Origins : Cultivating Luck, Embracing Chaos, and Pursuing Personal Development

Jake: 0:45

What's up, guys? So, I am. I'm getting excited about my trip. My trip starts today. I am.

Noah: 0:55

Your trip starts today. Today.

Jake: 0:57

Yeah, later this afternoon I rented a tiny house in the woods in southern Missouri for a week, from today until next Sunday. Got the little Airbnb reservation thing today. That said, your trip starts today. By the way, you should probably download the map before you go, because you probably won't have reception when you get there and it was like awesome.

Noah: 1:22

That's what I'm going for, excited for my trip as well. Mine starts in like 16 days.

Frank: 1:29

Like 16 days. I have a real trip drought compared to you guys. I need to take some trips.

Jake: 1:34

Yeah.

Frank: 1:36

I guess I went to Utah recently but Like MDMA, like psilocybin. Definitely a trip drought then. That was not what I was thinking about.

Noah: 1:48

Yeah, do you know where you'd like to go?

Frank: 1:52

No, I mean, I have a bunch of places I'd like to go, but nothing is planned. Yeah, randy wants to go to Key West and I'll go there soon.

Jake: 2:07

Except Florida.

Noah: 2:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah Well you and I both have unfavorable opinions of Florida, except for Miami.

Jake: 2:19

Miami seems I would really like to go to a waterpalooza. It looks like a really fun time. Dude Rogue is this weekend.

Noah: 2:27

Oh, it is Next weekend. It's next weekend, I think.

Jake: 2:31

Yeah, because I saw somebody say like 10 days a couple days ago.

Noah: 2:33

Rogue is next weekend, so Anyway, yeah, if you keep thinking about it, that's another place I'd like to go.

Jake: 2:39

I'd like to go to Austin. Yeah, never been to Austin.

Noah: 2:44

I'm not. I also have unfavorable opinions about Texas, but I agree, I would love to go to Austin.

Jake: 2:50

Yeah.

Noah: 2:51

It has a different vibe from the rest of the places in Texas, but it may actually just be Texas, I don't know.

Jake: 3:01

I don't think so. Everybody says it's like an oasis in Texas. From Texas.

Frank: 3:07

Yeah.

Jake: 3:08

I have. I've heard something recently where people are moving to Texas and Tennessee and probably other states but like, specifically because they don't have income tax, yeah, and people are like, yeah, I live there six months and one day out of the year and I don't pay income tax.

Noah: 3:31

Sounds nice.

Jake: 3:32

Yeah, I mean I'm sure they make it up for it and other ways.

Noah: 3:35

But so you guys want to talk about luck. We recently have been having conversations just off the podcast about different topics and we thought maybe we'd try doing something a little different on the podcast. Talk about a topic, and luck seems to be something we've talked about a lot recently.

Jake: 4:02

Yeah, like specifically how there are different types of luck and might break them down a little bit and go through each one. Yeah.

Noah: 4:14

Or how. Maybe they're not actually luck.

Jake: 4:16

Yeah, no, it doesn't believe in luck. I don't know if I don't believe in luck period, but I don't think. It's like unicorns ghosts luck.

Noah: 4:25

Like I said, if you found a winning lottery ticket that I might attribute to luck, Like a real force in the universe.

Jake: 4:35

Yeah, because there are.

Noah: 4:36

I mean, the odds of that are minuscule, but I think most of the time, if something that we call lucky happens, there was some other force involved, or at least some other thing that caused better odds of that happening.

Jake: 4:54

Yeah. So, frank, when I look up luck, there's like a million different labels that people put on the different types of luck, but I think when we were talking about it, we had like four main types. What were the specific names we were talking about?

Frank: 5:14

Yeah, I mean, my view of this is that there's like only really one that's luck. The rest are just Miscategorizations, that people call them luck.

Jake: 5:26

Well, that's sort of what Noah was saying. Like, I think, noah, you said something like luck is what people call something when they don't want to think about it further.

Noah: 5:36

Yeah, do you think blind luck is the one that is actually luck?

Frank: 5:42

Yeah, it's caused by randomness, and sometimes randomness can work in your favor, maybe just for a day, or maybe for a week Over time. I don't think it's randomness that produces extraordinary results for someone.

Noah: 5:57

Yeah, I think the place that I will leave some sort of room for luck being luck in blind luck in particular, is like things that you definitely couldn't control where you were born, what family you were born into, just general life circumstances that you had no control over. Yeah, obviously that is something that is out of our control. So if you want to call it luck, I suppose I can be okay with that.

Frank: 6:34

Yeah, I call it randomness.

Noah: 6:36

Yeah.

Frank: 6:37

But yeah, it's blind. I mean it's blind luck and certainly it can impact your whole life if it's blind luck on your birthday.

Jake: 6:46

Yeah, yeah no.

Jake: 6:50

Well, that's interesting because I do think. Personally, when I think of luck, I think about probability. It's a stats game, which I think is kind of what we're all saying to some degree. But it is weird because I don't know. You could break it down further and you could say okay, well, some people intentionally skew the statistics in their favor by behavior, behaviors or environment, design or whatever it is, to make it more likely that luck will strike them. But then, yeah, like Noah said, there's these other things like genetic factors. This person just happened to be born with a chiseled jaw and the ability to put on muscle like nobody's business, and they can't hold fat to save their lives. What's with that guy? Why'd he get born with that and I didn't? But yeah, it does seem like that one is the main one that people think about with luck.

Frank: 7:56

What are the other ones? Well, so yeah, and I think randomness is what that is, and it plays into the probability of the rest for sure. So the next one is luck through hard work. This is just like consistent effort, consistency showing up. I think it involves focus and discipline. It's just showing up If you're should. Yeah, I think you had luck from motion. Sure, yeah, and if you show up every day, the likelihood that you showed up on a lucky day goes up massively.

Jake: 8:35

Sure, like in the lottery ticket scenario, if I buy a ticket or five tickets every day this is the theory anyway it's more likely that I'm going to win the lottery than if I buy zero tickets. I got to show up, I got to play the game, or I'm never going to win it.

Frank: 8:54

Yes, and this leads into the next one in a great way, because if you were an expert in finance, you would realize that the luck from an uncanny intuition is that if you put those $5 in the SP500 every day, you will have a guaranteed outcome. That is way better than your possible outcome with the lottery tickets.

Jake: 9:23

Okay.

Frank: 9:24

So it's like I know the factors involved. I know when and where to apply the work to maximize the potential for a good outcome.

Jake: 9:38

Yeah.

Frank: 9:38

Yeah, luck spotting, some people call it.

Jake: 9:42

Gotcha, that makes sense. Yeah, and then Okay yeah, and I've heard of that called like spotted luck, right yeah, so Okay Okay.

Frank: 9:51

Okay.

Jake: 9:51

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I don't think I fully understand that yet, though. So this is the one where I'm an expert at something I continue to learn more and more and more, so I actually know where to put my effort in order to increase the probability. So the difference between consistency, just showing up, luck through persistence I show up every single day, but I'm not necessarily optimizing that showing up. It's just like I'm in the group and I hope they pick me, as opposed to oh man, I've been paying attention, and the person who chooses the guy out of the group seems to always look right and seems to always pick somebody in the second third of the group. So I'm going to go stand in that specific area and it's more likely I'll get chosen.

Noah: 10:51

Let me read something that might be helpful to you. This is by Sahil Bloom, just as far as credit goes. He calls it luck from awareness. Luck presents only a faint clue. The potential opportunity exists, but it will be overlooked, except by that one person, uniquely equipped to visualize it conceptually and fully grasp its significance. Type III luck from awareness involves a special receptivity, discernment and intuitive grasp of significance unique to one particular recipient.

Jake: 11:30

Okay, yep, that makes sense. So I'm developing a sort of expertise by paying attention and maybe even creating some sort of framework to think about when these things occur.

Frank: 11:44

I think there's a whole sub framework of conscious competence. I don't know if you guys know about what that is, but essentially the first time you do something you're not competent at it and you're not conscious of it either. Someone is stepping you through it. Okay, first put your seatbelt on, then start the car and put it in, drive the more times. There are four stages. But unconscious competence is where the thing happens automatically. It's not a thought yeah, okay.

Frank: 12:25

So I think this applies to luck spotting. If it's your first day in a sales conversation, then you're like what do I do next? Let me look at the guide. If it's your 5,000th sales conversation, then when the person says, yeah, I think I'd like to do it, you say, all right, let me get your payment details. I mean, it just happens automatically. So I think that thinking about that hierarchy and it doesn't have to, I don't think it's always involves like this super niche thing either you can get. I could think about nutrition a little bit, like if I eat 200 grams of protein every day, that's showing up, it's giving my body the protein. But if I eat that the bulk of it right after I lift heavy, there's a definite difference in how my muscles respond to that Sure so.

Jake: 13:47

Well, from the you should do it From the sales call perspective. I think that's a good differentiator. Second luck doesn't happen in sales in the way that I do actually have to show up to make a sale. I'm not going to be like, yeah.

Jake: 14:03

I was walking down the street and I found a $20 bill. That might happen. I was walking down the street and I accidentally sold this guy a car. It's not going to happen, but you could have luck through persistence. You could be like, yeah, I made 500 cold calls a day for a month and I sold 100 times. Or you could have this spotted luck through expertise and it's like, yeah, I got on the phone call and I could tell by the guy's tone it wasn't going to happen. Or I got on the phone call and, yeah, there were some objections but I knew exactly how to handle it and my conversion rate was 70% or something insane. I'm showing up, but I'm also applying this expertise.

Noah: 14:46

Yeah Well, and then, for that matter, just having a deep understanding of what you're selling, having a deep passion for what you're selling, it's really believing in it and it makes a difference. So you could make the same 500 cold calls, two different people. One person deeply understanding the product and also really believing in the product probably is going to close a lot more of those.

Jake: 15:06

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Frank: 15:11

I think I understand that. One Thanks the fourth and these are from some guy a long time ago. That's all I know.

Jake: 15:17

It's not Sahil, they're not ours.

Frank: 15:20

They're not Sahil, they're not Alex Hermosi, they aren't even James Clear. It was like way before that, okay, okay.

Noah: 15:30

Seneca.

Frank: 15:33

I you know, Seneca probably mentioned all these concepts, that's true, but I don't think in one listicle no.

Noah: 15:40

So I still have Sahil Bloom's article up, and he attributes it to Dr James Austin. That sounds right. I think I've read that before too. And he published a book entitled Chase, chance and Creativity the Lucky Art of Novelty.

Frank: 16:00

Yeah, that's it. That's the first mention of it that I'm aware of. That's what people usually reference. That seems right. Yeah, so the last one of the four that that guy came up with. I don't even remember his name already. The novelty luck guy is network effects or network luck.

Jake: 16:23

Okay.

Frank: 16:25

And so I don't know. I think of this as sort of. You get good at the sales conversation through luck spotting and all the luck's under it and showing up randomness and other people know about this. You either talk about it or they see you, and so others get involved in the same area on some level or use you as an expert on the area.

Jake: 16:59

Oh okay. These are brand advocates.

Frank: 17:04

Yeah, exactly, jake closes all sales, so we should have him do sales training for us.

Noah: 17:10

Yeah, this is. This article calls it luck from uniqueness and the way he explains it is it comes to you unsought, because of who you are and how you behave, for instance. Luck occurs when your unique set of attributes attract specific luck to you. It actually seeks you out, like you said, because maybe you're a great salesman, you get a chance to do sales, training or whatever.

Noah: 17:40

I think of you in this scenario because you have such a unique set of connected skills that maybe nobody else on earth has Specific to emergency medicine and software and all of these things that you've put together.

Frank: 18:06

Yeah, I'm a credentialed expert in three separate fields that are never together in a person, for sure.

Jake: 18:15

Well, I think of this. They say that niches for the riches. The more you niche down, essentially the more desirable you become in that niche market. I heard this in terms of I think it was a book called Blue Ocean Strategy and the idea was that you can have a red ocean industry and a red ocean locational market, and what they mean by this is an ocean becomes red when there's a lot of sharks. A lot of sharks find the same food. It becomes very saturated. And this book says you want to try to be in a blue ocean, you want to be where it's clear and you are the big shark in that area.

Jake: 19:09

So, for instance, I might be a business who sells and installs elevators, and if I am the only business in Decatur, illinois, who does elevators, the likelihood that somebody needing an elevator says I'm going to go to that person is very high. It's a blue ocean location. If I do the same thing in LA, I got to stand out a little bit and so maybe I say, well, I only do home elevators, I only do home elevators in Beverly Hills. It's like the more that I niche down, the more I am unique and sought after for my very specific set of attributes, and so the more likely people looking for home elevator person in Beverly Hills, the more likely they are to come to me.

Frank: 20:06

Yeah, I like this idea a lot and I also think it has a danger, which I've seen many people do, especially on Twitter. They create this niche that is for just that, so that they have a blue ocean, but they forgot the essential foundation, which is that you should be doing this with something you love something you care about something that isn't difficult.

Frank: 20:36

The areas in which I am sort of an industry expert are all things I love, and so even on the worst, most stressful day which does happen I'm doing things I love. It's the best job I've ever had. I think that's key. I think a lot of people will miss that, but it's part of the network effect or uniqueness luck. If you aren't doing something you love, then when people see you doing sales, they're going to be like I think I doesn't love this. People see Elon Musk making electric cars. He's like I don't think he's kind of into this. These things seem sweet.

Jake: 21:18

Right. I mean that's a great point. There is a subjective quality to luck. If, tomorrow, jeff Bezos calls me up and he's like hey, jake, I want you to be my CFO, people might look at that and say, holy shit, jake just got an incredible opportunity. This is insane. He didn't even try. How lucky? No, it's not. That sounds miserable. I would be miserable doing that. It might be an incredible opportunity that makes a lot of money or something like that, but I wouldn't enjoy it. That's an interesting and important thing to remember. Those are the four main types. I see different people break it up in different ways. Some people are like, yeah, there are 27 types of luck, but it seems like maybe they're like subtypes of these four main types.

Frank: 22:19

Yeah, I think so.

Jake: 22:21

I know it doesn't believe in any of them.

Noah: 22:26

Yeah, I mean I don't. The problem I have with it is that I agree with those four types in principle, but we call it luck and it's not really luck at all. That's the problem I have with the framework.

Jake: 22:43

Let's break that down for a second, because I feel like you did say that maybe blind luck is actually something called luck. My question there is okay, but is it passive? Are we just applying a term to something that occurs randomly, or is there an active force in the universe that is saying here's some luck?

Noah: 23:13

Yeah, well, I think this is where it gets a little gray because, like I said, where you're born, or what family you're born into, or how you look, or how your body responds to food or whatever. However you want to do this. Sure, you didn't have any control over that, but how you respond to what's given to you, how you respond to the opportunity, is 100%. So there are very few events that I could say. The lottery thing is one that if you found a lottery ticket blowing down the street, you picked it up, it ends up being a winning ticket and you walk home with $100 million. It's hard to call that anything other than luck. You still had to pick up the ticket, so there's always a little bit of are you aware? Are you present in that moment?

Jake: 24:12

Yeah, something could happen to you.

Noah: 24:14

To me it's a mindfulness thing. Are you aware? Are you present? Because if you see a piece of paper floating down the road and you let it go by because it's just a piece of paper, then you missed $100 million Is that unlucky, but did you choose to become aware of it?

Jake: 24:30

I mean, that's another element, right? It's like it so happened that I thought to myself I wonder if that paper is more than just paper.

Noah: 24:41

But if you're born to a, let's say, extremely wealthy family, you're very well off. You have all of these privileges given to you because of nothing you've done. You still have to acknowledge that you have it and then use that to your advantage. There are plenty of people who are born into wealthy families who are miserable and don't really do anything quote unquote successful for themselves. So to me there's always it always comes down to at least that element of presence. I agree, and that's where I struggle to call it luck.

Jake: 25:27

Yeah, I mean the only thing I could do to take the rug out from under. That is to say that our beginning positions in life are not equitable in terms of finance. That one's easy to see, but what about how easy or hard it is to be aware of what's happening around you, like the environment in so many ways is shaping the type of person I'm becoming and the responses defensive or offensive responses that four-year-old Jake was developing in the environment he grew up in. They were either good or bad, determined, based on the environment that he ends up in later. And that to me still feels pretty random and like I didn't actually have agency in choosing a lot of those things.

Frank: 26:20

All right. So I think these types of luck, outside of maybe even randomness I don't know about that but these types of luck are agency assistive devices. So yeah, like I really think you choose a direction, so I and it could be for any reason like some little like when I was a kid I played with tractors, so I think I want to be a farmer. So you could sit in your house and be like I'm going to become a farmer someday, I think, and just wait and see if it happens. Or you can just start with like effort, which is luck through hard work and you might not be very competent at this time.

Frank: 27:07

So you're going to go to the grocery store and say, can I have a job? And they're like, sure, and then or no. And you go to the next place until you get a job. And maybe you get a job at a farm. That's cool, because you want to be a farmer you probably will, you know. Then you become outstanding in your field, literally and figuratively. You go, stand in fields and ask for jobs, and this is like. The farmers have farms. I started to notice this so. And then you get pretty good at farming and people are hiring you as a farmer. And that's that last one.

Noah: 27:47

Yeah, yeah, I mean I think awareness is the real key Presence and awareness.

Frank: 27:53

Yeah.

Noah: 27:55

And I think you guys ever heard there's like a I don't know if it's a book or I think it might have been like originally a, like a talk or a speech but the acres of diamonds. You ever heard of this? And it's essentially there's a. There was a guy who owns some land and he was offered a lot of money for the land and he wanted I'm going to get this terribly wrong, but the story is basically that he decides he wants to be a diamond, he wants to find diamonds, like he wants to mine for diamonds or whatever, whatever you call it.

Noah: 28:33

I don't know if it's mining, but he sells this land to go elsewhere to try to find diamonds and it turns out the people that bought their land found a diamond mine on the land that he found. So the idea that the whole moral is to be aware of where you are and what you have, don't go looking for it elsewhere. And so, whether you are born into a rich family with great genetics and it seems like you've hit the jackpot, or you were born into a poor family with very little to your name and maybe you have even terrible genetics and whatever, being aware of who you are and what you have at your disposal is the real key to making anything happen out of that, and you can go north or south in either one of those scenarios.

Jake: 29:29

Yeah, that's actually. Eckhart Tolle in the book the Power of Now starts out with that. He basically says hey, listen, I'm nobody special. I'm like the homeless man who was sitting on a box and day after day I was begging for food or money to make my life better. And then one day somebody said hey, have you ever looked at that box that you're sitting on? Have you ever opened it up? And then one day he opened it up and he realized that everything he ever you know was full of gold or gems or whatever. And he's like we are all this person. I looked in the box and this is what I found and I'd love to share it, but ultimately you have to look in your own box.

Frank: 30:17

Yeah, nice legit.

Noah: 30:18

Yeah, so that's why I don't believe in luck. That's why you don't believe in luck.

Frank: 30:25

That's why I think it's important to know about. Yeah.

Jake: 30:29

Well, it's interesting because this mindfulness practice, like you said, these are agency-assisting devices, right? It's like maybe the first time I struck gold was an accident. Maybe I scuffed my boot against a rock and I was like, whoa, that rock looks a little bit different, what's going on? And it was gold. And I was like, okay, maybe I should start looking down when I walk. And then I walk up to the mountain and I'm like, oh, maybe I should start taking an axe or a pickaxe to this mountain.

Jake: 31:04

And it's like the first time that you find something, you don't expect it, but it captures your attention. And then you decide maybe you should start looking. So you start showing up. And then the more that you show up, the better you become at knowing where to find it. So you start getting more of it, and the more of it that you have, the more people are like, hey, could you maybe tell me how to find some gold? And it really does seem to be this compounding thing. You might not have control over how quickly you become mindful, but the second that you do, you realize, oh, this is worth it. I'm going to start paying more attention, yeah.

Noah: 31:50

And this is where the unveiling comes from.

Jake: 31:53

Yeah, tell me more about that.

Noah: 31:56

Well, I mean, you asked me about learning Spanish and how that's led to meeting Amy, for instance, but also considering this life of traveling and possibly content creation or whatever, and that is to me that's been an unveiling, not something I went after. So I realized, through actions, through awareness, through being present, I think I'd like to learn Spanish. You learn Spanish, then you meet someone on a language exchange and, oh, I really like this person. So now I'm in a relationship with a person from a different country and the reality of that is that it's difficult, without just jumping to marriage, to be in the same place at the same time, strictly because of laws, like she just can't come live here, I can't go live there.

Noah: 33:09

So how could we do that? Well, we could travel, we could be nomadic, get away, and so this whole thing just being aware of something that I wanted to do unveils all these other things that I want to do. I didn't know I wanted to travel. In fact, I used to hate traveling, but now it's exciting, the thought of traveling, and so just being aware and really truly asking, what is it that I want? Or, as Frank likes to say, what do I think is cool, just it uncovers all of these other things, and as you walk down that path, things continue to be uncovered. And so I think awareness in this way, as long as you're true to it, as long as you're true to what you actually find when you're aware, when you're present, I think does uncover things that look like success, things that we might call love.

Frank: 34:20

Yeah, I agree completely and I don't. For me there's a similar story and it feels like connecting the dots after the fact. I think that's why I say do what you think is cool. So much is because I wasn't aware that I was connecting the dots at all. As a child I had a lot of traumatic experiences. I watched like third watch as a TV show and I was like man, this doesn't get me pumped. It seems like I'm cool with emergencies. I should maybe try this. I took criminal justice classes. I remember going on a ride alone and I remember some paramedics being like why would you do this? We were just watching TV before this. Those guys have calls waiting all day. I was like I don't know, maybe I'll try that. I took an EMT class For me.

Frank: 35:17

I've always loved systems. Human anatomy and physiology is a closed system. I mean there are tons of inputs, but it's a known system. The people who might be at an emergency scene that the police have to deal with are far less of a closed system. They could be doing anything there for any reason. It's a much more difficult set of problems for an Enneagram 5 to deal with a bunch of humans. I didn't know all this going in, I just thought that one seems a little cooler. Maybe I'll try that. Then it became something more and something more. Just following that little intuition, awareness of your intuition seems to have resulted in, I don't know, very good results. I feel like that's why I always say it.

Jake: 36:08

Yeah, I feel like for me, getting out of my hometown was really a huge catalyst for me. I think I'll make some analogies here, because that's what I'm going to. When you're born and you're given a specific town and social group that you're growing up in, you're like this asteroid, floating through space. It's going to continue to go in the same direction unless acted upon from an outside force. When you introduce some new variable, it's like that asteroid getting hit by another one and it totally changes the trajectory. Now it's going somewhere totally new. Then it gets hit by another one that was in that new path and it goes somewhere else. It's like if my life is this asteroid that's flying through space and it constantly hits these bumpers and goes different directions. It's a little bit different because I have the ability to steer. I'm an asteroid that has some eyeballs and some thrusters, I don't know. I think about it like a science experiment. Bill Nye Did you guys ever watch Beakman's World?

Jake: 37:26

Yeah, yeah, dude with the crazy hair on Fox Kids? He was this weird guy and I want to say he wore a lime, green lab coat or something, had crazy hair and he was always doing different types of science experiments. I imagine this beaker that has some steam coming out of it and it's like neon pink or something. This is me, this is Jake, as a child. When we try something cool, we just take oh, that chemical looks awesome. Let's see what that does. And it pops and it sputters and it blows up. Now it's neon green and it's a little bit different. But it's like every time that we just add some new element to this concoction of who I am and who I'm becoming, it gives me new opportunities to be like.

Jake: 38:14

I didn't really like being green. I want to try being purple. Let's see what that's like. But I think the thing is is just realizing that you can be comfortable, you can live your same life and your same hometown, you can get the first job out of high school that you get and stick with it and all these things and hey, if that makes you happy, do it. But I think there's a lot to be learned from just inserting some chaos.

Frank: 38:42

Yeah, I mean, I think everyone's navigating around the chaos that's. You're going to get a choice, do you?

Jake: 38:53

Well, I think that's the whole. I see that as what we were just talking about. It's like chaos is happening to you and it's going to continue to happen to you and then one day, that chaos is going to scuff your boot against a rock of gold. And if you see it, because chaos happened to glance you down and you noticed it, maybe you're more likely to say, oh, there's a timeline I'd like to check out. I didn't choose to get here, but I'm going to go look at it now. So, yeah, navigating around the chaos, but that agency comes from paying attention.

Frank: 39:34

Yeah, and knowing your direction is big because I have gotten stuck before where I'm like oh, there's gold here, keep going on the gold path. Yeah, that's a big one. I wasn't following the true direction, I was just stuck on the gold right now. So, knowing where your true, does this feel good most days and even on the stressful days. Is it worth doing? Who would be calling me right now? Yeah, is it worth doing? And if it's not, then it's probably not directionally correct.

Jake: 40:20

Yeah, which is also important from a mindful standpoint. This is the whole concept of golden handcuffs A company continues to elevate you, give you more and more promotions and benefits, and it's like, well, before I know it, I've been working for this place for 20 years and I didn't really choose it. I just kind of rolled with that momentum and the momentum kept getting stronger. I think it was very interesting to me that you looked back and you can now say that there's a sort of narrative. It was chaos at the time, but now if I connect the dots, I can kind of say oh yeah, it was third watch and it was this Enneagram 5 disposition and it was interest in systems that kind of led me in this direction. And that's good data. It really is good data to say, okay, now I feel a little dis-ease in my life where I'm at. I want to go forward and these are the things that I seem to have liked in the past.

Jake: 41:23

Do I just try something totally different at 35 years old, or do I say I'm pretty good at these things, I'm outstanding in my field, but I'd like to try that in this field now, and I think that I don't know. That's the development of a person or a career or whatever.

Frank: 41:43

Yeah, yeah. Well then, I think there are so many things that are universally applicable that you really can do a total shift if you want, and there's no time, that's too late, in my opinion. I mean, if you're still going to Firestone and making tires and you don't want to and you hate it, like I mean, if you've been there 20 years, you know about manufacturing A lot of people in manufacturing things of all types. So there are many opportunities, I think, no matter where you are.

Jake: 42:19

So, taking these frameworks, which I really like, like the concepts that I have are okay, some things are going to randomly happen to you, based in your experience. Some of those random things are gold nuggets, so we try to pay attention, like that's really the way that we can leverage blind luck. It's like, if it shows up, pay attention. Is there a diamond? Mine in my field. Am I sitting on a box of riches that I think is just a crate?

Frank: 42:55

Yeah. You know, I'm thinking of Grant Cardone. Yeah, How's he? Because I think people get trapped in the local environment. Sometimes they're like there's gold at this place because it's better than the other three places. That are available, but there's no gold there.

Jake: 43:19

That's why it felt so important to me to get out of my hometown, like that perspective shift, even if it's for a month, like just look back on where you're from from a different perspective, because everything you believe is relative to everything you've seen. So see something else.

Frank: 43:38

Definitely. I remember when I went to Charleston I worked for an ambulance that was a part of a government, instead of all the private ambulances that are around central Illinois, and I remember being like this is amazing. Like all the ambulances around there are third service government jobs so much better than working for whichever current owner of the private ambulance. But that still was just only this much of the experience of great opportunities that I am now aware of, and so 10X it, you know, yeah.

Jake: 44:28

Well, that's really interesting too, because, like Noah, when you were working in logistics you absolutely hated it. You were kind of looking for jobs and stuff like that. But at some point you said I'm moving, I'm moving from this town, I'm going to get a different job. You quit your job before you even had a lead on a new position and you didn't even really know what field you were going into. You just said I'm doing something different and I bet SEO was not what you were thinking at that time. No, it's not what I want to do.

Jake: 45:02

Right. Well, it's not what you want to do, and now you know that for sure. But like I don't know, there were so many opportunities for you at that moment.

Noah: 45:12

Sure, I guess so.

Jake: 45:13

Like it could have been anything.

Noah: 45:14

It felt like there were no opportunities. That's why I quit without a job. Yeah, because if I had a job before I quit, I would have had an opportunity.

Jake: 45:25

Yeah, but I mean, from a theoretical standpoint it literally was infinite, like it was, like it was blind luck in some way, I don't know. Maybe it was luck through persistence that you ended up finding a job, but that it was SEO. You were looking for something kind of in the project management space.

Noah: 45:47

Yeah, yeah, I guess so, and if you want to, I don't really like looking at the past that much, but if you want to attribute it to decisions I made previously, one of the main reasons that I was hired where I'm at is because I had an MBA, which is something I decided to do with no real reason. I mean, I kind of regret that I haven't in BA, but when I decided to do it, the only real reason I did it was because my job had pretty good tuition assistance and I was like, well, I could do this for cheaper and it's a credential and it was a big factor in leaning the job that I have. And I still don't know that this job is leading me to where I want to be. So I don't know if it. You know what I mean. I don't know if it's good or bad, or lucky or not or whatever, but it feels lucky to me to not have an MBA.

Frank: 46:51

I seriously considered doing it with you and I almost did yeah, and I'm so happy I did not yeah.

Jake: 47:00

That's really interesting. When I got my bachelor's degree in anthropology, I did so intending to go on a PhD path. When I got done with that and I graduated, I was faced with the decision do I go into the workforce right now, or do I further specialize myself, further, niche myself into a graduate degree? And I'm really glad that I didn't. At this point I would have a very specialized degree in some sort of you know psycholinguistic field, which would be interesting to me, but it severely narrows the potential for what I do. So like this thing about being mindful about the opportunities, this thing about saying, okay, well, there's gold right here, so I should dig right here. Like, that's not always true, you know, don't go for the small pile of gold just because it's shiny, you know. Maybe look up, glance around a little bit and realize that there's a freaking mine, you know, a quarter mile down the way.

Noah: 48:07

And an idea that I subscribe to which is, I think, the same idea that Frank subscribes to, just with different language is know what you want. He says do what you think is cool. I think they're the same thing with different language. But a piece of this that I definitely subscribe to is that knowing what you don't want helps you get closer to what you do want. So I don't know everything that I want. I know some things that I want, but I don't know everything that I want. But everything that I figure out I don't want helps me get closer to what I do.

Noah: 48:45

Like I know I worked at a corporate job for a large company. I know I don't want to do that. I work as a project manager in marketing. I know I don't really want to do that Right. So if for no other reason than you're checking things off that you don't want, it's getting you closer to what you do. And if you continue on that path of unveiling and you're aware of it, like I said, you have to be aware At some point the blanket's going to be pulled off and you're going to be like, oh okay, there it is.

Frank: 49:23

Definitely. Yeah, I think it was just being directionally correct, like it especially early in your life or early in your journey, of the like finding agency or something. You don't know what you want. There's certainly no clarity about it, but this reminds me of Kevin O'Leary's story about his first job, which was like at an ice cream shop or something, and he worked a shift and he thought it was over and the person was like, oh, you need to scrape all the gum off the bottom of all these things. And he's like no, I mean you hired me to scoop ice cream, I'm not doing that. And I'm like well, you work here and this is what we pay you and so you need to do it. And it was such a like. He's like this is not going to be tolerated, like I'm not going to do that kind of life, and turned completely opposite away like quit that job that day and was never an employee again Because he didn't know where he was going. But he knew this isn't it for me? Just getting directionally correct.

Jake: 50:33

He doesn't know where he's going, but not that what both of these things say to me. I mean, both of you have kind of said something about intuition and, like to me, knowing what you want I don't know something doesn't like vibe with me in that I don't trust myself to know what I want honestly, because it's always being revealed, I think, is the big thing. So like for me, where I find it is learning the voice of my intuition, which I think is what this is. You know, when I try something and I don't like it, it tells me more about you know what that voice was leading me to. When I try something and I do like it, well, there's that intuition again, like something inside of me, outside of my rational mind, is enjoying this or doesn't jive with it at all. And like the more that I trust my ability to listen to that voice, the more I feel confident taking the next step, whatever it is.

Noah: 51:40

This is why what I'm about to say, I think, is why I struggle to have some of these conversations is because I think everything is just the same. Everything is connected. So, if you want to tie this to recent conversations, recent podcast conversations, consistency you will be consistent if it's something you want. But you have to be aware to know what you want and you have to continue that unveiling. But as you, as things are unveiled, you're going to be consistent because they're like oh yeah, this is the right path. If you're not consistent, you probably don't want it. And I said I've said that to many people about weight loss. We talked about weight loss with consistency. You know it comes down to you don't want it if you're not losing weight. Ultimately, if you want it, you'll do it, and sometimes people don't want it and then I didn't want it and then I did and then I did. It Doesn't mean you can't change what you want, but you're going to be consistent if you want it.

Jake: 52:41

Yeah, I would just put one caveat on that, and it's that you want something else more. I feel like that nuance is important. I because some people want something.

Noah: 52:53

But I want something like that I don't like that as a blanket caveat anyway, because you can have multiple things.

Jake: 53:01

Well, one is excludes the fact If you say you don't want it, let's. That's not true. It's, it's in the diagram, it's in the circle of things that you want, but you want something else more. If you tell a person, hey, you want to lose weight, you say you want to lose weight, but I'm here to tell you you don't want it. I mean it's a, it's invalidating and it doesn't jive with their experience, they're like, well, I do want it. But if you tell them, ok, well, let me tell you this, you do want it, but what you want more is comfort. You, you are seeking comfort, you are seeking easy wins. You, you want comfort and you, you don't want hard work Like that jives with them, because then they can say, ok, all right, you're telling me the truth. You're telling me the same story. I'm telling myself I do want it.

Noah: 53:54

But you're also giving me information that tells me why I don't want it enough and why it's not sure I hear you, and I don't have a great argument against it, except for I think you can have weight loss and comfort and therefore I think you can want them both equally, and so maybe that maybe we're saying the same thing, but I don't necessarily think it means you want something more. But I also agree that maybe it doesn't mean you just straight up don't want it either, but some is somewhere in between.

Frank: 54:27

But I think this is directionally correct as well. It's just like yeah, I do want comfort sometimes and I do want weight loss a lot, and so where do I need to aim for that? Is it at the ice cream shop every night? Or maybe I go ice cream shop once a week, or maybe less? Like just getting the direction right. More you know, the more you can do that.

Jake: 54:53

Yeah.

Noah: 54:54

Or maybe you don't know what comfort is until you uncover it, and then you go oh, I've been trying to find comfort in a place that it wasn't.

Jake: 55:02

Sure.

Noah: 55:04

Yeah. So I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's either one of our statements, but yeah, it is something different than than wanting knowing what you want.

Frank: 55:21

Yeah, I think it's just heading in the direction which might be the away direction. Well, yeah, you know I don't want that.

Jake: 55:30

If you, if you have a list of things that you want and you head in the direction of one of them, I mean, it essentially applies to what we're talking about. It's like heading in the direction. You could say that as showing up right. I start showing up in these arenas instead of those, and maybe at first I want ice cream as much as I want weight loss, but as I start moving in that direction, you know, I'm throwing some new chemicals in my neon green beaker. I've just hit my asteroid with another asteroid, like some chaos is being introduced here in an ordered way in that direction. So I'm going to show up more Now. I'm going to show up in the right places more Now, all of a sudden, I am an expert in my field. I am, you know, actually the thing that I thought I wanted to be.

Frank: 56:27

Yep, yeah. What's amazed me personally about this is oftentimes there are already experts in the field that can tell you a one sentence, simple answer. That is true. Like, if you eat less than 20 grams of carbs a day, you'll lose weight. And the journey to that is this complex thing. It gets more and more complex and you're like what should I be tracking and how do I do all this? And then you end up at least I've seen it many times in many areas of my life where it gets simple. Again You're like oh, if you just eat less than 20 grams of carbs a day, you lose weight.

Frank: 57:11

Yeah, everyone does, it's true, but um, you gotta go through the journey to get there, unless you're really good at just taking someone else's word.

Noah: 57:27

We're really bad at thinking simply. A lot of times I've had people going back to the diet conversation. Again, I lost like 130 pounds. I had many people go hey, you really gotta tell me everything you did. You gotta tell me what to eat. And I have told people before. Again, I always say I'll tell you what I did, but it doesn't matter. But one of the things that I say I did was well, I just cut carbs and I don't eat. I mean, here's a list of things I don't eat. I don't eat grains, I don't eat added sugar, I don't eat whatever, right, yeah, well, that's great and you'll lose it. But as soon as you stop, you'll gain it back. I'm like, think about what you just said If I do this thing, I'll get X result. If I stop doing this thing, X result will go away.

Jake: 58:25

Yeah, Well, that's yes. That's what I hear, though, when you said that it starts out simple, here's the one sentence rule. Then it gets complex, because what's actually happened is when you are the person who needs to lose the extra weight, you are not the person who understands or came up with the one sentence rule. You are trying to be that person by doing the behaviors of that person. It's like all the time I hear oh, you think in order to be a millionaire, you just need to do the same morning routine that that guy does. You're doing that behavior, but you are not that person, and what it really is is you go through that process consistently to create the constancy of okay now, this process called Jake is the person who not only understood it but integrated it.

Noah: 59:19

Yeah, this is why I don't like consuming the Alex Formosis and the Grant Cardones and stuff, not because I think they're smart people who figured out what works for them, but what works for them doesn't necessarily work for everybody else. And if you want to translate it to diet, frank eating 20 carbs or fewer looks different than me eating 20 carbs or fewer. We eat different types of foods. We have different systems for it. I eat the same thing every time. That gets boring for Frank. I think it looks different person to person to person.

Jake: 59:57

Yeah.

Noah: 59:57

And so if I say, well, here are the foods that I eat. These are the only foods I eat. I eat them every single day. Somebody else is going to go? Nope, doesn't work.

Jake: 1:00:06

Absolutely yeah.

Noah: 1:00:08

So even what 20 grams or fewer means between me, you and Frank is different, totally True, but there's also but the statement itself is true.

Frank: 1:00:20

The statement's true, and so is the statement that I've heard Tro make, which is most people eat the same five to 15 meals 80% of the time. So just make sure those five to 15 meals are good ones, or optimal, or whatever. Yeah, it's this. You know you eat your same five every day. I eat 15. You know that's the same true statement. I have to end this podcast, but I think it was good.

Jake: 1:00:53

I had a lot of fun talking about this. Yeah, some good takeaways.

Frank: 1:00:58

I agree, be mindful.

Jake: 1:01:00

Find out what you like, find out what you don't like. Listen to your intuition, and then people will find lucky. If you find some gold, make sure there isn't more gold somewhere else.

Frank: 1:01:13

Yep, Thanks for listening everyone Later, Later. No, I'll say it later. Say what? No, I'll say it later. It when you get your video satisfied for what you hear.