying to find a spot where I can help reveal some of the things that get us caught, that have us stuck in patterns that aren't working for us, and uh solutions that help us find a a way forward.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a sustainable way of living for everybody on earth is like sounds a grand goal, but it's um perhaps the the the current events we're seeing help us see how important it is to do that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I think that uh talking about the common good is something that is so I especially in the in the States.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh common good is kind of uh sometimes associated, especially in the South from you know where I'm from, associated with communism.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, ah, that's that's bad, you know.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh can you kind of can you kind of like talk a little bit though about sort of this distinction between the common good and kind of this rugged individualism?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: It seems like there's sort of this dichotomy in place that uh it's uh you know, putting it's kind of pigeonholing people, so to speak.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: You've put your finger right on a real hot spot there because we're at war, aren't we, somehow, between the sense of the individual and the good of everybody.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we've created in our world, we've created um a culture and the the opportunity for each of us to thrive.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so um potentially any one of us can can go grab a handful of life uh and build a good life for the people that we love.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and isn't that a basic instinct is to look after the people we love.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, when we do that to the uh exclusion of other considerations, what we start to do is set up inequity and uh injustice.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the distribution of opportunity, the distribution of resources is then not even.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so those of us that are equipped or privileged enough to be uh rugged individuals and make life work for us are doing so at the expense of people who often don't have the same opportunity or the same access to opportunity.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so we end up with this um uh separation between people who who are resourced and able and people who who are uh less so.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and the culture, particularly here in the States, the culture is very heavily around the rugged individual.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody can.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: I did, you can, is is the message that comes down from people who've done it successfully.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we lose sight of the fact that not everybody is is as capable of doing that.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and so we want to be able to, you know, hold out a hand to other people and help them get a leg up in life and and and take care of those people who can't take care of themselves.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we've lost a lot of that in the culture, I think.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh uh I didn't realize it the common good was labeled communism, but so uh you know, I I grew up in a very rural area.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um I I think that what it is is uh is it's kind of going back to like Cold War era propaganda.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Where, you know, like every like anything like collective or anything, that is bad.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's that that that's that's the Soviet Union over there where they're like counting potatoes for the harvest three years from now, you know, like that that would never work in America.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: That was kind of like the the attitude um, you know, that we uh you know that we had at the time.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: But looking back on it though, like the whenever I like really bought into this like idea of like rugged individualism and I can do it by myself, it uh I kind of neglected to realize all of the help that I had along the way.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that the that that's a myth to begin with.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: There is no rugged individual who gets there by themselves.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you you've had you've had a hand up, you've had something that has helped propel you along the way.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so that's I I think that's that's one thing to kind of go to go against it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: But um to me, the biggest thing about rugged individualism, you kind of uh hit the nail on the head earlier.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're talking about pick yourself up by your own bootstrap.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: But what happens whenever someone is holding the lace of your boots down?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're not going to be able to tie your you're not gonna be able to tie your boot to to walk on if you were being held back in the first place.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what happens.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: The the urge to to look after myself uh and and and uh win the game for me comes at the expense of other people.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then what's happened is we've created structures of power which actually keep that locked in.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so there are people who don't get the education that you or I might have been privileged to have.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um we create systems that that are marginalizing people and oppressing people on on different bases, on the basis of gender, on the basis of skin color, on the basis of religion and other ways.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we've that's that's the world we've created.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the people that benefit most are the people that benefit from the power distributed in the way it is at the moment.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: That what gets me about that is it seems like we are just inventing reasons to go against each other and to not try to help each other out.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, your skin has more melanin in it than mine does.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we we can't work together.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you believe in a different afterlife than I do.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so we're we're not gonna be it seems like all of these things are very, very trivial in hindsight, but for some reason we make them into these really big, like non-starters, so to speak.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, I agree with you, but I I just I wonder about the phrase we make them into the issues.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Those issues are framed for us very often by people in power.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're framed for us by the media, and and if we're not able to look behind the headline, if we're not able to do a bit of research uh or find other perspectives to compare, then yes, we would end up thinking that we've got a huge problem because there are women going into men's bathrooms or men going into women's bathrooms or or that uh immigrants are causing problems on on a huge scale.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: When we look at the facts, those, as you say, are fairly trivial issues or or incorrectly framed.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to be careful how we consume the messages that reinforce our perspective.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the things to be on guard about, I think.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and I think that kind of goes into a little bit about the uh kind of the the narratives and the stories that you and I were kind of talking about a little bit um a little bit off camera.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think that it's very, very easy to get into this confirmation bias loop.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and you don't even realize that you're you don't even realize that you're in it until it's until it's until you're too deep.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's why I'm fascinated by the whole topic of narratives, because narratives are the stories that we live in.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this if we break that down, the stories that we live in are the ways we think about ourselves, the ways we think about other people, maybe the beliefs we have about the world.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's those beliefs, it's our values, it's the assumptions that we make that we don't question.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so each of us, you you were born into your own story, me into mine.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: There'll be some common threads because we both we're both here as men, um, but we were born in different countries at different times.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and those stories will have their own flavor, but there are some very common threads to the stories that we believe in that that we've adopted.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um the the key thing to know about stories is they're like the operating system, Adam.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's as if it's an operating system that that intervenes before we get to conscious thought.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: So they're operating uh unconsciously in us.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're largely invisible unless we look for them.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so we are being lived by our stories.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the stories came to us, they might have come to you on your dad's knee or from your uncle.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Mum might have had a hand in it, of course she did.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: School teachers, all the other people that help shape us as we're growing up, plus the bombardment of information we get from the media, and they're creating stories that that enter when you're five years old, 15 years old, and then you're 35 or 45, and and it's why am I actually doing what I'm doing?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it I believe I'm only valuable if I work hard?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it I believe I've got to be a rugged individual?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's weak for me to ask for help.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: These are the stories that have that have come in.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what I love, I I think such powerful work is to is to begin to identify those stories.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because when we live when we look at them, when we can see them, we can choose whether to keep them or not.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then if they're if they're not serving us, we can replace them with something that that does.
• 10:56
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: You can replace, you can reframe, like there, once you once you see it, there's a whole world of possibilities.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: All the tools are there.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: What it takes is the is the uh the the moment that crystallizes that inner inquiry, you know, at the point we go, I don't want to keep doing this same old.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm bumping into the same problem time after time.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and when the pain gets gets enough, we're gonna start looking at how we can avoid doing that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: What uh like I've kind of noticed this, uh especially like with myself, and then kind of also uh like uh, you know, like with with other uh with other people, uh especially in today's political climate, but it seems like uh a lot of times you have to feel something before you see it.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you know, with these narratives, I'm uh in the the story.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm sure that like whenever you're working with a client, you can tell them all day long, like, you know, you've told you you have told yourself that you aren't capable, blah, blah but you are actually capable of so much more, you know, whatever the you know narrative is.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: You can tell that person a thousand times.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's not though until they have a moment where they can kind of feel that to where they're like, oh my gosh, did uh John, did you know I'm actually capable of so much more?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh why didn't you tell me in the you know, like five months we've been working together?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a moment of realization, I think, or or or when the when it moves from being a thought to being something embodied.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, and then it settles in a whole different way and it has the potential to be life-changing.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Until we get that realization, it's it could just be words I'm hearing from somebody else, but I haven't taken them fully on board, or I haven't, I haven't more truly, and what you're hinting at, Adam, is is I haven't found that in myself.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so so part of the work of a of a coach is to help people come to their own realizations.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Not to not to simply read a self-help book to them, but to help them get to the point where they can see their own inner landscape in a new way, a truer way.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and then that's the beginning of uh of change.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's where the possibility changes.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to uh I don't want you to give up too much of your trade secrets or anything, but how do you get someone to get into that uh that that state where they can actually make real change in their lives?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get them to do that?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't know that I can.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think as you were saying my question back, I was like, I did not word that well at all.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh But it's but it's useful because there's a really nice distinction in here.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we can we can see in other people ways that they're limiting themselves.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we can see ways in which they're sabotaging themselves.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but if I were to simply tell that to another person, I'd probably get a punch on the nose.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: The the the the real work starts when somebody gets to the point where they realize they need to change.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, we might we might encourage, we might ask people, we might suggest, but it's it's only when the decision comes that actually I'm gonna have to do something.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna and it's gonna be things I'm not used to doing.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to look inside, I'm gonna have to reflect, I'm gonna have to confront the parts of me that don't work.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and when I get to that point, then as you said earlier, there are all sorts of tools, and and a coach is is one of the tools that you can lean into.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm looking for people to to come to me wanting with a real genuine desire for the change, and then anything's possible.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Anything is possible.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that a lot of people uh think about like uh getting a coach or going into therapy and like, you know, I I can change, but not a lot of people actually end up being able to like really make like kind of a a very big change.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I first of all, I I think kind of the reason is because at least in my experience, the change was so small and so incremental that you know it's just it takes it it takes a lot of dedication to you know keep going and like moving that needle just like one centilla of an inch.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um and also it is very hard work as well.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I think there's an interesting distinction to make between change and transformation.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're talking about incremental change, you're talking about effort and effort getting more and more result.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if we were plotting it on a graph, it would kind of, you know, lead upwards.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: The that idea's interesting, and and some things are best approached in that way.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you were if you were training for a marathon, you would you wouldn't try and you you'd you'd try and do slightly better each time that you trained.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: That would be a very sensible approach.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: It would be crazy to try and do it differently.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: But when we get to transformation, we're talking about an outcome that is not predictable by the inputs.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So incremental change says, yes, that's going to be a 2% gain, a 2% gain.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I look at what happened before and I can predict where I'm going to be able to, how fast I'm going to be able to run in a month's time.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about a process of transformation, which is where the output is not predictable from the inputs, where uh some completely new opportunity opens up.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: So so if we've got somebody, let's let's talk about a man in his midlife who's been who's been living inside the story that I I am what I provide, I am what I produce, my job's to go out and earn the money.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and if we realize that story's limiting because it's cutting him off from his joy, it's cutting him off from his uh full expression, he's exhausted, he hasn't got enough time for the family that he loves.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we see the cost of all that.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: When we land fully inside the desire to shift from there, we can we can start then looking at, well, what's the what's the true human essence in here that wants to get expressed?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that might lead us into an entirely new avenue of expression.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: It might say that actually, you know, it's important for me to keep my job, but part of me is not satisfied.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's a, let's say, a creative part of me that's not not expressed at the moment.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to find space in my life to express myself more fully.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I go and join a choir.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was entirely unpredictable from the conversation we were having about I'm overwhelmed at work and I'm grumpy when I get home.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: But but we've we've we've looked at the situation, we've found a shift internally that says what's important to me is to express more of myself than just the provider.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I want to express my heart.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want to sing my song, and so I'm gonna go and join a choir.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and and that in itself might shift so many other things because this human being is now expressing what's dear to him.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got a transformation that's happened, not just a change.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that is so incredible that like it starts with I feel really tired and exhausted from working all day, or you know, like I don't feel like uh picking up the kids and uh like wrestling with them or whatever to something like that small where you think that it's if you were talking to a coach, they'd be like, Well, you need to maybe uh sleep a little bit better, or you know, like allocate resources.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: No, though, but like really what it what it could be is that you aren't actually being able to express, you know, like your your creativity.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that that I think that is absolutely like it's is phenomenal, but kind of shows the the power of the narratives to begin with, I guess.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it kind of uh goes back to really the beginning of what you and I were talking about, like uh with the rugged individualism and the common good, where we jump into the and into this narrative, like whenever we are so small that we can't even consciously, you know, like realize that we are accepting something as a narrative.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: So how how do you begin that work of breaking these like very entrenched narratives apart?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the first thing is to see them.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So to see them, what we have to look at is we have to look at the places where there's pain, the places where there's stuckness, uh, the places where things aren't working.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and when we look at why do I keep repeating this same mistake, or or why am I never able to break out from here, that that we're looking at a pain or a stuckness.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the the answer is always, almost always, there's a story in there that hasn't been examined.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm on the same operating system, I'm I'm running the same loop, the same tape, and I'm getting the same results, but hey, I'm expecting something to be different.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so the clue is always where there's pain and stugness.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we go in there and then we say, So, so why is it that this happens?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: What what is it that you believe that makes sense for you to be acting the way you've been acting?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's how my dad told me to do it.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, dad, dad may have loved you.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Dad may have been extraordinarily well-meaning, but he might have been running a story that doesn't work and doesn't work for you and doesn't work for today.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's and we see how many of the typical male narratives have not aged well.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't, they're not sufficient for the modern age, the days we're in where uh so many things have changed, where women are no longer prepared to put up with being the the the housewife that's at home looking after the kids, where she's got her own expression to bring in the world.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Our narratives predate that, and yet we're still trying to live them out as men.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got to find where the story is, and and that's usually fairly easy to unearth that.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: But then we need to shift the story.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the story's there, and we've reinforced it with our behavior and our belief system for for maybe decades.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to look and see what's the origin of the story.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and most stories originate when we can find them in messages we received when we were young that made sense to us at the time.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: They made sense to us at the time because they were repeated.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because they came from somebody we loved or was an authority figure to us.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so we need to get back to the person that took that story on.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And very often it's a younger version of ourselves who learned a particular behavior would likely lead to the rewards that he needed.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: More love, more acceptance, belonging, those basic core human needs that we have.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that child was doing the best that they could to win in that situation.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Often the strategies that are chosen when we live in those stories don't serve us when we grow into adulthood.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we find a story, we we find and and um dislodge the the way it's been caught in our system, and and there are different ways of doing that.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we break the we break the unconscious hold that that story has over us.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean the story disappears, but now at least I get to see, oh, that's me, that's me living out my old, my old male story.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'll tell you one of mine.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: I can still remember I was walking to church, I can see exactly where it happened on the road, I was wearing new corduroy trousers, Adam.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I noticed that my corduroy trousers were making a noise as my thighs rubbed together as I walked.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm about ten years old at the time, I think.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the staple in our house was John Wayne movies on a Saturday afternoon.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: They would they'd come out on the TV and I'd watch John Wayne movies.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, John Wayne's thighs don't brush together and make corduroy sounds when he's walking.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: John walks like he's got a a horse under him the whole time.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And some part of me at 10 years old decided that I was walking, I might be mistaken for not a strong man or not a not a strong boy.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I might be somebody might think I'm effeminate because my thighs brush together.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I adopted a John Wayne walk.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and if you saw me walk to this day, I'm still trying to work it out of my system.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: But but I took on this story that I needed to walk in a certain way.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's how, you know, that's a that's a a kind of absurd but very telling example of how these ideas sneak into our operating system.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we get back to that and we unhook that, and then it's like, well, okay, I don't need my my worth isn't tied to my posture or my stature or my swagger.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: My worth is me and my heart and the way I can interact with people.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm rewriting the game.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've got a new story.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: That my value as a man is nothing to do with the way I walk.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's all to do with how I how I direct my energy in in useful ways.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell What are some of the uh like kind of common narratives that you've seen in your time of working with uh with different clients?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it seems like with one that uh for for men, you know, that their identity is tied to uh being a provider.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that exists for almost all of us.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um that has that we pay a price for that one, we pay a big price for that one because it, you know, we knuckle down to to work, we often work harder than we need to.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: We believe hard work is necessary because that's how you be a provider.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so we get us stuck in in an unthinking loop of of of hard work and and hustle.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that's definitely a big one.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: The other one that, you know, I think all the listeners will identify is is the way we men are encouraged for, encouraged not to show our emotions or shamed when we do show emotions.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the the oldest line there, boys don't cry.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and that I heard that.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think I repeated it to my son, you know, without knowing at the time that must have come out of my mouth on on a bunch of occasions.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we're repeating it, but but actually, what are we saying?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, don't show your weakness, don't admit to emotion.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and then what happens is you've got you've got emotionally bottled up men and feelings that either need to get deadened somehow or leak out in in sometimes uh passive aggressive ways and sometimes aggressive aggressive ways.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's another very common story.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: So for me growing up, I mean we never talked about feelings or emotions.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: I even like my mom and sister, they wouldn't you know talk about them.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: So everything that I learned about it came from like pop culture and uh Hollywood movies.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I grew up in the uh late 80s, early 90s, and that was like the the action movie of kind of like Heyday.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so my idea of a man was Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kickboxer, uh, or you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the terminator.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and what I learned from that is that you that is that men never had any emotion whatsoever, uh, except for anger, and you could only use that to like spin-kick a bad guy.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then after that, it would, you know, it was supposed to go away.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so what that did to me though is that anytime I had a feeling that, you know, uh what made me feel not like Jean-Claude Van Damme, I would try to just suppress it.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: I would push it down.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I it would be like this constant battle between my brain and body, it felt like.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the price you were paying?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, I have a um I have a disfusion in my L5 and S1 from uh from like literally just keeping all that stress in without doing anything.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: It it and because because that energy doesn't just dissipate.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: We we lock it in, we store it somehow.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: It it can it can come out in in um some form of ailment or or or or um uh illness.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we and and so what's the story that you're living in now?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I now it's uh very much as you know as as you were kind of uh you know talking before that like I very, very big was that my identity was tied to like how well I could provide.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that took uh that that that took a lot of like untangling and realizing that I was you know like worthy of compassion and grace just like everybody else, because I'm a human being, just like everybody else.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: That took that that took a very long time.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And um now I uh almost see it, uh see strength as the inverse.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um because um the strongest that I think that I have ever been was whenever I was vulnerable enough to ask for help.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh where I was, I was not gonna be able to make it much longer on my own.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: And if I didn't get help, I was gonna be, you know, I I wasn't gonna be around for my family.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like this is this sounds like your personal story is super interesting.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I'd love to know more about it.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: But you you're naming a story.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Tune in to the Act Out Podcast.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the story that we shouldn't ask for help, we men particularly shouldn't ask for help, um, uh is another one that's really prevalent.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and it leads to all sorts of craziness.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we all know this story about why why men will never stop and ask for directions when they're lost somewhere.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And your partner sat in the other seats, he's going, just wind the window down and ask somebody, will you?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so my identity though was very much tied to being correct.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: And like, this is the decision I made.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're going this way.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: The the destination will suck the destination will move if it has to, because I'm gonna need to be right here.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of seen what it was, seemed what it was like at the time.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of years ago, I got lost in the mountains.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And no, it wasn't serious.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was the weather was great, and I had a map and food and everything.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't a problem, but I'd taken a wrong turn.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh it took me about a day to realize uh there were two places, one called the Valley of the Big Lakes and the uh Valley of Valley of uh five big lakes and five small lakes, the two valleys, and I'd I'd gone into the wrong one by mistake, and I'd I'd sort of made up this well, those lakes don't look quite like they do on the map, but uh I must be, you know, I know I this is where I am.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then I walked down the trail and and up in the Sierras here in California, there aren't many signs, but occasionally there are signs, and and there's this big sign, and it was made out of cast iron that had been lovely, that somebody had cut the iron to say which way the trail was.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, that sign's in the wrong place.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I I made up the story that somebody up in the mountains was messing with the signs and had moved this sign about five miles from where it should be to put it in this place here.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd made up this entire story about how that had happened because I didn't want to accept that I'd got my map reading wrong a day ago.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Why do you think it's so easy to tie your ego to kind of small little outcomes like that?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: Where, you know, it'd be so much easier if you could have just been like, hey, I I'm actually at the wrong sign here.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: I need to backtrack.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: But instead, you know, we we still try to like fight it and make ourselves right.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think there's lots of ways of answering that question, but I'll give you one that comes to mind right now because of some work I was doing a a a week ago, and I was looking at I was looking at uh how I do the work I do and how to be productive doing what I do.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I realized that I put a lot of effort into trying to organize my life, and I'm quite a I'm quite identified with being a smart guy who can sort it out.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that was what was valued in my childhood, a bit a bit the same as you.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not not about not well being correct, but having the answer uh and being able to figure it out yourself, and and um what came to me with the the help of somebody who's coaching me was to look a bit more deeply.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and the question he asked me was, so why is it you don't trust the universe?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm still sitting with that question.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, do I trust that that I live in a benevolent universe?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want to, I say that I do, but at some level I'm not sure I'm I'm fully trusting that the the universe has got my back.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm I've got it.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I've got my hands on it, I'm organizing it, I'm listing what I need to do, I'm making sure.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And in so doing, I'm I'm I'm cutting out grace, I'm cutting out serendipity, I'm cutting out that somebody else might know better, I'm cutting out all sorts of ways that yeah, the the universe might want to support me doing what I'm doing, because I've somehow gotten stuck with the idea that I have to do it myself.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the most profound level at which I've been looking at that question.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you know what's kind of interesting to me is that that uh that that story that you taught yourself very much goes against the idea of like working towards the common good for folks that you know was another narrative that was so like you know deeply ingrained into your uh into your childhood.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it's so like seeing that is so interesting to me that a lot of these stories that we've accepted, they think even contradict each other sometimes.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's true.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and and one of the things we learn as we go through life is is the need somehow to be able to hold contradictory stories or contradictory positions because our culture wants there to be a single answer to every situation.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's one answer, there's one way through.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: One of the teachers that I worked with from the native traditions here in the USA would say if you observe something, think of six plausible reasons why it happened.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Six plausible reasons why it happened.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's so contrary to the way that we normally operate.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: What caused that problem?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and we think there's an answer, a single answer.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe there are six, maybe there are sixteen.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and we as a culture prize prize this sort of idea of a singular way forward, uh right idea.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: We can master anything if we know what it is, how it works, what causes it, the exact the exact uh formula.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it's a very reductionist approach, and I think it I think we lose a lot along the way.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: As as you were saying that, it kind of hit me.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's like there is a bit of certainty that humans love with the idea of it being a singular, like, hey, so why did World War II start?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Hitler invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, you go back and it becomes like a lot more complicated than that.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: But seemingly, if there is one reason why something started, then there is one way to fix it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh like you were saying with the with the formula.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, so I I how do you get people to embrace uncertainty when uh when being certain is almost like a fundamental the the need for certainty is part of the human condition.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I that's a great question.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: How how would you encourage somebody to embrace uncertainty?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: I but I keep coming back to the watchword I use when I'm when I'm um interviewing or selecting people.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I love to talk to people who know what they don't know.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they're willing to admit they're not.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you would love me.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: I already do, but yes.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: I I tell people a lot of times, like, I do not feel like I am smart at all.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I feel like I am just at that level of intelligence where all that I know is that I don't know anything.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: Even even topics that I feel like I've studied a bit and I have a good grasp on, there are people that have spent their entire lives on it that could run circles around me.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it just feels very disingenuous ever.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you've just highlighted uh one of the differences between wisdom and and and knowledge.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, I wasn't wise enough to figure that one out, though.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wisdom isn't the same as knowledge, isn't the same as intelligence.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Wisdom's wisdom's a capacity to to find and activate what needs to be worked with.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and intelligence is very different.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Knowledge is knowledge is information.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wisdom is how we enact that.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: How do you why why do you think we got it so screwed up?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and because people will uh assume that intelligence is wisdom and will assume that confidence is intelligence.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we assume that people with money have intelligence.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's way off.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: So so sorry, what was the what was the question in there?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, I'm it's it's okay.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: I what you and I like I I've had such a good time with this conversation that I I think there were about 10 different possible questions I could have asked you from what I said because not even going to quite remember.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, how did we get in the place where uh conf I mean uh intelligence is mistaken for wisdom, and that confidence is mistaken for intelligence.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm asking you the really easy questions.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I in my mind's eye, I've got a I've got a story of um something just over 12,000 years.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and that means the story starts at a time when we were living uh as hunter-gatherers in very small bands, groups, tribes, and we had an entirely different orientation to life.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: And life life would be about sustaining ourselves and continuing life for the generations afterwards.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and I imagine for for many of the peoples of that time, life would be pretty difficult, you know, to find enough protein to actually find enough to feed and eat and keep yourself sheltered from the extremes of the weather and keep yourselves safe.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so it was a very easy step when when somebody discovered that you could actually take seeds and plant them in one place and go back and harvest the crop.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and some some other folk figured that if you could somehow herd whatever beasts you were um you were using in your food chain, that you didn't have to go out and hunt the whole time.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we we settled down into uh and over a period of thousands of years, we we we settled into uh homesteading and then the agricultural revolution had begun.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and at that point, we we confronted a couple of things.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: One is we confronted for the first time what surplus was, and we converted surplus into property.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: And once we had property, we had unwittingly started to create the circumstances in which you and I might end up in competition.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: You might end up dependent on me, or vice versa, because you've got enough to see you through the winter and I haven't.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I come to you for help.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we've created the circumstances in which um how we think about who owns what it's begun to infiltrate.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then as we've progressed through to today, those stories have become embedded in different ways.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and so we now have property.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: We we have the birth of land as property, we have the birth of women as property of men, we have the birth of all sorts of ideas.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we've come away from relying on the wisdom of the collective to resting on the smarts of the individual.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if I look back at how I imagine that we lived 12,000 years ago, or I look for the traces of it that exist in the indigenous communities that I've that I've been privileged to get to know a little and to learn from, we see that there's always a tradition of guarding wisdom.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it might be the collection of the elders.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's usually that the wisdom is most available through the elder people of the group, and and the elders are valued for their ability to have learned from the past, absorbed what's happening in the present, and made made um good choices about what's to do next.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And in many of those cultures, learning is embedded as a key skill.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: How do we learn from what's happened so that we can look after ourselves tomorrow?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: I see lots of those structures have broken down.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: We we have no structure for for um maintaining, for stewarding wisdom in the modern world.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: We've got lots of structures for how to use power and who gets to decide on w how resources are divided, but we don't have a place that we dip into collectively for wisdom.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think in the absence of that, what happens is that people who are smart, quick thinking, uh decisive can be seen as the the people to follow, uh and intelligence comes in to prominence there.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Where does confidence fit in?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I I'm not quite sure, but but but somebody who appears confident can gain the support of somebody who doesn't have a broad enough perspective to to actually assess whether they're really that other person's on the money or not.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think to a certain extent, uh the more confident you are, the more certain people feel like, you know, they're like, oh, if we go with this guy, I am more certain of this outcome.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_02: Not even Necessarily a good outcome or whatever.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: They are just more certain that this outcome will happen, as opposed to, you know, where if I'm kind of like saying, well, you know, like this could happen, but on the other hand, this could happen, you know, like that uncertainty is sort of like, I don't, I don't want to go with that person.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: If I, if, if I listen to this person, at least we know we are going to go in this direction.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think there is something to uh to that, like uh confidence and certainty playing hand in hand.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, sometimes certainty is, you know, it's a great, it's a great shortcut because if we're not certain about something, then the alternative, one alternative would be to actually sit back quietly, reflect on the entire situation, the range of options, and then choose amongst them.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's time consuming.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: So in a fast world, we don't want that.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: We want to go with somebody who's who who who we trust will make the right decision.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's and that's a really useful thing to do.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I know in uh there are circumstances that where that's exactly the right thing to do.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: If there's an emergency of some kind, I'm gonna look for somebody who's confident in their ability to navigate that and look after the other people involved in the emergency.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna put my efforts behind that person.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think there was something else that you had touched on too, like at the beginning when I, whenever you're talking about like the hunter, hunter-gatherers and uh kind of competition starting up.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I think at that same time, comparison started up as well, where you could look at what you had, look at what your neighbor had.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time, it would probably be a lot more um the opportunity for surplus would be a lot more, it would be a lot more spread out.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: Where, you know, like you and I would have the same opportunity of like establishing whatever.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so I look over and I'm like, man, John got like 150 coconuts and I only got 25.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's he he's doing something pretty good here, you know.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's and it's easy to like to to then look at you and like, hey, what is he doing?
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna model myself after him because he's been working hard.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas now, where you know, you were you're a um uh sixth generation uh coconut magnet, uh, where you know you've never uh never had to pick a coconut in your life, and you know, everybody else does it for you.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'll look over and you know, you have 10 million coconuts and I only have 20.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: But at that point, though, it's no longer necessarily a uh saying that you've worked harder and done better than I have.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've we've we've been pitted in competition and comparison since the emergence of property and the you know, there would have been a time when surplus, if I had all those coconuts and you didn't, then I'd share them.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because because we you and I were committed to the good of the grouping to which we belonged.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and maybe that's a small community somewhere uh in in a fixed place, but we'd have a sense that we were mutually uh interdependent, that that your flourishing was good for me, um, and no child would be uh left without a meal at the end of the day, and and and anybody that was sick would be helped through that.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you can imagine all of those ways in which we'd support each other and we'd share, we'd share our bounty.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: But we've been in competition for a long time, and particularly as men, I mean, we're in competition.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: The whole, you know, we're all trying to find, in some sense, we're trying to climb a ladder and and and get ahead of the the guy that's beside us or behind us.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's um it's a strange aspect of the world that we live in today, this this sense of competition, both both real and expressed, and and the story that we have about it, which is so often unexpressed, but it pits us in competition with each other.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's what really struck me with what you said.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's that zero-sum mindset that we have uh that that we've adopted.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's the narrative that if John wins, that means I I've lost.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: But in reality, that is not necessarily the case at all.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: And uh especially whenever it comes to an interconnected, interdependent species, which human beings are, your flourishing is going to be beneficial for my flourishing.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe my flourishing with coconuts is is valuable in some way, but we we tend to underplay down value the other ways in which people contribute to a healthy society.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, think about all of the unpaid labor that goes into raising children.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's got it's got no it's got no dollar value to it.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and yet and probably there aren't many mothers who are actually uh um amassing huge coconut reserves as their mothering.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: But somebody else can do the coconuts because we need somebody to raise the kids.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I don't mean to make this a male-female thing at all.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: There might be somebody else, it might be you, that maybe you maybe you're the person that cares for people who can't help themselves while I'm out gathering coconuts.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and so we need to we need to value the contributions that that all fit into a healthy society.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: And under a under a strictly capitalist model, if we can't monetize it, then we don't value it.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, oh, very much so.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um what had uh kind of gotten me.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: You had uh were talking about uh like nurturing and uh you know like uh childcare.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing to me that the same politicians are talking about like how much of a blessing that the uh you know being at home and doing all these things are.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: None of them are doing these things that they say are so wonderful and are such blessings.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, it seems to be they're talking out of their ass, but you know, that's just me.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: I um I I I learned a little bit about the Baha'i faith, um, which is a relatively recent religion that came out of uh came out of uh it what we call Iran now uh in the middle of the 1800s.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and forgive me if I'm not absolutely correct with this, but uh the the the way the Baha'is organize themselves, they don't have a a priest or a a vicar or a leader in that it's it's just it's a communing of people who are following a certain set of teachings.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: And at every level, from the city up to the county, up to the nation, up to the continent, up to the world, they have representative bodies of nine people.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and they've decided nine's the number that works best to have a healthy conversation.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: And when they get to elect who are going to be the leaders, they have a couple of rules for the for the election process.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: One is that everybody's a candidate, and the second is that nobody is allowed to promote themselves as a candidate.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so what you have is people simply looking to select the nine wisest people in my town, city, country, whatever level it's at.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and what you get because there's no promotion, there's no there's no space for ambition in this, people who are recognized by their peers to be wise are invited to take a seat in the in the ruling can the ruling circle, the the governing circle.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say ruling, I'm sure they wouldn't.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then you repeat that at the next level up.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: So by the time you get to the people that are at the higher echelons of that faith, you've got some extraordinarily wise and humble people.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's such a vast difference to the politics of today, where ambition and and and greed are on on uh just nakedly expressed, and we've got the corruption that we live with.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that that type of hierarchy that is based on merit and based on work and wisdom, that is that's that's something that I can get behind.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's this just like absolutely kind of absurd, like just whatever, where you know, like it ha uh it seems like now the hierarchy is so arbitrary where it has absolutely nothing to do with your merit and your talent, but who you know, you know, and that's that's what gets me every time.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: I it's it's it's laughable.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if it weren't so damn dangerous, I'd be laughing about it.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it's actually extremely dangerous because you can see it playing out on the world stage.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're we're on the brink of of potential nuclear war.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're uh we've got uh a climate which could collapse at any time.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: We've got insecure food supply chains, we've got poisoning of the oceans and the air and health crisis.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you know all of this.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean to I don't mean to catalogue the woes of the world, but but make no mistake.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think you missed a couple.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Ain't that limey, ain't that telling?
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think it just shows that this is a moment for us as as individuals to start looking to the common future, the collective good.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that we're living into?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that we we want to have uh left in in um the future for our kids to live into and their kids to live into?
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can we imagine our kids living with the same uh range of choices and opportunities that we have today?
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Can we protect that opportunity for them?
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and our we're back on the you know, some of these themes are weaving out of, you know, we're back in the idea of the individual.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: If it's about the individual, well, that's that's that's one way of looking at the world, but a very limited way.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and the other orientation is well, how do we protect life, the continuation of life?
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: What do we do to create the circumstances in which life can continue and can flourish?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's our our big challenge.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it seems like we have like we're we're kind of uh Robert Frost, two roads are diverging here.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we we can choose whether we're gonna go individual uh to our downfall, or we can work together towards our common good.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's that's kind of the the choice that we have at this point.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and um, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I was working in a marvelous organization called the Pachamama Alliance, and and we were uh our our mission was to uh bring forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on earth.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's a grandiose mission, and it's it's it's but it's but it's what a banner to march under.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: What what an what an enlivening idea it is to be committed to how we create that that would happen.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we we we thought it was as simple as there's a fork in the road, we can take we can go left or we can go right.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we thought that if we raised the subject in enough places with enough people, that good people would take the right path.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: And many of them did.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was privileged to travel all over the world with people who volunteered for this mission, who did extraordinary things, made changes in their own lives, tried to inspire other people to see what's going on and choose the right path.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um what we overlooked in in those days, and this this this was very much the time of um I'm thinking about uh when Obama ran for the first time on the message of yes, we can.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that's important.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's important to give people a choice.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: What we'd failed to factor in was how invested the powers that be are in keeping us going down the left path.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's where their power is was derived from, that's where their wealth flowed from.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so the the structures of power are not uh currently aligned with us pursuing the right path toward a collective um flourishing future.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's the sad conclusion that I've come to.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: So um I don't think I'm alone in coming to that conclusion.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, so what what do you what what's the answer?
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: What what do we have to do?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we have to keep we have to keep um advocating for that in whatever ways we can.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and what I'm trying to do is help people see the stories that are unconsciously allowing them to align with uh the current trajectory of humanity, which is which is um uh uh an extractive, poisoning uh body on the on the on the earth.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I uh uh we have to do what we can to to educate people and and help the voice of the people rise more um more loudly.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's for sure what uh what we can do.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I think you know, I think I I I trust that I trust the genius of the human beings.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: I trust us, I trust the human genius and the incredible qualities that are available inside every human being.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: Inside of you, inside of me, inside of everybody is the capacity for compassion and for wisdom and for curiosity and for love and for courage and steadfastness and and so many more.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I trust that.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I what I try to do is is is think about how do we have everybody able to access that inside of themselves and live their life fully.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when we come fully alive, when we come so fully alive that we're in touch with, uh to our own surprise, sometimes we're in touch with the the power we actually have, the strength that can flow through us, the resourcefulness that we have.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we're fully alive and and we're not we're not dormant in front of the TV or numbed out in some way, when we're fully alive, I trust that those qualities will have us raise our hand, raise our voice, and and choose the right path.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's my belief.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll I'll live inside of that belief.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: It serves me to do so.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I don't, I'm not trying to argue it that's how it is.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying that's a belief that works for me.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I love that answer.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm only uh slightly disappointed that you called my listeners geniuses before I could.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but besides that.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: John, man, I have had such a fun time this conversation, man.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for acting out with me.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's it's tremendous.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's so much more we could continue to discuss, I'm sure, but I I hope we've delivered some value.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean I want to say to I want to say to any of the listeners that that are that are listening in this inside this concept of the stories that are running our lives, we very often we live in that another aspect of our culture is that we um we tend to um assume that if something's not working, then it's our fault.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: We tend to we tend to make it the the the fault of the person that's suffering that they somehow have failed themselves.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say to people listening, you're not broken.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: None of us are broken.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: Some of us are living inside stories that don't serve us.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: Stories that we inherited, stories that aren't even ours.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so don't think of yourselves as as broken or somehow flawed.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the case.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: But look and see if the operating system that you're working in is truly serving your goals, your desires, all that you want in the world.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and wherever there's a mismatch, then you've got a choice to lose an old story and choose a new one that works better.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if anyone is interested in uh working with John or looking him up, we have uh links in the uh bio of the uh end description of this uh of this episode.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh please check him out.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it John, thank you again, man, for coming on.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: This has been so much fun.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a privilege.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've really enjoyed it.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Adam.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the great work you're doing.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I love it.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: And let me know any other ways I can help you that get your your word more visible, more audible in the world.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you, man.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate that.